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Digitized by the Internet Archive
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http://www.archive.org/details/dictionapostchur01hast
Edited bv Dr. JAMES HASTINGS
A DICTIONARY OF CHRIST
AND THE GOSPELS
In Two Vols. Price per Vol., In cloth binding. Sis. net:
in half-morocco, gilt top, 96s. net.
The purpose of this Dictionary is to give an account of every-
thing that relates to Christ — His Person, Life, Work, and
Teaching.
The articles are not entirely limited to the Bible, but gather
togeiher whatever touches Christ in all the history and experi-
ence of the Church.
* A triumphant and unqualified success. Indispensable to ministers and
Bible students.'— Sir W. Roiiektson Nicoll, LL.D.
' No more useful present could be made to a youag clergyman than a
copy of this admirable work. The articles are by competent and scholarly
writers, and are full of information and suggestiveness.' — Guardian.
Edinburgh : T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street
m!
Dictionary
of th(
Apostolic Church
X.
Dictionary
of the
Apostolic Church
EDITKD BY
JAMES HASTINGS, D.D.
WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF
JOHN A. SELBIE, D.D.
AVD
JOHN C. LAMBERT, D.D.
VOLUA\E I
AARON-LYSTRA
Edinburgh: T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street
New York: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Fifth Avenue, at 48TH Street
I915
63
Printed by Morrison 4 Gibb Limitk©
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH
LONDON: 8IMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITID
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIIJNEB's SONS
[The Rights of Trnnxlntir.n and of Rrprodriction are Re.ien'rd.]
PREFACE
It has often been said that the Dictionary of Christ and tTie Gospels is of more
practical value than a Dictionary of the Bible. From all parts of the world has
come the request that what that Dictionary has done for the Gospels another
should do for the rest of the New Testament The Dictionaey of the Apostolic
Church is the answer. It carries the history of the Church as far as the end of
the first century. Together with the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, it forms a
complete and independent Dictionary of the New Testament.
The Editor desires to take the opportunity of thanking the distinguished New
Testament scholars who have co-operated with him in this important work.
^
AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IX THIS VOLU^IE
Allen (Willoughby Charles), M.A,
Archdeacon of Manchester ; Principal of
Egerton Hall, Manchester ; author ot ' The
Gospel according to St. Matthew' in The
International Critical Commentary.
Anointing, Children of God, Gospels,
Kingdom of God.
Allworthy (Thomas Batesox), M.A. (Camb.),
B.D. (Dublin).
Perpetual Curate of Martin-by-Timberland,
Lincoln ; Founder and First Warden of S-
Anselni's Hostel, Manchester.
Ampliatus, Andronicus, Apelles, Aristo-
bulus, Asyncritus, Epaenetus, and other
proper names.
Ba>-ks(John S.), D.D.
Emei-itus Professor of Theology in the
Wesleyan Methodist College, Headingley,
Leeds ; author of A ManwoU of Christian
Doctrine.
Christian, Contentment,
Batiffol (Pierre), Litt.D.
Pretre catholique et prelat de la Maison du j
Pape, Paris ; auteor de Tractatus Origenis '
de libria scripturarum (1900), Les Odes de
Salomon (1911), La Paix constant inienne et
le Catholicisme (1914).
Ignatius.
Beckwith (Clarence Augustine), A.B., A.M.,
S.T.D.
Professor of Systematic Theologj- in Chicago
Theological Seminary ; author of Realities
of Christian Theology ; departmental editi>r
of the Neio Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of
Religious Knowledge.
Beast, Blindness, Blood, Dysentery,
Fever, Gangrene, Lamb, Lion.
Bernard (John Hexry), D.D. (Dublin), Hon.
D.D. (Aberd.), Hon. D.C.L. (Durham).
Archbishop of Dublin ; sometime Archbishop
King's Professor of Divinity, Dublin, and
Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Descent into Hades.
Boyd (William Falcoxee). M.A.. B.D. (Aberd.),
D.Phil. (Tubingen).
Minister of the United Free Church of Scot-
land at Met h lick.
Alexander, Crown, Desert, Gog and
Magog, Israel, Jew, Jewess, and other
articles.
Brooke (Alan England), D.D.
Fellow, Dean, and Lecturer in Divinity at
Kings College, Cambridge ; Examining
Chaplain to the Bisliop of S. AJban's ;
author of A Critical and Exegetical Com-
mentary on the Johannine Epistles.
James and John, the Sons of Zebedee,
John (Epistles of).
BuLCOCK (H.\rry), B.A., B.D.
Minister of the Congregational Church at
Droylsden, Manchester.
Anger, Care, Cheerfulness, Comfort,
Commendation, Fool, Grief, and other
articles.
BuRKiTT (Francis Crawford), M.A., F.B.A.,
Hon. D.D. (Edin., Dublin, St. And.), D.
Theol. h.c. (Breslau).
Norrisian Professor of Di\inity in the Univer-
sity of Cambridge ; author of The Gospel
History and its Transmission.
Baruch (Apocalypse of).
Burn (Andrew E.), D.D.
Vicar of Halifax and Prebendary of Lichfield ;
author of The Apostles' Creed (1906). The
Nicene Creed (1909), The Afhana-iian Creed
(1912).
Confession, Hallelujah, Hymns, Inter-
cession.
Carlyle (Alexander James), M.A., D.Litt..
F.R. Hist. Soc.
Lecturer in Economics and Politics at Univer-
sity College, Oxford.
Alms, Community of Goods.
Case (Shirley Jacksox), M.A., B.D., Ph.D.
Professor of New Testament Interpretation in
the University of Chicago ; author of The
Historicity of Jesvs, The Evolution of Early
Christianity ; managing editor of 7%«
American Journal of Theology.
Allegory, Interpretation.
Clark (P. A. Gordon).
Minister of the L^nited Free Church at Perth.
Divination, Exorcism, Lots.
Clayton (Geoffrey Hare). M.A.
Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.
Corinthians (Epistles to the), Eucharist,
Love-Feast.
AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME
Clemkns (John Samuel), U.A., Hon. D.D. (St.
And.),
(luvernor of the United Methodist College at
Haniiioor, Sht-fheld.
Bondage, Constraint, Liberty, Lord's
Day.
Cobb (William Frkdkrick), D.D.
Rector of the Church of St. Kthelburga the
Vir<,'in, Ix)n(lon ; author of Oriqines
JudnliW, The liuuk of Pstilmn, Mystvcism
and the Creed.
Antipas, Balaam, Euphrates, Hymenaeus,
Jannes and Jambres, Jezebel, and other
articles.
('(H'Ki Akthur William), M.A.
.Mini^ier of the Wesleyan Methodist Church
at Wallasey, Cheshire ; author of Palestine
in Gcoffrap/tr/ and in History.
Elamites, Galilee.
Cowan (Henry), M.A. (Edin.), D.D. (Aberd.),
D.Th. (Gen.), D.C.L. (Dunelni).
Professor of Church History in the University
of Aberdeen ; Senior Preacher of the Uni-
versity Chapel ; author of The Influence of
the Scottish Church in Christendom, John
Knox, Landmarks of Church History.
Apphia, Archippus, Epaphras, Epaphro-
ditus.
Cruickshank (William), M.A., B.D.
Minister of the Church of Scotland at Kinnetf,
Bervie ; author of The Bible in the Light of
Antiquity.
Arts, Clothes, Games, Jerusalem, Key,
Lamp, ami other articles.
Davies (Arthur Llywelyn), M.A.
Sinicox Kesearch Student, Queen's College,
Oxford.
Ascension of Isaiah, Assumption of
Moses, Enoch (Book of)*
Dewick (Edward Chisholm), M.A. (Camb.).
Tutor and Dean of St. Aidan's College,
Birkenhead ; Teacher of Ecclesiastical
History in the University of Liverpool ;
author of Primitive Christian Eschatology.
Eschatology.
DiMONT (Charles TuNNACLiFF), B.D. (Oxon.).
Prin(riiml of Salisburj' Theological College ;
Prebendary of Salisbury ; Cha[>lain to the
Bisliop ol Salisbury.
Business, Labour.
VON DobschCtz (Ernst), D.Theol.
Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the
University of Breslau.
Communion, Fellowship, Hellenism,
Josephus.
Donald (James), M.A., D.D. (Aberd.).
Minister of the Church of Scotland at Keith-
hall ami Kinkeli, Abenlecnsliire.
Dispersion, Gentiles, Heathen, Libertines.
Duncan (James Walker), M.A.
Minister of the United Free Church at Lass-
o<lic, Dunfermline.
Canaan, Haran.
Dundas (William Harix)e), B.D.
Rector of Ma^'heragall, near LisbuiTi.
Authority, Dominion.
Faulkner (John Alfred), B.A., B.D., M.A.,
D. I).
Professor of Historical Tiieology in Drew
Theological Seminary, Madison, N.J.
Benediction, Doxology.
Feltoe (Charles Lett), D.D.
Rector of Ripple, near Dover; sometime
Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge ; author
of Sacramentarium Leonianurn, Tlie. Letter*
and other Remains of Dionyaius of Alex-
andrid.
Akeldama, Candace, Chamberlain,
Ethiopians, Ethiopian Eunuch, Judas
Iscariot.
Fletcher (M. Scott), M.A., B.D., B.Litt.
Master of King's College, University of
Queensland, Brisbane, Australia ; author of
The Psychology of the New Testament.
Edification, Enlightenment, Exhortation.
Frew (David), D.D.
Minister of the Church of Scotland at Urr.
Barnabas, Esdras (The Second Book of),
Herod.
Garvie (Alfred Ernest), M.A. (Oxford), D.D.
(Glas.).
Principal of New College, London ; author of
The RUschlian Theologi/, Studies in ths
Inner Life of Jesus, Stiuiies of Paul and fUt
Gospel.
Evil, Fall, Good.
Gordon (Alexander Reid), D.Litt., D.D.
Professor of Hebrew in M'Gill University, and
of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis
in tlie Presbyterian College, Montreal ;
author of The Poets of the Old Testanunt.
Judgment-Hall, Judgment-Seat, Justice,
Lawyer.
Gould (Georgi: Pearce), M.A., D.D.
Principal of Regent's Park College, London ;
Ex-President of the Baptist Union of Great
Britain and Ireland.
Berenice, Drusilla, Felix, Festus, Lysias.
Grant (William Milne), M.A.
Minister of the United Free Church at
Druinoak, Aberdeenshire; author of The
Religion and Life of the Patriarchal Age,
The Founders of Israel.
Assembly, Building, Day-Star, Founda-
tion, Genealogies, Gospel, and other
articles.
Grensted (Laurence William), M.A., B.D.
Vice-Principal of Egerton Hall, Manchester :
joint-author of Introduction to the Books of
the New Testament.
Colossians (Epistle to the), Ephesians
(Epistle to the).
Grieve (Alexander James), M.A., D.D.
Professor of New Testament Studies and
Christian Sociology in tiie Yorksiiire United
Independent College, Bradford.
Form, Friendship, Fruit, Image.
Griffith-Jones (Ebenezer), B.A. (Lond.), D.D.
(Edin.).
Principal, and Professor of Dogmatics, Honii-
Ifctica. and Practical Theology, Yorkshire
Unitetl Independent College, Bradford ;
author of The Ascent through Christ, Types
of Christian Life, The Economics of Jcsu.s;
The Master and His Methxl. Fmth and
Verification.
Abiding, Abounding, Acceptance, Access,
Account, Answer.
AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME
XI
Hamilton* (Harold Francis), M.A., D.D.
Ottawa, Canada ; formerly Professor in the
University of Bishop's College, Lennoxville,
Quebec.
Barnabas (Epistle of).
Handcock(P.S.P.), M.A.
Member of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at>-
Law ; Lecturer of the Palestine Exploration
Fund ; formerly of the Department of
Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the
British Museum ; author of jfe*opotamian
ArchcBologij. Latest Light on Bible Lands.
Dog, Eagle, Goat, Hospitality, Locust,
and other articles.
HooKE (Samuel Henry), M.A. (Oxon.), B.D.
(Lond.).
Professor of Oriental languages and Litera-
ture in Victoria College, Toronto.
Heaven, Immortality, Lake of Fire.
James (John Geokge), M.A., D.Lit.
Author of Problems of Personality, Problems
of Prayer, The Coining Age of Faith, The
Prayer-Life.
Cross, Crucifixion, Custom, Dream.
Jordan (Hermann), Ph.D.
Professor of Church History and Patristics in
the University of Erlangen.
Catholic Epistles, Epistle, Letter.
Lake (Kxrsopp), M.A. (Oxford), D.D. (St. And-).
Professor of Early Christian Literature in
Harvard Univeraty ; author of The Earlier
Epistles of St. Paul.
Acts of the Apostles, Acts of the Apostles
(Apocryphal), Luke.
Lambert (John C), M.A., D.D.
Fenwick, Ealmamock ; author of The Sacra-
ments in the New Testament.
Antichrist, Body, Conscience, Flesh, Life
and Death, Light and Darkness, and
other articles.
L.\w (Robert), D.D. (Edin.).
Professor of New Testament Literature in
Knox College, Toronto ; author of The Test*
of Life: A Study of the First Epistle of St.
John.
Covetousness, Formalism, Fulness,
Generation, Glory, Hour.
LiGHTLEY (John William), M.A., B.D.
Professor of Old Testament Language and
Literature and Philosophy in the Wesleyan
College, Headingley, Leeas.
Epicureans.
LoFTHOusE (William F.), M.A.
Professor of Philosophy and Old Testament
Language and Literature in the Wesleyan
College, Handsworth, Birmingham ; autnor
of Ethics and Atonement, Ethics and the
Family.
Conversion, Creation, Forgiveness, Free-
dom of the Will.
Mackenzie (Donald), M.A.
Minister of the United Free Church at Oban ;
Assistant Professor of Logic and Meta-
physics in the University of Aberdeen,
1906-1909.
Abstinence, Feasting, Fornication,
Harlot, Lust, and other article*.
Maclean (Arthur John), D.D. (Camb.), Hon.
D.D. (Glas.).
Bishop of Moray, Boss, and Caithness ; author
of Dictionary of Vernacular Syriac ; editor
of East Syrian Litiirgii.s.
Adoption, Angels, Ascension, Baptism,
Demon, Family, and other articles.
Main (Archibald), M.A. (Glas.), B.A. (Oxon.),
D.Litt. (Glas.).
Minister of the Chorch of Scotland at Old
Kilpatrick ; examiner in Modem and Ecclesi-
astical History and in Political Economy in
St. Andrews University ; member of the
Examining Board of the Church of Scot-
land.
C]^bal, First- Fruit, Harp.
Massh (Fred. Shipley), M.A.
Sub- Warden of King's College Theological
Hostel and Lecturer in Theology, King's
College, London ; formerly Tyrwhitt and
Crosse Scholar in the L'niversity of Cam-
bridge.
Clement of Rome (Epistle of), Galadans
(Epistle to the), Hebrews (Epistle to
the).
Martin- (A. Stuart), M.A., B.D.
Formerly Pitt Scholar and Examiner in
Divinity in Edinburgh L'niversity and
Minister of the Church of Scotland at
Aberdeen ; author of The Books of the New
Testament.
Grace, Justification.
Martin (G. Currie), M.A., B.D.
Lecturer in connexion with the National
Council of Adult School L'nions ; formerly
Professor of New Testament at the York-
shire United College and Lancashire College.
Hell.
Mathews (Shailer), A.M., D.D. (Colby,
Oberlin, Brown).
Dean of the Divinity School, and Professor of
Historical Theology, in the University of
Chicago ; President of the Federal Council
of the Churches of Christ in America ;
author of The Messianic Hope in the New
Testament.
Assassins, Judas the Galilean.
Maude (Joseph Hooper), M.A.
Rector of Hilgay, Downham Market ;
formerly FeUow and Dean of Hertford
College, Oxford; author of The History of
the Book of Common Prayer.
Ethics.
Mitchell (Anthony), D.D.
Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney ; formerly
Principal and Pantonian Professor of
Theology in the Theological College of the
Episcopal Church in Scotland.
Hennas (Shepherd of).
MoE (Olaf Edvard), Dr. Theol.
Professor of Theology in the University of
Christiania.
Commandment, Law.
MOFFATT (Jamesi, D.Litt., Hon. D.D. (St.
And.), Hon. M.A. (Oxford).
Professor of Church History in the L'nited
Free Church, Glasgow ; author of The
Historical New Testament, The New Testa-
ment : A Netr Tran^ation.
Gospels (Uncanonical).
AUTllMl's nV AKTICLKS 1 .\ THIS \()LUMK
MoNTCiOMERY (Wiu.iAM), M.A. (Cantab.)> B,D.
(Loiulon).
Lecturer in |ii\iiiiiy in flu- I'liiversity of
Cainbriil^'f : ant Imr oi' ,sy. A iK/iisfine.
Book of Life, Book with the Seven Seals,
James the Lord's Brother, James
(Epistle of)-
Montgomery (W. S.), HT).
Minister of tlu' \'r Kytcriai! Clnirrli in
Ireland at liiiUaculla. <,Miccir> ('(Minty.
Beating, Buffet, Chain, Fire, Jailor.
Morgan (Wii.r.iAM). M.A., D.D. (Aherd.)-
Professor of Sy>iiiiiatic Theology and Aiiolo-
getics in Qm > n > I'lieological Collejie, King-
ston, Oiilai id ; Kerr Lecturer for 1914.
Judgment.
Moss (KlCHAKI) W AUDY), D.D.
rriii(ii)al, and I'utor in Systematic Theology,
J)id^liury Cnllc;,'!', MiiiiclH-^lcr ; author of
I'/w Ji'i/ii/i nf Christ inn K.iji' rimce.
Aaron, Aaron's Rod, Anathema, Condem-
nation, Curse, Levite.
Moui.rnN (W ii.iKii) .(.), >LA. (Cantab.).
I'l.h ~(n oi Systematic Theology in the
Wt-lcyaii (Ollr-c, Ho.idinj^'ley, Leeds;
ailtlinVdl 'I'lir W'ltivss nf Isnicl.
Covenant.
MuiRUEAi) (Lewis A.), D.D.
Minister of fho United I'lec Cliurch at
Bronj^lity - Ii'ii V ; autlmr <it The Terms
I/iJ'>' <n\tl Death in the Old (ittd ^'cw Testa-
iihiit.-s. The Esrhatology of Jesus.
Apocalypse.
NiCOL ('I'lloMA^-), D.D.
Pr(ii'i'-~<)i iif Hihlical Criticism in tlie Univer-
sity of Alirrdfoi : Miidfratur oi tlic (Jeneral
Asscinlily <i|' till' Church t>\ Scothiiid, 1914.
Assurance, Education, Election, Fore-
knowledge, and otiier jirticles.
NiVEN (WlI.I.lAM DiCKIK), M.A.
Miiiistci (ii the United Free Cliurch at Blair-
gowrie ; co-exaininer in Mental Philosophy
m the Univensity of Aberdeen.
Cerinthus, Doctor, Ebionism, Emperor-
Worship, Essenes, Gnosticism.
Peake (Arthur Samuel), :\r.A., D.n.
Kylands Professor of Hihliial I.xruc-is in the
University of Manchester and I'utor in the
Hartley Primitive Methodist College ; some-
time Fellow of Merton College and Lecturer
in Mansfield College, Oxford ; author of
T/te Problem of Stiffering in the Old T'-sta-
VWnt, A Critir,,/ hifrnducfitin fn ffir \ew
Testament, (/hri.stinnitii : its Anfure mid its
Truth.
Cainites, Jude the Lord's Brother, Jude
(Epistle of).
I'LATT i l'i;i,iii:i;i('), M.A.. li.D.
Professor f)i Svstemai ic and F*astoral Theologj'
in the Wesfeyan Colhg*;, Handsworth, Bir-
mingham ; autlior of Miracles: An Outline
of the Christ inn View.
Atonement.
Plummki: (Alfred), M.A., D.D.
Late Master of University College, Durham ;
formerly F'ellow and Senior Tutor of Trinity
CollcL;e. Oxford; author of 'The Go.spel
■' !u S. I.uke'in The International
I .mil' I'tfiry, and other works.
Apostle, Bishop, Church, Deacon, Evan-
gelist, and other article-.
Pope (R. Martin), M.A. (Cantab, and Man-
chester).
Minister of the Wesleyan Mcthodi-i < Imnh
at Keswick; author of ErpDSitirrij Sut'S on
at. I'linis Kjii ■:il- ; tn Timothy and Titus,
and other wdik-.
Abba, Christian Life, Conversation,
Gifts, Judging.
liEin (John), M.A.
Mini.ster of the United 1 hi ( hurch at Inver-
ness; autiior of .fi-sii^ ■iiiii .\i' ,,t/.-,,i"x. The
First Thinrjsff J' <Hs. /Vc I '/Jift , n^i nf I,,f' ;
editor of /;;//w^(/(/ llo/v/.v.
JEon, Age, Aged, Honour.
Roberts (John Edwaku), M.A. (London), B.D.
(St. Andrews).
Minister of the Baptist Cliunli at Manchester;
author of Christian l',<i i^'i,;,!, ^ J'rimt,-
Prayers and Devotions.
Apollos, Aquila and Priscilla, Bar-Jesus,
Gallio, anil other articles.
Roberts (Kouert), B.A. (Wales). rii.D. (Leipzig).
Kliuallt, St. Asaph.
Expediency.
Robertson (Archibald Thomas), .M..\., I). D.,
LL.D.
Professor of Interpretation oi tlie New Te-ta
nieiit in the Southern Baptist 'ilieological
Seminary, Louisville, Ky. : .iiithor of A
Grainnutr of tlie Greek Acw Testament in the
Light of Historical Research, and other
works.
Bond, Debt, Deliverer, Destruction.
Robinson (George L.), Ph.D., D.D., LL.D.
Profe.ssor of Biblical Literature and Fnglish
Bible in M'Cormick Theological Seminary,
Chicago.
Caesarea.
Robinson (Henry Wheeler), M.A. (O.xon. and
Ed in.).
Professor of Church History and of the
Philosophy of Religion in the lliiti-i
College, llawdon ; sometime Senior Kcniu-
cott Scholar in the University of Oxford :
author of 'Hebrew P.sychology in TNI.-uiim
to Pauline AntliropoioL:y in
College Essays, The Christ cm T
Man, The Religious Ideas of the (v ; / '
ment.
Adorning, Ear, Eye, Feet, Hair, Hand,
Head.
Sanday (William), D.n., LI..I).. I.itt.n., F.B..\.
Lady Margaret l'idfe--or of iUvmiiy, and
Can<m of Ciirist Cimrch, Oxford; Chaplain
in Ordinary to 11. M. the King.
Inspiration and Revelation.
von Schlatter (Adolf).
Professor of New Testament Introduction and
I'.xegesis in the University of Tubingen.
Holy Spirit.
Scott (< h \i;i.i:s Am)1.i;s(in), M.A., D.D.
i'rofe.-soi- of ihr Language, Literature, and
Tlieology of the New Testament in \\'e-.r-
minster Cidlege. ( 'aml>ridge : .'11111101 of ///•■
Mdkinij cf II t'hristuni, and other \\oik-.
Christ, Christology.
siDNKi.i. (lliMiv Cariss Jones), B..\.. L.l>.
(Londoiii.
Minister of the A\'e-le\;ni Methodi-t (hurc!;
at Ilkley.
Admonition, Chastisement, Discipline,
Excommunication.
AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IX THIS VOLUME
Smith (Sherwin), M.A., B.D.
Minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church
at Burnley.
Abomination, Clean and Unclean.
SouTEK (Alexander), M.A-, D.Litt.
Regius Professor of Humanity and Lecturer
in Mediaeval Palaeography in the University
of Aberdeen ; formerly Professor of New
Testament Greek and Exegesis in Mansfield
College, Oxford ; author of A Sttidy of
Ambrosiaster, The Text and Canon of the
New Testament.
Augustus, Caesar, Calignia, Citizenship,
Diana, Domitian, and other articles.
Spooxek (William Archibald), D.D.
Warden of New College, Oxford ; Hon. Canon
of Christ Church, Oxford ; Examining
Chaplain to the Bishop of Peterborough.
Lucius.
STEVLXSOX (MORLEY), M.A.
Principaj of Warrington Training College ;
Hon. Canon of Liverpool ; author of Hand-
book to the Gospel according to St. Luke, and
other works.
Author and Finisher, Circumcision,
Divisions, Forerunner, Heresy, Judaiz-
ing.
Stewart (George Wauchope), M.A., B.D.
Minister of the Church of Scotland at Hadding-
ton (First Charge) ; author of Music in the
Church.
King, King of Kings and Lord of Lords,
Lord.
Stewart (Robert William), M.A., B.Sc, B.D.
Minister of the United Free Church at Duthil
(Carr Bridge).
Apostolic Constitutions.
Strachak (Robert Harvey), M.A. (Aberd.),
B.A. (Cantab.).
Minister of the Presbyterian Church of
England at Cambridge.
Consecration, Fast (The), Holiness, Holy
Day.
Strahax (James), M.A., D.D.
Professor of Hebrew and Biblical Criticism in
the M'Crea Magee Presbyterian College,
Londonderry ; Cunningham Lecturer ; author
of Hebrew Ideals, The Book of Job, The
Capt'urity and Pastoral Epistles.
Abraham, Colours, Elements, Galatia,
Hypocrisy, and other articles.
Thcmb (Albert).
Professor of Comparative Philology in the
University of Strassburg ; author of Hand-
hook of tite Jdodern Greek Vemacuiar.
Hellenistic and Biblical Greek.
Tod (David Macrak), M.A., B.D. (Edin.).
Minister of the Presbyterian Church of
En^'land at Huddersfiefd; formerly Hebrew
Tutor and Cunningham Fellow, New College,
Edinburgh.
Faith, Faithfulness, Ignorance, Know-
ledge.
Vos (Geerhardcs), Ph.D., D.D.
Charles Haley Professor of Biblical Theology
in the Theological Seminary of the Presby-
terian Church at Princeton, N.J.
Brotherly Love, Goodness, Joy, Kind-
ness, Longsuffering, Love.
Watkixs (Charles H. k D.Th.
Minister of the Baptist Church at Liverpool ;
Lecturer in the Midland Baptist College
and University College, Nottingham ; author
of St. PaiiFs Fight for Galatia.
Ambassador, Blessedness, Brethren,
Conspiracy.
Watt (High), B.D.
Minister of the United Free Church of Scotland
at Bearsden ; Examiner for the Church
History Scholarships of the United Free
Church of Scotland.
Didache.
Wells (Leonard St. Albax), M.A. (Oxon.).
Vicar of St. Aidan's, South Shields ; sub-
editor of the Oxford Apocrjfpha and Pseud-
epigrapha.
Alpha and Omega, Amen.
Willis (Johx Rothwell), B.D.
Canon of St. Aidans, Ferns, and Rector of
Preban and Moyne.
Angels of the Seven Churches, Collec-
tion, Contribution.
WoRSLEY (Frederick William), M.A., B.D.
Subwarden of St. Michael's CoU^e, LlandaflT;
author of The Apocalypse of Jesus.
Areopagite, Baal, Babbler, Cali^ Damaris,
Dioscuri, Idolatry, Jupiter.
Zexos (Axurew C), D.D., LL.D.
Professor of Historical Theology in the
MCormick Theological Seminsiry, Chicago.
Dates.
Zwaax (J. DE), D.D. (Leiden).
Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the
University of Groningen.
' Acts of Thomas' in Acts of the Apostles
(Apocryphal).
LIST OF ABBREA'IATIOXS
I. General
App. = Appendix.
Arab. = Arabic.
art., artt.= article, articles.
A.S. = Anglo-Saxon.
Assyr. = Assyrian.
AT = Altes Testament.
AV= Authorized Version.
AVm = Authorized Version margin.
Bab. = Babylonian.
c. = circa, about.
cf.= compare.
ct. = contrast.
ed. = edited, edition.
Eng.= English.
Eth. = Ethiopic.
EV, EW = English Version, Versions.
f. = and following verse or page.
G. = and following verses or pages.
fol. = folio.
fr. = fragment, from.
Fr. = French.
Germ. = German.
Gr.= Greek.
Heb. = Hebrew.
Lat. = Latin.
lit. =literall5-, literature.
LXX = Septuagin t.
m., marg. = margin.
MS, MSS = manuscript, manuscripts.
n. = note.
NT = New Testament, Neues Testament.
N.S. =new series.
0T = 01d Testament.
pi. = plural.
q.v., qq.v. = quod vide, quce vide, which see.
Rhem. =Rhemi3h New Testament.
rt. =root.
RV = Revised Version.
RVm = Revised Version margin.
Sera. = Semitic.
sing. = singular.
Skr. = Sanskrit.
Syr. = Svriac.
Targ. =*rargura.
tr. == translated, translation.
TR=Textus Receptus, Received Text
V. = verse.
v.l. =varia lectio, variant reading.
VS, VSS= Version, Versions.
Vulg., Vg.= Vulgate.
n. Books of the Bible
Old Testament.
Gn= Genesis.
Ex = Exodus.
Lv= Leviticus.
Nu = Numbers.
Dt = Deuteronomy.
Jos = Joshua.
Jg = Judges.
Ru = Ruth.
1 S, 2 S = land 2 Samuel.
1 K, 2K=1 and 2 Kings.
1 Ch, 2 Ch=:l and 2
Chronicles.
Ezr = Ezra.
Neh = Nehemiah.
Est = Esther.
Job.
Ps = Psalms.
Pr — Proverbs.
Ec = Ecclesiastes.
Apocrypha.
1 Es, 2 Es = 1 and 2 To = Tobit.
Esdras. Jth = Jui!itii.
Ca= Canticles.
Is = Isaiah.
Jer = Jeremiah.
La = Lamentations.
Ezk = Ezekiel.
Dn = Daniel.
Hos = Hosea.
Jl = Joel.
Am = Amos.
Ob = Obadiah.
Jon = Jonah.
Mic = Micah.
Nah = XaIiuni.
Hab = Habakkuk.
Zeph = Zephaniah.
Hag = Haggai.
Zee— Zechariah.
Mal = Malachi.
Ad. Est = Additions to Sus = Susanna.
Esther.
Wis = Wisdom.
Sir = Sirach or Ecclesi-
asticus.
Bar=Baruch.
Three = Song of the Three
Children.
Bel = Bel and the
Dragon.
Pr. Man = Prayer of
Manasses.
1 Mac, 2 Mac=l and 's
Maccabees.
Aew Testament.
Mt= Matthew.
Mk = Mark.
Lk = Luke.
Jn = John.
Ac := Acts.
Ro = Romans.
1 Co, 2 Co = 1 and
Corinthians.
Gal = Galatians.
Eph =r Ephesians.
Ph = Philippians.
Col = Colossians.
1 Th, 2 Th = l and 2
Thessalonians.
1 Ti, 2 Ti = l and 2
Timothy.
Tit = Titus.
Philem = Philemon.
2 He = Hebrews.
Ja = James.
1 P, 2P=1 and 2 Peter.
1 Jn, 2 Jn, 3 Jn = l, 2,
and 3 John.
Jude.
Rev = Revelation.
XVI
LIST OF ABJiREVIATlONS
III, BlBLIOORAPHV
iiG(7=Abhandluugen der Gottinger Gesellschaft
der Wishcnschaften.
AJPh — Americasi .lournal of Philology.
,/4J^7'A = American .(uurnal of Theology.
AJiW=ATchiv fiii Ueligionswissenschaft.
^5= Acta Sanctoruiii (HoUiindus).
£«/=Helhiiii .Iiidaicuiii (Juttephus).
jBX. = lijiiiii>ton lecture.
^»r= Biblical VVorltl.
C'£= Catholic Encyclopedia.
<.'/v4 = CorpUB Inscrip. Atticanim.
C'/C = Corpus Inwrip. Gni'carum.
<'/Z.=Corpus In8cri|i. Latinarum.
C7.S'= Corpus Inscrip. Seiniticaruin.
C^^=Churcli Quarterly Keview.
6'i?=:ConteniiK>rary Review.
<7iSi?/y = Corpus Script. Eccles. Latinomm.
DB= Did. of the Bible.
DCA=Dict. of Christian Antiquities.
Z>CB = Dict. of Cliristian Bi<);,'raphy.
Z>CG = Dict. of Christ and the Ciisi>el8.
DGRA =Dict. of (ireek and Konian Antiquities.
DGRB=V>ict. of Greek and Roman Biography.
DGRG ^D'lct. of Greek and Roman Geography.
i?5i = Encyclop«'dia Biblica.
Elir = Encyclopjcdia Britannica.
EGT=Y,\\tosiioT» (ireek Testament.
JS7?^=Encyclop»edia of Religion and Ethics.
Exp = Expositor.
ExpT= Expository Times.
<r.^P= Geographic des alten Paliistina (Buhl).
G!B = Golden Bough (J. (i. Frazer).
GGA =G6ttiDgiscne Gelehrte Anzeigen.
G(r.iV = Nachrichten der konigl. Gesellschaft der
Wissenscliaften zu (Joftinpen.
<?JF'=Ge8chicht« des jiidischen Volkes (Schiirer).
<Jrimra-Thayer = Grimm's Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the
NT, tr. Thayer.
/r/)B=Ha.stinjr8'^Dict. of the Bible (5 vols.).
y/£=Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.).
^(?^/^ = Historical Geography of the Holy Land
(G. A. Smitli).
i/^/ = History of Israel (Ewald).
//./ = Hibbert Journal.
irJP= History of tlie Jewish People (Eng. tr. of
GJV). *
//L = Hibbert Lecture.
^.V=Hi8toria Naturalis (Pliny).
/C6'= International Critical Commentary.
75.9= International Science Series.
JA = Journal Asiatique.
«/£Z. = Journal of Biblical Literature.
./J? = Jewish Encvclopedia.
.//f.S' = Journal of Hellenic Studiea
J/*A = Journal of Pliilology.
JP7'A = Jahrbiicher fiir prot«stantische Theologie.
./07i- Jewisli Quarterly Review.
^^5= Journal of Roman Studies.
./TAiYs Journal of Theological Studies.
A'i47'»=KeilinHchriften und das Alte Testament*
(Schrader. 1K8.S).
A'.447''^Ziiiiiiicrn-Winckler's ed. of the preceding
(a totally distinct work), 19U2-03.
A'/^ = Keilin8chriftliche Bibliothek.
ZC'Zf/= Literarisches Centralblatt.
Z,A'jr=Introd. to Literature of the New Testament
(MoHatt).
LT == Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
(Edersheim).
J7drj'=Monats8chrift fiir Geschichte und Wissen-
schaft des Judentums.
iyr(?G = Nachrichten der konigl. Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften zu Gottingen.
iViirZ=Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift.
iV7'iZ'(r = Neute8tanientliche Zeitgeschichte (Holtz-
niann and otliers).
(?J?Z> = Oxford English Dictionary.
OTJC=Oh\ Testament in the Jewish Church (W.
R. Sniitli).
Pauly-Wissowa = Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyklo-
padie.
PJ5 = Polychrome Bible.
PC= Primitive Culture (E. B. Tylor).
P^/'= Palestine Exploration P^und.
PEFSt = Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly
Statement.
P^^ = Realencyklopadie fiir protestantische Theo-
logie und Kirche.
PiSfi J = Proceedings of the Society of Biblical
Archaeolof^y.
RA = Revue Arcli^ologique.
.BJ5 = Revue Biblique.
REG = Revue des fitudes Grecques.
i2(r(? = Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
72^/2= Revue de I'Histoire des Religions.
Roscher=Roscher's Ausfiihrliches Lexikon der
griech. und rom. Mythologie.
RS = Religion of the Semites (W. Robertson
Smith).
55.4 JF=Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie
der Wissenschaften.
SEE = S&cred Books of the East.
Schatr-Herzog = The New Schafi-Herzog Encyclo-
pedia (Eng. tr. of PRE).
<SZ)£ = Hastings' Single-vol. Dictionary of the
Bible.
<S£P= Memoirs of Survey of Eastern Palestine.
5A'=Studien und Kritiken.
5 JFP= Memoirs of Survey of Western Palestine.
rAZ,Z= Theologische Litteraturzeitung.
rAr=Theol. Tijdschrift.
7'.^= Texts and Studies.
TU=Texte und Untersuchungen.
Wetzer-Welte = Wetzer- Welte's Kirchenlexikon.
WH = Westcott-Hort's Greek Testament.
ZATW = Zeitschrift fiir die alttest. Wissen-
schaft.
ZDMG — Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenland-
ischen Gesellschaft.
i^^ATG = Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte.
Z/firX = Zeitschrift fiir kirchl. Wissenschaft und
kirchl. Leben.
ZNTW = Zeitschrift fur die neutest. Wissen-
schaft.
Z7'A'=Zeitsclirift fiir Theologie und Kirche.
ZlfT= Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie.
DICTIONARY
OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH
A
AARON. — By name Aaron is mentioned in the
NT only by St. Luke (Lk 1', Ac 7*^) and by the
^v^ite^ of the Epistle to the Hebrews (5^ 7" &*),
and in his personal history very little interest is
taken. Officially, he Mas represented to be the
lirst of a long line of high priests, specilically
appointed such (Ex 28'^-) in conhmiation of the
status already allowed him in Arabic usage
(Ex 4") ; and, though his successors were prob-
ably not all in the direct line of descent, they
found it convenient to claim relationship with
him (Ezr 2®"-), and gradually the conceptions in-
volved in high-priesthood were identified with the
name of Aaron. That continued to be the case
in the apostolic period ; and it became a familiar
thought that the high priest was a type of Christ,
who was viewed as the antitype of all true sacer-
dotal persons and ministries.
In this typical relation between Aaron as the
embodiment of priestly ideas and Christ as their
final expression, an attempt was made to trace
ditierences as well as correspondences. Christ was
thought of, not as identical with His prototype,
but as invested with higher qualities, of which
only the germ and promise are to be found in
Aaron.
1. In regard to vocation, both were appointed
by God (He 5^) ; yet to the priesthood of Christ no
Aaronic (7"), or Levitical (7"), or legal (9^) measure
may be put. He was a man like Aaron (2^®'-),
capable of sympathy both by nature and from
experience (4'') ; yet His priesthood is distinctly
of a higher and eternal order (5^), limited neither
to an earthly sanctuary (9^^), nor to the necessity
of repeating the one great sacrifice (9^'), nor in
efficiency to the treatment of otfences that were
chiefly ceremonial or ritual (9^- ^^).
2. In the consecration of the high priest the
supreme act was anointing with oU (Lv 8^-), from
which, indeed, the designation Messiah ('anointed
one') arose. Yet such Avas the lofty position of
Jesus, and such was His consciousness, that He
could say, 'I consecrate myself (Jn 17**"), on the
very eve of His priestly sacrifice.
3. In function Aaron stood between God and
the congregation, representing each to the other.
On the one hand, not only were the priests
gathered together into an embodied unity in him,
but in his annual approach to God he brought a
sacrifice even for the 'ignorances' of the people
VOL. I. — I
(He 9'), and pnrified the sanctuary itself from any
ix)ssible defilements contracted through the sins
of its frequenters (9'*^ ; cf. Lv 16*""). As the repre-
sentative of God, he wore the sacred Urim and
Thummim in the pouch of judgment upon Ms
heart (Ex 28*^), indicating his qualification to com-
municate God's decision on matters that tran-
scended human wit ; and through him and his order
the blessing of God was invoked. In the Chris-
tian thought of the apostolic age all these functions
pass over to Jesus Christ, with modifications em-
phasizing their ethical eflect and the intrinsically
spiritual benefit that follows. One of the most
general statements is He 2", where the phrase
' things pertaining to God ' covers both sides of the
relations between God and man, though promin-
ence is given, as in tbe passages that speak of
Christ as our Advocate with God, to the work
done by Him as representing men. Much the
same is the case with the great passage on medi-
atorship (1 Ti 2*). As He is the Saviour, so He is
the High Priest, of all men, 'specially of them
that believe ' (1 Ti 4*°). In virtue of His imma-
nence as God, as well as of His priestly rank and
sympathy. He fitly represents all men before God,
while for those who have put themselves into a
right attitude towards Him He acts as Paraclete
(1 Jn 2*), promoting their interests and completing
their deliverance from sin. On the other hand,
as representative of God, He bestows gifts upon
men (Eph 4^*), communicating to them the will of
God and enriching them with every spiritual bless-
ing. He is not only the Kevealer of the Father ;
but, just as He oflers His sacrifice to God in the
stead of man, so He represents to man what God
is in relation to human sin, and what God has
devised and does with a view to human redemption.
Between God and man He stands continuously,
the medium of access on either side, the channel
of Divine grace and of human prayer and praise.
See, further, art. Melchizedek.
LrTKRATCirK. — See art. ' Aaron ' in HDB, DCG and JE, and
Comm. on Hebrews, esp. th06e of A. B. Davidson and B. F.
Westcott, A. S. Peake (Centuiy Bible), E. C. Wickham
(Westminster Coin.) ; also Phillips Brooks, Sermons in Englith
Churches, 1S83, p. 43 ; J. Wesley, Works, viL (London, ls72]
273. R. W. Moss.
AARON'S ROD. — Aaron's rod is mentioned only
in He 9*, which locates the rod in the ark. An
earlier tradition (Nn 17*" ; cf. 1 K 8*) preserves it
2
ABADDON
ABBA
'before' the nrk, on the sjiot on which it had
budded (Be«! llDIi i. 3''). In oitlier cjlho the object
was to secure a stjmdinj.' witness to tli« validity' of
the claimn of the Aaronic priesthood (so Clement,
1 Cor. § 43). The rod hiw BometimcH been identi-
fied as a branch of tlie almond tree ; and lK>th
Jewish and Christian fancy lias l>een busy with it.
For early legends associatinc it 8ynil>olically with
the cross, or literally with tiie transverse beam of
the cross, see W. W. Seymour, The Cross in Tradi-
tion, History, Art, 1898, p. 83. R. W. Moss.
ABADDON.— The word is found in the NT only
in Rev D". In the OT text 'itbhadddn occurs six
times (only in the Wisdom literature), AV in eacii
case rendering 'destruction,' wliile KV gives ' De-
struction' in Job 28« 31", Ps 88>, but 'Aba.idon'
in Job 26', Pr 15" 27*j on the ground, as state«l by
the Revisers in their Preface, tliat ' a proper name
appears to be required for giving vividness and
point.' Ktymologically the word is an abstract
term meaning 'destruction,' and it is employed in
this sense in Job 31". Its use, however, in paral-
lelism with Sheol in Job 26«, Pr 15" 27-"" and with
' the grave' in Ps 88" shows that even in the OT
it htM passed beyond this general meaning and
had become a specialized term for the abo<le of the
dead. In Job 28^, again, it is personilied side by
side with Death, just as Hades is personified in
Rev 6*. So far as the OT is concerned, and not-
withstanding tiie evident suggestions of its deriva-
tion (from Heb. 'dbhadh, ' to perish'), the connota-
tion of the word does not appear to advance be-
yond that of the parallel w^ord ESheol in its older
meaning of the general dwelling-place of all the
dead. In later Heb. literature, nowever, when
Sheol had come to be recognized as a sphere of
moral distinctions and consequent retribution,
Abaddon is represented as one of the lower divi-
sions of Sheol and a.s l)eing the abode of the wicked
and a place of punishment. At first it was distin-
gnished from Gehenna, as a place of loss and de-
privation rather than of the jwsitive suHering
assigned to the latter. But in the Rabbinic teach-
ing of a later time it becomes the very house of
perdition (Targ. on Job 26*), the lowest part of
Gehenna, tiie deei)est deep of hell (Eniek Ilatn-
melech, 15.3).
In Rev 9" Abaddon is not merely personified in
the free |)oetic manner of Job 28-, bnt is used
as the personal ilesi;,'nation in Hebrew of a fallen
angel described as tlie king of tlie locusts and * the
angel of the abyss,' wiiose name in the (ireek
tongue is said to be ApoUyon. In tlie LXX
'abhadddn is regularly rendered by avdiKtux ; and
the personification of the Heb. word by the writer
of Ilev. ap|>arently led him to form from the
corresponding Gr. verb (diroXXiyw, later form of
6,v6\\v(u) a Gr. name with tiie personal ending wk.
Outside of the Apocalyjise the name Abaddon has
hardly any place in English literature, while
ApoUyon, on the contrary, has become familiar
through the use made of it in the Pilgrim's Pro-
? tress by Bunyan, whose concejition of ApoUyon,
lowever, is entirely his own. Abaddon or AimjII-
yon was often identitied with Asmodieus, ' the evil
spirit' of To 3"; but this identitication is now
known to be a mistake.
LrrKRATiTRK.— Theartt *.rr. in HDB and Klii; art. 'Abyss'
in EHE ; KxpT xx. (lOOS-OOJ 234 f. J. C. LaMIIEUT.
ABBA. — Abba is the emphatic form of the Aram,
word for 'father' (see Dalman, Arnm. (ham. p.
98, for 3K and its various forms ; also Ma<dean, in
DCG, S.V.). It is found only in tliree i)assages in
the NT, viz. Mk 14* Ro 8", Gal 4«; in each case
6 irar^p is .subjoined to 'A^jia., the whole expres-
sion being a title of address. [The use of 6 war^p,
nominative with the article, as a vocative, is not a
Hebraism, as Lightfoot thought, but an emphatic
vocative not unknown t-o classical Greek ana com-
mon in the NT : ' nearly sixty examples of it are
found in NT' ; see Monlton, tfrawt. of AT Greek,
Edinburgh, 1906, p. 70.]
Lightfoot on (Jal 4" argues that the bilingual
expression is a liturgical formula originating with
Hellenistic Jews, who, while clinging to the original
word which was consecrated by long usage, aBded
to it the Greek equivalent; but he supports an
alternative theory that it took its rise among Jews
of Palestine after they had become acquainted with
the Greek language, and is simply an expression
of importunate entreaty, and an example of that
verbal usage whereby the same idea is conveyed
in dillerent forms for the sake of emphasis. As
illustrations of this repetition, he quotes Rev 9"
('Ato\\Cu», 'A^aSSwv) 12» 20* (Zara^aj, Atd/SoXoy).
Thayer, in III)B {s.v.), points out that, though de-
votional intensity belongs to repetition of the .same
term (e.g. Kijpie, Kvpte), it is also expressed by such
phrases as val dfiriv, 'Hallelujah, Praise the Lord,*
where the terms are different. The context of each
passage where 'Abba, Father' is found appears to
prove that the Greek addition is not merely the
explanation of the Aramaic word, such as, e.g.,
St. Peter might have added in his preaching — a
custom to be perpetuated by the Evangelists, as
suggested by the passage in Mk. ; but is rather an
original formula, the genesis of which is to be
sought further back, perhaps in the actual words
used by our Lord Himself. Thus Sanday-Headlam
on Ro 8" (ICC, 1902) remark :
' It seems better to suppose that our Lord Himself, usinp
familiarly both languajfes, and concentratiiij^ into this word of
all words such a depth of meaniii({, found Himself imi^elled
spontaneously to re)iuat the word, and that some among His
disciples caught and transmitted the same habit. It is signifi-
cant however of the limited extent of strictly Jewish Christi-
anity that we find no other original examples' of the use than
these three.'
Thus, the double form is due to the fact that the
early Christians were a bilingual people ; and the
duplication, while conveying intensity to the ex-
pression, ' would only be natural where the speaker
was using in l)otli cases his familiar tongue.' F. H,
Chase {2'S I. iii. 23) suggests that the phrase is due
to the shorter or Lucan form of the Lord's Prayer,
and that the early Christians repeated the Hrst
word in the intensity of their devotion, coupling a
Hellenistic rendering with the ATomaxc Abba. He
argues that the al).sence of such a phrase as S iffnv,
or 6 iari /j.edfpfitivev&fievoi', in Mk M'** is due to the
familiarity of the formula ; and that, while the
Pauline jiassages do not recall Gethseinane, they
suggest the liord's Prayer as current in the shorter
form. Monlton (op. cit. p. 10), combating Zahn's
theory that Aramaic was the language of St. Paul's
prayers — a theory based on the Apostle's 'Abba,
Father' — remarks that ' the peculiar sacredness of
association belonging to the first word of the Lord's
Prayer in its original tongue supplies a far more
probable account of its liturgical use among Gen-
tile Christians.' He mentions the analogy (soe
footnote, loc. cit.) of the Roman Catholic 'saying
Paternoster,' but adds that ' Paul will not allow
even one wor<l of prayer in a foreign tongue with-
out adding an instant translation ' ; and further
refers to tlie Welsh use of Pader as a name for the
Lord's Prayer.
It seems probable (1) that the phrase, 'Abba,
Father,' is a liturgical formula ; (2) that the duality
of the form is not due to a Hebraistic repetition
for the sake of em|)hasis, but to the fact that the
early Christians, even of non- Jewish descent, were
familiar with l)oth Aramaic and Greek ; (3) that
Abba, being the lirst word of the Lord's Prayer,
was held in si)ecial veneration, and was quoted
ABEL
ABO^HNATION
with the Greek equivalent attached to it, as a
familiar devotional phrase (like Maran atha [I Ck)
16^, whicli would be quite intellijiible to Chris-
tians of Gentile origin, though its lireek transla-
tion, 6 Kipios 6-y-yi/s [Ph 4*], was also used ; cf. Did.
10*, wliere ' Maran atha' and ' Amen ' close a public
prayer) ; and (4) that our Lord Himself, though
this cannot be said to be established beyond doubt,
used the double form in pronouncing the sacred
Name, which was invoked m His prayer.
In conclusion, it should be noted that, while the
phrase is associated wth the specially solemn occa-
sion of the Gethsemane agony, where our Lord is
reported by St. Mark to have used it, both ex-
amples of its use in the Pauline writings convey a
adnular impression of solemnity as connected with
the Christian believer's assurance of sonship — and
sonship (let it be noted) not in the general sense
in which all humanity may be described as children
of God, but in the intimate and spiritual connota-
tion belonging to viodeala, or ' adoption,' into the
family of God.
LrraRATURK.— See art. ' Abba ' in HDB, DCG, and JE, an art.
in ExpT XX. [1909] 356, and the authorities cited above.
R. Martix Pope.
ABEL. — Abel f^iSeX) has the first place in the
roll of ' the elders' (ol -rpea^vrepoi. He 11-), or men
of past generations, who by their faith pleased
God and had witness borne to them. It is recorded
of him that he offered unto God a more excellent
sacrifice [vXeLova Ovaiav) than his elder brother
(He ll"*). In the original story (Gn 4^^^) his offer-
ing was probably regarded as more pleasing on
account of the material of his sacrifice. It was in
accordance with primitive Semitic ideas that the
occupation of a keeper of sheep was more pleasing
to God than that of a tiller of the ground, and
accordingly that a firstling of the flock was a
more acceptable offering than the fruit of the
ground. The ancient writer of the story (J)
evidently wished to teach that animal sacrifice
alone was pleasing to God (Gunkel, Genesis, 38 ;
Skinner, 105). The author of Hebrews gives the
story a different turn. The greater excellence of
Abel's sacrifice consisted in the disposition with
which it was offered. The spirit of the worshipper
rather than the substance of the offering is now
considered the essential element. Abel's sacrifice
was the offering of a man whose heart was right.
Through his faith he won God's approval of his
gifts, and through his faith his blood continued to
speak for him after his death. In a later passage
of Heb. (12**) that blood is contrasted wth 'the
blood of sprinkling,' by which the new covenant
is confirmed. The blood of Abel cried out from
the ground for vengeance (cf. Job 16^*, Is 26-',
2 K 9^ ; also Rev 6*- ^'*) ; it was such a cry as is
sounded in Milton's sonnet, ' Avenge, O Lord, thy
slaughtered saints ' ; but tlie blood of the eternal
covenant intercedes for mercy.
St. John (1 Jn 3'-) uses tlie murder of Abel by
his brother to illustrate the absence of that spirit
of love which is the essence of goodness. The
writer indicates that the new commandment, or
message {ayytXia), which has been heard from the
beginning of the Christian era, was also the funda-
mental law of the moral life from the beginning of
human history. Cain was of the evil one (ck rov
rov7}pov), and slaughtered {lff(pa^ev) his brother.
LiTERATrRK. — Besidcs the artt. in the Bible Dictionaries, see
W. G. Ebnslie, Expository Lectures and Sermons, 1392, p. 164 ;
J. Hasting^s, (rreater Men and Women of the Bible, vol. i.
[1913] p. 53 ; G. Matheson, The Representative Men of the
Bible, L [190-2] 45 : A. P. Peabody, King's Chapel Sermons,
1^1, p. 317 ; A. Whyte, Bible Characters, L [1896] 44.
J.\MES StRAHAN.
ABIDING.— As in the Gospels, so in Acts and
Ephesians we find both the local and the ethical
connotations of this word, which in almost every
case is used to render fidvu or one of its numerous
compounds (e'xt-, Kara-, vapa-, rpoi-, inro-). With
the purely local usages we have here no concern ;
but there is a small class of transitional meanings
which lead the way to those ethical connotations
which are the distinctive pro{>erty of the word.
Among these may be mentioned the several places
in 1 Co 7, where St. Paul, dealing with marriage
and allied questions (? in view of the Parousia),
speaks of abiding in this state or calling. In the
same Epistle note also 3" '(If any man's workaijVfe,'
and 13^^ ' And now abide faith, hope, love.' * Simi-
larly we are told of the persistence (a) of Mel-
chizedek's priesthood (He 7*), (6) of the Divine
fidelity even in face of human faithlessness (2 Ti
2^), and (c) of the word of God (1 P 1»).
It is, however, in the 1st Ep. of John, as in the
Fourth Gospel, that we get the ethi«d use of
abiding most fully developed and most amply pre-
sented. But, while in the Gospel the emphasis is
laid on the Son's abiding in the Father and Christ's
abiding in the Church, in 1 Jn 2"-^- -' the stress is
rather on the mutual abiding of the believer and
God (Father and Son). Note the following ex-
perimental aspects of the relation in question.
1. The belieYer as the place of the abiding. —
A somewhat peculiar expression is foimd in 1 Jn
2*^, where we read : ' The anointing . . . abideth
in you-' By xp^ixfui is meant the gift of the Holy
Spirit (cf. 2 Co 1-^), whose presence in the heart
gives the believer an independent power of testing
whatever teaching he receives (cf. ' He shall take
of mine and shall show it unto you,' Jn 16'*).t In
1 Jn 2'* it is said that the word" of God abideth in
' young men ' ; but it is also the meaning in v.** ;
while in S-"* Christ is mentioned as abiding in them
' by the Spirit.' In each passage we have a subtle
instance of the perfectly natural way in which the
operation of the risen Christ on the heart is identi-
fied with that of the Spirit. The believer's soul
is thus mystically thought of as the matrix in
which the Divine energ\- of salvation, conceived
of in its various aspects, is operative as a cleansing,
saving, and conserving power, safeguarding it from
error, sin, and unfaithfulness.
2. The abiding place of the believer. — In 1 Jn
2** we have the promise that ' it the [word] heard
from the beginning' remains in the believer's
heart, he shall ' continue in the Son ' and in the
Father (cf. 3*). This reciprocal relation between
the implanted word and the human environment
in which it energizes is [)eculiarly Johannine.
Secondary forms of the same idea are found in 2"*
('he that loveth his brother abideth in the light'),
and in 3" ('he that hateth his brother abideth in
death '). In 2^ we have the fact that the believer
abides in Christ made the ground for a practical
appeal for consistency of life, and in v.^ the reward
of such living is that the believer ' abideth for ever,'
i.e. has eternal life. As a general principle, in the
use of this word we find a striking union of the mys-
tical and the ethical aspects of the Christian faith.
LrTEEATTEB.— G. G. Findlay, The Thing* Abore, 1901, p. 237 ;
G. H. Knight, Divine Cpliftings, 1906, p. 83 ; F. von Htigel,
Eternal Life, 1912, p. 365L; and also the art. 'Abiding' in
DCG, and the literature there cited.
E. Gbiffith-Jones.
ABOMINATION (j35Airy/ta). — Like the word
' taste ' — originally a physical, then a mental term,
— ' abomination ' denotes that for which God and
His people have a violent distaste. It refers in
the OT to the feeling of repulsion against pro-
hibited foods (Lv 111", Dt 14'), then to everything
• Popular opinion, based on a well-known hymn (Par. 4913'X
very erroneously makes faith and hope pass away, only love
abiding.
t As indicated in BDB i. 101»>, the words of 1 Jn 2=7 gave rise
to the practice of anointing with oil at baptism.
ABOUNDING
ABRAHAM
connected with idolatry (Dt 7^*, Ko 2-'- [dr.]).*
Thence it acquires a moral meaning, and together
with fornication stigmatizes all the immoralities
of heathendom (Rev 17** *). Its intensest use is
reserved for hypocrisy, the last oU'ence against
religion (Lk W, Tit i'«, Kev ai-"^).
Shkrwin Smith.
ABOUNDING The English word 'aljound' in
the Epistles of the NT is the translation of tlie dr.
words irXeocdfw and jrepiff<revu. There is nothing of
special interest in these terms ; perhai)s the former
has the less lofty sense, its primary connotation being
that of superfluity. As used by St. Paul, however,
there seems little to choose between them, although
it is worth noting that, where he sneaks (Ro 5-'")
of the ' ollence ' and ' sin ' abounding, he uses
TrXfoi'dfen'. Yet he employs the same term in Ro
6' of tiie ' abounding of grace,' and in Ph 4" of the
fruit of Christian giving. Ills favourite term,
however, is irepiaaevu (in one case vTrepTrepi<r(reiju,
•overflow,' Ro 5**), whether he is speaking of the
grace of God (Ro 5'"), the sufferings of Christ (2 Co
1"), or tlie Christian spirit that finds expression in
liberality (2 Co 8' 9«), contentment (Ph 4i^- ^s), hope
(Ro 5"), service (1 Co 15°®). This list of references
is not cxiiaiistive, but it is representative. These
words and tiie way in which tiiey are used give us
a suggestive glimpse into —
1. The religious temperament of the Apostle. —
His was a rich and overnowing nature, close-packed
with vivid, ever-active qualities of mind and heart.
His conception of the gospel would be naturally in
accordance with the wealth of his psychic and
moral natnre ; he would inevitably fasten on such
a-spects of it as most thoroughly satisfied his own
.soul ; and he would put its resources to the full
test of his spiritual needs and capacities. It is
fortunate that Christianity found at its inception
such a man ready to hand as its chief exponent to
the primitive churches, and that his letters remain
as a record of the marvellous way in which he
opened his heart to its appeal, and of the manifold
response he was able to make to that appeal. In
all ages our faith has been conditioned by the
human medium in which it has had to work. The
ages of barrenness in Christian experience have
been those which have lacked richly-endowed per-
sonalities for its embodiment and exposition ; and
vice versa, when such personalities have arisen
and have given themselves wholeheartedly to the
Divine Spirit, there has been a wide-spread efflor-
escence of religious experience in the Church at
large. Ordinary men and women are pensioners
religiously, to a peculiar degree, of the great souls
in the community. St. Paul, Origen, Augustine,
Bernard, Luther, Wesley, etc., have been the focal
points through which the forces of the gospel have
radiated into the world at large, and lifted its life
to higher levels.
2. The superabundant wealth of the gospel as
a medium of the Divine energies of redemption.
— The Christian faith is full of spiritual resources
on which the soul may draw to the utmost of its
needs. In the teaching of our Lord, the prodigality
of His illustrations, their varied character, and the
frequency with which He likens the Kingdom to a
' feast,' with all its suggestions of a large welcome
and an overflowing abundance of good things, are
very characteristic of His own attitude towards
the gospel He preached ; and St. Paul is pre-
eminent among NT writers for the way in which
he has grasped the same idea, and caught the
spirit of the Master in his exposition of spiritual
realities. (Cf. 'How many hired servants of my
father's have bread enough and to spare ' [Lk 15"]
• Cf. the well-known expression, 'abomination of desolation,'
applied to a heathen altar (Dri 12" ; cf. 1 Mac !«, Mt 2-lis,
Mk 13i-»). See art. ' Abomination of Desolation ' in UDB.
with • the grace of God, which is by one man, Jesus
Christ, liath abounded unto many' [Ro 5'*; also
vv. "• '"• -"• ^']. "-"tl many other passages.)
3. The call for an adequate response on the
part of believers to the varied and abundant
resources of the gospel.— Here, again, St. Paul
exhausts the power of language in urging his con-
verts to allow the Divine energies of salvation to
have their way with them. The normal type of
Christian is not reached till his nature is flooded
Avith the grace of God, and he in turn is lifted into
a condition which is characterized by an abounding
increase of hope, grace, love, good works, and fruit-
fulness of character. ' Therefore, as ye abound in
(everything), see that ye abound in this grace also '
(2 Co 8'') expresses one of his favourite forms of
appeal. He Avas not satisfied to see men raised to
a slightly higher plane by their faith in Christ ;
they were to be ' transformed in the spirit of their
minds' (Ro 12^) ; they Avere ahvays to 'abound in
the Avork of the Lord'^ (1 Co 15*» ; cf. 2 Co 9") ; and,
as ' they had received ' of him hoAV they might Avalk
and ' to please God,' thejjr Avere exhorted to ' alx)und
more and more' (1 Th 4'), and that especially
because they kncAV Avhat commandments ' had been
given them by the Lord Jesus' (1 Th 4'-). It Avas
a .subject for joyfulness to him Avhen he found his
converts thus responding to the poAver of God (see
2 Co 8"-)- As regards his realization of this Divine
abundance in his OAvn experience, Ave find him
breaking out into an ecstasy of thanksgiving at
the thought of Avhat God has done for him, and
of the sense of iuAvard spiritual abundance Avhich
he consequently enjoys, so that he feels quite in-
dependent of all outAViird conditions, hoAvever hard
they may be (cf. Ph 4"''^). This is the language
of a man Avho enjoys all the resources of the God-
head in his inner life, and Avho can, therefore, be
careless of poverty, misfortune, sickness, and even
the prospect of an untimely end.
LiTERATURB. — Seo Sanday-Hcadlam, and Ligfhtfoot (especi-
ally Notes on Epistles of at. Paul), on the i>a.ssa;jf.s referred to,
also Phillips Brooks, The Light of the World, 1891, p. 140, and
AUpy viii. [1897] 514". E. GRIFFITH-JONES.
ABRAHAM ('k^paiii). — Addres.sing a JcAvish
croAvd in the precincts of the Temple, St. Peter
emphasizes the connexion betAveen the HebreAv and
the Christian religion by proclaiming that ' the God
of Abraham . . . hath glorified his serA'ant (iraiSa ;
cf. RVm) Jesus ' (Ac S^^). Tliis Divine title, Avhich
is similarly used in St. Stephen's speech (7*''), Avas
full of significance. All through tlie OT and the
NT the foundation of the true religion is ascribed
neither to the Prophets nor to Moses, but to
Abraham. Isaac (Gn 26-^) and Jacob (31*-) Avor-
shipped the God of Abraham, but Abraham did
not Avorship the Elohim Avhom his fathers served
beyond the River (Jos 24^^ '*• ^'). He Avas the head
of the great family that accepted JahAveh as their
God. JcAvs, Muslims, and Christians are all in
some sense his seed, as having either his blood in
their veins or his faith in their souls. To the JeAvs
he is ' our father Abraham ' (Ac 7^, Ro 4^^, J a 2*'),
' our forefather {t6u irpoTrdropa) according to the
flesh' (Ro 4^). To the Muhamniadans he is the
'model of religion' (imam, or priest) and the fir.st
person 'resigned (mnslim) unto God' {Qur'dn, ii.
115, 125). To the Christians he is 'the father of
all them that believe' (Ro 4"), 'the father of us
air (4'"). Taking the Avord Abraham to mean
(according to the popular A\'ord-play, Ro4" || Gn 17*)
' a father of many nations,' St. Paul regards it as
indicating that Abraham is the spiritual ancestor
of the Avhole Christian Church.
1. In the Epistles of St. Paul.— As Abraham
Avas tiie renoAvned founder of the JcAvish nation
and faith, it Avas crucially important to decide
ABRAHAM
ABRAHAM
whether the Jews or the Christians could claim
his support in their great controversy on justilica-
tion. The ordinary Jews regarded Abraham as a
model legalist, whose faith in God (Gn 15"-) con-
sisted in the fulhlment of the Law, which he knew
by a kind of intuition. According to the Jewish
tradition [Bereskith Rabb. 44, Wiinsche), Abraham
s;iw the whole history of his descendants in the
mysterious vision recorded in Gn 15^-. Thus he
is said to have ' rejoiced with the joy of the Law '
(Westcott, St. John [in Speakers Com.], 140). In
the philosophical school of Alexandria there was
a much higher conception of faith, which was re-
garded as * the most perfect of virtues,' ' the queen
of virtues,' ' the only sure and infallible good, the
solace of life, the fulfilment of worthy hopes, . . .
the inheritance of happiness, the entire ameliora-
tion of the soul, which leans for support on Him
who is the cause of all things, who is able to do
all things, and Molleth to do those which are most
excellent' (Philo, Quis rer. div. her. i. 485, de
Abr iL 39). In these passages faith, in so far as
it expresses a spiritual attitude towards God, does
not ditier much from Christian faith. Nor could
anything be finer than the Rabbinic Mechilta on
Ex 14*1 : » Great is faith, whereby Israel believed
on Him that spake and the world was. ... In
like manner thou findest that Abraham our father
inherited this world and the world to come solely
by the merit of faith whereby he believed in the
Lord ; for it is said, and he believed in the Lord,
and lie counted it to him for righteotisncss' (Light-
foot, Galatians, 162). But the ordinary tendency
of Judaism was to give Abraham's life a pre-
dominantly legal colour, as in 1 Mac 2*^ « Was not
Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was
reckoned unto him for rigliteousness ? '
To St. Paul faith is the motive power of the
whole life, and in two expositions of his doctrine
— Ro 4, Gal 3 — he affirms the essential identity of
Abraham's faith with that of every Christian. He
does not, indeed, think (like Jesus Himself in
Jn 8") of Abraham as directly foreseeing the day
of Christ, but he maintains that Abraham's faith
in God as then partially revealed was essentially
the same as the Christian's faith in God as now
fully made known in Christ. Abraham had faith
when he was still in uncircumcision (Ro 4"), faith
in God's power to do things apparently impossible
(4i7-i9j^ faith by which he both strengthened his
own manhood and gave glory to Grod (4^).
Abraham believed ' the gospel ' which was preached
to him beforehand, the gospel which designated
him as the medium of blessing to all the nations
(Gal 3*). And as his faith, apart from his works,
was counted to him for righteousness, he became
the representative believer, in whom all other
believers, without distinction, may recognize their
spiritual father. It is not Abraham's blood but
his spirit that is to be coveted (3-) ; those who are
of faith (o2 fK jriirreus) are ' sons of Abraham,' are
'blessed with the faithful Abraham' (3^-*'); uiwn
the Gentiles has come ' the blessing of Abraham '
(3") ; all who are Christ's, without any kind of
distinction, are 'Abraham's sons,' fulfilling, like
him, the conditions of Divine acceptance, and in-
heriting with him the Divine promises.
St. Paul uses the narratives of Genesis as he finds them.
Before the dawn of criticism the theolc^an did not raise the
question whether the patriarchal portraits were real or ideaL
To St. P;iul Abraham is a historical person who Uved 430 years
before Moses (Gal 31^, and who was not inferior to the great
prophets of Israel in purity of religious insight and strengUi of
inward piety. It is now almost universally believed that the
faith ascribed to the patriarchs was itself the result of a lonsr
historical evolution. But, while the maturer conceptions of a
later ajje are carried bock to Abraham, the patriarch is not dis-
solved into a creation of the reli^ous fancy. ' The ethical and
spiritual idea of God which is at the foundation of the religion
of Israel could only enter the world through a personal organ
of divine revelation ; and nothing forbids os to see in Abialuun
the first of that long series of prophets through whom God has
communicated to mankind a saving knowlwlge of Himself '
(Skinner, Genesit [ICC, 1910], p. xxviiX
2. In the Epistle of St. James St. James (2"»-»}
uses the example of Abraham to establish the
thesis, not that ' a man is justified by faith apart
from the works of the law ' (Ro 3»), but that ' by
works a man is justified, and not only by faith'
( Ja 2^). While the two apostles agree that
Christianity is infinitely more than a creed, being
nothing if not a life, they differ in their conception
of faith. The meaning which St. James attaches
to the word is indicated by his suggestion of
believing demons and dead faith (2''- »). St. Paul
would have regarded both of these phrases as con-
tradictions in terms, since all believers are con-
verted and all faith is living. Asked if faith must
not prove or justify itself by works, he would
have regarded the question as superfluous, for a
faith that means self-abandonment in passionate
adoring love to the risen Christ inevitably makes
the believer Christlike. St. James says in effect :
' Abraham believed God, pro\-ing his faith by
works, and it was counted to him for righteous-
ness.' With St. Paul righteousness comes between
faith and works ; with St. James works come
between faith and righteousness. Had St. James
been attacking either Galatians or Romans, and
in particular correcting St. Paul's misuse of the
example of Abraham, his polemic would have been
singularly lame. Such a theory does injustice to
his intelligence. But, if he was sounding a note
of warning against popular perversions of evangeli-
cal doctrine, St. Paul, who was often • slanderously
reported ' (Ro 3*), must have been profoundly grate-
ful to him. See, further, art. James, Epistle of.
It is interesting to note that Clement of Rome co.ordinatefl
the doctrines of the two apostles. Taking the typical example
of Abraham, he asks, ' Wherefore was our father Abraham
Messed ?' and answers, ' Was it not because he wrought right-
eousness aad truth through faith? ' (£p. ad Cor. § 31). If the
two types of doctrine could be r^arded as complementary sets
of troths, justice was done to both apofiUes. But the difference
assumed a dangerous form in the hard dermatic distinction of
the Schoolmen between fide* informis and fideg fomuUa turn
earitaU, the latter of which (along with the ' epistle of straw *
on which it seemed to be based) Luther so vehemently re-
pudiated.
3. In the Epistle to the Hebrews.— The writer
of Hebrews bases on the incident of Abraham's
meeting with Melchizedek (He 7 ; cf. Gn 14) an
argument for a priesthood higher than the Aaronic
order (v.*""^). To the king -priest of Salem
Abraham gave tithes, and from him received a
blessing, thereby owning his inferiority to that
majestic figure. As Abraham was the ancestor
of the tribe of Levi, the Aaronic priesthood itself
may be said to have been overshadowed in that
hour and ever afterwards by the mysterious order
of Melchizedek. This is the conception of the
writer of Ps 1 10, who identifies God's vicegerent,
seated on the throne of Zion, not with the Aaronic
order, but with the roj-al priesthood of Melchizedek.
When the Maccabees displaced the house of Aaron,
and concentrated in their own persons the kingly
and priestly functions, they found their justifica-
tion in the priestly dignity of Melchizedek. and
called themselves, in his style, ' priests of the
Most High ' (Charles, Book of Jubilees, 1902, pp.
lix and 191). Finally, when Christ had given a
Messianic interpretation of Ps 110, it was natural
that the writer of Hebrews should see the Aaronic
priesthood superseded by an eternal King-Priest
after the ancient consecrated order of Melchizedek.
For divergent critical views of the Abraham-Helchizedek
perioope of Gn 14 see Wellhausen, Comp.s, 1889, p. 211 t. ;
Gunkel, Geimis, 253; Skinner, Genesis, 269 f. Against
Wellhausen's theory that the story is a post-exilic attempt to
glorify the priesthood in Jerusalem, Gui^el and Skinner argue
for an antique traditional T
6
ABSTINENCE
ABSTINENCE
The writer of Hebrews illustrates his definition
of faith (11') by three events in the life of Abraham.
— (1) The i>atriarch left liis home and kindred,
and ' went out not knowing whither he went '
(He 11'). His faith was a sense of the unseen and
remote, as akin to the si)iritual and eternal. In
obedience to a Divine impulse he ventured forth
on the unknown, confident that his speculative
poradventure would be changed into a realized
ideal. The doubting heart says, ' Forward, though
I cannot see, I guess and fear ' ; the believing
spirit, ' Lookup, trust, benotafraid.' — (2) Abraham
remained all his life a sojourner {irdpoiKo^ Kal
■irap€-iriS7)iJ.os = 2^'^n]ii, Gn 23^) in the Land of Promise
(He 11*). He left his home in Chalda^a, and never
found another. Wherever he went he built an
altar to God, but never a home for himself. He
was encamped in many places, but naturalized in
none. His pilgrim spirit is related to his hope of
an eternal city — a beautiful conception transferred
to Genesis from the literature of the Maccab.-pan
period {En. 90»- =*, Apoc. Bar. 32»-* etc.).— (3) IJy
faith Abraham offered up Isaac, 'accounting that
God is able to raise up, even from the dead'
(He 11'*). Here again the belief of a later age
becomes the motive of the patriarch's act of
renunciation. The narrative in Gn 22 contains
no indication that the thought of a resurrection
flashed through his agonized mind.
LiTRRATURE.— F. W. Weber, Sj/st. der altsyn. paldstin.
Theol.ausTarpum, Mitlrasch, u. Talmud, 1880, ch. xix. ; J. B.
Lig:htfoot, Galatians, 1805, p. 158 if. ; Sanday-Headlain,
Romam'i, 1902, p. 102 ff. ; W. Beyschlagr, NT Theology,
1894-96, i. 364 ff. ; A. B. Bruce, St. Paul'sConceptiono/ Christi-
anity, 1896, p. ncf. ; G. B. Stevens, Theology of the NT,
1901, p. 289 ; B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the NT, 1882-83, i.
*37ff. James StRxMian.
ABSTINENCE. — /nfrorfMc^ion. — The whole of
morality on its negative side may be included
under Abstinence. Christian moral progress
(sanctification) includes a holding fast (Ka.Tixe<rOai)
of the good, and an abstaining from (iirix^irdai.)
eveiy form of evil (1 Th 5^"-). While Christianity
has general laws to distinguish the good from the
bad, yet for each individual Christian these laws
are focused in the conscience, and the function of
the latter is to discriminate between the good and
the bad — it cannot devolve this duty on out-
ward rules. With it the ultimate decision rests,
and on it also lies the responsibility (Ro 14*, He 5'*).
The lists of vices and virtues,* of 'works of the
flesh' and 'fruits of the spirit,' given in the NT
are not meant to be exhaustive, but typical ; nor
are they given to make needless the exercise of
Christian discernment. The NT is not afraid to
place in the Christian conscience the decision of
M'hat is to be abstained from and what is not,
because it believes in the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit, and because it exalts personal responsibility.
It is necessary to make this clear, because, as we
shall see, tiie ultimate tribunal of appeal in mat-
ters of abstinence in the ordinary sense (i.e. in
the sphere of things indiflferent) is the Christian
conscience. The ideal of Christian conduct is
sometimes said to be self-realization, not self-
suppression ; consecration, not renunciation. These
antitheses are apt to be misleading. In the self
with which Christianity deals there are sinful ele-
ments that have to be extirpated. Christian sanc-
tification takes place not in innocent men, but in
sinners who have to be cleansed from ail lilthiness
of the flesh and spirit (2 Co 7'). To purify oneself
(1 Jn 3') is not simply to realize oneself; it is to
do no sin.
In all moral conduct there is suppression ; in
Christian conduct there is extirpation. This nega-
• See Dobschiitz, Christian lAjt in the Primitivt Church,
Eng. ir., 1004, p. 406 ft., tor list*.
tivc side of Christian conduct is abstinence. It is
the crucifying of the flesh — death unto sin — and
it is the correlative of 'living to righteousness,'
' being risen with Cijrist,' etc. Abstinence in this
sense is an essential and ever-jjresent moment in
the Christian life.
More narrowly interpreted, abstinence is a re-
fraining from certfiin outward actions — as eating,
drinking, worldly business, marriage, etc. ^ It i»
thus applied to outward conduct, while continence
(^yKpdreia) is used of inward self-restraint. Cicero
makes this distinction, though, from the nature of
the case, he cannot always consistently apply it
(see Lewis and Short, Lat. Dict.,s.v. ' Abstinentia').
We may look first at the outward side of absti-
nence, ana then try to find out what the Christian
principles are (as these are unfolded in the apos-
tolic writings) that determine its nature and its
limits.
I. Ascetic practices. — 1. Pasting.— (a) Fast-
ing, or abstinence from food and drink, may be un-
avoidable or involuntary (e.g. Ac 27"' *^, 1 Co 4",
2 Co 60 • IP^* Ph4'2). Such fa.stings have a re-
ligious value only indirectly. They may overtake
the apostate as well as the apostle. If they are
caused by devotion to Christian service, they are, like
all other privations so caused, badges of fidelity ;
and they may be referred to with reasonable pride
by Christ's ministers (2 Co 6«- ll**). They ought
to silence criticism (cf. Gal 6", Avhere St. Paul
speaks of his bruises as (rriyfiaTa roO 'lr)ffov), and
they enforce Christian exhortation (Col 4"*, Eph 4').
On the principle that he who chooses the end
chooses the means, such fastings are real proofs of
fidelity to Christ. They are like the scars of the
true soldier.
(b) An absorbing pre-occupation with any pursuit
may be the cause of fasting. The arti.st or the
scientist may forget to take food, in the intensity
of his application to his work ; or any great emo-
tion like sorrow may make one 'forget to take
bread.' Such a fast we have in Ac 9", where St.
Paul, we are told, was witliout food for three days
after his conversion. As Jesus fasted in the wil-
derness (Mt 4'""), or at the well forgot His hunger
(Jn 4'"), so the ferment of the new life acted on
St. Paul thus also. Fasting is not the cause of
such pre-occupation, but the efiect ; and so its value
depends on the nature of the emotion causing it.t
Such involuntary privations, however, are not fast-
ing in the proper sense. In themselves they are
morally indifteient, as they may overtake any one
irrespective of moral conditions ; but, when borne
bravely and contentedly in the line of Christian
duty, they are not only indications of true faith,
but in turn they strengthen that faith (Ko 5*""\
Ph 4").
(c) Ileal fasting is purposive and voluntary. It
is a total or partial abstinence from food for an
unusual period, or from certain foods always or at
certain times, for a moral or religious end. Such
a fast is mentioned in Ac 13'-- ^ 14-'^ in connexion
with ordination. It is associated with prayer.
Some hold that it was the form to ' be i)ernianently
observed' in such cases (Ramsay, St. Paul, 1895,
p. 122). There is no mention, however, of fasting
at the appointment of Matthias (Ac 1-*), or of the
seven (6*). We cannot, therefore, take it as inher-
ently binding on Christian Churches at such solem-
nities. It is rather the survival of ancient religious
practices (like the fasting on the Day of Atone-
ment), which on the occasions referred to were
adopted through the force of custom, and served
• These are sometimes explained as voluntary tasts— to uae
Hooker's expression (Ecc. Pol. v. 72. 8) — but the contexts seem
decisive against that view.
t This was probably what Jesus had in view in the saying in
Mt 010.
ABSTINENCE
ABSTINENCE
to solemnize the proceedings. The Atonement fast
(Ac 27') is mentionetl only as a time limit after
which navigation was dangerous. It is not said
that St. Paul fasted on that day, though probably
he did.
These Jewish survivals were conserved without
investigation by the Palestinian Church, though,
after what Jesus had said on fasting, we may be-
lieve that the spiritual condition of the believer,
rather than the performance of the outward rite,
would be the essential element. Pharisaism, how-
ever, follows so closely on the heels of ritual that
in some quarters it very early influenced Christi-
anity (cf. Did. i. 3 : ' Fast for those who persecute
you' ; and Epiph. Hcer. Ixx. 11 : ' When they [i.e.
the Jews] feast, ye shall fast and mourn for them ' ;
cf. also Polycarp, vii. 2; Hermas, Vis. iii. 10. 6;
and, in the same connexion, the interpolations in
the NT [Mt 17", Mk 9^, Ac 10», 1 Co 7']). Even
the Pharisaic custom of fasting twice a week
(Monday and Thursday) was adopted in some
quarters, though these days were changed to Wed-
nesday and Friday {Did. viiL 1). These are the
later dies staticmum or orda-eu (cf. Clem. Alex.
Stnrm. vii 12, p. 877). See ERE v. 844^
To evaluate the practice of fasting, we must look
to the end aimed at and the eflScacy of this means
to attain that end. (1) In many cases it would be
mainly a viatter of tradition. On any eventful
occasion men might practise fasting, to ratify a
decLsion or induce solemnity, as those Jews did
who vowed to kill St. Paul (Ac 231^). Under such a
category would fall the Paschal and pre-baptismal
fasts. Though not mentioned in the XT, they
were early practised in the Christian Church (Ens.
HE V. 24 ; Did. viL ; Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 61).
There can be no doubt that ordination and bap-
tismal and Paschal fasts may serve to solemnize
these events, yet there is no warrant for making
them an ecclesiastical rule. In such traditional
fasting there is often, consciously or unconsciously,
implicated the feeling that God is thereby pleased
and merit acquired, and the result in sucn cases
is Pharisaic complacency and externalism. Jesus,
following the great prophets (Is 58^', Zee 8^*), had
relegated outward rites to a secondary place. He
demanded secrecy, sincerity, and simplicity in all
these matters, and the Apostolic Church never
wholly lost sight of His guidance. St. James,
while emphasizing the value of prayer (S^'"*"),
says nothing of fasting, and he makes real ritual
consist in works of mercy and blameless conduct
(l''^). Even when fasting was enjoined, the danger
of extemalism was recognized (Hermas, Sim. v. 1 ;
Barn. ii. 10 ; Justin Martyr, Dial. 15). St. Paul
had to prove that such fastings could not be re-
demptively of any value, that they were not bind-
ing, that they did not place the observer of them
on a higher spiritual plane than the non-obsener,
that even as means of discipline they were of
doubtful value, and that they were perpetually
liable to abuse (Col 2**).
(2) Fastings were used in certain cases to induce
ecstatic conditions. This is a well-known feature
in ap>ocalyptic writings. Perhaps the Colossian
heretics ffid this (cf. & idpaKtv ift^arevwy. Col 2'*).
St. John and the other Apostles ^vith him are said
to have fasted three days before writing the Fourth
Gospel (Muratorian fragment). The Apocalypse,
however, though a Spatm (vision), is lacking in
the usual accompaniments of a vision, viz. prayer
and fasting (contrast Hermas, Sim. v. 1). St.
Peter's vision (Ac 10*"^*) was preceded by hunger,
but it was not a voluntary fast ; nor is there any
reference to fasting in the case of St. Paul's visions
(Ac 16» 18«-, 2 Co 12"-), and the reference in the
case of Cornelius (Ac 10**) is a later interpolation.
It was more when direct prophetic inspiration be-
came a memory rather than when it was a reality
that men resorted to fasting in order to superin-
duce it.
(3) Fasting was resorted to also that alms might
be given out of the savings.
' If there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and
they have not an abundance of neoesBaries, they fast for two or
three days, that they may supply the needy with necessary
food ' (Aristides, Apob>sn, ^ct.). Ct also Hennas, Sim. r.3.7:
' Reckon up on this day what thy meal would oth^wise have
cost thee, and give the amount to some poor widow or orphan,
or to the poor.'
Origen (horn. >» Levit. x.) quotes an apostolic
saying which supports this practice :
'We have found in a certain booklet an apostolic saying,
"Blessed is also he who fasts that he may feed the poor"'
(' Invenimus in quodam libeDo ab apostolis dictom — Beatus est
qui etiam jejunal pro eo ut alat pauperem '),
This saying might legitimately be deduced from
such passages as Eph 4^ and Ja 2'^, but the prac-
tice easily associated itself with the idea of fasting
as a work of merit.
' More powerful than prayer is &ksting, and more than both
alms.' 'Alms abolish sins' (2 Clem. xvi. 4 ; cf. Hermas, Sim.
v. 3).
Fasting done out of Christian love to the brethren
is noble ; but, when done to gain salvation, it be-
comes not only profitless but dangerous. ' Though
I give all my goods to feed the poor and have not
love, it proliteth me nothing' (1 Co 13*).
(4) Again, fasting may have been viewed as
giving potcer over demons (cf. Clem. Horn. ix. 9;
Tertullian, de Je^'unOs, 8 : ' Docuit etiam adversus
diriora demonia jejuniis praeliandum ' ; cf. Mt 17**,
Mk 9^). Some find this view in the narrative of
the Temptation (see EBi, art. ' Temptation '). This
view of fasting, grotesque as it appears to us, is
akin to the truth that surfeiting of the body dulls
the spiritual >nsion, and that the spiritual life is a
rigorous discipline (cf. 1 Co 9^'^).
What strikes one in the apostolic writings gener-
ally, as contrasted with later ecclesiastical litera-
ture, is the scarcity of references to fasting as
an outward obser\ance. Nowhere is the tradi-
tional Church ascetic held up to imitation in the
NT, as Eusebius [HE ii. 23) holds up St. James, or
Clement of Alexandria (P«rf. iL 1) St. Matthew, or
the Clem. Hom. (xii. 6, xv. 7) St. Peter, or Epiph-
anius {Hcer. Ixxviii. 13) the sons of Zebedee.
In the NT the references to fasting are almost
all incidental, and apologetic or hostile. It is
regarded as due to weakness of faith, or positive
perversion. Neither St. John, St. James, St.
Jude, nor St. Peter once mentions it as a means
of grace. This sUenee, it is true, ought not to be
unduly pressed ; yet it is surely a proof that they
considered fasting as of no essential importance.
Its revival in the Christian Church was due to
traditionalism and legalism on the one hand, and
to ascetic dualism (Orphic, Platonic, Essenic) on
the other. In the NT the latter influence is
strenuously opposed (Colossians and Pastorals),
and the former is as vigorously rejected when it
makes itself necessary to salvation, although it is
tenderly treated when it is only a weak leaning
towards old associations. The whole spirit of
apostolic Christianity regards fasting as of little
or no importance, and the experience of the
Christian Church seems to be that any value it
may have is infinitesimal compared with the evils
and perversions that seem so inseparably associ-
ated ^vith it. According to Eusebius (HE v. 18),
Montanus was the first to give laws to the Church
on fasting. The NT is altogether opposed to such
ecclesiastical laws. The matter is one for the indi-
vidual Christian intelligence to determine (Ro 14*).
St. Paul's language in 1 Co 9^**- has been ad-
duced in support of self-torture of all kinds ; but,
while we must not minimize the reality of Christian
8
ABSTINENCE
ABSTINENCE
discipline, nothing can be legitimately deduced
from this passage or any other m favour of fasting
or flagellation as a general means of sanctilication,
nor is the Apostle's view based on a dualism which
looks on matter and tlie human body as inherently
evil. It may be said that interjiolations like
1 Co 7* (cf. Ac 1(P. Mt 17", Mk \f^) reveal tlie
beginniiif^s of that ascetic resurgence Avhich
reached its climax in monastic austerities, and
that there is at least a tinge of ascetic dualism in
certain I'auline passages (e.g. llo 8'*, 1 Co 6" 7^'"
9", 2 Co 4>''- '», Col 3*) : but even those who hold
this view of these Pauline passages admit 'that there
is very little asceticism, in the ordinary sense, in
St. Paul's Epistles, while there is much that makes
in the opposite direction ' (McGilFert, Apostol. Age,
1897, p. 136). We shall see, however, when we
come to deal with the principles of abstimnuc us
unfolded by St. Paul, that even this iniiiiiuum
residuum has to be dropped.
We may conclude, then, that, according to the
NT, fasting is not enjoined or even recommended
as a spiritual lielp. The ideal is life with the Risen
Christ, which involves not only total renunciation
of all sinful actions but self-restraint in all conduct.
When the individual Christian finds fasting to be a
part of this self-restraint, then it is useful ; but one
fails to find any proof in the NT that fasting is
necessarily an element of self-restraint. When it
is an effect of an absorbing spiritual emotion, or
when practised to aid the poor, or involuntarily
undergone in the straits of Christian duty, then it
is highly commendable.
2. The use of wine. — While drunkenness as
well as gluttony is sternly condemned, nowhere is
total abstinence, in our sense, enforced. In one
passage it has even been contended that St. Paul
indirectly opposes it {1 Ti 5''^), but his words in our
time would be simply equivalent to medical advice
ti) llic cH'oct that total abstinence as a jirinciple
must lie subordinated to bodily health. Thus, while
total abstinence is in itself not an obligatory duty,
it may become so on the principle that we ought
not to do anything by which our brother stumbles,
or is offended, or is made weak (I Co 8'*). This
principle, which is equally applicable to fasting,
must l>e considered in deciding the Christian at-
titude towards all outward observances. While
Christianity recognizes the indifferent nature of
these customs, wliile its liberty frees Christians
from their observance, yet cases may arise when
this liberty lias to be suf>ordinated to love and the
interests of Christian unity. In 1 Co 8 the Apostle
is dealing with the conditions of his own time ; our
conditions did not engage his attention. Christian
abstainers can find an adequate defence for their
position in the degrading associations of strong
drink in our modern life. On the other hand, total
abstinence from strong drink is no more a univer-
.sally binding duty than fasting is, nor are ecclesi-
astical rules called for in the one case more than in
the other.* Both the.se customs fall within the
sphere of things indifferent, and are to be deter-
mined by the individual in the light of the nature
of the Christian life, which is 'neither meat nor
drink, Imt righteousness, peace, and joy in the
Holy Ghost '(Ko 14'').
3. Marriage and celibacy. — We are not here
concerned with the NT doctrine of marriage (q.v.)
in its totAlity, but with the question as to whether
celibacy is commanded as a superior grade of living,
and as to whether this is basnl on a dualistic view
which regards the sexual functions as in their very
nature evil. To begin with, marriage is viewed by
St. Paul as being in general a human necessity, as
• The ' water-folk ' found in the Eastern Church in the Srd
cent, (who objected to wine at the Lord's Supper), cannot
appeal to NT principles for a Justification of their actions.
indeed a preventive against incontinency. It is a
' part of his greatness that, in spite of his own
somewhat ascetic temperament, he was not blind
to social and phy.siological facts' (Drummond,
quoted in EGT on 1 Th 4''). He recommends those
who can to remain single as he is himself. In view
of the approaching world-end in which he believed,
marriage meant tlie multii)lication of troubles that
would make fidelitjyr to Christ more difficult ; and
perhaps in this light also the jjropagation of the
race was undesirable. It is possible also that he
may have been here influenced unconsciously by
liis Ilabbinical training, and that he interpreted
liis own case as too generally applicable. He was
a celibate for the Kingdom of lleaven's sal-cp (Mt
ig'"''*), and he m<ay have made the mi- •''<'•
siring to universalize his own exception
Yet there is no ground for the view tii.u (•(•iiiiacy
in itself is a superior form of life.* St. Paul does
not say that it can produce that life or is neces.sarj
to it, but when it is a consequence of it, then it is
of value. It is the supremacy of single-liearted
devotion to Christ that he holds out as an ideal,
and liis view is that in some cases marriage en-
dangers this. Again, marriage is not to him
simply a preventive against uncleanness (see art.
Soberness). It is also the object of sanctilication,
and its relations have their own honour (1 Th 4'';
see Marriage, Virginity). He uses it as an
illustration of the highest relationship ; lieoppo.ses
those who prohibit it (1 Ti 4'-) owing to a false
asceticism. It is true he does not there give
reasons, as he does in the case of abstinence from
food, because the same principle applies to both
cases. While, then, we may admit that on this ques-
tion his view Avas narrow, we may say with Sjibatier
(The Apostle Paul, Eng. tr., 1891, p. 164) that ' this
narrowness, for which he has been so greatly
blamed, does not arise from a dualistic asceticism.
There is no dualism to be found in Paul's doctrine.'
4. World-flight is not encouraged in the NT.
Slaves even are warned to abide in their situations,
knowing that they are God's freemen (see art.
Abuse). The necessity of labour is unfolded in
the Thessalonian Epistles, against the practice of
those who had given up work under escfiatological
influences. World-flight is not conquering the
world, but rather giving up the idea of conquering
it, abandoning the battlefield, and, as such, is
contrary to the apostolic view. St. Paul did not,
it is true, expatiate after the manner of modern
moralists on the dignity of labour.t but he did
insist on ' the divineness of those obligations and
ties which constitute man's social life. . . .' The
instituti(ms of society — ' marriage, the stat«, the
rights of possession — are of Divine aj)iiointment,
and must be ui)held and honoured, however short
the time before the order to which they belong
shall pass away forever' (Stevens, Theol. of NT,
1899, p. 454).
II. ^SCJS27C 7';iV.\(7y7./;,s.— Abstineiui- is wider
than fasting or outward observances ; it imitlies
principles by which these external actions arc
determined, and it keeps in view also the inner
reality of which they are the expression. It in-
cludes character as well as conduct. Indeed, it is
this inward reality which is mainly of value in the
Christian ideal of abstinence.
1. The verb Ao-kciv occurs only once in the NT
(Ac 24'"), in this sense of a life whose activities are
explained, in the way Itoth of omission and com-
mission, by an inner i>rinciple. St. Paul was
accused of deliberatelj' oflending Jewisli legal sus-
• Ilarnack (on Did. \\. S) thinks Eph 53* recommends
celihftcy as a higher life for the Christian. See, however,
Schaff, The Oldexl Church Mniwul, )8S5, p. 202.
1 See llarnack's Whitt is Chriatiniiiti/i (Eiip. tr., 1004, p.
12:jfr.)for remarks qualifying the idea underlying the phrase,
' the di;;nity of labour.'
ABSTINENCE
ABSTINENCE
ceptibilities. He denies the charge. While he
adheres to the heresy of 'the Way,' he does so
without intentionally coming into collision with
the cu.stoms or prejudices of others. Not only so,
but his plan is a studied attempt to conform to
all customs of Jew and Gentile, of 'weak' and
'strong,' consistently with his faithfulness to God
and his being under law to Christ. This is his
&aKi)aii for the gospel's sake (1 Co 9**"**). His
whole life is an illustration of tliis. He yielded to
Jewish susceptibilities (Ac 16^ 18'* 21**), and bore
^vith Gentile immaturity (1 Th 2^"^*). This con-
duct was not due to fickleness or guile (1 Co 2",
I Th 23), but to love (2 Co 5^^-), and it was done
in simplicity and godly sincerity of conscience
(2 Co P-, Ac 24'*). It was different from the love-
less superior liberty of Corinthian liberalism, and
from tlie servile man-pleasing of weak Judaism
(Gal 1. 2). It was, in short, a reproduction of that
*r^p&w« of self (so different from selfish human ac-
quisitiveness) which was tie great feature of the
life of Christ (Ph 28).
To St. Paul this involved very real asceticism.
In striking language he figures himself as in the
course of his Christian race undergoing privations,
abstinences, and self-discipline as great as any
runner for the Isthmian prize or as any pugilist.
It is not simply that this asceticism involved
abstinence from sin — Christianity demands that
from all ; it involved also the giving up of privi-
leges and rights, and the denial to self of anything
that would hinder his being sure of the prize or
that would weaken others or cause them to stumble.
It is a warning to Christian liberalism in Corinth
not to degenerate into licence and so to fall.
Christian asceticism is the remedy against this.
We are not to infer that St. Paul practised bodily
torture, that he went, as it were, out of his way to
invent austerities, self-imposed fastings, or flagella-
tions. What he refers to here is the effect on his
whole life of his absorbing passion for men's salva-
tion. That was the expulsive power which made
him an ascetic in this sense, which made him
abnegate his rights of maintenance at Thessalonica
and Corinth, which made him work at night though
preaching through the day, which overcame liis
bodily weaknesses, which brought him into dangers
by land and sea without being deterred by the fear
of pain or privation.
Nor was this d<r»c7j<j-tj of his a superior form of life
which was binding only on a few choice souls. St.
Paul has no double morality. No one can empty
himself too much for Christ or endure too much
for Him. In this way must we explain the mani-
fold passages where the Cliristian life is compared
to a race, to an athletic contest, to military life and
warfare. Just as the.se involve abstinence, so also
does Christianity. This asceticism is, however, not
arbitrarily imposed or cunningly invented ; it is
the consequence of fidelity to Christ's cause. It
arises out of the very nature of the Christian life.
Its outward manifestation is accidental. What is
essential is the presence of the self-denying spirit,
which sjiends and is spent willingly out of love to
Christ. It is a complete perversion to suppose that
outward austerities can create this spint. Out-
ward hardships of any sort must be effects, not
causes. This Christian asceticism is not due to
any dLsparagenient of the body or undervaluation
of earthly relationships or a false view of matter.
The asceticism bom of these is at best only a
aa/MTiKi) yvfivaa^ia* (1 Ti 4"'-), while Christian as-
ceticism is one whose end is piety. The one is of
little profit, the other of eternal worth. This
gymnastic for holiness arises out of the provi-
* This (Tu^artKT; yvfivaaia is not athletics in our sense ; it is a
bodily discipline dictated by a philosophico-relig^ous view of
the body— a dualistic view of things (cf. 1 Ti i^).
dential disciplines furnished copiously by a strict
adherence to the line of Christian duty. It is the
KOTiav cat dveioi^fffOau, the exhaustive labouring, and
the abuse (or earnest conflict Idyayvii^fffOcu]) of the
man who sets his hope on the living God (1 Ti 4'*').
2. What, then, are the principles that determine
thQ nature and limits of Christian abstinence?
We may learn these by considering the general
word for ' abstinence ' (irexfffOct) in the NT
(Ac I5=»- ^, 1 Th 43 5^, 1 Ti 4», 1 P 2'i). These
principles did not disengage themselves all at once
in the Church's consciousness. The first real
attempt at such a disengagement is found in the
so-called Apostolic Decree (Ac 15). This was
nothing more than a working compromise to ease
the existing situation. Attempts have been made
often and early to moralize it and so find in it a
valid basis for Christian abstinence. Thus ' blood '
was explained as ' homicide,' and ' things strangled '
were omitted, as in Codex D ; but such attempts
are beside the point as surely as the attempts to
judaize the document completely by making ' forni-
cation' mean 'marriage ■within the prohibited
degrees.' For our purpose the Decree is valuable
historically rather than morally. It is a land-mark
in the liberating of Christianity from ceremonial
Judaism, similar to the evangelizing of Samaria
by Philip and his baptizing of the eunuch, or the
dealing of St. Peter with Cornelius. It does not,
however, supply a logical or lasting basis for
abstinence. Such a basis is furnished by St. Paul
(1 Th 4'-8, 1 Co 6'--» Gal 5'* etc. ; cf. 1 P 2").
The ground of Christian abstinence is found in the
nature of the Christian life, which is a holy calling
— a fellowship with the Holy One — whose animat-
ing principle is the Holy Spirit. The Christian
man — body, soul, and spirit — is in union with
Christ. Hence the verjr nature of the Christian
life gives a positive principle of abstinence. Every-
thing carnal is excluded. 'The carnal mind is
enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be' (Ro 8^). This deter-
mines positively what is of necessity to be avoided,
and lists of these sins are given m the NT (see
above, Introduction). These are ' the works of the
flesh.' At the very lowest foundation of the
Christian life there must be personal purity.
ayiafffi6s is wholly opposed to axadapffla (1 Th 4'^).
Some have maintained that St. Paul tends to
regard sanctification as mainly absence from
sensual sin (Wemle, Beginnings of Christianity,
Eng. tr., 1904, ii. 334), and others that he, possibly
from his own bitter experience of this sin, empha-
sized this aspect of sanctification (A. B. Bmce,
St. Paul's Conception of Christ ianiiy, 1894, p. 264).
But St. Paul's view of sanctification includes the
whole personality. He was keenly alive to the
* inconceivable e\\\ of sensuality, although he
himself had the charism of continence (1 Co f).
The reason for his emphasis on personal purity is
found in the immoral state of Grecian cities — ' the
bottomless sexual depra\-ity of the heathen world '
(Scliaft", op. cit. p. 202)— and in the sensual bias of
human nature. Christians had to learn this grace
of purity (1 Th 4^).
The Christian life, then, is a positive life— a life
that is being sanctified ; and this includes all along
a negative element, for Christianity does not deal
with innocent men, but with sinners. Hence the
crucifying of the flash, with its affections and lusts,
and the mortifying of the bodily members are just
the negative side of advance in Iioliness.
It is sometimes held that at first St. Paul's
teaching on this ix)int was tinged with dualism,
and that he tended to regard the body itself as
essentially evil, and that it was only later on, when
the full consequences of his early views were carried
into eflect, as in Colossians and the Pastorals,
10
ABSTINENCE
ABSTINENCE
that he came to repudiate this dualistic asceticism
(IJaring (iould, A Study of St. Paul, 1897 [see
Index, under ' Asceticism ']), or it is maintained
that his attitude towards the flesh changes — that
at times he views it as something to be extirpated,
while at other times and oftener * liis exliortations
to his Christian readers have reference commonly
not to the Cliristian's attitude towards his fleshly
nature, but to his relation to Christ or the Divine
Spirit within him' (McGitt'ert, Apostol. Age, p.
137 f.)- The truth is tliat the change was not m
St. Paul's principle, but in the circumstances and
conditions with which he happened to be at any
time dealing, and that this opposition between a
negative and a positive attitude is not a contra-
diction, but only exhibits the opposite sides of the
one Christian principle of sanctihcation. Abstain-
ing and retaining, pruning and growth, are not
contradictories but complements. Even McGiflert,
as we have seen, admits that 'there is very little
asceticism, in the ordinary sense, in Paul's epistles,
while there is much that makes in the opposite
direction ' (op. r.it. \t. 136). These distinctions,
however, are largely irrelevant. To St. Paul the
Christian life was a life of sanctification, and this
included both aspects.
This positive principle, then, of Christian abstin-
ence is found in the very nature of the Christian
life, which includes the aflirmation of all the per-
sonality and its relationships as instruments of
the spirit, and also the negation of the flesh and the
world, or of personality and its relationships as
alienated from the Spirit of God,
This principle, just because it contained these
two moments, was apt to be misunderstood. Its
twofold unity was apt to be disrupted, and we may
well believe that the later Gnostic dualism and
licentious libertinism may both have appealed to
the authority of St. Paul. The Apostle, however,
had a .'<econa principle of abstinence which helps us
to correct this antagonism. He clearly distin-
guished between those things that in their very
nature were hostile to the Christian life and those
things that were indilferent. The neglect or abuse
of this principle is apt to confuse the whole ques-
tion of abstinence. The difficulty is intensified by
the fact that in this region of the indillerent we are
dealing with the application of a universal principle
to changing conditions, so that, to use logical
language, while the major premiss is the same,
the minor premiss varies, antf thus the right con-
clusion has to be discovered from the nature of the
conditions with which we are for tiie moment deal-
ing. Thus we lind that the conditions at Kome
and Corinth were not the conditions present in
Colossians or the Pastorals, and accordingly St.
Paul deals with each according to its merits. His
general principle in regard to indifferent things is,
'All things are lawful.' This is universally ap-
plicable only inside this universe of discourse. It
18 not applicable to our relation to those things
that by their very nature are inimical to the
Christian life. To apply the principle to the
latter sphere is to degenerate into libertinism such
as St. John, St. Jude, and St. Peter had to face.
While St. Jude and St. Peter are content with
combating this libertinism mainly by denunciation
and exhortations to Christians, St. John applies
St. Paul's positive principle of al)stinence to refute
it. He pomta out the inadmissibility of sin (1 Jn
2^'*). By this neither he nor St. Paul means per-
fectionism, nor yet are they speaking ideally of the
Christian life. It is not true, as the Gnostics say,
that the gold of Christianity is not injured by the
mud of impurity (Irenajus, c. Hcer. i. 6. 2). Some
so explained the saying ascrilwd to Nicholas (cf.
Rev 2®- "), Sfiv TrapaxpriaOai txj aapKl (' the flesh must
be abused'). According to Clem. Alex. {St ruin.
ii. 20), ' abandoning themselves like goats to
pleasure, as if insultmg the body, they lead a life
of self-indulgence.' It is this that St. Jolin is con-
futing in these jjerfectionist passages, just as St.
Paul confutes ascetic severity towards the body in
Colossians, by pointing to the nature of the new
life the Christian has in Christ.
This Christian principle of abstinence, then,
' All things are lawful,' does not apply to sin. It
has further limitations. These are unfolded in
1 Cor. and Romans. The abstainers in both tliese
cases were in the minority. They did not base
their views on a material dualism. They were
under the influence of an atmosphere rather than
a system, and they were apt to be treated in a
liigh-handed fashion. They were not endangering
the very basis of Christianity as a free service of
God, as the Galatians were. Hence they had to
be defended rather than condemned. St. Paul
says all he can in their favour, although he ranges
himself in principle on the other side. He tells
the advocates of liberty that love is superior to the
Christian's freedom towards tilings indiflerent, that
it makes liberty look as much on the weakness of
others as on its own strength. The interests of
brotherly love and Christian unity make liberty
impose restraints on itself. This restraint is a
noble asceticism. 'The liberty of faith is found
in the bondage of love ' (Sabatier, Paul, p. 163).
He warns the advocates of liberty also that they
may .ipply this jirinciple to matters that are
essential and not indiflerent. This warning was
necessary, because idolatry was so identified with
all social functions that it was difficult to escape it.
Why not — to advert to the coming conditions —
adore the image of the Emperor ? Why not throw
incense into the fire ? Just because by so doing
the first and major principle of Christian abstin-
ence was destroyed, viz. that it was a holy life in
fellowship Avith the risen Christ ; and its second
principle of freedom in things indiflerent did not
consequently apply.
Yet this second principle was distinctly valuable.
It was a great step in advance to have it clearly
enunciated. For the weak brother, as in Galatia,
might become intolerant ; he might become the
victim of false views, which would look on the ob-
servance of indiflerent rites as a necessary quali-
fication of full salvation and Cliristian privilege.
Then Christian liberty in its fullness must be
maintained (Gal 5'). This liberty — rightly under-
stood— contains in itself the real principle of ab-
stinence from what is sinful. Nowliere have we
fuller lists of the works of the flesh given than in
the Galatian Epistle.
Or, again, as in Colossians and the Pastorals,
a false asceticism might be present which re-
garded matter and body as evil, in which case
both principles would be used to destroy such a
view.
(a) In regard to indifferent matters like food
and drink God has given freedom. The argument
is the same as that used by Jesus when He purified
all meats (Mk 7'"). These minutijie of fasting are
human inventions, not Divine commands ; and to
respect them casuistically is to blur the distinction
between the essential and the indiflerent. We get
what God meant us to get from perishable meats
when we joyfully use them with a thankful spirit
towards God. They, like the bodily appetites
which they satisfy, do not belong to the eternal
world, but to the natural. Yet the natural world
and its relations to us, our bodies and their re-
quirements, are of God and can all be used to His
f^lory. Our bodies, souls, and spirits are His. It
is not by using severity towards the body or by
abstaining from marriage or leaving our earthly
callings that we can gain further sanctification. In
ABUSE, ABUSERS
ABYSS
11
fact, St. Paul says that this d^iSi'a ffw/xaroi —
severity towards the body — is of little practical
value (Col 2^). Its aim is to destroy the wxiy, not
to tit it for God's service. Logically carried to its
issue, this false asceticism would not only enfeeble
the soul by debasing the body, but would destroy
the body and matter altogether. But God's ideal
for the Wly is different (cf. Ph 3"), so that what
is to be aimed at by the Christian is the destruc-
tion of the flesh (<rdpi), not of the body as such
{ffwua).
But (b) the Apostle uses the primary principle of
Christian abstinence to refute this dual is tic asceti-
- cism. He shows that Christianity is not a matter
of prohibitions, but of a renewed lue — a walking in
the Spirit. Asceticism at its best leaves the house
empty. It is doubtful from history and physiology
if it can even do that, but the new life in Chnst
has an expulsive power against sin and a construc-
tive power of holijiess.
These, then, are the principles that govern Chris-
tian abstinence : (1) The Christian life as a ' holy
calling ' demands abstinence from all sin. This pro-
hibits not only sinful actions but sinful thoughts.
This is what may be called essential abstinence.
(2) Besides this, there may be abstinence in in-
different matters, but it rests with the individual
conscience to determine when this is necessary
for the furtherance of the new life in Christ.
This sphere by its verj- nature is not subject to
obligatory ecclesiastical rules, nor must such ab-
stinence be made the basis of salvation or of a
higher moral platform, nor must it be based on a
false view of matter or of the htiman body or of
human relationships.
See also artt. SELF-DENIAli and Temperakce.
LrrBRATTRX. — Consult the books referred to in the article and
the Tarious Commentaries. See also J. B. Lightfoot, Coloi-
«ian«3, 1S79, p. 3»7 ff. ; C E. Latfaardt, Christian Ethic*
be/ort the Rtformatioiv, tr. Hastie, Edinbargb, 1SS9; O.
Zbclder, Kritigehe Geteh. der Atkae, Frankfurt am M., 1897 ;
A. Hamack, HistoTy of Dogma, Eog. tr., 1894-99; H. J.
Holtzmann, ST TAMrfoyie, Tubingen, 1911, bk. iv. ch. vii.;
A. B. D. Alexander, The JSthies of St. Paul, Glasgow, 1910 ;
A. Ritschl, Entitehung der attkathoL Kirehe, Bomi, 1867, p.
173ff. ; E. Hatch, The Jnfumee of Greek Ideas and Usages
upon the Christian C/turat (Hibbert Itecture, 1888X London,
1890, Lecture vi. DONALD MACKENZIE.
ABUSE, ABUSERS.— The Latin abator means
either (1) ' use badly,' ' misuse,' or (2) ' use to the
full.' In this second sense Cicero uses the word
of spending one's whole leisure time with a friend
(see Lewis and Short, Latin Diet., s.v. ' Abutor ').
The Greek verb Karaxpdofiai had both these mean-
ings. Thus in Plato {3Jeticx. 247 A) it means
' use wrongly ' ; and Clem. Alex. Pwd. i. (p. 142,
Potter) speaks of ' using fully every device of wis-
dom.' In older English the verb had both mean-
ings. Cranmer's Bible has ' abuse '=' use to the
full ' in Col 2*=. In both 1 Co 7*' and 9^* Karaxpdofiai
means ' use to the full.' The RV translates it so in
9'* and marginally so in 7*'.
(«) 1 Co 7^. — The connexions {e.g. marriage),
circumstances (e.g. sorrow and joy), and concerns
{e.g. business and wealth) of life have in Christianity
an emotional interest. Stoicism would expel these
emotions and leave the soul empty. Christianity
determines them eschatologically (cf. 1 Co 7^^ '^^).
To avoid abuse of the world is to use it sub specie
finis. Abuse here borders nu our meaning of
misuse (cf. French abuser — on abuse ceiui qui se
laisse captiver ; and Mark Pattison's note on Pope's
Essay on Man, iL 14) ; and that perhaps is why
RV retains 'abuse.' Texts like this apply in
their original freshness and strength to times of
crisis (cf. Luthers hymn, ' Gut, Ehre, Kind, und
TTeib . . . lass fahren dahin'), when the dissolu-
tion of society seems imminent, but in essence they
aie applicable to all time, as human life is always
uncertain. They do not, however, encourage aloof-
ness from or slackness in social duties (cf. St. Paul's
attitude towards the non-workers in Thessalonica,
2 Th 3'**-).
(i) 1 Co 9".— One phase of St. Paul's accommodat-
ing conduct {ffvyKard^cufts) for the gospel's sake
was the voluntary abridgment of his rights of
maintenance by the Corinthians ( 1 Co 9''"", 2 Co 1 1*).
This accommo<iation must be distinguished from
men-pleasing (cf. Gal 1'*). As the height of right
may be the height of injury {summum ivs summa
iniuria), so conversely the abnegation of Christian
rights for the gospel's sake enhances the power of
both Evangelist and Evangel (ct Mk KP**).
Summary. — A lawful use of the world (1 Co 7")
or even of Christian rights (9^*) becomes harmful
when dissociated from eternal issues, or pursued
without regard to others. The lower planes of life
gain simiiicance in subordination to the highest.
Rights legally due may, if pressed without r^ard
to love, become injurious.
(c) In 1 Co 6' and 1 Ti 1^" dfurepoKoiTtu is translated
' abusers of themselves with mankind ' (cf. Ro 1^
written from Corinth). This unnatural vice is that
known in Greek literature as xat5epo<rrta. In St.
Paul's view sins of tmcleanness were the inevitable
Divine penalty of forgetfulness of God — a view
strengthened by the association between unclean-
ness and the worship of Aphrodite in places like
Corinth.
Lttkrature. — Grimm-Thayer, s.v. KaTaxpao/iai; HDB,
ToL L art 'Abuae'; the Comm. on above paasages, e.g.
Edwards in EGT and Band-Com. ; cf. also C. J. Vanghan.
Lessons of Life and Godliness, London, 1870, Sermon six. ;
F. W. Robertson, Sermons, vol. in. sermon xir. ; W. G.
Blaikie, Present Day Tracts, no. 4, 'Christiaaity and the
Life that now is.' On ■nulfpatrna. oonmtt W. A. Becker,
CharUdes, 3 vols., Beiiin, 1877-78, roL iL p. 252 ff.
Donald Mackenzie.
ABYSS.— This is the RV rendering of the word
A^wraot which occurs in Lk 8^', Ro 10", Rev g*- *• "
ll'17«2(H-». In Lk. and Rom., AV translates 'deep';
in Rev., * bottomless pit ' — no distinction, however,
being made between rb 4>piap riji d^vcaov in 9^-'
(RV ' the pit of the abyss') and ^ ei^waos simply
in the remaining passages (RV 'the abyss').
i^vaffos (from a intens. and /3wr<r6j, Ion. for ^v06s,
'the depth') occurs in classical Greek as an adj.
meaning ' bottomless,' but in biblical and ecclesi-
astical Greek almost invariably as a substantive
denoting ' the bottomless place,' ' the abyss.' The
word is found frequently in the LXX, usually
as a rendering of the Heb. t'hOm, and primarUy
denotes the water-deeps which at tirst covered the
earth (Gn 1*, Ps 103 (104)®) and were conceived of
as shut up afterwards in subterranean storehouses
(32 (33)'). In Job 38«'- the abyss in the sense of
the depths of the sea is used as a parallel to
Hades ; and in 41^ (LXX) the sea-monster regards
the Tartarus of the abyss as his captive. In Ps
70 (71)^ ' the abyss ' is applied to the depths of the
earth, and is here evidently a figurative equiva-
lent for Sheol, though it is nowhere used in the
LXX to render the Heb. word. In the later Jewish
eschatology, where Sheol has passed from its OT
meaning of a shadowy under world in which there
are no recognized distinctions between the good
and the bad, the wicked and the weary (cf. Job 3",
Ec 9*), and has become a sphere of <Iefinite moral
retribution, the conception of the abjss has also
undergone a moral transformation. The Ethiopian
Book of Enoch is especially suggestive for the
development of the eschatological conceptions that
appear in pre-Christian Judaism ; and in the earliest
part of that book the fallen angels and demons are
represented as cast after the final judgment into
a gulf (xaos) of fire (10"- "), whUe in 2F the chasm
(SmucoxtJ) filled with fire (cf. rb it>p^ap in Rev 9>- *) is
described as bordered by the abyss. Apparently
12
ACCEPTANCE
ACCEPTANCE
the abyss was conceived of as the proper home of
tlie devil and his anj^els, in the centre of which
was a lake of lire reserved as the place of their
final punishment.
The previous history of the word explains its use
in the NT. In Ko 10', where lie is referring to Dt
30'^, St. Paul uses it simply as the abode of the dead,
Sheol or Hades — a sense equivalent to that of Ps 70
(7 1 )■'*'. In Lk 8'' the penal uspect of the abyss comes
clearly into view ; it is a place of confinement for
demons. In Rev. we are in the midst of the visions
and imaijes of apocalyptic eschatology. In 9'' *
' the pit of the abyss' sends forth a snioKe like the
smoke of a great furnace. The abyss has an angel
of its own whose name is Abaddon (q.v.) or Apoll-
yon (v."). From it 'the beast' issues (IV 17*),
and into it ' the old serpent which is the Devil and
Satan ' is cast for a thousand years (20^'^).
LiTBRATURK.— The Conimentaries and Bible Dictionaries ; art-
•Abyss' \nERE. J. C. LAMBERT.
ACCEPTANCE.— The noun itself is not found in
the AV of the NT, though we come very near it in
' acceptation ' (dTroSoxi?), 1 Ti P' 4*. Instances of
the verb and adjective are frequent, and are mostly
equivalents of 54xo/iai and its derivatives, as the
following list shows: 5^xoM»'i 2 Co 6^ 8'^ IP;
OfKrdi, I'll 4'* ; d.ir65eKTOi, 1 Ti 2^ 5^ ; TrpoaSixof^"''-)
He Ipo ; €virp6<rd€KTos, Ilo 15i«- ^S 2 Co 6^ 8^\ 1 P 2«.
We also find Xafi^dvw, Gal 2*; evdpicrTos* Ko 12'- ^
14>«, 2 Co 5», Eph 5'», Ph 4^8, Col 3^», Tit 2^, He IS^^,
and £vap4(rrus,* He 12^ ; x<^P"» 1 P 2'^ ; and xapt7-6w,
Eph P. It should be noticed that in the RV the
adjective ' well-pleasing ' often takes the place of
tlie AV ' acceptable ' ; and that in Eph P the
familiar expression ' (his grace) wherein he hath
made us accepted in the Beloved' gives place to
the more correct ' which he freely bestowed upon
us,' etc. See the commentaries of Westcott and
Armitage Robinson, in loc.
2 Co 8^^ (Titus ' accepted the exhortation ') and
He U"* ('not accepting deliverance') do not call
for comment. With 2 Co IP on the non-accept-
ance of another gospel than that of Paul, compare
1 Ti P and 4\ 2 Ti P' 4'" ; see also for the * accepted
time' (the day of opportunity for accepting the
Divine message) 2 Co B^'^ (cf. Lk 4i»). In Ko W^
St. Paul hopes that the collection for the Jerusalem
poor may be acceptable to the saints ; and, refer-
ring to the same proiect in 2 Co 8'^, lays down the
principle that contributions are acceptable in pro-
portion to the willingnesswith which tliey are given.
We are now left with the passages which speak
of God's acceptance of man. Christians are ' child-
ren of light,' are to 'prove what is acceptable (or
well-pleasing) to the Lord ' (Enh 5"» ; cf. Col S-"), to
test and discern the Lord's will (Ro 12^). They are
' to make it their aim,' M'hether living or dying,
' to be M'ell-pleasing to him ' (2 Co 5*).
What then are the principles and practices that
ensure this hajipy consummation ? We may first
notice the familiar negative proposition set forth
in Gal 2® and Ac 10** ' (iod accepteth no man's
person ' [i.e. the mere outward state and presence) ;
and over against it the comprehensive declaration
of Ac 10^ ' In every nation he that feareth God
and workcth righteousness is acceptable to him.'
This furnislies a starting-point for a detailed enum-
eration of the courses wluch are ' well-plcaaing' to
God, and which may be set forth as follows : the
offering of our bodies as a living sacrifice (Ro 12-) ;
the serving of Christ by not putting stumbling-
blocks before weaker brethren (14"*); missionary
M-ork— the ' oflcring n\t ' of the Gentiles (15'*) ; the
gift of the Philii)pian Church to St. Paul in prison
* On the use of these words in inscriptions sec A. Deissmonn,
Bibk Studies, 214 f. The use of Apttnoi, 'pleasing,' and the
verb apeiTKu in the NT should also be noted.
(I'll 41" ; cf. Mt 25"-«) ; filial aflection to a widowed
mother (1 Ti 5*) ; supplication and intercession for
all men (1 Ti 2^); undeserved suflering patiently
endured (1 P 2^). All these may be looked uj>on
as examples of the 'spiritual sacrifices' (1 P 2'),
the offering of ' service with reverence and awe '
(He 12*8 . cf. 1316), which are 'acceptable' to God.
He it is who ' works in us that which is well-pleas-
ing in his sight through Jesus Christ ' (He 13-').
It is interesting and instructive to compare the
grounds of ' acceptance ' in the circle of OT thought
with those in the NT. In the former these grounds
are partly ceremonial (Lv 22^), and partly ethical
(Is P^'^', Jer 6'-" etc.), though here and there a
higher note is struck (cf. Pr 2P, Mic 6«, Dt 10*) ;
in the latter the ceremonial association has entirely
vanished except in a metaphorical sense, and l>e-
come purely ethico-spiritual, as the above references
prove. It was largely due to the prophets that the
old ceremonial ground was gradually ethicized ;
and, though it never died out under the earlier
'dispensation' (which, indeed, reached its most
rigid and mechanical development in the degener-
ate Pharisaic cult of NT times), the way was
effectually prepared for the full proclamation of
the spiritual message of the gospel by Jesus, who
was Himself the perfect embodiment of all that was
acceptable and well-pleasing to God (cf. Mk 1",
Mt 17*, JHS^^etc).
There is a theological problem of importance
raised by these passages — What is it that consti-
tutes the ground of our acceptance with God ? The
full treatment of this problem must be sought
under the art. Justification, but the following
considerations may be properly adduced here.
Unquestionably the Christian religion is a religion
of Grace, as contra-distinguished from Judaism and
other faiths, which are religions of Law. Salvation,
according to the NT throughout (explicitly in the
writings of St. Paul, more or less implicitly else-
Avhere), is of God, and not of man ; not our own
doings, but willingness to accept what He lias done
for us, and what He is ready to .do in us, is the
condition of initial inclusion within the Kingdom
of Divine love and life. This is the watershe<l
which determines the direction and flow of all
subsequent doctrinal developments in Christian
theology ; it is what settles the question whether
our thoughts and practice are distinctively Christian
or not. There are, however, two alternative perils
to be carefully avoided — antinomianism, on the
one hand, which assumes our continued acceptance
with God irrespective of our moral conduct after-
wards ; and the doctrine of salvation by works, on
the other, which makes moral conduct the condi-
tion of acceptance, thus surreptitiously introduc-
ing the legal view of religion once more. This
' Either — Or ' is, however, a false antithesis, from
which we are saved by the recognition of the
' mystical union ' of the believer with God in Christ.
By that act of faith, in virtue of which the sinner
'accepts' Christ and appropriates all that He is
and has done, he passes from a state of condemna-
tion into a state of grace (Ro 8'), and is henceforth
' in Christ ' — organically united to Him as the
member is to the body (1 Co 12'-'-), as the branch is
to the vine (Jn IS'"*). This 'justifying faith' is,
however, not an isolated act ; it is an act that
brings us into a permanent relation with the source
of si>iritual life. Now, 'good works' in the
Christian sense are a necessary proof and outcome
of this relation, and as such are well-pleasing or
' acceptable ' to God, because (a) they are a mani-
festation of the spirit of Christ in us (Gal 2-'" ; cf.
V.-') ; and (b) a demonstration of the continuance
of the believer ' in Christ ' (Jn 15* ; cf. Mt 5'«, Ph
1""). The relation of the believer to Christ, in
other words, while it is religious in its root, is
ACCESS
ACCESS
13
ethical in its fruit, ami the quality and abundance
of the latter natural! j' show the quality and potency
of the faith-life of which it is the expression and
outcome. Thus our ' works ' do not constitute our
claim for acceptance with God after entering the
Kin<,'dom of Grace any more than before ; but they
determine our place tcithin the Kingdom. There
is an aristocracy of the spiritual as well as of the
natural life ; the saved are one in the fact of salva-
tion, but not in the magnitude of their attainments
or the quality of their influence ; and they are more
or less acceptable to God according to the entireness
of their consecration and the value of their service.
There is thus an adequate motive presented to us
for perpetual striving after perfection, and St.
Paul's spiritual attitude — 'not as though I had
already attaineil, but I follow after' (Ph 3'-) — is
the normal attitude of every true believer (cf. Col
l»*-i-, 1 Th 4i-», 1 Jn 3-). It was given only to One
to be altogether well-pleasing to God ; but it is the
unfading ideal, and the constant endeavour of His
true disciples to follow in His steps, and in all
things to become more and more like Him, as well
as ' well-pleasing' to Him.
See, further, artt. JUSTIFICATION, etc. , and Litera-
ture there specified. E. Griffith-Joxes.
ACCESS.— This word in the Epistles of the NT
is the translation of the Greek word vpoaa-yurffi
(Ro 5^ Eph 2^8 31^ ; cf. 1 P 3'», where the verb is
used actively). It has been treated very thoroughly
in DCG (s.v. ). Here we shall confine ourselves to —
1. The connotation of the word. — In classical
Greek, the term rpwrarfar/evs was used primarily
for ' one who brings to,' 'introduces to another as
an intermediary,' mainly in a derogatory sense (cf.
irpoffayoryevs \7jfifidTwr, one who hunts for another's
benefit — a jackal [Dem. 750. 21 ; cf. Aristid. ii.
369, 395] ; the spies of the SicUian kings were
called ■wpoffayur/eTs, 'tale-bearers' [Pint. iL 522 D]).
It was, however, used later in a technical sense,
the court rpoaaycjoyevs being a functionary whose
business it was to bring visitors or suppliants into
the king's presence, rpoffayurf^ came thus to mean
access to the royal presence and favour. It is
from this association of ideas that the word derives
its religious connotation in the NT. God is con-
ceived in the kingly relation (as frequently in the
OT), as one whose favour is sought and found,
and Christ as the irpo(ray(oyevs who introduces the
sinner into the Divine presence. It is thus a form
of words representing Him in the light of a Mediator
between God and man ; and it throws light on the
relation of the three parties in the transaction.
2. The light thrown on the character and
attitude of God towards man.— The kingly con-
cept represents God as supreme, one to whom all
allegiance is due, and who has the power of life
and death over all His subjects. In the OT,
Jahweh, especially in the Psalms, is often repre-
sented as the King of His people Israel (cf. Ps 10^*
.24S-IU 444 4-2 6g;4 etc.). It is noticeable, however,
that in most of these passages the Oriental awe in
which all potentates were habitually held is suflused
with a sense of joy and pride in God as Israel's
King ; His power, favour, and victorious character
are mainly dwelt on. The idea which lies behind
the NT references, however, is rather that of the
difficulty of approach to the King's presence, not
merely on account of His loftiness and majesty,
but of His alienation, which demands a process of
reconciliarion. It suggests that the normal relation
of the King and His subjects has been disturbed
by rebellion or wrong-doing. The Divine dignity
has been outraged, and His claim to obedience set
at defiance. There is thus no longer a right of
admittance to the Divine presence, unless the wrong
is righted Mid the lost favour restored ; and, tiU
that has l)een secured, the protection and kindly
attitude of God can no longer be relied on.
3. The light thrown on the condition and
attitude of man towards God. — The suggestion is
that man is conscious of being alienated from God
by sin ; that he has no confidence in approaching
God in consequence, being uncertain of his recep-
tion ; that he knows of nothing which he can do
to restore the lost relation ; and that he is deeply
sensible of the shame and peril of his condition.
The conception of the effects of evil-doing as
separating God and man is one that runs through
the priestly ritual of Judaism (cf. also the pro-
phetic declaration in Is 59* ' your iniquities have
separated between you and your God'), and corre-
sponds to a fact in the consciousness of all awakened
sinners. In the earlier experience of bt. Paul this
feeling was evidently poignantly emphasize<l ; and
the sense of deliverance that came to him through
the gospel may be taken as the measure of the
pain and sorrow from which he had been delivered.
i. The function fulfilled by Christ as the One
through whom the renewal of the lost relation
between God and man was accomplished. —
The word TpocaycrfTi is insufficient to represent this
function. In itself it stands for the work of a
functionary whose role is to act as a merely official
link between the two parties, having no active
part in the process of reconciliation, and having
therefore no claim to the gratitude of the bene-
ficiary in the process. On the other hand, the
apostolic use of the word in its reference to the
person and work of Christ includes the suggestion
that the ' access ' to God referred to has been
accomplished by Christ Himself, and an over-
whelming sense of gratitude is awakened by this
fact. This appears in the four passages in which
the word is used, especially in the last (1 P 3'*).
According to this, the bringing of man tO God is
efflected through the work of Christ in Bis Passion ;
'because Christ also suffered for sins once (&rai,
meaning here 'once for all'=a fact accomplished),
the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might
bring us {rpoffaydyr}) to God,' i.e. restore us to
His favour, and lead us to the benefits of the
Divine reconciliation. In Ro 5^, again, the ' access '
receives its meaning and privilege through its
consummation in and by Christ, 'through whom
we have also (/cat, ' copulat et auget ' [Toletus],
' answering almost to our " as might be expected " '
[Alford]) got (iffx^KHfitv) our (ryy) access (introduc-
tion) by otir (rj) faith, into this grace wherein we
stand ' (see DCG i. 13»). Here the Person of the
irpoaayorfevi is chiefly thought of (' this has come to
us through Him ') ; and the resulting benefit is urged
as a reason for holy exultation, since it means
justification as a ground for ' rejoicing in the hoi>e
of glory.' In Eph 2'* a slightly different emphasis
is suggested : ' for tlirough Him we both {i.e. Jew
and Gentile) have our access in one spirit unto the
Father.' Here that revelation of God, not as uni-
versal King but as the All-Father, which came
through Jesus Christ, is included in the benefit
secured by Him for mankind at large, and the
reconciliation of humanity at variance with itself
as weU as with God is brought into the circle of
mediation (cf. v." 'for he is our peace [i.e. He
is the peace-maker, the Tpoffayoryevs between us,
Jew and Gentile, who were once far oft' from each
other] who hath made both one' by His blood
[v.^]). Through this word we are thus led into the
deep places of the gospel as the reconciling agency
of God to man, man to God, and man to man.
LiTKRATTRB.— To the literature in the DCG add John Foster,
Lectures, 1853, ii. 69 ; R. W. Dale, The Jewish Temple and
the Christian Church, 1877, p. 205 ; A. J. Gordon, The Two/old
Life, 1SS6, p. 175 ; W. M. Macgregror, Jesus Christ the Son oj
God, 1907, p. 176. E. GRIFFITH-JoXES.
u
ACCOUNT
ACHAICUS
ACCOUNT.— It will be suHicient merely to
mention the use of the verb 'account' (Xoyl^onat)
in the sense of ' reckon,' ' deem,' * cctnsider ' (Ho 8*',
1 Co 4\ He ll'», 2 r 3'"). Simple uses of the noun
are found in Ac 19*", when the ' town-clerk' (y. v.)
of Ephesus warns his fellow-citizens of thedifticulty
of givinj? ' account (\&yos) of this concourse ' ; and in
Ph 4'^ ' the fruit that increaseth to your account.'
The only signiHcant paasajjes where the word is
found are those dealing with the .Judgment.
The declaration in Ko 14'-, ' Each one of us
shall give account of himself to God,' must be
studied in the light of tho paragraph (vv.''^) of
which it is the conclusion. "Those wno are them-
selves liable to judgment must not set themselves
up as judges of one another, either to make light
of sincere scruples or to reprove laxity. For one
man to judge another is to usurp the prerogative
of God, to whom alone (as universal sovereign and
object of worship) man is answerable. The passage
should be compared with 2 Co 5*", where the ' judg-
ment-seat ' is called Christ's ; see also 1 Co 4'. St.
Paul ajiplies this doctrine, which is found in the
Synoptic Gospels and was an integral part of
primitive Chnstian teaching, to Jew and Gentile,
to himself and his converts, to those who liave
died before the Parousia and those who are alive
at it. The life in the body provides the oppor-
tunity for moral action, and by the use they have
made of it men are sentenced (cf. Gal 6"). A.
Menzies (Com. on S Co?:) calls attention (a) to this
aspect of the Judgment in contrast with that which
represents the saints as judging the world and
angels (1 Co G^'- ; cf. Mt 19-=8) ; {b) to the incon-
sistency between the doctrine of justification by
faith alone, and the doctrine of final judgment of
men according to their actions. There is, however,
in the present writer's opinion, no inconsistency
here. The NT generally represents the saved as
judged as well as the unsaved. The judgment of
the latter, however, is retributory and involves
rejection ; that of tlie former is for a place, higher
or lower, within the heavenly Kingdom ; and this
place is in accordance with the faithfulness and
quality of their service while in the body. St.
Paul, as the above references prove, is einphatic as
to the fact and nature of tliis judgment (cf. 1
Co 3'-"'"), and shov/s that, however true it is that
salvation is by grace, there will be gradations in
standing and in reward in the after-life. This is
in harmony with the teaching of our Lord in the
Synoptics, especially in the parables of service and
reward (Lk 19'»-«> etc. ; cf. Mk \Qf*»). Cf. also, as
to the fact of the saints h.iving to give an account
of their earthly stewardship. He 13'^, 1 P 4' : ' [evil-
doers and slanderers of Christians] shall give
account to him that is ready to jud^e the quick
and the dead ' (in 1" to the Father, in 1'' and S'*
to Christ). Tliese may be regarded as special
instances of the General Judgment already referred
to. The expression iiroSiddvai \6yop generally im-
plies that defence is not easy.
liiTieiiATiTRB.— See lit. on art. Judomkst ; the Comtn. in locc. ;
W. N. Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theol., 1808, p. 459ff.
E. Griffith- Jones.
ACCURSED.— See Anathema.
ACCUSATION.— See Tkial-at-Law.
ACELDAMA.— See Akeldaha.
ACHAIA. — Achaia ('Axafa) was, in the classical
period, merely a atrip of fertile coast-land stretch-
ing along the south of tiie (Julf of Corinth, from the
river Larisus, which separated it from EHs, to the
Sythas, which divideu it from Sicyonia, while
the higher mountains of Arcadia Imunded it on the
south. Its whole Iciitrth w.-is about fif) miles, its
breadth from 12 to 20 miles, and its area about
650 sq. miles.
The Acha^atiB were probably the remnant of a Pelaagian race
once (liKtributed over the whole Peloponnesus. Though they
were cflebrated in the heroic a^e, they rarely flgured in the
grout Hellenic j)eriod, keeplnj; themselves ixn far as possiihle
aloof from the conflicts l>etween the Ionian and Doric .States,
happy in their own almost uninterrupted prosperity. It is not
till the last struggle for Hellenic independence that they
appear on the stage of history.
The cities which formed the famous Achaean
League became the most powerful political body in
(ireece ; and, when the Romans subdued the country
(146 B.C.), they at once honoured the brave con-
federation and spared the feelings of all the Hellenes
by calling the new province not Greece but Achaia.
As constituted by Augustus in 27 ».C,, the province
included Tliessaly, .^tolia, Acharnania, and part
of Epirus (Strabo, XVII. iii. 25), being thus almost
co-extensive with the modern kingdom of Greece.
As a senatorial province Achaia was governed by
a proconsul, who was an ex-pra;tor. In a.d. 15
Tiberius took it from the Senate, adding it to
Macedonia to form an Imperial province under the
government of a legatus ; but in 44 Claudius re-
stored it to the Senate. ' Proconsul ' (avOviraro^,
Ac 18'^) was therefore the governor's correct ofticial
title at the time of St. Paul's residence in Corinth.
Nero, as ' a born Philhellene,' wished to make
Greece absolutely free.
' In gratitude for the recognition which his artistic contribu-
tions had met with in the native land of the Muses . . . [he]
declared the Greeks collectively to be rid of Roman govern-
ment, free from tribute, and, lilce the Italians, subject to no
governor. At once there arose throughout Greece movements,
which would have been civil wars, if these people could have
achieved anything more than brawling ; and after a few months
Vespasian re-established the provincial constitution, so far as it
went, with the dry remark that the Greeks liad unlearned the
art of being free ' (Mommsen, Provincet, i. 202).
To the end of the empire Achaia remained a
senatorial province. The administrative centre was
Corinth {q.v.), where the governor had his official
residence. During a prolonged mission in that
city, St. Paul was brought into contact with the
proconsul Gallio (q.v.), the brother of Seneca.
The rapid progress of the gospel in Achaia is partly
explained by the fact that Judaism had already
for centuries been working as a leaven in many of
the cities of Greece. Sparta and Sicyon are named
among the numerous free States to which the
Romans sent letters on behalf of the Jews al)out
139 B.C. (1 Mac 15^), and VhWo' a Lefjntio ad Gaium
(§ 36) testifies to the presence of Jews in IJceotia,
Jktolia, Attica, Argos, and Corinth. Only three
Achaean cities are mentioned in the NT — Athens,
Corinth, and CenchreiB — but the address of 2 Cor.
to ' all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia,'
and the liberality of 'the regions of Achaia' (2 Co
9^ 11'"), prove that there must have been many other
unnamed centres of Christian faith and life in the
province. While 1 Co 16" refers to the house of
Stephanas as ' the firstfruits of Achaia,' Ac 17**
rather indicates that the Apostle's brief visit to
Athens had already borne some fruit, ' Dionysius,
Damaris, and others with them ' being Achaean
believers. Athens (q.v.) was either reckoned by
itself or else entirely overlooked.
LiTBRATCRB. — The Histories of Polybius and Livy ; A. Holm,
History of Greece, Eng.tr. London, 1891-98, vol. iv. ; T. Momm-
sen, The Provinces ojf the Roman Empire-, Eng. tr., I^indon,
1909, i. 260fr. ; J. Marquardt, Jiiiin. Staat.svenmllvng, newed.,
Leipzig, 1885, i. 321 f. ; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic Aff<-, Eng.
tr. 1.2 [London, 1897] p. 303 ff. ; A. C. McGiflfert, Apostolie Age,
Edinburgh, 1897, p. 266 fl. J AMES STRAHAN.
ACHAICUS. — One of many worthies whose
character adorned the early Church, and whose
service edified it, but whom we know only by a
casual reference in the NT. In 1 Co 16'^ St. Paul
rejoices ' at tiie coming of Stephan.-is and Fortu-
natus and Achaicus.' Probably they formed a
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
15
deputation from the Corintliian Church ; they
luav have been bearers of the letter of inquiry
which St. Paul answers in ch. 7 ti'. His language
suggests that their coming somewhat reassuretl
him after the disquieting^ews brought by Chloe's
household, and other ugly ruujours (I Co 5').
Perhaps they represented the parties in Corinth ;
yet they must have been trusted by the Church
and must also have shown themselves loyal to the
Apostle. Achaicus is such a rare name that some
authorities call it 'Greek,' others ' Koman.' The
suggestion that Achaicus was a slave — either of
Stephanas or of Chloe — does not comport either
witli his position as a delegate or with St. Paul's
^peal to the Church to 'acknowledge such,' i.e.
to recognize the quality of their service and to
treat them with becoming deference.
LiTRRATrKB. — Aitt. ia HDB on 'Achaicus,' and 'I. Corinth-
ians,' i. 4S7» ; Comm. on 1 Cor. by Findlay (EGT),950, and by
Godet, ii. 467 ; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, i.'- [London,
1S97] pp. 113, 305, 319, iL [do. ls95J p. 320 ; Expositor, Sth ser.
i. [1911] 341 f. J. E. Roberts.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.—
L Text—
1. Greek MSS.
2. The Latin Versions.
3. The Syriac Versions.
4. The B^rjptian Versionai
5. Secondary Versions.
6. Early Quotations.
7. Textual theories : Westcott and Hort, Bendel Harris,
Chase, Blass, von Soden.
n. Tradition as to authorship —
1. In favour of Lucan authorship.
2. Against the tradition.
IIL The date of Acts and reception in the Canon —
1. The date of the Lucan Gospel.
2. The abrupt termination of Acts.
3. Knowledge of Josephus in Acts.
4. Reception in the Canon.
rV. The composition of Acts —
1. The obvious facts.
2. The purpose of the whole narrative.
5. The sources used in Acts.
(1) The we-clauses.
(2) The earlier chapters.
(a) The Antiochene tradition.
(6) The Jerusalem tradition.
V. Historical value of the various traditions —
1. The Gospel of Luke and Ac 1.
2. The Jerusalem and Galilsan traditions.
VI. Chronology of Acts —
1. The death of Herod Agrippa.
2. The famine in Judsea.
3. Gallio's proconsulate.
4. The expulsion of the Jews from Rome.
5. The arrival of Festus in Judaea.
Vn. The theolo^- of Acta —
1. Christolo^y.
2. Eschatologj'.
3. The OT and Jewish Law,
4. The Spirit.
5. Baptism.
I. Text. — The text of the Acts is preserved in
Greek MSS, in Latin, Syriac, Sahidic, Bohairic,
Armenian, and other secondary Versions, and
quoted extensively, though not nearly so fully as
the Gospels, by the early Fathers.
1. Greek MSS.— The most complete study of the
whole mass of Greek MSS is that of von Soden
in his Schriften des Neuen Testaments (Berlin,
1902-10). As his grouping of the MSS is almost
entirely independent of his theories as to the
early history of the text, and represents facts
which cannot be overlooked, it is best to give the
main outlines of his classihcation, dividing the
MSS into H, K, and / recensions, and following his
numeration ; in the brackets are given the numbers
of these MSS in Gregory's Prolegomena to Tischen-
dorfs Editio Major octava. ft has not seemed
necessary to give also Gregory's new numeration,
as this is not any better known than von Sodens,
and does not belonf,' (and apparently will not
belong in the immediate future) to a full critical
edition.
(1) fl.— This is represented by SI (B), SZ (*% «3 (CX 84 (AX 46
(<P), M3 (13), 74 (389), 1008 (Pap. Amh. 8. ssc v.-vi-X 103 (25),
162 (61), 257 (33). Of these MSS SI and «2 represent a common
archetype il-2, which is much the best authority for U. SI is
better than S2, which is, however, somewhat better in Acta, aptut
from soribal errors, than it is in the Gospels. 74 and 162 »i«
specially good representatives of //. bat no sinple witness is
free from K or I contamination. There is a special nexus be-
tween *48 and 257, bat *48 is considerably the better of the two.
(2) jBT.— It is impossible to give here the full list of K MSS;
roughly speaking, 90 per cent of the later MSS belong to this
type. Two groups may be distinguished from ihe purer K
MSS :—Kr, a medisval revision of K for lectionary purposes,
critically quite valueless ; and E<=, a text with enough sporadic
/ readings to raise the question whether it be not an 1 text
which has been almost wholly corrected to a f standard ; it is
called K<^ because MSS of this tyjte seem to be represented in
the Complutensian edition.
(3) I. — The / recension is found in three forms : /» /*> I". /»
is best represented by So (D= Codex Bezae*), 1001 (E= Codex
Laudianus t) ; by three pairs of connected MSS, 7 (Apl. 261>-264
(233), 200 (S3)-3S2 (231), 70 (506>-101 (40) ; and by a few other
MSS which have suffered more or less severely from K con-
tamination. It is also well represented in the text of the com-
mentary of Andreas (A^P). !*> is found in two branches, /w
and /ba. The best representatives of /^i are 62 (498), 5602 (200X
365 (214=a'°')and a few other minuscules ; the best representa-
tives of i»>2 are the pair 78 (' von der Goltz'a MS ') and 171 (7)
which are almost doublets, and 157 (29). /<: is also found in two
branches /d and I-^-. The best representatives of 7=1 are 208 (307X
370 (353), 116( -), 551 (216) ; the best representatives of lei are
364 (137) J and a series of other MSS contaminated in varying
degrees by K.
2. The Latin Yersions.— The Old Latin or ante-
HieronjTiiian text is not well repre-sented. As in
the Gospels, it may be divided into two main
branches, African and European.
(1) The African ia represented by Codex Floriacensis (hX now
at Paris, formerly at Fleury, containing a text which is almost
identical with that of Cj'prian ; it is in a very fragmentary
condition, but fortunately the quotations of Cyprian and
Augustine (who uses an African text in Acts, though he
follows the Vulgate in the Gospels) enable much of the
text to be reconstructed. (The best edition of h is by E. S.
Buchanan, Old Latin Biblical Texts, v. [Oxford, 1907].) Accord-
ing to Wordsworth and White, a later form of the African text
can be found in the pseudo-Augustinian de Dirinig Scripturisgive
Speculum (CSEL xii. 2s7-700X but the character of this text
is still somewhat doubtful.
(2) The European text is best represented by g (Gigas) at
Stockholm, which can be supplemented and corrected by the
quotations in Ambrosiaster and Lucifer of Cagliari (see esp.
A. Souter, ' A Study of Ambrosiaster,' TS vii. 4 (1905]X A branch
of the European text of a Spanish or ProvenQal type is found
in p, a Paris MS from Perpignan, and in w, a Bohemian MS
now in Wemigerode, but in both MSS there is much Tolgate
contamination. Other primarily European mixed MSS ares, a
Bobbio palimpsest (ssec. v.-vi.) at Vienna, x in Oxford, and g» in
Milan.
A Spanish lectionary of perhaps the 7th cent, known as the
Liber Comieut, which has many early readings, has been edited
by G. Morin from a Paris MSof the 11th cent, and is quoted
by Wordsworth and White as t.
(3) Besides these purely Latin MSS, we have the Latin sides
of the Gneco-Latin MS 65 (D) or d (Codex Bezae), and of the
Latino-Greek MS 1001 (E) or e. The latter of these agrees in
the main with the European text as established by g-Ambro-
siaster-Lucifer, but the text of d is in many ways unique, and
may possibly have been made for the private use of the owner
of So, or perhaps of the archetype of So.
(4) The I'ui/jate. — It is impossible here to enumerate the
hundreds of Vulgate MSS of the Acts. Their study is a special
branch of investigation, which has Uttle bearing on the Acts,
and for all purposes, except that of tracing the history of the
Vulgate, the edition of Wordsworth and White maj- be regarded
as sufficient.
3. The Syriac Versions.— It is probable from
the quotations in Aphraates and Ephraim that
there existed originally an Old-Syriac Version of
Acts, coiTesponding to the Evangelion da-Mephar-
re-ihe represented by the Curetonian and Sinaitic
MSS ; but no MS of this type has sur\ived-
• This MS is adequately described by F. G. Ken von (Handbook
to the Textual Criticigm of the NT\ 88 ff.) or' in other well-
known handbooks.
t Besides the details noted in the handbooks, it should be
observed that this MS, after being used by Bede in North-
umbria, passed to Gemmny, whence it was probably obtained by
Laud, who gave it to the Bodleian Library.
t As an instance of the advance in knowledge which von
Soden's labours have produced, it should be noted that this MS
used to be regarded as one of the principal authorities for the
' Western ' text, and was at one time deemed worthy of »
separate edition.
16
ACTS OF THK APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
(l)The oldest Syriac Version of the Acta is tlierefore the
Penhi(ta, probably made bv Habbula, Bishop of Edesaa (411-
t35) (see V. C. Burkitt, ' 8. Ephraim's Quotations from the
tio.spel," TS vii. 2 IlOOl) p. 67 f.)- (A. A'.— The l'e8lu(,ta is quoted
by Tischendorf as Syr"''.)
(2) Besides the Peslii^ta we have the Uarklean made by
Thomas of Ileraclea. Tliis was Imsed on an earlier Syriac
text, ma<le in 506 by Polycarp for Philoxcnus, Bishop of
Mabii^ (IlierapoliH, the modern Membij on the Euphrates),
which is no lon^j'T extant for Acts. Thomas of Heraclea
rfvised the I'hiloxenian with the help of Greek M8S in the
Library of the Knaton at Alexandria, and enriched his edition
with a number of critical notes t'ivinjr the variants of these
Greek MSS which often have a most remarkable text ajfreeinj;
more closely with Codex Bezie than with any other known
Greek MS. (-V./J.— It is quoted by Tischendorf as SyrP.)
(\i) There is also a lectionary of the so-called ' i'alestinian '
tyi>e, which was probably in use about the 7th cent, in the
neiffhbourhood of Antioch. (On the nature of the ' Palestinian '
Syriac literature see F. C. Burkitt, JThSt ii. [1901] 174-185.)
4. The Egyptian Versions.— The two Versions,
Boliaiiic and 8ahidic, whicli are extant for the
(rospels, exist al.so for Acts, and there are a few
fragments of Versions in otlier dialects. The re-
lative date of these Versions has not been finally
settled, but the opinion of Coptic scliolars seems
to be increasingly in favour of regarding the Sahidic
as the older form. The Bohairic agrees in the
main with the H text, but the Sahidic has many
/ readings (see E. A. W. Budge, Coptic Biblical
Texts, London, 1912, for the best Sahidic text).
5. Secondary Versions. — Versions of Acts are
also found in Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic,
Georgian, Persian, and other languages ; but none
of them is of primary importance for the text.
6. Quotations in early writers. — The earliest
quotations long enough to have any value for de-
termining the text are in Irenoeus, fertullian, and
Clement of Alexandria, who may be regarded as
representing the text of the end of the 2nd cent, in
Gaul, Africa, and Alexandria. For the 3rd cent,
we have Origen and Didymus, representing the
Alexandrian school ; Cyprian for Africa, and No-
vatian for Italy. For the 4th cent. Athanasius
and Cyril represent the later development of the
Alexandria text ; Lucifer, Jerome, and Ambrosi-
aster represent the text of Rome and Italy ;
Augustine, that of Africa ; Eusebius and Cyril of
.lerusalem the Palestinian text, which accorcling to
von Soden is /; the later Church writers mostly
use the K text, though they sometimes show traces
of probably local contamination with // and /.
7. Textual theories. — As soon as textual criticism
began to be based on any complete view of the
evidence, it became obvious that the chief feature
to be accounted for in the text of Acts was the
existence of a series of additions in the text in the
Latin Versions and Fathers, usually supported by
the two great bilingual MSS 55 and 1001 (D and E),
fre<|uentTy by the marginal readings in Syr"^"^',
and sporadically by a few minuscules ; opposed to
this interpolated text stood the Alexandrian text
of 51, 52 (B N), and their allies ; while between the
two was the text of the mass of MSS agreeing
sometimes with one, sometimes with the other,
and sometimes combining both readings.
(1) The first really plausible theory to meet even
part of the facts was Westcott and Hort's (77tc
New Testament in Greek, vol. ii. [Cambridge,
1882]), who suggested that the later text (K) was
a recension based on the two earlier types. They
regarded 55 (Codex Bezse) as representinjj the
' VVestem ' text, and 51 and 52 as representing as
nearly as possible the original text. The weak
point in their theory was that they could not
explain the existence of the Western text.
(2) Founded mainly on the basis of their work, two
theories were suggested to supply this deficiency.
(a) Kendel Harris (' A Study of Codex Bezte in
TS ii. 1 [1891], and Four Lcrtures on the Western
Text, Cambridge, 1894) and F. H. Chase [The Old
Syriac Element in the Text of Codex Bezce, London,
1893) thought that retranslation from Latin and
Syriac would solve the problem ; but no amount
or retranslation will account for the relatively
long Bezan additions.
(h) F. }i[a.»H {Acta Apostolorumsecjmdumforjiutm
fmce vidctur Jiomanam, Leipzig, 1897, and also in
lis commentary. Acta Apostulorurn, Gottingen,
1895) thought that liuke issued the Acts in two
forms : one to Theophilus (the Alexandrian text),
and the other for Rome (the Western text) ; but
his reconstruction of the Roman text is scarcely
satisfactory, and the style of the additionb is not
sufhciently Lucan.
(3) More recently von Soden {Die Schriften des
Neuen Testaments, 1902-1910, p. 1834 tf.), using
the new facts as to the MSS summarized above,
has revived Blas.s's theory in so far that he thinks
that the interpolated text witnessed to by 55 and
the Latin Versions and Fathers really goes back
to a single original ; but, instead of assigning this
original to Luke, he attributes it to Tatian, who,
he thinks, added a new recension of Acts to his
Diatcssarun. The weak point in this theory is
that the only evidence that Tatian edited the Acts
is a passage in Eusebius * which states that he
emended 'the Apostle.' This may refer to Acts,
but more probably refers to the Epistles. Accord-
ing to von Soden, the / text did not contain all
the interpolations, K contained still fewer, and U
contained none. He thinks that in the 2nd cent,
there existed side by side the Tatianic text and a
non-interpolated text which he calls I-II-K. From
these two texts there arose the Latin Version —
predominantly Tatianic — and most of the early
Fathers were influenced by Tatian. Later on, in
the 4th cent., three revisions were made : (a) U, by
Hesychius in Alexandria, wliicli preserved in the
main the text of I-II-K without the Tatianic ad-
ditions, but with a few other corruptions ; (b) K,
by Lucian, in Antioch, which had many Tatianic
corruptions, as well as some of its own ; (c) /, in
Palestine, possibly in Jerusalem, which preserved
many Tatianic additions, though in a few cases
keeping the I-H-K text against //. 55 (D) is the
best example of this text, but has sufi'ered from
the addition of a much greater degree of Tatianic
corruption tlian really belongs to the / text, owing
to Latin influence.
The general relations of the various forms of the
text, according to von Soden, can be shown roughly
in the following diagram :
I-H'K
/»
/b ic ir ic
Obviously this complicated theory cannot be
dismissed without much more attention than it
has yet received. It may jirove that the ' text
^vith additions ' is not Tatianic but is neverthele.ss
a single text in origin. It is also very desirable
to investigate how far it is possible to prove that
there was an / text, derived from I-H-K, which
• ToO i' airooToAou 0a(ri To\/ui^<rot Tti»a« ovrbf ii€Taif>paa-ai ^xofai
OK (mSioitOovntfov avriov ttji' ttjs <^pair(wt avvTa^tv (Eus. IlK iv.
29. ((). This scarcely soumls as though a scries of interpolations
was intended.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
17
nevertheless did not possess, in its original state,
all the ' Bezan ' interpolations.* If it were possible
to say that the interpolations were a connected
series (whether Tatianio or not is of minor im-
portance), the text in which they are imbedded
would become extremely valuable, and we should
have no right to argue, as is now often done, that,
l)ecause the interpolations are clearly wrong, there-
fore the text in which they are found is to be
condemned. For instance, in Ac 15* the Latin
text interpolates the Golden Rule into the Apos-
tolic decrees. That is no doubt wrong. But it
does not follow that the text omitting tviktoO, in
^vhich this interpolation is placed, is not original.
LrrraLATms. — The general textual question can be studied
in H. von Soden, Die Sehriften des ST, Berlin, 1903-1910, esp.
pp. 1649-1S40 ; F. G. Kenyon, Handbook to the Textual Cnti-
eism of the yj^, London, 1912 ; E. Nestle, Ein/uhrung in da*
griech. ST^, Gottingen, 1909 (the Eng. tr. is from an older
edition of the period before von Soden) ; K. Lake, The Text of
the XT^, London, 1911. Important for the study of the Lacin
are von Soden, ' Das lat. XT in Afrika zur Zeit Cyprians,' TCf
xxiiii. [Leipzig, 1909]; and Wordsworth-WTiite, Sob. Tett.
Dam. Twst. let. Christi teeitndum edit, S. Hieronymi, voL ii.
pt. L [Oxford, 1905] which also gives a clear statement of the
beet editions of the separate MSS of the Old Latin and the
Vulgate (pp. T-xv).
II. Tradition as to Authorship.— So far
back as tradition goes, the Acts is ascribed to St.
Luke, the author of the Third (Jospel, and com-
panion of St. Paul (see, further, LtTKE). This
tradition can be traced back to the end of the 2nd
cent. (Clem. Alex. Strom, v. 12 ; Tertull. de Jejuniis,
10; Iren. adv. Hccr. l. xxiiL 1, in. xii. 12 ff.,
IV. XV. 1 ; and the Canon of Muratori). If the
connexion with the Third Gk>spel be accepted, as
it certainly ought to be, the fact that Marcion
used the (jospel is evidence for the existence of
Acts, imless it be thought that the Gospel was
written by a contemporary of Marcion who had
not yet written Acts. Farther back tradition does
not take us : there are no clear proofs of the use
of Acts in the Apostolic Fathers (see The New Testa-
ment in the Apostolic Fathers, Oxford, 1905) or in
the early Apologists. (For the later traditions
concerning Luke and his writings see LlTKE. )
The value of this tradition must necessarily de-
pend on the internal eWdence of the book itself.
The arguments can best be arranged under the
two heads of favourable and unfavourable to the
tradition.
1. In fayoor of the traulition of Lake's author-
ship is the evidence of the ' we-sections,' or pass-
ages in which the wTriter speaks in the first person.
These are Ac W^" 20* 2li8 27^ 28»«. They form
together an apparent extract from a diary, which
begins in Troas and breaks olf in Philippi, on St.
Paul's second journey ; begins again in Philippi,
on his last journey to Jerusalem ; and continues
(with only the apparent break of the episode of St.
Paul and the Ephesian elders [20'*-*®] which is told
in the third person) until Jerusalem is reached and
St. Paul goes to see James ; then breaks otf again
during St. Paul's imprisonment in Jerusalem and
Caesarea ; begins again when St. Paul leaves
Caesarea ; and continues untU the arrival in Home,
when it finally ceases.
It is, of course, theoretically possible that these
sections are merely a literary fiction, but this
possibility is excluded by the facts (a) that there
is no conceivable reason why the writer should
adopt this form of •writing at these points, and
these only, in his narrative ; (b) that by the
general consent of critics these passages have all
the signs of having really been composed by an
eye-\\itness of the events described. It is, there-
* The de Rebaptigmate has not yet been sufficiently studied
from this point of riew. A nionc^raph analyzing its evidence
on the lines of F. C. Burkitf s Old Latin avd the Itala might
be valuable.
VOL, I. — 2
fore, only necessary to consider the other possi-
bilities: (1) that we have here from the writer of
the whole work the description of incidents which
he had himself seen ; (2) that the writer is here
using an extract from the \*-riting of an eye-wit-
ness and has preserved the original idiom.
The only way of deciding between these two
possibilities is to make use of literary criteria, and
this has been done in recent years with especial
thoroughness by Hamack in Germany and Hawkins
in England. For any full statement of the case
reference must be made to their books ; the prin-
ciple, however, and the main results can be
summarized.
If the writer of Acts is merely using the first
Eerson in order to show that he is claiming to
ave been an eye-witness, the writer of the 'we-
clauses' is identical ^vith the redactor of the
Gospel and Acts. Now, in the Gospel we know
that he was using Mark in many places, and, by
noting the redactorial changes in tlie Marcan sec-
tions of Luke, we can establish his preference for
certain idioms. If these idioms constantly recur
in the ' we-clauses,' it must be either because the
' we-clauses ' were written by the redactor, or be-
cause the redactor also revised the 'we-clauses,'
but without changing the idiom. As a fact we
find that the ' we-clauses ' are more marked by the
characteristic phraseology of the redactor than
any other part of the Gospel or Acts. We are,
therefore, apparently reduced to a choice between
the theory that the redactor of the Gospel and Acts
wrote the ' we-clanses,' and the theory that he
redacted them with more care than any other part
of his compilation, except that he allowed the first
person to stand. The former view certainly seems
the more probable, but not suflBcient attention has
been paid to the observation of E. Schiirer {ThLZ,
1906, col. 405) that the facts would also be ex-
plained if the ^^-riter of the ' we-clauses ' and the
redactor of Acts came from the same Bildungs-
sphdre. It would be well if some later analyst
would eliminate from both sides the idioms which
are common to all writers of good Greek at the
period, for undoubtedly an element of exaggera-
tion is introduced by the fact that in the Marcan
source there were many vulgarisms which all re-
dactors would have altered, and mostly in the same
way. It should also be noted that there are a
few ' Lucanisms ' which are not to be found in the
'we-clauses.'
The details on which this argument is baaed will be found
best in J. C. Hawkins, Hora S^optiete^, Oxford, 1909, pp. 174-
193 ; A. Hamack, Lutas der Arzt, Leipzig, 1906, pp. 19-85.
There is also a good resume in J, MofiEatt, LNT, p. 294 ff.
2. Against the tradition it is urged (1) that the
presentment of St, Paul is quite difierent from
that in the Pauline Epistles, (2) that on definite
facts of history the Acts and Epistles contradict
each other ; and it is said in each case that these
facts exclude the possibility that the writer of
Acts was Luke the companion of St, Paul.
(1) The presentment of St. Paul in the Epistles
and in Acts. — It has lieen urged as a proof that
the writer of Acts could not have been a companion
of St. Paul, that whereas St. Paul in the Epistles
is completely emancipated from Jewish thought
and practice, he is represented in the Acts as stiU
loyal to the Law himself, and enjoining its observ-
ance on Jews, The points which are really crucial
in this argument are (a) St. Paul's circumcision of
Timothy (Ac 16*), as contra-sted with his teaching
as to circumcision in the Epistles ; (^) his accept-
ance of Jewish practice while he was in Jerusalem
(Ac 21*"^-), as contrasted with his Epistles, espe-
cially Galatians and Romans ; {y) the absence of
' Pauline ' doctrine in the speeches in Acts ; (S) St,
Paul's acceptance of a compromise at the Apostolic
18
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Council (Ac 15), as contrasted with the complete
silence of the Epistles as to this agreement.
if these four propositions were sound, they would
certainly be strong evidence against the Lucan
authorship of Acts. But there is much to be said
against each of them on the following lines.
(a) In Ac 16^ bt. Paul circumcises Timothy, but
the reason given is that he was partly Jewisli.
There is no evidence in the Epistles that the
Apostle would ever have refused circumcision to a
Jew : it was part of the Law, and the Law was
valid for Jews. The argument in the Epistles is
that it is not valid for Gentiles ; and, though
logic ought j)erhaps to have led St. Paul to argue
that Jews also ought to abandon it, there is no
proof that he ever did so. It is also claimed that
the incident of Titus in Gal 2* shows St. Paul's
strong objection to circumcision ; but in tlie first
place it is empliatically stated that Titus was not
a Jew, and in the second place it is quite doubtful
whetlier Gal 2* means that Titus, being a Greek,
was not compelled to be circumcised, or that,
being a Greek, he was not compelled to be circum-
cised, though as an act of grace he actually was
circumcised. (^) It is quite true that in Ac 2P"''-
St. Paul accei>ts Jewish custom : what is untrue is
that it can be shown from his own writings that
he was likely to refuse. (7) There certainly is an
absence ot ' Pauline ' doctrine in the speeches in
the Acts, if we accept tlie reconstructions which
are based on the view that in the Epistles we have
a complete exposition of St. Paul's teaching. But,
if we realize that the Epistles represent his treat-
ment by letter of points which he had failed to
bring liome to his converts while he was with
them, or of special controversies due to the arrival
of otlier teachers, there is really nothing to be
said against the picture given in the Acts. (5) If
the exegesis and text of Acts be adopted which
regard the Apostolic decrees as a compromise
based on food-laws, it is certainly very strange
that St. Paul should have said nothing about it in
Galatians or Corinthians, and this undoubtedly
afl'ords a reasonable argument for thinking that
the account in Ac 15 is unhistorical, and tliat it
cannot have been the work of liuke. But it must
be remembered that there is serious reason for
doubting (i.) that the text and exegesis of Ac 15^
point either to a food-law or to a compromise,
(ii.) that Galatians was written after the Council
(see G. Kesch, ' Das Aposteldecret,' TU xxviii.
[lUO.j] 3; J. Wellhausen, ' Noten zur Apostel-
geschichte,' in GGN, Gottingen, 1907; A. Harnack,
Apostelgcschichte, Leipzig, 1908, p. 188 11". ; K. Lake,
Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, London, 1911, pp.
29ff.,48ff.).
(2) Rather more serious are the objections raised
to the accuracy of certain definite statements, in tlie
light of contracting statements in the Epistles, and
the conclusion suggested that the writer of Acts
cannot have been a companion of St. Paul. Many
objections of this kind luive been made, but the
majority are trivial, and the serious ones are really
only the following : (a) the description of glos-solalia
in Ac 2 as compared with 1 Co 12 If. ; (b) the
account of St. Paul's visits to Jerusalem in Acts
as compared with Gal 2 ; (c) the movements of St.
Paul's companions in ^lacedonia and Achaia in
Ac 17'* 18' as compared with 1 Th 3"«.
(a) The account given of glossolalia in 1 Co 14
shows that it was in the main unintelligible to
ordinary persons. ' He that sj)caketh in a tongue
edifieth himself, but he that prophesieth eilifieth
the congregation ' (1 Co 14* ; cf. vv.*- "• ^); 'If any
man speaketh in a tongue let one interpret'
(1 Co 14^^). On the other hand, the narrative in
Ac 2 de.scril)es the glossolalia of the disciples as a
miraculous gift of speech that was simultaneously
intelligible to foreigners of various nations, each
of whom thought that he was listening to his own
language. It is argued that this latter glossolalia
is as unknown to the historian of psycliology as
the glossolalia described in 1 Cor. is well known ;
and it is suggested that Luke or his source has
given a wrong account of the matter. In support
of this it must be noted that the immediate judg-
ment of the crowd, on first hearing the glossolalia
of the disciples, was that they were drunk, and
Peter's speech was directed against this imputa-
tion. It is not probable that any foreigner ever
accused any one of being drunk because he could
understand him, and so far the account in Acts may
be regarded as carrying its own conviction, and
showing tliat behind the actual text there is an
earlier tradition whicli described a glossolalia of
the same kind as that in 1 Co 12-14. But, if so,
is it probable that a companion of St. Pa\il would
liJive put forward so 'un-Pauline' a description of
glossolalia? There is certainly some weight in this
argument ; but it is to a large extent discounted
by the following considerations. (a) It is not
known that Luke was ever with St. I'aul at any
exhibition of glossolalia. Certainly there is no-
thing in Acts to suggest that he was in Corinth.
(/3) In all probability we have to desil with a tra-
dition which the writer of Acts found in existence
in Jerusalem more than twenty years after the
events described. Let any one try to find out, by
asking surviving witnesses, exactly what hai)pened
at an excited revivalist meeting twenty years ago,
and he will see that there is room for considerable
inaccuracy. (7) To us glossolalia of the Pauline
type is a known phenomenon and probable for that
reason ; it is a purely j)hysical and almost patho-
logical result of religious emotion, while glossolalia
of the ' foreign language ' type as de-scribed in Acts
is improbable. But to a Christian of the 1st cent,
both were wonderful manifestations of the Spirit,
and neither was more probable than the other.
The whole Question of elossolalia can be studied in H. Gun-
kel, Die M'irkungen des keiligen Geisteg, Oottiiigen, 18!)9 ; H.
Lietzmann's Commentary on I Cor. in his Handhnch ztun NT,
iii. 2, Tubingen, 1909; J. Weiss, '1 Cor." in Meyer's Krit.-Ex*g.
Kommentar, Gottingen, 1910 (9th ed. o( '1 Cor.')-
(b) The accounts given in Acts and Galatians of
St. Paul's visits to Jerusalem. — The points of
divergence, which are serious, are concerned with
(a) St. Paul's actions immediately after the con-
version ; (^) his first visit to Jerusalem ; (7) his
second visit to Jerusalem.
(a) St. PauVs actions immediately after the con-
version.— The two accounts of this comjdex of in-
cidents are Ac g'""** and Gal P"-^. The main
points in the two narratives may be arranged thus
in parallel columns : —
Acts.
OALATIANg.
1. Visit to Damascus imniedi- 1. Visit to Arabia innncdiately
ately after the conversion. after the conversion.
2. Escape from Damascus and _. A ' return ' to Damascus.
journey to Jfrusalem.
3. Retreat from Jerusalem to o. A visit to Jerusalem ' after
Tarsus in Ciliuia. throe years.'
4. Departure to tlie 'districts
of Syria and Cilicia.'
The ditVerence l)ctwccn these accounts is obvious,
and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Acts is
here inaccurate. It should be noted, however,
that the inaccuracy apparently consists in tele-
scoping together two visits to Damascus and omit-
ting the Arabian journey which came between them.
St. Paul, by speaking of his ' return ' to Damascus,
implies that tlie conversion had been in that city,
and in 2 Co ll''"' ('in Danuuscus the ethnarch of
Aretas the king guarded the citj' of the Damas-
cenes to take me, and I was let down in a basket
through a window ') we have a corroboration of the
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
19
escape mentioned in Acts, though it clearly must
come after the visit (probably of a missionarj-
charactei) to Arabia, in order to account for the
hostility of Aretas. Thus, so far as the enumera-
tion of events is concerned, the inaccuracy of Acts
resolves itself into the omission of the Arabian
visit, and the consequent telescoping together of
two visits to Damascus along with a proportion-
ate shortening of the chronology.
(/3) St. Paul's first visit to Jei-usalem. — The de-
tails of this >-isit are a more serious matter, and
Acts and Galatians cannot fully be reconciled, as
is plain when the narratives are arranged in
parallel columns.
' And when he was come to
Jerusalem, he assayed to join
himself to the disciples : and
they were all afraid of him,
not believing that he was a
disciple. But Barnabas took
him, and brought hiiu to the
apostles, and declared unto
them how he had seen the
Lord in the wa}', and that he
had spoken to him, and how
at Damascus he had preached
boldly in the name of Jesus.
And he was with them going
in and coming out at Jeru-
salem, and he spake and dis-
puted against the Hellenists ;
but they went about to kill
him.'
Gal !»■»
' After three years I went up
to Jerusalem to become ac-
quainted with Cephas, and
tarried with him fifteen days.
But other of the apostles saw
I none, save James the Lord's
brother. Now touching the
things which I write to you,
before God, I lie not. Then I
came into the districts of Syria
and Cilicia. And I was still
unknown by face unto the
churches of Judaea which were
in Christ : but they only heard
say. He that persecuted us
once now preacheth the faith
of which he once made havoc'
No argument can alter the fact that Acts speaks
of a period of preaching in Jerusalem which
attracted sufficient attention to endanger St.
Paul's Ufe, while Galatians describes an essentially
private visit to Peter ; probably both documents
refer to the same visit, as they place it between
St. Paul's departure from Damascus and his
arrival in Cilicia, but they give divergent accounts
of it.
(y) St. Paul's second visit to Jet~usalem. — It is
possible that the difficulties here are due to a mis-
taken exegesis rather than to any real divergence
between Acts and Galatians. If we start from the
facts, it is clear that St. Paul describes in Gal 2^"'"
his second visit to Jerusalem. In the course of this
he held a private inteni'iew with the apostles in
Jerusalem, in consequence of which he was free
to continue his preaching to the Gentiles without
hindrance. It is also clear from Ac 11^*' 12-'* that
St. Paul's second visit to Jerusalem was during
the time of the famine. If we accept the identi-
hcation of the second visit according to Acts with
tlie second %-isit according to Galatians, there is no
ditliculty beyond the fact that Acts does not state
that St. Paul and the other apostles discussed their
respective missions when they met in Jerusalem ;
but, since this discussion altered nothing — the
Gentile mission had already begim — there was no
special reason why Luke should have mentioned
it. Usually, however, critics have assumed that
the >isit to Jerusalem mentioned in Gal 2''^" is not
the second but the third \\s,\t referred to in Acts,
so that the interview with the apostles described in
Gal 2 is identified with the ' Ajxjstolic Council ' in
Ac 15. Great difficulties then arise : it is obviously
essential to St. Paul's argument that he should
not omit any of his visits to Jerusalem, and it is
not easy to understand why, if he is writing after
the Apostolic Council, he does not mention the
decrees. There would seem to have been a party
in Galatia which urged that circumcision was
necessary for all Christians ; this point had been
settled at tlie Apostolic Council. If the Council
had taken place, w by did St. Paul not say at once
that the judaizing attitude had been condemned
by the heads of the Jerusalem Church ?
The.se difficulties have been met in England since
the time of Liglitfoot by assuming that the Apos-
tolic decrees had only a local and ephemeral import-
ance, in which case it does not seem obvious why
they are given so prominent a place in Acts. In
Germany this difficulty has been more fully ap-
Ereciated, and either the account in Ac 15 — iaenti-
ed with Gal 2 — has been abajidoned as wholly
unhistorical, or the suggestion has been made that
the account in Gal 2 is really a more accurate
statement of what happened during St. Paul's
interview with the apostles, which probably
took place during the famine, while the ' decrees '
mentioned in Acts really belong to a later period
— perhaps St. Paul's last visit to Jerusalem — and
have been misplaced by Luke.
All these suggestions (and a dififerent combination
is given by almost every editor) agree in giving
up the accuracy of Ac 15. On the other hand, if
the view be taken that Gal 2 refers to an interview
between St. Paul and the Jerusalem apostles
during the time of the famine, and that it settled
not the question of circumcision, but that of
continuing the mission to the Gentiles which had
been begun in Antioch, there is no further diffi-
culty in thinking tliat Ac 15 represents the dis-
cussion of the question of circumcision which
inevitably arose as soon as the Gentile mission
expanded. It is, therefore, desirable to ask
whether the reasons for identifying Gal 2 and
Ac 15 are decisive. The classical statement in Eng-
lish is that of Lightfoot [Epistle to the Galatians,
p. 1 23 ff. ), who formulates it by saying that there
is an identity of geography, persons, subject of
dispute, character of the conference, and result.
Of these identities only the first is fully accurate ;
and it applies equally well to the visit to Jerusalem
in the time of the famine. The persons are not
quite the same, for Titus and Jolm are not
mentioned in Acts. The subject is not the same
at all, for in Galatians the question of the Law
is not discussed (and was apparently raised only
by St. Peters conduct later on in Antioch), but
merely Avhether the mission to the oncircnmcised
should be continued,* while in Acts the circum-
cision of the Gentiles is the main point^. The
character of the conference is not the same at
all, for in Galatians it is a private discussion,
in Acts a full meeting of the Church ; and the
result is not the same, for the one led up to the
Apostolic decrees, while the other apparently did
not do so. Lightfoot to some extent weakens
these objections by suggesting that St Paul de-
scribes a private conference before the Council,
but in so doing he weakens his own case still more,
for he can give no satisfactory reason why St.
Paul should carefully describe a private conference,
but omit the public meeting and official result to
which it was preliminarj-.
Thus, if the identification of Gal 2 and Ac 15
be al>andoned, the objections which are raised
against the account in Acts fall to the ground,
and the resultant arguments against the identi-
fication of the writer of Acts with Luke are
proportionately weakened.
The question may be studied in detail in C. Clemen, Paulu*,
Giessen, 19(M ; A. C McGiffert, A History of Chrutianity m
the ApottoKe Age, Edinburgh, 1807; A. Hamack, ApottH-
gesek., Leipzig, 1908; J. B. I.is:htfoot, Galatian*, Cambridge,
1S65 ; K. Lake, Earlier Epittlet of St. Paid, London, 1911 ; C.
W. Emmet, Galatiams, London, 1912.
(c) The movements of St. PauFs companions in
Macedonia and AchaUi in Ac i7" IS^ compared
with 1 Th 5"-*. — The difference between these
narratives is concerned with the movements of
Timothy and Silas. According to Acts, when St.
* From the context it is clear that to fvay/tXior rin ixfoPvariai
. . . T^ vfftLTonits means the gospel for the Uncircumdaion (i.«.
the Gentiles) and the Circumcision (i.e. the Jews).
20
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACnS OF THE APOSTLES
Paul went to Athens he left Timothy and Silas in
Beroea, and sent a message to them either from
Athens or from some intermediate noint, asking
them to rejoin him as soon as possiule, but they
did not actually join him until he readied Corinth
(Ac 18*). Tliis arrival of Timothy at Corinth is
mentioned in 1 Th 3*, but, according to the im-
plication of 1 Th 3"-, Timothy (and Silas ?) had
already reached Athens and been sent away again
with a message to Thessalonica. In this case Acts
omits the whole episode of Timothy's arrival at
and departure from Atliens, and telescopes together
two incidents in much the same way as seems to
have been done with regard to St. Paul's visits to
Damascus immediately after the conversion. This
is the simplest solution of the question, though it
ia possible to find other conceivable theories, such
as von Dobschiitz's suggestion that 1 Th 3' need
not mean that Timotliy came to Athens, as the
facts would be equally covered if a message from
St. Paul had intercepted him on his way from
Bercea to Atliens and sent him to Thessalonica.
The best account of various ways of dealing with the question
is ^ven by E. von Dobschutz, 'Die Thessalonicherbriefe,' in
Meyer's Krit.-Exeget. Kommentar'', Gottingen, 1909.
Summary. — The general result of a consideration
of tliese divergences between Acts and the Epistles
suggests that the author was sometimes inaccurate,
and not always well informed, but it is hard to
see that he makes mistakes which would be im-
possible to one who had, indeed, been Avith St.
I'aul at times but not during the greater part of
his career, and had collected information from the
Apostle and others as opportunity had served. On
the other hand, the argument from literary afhni-
ties between the ' we-clauses ' and the rest of Acts
remains at present unshaken ; and, until some
further analysis succeeds in showing why it should
be thought that the ' we-clauses ' have been taken
from a source not written by tlie redactor himself,
the traditionjil view that Luke, the companion of
St. Paul, was the editor of the whole book is the
most reasonable one.
III. Date op Acts and Bkception in the
Canon. — The evidence for the date is very meagre.
If the Lucan authorship be accepted, any date after
the last events chronicled, i.e. a short time before
A.D. 60 to c. A.D. 100, is possible. The arguments
which have been used for fixing on a more definite
point are : (1) the date of tiie Lucan Gospel, which
by the evidence of Ac 1^ is earlier ; (2) the abrupt
termination of Acts ; (3) the possibility that the
Avriter knew the Antiquities of Josephus, which
cannot be earlier than A.D. 90.
1. The date of the Lucan GospeL— It has usually
been assumed tliat this must be posterior to the
fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, but it is doubtful
whether there are really any satisfactory proofs
that this was the case. The only argument of
importance is that in the apocalyptic section of
Mark (ch. 13) expressions which might be supposed
to refer to the fall of Jerusalem have been altered
to correspond with the real facts of the siege.
Actually, however, the most striking change is
merely that the vague Marcan reference to Daniel's
' aliomination of desolation ' has been rejilaced by
a description of Jerusalem surrounded by armies.
Of cour.se, if we knew that Luke was later than
the fall of Jerusalem, it would be a rational
a.ssumption to think that the change was due to
the inlluence of the facts on the writer ; Imt the
force of the argument is not so great if we reverse
the proposition, for to explain ' the abomination of
desolation ' as a jirophecy of a siege is not specially
difficult. The most, therefore, that can be said is
that this argument raises a slight presumption in
favour of a date later tiian A.D. 70.
2. The abrupt termination of Acts.— Acts ends
apjiarently in the middle of the trial of St. Paul :
he has been sent to Koine, and has spent two
years in some sort of modified imprisonment, but
no verdict has been passed. From this Uarn.ack
has argued {Neue Untermichxingen zur Apostel-
(jeschichtc, p. 6511.) that the Acts must have
been written before the end of the trial was
known.
This argument would be important if it were the
only explanation of the facts. But two other
possibilities have to be considered. In the first
place, it is possible, though perhaps not very
probable, that Luke wrote, or intended to write, a
third book beginning with the account of St. Paul's
trial in Rome. In the second place, it is possible
that the end of Acts was not so abrupt to the ears
of contemporaries as it is to us, for the two years
may be the recognized period during which a trial
must be heard, and after which, if the prosecution
failed to appear, the case collapsed. The case of
St. Paul had been originally a prosecution by the
Jews, and probably it still kept this character,
even though the venue was changed to Kome.
But the Jews, as Luke says in Ac 28", did not put
in an appearance, and therefore the case must
have collapsed for lack of a prosecution, after a
statutory period of waiting. What this period
Avas we do not know, but a passage in Philo's i?i
Flaccum points to the probability that it was tAvo
years. According to this, a certain Lambon was
accused of treason in Alexandria, and the Roman
judge, knowing that he was dangerous, but that
the evidence was insufficient to justify a condem-
nation, kept him in prison for two years (^uriav),
which Philo describes as the ' longest period ' [rbv
ixTjKiffTov xp^"'"')' If this be so, Luke's termination
of Acts is not really so abrupt as it seems, but
implies that St. Paul was released after the end
of the two years, because no Jews came forward
to prosecute ; it is easy to understand that, as
this was not a definite acquittal, Luke had no
interest in emphasizing the fact.
3. The knowledge of Josephus shown in Acts.—
The evidence for this is found in the case of
Theudas. The facts are as follows. In Ac 5^
Gamaliel is made to refer to two revolts which
failed — first, that of Theudas, and after him that
of Judas the Galilean in the days of the Census
(i.e. A.D. 6). Both these revolts are well known,
and are described by Josephus ; but the difficulty
is that Judas really preceded Theudas, whose re-
volt took place in the procuratorship of Fadus (c.
A.D. 43-47).
The revolt of Theudas was thus most probably
later than the speech of Gamaliel, and the refer-
ence to it must be a literary device on the part of
Luke, who no doubt used the speeches which he
puts into the mouths of the persons in his narrative
with the same freedom as was customary among
writers of that period. But the remarkable point
is that Josephus in Ant. XX. also mentions Judas
of Galilee after speaking of Theudas ; * and the
suggestion is that Luke had seen this and was led
into the not unnatural mistake of confusing the
dates. He apparently knew the correct date of
Judas, and remembered only that Josephus had
spoken of him after Theuda.'^, and was thus led
into the mistake of thinking that Theudas must
have been earlier than Judas.
If the case of Theudas be admitted, it is also
possible that in the description of the death of
Herod Agrippa some details have been Uiken by
Luke from the description of the death of Herod tiie
• After describinp Thendas' revolt, Josephus continues : irpo?
TOUToi^ 6e Koi oi iralSti 'lovSa TOW TaAiAaiou d»T;x9i)<rai', Toii toi'
Xabi' airb 'Vufiaiuy airoan^aavrot Kvpiviov r^t 'lovSaiaiTiUJire-
iioiT09, itt iv TOis itpb Toi/Tun" iSrtKuHTaiJLtv, 'Idxu^Of icoi StMW ott
ivcurravpuaau. rrptxrirat*" o 'AAt'foi^pot {Ant. XX. v. 2).
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
21
Great as «riven by Josephus. Bat the evidence is
liere imuli le>s striking, and, if Theudas be not
conceded, has no real strength. Tlie case of
Theudiis is, liowev er, very remarkable ; it falls
short of ileuionstratiou, but not so far short as the
other arj:iunents for dating the Acts.
So far it has been assumed that Luke was the
writer of Acts; i"' '" this case the probable
length of his lii • terminus ad quern for
dating his writi;:_ a.d. 100. If hb author-
ship be disputed, the terminus ad quern is the
earliest known use of the book or of its companion
Gospel. T! be found in the fact that
Marcion {c. used the Gospel of Luke. It
i«, of cour^t, j.^-tule that some of the isolated
Evangelical quotations in the Apostolic Fathers
may be from Luke ; but no proof of this can be
given. As, however, Marcion's text is a redaction
of the canonical text, and Luke's (iospel was
taken into the Four-Grospel Canon not long after-
wards, it must have been in existence some time
previously, so that, even if the Lucan authorship
oe doubted, A.D. 130 is the latest date that can
reasonably be suggested. Even this appears to be
very improbable if attention be paid to some of
the characteristics of Acts. For instance. Acts
never uses the triadic formula : baptism is always
in the name ' of the Lord,' or ' of Jesus ' ; there is
no trace of the developed Docetic controversy of
the Johannine Epistles or of Ignatius ; XP^*^^ is
habitually used predicatively, and not as a proper
name, and in this respect Acts is more primitive
than St. Paul.
On the other hand, the weakening of the eschato-
logical element, and the interest in the Church, as
an institution in a world which is not immediately
to disappear, point away from the very early date
advocated by Harnack and others. The decennium
9O-10O seems, on the whole, the most probable
date, but demonstrative proof is lacking, and it
may have been written thirty years earlier, or
(but only if the Lucan authorship be abandoned)
thirty years later.
4. Reception in the Canon. — There is no trace
of any collection of Christian sacred books which
included the Four-Gospel Canon, but omitted the
Acts. That is to say, tliroughout the Catholic
Church within the Roman Empire, Acts was uni-
versally received as the authoritative and inspired
continuation of the Gospel story.
It appears also probable that in the Church of
Edessa Acts was used from the earliest time as the
continuation of the Diatessaron, for the Doctrine of
Addai specifies as the sacred books ' the Law and
the Prophets and the Gospel . . . and the Epistles
of Paul . . . and the Acts of the Twelve Apostles,'
of which the last item probably means the canon-
ical Acts (see F. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Chris-
tianity, London, 1904, p. 59).
Moreover, the ilarcionites and other Gnostic
Christians do not appear to have ever used the
Acts. Later on the Manichaeans seem to have
used a corpus of the five Acts of Paul, Peter, John,
Andrew, and Thomas, as a substitute for the
canonical Acts ; and the Priscillianists in Spain so
far adopted this usage as to accept this corpus as
an adjunct to the canonical Acts. (For the more
detailed consideration of these Acts, both as a
corpus and as separate documents, see ACTS OP
THE Apostles [Apocryphal].)
IV. The Composition op Acts.— The ques-
tion of the composition of this or any other book
is one partly of fact, partly of theory. In the
sense of determining the arrangement of the sec-
tions, and the relations which thev bear to one
another, it is a question of fact and observation ;
but, when the question is raised why the sections
are so arranged, and how far they represent older
sources used by the writer, it becoiueii a question
of theory and criticism.
1. The obvioos facts. — ^The first point, there-
fore, is the establishment of the facts, and in the
main these admit of little discussion. Acts falls
immediately into two chief parts — the Pauline,
and the non-Pauline parts — with a short inter-
mediate section in which St. Paul appears at in-
ter\'als. The Pauline section, a^ain, falls into the
natural divisions aflTorded by his two (or tliree)
great journeys; and a cross-division can also be
made by noting that the author sometimes uses
the first person plural, sometimes writes exclu-
sively in the third person. The earlier sections
in the same way can be divided — though the
division is here much less clear — into those in
which the centre of activity is Jerusalem, and
those in which it is Antioch, while a further series
of subdivisions can be made according as the chief
actor is Peter, Philip, or Stephen. Finally, still
smaller subdivisions can be made by dividmg the
narrative into the series of incidents which com-
pose it.
The table on p. 22 serves to give a general
conspectus of the facts ; a somewhat more minute
system of subdivision has been adopted in the
earlier chapters, which are especially affected by
the question of sources, than in the — from this
point of view — more straightforward later chap-
ters. This analysis is sufficient to show that the
writ«r must have been drawing on various sources
or traditions for his information, and we have to
face three problems : What was the purpose with
which the writer put together this narrative ? How
far is it possible to distingnish the sources, written
or oral, which he used ? What is the relative value
of the sources which he used ?
2. The purpose with which the whole narratiYe
was composed. — It is, of course, clear that the
writer has not attempted to give a colourless story
of as many events as possible, but is using history
to commend his own interpretation of the facta
This is corroborated by his own account at the
beginning of the Crospel, in which he defines his
purpose as that of convincing Theophilus of the
certainty of the ' narratives in which he had been
instructed ' {bra irtyw^i vepl Caw KartixvOvi \&yuv rriw
dtnpdXeiar [Lk l*]). In other words, he wishes to
tell the story of the early days of Christianity in
order to prove the Christian teaching.
If we consider the narrative from this point of
view, we can see several motives underlying it,
(a) The desire to show that the Christian Church
was the result of the presence of the Spirit {rwevfia,
rb ryevfia, rb ayiov rwevfta are the usual expressions,
but rwev/io. Kvpiov in 5* 8* [the text is doubtfull
rb rpev/ta 'I1^rov in l&), which is the fulfilment of
the promise of Jesus to send it to His disciples
(Ac l**- ; cf. Lk 3*« 24*^). The Spirit manifested
itself in glossolalia, in the working of miracles of
healing, and in the surprising growth of Christi-
anity. This is perhaps the main object of Luke's
writings, and to it is subordinated, both in the
Gospel and in Acts, the eschatological expectation
which is most characteristic of Mark and Matthew ;
though many traces of this stiU remain. — (b) The
desire to show the unreasonableness and wicked-
ness of Jewish opposition is also clearly marked,
and is contrasted with the attitude of Roman
officials. It is, therefore, not impossible that the
writer desired to dissociate Christianity from
Judaism, and to defend Christians from the im-
putation of belonging to a sect forbidden by the
State. If we knew the time when Christianity
was, as such, first forbidden and persecuted, this
might be a valuable indication of date, but at
present all that is known with certainty is that
(cf. Pliny's correspondence with Trajan) it was
22
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
forbidden by the l)e<,'inning of tlie 2n(l cent., iuid
that ill 64 it wns luobalily (btit not certainly) not
forbidden, as the Neronic persecution was not of
the Christians as such, out of Ciiristians as
suspected of certain definite crimes. It is, how-
ever, in any case clear that tliis feature of Acts
supports the view that one purpose cherished by
the writer was tlie desire to protest against the
view that Ciiristians had always been, or could
ever be, regarded as a danger to the Empire. —
(c) As a means towards the accomplishment of his
other purposes, the writer is desirous of showing
how (Jhristianity had spread from Jerusalem to
the surrounding districts, from there to Antioch,
and from Antioch through the provinces to Kome.
He also explains in what way the Christians came
Ciiurch, and the early history of the Church in
.lerusalem. In discussing them it is simplest to
begin with the most marked feature — the ' we-
clauses ' — and then work back to the earlier
chapters.
(1) Tlie ' we-clauses.' — As was shown above, the
balance of evidence seems at present to be strongly
in favour of the view that the writer of these
sections intended to claim that he had been a
companion of St. Paul, and that he was himself
the editor of the whole book. If this be so, we
have for the rest of the ' Paul ' narrative a source
ready to our hand — the personal information
obtained by Luke from St. Paul himself, or from
other companions of St. Paul whom he met in his
.society. This may cover as much as Ac 9^"** H^r-so
Rbkrkb.ncb.
PliACK.
Gbnkral Dkscription.
CiiiEK Actors.
IIJI.
Jenisalem.
The Ascension and promise of the Spirit.
Jesus and the Twelve.
118 26.
"
Choice of -Matthias. .
Speech of Peter.
Peter and the Twelve.
21-47.
"
Gift of the Spirit.
Glossolalia.
Speech of Peter.
Peter and the Twelve.
Sia.
II
Healing miracle by Peter and John.
Speech of Peter.
Peter [and John).
41-22
II
Imprisonment of Peter and John.
Speech of Peter.
Peter [and John].
423-31.
"
Their release.
Meeting of the Church.
Gift of the Spirit.
Peter [and John].
432-516.
11
Communism in the Church.
Peter, BarnaV)aa (Ana-
nias, Sapphira) .
517-42.
II
Imprisonment of Peter and John.
Speech of Gamaliel.
Peter [and John].
61-7.
„
Appointment of the Seven.
The apostles.
68.16.
'•
Preaching of Stephen.
His arrest.
Stephen.
71-83.
"
Speech of Stephen.
His death.
Stephen.
84-2B.
Samaria.
Philip's preaching.
Philip, Peter [and John].
Simon Magus.
Simon Magus.
826-40.
The road to Oaza.
Philip's conversion of the Ethiopian.
Philip.
91-31.
The road to DaiD.'iscus.
Conversion of Saul, and extension of
the Church.
Paul.
932-10«.
Lydda, Joppa, Caesarea.
Peter's Journey through Lydda, Joppa,
Csosarea.
Conversion of Cornelius.
Speech of Peter.
Peter.
111-18.
Jerusalem.
Peter's speech on Cornelius' conversion.
Foundation of Gentile Christianity.
Pet«r.
1119-98.
Antioch.
Hellenistic .Tews, Barna-
bas, Paul.
1127 80.
1,
Collection for Jerusalem.
Barnabas, Paul.
121-34.
Jerusalem.
Herod's persecution.
Peter's iniprisoiinient.
Death of Herod.
Peter.
1225.
Return of Barnabas and Saul to
Antioch.
B.arnabas, Paul.
131-1428.
Journey.
First missionary journey.
Paul.
151-35.
Jerusalem.
Apostolic Council.
Peter, James, Paul.
1536-1822.
Journey.
Second missionary journey.
Paul.
1823-2116
„
Third missionary "journey.
Paul.
2117-2311.
Jerusalem.
Paul's dealings with James. His arrest.
Speech to Sanhedrin.
Paul.
1
2312-2632.
Cmsarea.
Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea. Feli.\.
Paul.
Festus. Agrippa.
271-28J6.
Journey.
Journey to Rome.
Paul.
2S''-ai.
Home.
Paul and Jews in Rome.
Paul.
to jiKicli t() Gentiles without insisting on the
Jewish i.aw, and how this had been perceived to be
the work of the Spirit by the Jewish apostles wlio
recognized the revelation to this ellect to St. Paul
and to St. Peter (Ac O^a^- 22^1 ll's \5^«-).
3. The sources used in Acts. — The most super-
ficial examination of Acts shows that it is divided
most obviously into a ' Peter ' part and a ' Paul '
part ; it is, therefore, not strange that the critics
of the beginning of the 19th cent, thought of
dividing Acts into narratives derived from a
hypothetical ' Acts of Peter ' and a hypothetical
'Acts of Paul.' But further investigation has
gone behind this division : it has been seen that
important questions are involved in the relation
of the ' we-clau.ses' to the rest of t\\v luurative
relating to St. Paul, the story of the .XhIpm hene
joai-3i yj. yven more. There is nolliin;,' in tlie.se
sections wiiicli cannot have come from St. Paul
or his entourage, and the inaccuracies in the
narrative, as compared with the Ei)istles, do not
seem to point to s.nj greater fallibility on the part
of the writer than that to be found in other
historical writers who are in the possession of
good sources. At the same time, this does not
mean that the assignment of these chapters to a
' Paul ' source is final or exclusive of others. Some
sections within the.se limits (e.g. Ac 15) may come
from some other Jerusalem or Antiochene source,
and some sections outside them (e.g. the story of
Stephen's death) may have come from the ' Paul '
source.
If, on the otlier hand, it .should ultimately
appear that the evidence from style has been
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
23
exaggeratetl or misrepresented, it will be necessary
to regard the ' we-sections ' as representing a
separate source, and consider the question whether
the rest of tlie chapters mentioned above came
from one or several sources. At present, however,
no one has shown any serious ground for thinking
that Ave can distinguish any signs of change of
style, or of doublets in the narrative, to point in
this direction.
(2) The problems presented by the earlier
chapters are much more complicated. The chief
point which attracts attention is that in the lirst
half of these chapters the centre of interest is
Jerusalem, or Jerusalem and the neighbourhood,
while in the second half it is Antioch. Here again
it is easier to begin by taking the later chapters
fii-st, and to discuss the probable limits of the
Antiochene tradition, together with the passibility
that it may have lain before the writer of Acts as
a document, before considering the Jerusalem
tradition of the opening chapters.
(a) TA« Antiochene tradition. — The exact limits
of this tradition are difficult to fix. It is clear
that to it the section describing the foundation of
the church at Antioch and its early history
(Ac 11^*^) must be attributed; but difficulties
arise as soon as an attempt is made to work either
backwards or forwards from this centre, as the
later sections, which can fairly be attributed to
Antiochene tradition, can also be attributed to the
Pauline source, while the earlier sections of the
same kind might be attributed to the Jerusalem
tradition. It is obvious that the oi fup otv
Btoff-rapftrres of Ac II'* picks up the narrative of
8*"*. In S^- * the story of Stephen's death is brought
to a close by the statement that ey^vero Si iv eKeiinf
rg T}fJLfp<f Su^fibi fd-fa.% i-rl ttjp iKKXrifflaw rij* ip
'Ifpoffo\6/JMT ravrei 5i dieffrdpfijcap Karii tAj X"^?^^
. . . oi fiky oty Siaatcapivrei Sirjkdov evayyeXi^d/iePoi
rbf X&'/op. Then tlie writer gives two inst-ances of
this evangelization by Philip and Peter in Samaria,
and by Philip alone on the road to Gaza, Next
he explains how the conversion of St. Paul put
an end to the persecution, and how the conversion
of Cornelius led to the recognition of preaching to
Gentiles by the Jerusalem community. Finally, he
returns to where he started from, and picks up his
story as to the Christians who were dispersed after
the death of Stephen, with the same formula —
ol fikv OLV Siaarap^vrei in IP*.
Thus there is an organic unity between 8* and
1P». But 8* is the end of the story of the
Hellenistic Jews, their seven representatives, and
the persecution which befell them ; and the begin-
ning of this story is in 6*. Between 6® and 8* there
is no break — unless it be thought that the whole
speech of Stephen is the composition of the editor,
as may very well be the case. Is, then, 6"'-8* to
be regarded as belonging to the Antiochene tradi-
tion ? Hamack thinks so, and it is very probable.
But it is also true that 6*-S* might have come
either from Jerusalem or from St. Paul himself,
and it is hard to see convincing reasons why the
Antiochene source which Hamack postulates should
not liave come from the ' Paul ' source.
The same sort of result is reached by considering
the sections following IP*--^ Is ll»-3o « Pauline'
or 'Antiochene'? The following section, 12'*=",
is clearly part of the Jerusalem tradition, but
what follows, 12"-^-13', might again be either
Pauline or Antiochene, and the same is true of
15'"^, in which the account of the Council might
be Antiochene or Pauline, but is less likely to
represent Jerusalem tradition. These exhaust
the number of the passages which are ever likely to
be attributed to the Antiochene source. To the
present AA-riter it seems that, unless it prove
possible (so far it has not been done) to find some
literary criterion for distingmshing between the
' Pauline ' and ' Antiochene ' sources, it will remain
permanently impossible to draw any line of de-
marcation between what Luke may have heard
about the early history of Antioch n-om St. Paul
and what he may have learnt from other Antiochene
persons. It also seems quite impossible to say
whether he was using written sources. This, of
course, does not deny that the so-called ' Antiochene
source ' represents Antiochene tradition. All that
is said is tuat this Antiochene tradition may have
come from St. Paul quite as well as from any one
else. On the merits of the case we can go no
further (for the possibility that Luke was himself
an Antiochene see Luke).
(6) The Jerusalem tradition. — It is obvious that
Ac 1^-5^ represents in some sense a Jerusalem
tradition, and it is scarcely less clear that 8*~** ^'-
liw 12^"-'* represent a tradition which is divided
in its interests between Jerusalem and Cuesarea.
It is, therefore, necessary to deal first with the
purely Jerusalem sections, and afterwards with the
Jerusalem-Cajsarean narrative, before considering
whether they are really one or more than one in
origin.
(a) The purely Jerusalem sections. — The most
important feature of Ac I'-o** is that 2*~" seems to
contain doublets of 3'-4^, and that the suggestion
of a multiplicity of sources is supported by some
linguistic peculiarities.
21-13 ISie gift of the Spirit, accompanied by the sbak- 4^1
ing of the house ia which the Apotstles were.
2i*« A ff^ech of Peter. 31-*
237-11 The result of this speech is an extraordinarily i*
large namber of converts (5000, 3000X
2**<7 xhe communism of the Early Church. 4**- S
Of this series of doublets the twice-told story of
the early ' communism ' of the first Christians and
the repetition of the shaking of the house at the
outpouring of the Spirit are the most striking, but
the cumulative effect is certainly to justify the
view that we have two accounts, slightly varying,
of the same series of events.
This result finds remarkable corroboration in
certain linguistic peculiarities of Ac 3f. as com-
pared with ch. 2. In the former the word drcumjiraj
13 used in the sense ' raised up to preach ' (3-* ; cf.
3—), and iiyeipe is used of the Resurrection, but in
the latter oKaffTijo-as is used of the Resurrection.
In Ac 3 1. Jesus is described as a xatj dtov (S^*-*
^27. 3Dj^ ^^j; jjj pi, 2 as i^dpa CLTodfdfiyfUror arb tow
dfov. In Ac 3 f . Peter ia almost always accompanied
by John (3^- »• *• " 4**), but in ch. 2 he appears aione
or ' with the other apostles.'
That Ac 2 and 3 f . are doublets is thus probable ;
moreover, as the linguistic characteristics of 3 f. are
peculiar and not Lucan, it is more probable here
than anjTvhere else in Acts that we are dealing
with traces of a written Greek document under-
lying Acts in the same way as ilark and Q underlie
the Lucan Gospel. To this branch of the Jerusalem
tradition Hamack has given the name of * source
A,' and to Ac 2 the name of ' soturce B.' According
to him, the continuation of A can be found in o'"'*,
and he also identities it with the Jerusalem-
Caesarean source (see below). B is continued in
5i7-43_ ^g 1 more probably, he thinks, belongs to
B than to A, but may have a separate origin.
If A be followed, we get a clear and probable
narrative of the history of the Jerusalem Church,
but it begins in the middle. According to it, Peter
and John went up to the Temple and healed a lame
man ; in connexion with the sensation caused by
this wonder Peter explained that he wrought the
cure in the name of Jesus, whom he announced as
the predestined Messiah. As the result of this
missionary speech a great number of converts were
made (about 5000 [4'*]). Peter and John were
arrested, but later on released after a speech by
24
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
Peter, and a practical deliance of t!ie command of
the autliorities not to preaeli in tlie name of Jesus.
Then follows a descrijition of the joy of the Churdi
at the release of Peter and John, and an account of
their prayer— 5dy rots dovXois aov fifra. jrappTjaias irdcrrji
XaXctc t6c Xoyov aov. In answer to tlieir prayer, the
Spirit was outpoured amid the shaking of the room
in which they were, after which they were ahle,
as they had asked, to speak tlie word nerd, vappriala^.
Finally, a picture is drawn of tlie prosperity of the
Church, and of tlie voluntary communism which
prevailed.
The nan-ative gives an intelligible picture of the
events which led to the growth of tlie Jerusalem
Church and of an organization of charitable dis-
tribution that ultimately led to the development
described in Ac 6. Moreover, it has several marks
of individuality, and an early type which suggests
that we have here to do with a source used by Luke,
probably in documentary form, rather than a Lucan
composition. This applies especially to Peter's
speech, which is in some ways one of the most
archaic passages in the N'l. Peter does not
describe Jesus as having been the Messiah, but
as a iratj 6eov (more probably ' Servant of God ' than
'Child of God,' and perhaps with a side reference
to the ' Servant of Jahweh ' in Is 53, etc.) — a phrase
peculiar to source A, 1 Clement, the Martyrdom
of Polycarp, and the Didache. He then goes on
to annoimce that (iod lias "lorilied this Trats by the
Resurrection, and that He is the predestined
Messiah (rbv wpoo'Kexeipio'fi^i'ov Xpiardv), who will
remain in the Heavens until the ' restoration of
all things.' Recent research in the field of eschato-
logy and Messianic doctrine has brought out clearly
the primitive character of this speech. The same
can also be said of the prayer of the Church in
4*"-, in which the phrase t6»' dyiov iralSd aov 'Irjaovv,
6v ^xp'fas (' made Christ'?) is very remarkable.
Thus source A commends itself as an early and
good tradition, but it begins in the middle and tells
us nothing about the events previous to the visit of
Peter and John to the Temple. Apparently it was to
till up this gap that Luke turned to source B, which
seems to relate some of the same events, but in a
different order ; and, though Harnack doubts this,
it seems, on the whole, probable that Ac 1, or at
least vv.*"'*, ought to be regarded as belonging
to it. According to this narrative, the disciples
received the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost amid
the shaking of the room, after which Peter made
a speech, in many points resembling that in Ac 3,
but without the characteristic phraseology of A,
and with the addition of many more ' testimonia '
as to the Resurrection. A great number of converts
(about 3000) were made ; and, in the enthusiasm
which prevailed, a spirit of voluntary communism
flourished, and an organization of charitable dis-
tribution came into being.
This narrative does not seem so convincing as
that of source A. But if Ac 1 be regarded as
belonging to it, it has the advantage of connecting
the story of the Church at Jerusalem directly with
the events that followed the Crucifixion — a period
on which A is silent. Now, it is tolerably clear
that A was a written Greek source used by Luke,
just as he used Mark in the Gospel ; for, although
it has been ' Lncanized,' it still retains its own
characteristic expressions. Presumably, therefore,
a copy of this document came into Luke's possession,
and he supplemented it at the beginning with B ;
but, whether B was a written source or oral tradi-
tion, it is impossible to say. The question presents
in this respect a remarkable parallel to the state of
things in the last chapters of the Gospel of Luke.
Here also the writer made use of a Greek document
— Mark — and supplemented it with a Jerusalem
tradition — whether written or oral it is impossible
to say — either because the Marcan narrative broke
off', as it breaks off in the existent text of Mark, or
because he desired to correct the Marcan tradition.
It is, moreover, plain that this Jerusalem tradition
at the end of Luke is the same as that in source B
of the Acts. The question then suggests itself
whether source A — the written source of Acts —
may not belong to the same document as ' Mark '
— the written source of the Gospel. If we suppose
that the original Mark contained a continuation of
the Gospel story down to the foundation of the
Church in Jerusalem, and either that Luke dis-
liked the section referring to the events after the
Crucifixion, or perhaps that his copy had been
mutilated, the composition of this i)art of Acts
becomes plain ; * but it also becomes a question
whether the John who accompanies Peter in source
A (and nowhere else) is not John Mark, rather
than John the son of Zebedee.
All this, however, is hypothetical. The actual
existence of the source A in ch. 3f. and of the
sup])lementary source B in ch. 2 is a point for
which comparative certainty may be claimed.
The problem then arises, how far these sources
can be traced in the following chapters of Acts.
Harnack is inclined to see in 5''"" a doublet of
4^-'^'^, and to assign the latter to A, the former to
B. This is not improbable, but it is not so certain
as the previous results. It is, for instance, by no
means improbable that the apostles were twice
arrested, and, as the story is told, 5" seems a not
unnatural continuation of ch. 4. It is, however,
true that the characteristic ' Peter and John ' is
not found in 5'^"^- ; but, on the other hand, the
rather curious phrase dpxvy^" is apjdied to Jesus
in 31* and 5" (elsewhere in NT only in He 2'" 12=*),
which militates somewhat against the view that
these chapters belong to different sources. In the
same way the story of Ananias and Sapphira in
Ac 5''^^ would fit quite as well on to B as on to A,
with which Harnack connects it. Linguistically
there is no clear evidence, but it may be noted
that (pd^os is a characteristic of the Christian com-
munity in B in 2"'^ and is repeated in 5'- ". It is
not found in A, though from the circuinstances of
the case not much weight can be attached to this.
It therefore must remain uncertain whether Ac 5
ought to be regarded as wholly A, wholly B, or be
divided between the two sources.
(/3) 2'he Jerusalevi-Cmsarean section-f. — These are
Ac 8'-'**' !)=*i-lP» 121-'*, which describe Philip's evan-
gelization of Samaria, followed by the mission of
Peter and John, Philip's conversion of the Ethiopian
on the road to Gaza, and his arrival in Csesarea,
Peter's mission to Lydda, Joppa, and C.-esarea,
and return to Jerusalem, Peters arrest, imprison-
ment, and escape in Jerusalem, and Herod's death
in Ca'sarea. Harnack thinks that all these pivs-
sages represent a Jerusalem-Caesarean tradition,
which he identifies with source A. It is certainly
probable that 8"'^ belongs to A, owing to the
characteristic combination of Peter and John, and
it may be regarded as reasonable to tliink that
this also covers the rest of the section, so that
S"'*" may be attributed to A. It is more doubtful
when we come to the two other sections. If, how-
ever, any weight be attached to the suggestion
that A is connected with Mark, it is noteworthy
that 12^"^ is also very clearly connected with the
house of Mark and his mother.
The section tP'-ll'* remains. This ifl much more
clearly Ciesarean than either of the others, and
might possibly be separated from them and as-
*See Burkitt, Earliett Sources of the GonpeU, liOndon, 1911,
p. 79 f., where the suggestion is made that the early part_ of
Acts ni.a.v represent a Marain tradition, thnnirh the bearing
on this theory of the double source A ami H in Acts is not
mentioned.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
25
cribed to a distinct Caesarean source. If so, the
suggestion of Uarnack and others that the source
niiglit be identihed with the family of Philip,
which was settled in Caesarea, is not impossible;
from 'il* (a * we-clause ') we know that Luke came
into contact with him there. It Is also obvious
that the information given by Philip might be the
source of much more of that which has been ten-
tatively attributed to source A, or on the other
band might conceivably be identified with source
B ; the truth is, of course, that we here reach the
limit of legitimate hypothesis, and pass into the
open coimtrv of uncontrolled guessing.
The result, therefore, of an inquiry into the
sources of the Jerusalem tradition is to establish
the existence of a written Greek source. A, in
Ac 3f., with a parallel narrative B — apparently
the continuation of the Lucan Jerusalem narrative
in the Gospel ; and these two sources, or one of
them, are continued in ch. 5. In S*"** is a further
naiTative which has points of connexion with A.
Ac 9^^-11'* is a Ctesarean narrative, probably con-
nected with Philip, and this raises difficulties in
relation to A, for 8*"** has also points of connexion
with Philip. Finally 12'"^ is a Jerusalem narrative
connected with Peter and Mark ; but here also the
possibility of a connexion with Caesarea remains
open.
V. Historical Value op the Various Tra-
DITIOSS. — So far as the ' we-clauses' and the prob-
ably Pauline tradition are concerned, this question
has already been discussed. While there are traces
of probable inaccuracy, there is no reason to doubt
the general trustworthiness of the narrative. The
Antiochene narrative and the Jerusalem-Caesarean
narrative (the ' Philip ' clauses) can be judged with
more difficulty, as we have no means of comparing
the narratives with any other contemporary state-
ments. Here, however, we have another criterion.
It is probable that Luke is dealing with traditions,
and, at least in the case of A, with a document.
We cannot say how far he alters his sources, for
we have no other information as to their original
form, but we can use the analogy of his observed
practice in the case of the Gospel. Here we know
that he made use of Mark ; and we can control his
methods, because we pos.sess his source. In this way
we can obtain some idea of what he is likely to
have done with his sources in Acts. On the whole,
it cannot l)e said that the application of this
criterion raises the value of Acts. In the Gospel,
Luke, though in the main constant to his source
Mark, was by no means disinclined to change the
meaning of the story as well as the words, if he
thought right. It is possible that he was justified
in doing so, but that is not the question. The
point is that he did not hesitate to alter his source
in the Gospel ; it is therefore probable that he
did not hesitate to do so in the Acts.
Besides this, on grounds of general probability,
various small points give rise to doubt, or seem to
belong to the world of legend rather than to that
of history — tor instance, the removal of Philip by
the Spirit (or angel ?) from the side of the Ethiopian
to Azotus ; but the main narrative oti'ers no real
reason for rejection. The best statement of all
the points open to suspicion is still that of ZeUer-
Overbeck (The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., Lon-
don, 1875-76), but the conclusions which Zeller
draws are often untenable. He did not realize
that in any narrative there is a combination of
really observed fact and of hypotheses to explain
the fact. The hypotheses of a writer or narrator
of the 1st cent, were frequently of a kind that we
should now never think of suggesting. But that
is no reason why the narrative as a whole should
not be regarded as a statement of fact. The exist-
ence, in any given narrative, of improbable ex-
planations as to how events happened is not an argu-
ment against its early date and general trust-
worthiness, unless it can be shown that the ex-
1>lanation involves improbability not only in fact
mt also in thought — it must not only be improb-
able that the event really happened in the manner
suggested, but it must be improbable that a narra-
tor of that age would have thought that it so hap-
pened. Judged by this standard, the Antiochene
and Jerusalem-Caesarean traditions seem to deserve
credence as good and early sources.
The same thing can be said of source A in the
purely Jerusalem tradition. But the problem
raised by source B is more difficult. If it be as-
sumed that Ac 1 does not belong to it, it can only
be compared with source A. To this it seems in-
ferior, but on the whole it narrates the same events,
and it would certainly be rash to regard B as
valueless. No doubt it is true that, if the events
happened in the order given in A, they cannot
have happened in the order given in B, but it is
quite possible that many details in B may be cor-
rect in spite of the fact that they are told other-
wise or not told at all in A.
If, on the other hand, Ac 1 be assigned to B,
the question is more complicated. According to
Ac 1, the Ascension took place near Jerusalem
forty days after the Resurrection, and the infer-
ence is suggested that the disciples, including
Peter, never left Jerusalem after the Crucitixion.
That this was Luke's o%%ti \-iew is made quite plain
from the Gospel, except that there does not appear
to be any room in the Gospel narrative for the forty
days between the Resurrection and the Ascension.
The problems which arise are therefore : (1) How
far can the Gospel of Luke and Acts 1 be recon-
ciled? (2) Is it more probable that the disciples
stayed in Jerusalem or went to Galilee ?
1. How far can the Gospel of Luke and Acts 1
be reconciled ? — Various attempts have been made
to hnd room in the Gospel for the ' forty days.'
They have not, however, been successful, as the
connecting links in the Gospel narrative are quite
clear from the morning of the Resurrection to the
moment of the Ascension, which is plainly intended
to be regarded as taking place on the evening of
the same day. According to Lk 24"-, the sequence
of the events was the following. Early on Sunday
morning certain women went to the tomb, and to
them two men appeared who announced the Resur-
rection ; the women believed, but failed to con-
vince the disciples. Later on in the same day {ir
avT% r§ Tiiidpq.) two disciples saw the risen Lord on
the way to Emmaus, and at once returned to Jeru-
salem to tell the news (drcurTdi^ei o-vr^ T~j ^p<f)-
While they were narrating their experience the
Lord appeared, led them out to Bethany, and was
taken up to heaven. The only place where there
is any possibility of a break in the narrative is v.**
{eiref Si), but this possibility (in any case contrary
to the general impression given by the passage) is
excluded by the facts that flxtj' 5e is a peculiarly
Lucan phrase (59 times in Luke, 15 times in Acts,
only once elsewhere in the NT), and that it never
implies that a narrative is not continuous, and
usually the reverse. Moreover, that Lk 24'^ what>-
ever text be taken, refers to the Ascension is
rendered certain by the reference in Ac 1-. Thus,
there is no doubt that the CJospel places the Ascen-
sion on the evening or night of the third day after
the Crucifixion. It is equally clear that Acts
places the Ascension forty days later, if the text
of 1^ (8i ijfiepQv TcffffapdKorra) is correct ; and, though
there is, it is true, some confusion in the text at
this point, it is not enough to justify the omission
of ' forty days ' (see esp. F. Blass, Acta Apostolorum
secundum formam quce videtur Homanatn, Leipzig,
1896, p. xxiii). The only possible sn^estion.
26
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
therefore, is tliat tlio writer found some reason to
modify his opinions in the interval between writ-
in<j tlio (Josi>el and the Acts. VViietlier ho was
riglit to do so depends on tlio jtnif^ment passed on
various factors, wliioh cannot be discussed hero,
but majyr be summed up in the question whether
the evidence of the Paulino Epistles does not suj^-
{^esb that the earliest Christian view was that
Ascension and Resurrection were but two ways of
describinfj the same fact, and whether this is not
also implied in the speeches of Peter in Ac 2 and
3 * (cf. especially Ko 8-", Ph l''^, Ac 2=« 3'^-'°). Tiic
evidence is not sufficient to settle the point, but it
shows tliat the problem is not imajxinaiy.
2. Is it more probable that the disciples stayed
in Jerusalem or went to Galilee? — The evidence
that the disciples went to Galilee is found in
Mark.t The end of Mark is, of course, missing, but
there are in the existing text two indications that
the appearances of the risen Christ were in Galilee,
and therefore that the disciples must iiave returned
there after the Crucilixion. (a) Mk 14'-''-, ' All ye
shall be offended : for it is written, I will smite the
shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. But
after I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.'
This seems intended to prepare the way for the
flight of the disciples aiter the arrest in Geth-
semane ; the meaning of the second part, ' I will
go before you into Galilee,' is obscure, but in any
case it implies a return to Galilee, (b) Mk 16^ (the
message of the young man at the tomb), ' Go, tell
his disciples anu Peter tiiat he is going before you
into Galilee, there shall you see him.' Here it
is quite clearly stated that the first appearance of
the risen Christ to the disciples is to be in Galilee,
and once more it must be urged that this implies
that the disciples went there.
On the other hand, the evidence of Luke and
the Acts is that the disciples did not leave Jeru-
salem, and that, so far from the risen Lord announ-
cing His future appearance to the disciples in Galilee,
He actually told them to remain in Jerusalem.
That the two traditions thus exist cannot be
questioned, nor can they be reconciled without
violence. If, however, we have to choose between
them, the Galila;an tradition seems to deserve the
preference. It is in itself much move probable
that the disciples fled to Galilee when tliey left
Jesus to be arrested by Himself, than tliat they
went into Jerusalem. If they were, as the narra-
tive says, panic-stricken, Jerusalem was the last
place to which those who were not inhabitants of
that city would go. Moreover, it is not difficult
to see that the tendency of Christian history would
have naturally emphasized Jerusalem and omitted
Galilee, for it is certainly a fact that from the be-
ginning the Christian Church found its centre in
Jerusalem and not in Galilee. Why this was so
is obscure, and there is a link missing in the
hist-ory of the chain of events. This must be
recognized, but what either source B or Luke
himself (if Ac 1 be not part of source B) has done
is to connect up the links of the cliain as if tiie
Galila^an link luul never existed. So far as this goes,
it is a reason for not accepting Ac 1 as an accurate
account of history ; and this judgment perhaps
reflects on source B and certainly in some metisure
on Luke. It must, however, be noted that it ought
not seriously to affect our judgment on Luke's
account of later events. The period between the
Crucifixion and the growth of the Jerusalem
community was naturally the most obscure noint
in the history of Christianity ; and, even if Luke
* 0( course, if this be so, there is a coritr.niiclion between
Ac 1 and 2, and it becomes more pn)l)al)le (a) that Ac 1 is from
a separate tradition from source 15 ; (fc) that source B, like A,
was a written document when used by fjuke.
t Secondary evideni^e Is to bo foinid in Mt 28, .In 21, and the
* Qospel of Peter,' but Uark is the primary evidence.
went wrong in his attempt to find out the facts at
this point, that is no special rea.son for rejecting
his evidence for later events when he really was in
a position to obtain sound information. AH that
is really shown is that, unlike Mark, he was never
in close contact with one of the original Galikean
disciples.
Vl. CUIiOyOLOGY OP Acts. —Thore are no
definite chronological statements in the Acts,
such as those in Lk 3'. But at five points syn-
chronisms with known events can be established
and used as the basis of a chronological system.
These are the death of Uerod Agrippa I. (Ac 12^') ;
the famine in Jiuhea (II-'^"- 12^) ; Gallio's pro-
consulate in Corinth (IS^'') ; the decree of Claudius
banishing all Jews from Rome (18'"') ; and the
axTival of Festus in Judica (2")').
1. The death of Herod Agrippa. — Agrippa I.,
according to the evidence of coins* (if these be
genuine), reigned nine years. The beginning of
his reign was immediately after the accession of
Caligula, who became Emperor on 16 March, A.D.
37, and within a few days appointed Agrippa, who
was then in Rome, to the tetrarchy of Philip, with
the title of king ; to this in 39-40 the tetrarchy of
Antipas was added. Later on, Claudius added
Judaea, Samaria, and Galilee. The difficulty is that
Josephus says that Agrippa died in the seventh year
of his reign. This would be between the spring of
43 and that of 44, but it does not agree with the
evidence of the coinage, unless it be supposed that
Agrippa dated his accession from the death of Philip
rather than from his appointment by Caligula.
2. The famine in Judaea.— Our information for
the date of this event is found in Josephus and
Orosius. Josephus {Ant, XX. v.) says that the
famine took place during the procuratorship of
Alexander. Alexander's term of office ended in
A.D. 48, and this is therefore the terminus ad qucm
for the date of the famine. His term of office
began after that of Fadus. It is not known wiien
Fadus retired, but he was sent to Judjea after the
death of Herod Agripjia I. in A.D. 44, so that
Alexanders term cannot have begun before 45,
and more probably not before 46. Thus Joseplius
fixes the famine within a margin of less than two
years on either side of 47.
Orosius (VII. vi.), a writer of the 5th cent., is
more definite, and fixes the famine in the fourth
year of Claudius, which, on his system of reckon-
ing (see Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem i
London, 1898, p. 223, which sujiplements and
corrects the statement in St. Paul the Traveller
and the Roman Citizen, do. 1895, p. 68 f.), was prob-
ably from Sept. 44 to Sept. 45, or possibly from Jan.
45 to Jan. 46. This statement has, of course, only-
the value which may be attributed to the sources
of Orosius, which are unknown ; but it supports
Joseplius fairly well, and it is not probable that
Orosius was acquainted with the Antiquities, so
that his statement has independent value.
3. Gallio's proconsulate. — This date has recently
been fixed with considerable definiteness by the
discovery of a fragment of an inscription at Delphi t
which contains a reference to Gallio as proconsul
(which must be proconsul of Achaia), and bears
the date of the 26th ' acclamation ' of tlie Emperor
Claudius. This acclamation was before I Aug.
A.D. 52 (CIL vi. 125b), as an inscription of that
date refers to the 27th acclamation, and after 25
Jan. 51, as his 24th acclamation came in his 11th
tribunician year (i.e. 25 Jan. 51-24 Jan. 52). More-
over, it must h.avo been some considerable time after
25 Jan. 51, as the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th acclamations
• See F. W. Madden, Coint of the Jewn, London, 1881, p. 130.
t First published by A. Nilcitsky in Uussian, in Kpifjraphical
Stmiiig at Di'ljiUi, Odessa, 1808, and now most accessible in
Deissmann's I'atdua, Xiibingen, lUll.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
27
all came in the 11th tribunician year, and the
•Joth acclamation has not yet been found, so tliat
really the end of 51 is the earliest probable date
for the 'Jtith acclamation. Thus tlie Delphi in-
scription must be placed between the end of 51
and 1 Aug. 52. At this time Gallic was in office.
The proconsul usually entered on his office in the
middle of the summer (cf. Monimsen, Rom. Staats-
rec/U'^, ii. [Leipzig, 1888] 256), and normally held it
for one year only, though sometimes he continued
in it for another term. According to this, Gallic
must have come to Corinth in July 51. Twelve
months later is not absolutely impossible, though it
is improbable, for we do not know whether Claudius
had been acclaimed for a long or a short time before
1 Aug. 52, merely that by then his 27th acclamation
had taken place. According to Ac 18'*, St. Paul's
trial took place TaWLuvoi oi avdvirdTov tvros, and
this is usually taken to mean 'as soon as Gallic
liecame proconsul.' Probably this is correct exe-
gesis, though scarcely an accurate translation ;
and, if so, St. Paul's trial must have been in the
summer of 51, or, with later date for Gallic, in the
summer of 52.
4. The expulsion of the Jews from Rome. — Ac-
cording to Ac 18-, the Emperor Claudius banished
all Jews from Rome. Tiie same fact is mentioned
by Suetonius {Claudius, 25), who says : ' ludaeos,
impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes Roma
expulit,' but no date is given. Tacitus does not
mention the fact ; nor does Josephus. Orosius
(VU. vi. 15) states that it was in the ninth year of
Claudius, which probably means Sept. 49-Sept. 50.
He states that this date is derived from Josephus,
which is clearly a mistake, unless he is referring
to some other writer of that name (cf. Deissmann,
Paulus), but the date agrees very well with that of
Gallic's proconsulate ; for, if the trial before
Gallic was in Aug. 51, and St. Paul had been in
Corinth 18 months (Ac IS'-), the Apostle must
have reached Corinth in April 50, at which time
Aquila had just arrived in consequence of the
decree of Claudius.
5. The airriyal of Festos in Judaea. — This date
is unfortunately surrounded by gieat difficulties.
The facts are as follows : Eusebius, in his Chroni-
con, places the arrival of Festus in the second year
of Nero, which probably means not Oct. 55-Oct. 56
— the true second year of his reign — but, accord-
ing to the Eusebian plan of reckoning, Sept. 56-
Sept. 57. Josephus states that Felix, whom Festus
replaced, was prosecuted on his return to Rome,
but escaped owing to the influence of Pallas his
brother. But Pallas was dismissed, according to
Tacitus, before the death of Britannicus, and
Britannicus was, also according to Tacitus, just
14 years old. Britannicus was bom in Feb. 41,
so that Festus must have entered on his office,
according to this reckoning, before A.D. 55.
Nevertheless, Josephus appears to place the
greater part of the events under Felix in Nero's
reign, and this can hardly be the case if he retired
before Nero had reigned for three months. It is
thought, therefore, either that Tacitus made a
mistake as to the age of Britannicus, or that
Pallas retained considerable influence even after
his fall. Various other arguments have been used,
but none is based on exact statements or has any
real value. Thus, in view of the fact that the
combination cf statements in Josephus and Taci-
tus seems to give no firm basis for argument, we
have only Eusebius and general probability to use.
General probability really means in this case con-
sidering whether the Eusebian date fits in with
the date cf St. Paul's trial by Gallic, and has,
therefore, most cf the faults of circular reason-
ing. Still, the Eusebian date comes out of this
test fairly well. St. Paul was tried by Gallic in
Aug. A.D. 51. We may then reconstruct as
follows : —
Trial by Gallio— Aug. 61.
Corinth to .\ntioch— end of 51.
Arrival at Ephesus — summer of 52.
Departure from Ephesus and arrival at Corinth— autumn of 54.
Arrival at Jerusalem and arrest — summer of 55.
Two years' imprisonment — 65 to summer 57.
Trial before Festus — summer 67.
In view of the evidence as to Gallio, this is the
earliest possible chronology, unless we suppose
that two years in prison means June 5o-summer
56, which is, indeed, part of two years, though it
is doubtful whether it could have been described
as Sierias TrXrjpwdeiarji — the phrase used in Ac 24-'.
Summary. — These are the only data in Acts for
which any high degree of probability can be
claimed. The date cf Gallio is by far the most
certain. If we combine with them the further
data in Galatians, we obtain a reasonably good
chronology as far back as the conversion of
St. Paul. The second \-isit to Jerusalem in
Galatians is identical either with the time of the
famine or with that of the Council. If the
former, it can be placed in +46, if the latter, in
+ 48 ; and the conversion was either 14 or 17 years
before this, according to the exegesis adopted for
the statements in Galatians ; though, owing to
the ancient method of reckoning, 14 may mean a
few months more than 12, and 17 a few months
more than 15. Thus the earliest date for the
conversion would be A.D. 31, the latest 36.
It should, however, be remembered that the
perictl cf 14 years reckoned between the first and
second visits of St. Paul to Jerusalem depends
entirely on the reading AIAIA6TC0N in Gal 2\
which might easily have been a corruption for
AIAAETCON ( = ' after 4 years'), and that the 14
years in question are always a difficulty, as events
seem to have moved rapidly before and after that
?eriod, but during it to have stood relatively still,
'he possibility ought not to be neglected that the
conversion was 10 years later than the dates
suggested, i.e. in 41 or 46. This is especially
important, in view of the fact that the evidence
of Josephus as to the marriage of Herod and
Herodias suggests that the death of John the
Baptist, and therefore the Crucifixion, were later
than has usually been thought (see K. Lake, ' Date
of Herod's Marriage with Herodias and the Chron-
ology of the Gospels,' in Expositor, 8th ser. iv.
[1912] 462).
LiTBRATrRK, — For literature on the subject see A. Hamack,
Chronoioyie, Leipzig, 1897-1904, i. 233-9 ; the art. in U DB on
'Chronology' by C. H. Turner (older statementi are almost
entirely based on K. Wieseler's Chronol. des apost. Zeitalters,
Hamburg, 1S4S) ; C. Clemen, Paulus, Giessen, 1904.
VII. The Theology of Acts.— The theology
of Acts is, on the whole, simple and early, shewing
no traces of Jchannine, and surprisingly few of
Pauline, influence. In common with all other
canonical writings, it regards the God of the
Christians as the one true God, who had revealed
Himself in time past to His chosen people the
Jews ; and it identifies Jesus with the promised
Messiah, who will come from heaven to judge the
world, and to inaugurate the Kingdom of God
on the earth. There is, however, just as in the
Third Gospel, a noticeably smaller degree of
interest in the Messianic kingdom than in Mk.
and Mt., and a proportionately increased interest
in the Spirit. This may probably be explained
as due to the fact that the writer belonged to a
more Gentile circle than those in which Mk. and
Mt. were written. It is strange that in some
respects Acts is less ' Gentile' or ' Greek ' than the
Epistles. This is partially explained by the fact
that much cf so-called Paulinis?nus has been read
into the Epistles ; but, even when an allowance
28
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
has been made for this fact, the dilHculty re-
mains. The i»oints on which the theology of Acts
requires discussion in detail are its christolo<,'y,
eschatology, attitude to the OT and Jewish
Law, doctrine of the Spirit, and doctrine of
baptism.
1. Chrlstology. — In Acts Jesus is recognized as
the Christ, but tlie Christology belongs to an early
type. There is no suggestion of the JjOgos-Christ-
ology of the Fourth Gospel, or even of the Epistles
of the Cai)tivity. * The Christ ' appears to have
tiie quite j)rimitive meaning of ' the king of
the kingdom of CJod, who is appointed by Uod to
judge tlie world ' (cf. fffTriaev ij/^L^pay iv ri fjL^Wei
KpLvtiv TTji' oLKOvixivriv iv dtnaioffuvr) iv av5pl <(5 ibpiaev,
irlffTiv irapaax'^v iraffiv ovotrrTjcras avrov (k veKpCiv, IT"")-
At wliat point Jesus became Christ, according to
Acts, is not quite clear. Harnack (Neue Unter-
surhungen zur Avostelgesch., p. 7511.) thinks that
Luke regarded the Kesurrection as the moment,
in agreement with one interpretation of Ro 1^
In favour of this view can be cited Ac 13^^'" (St.
Paul's speech at Antio(;h in IHsidia), raijrriv [i.e.
iirayyeXlav] 6 Oeb^ iKTreirX-fipuKev roii riKvon r]fj.u>v
avaarTTjffas 'Iricrouv, wj /cai iv T(f ^a\fj.<f yiypanrai rijJ
SevripifT vl6s fiov elcru, iyw ai^nepov yeyivvrjKd ere, Aviiich,
strictly interpreted, n»ust mean that Jesus became
God's Son at the Kesurrection, for in the context
dvatrrijo-as can be given no other translation. On
the other hand, it must be remembered that many
critics think that this same quotation from I's '2
is connected with the Baptism in Lk 3''^'^,* in wliich
ca.se the further quotation in Lk 4^*, nvevixa Kvplov
iv' ifii, ov eiveKev ^xp'-'^^" M^i kt\., acquires increased
force, for the connexion of ^xP'-'^^^ with Xpierrds is
obvious. This, again, reflects light on Ac 10"** (ibs
fXP^'^f cii)t6i' 6 debs irvev/xari 071^ /cat dwdfiei) and the
similar piirase in 4-''. It must remain a problem
for critics how far this dillerence between Ac 13^^'-
and 10** and 4-' is accidental (or merely apparent),
and how far it is justiliable to connect it with tlie
fact that Ac 13 (which agrees with Ko 1*) belongs
to the Pauline source, while Ac 4 and 10 belong to
the Jerusalem source A and the clo.sely connected
or identical .lerusalem-Caesarean source (which
agree with at all events one interpretation of the
meaning of the Baptism in Mk 1).
The possible dillerence must, however, in any
case not be exaggerated. The whole of early
Christian literature outside Johannine influence
is full of apparent inconsistencies, because Xpiffrds
sometimes means ' the person who is by nature
and predestination the appointed Messiah,' some-
times more naiTowly ' the actual Messiah reigning
in the Kingdom of God.' In the former sense it
was possible to say flvai rbv Xpi<rTbv'lr]a-ovv f (Ac 18^),
or that fSfi iraOeiv rbv Xpiardv (17'). In the latter
sense it was possible to si)eak of Jesus as rbv irpo-
Kexfi-pLCTnivov iifuv Xpurrbv (3-"), where, in the light
of the whole passage, the rbv TrpoKexeipi<T/ji.ivov v/ntv
most probably has reference to the Kesurrection,
though other interpretations are possible ; or to
say Kvpiov avTbv Kal Xpierrbv iwolrjcrev 6 debs tovtov rbv
'lr](Tovv (2^), which with less doubt may be referred
to the Kesurrection. The point seems to be that,
on the one hand, Luke wishes to say that Jesus is
the Christ, and that, on the other, he does not
• The text is doubtful : the editors usually give <rv <! 6 vios moi
o ayomjTo?, iv <toi i/uJofCTjo-a with K B L 33 fani 1, fam 13, and the
mass of MSS (t'.e. the // and K texts, and at least two im-
portant branches of / [J and U']), but Harnack prefers to read
the quotation from Ps 2 with D a b c S al. Aujj. Cleui'ie*- (thus
possibly the text of /» and certainly of a text coeval with I-U-K
[if such a text existed]) ; probably he is rii,'ht.
t This must mean that the Messiab (of whom all men know)
is Jesus (of whom they had previously not heard) ; and em-
phasizes the fact that, whereas Chri8tolo({y means to most
people of this generation an attempt to give an adequate
doctrinal statement of Jesus, it meant for the earliest genera-
tion an attempt to show that Jesus adequately fulfilled an
already existini; doctrinal definition of the Messiah.
wish to say that the life of Jesus was the Messianic
Parousia or ' Coming,' and does wish to say that
by the Kesurrection Jesus became the heavenly,
glorious Being who would come shortly to judge
the world.
It should be noted, as an especially archaic
characteristic, that in Acts 'IijffoOj XpiarSi is not
used as a name except in the i)hrase rb dvofia'lrjffoO
XpiffTov (2»«3M'« S^MO^s 15"« IG'") ; elsewhere Xptirr6j
is always predicative. In this respect Acts seems
to be more archaic than the Pauline Kpistles.
The death of the Christ has in Acts but little
theological importance. In one place only (20**
TTjv iKKXtjfflav ToC Kvplov [l)ut deov a B vg, a few other
authorities, and the TK] fjv irepieTroirjffaro 5td tov
aifiaros roO Idlov) is there anything which approaches
the Pauline doctrine, and it is noticeable that this
passage is from the speech of Paul to the Epiiesian
elders. In the speeclies of Peter and Stephen, the
death of the Christ is regarded as a wicked act of
the Jews rather than as a necessary part of a plan
of salvation. The most important passage is 3'^"'' :
Kal vvv, a5e\<poi, ol5a 6ti Kark dyvoiav iirpd^are, ibcrirep
Kal ol dpxovres iifiuv. 6 Si debs & irpoKarrjyyeCKev 5td
crrbfiaros iravnov rQv wpoepTjTQv TraOelvrbv Xpiarbv airrov
iirXripwcrev oOrws. fieravoriffaTe o^v, koI iTn<rTpi\f/aTe,
irpbs rb i^aXeicji0TJvaL v/xwv rds anaprlas, 6wuis dv IXdixxxi
Kaipol dvaipv^ews dirb irpoadiirov tov Kvplov Kal diroareiXr)
rbv ■jTpoKexeipKT/J.ivov i'/juv Xpiarbv 'lyjaoCv, 6v 5ei ovpavbv
fjiiv di^aaOai dxpi- XP^'''^'' diroKaracrTdaews -rrdvTWv, ktX.
Here there is a verbal connexion between the suHer-
ing of the Christ and the blotting out of sins, but
no suggestion of any causal connexion. The writer
says that the Jews put the Messiah to death, as
had been foretold, but they did it in ignorance ;
and, if they repent, this and other sins will be
blotted out, and Jesus will corneas the predestined
Messiah. The cause of the blotting out of sins is
here, as in tlie OT prophets, repentance and change
of conduct (i-jnaTpixj/are) ; nothing is said to suggest
that this would not have been effective without
the suffering of tlie Messiah.
2. Eschatology. — There is comparatively little
in Acts which throws light on the eschatologic.al
expectation of the writer. As compared with
Mark or St. Paul, he seems to be less eschato-
logical, but traces of the primitive expectation are
not wanting. In P^ the Parousia of the Messiah
is still expected : 'This Jesus who has lieen taken
up into Heaven shall so come as ye have seen him
go into Heaven ' ; and, though it is not here stated
that the witnesses of the Ascension shall also live
to see the Parousia, this seems to be implied. The
same sort of comment can be made on 3^'- and 17'' ;
but otherwise there is little in Acts to bear on the
eschatological expectation. This was, indeed, to
be expected in a book written l)y Luke, who in
iiis Gospel greatly lessened the eschatological
elements fount! in Mark and Q.
3. The OT and Jewish Law.— For the writer of
Acts the OT was the written source of all revela-
tion. The sufficient proof of any argument or
explanation of any historical event was to be found
in the fact that it had been prophesied. Like all
Greek-writing Christians, he uses the LXX and
does not stop to ask whether it is textually
accurate.
But a distinction must be made between the
OT as prophecy and the OT as Law. In the latter
sense the position taken up in Acts is that the Law
of the OT is binding in every detail on Jewish
Cliristians, but not binding at .ill on Gentile
Christians. The most remarkable example of
tills is the picture given in cli. 25 of St. Paul's
acceptance of the Law in Jerusalem, and the cir-
cumcision of Timotliy. Whether this can l)e re-
conciled with the Apostle's own iM)sition is a point
for students of the Epistles to settle ; the present
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
29
writer believes that in this respect Acts gives
& faithful representation of St. Paul's own view
(see the admirable discussion in Uamack, Apostcl-
gesch., pp. 8 and 211-217). The reason for thinking
that the Law was still binding on Jews but not on
Gentiles must be sought in a distinction between
the Law as source of salvation — it was not this for
any one — and tlie Law as command of God — this
it was for the Jew, but not for the Gentile.
As prophecies, the OT books are accepted without
question, and there is no trace of the Jewish con-
troversy which raised the dispute as to the correct
exegesis of the OT. This controversy can be traced
in tlie Epistle of Barnabas, and found its extreme
result in the attitude of Marcion, but in Acts it
cannot be found, and apparently this is because
the dispute had not yet arisen. (For the best
summary of this question see Hamack, Apostel-
gesch., p. 8 n.)
i. The Spirit. — It is not quite clear whether
Acts regards all Christians as inspired by the Holy
Spirit, but it is at least certain that it regards this
as true of all the leaders, and of all who were fully
Christians. It would appear possible, however,
from such episodes as that of the Christians in
Ephesus who had been baptized only in John's
baptism, that a kind of imperfect Christianity was
recognized ; these Ephesians are described as ftadrp-ds,
even before they had been baptized. On the other
hand, the inadequacy of their baptism was dis-
covered by St. Paul because they had not received
the Spirit, so that even from this passaj^e it would
seem that Christians were regarded normally as
inspired by the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is
usually referred to as t6 rvevna rb iyiov or rb ayiov
TveO/xa (21 times), or as rb xveu/ia (9 times), or as
■wvevfw. djLov (16 times), once as ryev/ia Kvpiov, once
as rb -rvevfjM. Kvpiov, and once as rb ryevfw, 'Irjffov.
A problem which has as yet scarcely received the
attention which it deserves is, whether the Spirit
was regarded as one or many (or, in other words,
what is the difference between to -ryfCfia and
■wvevfia). The exact meaning of the very import-
ant phrase to -rvevna 'IjjctoO is also obscure. Was
it the Spirit which had been in Jesus, with which
God had anointed {ixP'^'^^") Him? Or was it the
Spirit-Jesus, as He had become after the Resur-
rection, in agreement with the Pauline phrase
' The Lord is the Spirit ' (2 Co 3^") ? In any case
it is clear that the gift of the Spirit was regarded
as in some sense the work of the exalted Jesus
(Ac 2^ ; cf. Lk 24*®) but ultimately derived from
God.
A further development is found in Acts — that
the gift of the Spirit can be ensured either by
baptism (see § 5) or, more probably, by the ' laying
on of hands ' of the Apostles {erideffn x^'-P^" ; *^^-
j^i-ff. 917 196)^ though this power, if one may judge
from 8^'^, was not shared by all other Christians.
This developed doctrine of the Spirit is the
most marked feature of Acts, and the Lucan
Gospel is clearly intended to lead up to it. The
Christians were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and
the Resurrection and Ascension of the Christ are
related to this fact, rather than, as seems to be the
case in Mark, to the coming of the Messianic
kingdom. It is true that in Ac 2 the gift of the
Spirit and the consequent glossolalia are explaine<l
as a sign that the last days are at hand, but the
whole tendency of the Acts is to look on the
possession of the Spirit as the characteristic of the
Church, rather than of an eschatological kingdom,
and the work of Christ is already regarded as the
foundation of this inspired Church in the world,
rather than as the inauguration of the Kingdom
of God instead of the world. In some respects
Luke is more archaic than St. Paul, but not in
this.
5. Baptism. — There is no doubt that the writer
of Acts regarded baptism as the normal means of
entry into the Christian Church. There is also no
doubt that he represents an early stage of Christian
practice in which baptism was ' in the name of
the Lord Jesus' (or ' of Jesus Christ '), not in the
triadic formula (Ac 2» 8'« 10« 19*). This agrees
with the practice of St. Paul so far as it can be
discovered (Ro 6^ Gal 3^; cf. 1 Co !»"•), with
Didache 8 (but not 7), Hennas, Sim. ix. 17. 4, and
the Eusebian text (if that refer, as is probable,
to baptism) of Mt 28^* (but not with the usual text
of this passage, or with the later Christian practice).
Difficulty is, however, raised by the question
whether the writer (or his sources) makes the
gift of the Spirit depend on baptism or on the
laying on of hands, either invariably or as a general
rule. It is, on the whole, most probable that he
regards baptism as a necessary preliminary to the
gift of the Spirit, but not as the direct means by
which the Spirit was given, whereas the ' laying on
of hands' was the direct means of imparting this
gift ; though, under some exceptional circum-
stances, the gift was directly conferred by God
without any ministerial interposition.
The passages which seem at first to identify
baptism with the gift of the Spirit are especially
Ac 2» and 19^-^. In 2!^ St. Peter says : ' Repent
and be baptized . . . and ye shall receive the gift
of the Spirit.' This seems decisive, but in the con-
text we are not told that those baptized received
the Spirit — only that they were added to the
Church. Was this the same thing for the writ«r ?
Or did he mean that after reception into the
Church they would receive it ? In the same way
in Ac 19^** St. Paul asks the Ephesians whether
they have not received the Spirit ; and, hearing
that this is not so, he inquires further into their
baptism. Nevertheless, in the end, the gift of
the Spirit in their case is directly connected -with
the 'laying on of hands.' This conclusion is, of
course, supported by the other passages in which
baptism and the gift of the Spirit are distinguished :
of these 8^^- and 10" are the most important. (A
full discussion will be found in EEE ii. 382 ff.)
Literature. — See at the end of the varioas sections and
throaghonc the article. KlRSOPP LAKS.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES (Apocryphal).—
I. ISTRODrCTORY.— The most important of the
Apocryphal Acts are the live (Peter, Paul, John,
Andrew, Thomas) which sometimes are referred to
as ' the Leucian Acts,' because they are supposed
to have been composed by a certain Leucius. Before
they can be discussed separately, it is therefore
necessary to deal with the problem of the Leucian
corpus, and inquire whether such a collection ex-
isted in early times, what was its nature, and how
far the name of ' Leucian ' may be applied to it.
The direct source of the later tradition that there
was a Leucian corpus is no doubt a statement of
Photius (Bibliothcca, cod. 114) :
arfynMi0ri fiifikiov, ax Xeyofirvat Twr iwoaro^mr xcpto&H, iw
ali rfpifixovTO rpdfdt Uerpov, Imanmt, 'Kripiem, 0*>/ut, IlauXov*
■ypa.^1 Si ovrdf, uf Si)\ol to avni PtfiKiov, Aevctof XaptctK.
From this it is plain that Photius had seen a
corpus of Acts, and interpreted some i>assage in
the text to mean that the live Acts were all written
by Leucius Charinus. It is therefore desirable to
examine earlier literature for ( 1 ) mention of Leucius,
(2) mention of the live Acts of Peter, John, Andrew,
Thomas, and Paul, either as a corpu-i or as separate
writings.
1. References to Leucius.— i. Ix the East. —
i Epiphanius (Panar. li. 6), when speaking of the
Alogi, mentions as famous heretics Cerinthus and
: Ebion, Merinthus and Cleobius or Cleobulus,
I Claudius, Demas, and Hermogenes, and says they
30
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
ACTS (APOCllYPHAL)
were controverted by St. John Kal tCjv dfx<f>l aindv,
AcvKiov Ka.1 &\\uy voWwv. J'resuuiably, tlierefore,
EpiplianinH was acquainted witli some book in
wliicli Leucius ajjpearud as a companion of St,
John, but it will be noted that he does not suggest
tliat Leucius was in any way heretical, but rather
tliat lie controverted heretics. Apart from this
solitiiry mention there is no trace of Leucius in
Greek Ciiristian writings until Photius.
ii. In the West. — It is quite diflerent in the
West ; here tliere is a series of witnesses to Leucius.
(1) Pacian (f c. 390), bishoj) of Barcelona.— In Ep.
iii. 3 I'aciuu writes to Semn. Novatianus concerning
tiie Proclan })arty of tlie Montanists,* who claimed
some connexion with Leucius, which Pacian denied ;
and the natural interpretation of his words seems
to be that he regarded Leucius as an orthodox
Christian to whom the Montanists tried to attach
their origin ; but the passage is obscure :
' Et priniuin hi pluriiiiis utuntur auctoribus ; nam puto et
Grat'cus HlasluH ipsorum est. Theodotus quo(iue et Praxeas
vestros aliquando docuere : ipsi illi PhrvRes [i.e. Montanists]
nobiliorcs, qui 8e aniiuatos mentiuntur a Leucio, se institutoit a
Proculo gioriantur.'
(2) Augustine. — In the conh-a Feliccm, ii. 6,
written earlier in the 5th cent., Augustine says :
'Habetis etiain hoc in scripturis apocryphis, quas canon
quideni catholicus non admittit, vobis autem (t.e. the Mani-
chsoans] tanto graviores sunt, quaiilo a oatholico canone
Becludiintur ... in actibus scriptis a Leucio (codd. ' Leutio ')
qu08 taniquani actus apostolorum scribit, habes ita positum :
"etenini speciosa flpnenta ct ostentatio simulata et coactio
visibiliuni nee quideni ex propria natura procedunt, sed ex eo
hominc qui per se ipsum deterior factus est per seductionem."'
As is shown later, Augustine was acquainted
with the Apocryphal Acts of Peter, Andrew,
Tliomas, John, and Paul, of which the first four
were accef ted only by Manichseans, the last (Paul)
probably by Catliolics also. Tliere is nothing,
!ii)\\(\er, to show from which he is quoting here,
aiul the passage is not in any of the extant frag-
ments. Thomas is excluded, as we probably have
the complete text, and the passage is unlike what
we pos.sess of the Acts of Peter or Paul. It is there-
fore probable, as Schmidt argues {Alte Petrusakten,
p. 50), that he is referring to Andrew or John — the
two Acts for which the Leucian authorshii) is other-
wise most probable. But the point is not certain,
and the possibility remains tliat he is referring to a
Maniclia^an corpus of Acts, collected by Leucius.
(3) Euodius of Uzala. — In the de Fide contra
Manichceos, ch. 38 (printed in Augustine's works [ed.
Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. xlii.]), written bj'
Euodius, the contemporary of Augustine, the Acts
of Andrew is attributed to Leucius. The full quota-
tion is given by Schmidt (p. 53), who thinks that it
probably, though not certainly, implies that Euodius
also regarded Leucius as the autiior of a corpus of
Acts, but argues that this opinion was probably
based only on an interpretation of the passage of
Augustine quoted alx)ve. However this may be,
it remains clear tliat Euodius regarded the Acts of
Andrew as Manicluean and the work of Leucius.
(4) Innocent I. — In a rescript of 405 to Exsuperius,
bishop of Toulouse, Innocent says :
'Cct'-Ta autem quae vcl sub nomine Matthiae vel sub nomine
laoobi minoris, vcl sub nomine Petri et Joliannis quae aquodam
Leucio scripta sunt (vel sub nomine Andreae fjuae a Nexo-
charide et Leonida philosophis], vel sub nomine Thomae et si
qua sunt alia (v.l. talia), non solum rcpudianda verum ctiam
noveris dainnanda.'
The words enclosed in brackets are probably an
interpolation (see Zahn, Acta Joavvis, 209), and
Nexocharides and Leonidas tlie jiliilosopliers are
otherwise unknown jiersons. The text is certainly
not quite in order, but Leucius is clearly indicated
as tiie author of the Acts of Peter and of John.
• From pseudo-TertuUian, liefut. omn. Hair. viii. 10, x. 2C,
It appcar.s tliut some Montanists were Kara. IlpoKAoc, others
Kara Aio-xtfijf (see Th. Zahn, Aela JoannU, p. Ixvi, n. 4).
(5) The Decretum Gelasianuni (Gtli cent.). — After
rejecting as apocryiihal the Acts of Andrew,
Thomas, Peter, and Philip, the writer goes on to
give a list of Apocryi)lial Gospels, and then con-
tinues : ' Libri omnes quOs fecit i^eucius discijjulus
diaboli, ajiocryphi.' As there follow several Mani-
chtean writings, it is tolerably certain tliat here,
as elsewhere, ' disciple of the devil ' means ' Mani-
cha*an,' but it is not clear to which books reference
is made. There is a slight presumption that the
books made by Leucius are not identical witli any
already mentioned, and this would suggest either
the Acts of John, which are not otherwise men-
tioned, or possibly the Acts of Pilate, which in the
liatin version are connected witii the name of
Leucius Charinus. Schmidt, however, while think-
ing that the Acts of John are certainly intended,
is inclined to believe that the writer may have
meant the whole Manicluean collection.
(6) Turribius of Astorga (c. 450). — In a corre-
s])ondence with his fellow-bishoj)s, Idaeius and
Creponius, Turribius discusses the literature of
the Maniclueans and Priscillianists. Among
these he mentions ' Actus illos qui vocantur S.
Andreae, vel illos qui appellantur S. loannis, quos
sacrilego Leucius ore conscripsit, vel illos qui
dicuntur S. Thoinae et his similia, etc.' Here
clearly Leucius is regarded as the author of the
Acts of John, and presumably not of the others —
though, if a certain laxity of syntax be conceded,
the Acts of Andrew might be added— certainly not
of the Acts of Thomas.
(7) Mellitus. — The writer of a late Catholic
version of the Acts, who took to himself the name
of Mellitus, probably intending to identify himself
with Melito of Sardis (c. 160-190), says : ' Volo
soUicitam esse fraternitatem vcstram de Leucio
quodam qui scripsit apostolorum actus, loannis
evangelistae et sancti Andreae vel Thomae apostoli,
etc.'; so that he must have regarded Leucius as
tlie author of these three Acts, but there is no
suggestion of the full coi-pus of live. Schmidt
thinks that he probably derived his knowledge
from the letter of Turribius and a list of heretical
writings, which was once annexed to it, though
it has now disappeared ; the letter was probably
taken up into tiie works of Leo, with whom Turri-
bius corresponded (see Schmidt, j). 61). It does
not appear jnobable from internal evidence that
Mellitus had any lirst-hand knowledge of the
Apocryphal Acts.
(8) Further traces of Leucius, under the corrupt
form of Selcucns, can perhaps be traced in pseudo-
Hieronymus, Ep. ad Chromatium et Hdiodorum,
and in literature de])endent upon it (see Seiimidt,
j). 62) ; but no imjiortance can be attached to this
late and inferior composition.
It would appear from these data that (a) the
earliest traditions connected Leucius witli St. John,
and did not regard him as In niiral. \li) A quite
late tradition regarded hiiu ;is \\\v auihur of the
corpus of five Acts — Paul, Peter, John, Andrew,
and Thomas — which the Manicluvans use«l as a
substitute for the canonical Acts, and the Priscil-
lianists in addition to the canonical Acts, (c) Ex-
ternal evidence suggests that Leucius was probably
the author of the Acts of John, and, with less
clearness, of Andrew, but not of Peter, Paul, or
Thomas ; and tliis conclusion is supported by in-
ternal evidence.
2. The evidence for the Acts as a collection.—
i. In THE Wkst.— (1) J>/ilfastriu.s- of ]ircsriii ([iHli-
391). — In his Liber de JIansibus, 88, we have the
earliest evidence for a corpus of A})ocryi)lial Acts.
He begins by referring to those who use 'apocryfa,
id est secreta,' instead of the canonical OT and NT,
and mentions as the chief of those who do this the
' Mauichaei, Cinostici, Nicolaitae, Valeutiniani et
ACTS (APOCKYPHAL)
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
31
alii quam plurinii qui ajxKiryfa prophetaruiu et
apoi>toloruin, id est Actus separates habentes,
canouiciis legere scriptural conteninuut.' Later
on he gives more details in a passage where the
text is unfortunately clearly corrupt :
'Nam Manichaei apocryfa beati Andreae apoetoli, id est
Actus quos fecit veniens de Ponto in Greciam [quos] conscrip-
seruiit tuuc discipuli s«quent«s bestom apoetolum, unde et
hab«nt Maoicbaei et alii tales Andreae be^ et Joannis actus
evang«Iistae beati et Petri similiter beatissimi apostoli et Pauli
iwriter beati apostoli : in quibus quia signa fecerunt magna
et prodijpa, etc'
Whatever may be the true text of this passage,
it clearly implies (a) that the Manichaeans used a
carpus of Apocryphal Acts in place of the canonical
Acts of the Apostles ; (6) that this corpus contained
the Act.s of AudreM-, John, Peter, and Paul ; (c) the
Acts of Thomas is not mentioned (Schmidt [p. 44]
thinks that this is merely accidental) ; (rf) Leucius
is not mentioned.
(2) Augustine. — In the controversial writings of
Augustine against the Manichaeans there are many
allusions to the Apocryphal Acts. Reference may
especially be made to' (a) the de Sermone Domini
in Monte (i. 20, 65), in which allusions can be traced
to the Acts of Thomas ; (6) the contra Adimantum,
17, where allusions to the Acts of Thomas and
Acts of Peter can be identified; (c) the contra
Faustum Manicheum (lib. xiv. and xxx.) ; (d)
the contra Felicem ; and (c) the de Civitate Dei.
Schmidt (44 if.) has sho\»Ti, from the consideration
of these passages, that the Manichaeans used the
five Acts of John, Andrew, Peter, Thomas, and
Paul, while the Catholics rejected the first four,
but accepted the Acts of Paul. The crucial pass-
age for this conclusion is c. Faustum, xxx. 4, in
which Faustus the Manichee says :
' Mitto enim ceteros eiiisdem domini nostri apostolos, Petrum
et Andream, Tbomani et ilium inexpertum veneris inter ceteros
beatimi Jobannem . . . sed bos quideui, ut dixi, praetereo,
quia COS vos [i.e. the Catholics] exclusistis ex canone, facileque
mente sacrilega vestra daemoniorum his potestis importare
doctrinas. Kum igiiur et de Christo eadem dicere poteritis aat
de aivv;tolo Paulo, quem similiter ubique constat et verbo semper
praetultsse nviptis innuptas et id opere quoque ostendisse erg*
Baiictissimam Theclaiu ? quodsi haec daemoniorum doctrinanon
fait, quam et Theclae Paulus et ceteri ceteris adnantiaverunt
apostoli, cui credi iam poterit hoc ab ipso memoratom, tam-
quam sit daemoniorum voluntas et doctrina etiam persoasio
sanctimonii?'
As Schmidt says, it is clear that Faustus gave up
the use of the Acts of Andrew, John, Peter, and
Thomas, because his opponents refused to recognize
their authority, but relied on a Pauline document
relating to Thekla. Before the discovery of the
Acts of Paul it was possible to think that this might
be the so-called Acts of Paul and Thekla. It is
now, however, fairly certain that this latter docu-
ment in its present form is merely an extract from
the older Acts of Paul ; there is no reason, there-
fore, to doubt that Augustine and Faustus both
recognized the Acts of Paul, which had not yet
been entirely deposed from the Canon.
(3) Innocent I. and Exsuperius. — A correspond-
ence (in A.D. 405) between Innocent I. and Exsup-
erius, bishop of Toulouse (see the quotation above),
shows that the Apocryphal Acts were used in Spain
not onlj- by Manichaeans but also by PriscUlian-
ists. It is not quite clear to which Acts Innocent
refers. Besides mentioning the Acts of Peter and
John (of which certainly the latter and probably
the former also are ascribed to Leucius), ne refers
to Acts of Matthias and of James the less, which
do not elsewhere appear in the Manichiean corpus,
as well as to those of Andrew, Avhich in some texts
(see Zahn, Gesch. des AT Kanons, Leipzig, 18S8-
92, ii. 244 ft".) are ascribed to Nexocharide (u/.
Xenocharide) and Leonidas ; Fabricius (Codex
Apocryphus, ii. 767) thinks that these names are a
corruption of Charinus and Leucius.
(4) Leo the Great and Turribius (440-461). — Forty
j-ears after the time of Innocent, the correspond-
ence between Leo and Turribius, bishop of Astorga
in Spain, throws more light on the use of the
Apocryphal Acts by the Priscillianists. Leo com-
plains that the Priscillianists ' scripturas veras
adulterant ' «md ' falsas inducunt.' Turribius found
that the Priscillianists and Manichaeans were mak-
ing great progress in Spain, and for this reason had
elicited a letter of condemnation from Leo. He
also expressed himself further in his letters to
Idacius and Creponius, and apparently annexed a
selection of heretical passages from the Apocryphal
Acts to justify his disapproval. This selection is,
however, unfortunately no longer extant, but it is
plain that he was acquainted with the Acts of
Thomas, Andrew, and John (for text see above,
1. (6)). He also refers to a Memoria Apostolorum,
' in quo ad magnam perreratatis suae auctoritatem doctrinam
domini mentiuntur, qui totam destruit legem veteris Testa-
ment! et omnia quae S. Moysi de diveisis creaturae factorisque
ditinitus revelata sunt, praeter reliquas eiusdem libri blas-
phemias qoas referre pertaesom est.'
This Memoria Apostolorum is also mentioned by
Orosius {Consuitatio ad Augustinum, in Patr. Lat.
xlii. 667), and Schmidt (p. 50) thinks that it is the
source of a quotation from a Manicha^an writing
which Augustine could not trace :
' Sed Apostolis dominus noster interrogantibos de Jadaeorum
propbetis quid sentiri deberet, qui de adventu eius aliquid
ceoiuisse in praeteritum putabantur, commotus talia eos etiam
nunc sentire respondit " Demisistis vivum qui ante vos est et
de mortuis fabulaminL" '
ii. Ix THE East. — (1) Eusehius.—ln HE iii. 25. 6
the Acts of John and Andrew are mentioned to-
gether with ' those of the other apostles,' and are
regarded as books used by heretics. In iii. 3. 2 the
Acts of Peter are mentioned, and in iii. 3. 5 and
iii. 25. 4 the Acts of Paul. The Acts of Thomas are
not quoted, nor is any reference made to Leucius.
(2) Ephraim Syrus (c. 360). — In his commentary
Ephraim says that the apocryphal correspondence
between Paul and the Corinthians was written by
the followers of Bardesanes, ' in order that under
cover of the signs and wonders of the Apostle,
which they described, they might ascribe to the
name of the Apostle their own godlessness, against
which the Apostle had striven.' This apocryjuhal
correspondence was contained in the Acts of Paul,
but it also circulated in some Syriac and Armenian
NT MSS ; no doubt it was an excerpt from the
Acts, but it is not clear whether Ephraim knew
the Acts or the excerpt. It is, however, much
more probable that Ephraim is here referring to
the Acts, as the correspondence alone does not
seem ever to have been regarded by the Syriac
Church as heretical.
(3) Epiphanius. — In the Panarion Epiphanins
mentions the Acts of Thomas, Andrew, and John
in connexion with the Encratites (Pan. xlviL 1), the
Apostolici (ib. Ixi. 1), and other heretics (cf. xxx.
16, Ixiii. 2). But there is no sign of any con-
sciousness that there was a Manicluean corpus, or
that there was any connexion with Leucius. At
the same time a note in Photius (Bibl. cod. 179)
states that Agapius used the Acts of Andrew, so
that the Eastern Manichaeans must have used at
least some of the Acts.
(4) Amphilo'^hius of Iconium (c. 374). — At tlie
Second Council of Mcaea (787) a quotation was
read from Amphilochius' lost book xepi rlv fevS-
ertypd^xar rOf -rapa alperiKoii, in which he proposed
Seiiofuf Si to ^i^Xla ravra, A -rpotpipoiMrw ^/xtr ol arSara-
Ttti riji iicK\ti<rias, ovxi fCiv dxo<rT<5Xci>r xpdfets dXXa
SaufiSvwv ffvyypdfifuxTa. It also appears from the
Acts of the Council that the Acts of John was
quoted and condemned. It was resolved that no
more copies were to be made and those already
existing were to be burnt.
32
ACTS (APOCRYrHAL)
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
(5) John of Thessalonica (c. 680). — In the preface
to \\M recension of the TtXetwirii Moptaj (M. Honnet,
ZWT, 1880, ]). 239 fl'.), John exphiins tliat the
Acts of Peter, Paul, Andrew, and Jolin were liereti-
cal productions, hut seems to argue that tiiey made
use of genuine material, just as had been the case
with the TeXeiuKTtj,
From this evidence, which is given with a full
and clear discussion in his Alte Petrusakten (cf.
also his Acta Fault, 112 f.), C. Schmidt draws the
following conclusion : (a) The Manichaeans had
formed a corptut of the live Acts, but were not them-
selves the authors of any of them. They used
this corpus instead of the canonical Acts, and the
I'riscillianists used it in addition to the Canon.
(6) In the course of the struggle between the Mani-
chaeans and the Church the view was adopted that
the corpus was tlie work of a certain heretical
Leucius. (c) The name of Leucius originally be-
longed to tiie Acts of .John alone, and was errone-
ously attributed to the other books, (d) In this
way the Acts of Paul, which was originally recog-
nized as orthodox if not canonical, came to be
regarded as heretical.
On the evidence as we have it no serious objec-
tion can be made to these propositions ; it might,
however, be a matter for investigation wliether the
corpus of tlie Manicha3ans was also used by the
Eastern Manicha-ans, or was the peculiar possession
of the Western branch,
II. The Individual AcTS.—i. The Acts of
Paul. — By far the most important discovery con-
cerning the Apocryphal Gospels in recent years
was the Coptic text of the Acts of Paul found by
C. Schmidt in the Heidelberg Papyrus 1, and pub-
lished by him in his Acta Pauli, Leipzig, 1903 (and
in a cheaper form without the facsimile of the text,
in 1905). This is not indeed complete, and there
are still minor problems connected with the order
of the incidents, but the main facts are now plain ;
and the general contents of the Acts may oe re-
garded as roughly established, with the exception
of certain rather serious lacunae, especially at the
beginning and in the middle. The contents, as we
have them, can be divided most conveniently as
follows :
(1) In Antioch. — Paul is in the house of a Jew
named Anchares and his wife Phila, whose son is
dead. Paul restores the boy to life, and makes
many converts ; but he is suspected of magic, and
a riot ensues in whicli he is ill-treated and stoned.
He then goes to Iconium. \
(2) In Iconium (the Thckla-story). — Here the
well-known story of Thekla is placed, and on the
way to Iconium we are introduced to Demas and
Hermogenes, who are represented as Gnostics with
a peculiar doctrine of an dcdcTTaa-ts not of the flesh.
In Iconium Paul was entertained by Onesipijorus,
and preached in his house on dcdoTao-is and eyKpd-
reia, with the result that Thekla, the daughter of
Theokleia, abandoned her betrothal to Thamyris
and vowed herself to a life of virginity. Theokleia
and Thamyris therefore raised persecution against
Paul and Thekla. Paul was scourged and banished
from the town^; Thekla was condemned to be
burnt. From the flames she was miraculously
f reserved, and went to Antioch, where she found
'aul. In Antioch her lieauty attr.acted the atten-
tion of Alexander, a prominent Antiochian, and
her refusal to consent to his wishes led to her con-
demnation to tlje wild beasts. A lioness protected
her, but ultimately, after a series of miraculous
rescues, .she was forced to jump into a pond full of
seals and committed herself to the water with the
baptismal formula. Ultimately the protection of
Queen Tryphacna and the symi)athy of the women
of Antioch .secured her pardon. She returned to
the house of Tryphacna and converted her and her
servants, and then followed Paul in man's clothing
to Myrrlia. Then she returned to Iconium, and
tinall}' died in Seleucia. The text of this whole
story is very defective in Coptic, but it is preserved
separately in Greek, and enough remains in the
Coptic to show that the Greek has kept fairly well
to the original story.
(3) In Myrrha. — Thekla left Paul in Myrrha.
Here he healed of the dropsy a man named llermo-
krates, who was baptized. But llermippus the
elder son of Hermokrates was opposed to Paul,
and the younger son, Dion, died. The text is here
full of lacunse, but apparently Paul raised up Dion,
and punished Hermippus with blindness, but after-
wards healed and converted him. He then went
on to Sidon.
(4) In Sidon. — On the road to Sidon there is an
incident connected with a heathen altar, and the
power of Christians over the demons or heathen
gods, but there is unfortunately a large lacuna in
tlie text. In Sidon there is an incident which
apparently is concerned with unnatural vice, and
Paul and other Christians were shut up in the
temple of Apollo. At the prayer of Paul the
temple was destroyed, but Paul was taken into
the amphitheatre. The text is defective, and the
manner of his rescue is not clesir, but apparently
he made a speech and gained many converts, and
then went to Tyre.
(5) In Tyre. — Only the beginning of the story
is extant, but apparently the central feature is
the exorcism of demons and the curing of a dumb
child. After this;there is a gi-eat lacuna, in which
Schmidt places various fragments dealing with the
question of the Jewish law ; and it appears possible
that the scene is moved to Jerusalem and that
Peter is also present.
(6) Paul in prison in the mines. — In this incident
Paul Jippears as one of those condemned to work
in the mines (? in Macedonia), and he restores to
life a certainPhrontina. Presumably he ultimately
escaped from his imprisonment, but the text is
incomplete.
(7) In Philippi. — The most important incident
connected with Philippi is a correspondence with
the Corinthians, dealing with certain heretical
views, of which the main tenets are (a) a denial
of the resurrection of the flesh ; (b) the human
body is not the creation of God ; (c) the world is
not the creation of God ; (d) the government of
the universe is not in the hands of (iod ; (e) the
crucifixion was not that of Christ, but of a docetic
phantasm ; (/) Christ was not born of Mary, nor
was he of the seed of David,
(8) A farewell scene. — The place in which this
scene is laid cannot be discerned from the frag-
ments which remain, but it cont-ains a prophecy of
Paul's work in Home, placed in the mouth of a
certain Cleobius.
(9) The martyrdom, of Paul. — The last episode
gives an account of the martyrdom of Paul, and
the text of this is also preserved as a separate docu-
ment in Greek. According to it, Paul preached
without any hindrance, and there is no suggestion
that he was a prisoner. On one occasion, wliile he
was preaching, Patroclus, a servant of Nero, fell
from a window and was killed. Paul restored him,
and he was converted. When Nero heard of this
miracle, Patroclus acknowledged that he was the
soldier of the /9a<rtXfi>s 'Irjcrov^ XpiffrSs. Nero caused
him and other Christians to be arrested, condemned
Paul to be beheaded, and the other Christians to
be burnt. In prison Paul converted the prefect
Longinus and the centurion Cestus, and prb-
l)hesied to them life after death. Longinus and
Cestus were told to go to his grave on the next
day, when they would be baptized by Titus and
Luke. At his execution milk spurted from his
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
33
neck instead of blood, and afterwards he appeared
to Xero, who was so impressed that he ended the
persecution. The narrative ends with the baptism
of Longinus and Cestos at the grave of Paul.
The testimony of early writers to the Acts of
Paul. — Since the discovery of the Ck)ptic Acts,
which show that the 'Acts of Paul aoid Thekla'
is an extract from the Acts of Paul, there is no
justilication for doubting that Tertuliian refers to
the Acts of Paul in de Baptismo, 17 :
' Quodsi qai Paali perpteram inscripta legnnt, exemplom
Thetlae ad licentiam mulierom docendi tinguendique defendant,
sciaut in Asia presbj-teruui, qui earn scripturam construxit
quasi titulo Pauli de suo cumulans, convictmn atx^ue coniessum
scid amore Paoli fecisse loco decessisse.*
This statement is extremely valuable, because it
gives us clear evidence as to the provenance of the
Acts, proves that it is not later than the 2nd
cent., and shows that it was composed in the
great Church, not in any heretical or Gnostic
sect.
Origen quotes the Acts in de Principiis, i. 2, 3,
and in in Johannevi, xx. 12. In both cases he
gives the Acts of Paul definitely as the source of
his quotation, but neither passage is found in the
extant texts. He apparently regards the Acts as
only slightly inferior to the Canonical Scriptures.
Eusebius in HE in. 25 ranks the Acts of Paul,
with the Shepherd of Hermas, Ep. of Barnabas,
the Apoc. of Peter, the Didache, and possibly the
Johannine Apocalypse, as among the vbda. But
he does not appear to place it with the Acts of
Andrew and John and 'the other apostles' (per-
haps the Acts of Peter and Thomas) which are
tLrova. irdvni Kai SwratSri. Hence he probably did
not regard the Acts of Paul as heretical.
In tlse Claromontane list of books of the OT
and XT the Acts of Paul comes at the end in the
company of ' Bamabae epistula, Johannis revelatio,
Actus Apostolorum, Pastor, Actus Pauli, Revela-
tio Petri,' which suggests somewhat the same judg-
ment as that of Eusebius.
From the Commentary of Hippolytus on Dn 3^
it seems clear that he regarded the Acts of Paul
as definitely historical and trustworthy. Com-
bating those who doubted the truth of the story of
Daniel in the lions' den, he says :
et yip iri<rre\'-Ofi€v ori HowAov «is ftp|p*a KaraiepiBfrTOi it^^ffi^
or' avThv 6 Xeutv eis tow mSai ayave<ritv vtpitXfixfy aurov, wm
mix*- >"»i «Ti Tov AaftijA yevo/xei-ii >7M7Tcv<ro/i«v ;
This incident is not extant in the Coptic texts,
but a full account, statetl to be taken from the
Ufpioooi TLaiiXov, is given by Xicephoms Callistus
(cf. Zahn, Gest;h. d. NT Kanons, ii. 2. p. 880 fi".), and
there is therefore no doubt but that Hippolytus re-
garded the Acts of Paul as little less than canonical
Finally, the passage quoted above from Augus-
tine, c. Faust. XXX., makes it clear that in the
Church of Africa, as late as the time of Augustine,
the Acts of Paul was accepted as authoritative
and orthodox, even if not canonical.
The date of the Acts of Paul. — The testimony of
early writers furnishes a safe terminus ad quern.
The Acts must be earlier than Tertullian's de
Baptismo. The precise date of this tractate is
uncertain, but at the latest it is only a few years
later than A.D. 200, so that the Acts must at all
events belong to the 2nd century. The question
is whether it is a great deal or a very little
earlier. Schmidt is influenced by the frequent use
of the canonical Acts and the Pastoral Epistles to
choose a date not much earlier than 180 ; on the
other hand, Harnack thinks that the complete
silence as to the Montanist movement, or anythino-
which could be construed as anti-Montanist po-
lemics, points to a date earlier than 170. Between
these two positions a choice is difficult : probably
we cannot really say more than that between 160
VOL. I. — 3
and 200 is the most likely period for the compo-
sition of the Acts of Paul. (See especially C.
Schmidt, Acta Pauli, 176 ff., where the whole
question is thoroughly discussed, and reference
made to the literature bearing on the subject.)
The theology of the Acts of Paul. — From the theo-
logical point of view the Acts of Paul has excep-
tional value as giving a presentment of the ordinary
Christianity of Asia at the end of the 2nd cent.,
undisturbed by polemical or other special aims.
So far as the doctrine of God is concerned, the
teaching of the Acta is quite simple— it is that
' there is one God, and his Son, Jesus Christ,'
which is sometimes condensed into the statement
that there is no other God save Jesus Christ alone.
It is thus in no sense Arian or Ebionite, but at
the same time distinctly not Xicene. It is also
definitely not Gnostic, for the Supreme God is also
the Creator, and the instigator if not the agent of
redemption. The general view which is implied is
that the world was created good, and man was
given the especial favour of being the son of God.
This sonship was broken by the Fall, instigated
by the serpent. From that moment history be-
came a struggle between God, who was repairing
the evil of the Fall, through His chosen people
Israel and through the prophets, and the prince
of this world, who resisted His efforts, had pro-
claimed himself to be Grod (in this way heathen re-
ligion was explained), and had bound all humanity
to him by the lusts of the flesh. The result of
this process was the existence of ayvwcLa and xXdm}
followed by <pdopd, 6.Ka.dapala, rjSovrt, and ddvaroi, and
the need of an ultimate judgment of God, which
would destroy all that was contaminated. But
in His mercy God had sent His Holy Spirit into
Mary, in order in this way, by becoming flesh, to
destroy the dominion of evil over flesh. This Holy
Spirit was (as in Justin Martyr) identical with the
spirit which had spoken through the Jewish
prophets, so that the Christian faith rested through-
out on the Spirit, which had given the prophets to
the Jews and later on had been incarnate in the
Christ who had given the gospel. It should be
noted that there is no attempt to distinguish be-
tween the Logos and the Spirit. ' Father, Son,
and Spirit' is a formula which seems to mean
Father, Spirit or Logos, and the Son or Incarnate
Spirit. It is clear that this is the popular theology
out of which the Sabellian and Arian controversies
can best be explained. For the reconstruction of
lat« 2nd cent. Christology in popular circles the
Acts of Paul is of unique value. There is also
a marked survival of primitive eschatological
interest : the expectation of the coming of Christ,
and the establishment of a glorious kingdom in
which Christians will share, is almost central.
The means whereby Christians ensure this result
are asceticism and baptism. The latter is prob-
ably the necessary moment, and is habitually
called the ff(ppay'i.s ; but asceticism is equally
necessary, and involves an absolute abstinence
from all sexual relations, even in marriage.
There is no trace of any institution of repentance
for sin after baptism ;' for this reason, baptism
appears usually to be postponed, and in these re-
spects the Acts of Paul agrees more closely with
Tertuliian than Avith Hermas. The Eucharist is
f)rimarUy a meal of the community, and the theo-
ogy unclerlytng it is not clearly expressed ; the
most remarkable feature is that here, as in all the
other Apocryphal Acts, water takes the fjlace of
wine. This feature used to be regarded as Gnostic,
but in view of more extended knowledge of the
Acts as a whole this opinion is untenable.
Far the best statement of the theology of the Acts ia in C.
Schmidfs Acta Pauli, 183 S. This also give* full references to
earlier Uteratore.
34
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
2. The Acts of Peter.— The Acts of Peter is
no longer extant in a complete form. But, apart
from late paraphrastic recensions, which re-edit
older material in a form more agreeable to Catholic
taste, three documents exist, two of them in a
fragmentary form, which probably represent por-
tions of the original Acts. These are (1) a Coptic
text of a Up6ieis Hirpov, (2) the Codex Vercellensis,
or Actus Petri cum Simone, and (3) a Greek text of
the Martyrium Petri.
(1) The Coptic Ilpdf eij UiTpov. — This fragment
was found by C. Schmidt at the end of the Gnostic
Papyrus P. 8502 in the Egyptian Museum at
Berlin (Sitzungsber. d. K. Preuss. Akad. xxxvi.
[1896] 839 ff.), and published bjr him in Die alien
Petrusakten, Leipzig, 1903. This relates the story
of Peter's paralyzed daughter. At the beginning
of the incident, Peter, who had been twitted with
the j)aralysis of his daughter in spite of his powers
of miraculous healing, cured her for a short time,
and then restored her paralytic condition. Having
thus shown his power, he explained that she had
originally been paralyzed in answer to his own
prayer, in order to preserve her virginity, which
was threatened by a certain Ptolemseus. By this
miracle Ptolemseus had been converted to Christi-
anity, and dying soon afterwards left land to
Peter's daughter, which Peter sold, giving the
proceeds of it to the poor.
(2) The Codex Vercellensis (Bibliothec, capitul.
Vercellensis, cviii. 1). — This MS contains either an
extract from or a recension of the last part of the
Acts. It begins by describing Paul's departure from
Rome to Spain, and the arrival of Simon Magus,
who makes Aricia his headquarters. Meanwhile,
however, Peter, who had finished 'the twelve years
which the Lord had enjoined on him' (on this
legend see esp. Hamack's Expansion of Christian-
ity, i. [1904] 48 n.), was directed to go to Rome to
oppose Simon. Simon, who was first in Rome,
perverted Marcellus, a convert of Paul ; and, as
soon as Peter arrived, a contest was waged for his
faith on the question of the respective powers of
Simon and Peter to raise the dead. In this con-
test, which is long drawn out, Peter was successful,
and Simon retreated. Later on, the latter made
an effort to restore his reputation by Hying in the
air, but the prayer of Peter caused him to fall and
break his thigh. He was carried to Aricia and
thence to Terracina, where he died.
The story then relates the events which led up
to the martyrdom of Peter. The main reason was
the decision of the converted concubines of Agrippa
the prefect to refuse any further intercourse with
him, and the similar conduct of Xanthippe the
wife of Albinus, a friend of Nero, and of many
other wives who all left their husbands. Peter
was warned of the anger of Agrippa, and at first
was persuaded by the Christians to leave Rome.
At this point the Codex Vercellensis is defective,
but the missing incidents can be restored from the
Martyrium Petri, Avhich overlaps the Codex Ver-
cellensis. From this it appears that Peter on his
departure from Rome was arrested by a vision of
Christ going to Rome and saying, ' I am going to
Rome to be crucified.' Peter therefore applied
this vision to himself, and went back to Rome,
where he was crucified by the orders of the prefect
Agrippa. Here the Codex Vercellensis is again
extant, and runs parallel with the Martyrium to
the end. Peter at his own request was crucified
head downwards, in order to fulfil the saying of
the Lord, *Si non feceritis dextram tamquam
sinistram, et sinistram ut dextram, et quae sunt
sursnm tamquam deorsum, et quae retro sunt tam-
quam ab ante, non intrabitis in regna coelorum'
— a sayinjjj which is also found in the Gospel of
the Egyptians. After Peter's death Marcellus took
down his body and buried it in his own tomb, after
costly embalming. But Peter appeared to him in
a vision and rebuked him for not having obeyed the
precept 'Let the dead bury their dead.' Finally,
the narrative explains that Nero was angry with
Agrippa because lie wished to have inflicted worse
tortures on Peter, but, while he was planning
further persecution of the Christians, he was de-
terred by a vision of an angel, so that Peter was
the last martyr of that persecution. The Codex
ends with the obviously corrupt line ' actus Petri
apostoli explicuerunt cum pace et Simonis amen.'
Lipsius (Acta Apocrypha, p. 103) suggests with
great probability that ' et Simonis ' is a misplaced
gloss. In this case the ' actus P. apostoli explicu-
erunt. Amen,' would be the conclusion of the
original Acts of Peter, of which the Codex Ver-
cellensis is an extract, giving the Roman episode
and martyrdom.
(3) The Martyrium Petri. — The text of this early
extract from the Acts of Peter is preserved in two
MSS. (a) Cod. Patmiensis 48 (9th cent.). This
Avas copied by C. Krumbacher in 1885 and published
by Lipsius in 1886 in the JahrbiXcher fiir Protest.
Theologie, pp. 86-106.— (6) Cod. Athous Vatoped.
79 (lOth-llth cent.). This was copied by Ph.
Meyer and published by Lipsius in his Acta
Apocrypha. There are also Slavonic and Coptic
(Sahidic) versions, the latter preserved directly in
three fragments and indirectly in Arabic and
Ethiopic translations (see further Lipsius, Act.
Apocr. livf.). Lipsius thinks that the Patmos
MS is the best. The contents of the Martyrium
are the same as the second part of the Codex
Vercellensis, beginning with Simon's flight in the
air, and from the comparison of the Codex with
the Greek Martyrium it is possible that the
original form of this part of the ancient Acta can
be reconstructed with some probability.
The place of origin of the Acts of Peter. — There
is no unanimity among critics as to the community
in which the Acts of Peter was first produced.
There is of course a natural tendency to consider
in the first place the possibility that the document
is Roman. In favour of this view the most com-
plete statement is that of Erbes ('Petrus nicht in
Rom, sondern in Jerusalem gestorben,' ZKG xxii.
1, pp. 1-47 and 2, pp. 161-231). He lays special
emphasis on the fact that the writer is acquainted
witn the entrance to Rome both from tlie sea and
by road, and knows that the paved way from
Puteoli to Rome is bad to walk upon and jars the
pilgrims who use it. He also emphasizes the
correctness of the narrative in placing the contest
between Peter and Simon Magus in the Forum
Julium, on the ground that, according to Appian
(de Bella Civili, ii. 102), this forum was especially
reserved for disputes and closed to commerce. He
makes other points of a similar nature, but not of
so striking a character.
Against this it is urged by Harnack (Altchristl.
Litteraturgesch. ii. 559) ana Zahn {Gesch. des NT
Kanons, ii. 841) that the local references to Rome
are really very small, and do not give more know-
ledge than was easily accessible to any one in the
2nd or 3rd century. For instance, that Aricia and
Terracina are towns not far from Rome is a fact
which must have been quite generally known.
Other arguments seem to point to Asia rather
than Rome for the coniposition of the Acts. Apart
from the OT and NT, the books which clearly
were made use of by the redactor of the Acts of
Peter are the Acts of Paul and the Acts of John.
Now we know with tolerable certainty that the
Acts of Paul was written in Asia, and it is usually
thought that the Acts of John came from Ephesus
or the neighbourhood. It is, therefore, not im-
probable that the Acts of Peter came from the
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
35
same district. Other possibilities are Antioch or
Jerusalem, but there is less to be said in favour of
these than either Rome or Asia.
The date of the Acts of Peter.— The terminus ad
quern \s some time earlier than Commodian the
African Christian poet, who was clearly acquainted
with both the Acts of Paul and the Acts of Peter,
probably in a Latin version, and appears to have
regardeti them as undoubted history (cf. esp.
Commodian, Carmen Apologeticum, 623 ff.). Com-
modian is generally supposed to have written c.
A.D. 250, so that some years earlier than this (to
allow for the spread of the Acts, their translation,
and the growth of their prestige) is the earliest
possible date. The terminus a quo is more diffi-
cult to find. It is generally conceded that the
date + 165 adopted by Lipsius (Apokr. Apostel-
gesch., ii. 1, p. 275) is too early, and opinion usually
fixes on the decenninm either side of the year 200
as the most probable for the writing of the Acts.
Hamack tlmiks that early in the 3rd cent, is the
most probable time (Altchr. Lit., ii. 553 ff.), but
Erbes and C. Schmidt incline rather to the end of
the 2nd century. The most important argument
is concerned with the compassionate attitude to-
wards the lapsi, which is very marked in the
Acts. Hamack thinks that this is not intelligible
until 230, while Erbes and Schmidt maintain that
in the light of the Shepherd of Hernias a much
earlier date is possible. Obriotisly this sort of
reasoning is somewhat tentative, and it is ap-
parently not possible at present to say more than
that lSO-230 seems to be the half-century within
which the composition ought probably to be placed.
The sources used by the Acts of Peter. — Apart
from the OT and NT, both of which the writer
uses freely and accepts as equally inspired, the
use can clearly be traced of the following books,
(a) The Acts of Paul. Apart from various smaller
points of contact, the whole account of the martyr-
dom of Peter is clearly based on the martyrdom
of Paul. The whole subject Ls worked out in
full detail by C. Schmidt in liis Petrusakten
(p. 82ff.) ; but it should be added taat there is per-
haps still room for doubt whether that portion
of the Codex Vercellensis which deals with Paul
really belongs to the Acts of Peter, and is not an
addition made by the redactor who formed the
excerpt, rather than by the author of the Acts
itself. The fullest statement of this possibility is
given by Hamack (TU xx. 2 [1900], p. 103 tf.),
and a discussion tending to negative his conclu-
sions is to be found in Schmidt's Petrusakten, 82 f.
— (b) The Acts of John. The frequent verbal
dependence of the Acts of Peter on the Acts of
John is demonstrated by the long list of parallel
passages given by M. R. James in Apocrypha
Anecdota, u. p. xxivff. James, however, thought
at that time that this list proved the identity of
authorship of the two books ; but Schmidt has
shown conclusively that the facts must be ex-
plained as due to dependence rather than to
identity of authorship. His most telling argument
is the large use of the OT and NT made by the
Acts of Peter as contrasted with their very limited
use in the Acts of John. — (c) Schmidt also argues
that the Acts used the K'^pvyfia Rerpov. Probably
he is right, but our knowledge of the K-^pvyfia is
too small to enable the question to be satisfactorily
settled.
The theology of the Acts of Peter. — In general
the account given above of the theology of the
Acts of Paul will serve also for the Acts of Peter.
But in some passages which depend on the Acts of
•John there is an appearance of a pronounced
Modalism or almost of Docetism. Lipsius and
others, who believed, with Zahn and James, that
the Acts of Peter was written by the author of
the Acts of John, used to think that these passages
pointed to a heretical and Gnostic origin. But
Harnack (Altchr. Lit. ii. 560 tf.) and Schmidt
(Petrusakten, p. lllff.) have argued very forcibly
that this is not the case, and that the Acts of
Peter represents the popular Christianity of the
end of the 2nd cent, rather than any Gnostic
sect.
No ctmiplete edition of the text odste: the Codex YeroeDeiMia
and the Greek text ot Xba Martjfrium are criticany edited by
R. A. lipsios in Aela Apoergpka, L [Leipzig:, 1891] ; the Coptic
npofcts Herpov by C. Schmidt. DU aiteu Petrtuakten {TU xxiv.
1), Leipzig, 1903. Yery important is the treatment ot Hamack
in his ChrtmologU, tsn, L 559ff., and the article of Erfaea in
ZKG xxii. 1, p. IfL and 2, p. ISlff. onder the title 'FMras
nicht in Bom, sondem in Jerusalem gestorben.'
3. The Acts of John. — Recent research has
added much to our knowledge of the Acts of John ;
and, though the text is fragmentary and uncertain,
it is now possible to reconstruct the greater part
of the original. No single MS is complete, but,
from the comparison of many, the following inci-
dents can be arranged :
(1) In Ephesus.— John comes from Miletus to
Ephesus and meets Lykomedes, with whom he
lodges. Here Cleopatra, the vnie of Lykomedes,
dies, and her husband also falls dead from grief,
but John raises both to life. Lykomedes obtains
a picture of the Apostle, and worships it in his
room until John discovers it and shows him his
mistake. The next episode at Ephesus is in the
theatre, where John makes a long speech and
heals many sick. John is then summoned to
Smyrna, but determines first to strengthen the
Ephesian community. On the feast day of Artemis
he goes to the Temple, and after a speech inflicts
dealh on the priest. He then encounters a young
man who has killed his father because he had
accused him of adultery. John raises the father,
and converts both father and son ; he then goes to
Smyrna.
(2) Second visit to Ephesus. — John returns to
Ephesus to the house of Andronicus, who had
been converted during his first visit. Drusiana,
the wife of Andronicus, dies from the annoyance
caused her by a young man Kallimachus, but
after her burial John goes to the tomb and sees
Christ appear as a young man ; he is instructed to
raise up Drusiana and also a young man, Fortun-
atus, who has been buried in the same place.
Fortunatus is, however, not converted, and soon
dies again.
(3) The most important fragment of the Acts is
that which seems to follow upon the episode of
Drusiana, as she remains one of the chief persons.
This was discovered in 1886 by M. R. James in
Cod. Vind. 63 (written in 1324) and published in
1897 in TS v. 1. It gives a long and extremely
Docetic account of the Passion of Christ, and of a
revelation which the true Christ made to the
disciples while the phantasmal Christ was being
crucified, and includes a hymn which was used,
among others, by the Priscillianists (Augustine,
Ep. 237 [253]).
(4) The death of John. — During the Sunday
worship John makes a speech, and partakes with
the brethren of the Eucharist. He then orders his
grave to be dug, suid after prayer, and emphasis
on his virgin life, lies down in the grave and either
dies or passes into a permanent trance.
The testimony of early writers, and the date of
the Acts of John. — The earliest writer to nse the
Acts of John is Clement of Alexandria. In the
Adumbrationes to 1 Jn 1^ (ed. Potter, p. 1009) he
says:
' Fatar ergo in traditionibas quoniam Johannes ipamn oorpoa
quod erat extrinsecus tangens mannm soam in prufuuda
misisse et ei doritiam camis nuDo modo relnctatam ease aed
locom manui tribnisse discipuli.'
36
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
This is a certain reference to the Acts of John (ed.
Bonnet, 195 f.), and these Latin 'adunibrationes'
are generally recognized as derived from the
Eypotyposes. A similar reference, but loss cer-
tain, is in Strom, vi. 9. 71 :
oAA' tin, fjiv ToO <r<OT>)pos to adixa. airanelv los (Tui/xa ras av-
ayicaCai wrript(riai eis Saiixovrfv yeAo)? av tiri, t^yev yap ov Sia. to
frctffux, Svvdnti (Tweyofievov ayitf, aAA' <os ^t) roiit (rvvovTat aAA(o«
wept avToO <f)poi'e2v virtiaeKSoi, ixratp a(it'A«i viTTtpov Boicqaei. rivi^
avTOv nt<j>at'epoi<T8at. vireKaPov, ai/rht Si arra^anKiat a.ira8r]<! ^v ci$
t>v oi&iv irapticBveTai Klvrma jraOrynKOV, ktA.
Perhaps later than Clement, but probably early
in the 3rd cent., is the writer of the Monarchian
Prologues, in which the statement as to John,
'qui virgo electus a Deo est quern de nuptiis
volentem nubere vocavit Deus,' clearly refers to
the Acts of John (ed. Bonnet), p. 212 : 6 OiXovrl /loi
iv vedrriTi. yrj/jLai ewKpafeis Kal eiprjKdjs /xoi, Xprj^o) aov,
'ludvvTi. It is noteworthy that neither Clement
nor the author of the Prologues seems to have any
consciousness that he has used a source of doubtful
orthodoxy.
Later on, Augustine and other writers against
the Manichaeans make tolerably frequent mention
of the Acts ; a full collection ot all the quotations
is given by Lipsius, Apokr. Apostdgesch. i. 8311'.
Here, of course, there is no longer any doubt as to
the heterodoxy of the book, which is condemned
together with the other Acts, with the sole excep-
tion of the Acts of Paul.
The evidence of Clement is the chief, if not the
only, testimony as to the date of the Acts of John.
It proves that it belongs to the 2nd cent., but
there is really no evidence to say how much earlier
than Clement it may be. Twenty years either
side of 160 seem to represent the limits.
The provenance of the Acts of John. — This
remains quite uncertain. The only evidence is
that the centre of the Acts is Ephesus, and this
points to Asia as the place of origin. Nor is there
any serious argument against this view, for there
is certainly no connexion between the destruction
of the temple of Artemis by the Goths in 282 and
the attack on this temple attributed to John and
his friends in the Acts. Probably, therefore,
Ephesus, or more generally Asia, may be taken as
the place of composition, but not much should be
built on this view.
The theology and character of the Acts. — The
theology of the Acts appears to be markedly
Docetic and Gnostic. It represents Jesus as
possessing a body which varied from day to day
in appearance, and was capable even of appearing
to two observers at the same time in quite different
forms. His feet left no mark on the ground.
This certainly seems Docetic, but it is curious that
Clement of Alexandria qixotes part of this passage
as historical without any hesitation in accepting
it, and Clement was not a Docete. The fact that
at the moment of the Crucifixion Jesus appears to
John on the Mount of Olives is also prima facie
Docetic, but it is hard to say where mysticism
ends and Dooetism begins.
The Gnosticism of the document is chiefly
sr.pported by the reference in the great hymn to
an Ogdoad and a Dodecad, but it is not certain
that tliis is rtally a reference to a Gnostic system.
The Ogdoad is sun, moon, and planets, and the
Dodecad is the signs of the zodiac. The distinc-
tion l)etween Gnosticism and Catholicism was not
that one believed in an Ogdoad and the other did
not, but in tlie view Avhich they took of it. In
just the same way the Valentinians and others
explained cliat the Demiurge had made seven
heavens above the earth, and wliile Irena^us re-
sisted this teaching, he never denied the existence
of the seven heavens, aa is shown by his * Apostolic
Preaching.'
The best statement ot the caM against the Gnostic theory i»
in C. Schmidt, Petnisakten, 119 ff. The case for a Gnostic origin
is best (,'iven, though very shortly, by .M. R. James In Apocrypha
Anecilnia, ii. (7'.S' v. 1), Canibri'lu'ej 1897, p. xviii fl., and (or a
definitely Valeiitinian origin, by Zahn (A'K/ x. 211 ff.).
Apart from the suspicion of Docetism and
Gnosticism, the theology of the Acts is not unlike
that of the Acts of Paul. Especially noticeable is
the ascetic objection to marriage ; in this respect
the Acts of John is quite as stern as the Acts of
Paul or of Thomas. liut in other respects the Acts
of John seems to come from a far higher mystical
religion, and is altogether finer literature than
the Acts of Paul. Some of the mystical passages
reach a magnificent level, and may be ranked
with the best products of 2nd cent, religion.
The Acts of John may be studied best in Lipsius and Bonnet,
Ada A postolorurn Apocrypha, ii. 1, Leipzig, 1898. This is the
only complete text of all the known fragments. See also M. R.
James, Apocrypha Anecdota, ii. (TS v. 1) ; Th. Zahn, Acta
Joannis, Erlangen, 1880, and E. Hennecke, NeuUst. Apok-
ryphen, Tiibingen, 1904, and Handbuch zu den Neutest.
Apokr., do. 1904. Kspecially important is the section on the
Acts of John in C. Schmidt, Die alten PetrusakUn {TU
xxiv. 1), Leipzig, 1903, p. 120 ff.
4. The Acts of Andrew.— No MS is extant which
gives even as good a representation of the original
Acts as is found in the other early Acts. We
possess in quotations of Euodius of Uzala (end of
the 4th cent.) some valuable fragments, of which
traces are also found in Augustine ; from these,
and on the grounds of general resemblance to the
Acts of John, it appears probable that a fragment
in Cod. Vatican. Gr. 808 (lOth-llth cent.), deal-
ing with Andrew in prison, belongs to the early
Acts ; and from a variety of sources it is also
possible to reconstruct with some accuracy the
story of the martyrdom of Andrew.
The text of the fragment in Cod. Vat. 808 begins
in the middle of a speech of Andrew, who is in
prison in Patras. The general situation is that
the Apostle is being prosecuted by a certain
^geates — which is perhaps 'an inhabitant of
.^gea ' rather than a personal name — because he
perverted his wife Maximilla by Encratitic doctrine
against married life. A prominent part is also
played by Patrodes the brother of .^llgeates but
a friend of the Apostle. The fragment ends, as it
begins, abruptly in the middle of a speech by
Andrew.
The death of Andrew was by crucifixion, but
the legend ascribing an unusual shape to the cross
used seems to be of later origin. For three days
and three nights he remained on the cross exhort-
ing the multitude ; at the end of this time a crowd
of 20,000 men went to the proconsul to demand
that Andrew should be released, .^geates was
obliged to comply, but Andrew refused, and prayed
that having once been joined to the cross he might
not be separated from it. He then died, and was
buried by StratoUes and Maximilla.
The date and provenance of the Acts of Andrew.
— These points depend largely on the view taken
of the authorship of the Acts. If, as is usually
thought, the Acts of Andrew is really Leucian,
i.e. written by the same author as tlie Acts of
John, Asia is the most probable place for its
origin, and the end of the 2nd cent, the most
probable date. If this view be given up, Greece,
in which the scene of the Acts is laid, becomes
the most probable place, and the date must be
decided by internal evidence, for the Acts
appears not to be quoted before the time of Origen
(Eus. HEva. 1). At present the Leucian hypothesis
perhans holds the held (see esp. James, Apocrypha
Anecdota, ii. pp. xxixff.), but it is not at all
certain.
The theology of the Acts.—^o far as the frag-
ments preserved enable us to discover, the theology
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
ACTS (APOCRYPHA r.)
37
of the Acts of Andrew resembles most closely that
of the Acts of John, and thus supports the Leucian
theory. There is the same emphasis on asceticism
even in marriage, and the cross also plays a Isurge
part.
The text is nven in Lipdns and Bonnet, Acta Apocrypha,
ii. 1, and valuable diacassions are given in Hamack, CkronoL iL
175, and by M. B. James in Apo<Tifpha Aneedota, iL p. xxix ff.
Somewhat' out of date, but still Taloable in some napecta, is
R. A. Lipsius, Die apobyphen ApotUlge$ekiehten, Bmnswick,
1»3-S7, L 513 ff.
5. The Acts of Thomas,— (1) Content*. — Judas
Thomas is sold by Jesus to the messenger of an
Indian prince. At the wedding-feast of the
daughter of the king of Andrapolis he is dis-
covered to be an inspired person and forced by
the king to pray over the bride and bridegroom.
On entering the inner room Jesos is found sitting
with the bride. He explains to the bridegroom
that He is not Thomas, and converts the couple
to & complete abstinence from sexual relations
(Act i.). Thomas is ordered by his master, King
Gnndaphoms, to build a palace. Spending the
money on alms, he erects a palace in heaven which
is shown to the disembodied soul of the king's
deceased brother, who is afterwards restored to
life and receives the Eucharist with his brother,
both being ' sealed ' with oil by the Apostle. On
this occasion the Lord appears as a youth bearing
a lamp. Having preached to the people, Thomas
is ordered by the Lord to depart (ii.). Thomas
finds a youth killed by a dragon, which forthwith
appears, acknowledging Thomas as ' twin of the
Christ,' and professes to be the serpent from para-
dise. The dragon is summoned to suck the venom
again out of the body, after doing which it
perishes. The youth is restored to life, and says
that he saw Thomas as a double person : one
exactly like him standing by and telling him to
resuscitate the body (iii.). While this happens, the
colt of an ass addresses the Apostle as the ' twin
of the Christ,' and invites him to ride on its back
to the town (iv.). A woman is delivered from a
demon that had been doing violence to her for live
years. To protect her for the future, she is
' sealed ' and partakes of the Eucharist (v. ). At
this moment a young man's hands are withered in
the act of taking the Eucharistic bread. He con-
fesses that he has murdered a woman for repudiat-
ing him after her conversion by Thomas. Restored
to life, she recounts horrible visions from the lower
world. After a general conversion, Thomas's final
words culminate in an exhortation to abstinence
from marriage and in emphasis on the permanence
of spiritual possession (vi.). All India being evan-
gelized, a general of king Misdaens visits Thomas
and prays him to deliver his wife and daughter
from a cruel pair of demons (viL). On the road
the Apostle asks the general to command some
wild asses to draw his carriage. One of these is
afterwards ordered by the Apostle to summon the
demons from the house. In the courtyard this
same ass preaches a sermon to the multitude, and
exhorts the Apostle to give the bodies of the
women back to life, since they had died as the
demons were leaving them (viii.). Mygdonia, a
relative of the royal famUy, comes to hear Thomas
E reaching. The same night her husband Charisins
as a dream which contains a foreboding of the
consequences of this preaching for the married
life. On the next day and night this comes true.
His wife flees from hLs embraces. In the morning
Thomas is arrested, and while in prison sings the
' Hymn of the Soul.' At home, however, Charisius
finds his fervent supplications again scorned. His
wife escapes to receive the ' seal,' and encounters
Thomas on her way proceeding as a prince with
many lights (ix. ). Thomas follows her and returns
to prison, having administered the sacraments
to her and her foster-mother. That morning
Mygdonia preaches a sermon to her husband on
Jesus as the heavenly bridegroom. Thomas is
now ordered by the king and besought by Charisius
to make Mygdonia alter her conduct ; but his
feeble commands are refuted by her from his own
teaching (x.). Tertia the queen pays a visit to
Mygdonia and returns convinced (xi.). Thomas is
again imprisoned, and converts Vazanes the king's
son. An attempted torture being miraculously
frustrated, he is conducted back and speaks a long
{)ray er ( xiL ). Jesus, mostly in the form of Thomas,
eads the converts and with them Mnesara, the
wife of Vazanes, to the prison. They enter
Vazanes' house, where they are * sealed ' and
baptized by Thomas. After the Eucharistic meal,
Thomas returns to the prison (Martyrium). The
Apostle, followed by a multitude, is taken to
a mountain and there pierced with swords. On
the mountain Sifor tne general and Vazanes
receive orders as presbyter and deacon (xiii. ).
(2) Original language. — After Schroter {ZDMG,
1871, p. 327 If.), Noldeke (ib. 67">-679 and in Lipsius,
Apokr. Apostelgcsch. ii.^ [18S4] 423-425), and
^lacke {Th. Quartalschr., 1874, pp. 3-70), Burkitt
has settled the question {JThSt i. [1900] 280-290).
The existence of a Syriac original is proved by a
series of errors in the Greek arising from Syriac
idioms or writing.
(3) Text.— {a) The Sjfriae^ed. Wright, Apoer. Aet», Lond. 1871,
i. 172-333, text ; iL 146 ff., translation) is preserved in Br. Mas.
SvT. Add 14645 (a.d. 936X Anotho- MS is at Berlin : Sachao
ta, a double of this at Cambridge (P. Bedjan, AeL Mart, and
Sanet. iiL Paris, 1893, gives variants from the B^in MSX
Fragments from the 6th cent, in a Sinai palimpsest, Syr. Sn. 30^
have been published by Barkitt(Stu<L Sut., C3ambti^^ 1900, toL
ix. app. 7). Search should be made in tbie East for HSS <rf ttds
text suid its Oriental and Greek versions. Our present text is
not always superior to the Greek version. On the text of the
hvmns (in Acts L and ix-X cf. A. .4. Bevan, ' T^e Hvmn of the
Soul,' TS v. 3 [1S97] ; Hoffmann, ZSTW, 1903, pp. 273-309 ;
E. Preuschen, Zicei gnost. Bymnen, Giessen, 1904 ; bat see
Burkitt, ThT, Leyden, 1905, pp. 270-282 ; Doncan Jones, JTkSt
vi. [1905] 448-451.
(6) The Greek version (ed. Bonnet, Acta Apoet, Apoer., iL 2,
Leipzii;, 1903). The 13 'Act«' -i- the Martj/rium exirt as
a whole in two MSS. The best text is Cod. U (Borne,
VallicelL B 35, llth cent.). This is the only Greek MS of the
• Hj-mn of the Soul ' (Act ix. chs. 108-113). On the text of this
Hymn in Xicetas of Salonica, cf. Bonnet, Preface, p. xxiti. The
other complete MS is P (Paris, gnec 1510, 12th or 13th cent.).
The (19) other 3iSS give but sdections. We most, therefore,
review separately the MSS for part (A)= Acts L ii., part (B)=
Acts iiL-siL, part(C)=Act xiii. -■- Martjtrium. Besides UP, 15
copies preserve (AX of which CXBHTG have no trace of (B) or
(OX while V gives here only the exordium of (A) ; 9 copies
preserve (B), of which VYED have no selections beyond Act
viii., while SFQZL give here no more than the ' prayers' of Act
xiL, which, against tite order of these MSS and P, Bonnet has
inserted here, following U + Syr. ; 11 copies preserve (C), of
which KOM omit (A) and (B) altogether, while Q gives here
only the exordium of Act xiiL Identical selections: FBGX
(pp. 99-146» BonnetX BH (9»-145>*X 8FZL (251iO-SSS», see
Pref . p. xsJiX SFZ (275i<i-2S8). The genealogy is still ofaecare.
In put (A) Bonnet distinguishes two tvpes of text : T and A.
The r text=OHZ and B (1st halfX The A text=A (Paris.
gr»c 881, 10th cent.) + fam. ♦ (=the rest of the MSS. U and P
m<dndedX Both types have several onimportuit variations in
common, which must derive from a not very distant ancestor.
But, as Utey more often differ on serious points, the tiaditioD
of the Greek text appears to be not very reliable, la part (C)
again two types occur, via. A + fam. O (=KORUy)and P +
fam. S (=FLSZX All these MSS belonged to the A text in part
(AX Z oolj excepted (Peteisb. imp. 91, 12th cent.) ; cf. 'identi-
cal selections 'above. In port (B) the MSSaregrouped on their
textaal merits and in a descending order : UVYK, P, D. On the
MSS neglected by Bonnet cf. Pref. p. xxiv ff. A Brossds MS
OL 204:0 mi|^t be of some interest. Sevoal MSS are still
hidden in Smyrna, Jerusalem, Athos (the catalogues of the
most important libraries, Lavra and Vatope<U> are still an-
publishedX Bonnef s text might be improved. Only from pp.
197-250 coold due influence be allowed to the Syriac and its
all^-, (3od. U, Baridtt having then convinced the editor that
the Greek was but the version of a Syriac original (Pref. p. xxi).
(c) The Armenian venion should be' better known- A MS exists
at Paris (BibL nat. fonds arm. 46 niX which Tetter is expected
to publish in the Or. CftnM. The ' Hymn of the Sool' is not m it.
Preuscdien (Hennecke, BeutesL Apokr. iL 563) was impressed
by its variations, not by the quality of its text. In Conybeare's
opinion the Arm. version derives from the Syriac (op. eit. L 475X
38
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
ACTS (APOCRYPHAL)
(d) Of other versiont, the Ethiopic ia wholly, the Latin not
entirely, useless (cf. Fabricius, Cod. apocr. Jfl% Hamburg, 1903,
li. 687 f. ; Bonnet, Acta Thomce, 1883, p. 96 ff.).
(4) Provenance and date. — For the history of
opinion, cf. Harnack, Allchr. Lit., ii. 1 (1897), 546-
549 with ii. 2 (1904), 175-176. Early Gnostics and
Eastern Christianity have appeared to diil'er less
in vocabulary than in other regards. Moreover,
several coincidences with Gnostic j>lira8eology have
been intensified in the Greek, or are even due to
wrong translation. The intellectual pursxiits of
the Gnostic mind are absent, while the rigoristic
ethics have close parallels in early Syriac Christi-
anity. All this exactly suits Baruesanes (A.D.
154-222) and his school (seeBurkitt, Early Eastern
Christianity, London, 1904, pp. 170 n., 199, 205 ff.,
and Nau, Z)ic<. Th<!ol. Cath., Paris, 1907, ii. 391-
401, artt. 'Bard^sane' and • Bard6sanites ' ; also
Kriiger, GGA, 1905, p. 718, and Noldeke, ib.y. 82).
The language (with the proper names) points to
Syria, the figure of Thomas to Edessa, the char-
acter and style ('Acts' ixf., the 'Hymn of the
Soul' in this 'Act') to the literary capacities
of Bardesanes' environment. R. lleitzenstein
(Hellenist. WundererzdMungen, Leipzig, 1906, p.
104 ff.) raises the question whether the material of
the story Mas created in Edessa or imported. He
points out that miracle-stories {'aretalogies') were
a literary genre, spread by several petites religions
from Egypt on the waves of universal syncretism.
The pagan theology of Hermetic monotheism has
left its traces among the mediaeval Sabians of
Carrhae (near Edessa). It seems, however, that
he is over-stating the importance of the existing
analogies.
The date of the Acts is fixed by Lipsius (LCBl,
1888, no. 44, p. 1508, Apokr. Apostelgesch., ii. 2,
p. 418 note [on i. p. 225 f.]) as the time of the
translation of the relics of Thomas to Edessa (A.D.
232). It is impossible to clench this argument,
but it is certain that one of the component parts
of Act ix., the ' Hymn of the Soul,' was composed
before the rise of the Sasanid power in A.D. 226,
since ' Parthian kings ' are mentioned in 1. 38 (ed.
Bevan, TS v. 3). Therefore we must not go much
beyond that time, and may reserve the middle
auarters of the 3rd cent, as the latest probable
ate for the whole.
(5) Integrity. — Suspicions are raised by the fact
that most MSS of the Greek version give but
selections. If this should occur also in the Oriental
tradition, our collection of 13 Acts might seem the
result of a process of agglomeration. Noldeke
{GGA, 1905, p. 82) suspects interpolations and
detects a nucleus in Acts i. and ii. (except the
Andrapolis episode). He supposes a rather intricate
fjenesis for our collection. Following this line of
iterary criticism, the vigorous style of Acts ix.-xii.
causes them to stand out as another unit. Acts
iii.-viii. and the remaining parts might come in as
later accretions. It seems, liowever, unsafe to in-
dulge much in literary criticism before a more ade-
quate knowledge of the original text is available.
Reitzenst'ein has emphasized (op. cit.) the proba-
bility of literary sources. One author may have
composed the wnole by adapting pagan stories to
Thomas's name. In this case the diflerent shades
of style may be due to close adherence to or free
expansion of such sources. Future criticism may
even see its way to combine this point of view
with the first. Possible sources certainly de-
serve serious consideration (cf. Gutschmid, Kleinc
Schriften, ii. [Leipzig, 1890] 332 ff., advocating
Buddhism ; Preuschen in Hennecke, i. 477, Parsi-
ism; Hilgenfeld, ZWT, 1904, p. 240, Persian
influences).
(6) Hrjmns.—lhB Bridal ' Ode ' (ch. 7, 1st Act)
is in our Syriac a mystic song of the Church. It
is not safe to abandon this ancient exegesis, since
its Gnostic astrology and scenery do not differ in
degree from the rest of the Acts. It does not even
go much beyond the Apocalypse or the Patristic
comments on tlie Song of Songs. Excision from
its context is impossible without leaving scars.
The ' Hymn of the Soul ' (Greek, ' Psalm ') in chs.
108-113 (and also a long doxology after ch. 113 ;
only Syriac and for the largest part omitted by
Sachau 222 ; cf. Hennecke, i. 592-594) is omitted
in most MSS. It is a document of the religious
life, not of the metaphysics of Gnosticism (Bevan,
p. 7). An orthodox bishop of Salonica, Nicetas,
explained it in the 11th cent, without any suspicion
(cf! above (3) a.nA'RMrkxii, Early East. Christianity,
p. 227). This proves that its character is not
obtrusively Gnostic. Preuschen (op. cit., but cf.
recensions in ThT and JThSt, quoted under (3))
defines the character of both hymns as Ophite or
Sethian. Apart from this should be considered
his exegesis of the 'psalm' of chs. 108-113 as a
' Hymn of the Christ. Reitzenstein supports his
views (for the Bridal Ode with less decision : ojj.
cit. 142). He explains its curious implications —
Christ cheated by demons, defiled by communion
with them, serving the Lord of this world, plunged
in a sleepy forgetfulness of His heavenly origin
and supreme task — by assuming a ' fast ratselhaft '
strong influence of pagan literature (op. cit. 122).
On the ' sleepy forgetfulness ' cf . Conybeare, JThSt
vi. 609-610. Identification of the soul and Christ
is present in the Odes of Solomon. Hilgenfeld
(ZWT, 1904, pp. 229-241) advocates a Greek
original ('the Son of the King and the Pearl')
sprung from a pagan Gnostic movement in the
new Sasanid empire.
All critics with this last exception, but Preu-
schen included (cf., however, his art. in Hennecke,
i. 479), agree in ascribing the ' Hymn of the Soul '
to I3ardesanes or to his school. Bevan (op. cit. p.
6 f. ) has shown that it contains just those ' heresies '
for which Bardesanes, according to Ephraim, was
excluded by the Edessene Church. With regard
to its inclusion in the Acts, Burkitt remarks (Early
Eastern Christianity, p. 212 note) :
' I cannot help expressing a private opinion that the Hymn
was inserted by the author liimself, just as he used the Ix)rd's
Prayer in a later prayer of Judas Thomas. That the Hymn
itself is independent of the Acts is certain, but it is not so
clear that the Acts is independent of the Hymn. It may, in
fact, have become a part of the recognised teaching of the sect
to which the author of the Acts belonged (cf. Ephraim's Com-
mentarp on S Corinthians, p. 119).'
(7) Theology of the Acts. — The Acts presupjwses
the universal acceptance of a theology counting
only the supernatural world as real, anti individual
salvation as the chief end of man. Asceticism,
especially abstinence from sexual relations even in
marriage, is urged as self-evident. Even before
meeting the Aj)ostle, Vazanes had seen this (Act
xiii.). Mygdonia shows a firmer grasp of tlie
implications of his doctrine than Thomas himself
(Act X. ). The supernatural world is not described :
the Gnostic cosmogonies and esoteric doctrines are
absent. Against this fact coincidences in piirase-
ology seem to carry little weight. Perhaps it is
only its reckless Puritanism which separates the
Acts of Thomas from the B'nai Q'y&m&, Aphra-
ates, and other leaders of early Syriac Christianity
(cf. Burkitt, Early East. Christianiti/, pp. 118-154 ;
Scliwen, Afrahat, Berlin, 1907, pp. 96-99, 130-132).
The Church and its dignitaries are practically
absent (cf. Acts v. vi. and the Martyrium). The
sacraments are much in evidence as the only means
of attaining to the life among the inhabitants of
the worid of li^^ht (chs. 121, 132, 158). Baptism
immediately followed by the Eucharist is the rule.
It occurs in the story of the woman in Act v. (ch.
49), Mygdonia, Act x. (ch. 121), Siphor, Act x.
ACTS (APOCKYPHAL)
ADAM
39
(ch. Ties, Act xiii. (chs. 153-158). In
the ^ .udaphorus and Gad, Act u. (chs.
•25-21 j, tiie Greek and Syriac differ ; both omit the
Eucharist.
(8) Ritual. — (a) Instruction (132) ; (b) pratfer (25,
156) ; (c) consecration of the oil (157) ; (el) imposi-
tion of hands (49); (e) outpouring of oil on the
head (27 Gr. et reil.) ; (/) unction (27 Gr. 157) ;
(g) prayer over the unction (27 Gr. 121, 157) ; (A)
immersion (27 Syr. 121, 132, 157) ; (») chrism (27
Syr.); (j) prayer over the chrism (27 Syr.); (k)
prayer for the Eucharist (49, 121, 132, 158); (I)
allocution before partaking (49, [121], 132, 158);
(»i) partaking of the bread (49, 121, 132, 158) ; (n)
of the •-•up 1,121, 158). A response from heaven
occurs in ch. 121, and a Christophany in chs. 27,
153. The fullest * account is that of chs. 153-158.
The whole act of unction and immersion is called
'sealing' (121), therefore in chs. 49 and 27 (Gr.)
the immersion may have been omitted. Outpour-
ing and unction constitute a double act (157).
Unction maj- have extended to more parts of the
body for exorcistic purposes (cf. ch. 5 and JThSt,
i. 71 ; F. E. Brigntman, The Sacramentary of
Serapion of Thmuis, p. 251 ; Hennecke, Neutest.
Apokr. ii. 565). WhUe the Greek in 27 has a
double unction (JThSt i. 251) or, perhaps, unction
and chrism, the Syriac has baptism followed by
chrism. Elsewhere the Eucharist seems always to
occupy the place of the last part of later baptismal
ritual, viz. the confirmation and ' sealing ' by the
chrism. Eenunciation in a formal way is al^nt,
rentmciation from sexual intercourse is understood
promised, 152). Consecration of the water is not
found, though running water is but once used
(121). Trinitarian formulae and Logos-terminology
are used rather indiscriminately. Gnostic phrase-
ology occurs side by side with it. The baptismal
formula is always Trinitarian. Ordinary loBad
and water appear as Eucharistic elemente. The
bread seems to be more essential (body and blood
in ch. 158).
(9) The most ImpressiTe element in the Acts is
Thomas's character as a twin of the Christ (see
above (1)). W. Bauer (Das Leben Jesu im ZeUcUter
der neutest. Apokr. , Tiibingen, 1909, p. 445, note 3)
takes this as proof that the Aets wishes to reduce
the Virgin birth ad absurdum, and quotes ch. 2 :
' I. -Jesus, son of Joseph the carpenter.' This
would he quite a solitary cloud of scepticism in an
atmosphere saturated with syncretistic thought.
Reitzenstein seems to open a field where Bendel
Harris (The Dioscuri in the Christian Legends,
London, 1903, and Cult of the Heavenly Twins,
Cambr., 1906) had already found a way. That, in
fact, Dioscuric attainments are ascribed to Thomas
is evident, and just here a parallel between Bar-
desanian literature and our Acts comes in (cf.
Burkitt, 170 note and 199). The name Thomas =
'twin' has been the point de depart, the cult of
Aziz (the morning star) a presupposition. Prob-
ably it was this Dioscuric god, whose month of
free-markets (cf. Harris, Cult of the Heavenly
Twins, p. 158) and whose place as a paiartm of
Edessa Thomas was honoured with (cf. Jn 11^« 20** ;
Pauly-Wis-sowa, i. 2644 [Cumont] ; R. Duval, His-
toire politime, relig. et litt. didesse, Paris, 1892,
p. 74 ff.). The ways and by-paths of syncretistic
monotheism are still obscure to us, but research
in this field is certainlv destined to cast light on
the dark places of the Acts of Thomas.
Beades the works already qjooted, see F. Cnmont, Die or.
ReL im, mm. HeideKtum, "Uei^aag, 1910; P. WeDdlaad, Die
JteUemgHaeh-^nmiaehe Kvmr, Tobnqgm, 1907 ; B. Reitaenstan,
IHe heUenittiaehen MvsteriemrOigionen, Leipzig, 1910, also
Poimandres, 5l«d. z. griedu-dfftfpt. u. /ruAehrittl. Lit., do.
* The sacramental nsagein the Acts la not fixed : the 14 pointB
occur in rarioos combioations.
1904 ; P. J. Dolger, S^trogit, eine aUdtr. Tamfbezeiekmtng in
ihren Beziehvngen zur pmf. wul relig. KvUur det AUerttana,
Paderbom, 1911; F. Ebase, Zur Imrdetamaehen Gnoitt,
Leipzig, 1910.
6. Later Aets. — Besides the five Apocryphal
Acts which have been discussed, there are several
others of later dato, but they are comparatively
unimportant. The most valuable is the 'Acts
of Philip, ' which is edited by Bonnet in Acta
Apocrypha, iL 2. It describes the adventures of
Philip in Phrygia, Asia, Samaria, ete., in the
company of his sister Mariamne. It may be as
eurly as the 3rd cent., {uad belongs either to a
mUdly Gnc^itic sect or to the same Modalistic
Christianity as the Acts of Peter. It is discussed
by Lipsius in Die apok. Apostelgesehichten, Supple-
ment, pp. 65-70, and by Zahn, Forschungeny
vi. 18-24. Besides this a series of Acts, growing
ever shorter and less valuable, can be foun3
attached to the name of every Apostle or Teacher
in NT times in the Acta Sanctorum, arranged
under the date assigned in tiie calratidar to the saint
in question.
7. Catholic recensions. — In the course of the
Manichaean controversy the view was adopted
that the miracles in the ' Leucian ' Acts were
genuine, but that the doctrine connected witih
them was heretical. This view finds ite clearest
expression in the Prologue of pseudo-Mellitus :
' y<^ aankatam esse fraternitatan vestzam de Leocio qoodam
qui scripsife Aposfadonim actoa, loanntB eyangelistae et aancti
Andreae vel Thomae i^Msbdi qoi de virtatibas qtudem qaae
per eos dominos fecit, plnrfaaaa vera dixit, de doctaiii* vero
malta mentitiis est.'
The result was a series of Catholic recensions
which left out, speaking generally, the speeches,
and preserved or even added to all the miracles.
Of these Catholic recensions, which are very
numerous, the most famous are the 'Prochoms'
edition of the Acts of John (the text is best given
by Zahn, Acta Joannis, Erlangen, 1880), and the
so-called 'Abdias' coUeetion. The disentan^e-
ment of various recensions of the separate Acts is
very difficult, and not very profitable.
The materials for a more detailed statement aS the CJatixdic
recensions can be found in Hamack, GtsAidtte der aUekrist-
2teA«nlAtter«<iir. LeipzK. L [1893]pk 123fE., andinK. A. Liprins,
IHe apokrypken Apotte^eaekidUen, 18S3-87.
Kncsopp Lake and J. de Zwaak.*
ADAM ('Add/t). — ^Adam was the first man (0-19=
man) and the parent of the human race. — ±. TVlien
the Avriter of Jude (v.") thinks it worth noting
that Enoch (q.v.) was 'the seventh from Adam'
(ipSoiuK avh 'Addfi), he probably has in mind the
sacredness of the numbo' seven. It seems to him
an interesting point that God, who rested from
His work on the seventh day, found a man to
walk in holy fellowship with Him in the seventh
generation.
2. In 1 Co 11«- and 1 Ti 2>«- the doctrine of the
headship of man and the complete subjection (xdo-a
vroray^) of woman is based upon uie story <rf
creation. Man was not created for woman, but
woman for man ; Adam was created first and
sinned second. Eve was created second and sinned
first ; therefore let woman ever remember that she
is morally as well as physically weaker than man,
and let her never attempt either to teach or to
have dominion over him (auderreiw awSpds). With
the premisses of this argument one may compare
the words of Sirach (25^) : ' From a woman was
tiie beginning of sin (drb yvwoMxbs dfix^l ofiaprlas),
and because of her we all die.' St. Paul did not
take pleasure in this quaint philosophy of history,
as many of the Rabbis did ; but, with all Ms
reverence for womanhood, he felt that the accepted
* The section on the Acts of Xbomas is from ttie pai of
deZwaan; the rest <rf the art. is by Kirsopp Lake.
40
ADA^r
ADAM
belief in woman's creation after and her fall before
man's clearly established her inferiority. It was
not a personal and empirical, but a traditional and
dofjmatic, judgment.
3. St. Paul had, and knew that many others
had, a religious experience so vivid and intense
that ordinary terms seemed inadequate to do it
iustice. It was the result of a Divine creative act.
If any man was in Christ, there was ' a new crea-
tion' (/ftttJ'Tj KTliTis); old things were passed away;
behold, they were become new (2 Co 5'^). Kot
legalism or its absence, but 'a new creation'
(Gal 6^') was of avail. Reflexion on this profound
spiritual change and all tiiat it involved convinced
the Apostle that Christ was the Head and Founder
of a new humanity ; that His life and death,
followed by the gift of His Spirit, not merely
marked a new epoch in history, introducing a new
society, philosophy, ethics, and literature, but
created a new world. ' Bliss was it in that dawn
to be alive.' As St. Paul brooded on the stupen-
dous series of events of which Christ was the cause,
on the immeasurable difference which His brief
presence made in the life of mankind, there inevi-
tably took shape in his mind a grand antithesis be-
tween the first and the second creation, between the
first and the last representative Man, between the
intrusion of sin and death into the world and
the Divine gift of righteousness and life, between
the ravages of one man's disobedience and the
redemptive power of one Man's perfect obedience
(Ro 5i'^--').
It is to be noted that the Apostle does not
advance any new theory of the first creation. He
knew only what every student of Scripture could
learn on that subject. He had no new revelation
which enabled him either to confirm or to correct
the account of the beginning of things which had
come down from a remote antiquity. He no doubt
regarded as literal history the account of the origin
of man, sin, and death which is found in Gn 2-3.
He did not imagine, like Philo, that he was read-
ing a pure allegory ; he believed, like Luther, that
Moses 'meldet geschehene Dinge.' It is remark-
able, however, with what unerring judgment he
seizes upon and retains the vital, enduring sub-
stance of the legend, while he leaves out the
drapery woven by the old time-spirit. He says
nothing of a garden of Eden, a miraculous tree of
life, a talking serpent, an anthropomorphic Deity.
But he finds m the antique human document tliese
facts : the Divine origin and organic unity of the
human race ; man's attinity with, and capacity for,
the Divine ; his destiny for fellowship with God
as an ideal to be realized in obedience to Divine
law ; his conscious freedom and responsibility ; the
mysterious physical basis of his transmitted moral
characteristics ; his universally inherited tendency
to sin ; his consciousness that sin is not a mere
inborn weakness of nature or strength of appetite,
but a disregard of the known distinction between
right and wrong ; the entail of death, not as the
law obeyed by all created organisms, but as the
wages of his sin. The narrative which blends
these elements in a form that appealed to the
imagination of primitive peoples has a 'depth of
moral and religious insight unsurpassed in the OT '
(Skinner, Genesis [ICC, 1910] 52).
The teaching of St. Paul with regard to sin and
death does not materially differ from that of his
Jewish contemporaries and of the Talmud, in
which the same sense of a fatal heredity is con-
joined with a consciousness of individual responsi-
bility. 'O Adam, what hast thou done? For if
thou hast sinned, thy fall has not merely been
thine own, but ours who are descended from thee '
(2 Es 7**). Yet 'Adam is not the cause of sin
except in his own soul ; but each of us has become
the Adam of his own soul ' (Bar 54'®). According
to the Talmud, ' there is such a thing as trans-
mission of guilt, but not such a thing as transmis-
sion of sin ' (Weber, System d. aZtsyn. paldstin.
The.ol., Leipzig, 1880, p. 216).
The ' immortal allegory ' of Genesis cannot now
be regarded as literal history. ' The plain truth,
and we have no rea-son to hide it, is that we do
not know the beginnings of man's life, of his
history, of his sin ; we do not know them histori-
cally, on historical evidence ; and we should be
content to let them remain in the dark till science
throws what light it can upon them' (Denney,
Studies in TheoL, London, 1894, p. 79). Science
knows nothing of a man who came directly from
the hand of God, and it cannot accept the pedigree
of Adam as given by Moses or by Matthew, Its
working hypothesis is that man is 'a scion of a
Simian stock,' and it is convinced that man did
not make society but that society made man. Be-
yond this it has not yet done much to enlighten
theology. 'We do not know how Man arose, or
whence he came, or when he began, or where his
first home was ; in short we are in a deplorable state
of ignorance on the whole subject ' (J. A. Thomson,
The Bible of Nature, Edinburgh, 1908, p. 191).
4. Art has made it difficult to think of our first
parents without adorning them with all graces and
perfections. ' But when we get away from poetry
and i)icture-painting, we find that men have drawn
largely from their imaginations, without the war-
rant of one syllable of Scripture to corroborate the
truth of the colouring' (F. W. Robertson, Cor-
inthians, 242). To St. Paul (1 Co 15«-»») the
primitive man was of the earth, earthy (xo'Mi), a
natural as opposed to a spiritual man, crude and
rudimentary, witli the innocence and inexperience
of a child. ' The life of the spirit is substantially
identical with holiness ; it could not therefore
have been given immediately to man at the time
of his creation ; for holiness is not a thing imposed,
it is essentially a product of liberty, the freewill
offering of the individual. God therefore required
to begin with an inferior state, the characteristic
of which was simply freedom, the power in man to
give or withhold himself (Godet, Corinthians, ii.
424). St. Paul's conception is that, while 'the
first man Adam,' as akin to God, was capable of
immort&lity^jotuit non mori — his sin made him
subject to death, which has reigned over all his
descendants. Cf. 2 Es 3'' : 'And imto him (Adam)
thou gavest thy one commandment : which he
transgressed, and immediately thou appointedst
death for him and in his generations.' Formally
as a deduction from the story of Adam, but really
as his own spiritual intuition, the Apostle thus
teaches the unnaturalness of human death. This
is apparently opposed to the doctrine of science,
that death is for all organisms a natural law,
which reigned in the world long before the ascent
of man and the be^ning of sin— a debt which, as
it cannot be cancelled, man should pay as cheer-
fully as possible. And yet his sense of two things
— his own greatness and God's goodness— convinces
him that it is radically contra rerum naturam,
' He thinks he was not made to die,
And Thou hast made him, Thou art just '
(Tennjson, In Memoriam).
Christianity confirms his instinctive feeling that
death is in his case a dark shadow that should
never have been cast upon his life. Acknowledg-
ing that it is not the mere natural fate of a
physical organism, but the wages of sin, the
Christian believes that it is finally to be abolished.
' In Christ shall all be made alive.' ' The last
Adam,' having vanquished death, ' became a life-
giving spirit' (1 Co Ib^^). See also artt. LiFB
AND Death, Sin.
AD JUKE
AIX)PTIOX
41
LrraRATTRi!-— B. Weiss, Biblical Tkeolofffo/tMsA'T, 1882-83,
i. 331 ff.. 409 ff. ; W. Beyschlag. STTh»oU>ffif. 1894-96, u. 4Sff. ;
C. V. Weirsacker, Apo*toiu Age, 1894-95, L 149 ff.; G. B.
Stevens, The Pauline TheoUxjy, 1906, p. 122 ff.. Theology of the
AT, 1901, p. 349S. ; A. B. Brace, St, Pa*W$ Coneeption ef
Chrittianitu, 1S96, p. 125 ff. ; D. SomerviQe, St. PauFt Coneep-
tion o/Christ, 1S97, p. S6ff. ; Sanday-HeadLun, JZomantS, 1902,
p. 136 ff. ; A. Deissmaon, St. Paul, 19 12, pp.50, 107, 155 ff. ; H.
Wheeler Robioson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, 1911, p.
112 ff. James Strahan.
ADJURE.— See 0.\th.
ADMINISTRATION.— The word occurs in the
AV in two places, 1 Co 12* and 2 Co 9'^ in both
of which tlie RV has substituted 'ministration,'
just as in 2 Co 8""- ' administer ' (AV) has given
place to 'minister* (RV ; Gr Suucofiu). In 1 Co
12* and 2 Co 9" the word is the tr. of Gr. SiaKovia,
which originally means ' the service (or duty)
rendered by a Stditwos,' i.e. a servant, particularly
a waiter at table (Lat. minister), who pours out
wine to the guests individually. In 1 Co 12* the
aspect alluded to is especially that of practical
service rendered to a master [including that of
' deacon ' rendered to our ' Lord '], whereas in
2 Co 9^ it is particularly the concrete form of that
service which is intended, in its Godward and man-
ward aspects.
The administration of the Roman Empire is
never directly referred to in the NT, and is best
considered under its various aspects (Cesab,
PiKOCOXSUL, etc). A. SOUTEB.
ADMONITION Obedience to God's law and
submission to His will are essential for progressive
spiritual life. Human nature being what it is,
there is neetl for constant admonition (2 P 1^**"^).
In the NT reference is made to this subject in its
family, professional, and Divine aspects.
1. vovdcTcw and vov6c<rCa (a later form for wovOi-
TTiffis) are not found in the NT outside the Pauline
Epp., except in St. Paul's speech, Ac 2CF. For
the former see Ro 15", 1 Co 4», Col 1^ 3i«,
1 Th 5»-", 2 Th 3» ; for the latter 1 Co 10", Eph 6*,
Tit 310 ; cf. Is 8« 30^^, Hab -Z^-, Dt SP^-. The
terms are used in classical Greek {e.g. Aristoph.
Ranee, 1009), but are more common in later Greek
(Philo, Josephus). The root idea is ' to put in mind '
(tv T(fi vi^ Tidivai), to train by word, always with
the added suggestion of sternness, reproof, remon-
strance, blame (cf. .^ch. Prom. 264 ; Aristoph.
Vesp. 254 ; Plato, Gorg. 479A). The implication is
• a monitory appeal to the row rather than a direct
rebuke or censure' (Ellicott). To admonish is the
duty of a father or parent (Eph 6*; cf. Wis 11>*,
Pss.-Sol. 13«), or brother (2 Th 3^*). The object
and reason of such admonition must be realized if
it is to be a means of moral discipline. The ad-
nionition and teaching of Col 1^ correspond to the
' repent and believe ' of the gospel message.
2. «apaive« signifies 'recommend,' 'exhort,' 'ad-
monish ' (Ac 27*- 23 ; cf . 2 Mac 7^ '^, 3 Mac 5" 7" A).
This word is common in classical Greek, and is also
found in the Apocrypha. St. Luke would be familiar
with it as a term use<l for the advice of a physician.
Its presence in a ' We " section is suggestive. St.
Paul as a person of position and an experienced
traveller gives advice in an emergency, as a skilled
doctor would admonish a patient in* a serious ill-
ness (see Hawkins, Horce Synopticce, 1S99, p. 153).
3. xPIM'*''"^** in ^he active signifies 'transact
business ' (xovfia), ' give a Divine response to one
consulting an oracle,' 'give Divine admonition'
(cf. Jer 25^ 31^, Job 40^). The passive is used of
the admonition given (Lk 2-* ; cf. xp^P^Turfids,
Ro 11*, 2 Mac 2*), and of the person thus admon-
ished (Mt 212-22. ^c 10^; cf. 1126 and Ro 7* where
'called' is the translation; He 8* IF; cf. 12"^).
This meaning of 'Divine oracle' is found chiefly
in the NT, with the underlying idea that the mind
and heart must be suitably prepared for its re-
ception. For private and public exhortation by
preachers, teachers, and communities, see Gal 2",
1 Th 2^, 1 Ti 4", 2 Ti 4-. See also Chastisemext
and DisciPLiXK. H. Cariss J. Sidxell.
ADOPTION. — 1. The term The custom of
adopting children is explicitly alluded to by St.
Paul alone of biblical writers; he uses the word
'adoption' {vlo6eaia, Vulg. adoptio filicrum, Syr.
usually simath b^nayd) five times: Ro 8^* 9*,
Gal 4', Eph 1*. This Greek word is not found in
classic^ writers (though Oerbi vibt is used for * an
adopted son' by Pindar and Herodotus), and it
was at one time supposed to have been coined by
St. Paul ; but it is common in Greek inscriptions of
the Hellenistic period, and is formed in the same
manner as wonoOetria, ' giving of the law,' ' l^isla-
tion' (Ro 9*; also in Plato, etc.), and hpoOeaia,
' bounds,' lit. ' fixing of bounds ' (Ac 17^^). It is
translated 'adoption' in Rom., but 'adoption of
sons ' in Gal., ' adoption as sons * (RV ; AV ' adop-
tion of children ') in Ephesians. The classical Greek
word for ' to adopt ' is eia-roieurOai, whence eitrroii)<ns,
' adoption.'
2. The custom. — St. Paul in these passages is
alluding to a Greek and Roman rather than to a
Hebrew custom. Its object, at any rate in its
earliest stages, was to prevent the dying out of a
family, by the adopting into it of one who did not
by nature belong to it, so that he became in all
respects its representative and carried on the race.
But, thougli the preventing of the extinction of a
family was thought important by the Israelites,
and though adoption was a legal custom among
the Babylonians (Box, in EPE i. 114), it was not
in use among the Hebrews. With them childless-
ness was to some extent met by the levirate, or in
the patriarchal period by polygamy (cf. Gn 16''-),
or at a later date by divorce. The few instances of
adoption in the OT(e.gr. Moses by Pharaoh's daughter,
Esthei by Mordecai) exhibit a different reason for
the act from that stated above, and are the result
of foreign surroundings and influence. On the
other hand, the custom was very common among
both Greeks and Romans. It was at first largely
connected with the desire that the family worship
of dead ancestors should not cease — a cultus which
could be continued only through males (Wood-
house, in EEE i. 107 and 111). In Greece it dates
from the 8th cent. B.C. It was afterwards used as
a form of will-making. If a man had a legitimate
son, he could not miake a will ; but, if he had no
legitimate son, he often adopted one that he might
secure the inheritance to him rather than to rela-
tives, who would otherwise be heirs. The adopted
son at once left his own family and became a mem-
ber of that of his adopter, losing all rights as his
fathers son. If he was adopted while his adopter
was still living, and sons were afterwards bom to the
latter, he ranked equally with them ; he could not be
disinherited against his wilL Roman adoption was
founded on the same generalideas ; it wascalledarro-
gatio if the person adopted was s^ui juris, hat adoptio
if he was under his own father's poUstas (Wood-
house, loc. cit. ). In the latter case he came under the
adopter's potestas as if he were his son by nature.
It appears, then, that St. Paul in the five pass-
ages named above is taking up an entirely non-
Jewish position ; so much so that some hare
doubted whether a Jew, even after he had become
a Christian, could have written Epistles which con-
tained such statements (cf. Ramsay, Galatians, p.
342). This, however, is one of the many instances
of the influence of Greek and Roman ideas on St.
Paul. W. M. Ramsay has endeaToured to show
that, in so far as these dififered from one another
42
ADOPTION
ADOPTION
in the matter under discussion, it is to Greek
custom rather than to ' the Koman law of adoption
in its original and primitive form ' that the Apostle
refers in dealing with Gal S*"^-, but that he uses a
metaphor dependent on Koman law when writing
to the Romans in Ro 4" (ib. pp. 339, 343 ; see also
art. Heir). But this has beon disputed.
3. St. Paurs metaphor of adoption.— The Apostle
applies tlie metapiior to the relation of both Jews
and Cliristians to the Father, (a) Somewhat em-
phatically he applies it to the Jews in Ro 9*. The
adoption, the glory [the visible presence of God],
the covenants [often repeated], the giving of the
Law, the service [of the Temple], the promises, the
fathers, all belonged to the Israelites, ' my kinsmen
according to the Hesh,' of whom is Christ concern-
ing the ilesh — a passage showing the intense Jew-
ish feeling of St. Paul, combined with the broader
outlook due to his Grseco-Roman surroundings
(see above, § 2). Here the sonship of Israel, for
which see Ex 4'^ {' Israel, ray son, my first-born'),
Dt 141 326. i9f.^ Pa 68" 103«, Jer 3I», Hos n\
Mai 2", etc., is described as 'adoption.' It is
noteworthy that the adoption is before the Incar-
nation, although it couJd only be ' in Christ.'
Lightfoot (on Gal 4') observes tnat before Christ's
coming men were potentially sons, though actually
they were only slaves (v.*). Athanasius argues
that, since hetare the Incarnation the Jews were
sons [by adoption], and since no one could be a son
except through our Lord [cf. Jn 14^, Gal 3^,
Eph P, and see below, § 5], therefore He was a Son
before He became incarnate (Orat. c. Avian, i. 39,
iv, 23, 29),
(6) But more frequently St. Paul applies the
metaphor of adoption to Christians. ' Sonship in
the completest sense could not be proclaimed be-
fore the manifestation of the Divine Son in the
flesh' (Robinson, Eph., p. 27 f.). We Christians
' received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry,
Abba, Father,' for 'we are children of God'
(Ro S^"-)- It was not till the fullness (rb irX-fipuiw. —
for the word see Robinson, pp. 42, 255) of tlie time
came that God sent forth His Son that we might
receive adoption (Gal 4*'-). In its highest sense
adoption could not be received under the Law, but
only under the Gospel. The context in these
Passages shows that the Spirit leads us to the
'ather by making us realize our sonship ; He
teaches us how to pray, and puts into our mouth
the words ' Abba, Father ' (cf. Kpa^ov Gal 4' with
Kpd^oixev Ro 8"). We notice that St. Paul, though
aiddressing those who were not by any means all
Jewish Christians, but many of whom, being
Gentiles, had come directly into the Church, yet
seems at first sight to speak as if Christ's coming
was only to give adoption to those whom, being
under the Law, He redeemed. But, as Lightfoot
remarks (Coin, in loc), the phrase used is roiis inrb
vbfi.ov, not vvb rbv yo/xov ; the reference is not only
to those who were under the Mosaic Law, but to
all subject to any system of positive ordinances
(so perhaps in 1 Co 9*). The phrase 'redeem . . .'
IS tliought to reflect the Roman idea that the
adopter purchased a son from the father by nature ;
adoption was eflected before a praetor and five
witnesses, by a simulated sale.
(c) Just as the adoption of Jews was inferior to
that of Christians, so that of Christians is not yet
fully realized. Adoption is spoken of in Ro S^ as
something in the future. It is the redemption
{dw6\&rpua-ts) of OUT body, and we are still waiting
for it ; it can be completely attained only at the
general resurrection. The thought closely re-
sembles that of 1 Jn 3- ; we are note the children
of God, but ' if he shall be manifested, we shall be
like him ' ; the sonship will then be perfected.
4. Equivalents in other parts of NT. — Although
no NT writer but St. Paul uses the word ' adop-
tion,' tlie idea is found elsewhere, even if expressed
difl'erently. Thus in Jn V^'- those who ' receive '
the Word and believe on His name are said to be
given bj' Him the right to become children of God.
In this passage Athanasius remarks (Orat. c.
Arian. ii. 69) that the word ' become ' shows an
adoptive, not a natural, sonship ; we are first said
to be made (Gn 1^), and afterwards, on receiving
the grace of the Spirit, to be begotten. As West-
cott observes (Coin., in loc), 'this right is not in-
herent in man, but "given" by God to him. A
shadow of it existed in the relation of Israel to
God.' This passage is closely parallel to Gal 3^,
where we are said to be all sons of God, through
faith, in Christ Jesus. So in 1 Jn 3', it is a mark
of the love bestowed upon us by the Father that
we should be called children of God [the name
bestowed by a definite act— KXridCitiev, aorist] ; and
(the Apostle adds) 'such we are.' The promise
of Rev 2F to 'him that overcometh' equally im-
plies adoption, not natural sonship : ' I mil be his
God, and he shall be my son ' ; and so (but less
explicitly) do the sayings in He 2'" 12* that Jesus
'brings m<any sons unto glory' (see below, § 8),
and that God deals with us ' as with sons. ' The
figure of adoption appears as a ' re-begetting ' in
1 P !'• "* ; we are begotten again unto a living
hope by 'the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ ' by means of the resurrection of Jesus (see
below, § 5), and therefore call on Him as Father
(v."). And, indeed, our Lord's teaching implies
adoption, inasmuch as, while He revealed God as
Father of all men, He yet uniformly (see next
section) differentiates His own Sonship from that
of all others.
5. A Son by nature implied by the metaphor.—
The use by St. Paul of the figure of adoption in
the case of Jews and Christians leads us by a
natural consequence to the doctrine that our Lord
is the Son of God by nature. In the same con-
text the Apostle speaks of Jesus as God's 'own
Son' (rbv iavrov vl6v), sent in the likeness of sinful
flesh, therefore pre-existent (Ro 8' ; cf. v.^- roO
ISlov vlod). In Gal 4*'- he says that God sent forth
His Son (rbv vlbv airov) . . . that we might receive
adoption ; Jesus did not receive it, because He
was God's own Son. And so our Lord explicitly
in Jn 20" makes a clear distinction between Hrs
own sonship (by nature) and our sonship (by adop-
tion, by grace): 'my Father and your Father,'
' my God and your God.' He never speaks of God
as 'our Father,' though He taught His disciples
to do so. Athanasius cites the ordinary usage of
our Lord in speaking of ' My Father ' [it is so very
frequently in all the Gospels, and in Rev 2" 3";
cf. also Mk 8**] as a proof that He is 'Son, or
rather that Son, by reason of whom the rest are
made sons' (Orat. c. Arian. iv. 21 f.). The same
thing follows from the language of those NT
Avriters who use phrases equivalent to those of St.
Paul. If Christians become children of God ( Jn 1'* ;
see § 4 above), Christ is the Only-begotten Son of
God, who was sent into the world that we might
be saved, or live, through Him (Jn 3""", 1 Jn 4'').
If we are the sons brought to glory by Jesus
(He 2'"), He is emphatically 'a Son over [God's]
house' (He 3« RVm ; cf. Nu 12^). St. Peter speaks
of God as the Father of Jesus in the very verse in
which he speaks of our being begotten again by
Him (IP 1», see § 4 above). It is this distinction
between an adoptive and a natural sonship which
fives point to the title ' Only-begotton ' (q.v.); had
esus Deen only one out of many sons, sons in the
same sense, this title would be meaningless (for
endeavours to evacuate its significance see Pearson,
On the Creed^, art. ii. notes 52, 53). The distinc-
tion of Jn 20" is maintained throughout the NT.
ADORXIN'G
ADKIA
43
As Angnstine says {Exp. Ep. ad Gal. [4*] § 30,
ed. Ben. iii. pt. 2, col. 960), St. Paul 'speaks of
adoption, that we may clearly understand the
only-begotten (unicum) Son of God. For we are
sons of God by His lovingkindness and the favour
(dignitate) oi His mercy; He is Son by nature who
is one with the Father (qiii hoc est quod Pater).'
6. Adoption and baptism. — We may in conclu-
sion consider at Mliat period of our lives we are
adopted by God as His sons. In one sense it was
an act of Grod in eternity ; we were foreordained
unto adoption (Eph 1'). But in another sense St.
Paul speaks of it as a definite act at some definite
moment of our lives : ' Ye received (Adhere : aorist,
not perfect) the spirit of adoption' (Ro 8"). This
points to the adoption being given on the admis-
sion of the person to the Christian body, in his
baptism. And so Sanday - Headlam paraphrase
v." thus : 'When you were first baptized, and the
communication of the Holy Spirit sealed your ad-
mission into the Christian fold,' etc. We may
compare Ac 19- RV : ' Did ye receive {iXd^e) the
Holy Ghost when ye believed (x«n-ev<ro»T«) ? ' — a
passage in which tne tenses 'describe neither a
gradual process nor a reception at some interval
after believing, but a defiiiite gift at a definite
moment' (Rackham, Com., in loc. ; cf. Swete, Holy
Spirit in NT, 1909, pp. 204, 342). The aorists can
mean nothing else. In the case of the ' potential '
adoption of the Jews (to borrow Lightfoot's
phrase), it is the expression of the covenant be-
tween God and His people, and therefore must be
ascribed to the moment of entering into the cove-
nant at circumcision, the analogue of baptism.
Yet in neither case is the adoption fully realized
tiU the future (above, § 3 (c)). In view of what
has been said, we can understand how ' adoption '
came in later times to be an equivalent term for
'baptism.' Thus Payne Smith (Thesaur. Syr.,
Oxford, 1879-1901, u. 2564) quotes a Syriac phrase
to the eftect that 'the baptism of John was of
water unto repentance, but the baptism of our
Lord [i.e. that ordained by Him] is of water and
fire unto adoption.' And in the later Christian
writers viodeala became a synonym for 'baptism'
(Suicer, Tkes.^, 1846, s.v.).
LrrsRATCXK. — Athanasias, Orationet eonfra Arianog, ptutim
(the general subject of this magnificent work is the Sonship of
Christ) ; J. Pearson, On the Creed (ed. Burton, Oxford, 1864),
art. i. p. 49, art. ii. note 57, p. 250; W. M. Ramsay, Hist.
Com. on the Galatiam, London, 1899, § xxxL ; G. H. Box, in
ERE, art. 'Adoption (Semitic)' ; "W. J. Woodhonse, ib., artt.
' Adoption (Greelc) ' and ' Adoption (Roman) ' ; J. S. Candlish,
in EDB, art. 'Adoption' ; H. G. Wood, in SDB, art ' Adop-
ti<»i.' See also J. B. Ligrhtfoot, Com. on Galatiant (1st ed.,
1866, many snbseqnent edd.) ; Sanday- HeadUm, Com. on
Romans (1st ed., 1S95); J. Armitage RolMiison, Com. on
Ephetians (Ist ed., 1903X A. J. MaCTLEAN.
ADORNING. — Simplicity of personal attire has
been no infrequent accompaniment of moral and
religious earnestness, even when not matter of pre-
scription. Two passages of the NT (1 Ti 2?-",
IP 3^ *) warn Christian women against excessive
display in dress, fashion of the hair (see the art.
Haie), and use of ornaments, and contrast it with the
superior adornment of the Christian virtues. At
the end of the 2nd cent, both Clement Alex. {Pad.
u. 10 f. [Eng. tr. II f.]) and Tertullian {de Cultu
Feminarum) found it necessarj- to protest in much
detail against the luxurious attire, etc., prevalent
even amongst Christians of their day. The better
adornment is frequently named in the intervening
literature. The righteous, like their Lord, are
adorned with good works (1 Clem, xxxiii. 7), and
with a virtuous and honourable life (ii. 8). Ignatitis
contrasts the adornment of obedience to Christ with
that of a festal procession to some heathen shrine
{Eph. ix.).
The reference to the subject in 1 P 3*- * has some
psychological interest. The adornment which is
praised is that of 'the hidden man of the heart,'
the meek and quiet spirit which is precious in Giod'e
sight, and incorruptible. This u-se of ' man ' in the
sense of personality suggests the well-known Pauline
contrast between the inner and the outer man (2 Co
4" ; cf. Ro 7**, Eph 3'«), and may be a further
example of that dependence of 1 Peter on Pauline
writings whichis now generally recognized (MoflFatt,
LNT^, p. 330). It has often been maintained {e.g.
by Holtzmann, Lehrhuch der NT Theol. ii 14, 15)
that this contrast is aproduct of Hellenistic dualism.
But it can be adequately explained from that Heb-
rew psychology which is the real basis of the Pauline
and Petrine ideas of personality. The heart (or,
in Pauline terminology, the ' mind ' [Ro 7^) is the
inner personality, as the apparelled members are
the outer personality. Both are necessary, accord-
ing to Hebrew thought, to make the uni^ of the
whole man. See further on this point the article
MAK. H. WHEELEB ROBDfSOK.
ADSAHTTTIUM {'ASfiapUrmop ; in the NT only
the adjective ' AJBpafurm)v6s [Ac 27^ is found ; WH
'A.dpofivmp'di). — This flourishing seaport of Mysia
was situated at the head of the Adramyttian Gulf,
opposite the island of Lesbos, in the shelter of the
southern side of Mt. Ida, after which the Gulf was
also called the ' Idaean.'
Its name and ongin were probably Phoenician, bot Stnbo
describes it as ' a dty founded by a colony of Athenians, with
a harbour aiid roadstead ' (xm. L 51X ^sin^ to importance
under the Attalids, it becune the metropolis of the K.W.
district of the Soman province of Asia, and the head of a
eonrentxu juridietu. Through it passed the coast-road whidi
connected Ephesos with Troy and the HeDespont, while an
inland highway linked it with Fergamos.
It was in ' a ship of Adramyttium ' — larger than
a mere coasting vessel — probably making for her o\s-n
port, that St. Paul and St. Luke sailed from Caesarea
by Sidon and under the lee (to the east) of Cyprus
to Myra in Lycia, where they joined a corn-ship
of Alexandria bound for Italy (Ac 27^-*). The
modem town of Edremid, which inherits the name
and much of the prosperity of Adramyttium, is 5
miles from the coast.
LrrERATCRX. — Conybeare-Howson, St. PomI, VSTI, iL 381f. ;
J. Smith, Voyage and Skipwrtek qf St. Paul*, 1880, p. 820. ;
W. M. Ramsay, SL Paul the TraveOer and tie Roman
Citizen, lS9o. p. 316. JaMES STKAHAS.
ADSIA (6 'ASplas [WH 'AdpUul ' the Adrias,' RV
' the [sea of] Adria'). — The name was derived from
the important Tnscan town of Atria, near the
mouths of the Padus, and was originally (Herod,
vi. 127, vii. 20, ix. 92) confined to the northern
part of the gulf now called the Adriatic, the lower
part of which was known as the ' Ionian Sea.' In
later times the name ' Adria ' was applied to the
whole basin between Italy and Illyria, while the
' Ionian Sea' came to mean the outer l»sin, south
of the Strait of Otranto. Strabo, in the beginning
of OUT era, says : ' The mouth (strait) is common
to both ; but this difference is to be observed, that
the name " Ionian" is applied to the first part of
the gulf only, and " Adriatic " to the interior sea
up to the farthest end ' (vn. v. 9). Strabo, how-
ever, indicates a wider extension of the meaning
by adding that ' the name " Adrias " is now applied
to the whole sea,' so that, as he says elsewhere,
' the Ionian Gulf forms p^ of what we now call
"Adrias"' (n. v. 20). Finally, in popular usage,
which is followed by St. Luke (Ac 27-''), the term
'Adria' was stUl further extended to signify the
whole expanse between Crete and Sicily.
This is confirmed by Ptolemy, who wrote about the middle of
the 2nd cent. A.D. 'With the accuracy of a geographer, he
distinguishes the Gu{f of Adria from the Sea of Adna ; thus, in
enumerating the boundaries of Italy, he teDs us that it is
ADULTERY
JEOHf
bounded on one side by the shores of the Otilf of Adria, and
on the south by the shores of the Adria (iii. 1) ; and that Sicily
is bounded on" the east by the Sea of Adria (4). He further
informs us that Italy is bounded on the south by the Adriatic
Sea (14), that the Peloponnesus is bounded on the west and
south by the Adriatic^ Sea (16), and that Crete is bounded on the
west by the Adriatic Sea (17)' (Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck aj
St. Paul*, 163 f.).
The usage current in the first and second
centuries is similarly reflected by Pausanias, who
speaks of Alpheus flowing under Adria from
Greece to Ortygia in Syracuse (viii. 54. 2), and of
the Straits of Messina as communicating with the
Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian Sea (v. 25. 3). Pro-
c'opius {Bel. Vand. i. 14) makes the islands of
Gaulos and Melita (Gozo and Malta) the boundary
between the Adriatic and the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The meaning of the term ' Adria ' was the debat-
able point of the once famous controversy as to
whether St. Paul sutl'ered shi])wreck on the lllyrian
or the Sicilian Melita, i.e. on MeUda or Malta
(see Melita). His ship Avas ' driven through
Adria' (di.a<t>€poiJ.ivuv iifiQi> iv tQ 'ASpL(f, Ac 27^);
perhaps not ' driven to and fio in the sea of Adria '
(RV) (unless St. Luke made a landsman's mistake),
but slowlj' carrieil forward in one direction, for
probably ' she had storm sails set, and was on the
starboard tack, which was the only course by
which slie could avoid falling into tlie Syrtis '
(Smith, op. (it. 1 14). An interesting parallel to St.
Paul's experience is found in the life of Josephus,
who relates that his ship foundered in the niidst
of the same sea (Kara, fiiaov t6v 'ASpiav), and that
he and some companions, saving themselves by
swimming, were picked up by a vessel sailing
from Cyrene to Puteoli ( Vit. 3).
Literature. — J. Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St.
Paul*, 1880, p. 162 fi. ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller
and the Jioman Citizen, 1895, p. 334.
James Strahan.
ADULTERY.— See Marriage.
ADVENT.— See Parousia.
ADYERSARY.— This renders three Greek words
in the NT : 1. avriSiKos, properly an adversary in
a lawsuit, and used of an earthly adversary in
Mt 5'^, Lk 12''* 18^ — all these with a legal reference.
It is used of an enemy of God in 1 S 2^° (LXX),
anil in 1 P 5* of ' the enemy,' Satan ; in this last
l^assage Sed/SoXos is anarthrous, as a proper name,
while dvriSiKos has the article (see Devil and
Satan).
2. avTiKcificvos, used in Lk 13" of our Lord's
Jewish opponents, and in 21'* of all adversaries of
the disciples, is employed by St. Paul to denote
those who oppose the (Christian religion, probably
in all cases with the suggestion that the devil is
working through them. Such are the ' adversaries '
of 1 Co'l6", Ph 1^ ; in 1 Ti 5'* Chrysostom takes
the ' adversary ' to be Satan, the ' reviler ' (cf. v.'*),
or he may be the human enemy as prompted by
Satan. In 2 Th 2* ' he that opposeth ' (6 avriKdnevos)
is Antichrist (q.v.), whose parousia is according to
the working of Satan (v.") ; and it is interesting to
note that the letter of the Churches of Vienne and
Lyons (Euseb. HE v. i. 6) uses this expression
absolutely of Satan, or of Antichrist, working
through the persecutors, and ' giving us a foretaste
of his unbridled activity at his future coming.'
3. vn-evavTios is used in He 10*'^ of the adver-
saries of God, apostates from Christ, probably with
reference to Is 26", where the LXX has the same
word. A similar phrase in Tit 2* is ' he that is of
the contrary part, an opponent, 6 i^ ivam-las. In
Col 2^* the word i/irevavTios is used of an inanimate
object: ' the bond . . . which was contrary to us.'
A. J. Maclean.
ADYOCATE.— See Paraclete.
£NEAS (Alvias). — The name occurs only once in
the NT (Ac 9^- ^). Tiie person so called was a
dweller in Lydda or Lod, a tow n on the plain of
Sharon about ten miles south of Joppa, to which
many of the Christians had tied after the persecu-
tion which dispersed the aix)stles and the church
of Jerusalem. On a visit of St. Peter to the place,
^'Eneas, who had for eight years been conlined to
bed as a paralytic, was healed by the Apostle.
The cure seems to have had a very remarkable
influence in the district, causing many of the
dwellers in Sharon and Lydda to accept Christi-
anity. Nothing further is known of the man.
Probably he became a Christian at the date of his
cure. W, F. IJOYD.
^ON (altliv, alQves, 'age,' 'ages'). — There is
some uncertainty as to the derivation of the word
ai'wj'. Some relate it with A-q/xi, ' to breathe,' but
modern opinion connects it witii del, acel { = alFd}v),
and finds as other derivatives the Latin CBVum
and the English 'aye.' In the LXX al(hv is used
to translate ah\]i in various forms, as cViyp, Gn 6* ;
cbrj ny, 1 K P''; D^iy Vx, Gn 213^ ; nb'iyn, Ec3". It is
of frequent occurrence in the NT. The instances
number 125 in TR, and 120 in critical editions.
Following these, it is noteworthy that in the
Gospels and Acts, where it occurs 34 times, it is
only once used in the plural (Lk P*). In the rest
of the NT the use of the plural predominates (54
out of 86 instances). In Rev. the word occurs with
great frequency (26 times). In every case it is
used in the plural, and, except in two places, in the
intensive formula eis toi)s alCivas tGiv alJivwv — a form
Avhich is never found in the (jospels or Acts, aithv
is variously translated as ' age,' ' for ever,' ' world,'
'course,' 'eternal.' It expresses a time-concept,
and under all uses of tlie word that concept remains
in a more or less definite tlegree.
1. It expresses the idea of long or indefinite past
time, air' aldvoi, ' since the world began ' (EV ; Lk 1™,
Ac 3-' 15"* ; cf. c^iyc, Gn 6^ Is 64*, ^k toD aldvos, Jn
9^-). In these instances, the phrases express what
we mean when, speaking generally and indefinitely
of time past, we say 'from of old' or 'from the
moat ancient time.'
2. The common classical use of aluv for ' lifetime'
is not found in the NT ; but there are instances
wliere the phrase els rbv alQva seems to have that
significance ; e.g. ' The servant abideth not in the
house for life, but the son abideth /or life,' Jn S*"
(also Mt 21'«, Jn 138, j Co 8").
3. Tlie phrase tli rbv alCiva, or tovs alQyas is
frequently found in the NT as a time-concept for
a period or ' age ' of indefinite futurity, and may
be translated 'for ever.' Strictly speaking, in
accordance with the root iilea of aidbi', tiie phrase
indicates futurity or continuance as long as the
' age ' lasts to which the matter referred to belongs.
The use of the intensive form eh roC'i aWvoj rcDj'
alwvoiv (Gal P, Eph 3-^ He 13-', and Rev. passi7n)
indicates the etibrt of Christian faith to give
expression to its larger conception of the ' ages' as
extending to the limits of iiuman thought, by
du])licating and reduplicating the original word.
The larger vision gave the larger meaning ; but it
cannot be said that the fundamiental idea of ' age,'
as an epoch or dispensation with an end, is lost.
In the Fourth Gospel the phrase is sometimes
employed as a synonym for ' eternal life ' ( Jn 6*'- '*).
4. iMie plural aluives expresses the time-idea as
consisting of or embracing many ages— a»ons,
l)eriod3 of va.st extent — ' from all ages' (RV, Eph
3"), ' the ages to come ' (Eph 2P, etc.). Some of the.se
' ages ' are regarded as having come to an end — ' but
now once in tlie end of the world ( ' at the end of the
ages' RV) hath he appeared to put away sin' (He
9'-*). The idea of one age succeeding another as
jEuy
AGABU.S
45
under ordered rule is provided for in the suggestive
title * the king eternal' (EV ' the king of the ages')
(1 Ti 1" ; cf. Cyrj '7x, Gn 21»). In He 1» ' through
whom also he made the worlds' (ages), and He 11'
"the worlds (ages) were made by the word of (Jod,'
we have the striking conception of the ' ages' as ' in-
chuiing all that is manifested in and through them '
(Westcott,C<wi.in/oe.). (InWisl3*thereisacurious
instance of aiuv as referring to the actual world,
• For if they were able to know so much that they
could aim at the world [ffTOX(itra.ffdcu rbv cdQwa], how
did they not sooner find out the Lord thereof?')
5. There is also attached to the word the signifi-
cance of ' age ' as indicating a period or dispensa-
tion of a definite character — the present order of
'world-life' viewed as a whole and as possessing
certain moral characteristics. It is unfortunate
that there is no word in English which exactly
expresses this meaning. The general translation
in AV and RV is 'world,' though 'age' appears
always in RVm and in the text at He 6*. There is
undoubtedly at times a close similarity of connota-
tion between aiJ:v and KcxTfios as indicating a moral
order. In the Gospel and Epp. of John aiuv is
never used in this sense, but Koafios is employed
instead : e.g. ' Now is the judgment of this world ;
now shall the prince of this world be cast out '
(Jn 12^^ also 15^ etc.), 'If any man love the
world' (1 Jn 2^* etc.). They are almost, if not
altogether, ^Tionymous in ' Where is the disputer
of this world ('age,' cudtp)* Hath not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world (/cAo-amw) ? ' (1 Co 1^).
That St. Paul recognized a distinction between
them is evident from the phrase Kara rbv aiwva rod
k6gu.ov roirrov, which is translated both in AV and
in RV 'according to the course of this world'
(Eph 2"-). Plainly a'u^v describes some quality of
the KOfffKK. We have no term to express it exactly,
but our phrase ' the spirit of the age ' comes very
near to what is required.
6. This ' world ' or ' age ' as a moral order includes
the current epoch of the world's life. It is an
epoch in which the visible and the transitory have
vast power over the souls of men, and may become
the only objects of hope and desire. It is described
simply as aiwv, ' the world ' (Mt 13"-, Mk 4'*), and
its end is emphatically affirmed (Mt 13»-*^« 24'
28**). But more frequently it is referred to as in
contrast to a coming age. It is described as 6 clIwp
oiTos, ' this worid ' (Mt 12», Lk 16*, Ro 12», 1 Co
1^, etc.) ; as 6 fw- cuwp (1 Ti 6", etc.) ; as 6 aluv 6
iveffTws, ' the present . . . world ' (Gal 1*). The
future age is described as 6 aiwp Mf^w, ' the world
to come' (Mt 12®'-, He 6*) ; 6 ipx6fuv<K, 'the world
to come ' (Mk lO'*, etc.) ; and as 6 aluv iKeivos, ' that
world ' (Lk 20»). The present ' age ' has its God
(2 Co 4*), its rulers and its wisdom (1 Co2*- «), its
sons (Lk 16*), its fashion (Ro 12*), and its cares
(Mt 13^). ilen mav be rich in it (1 Ti 6"), and
love it (2 Ti 4'0). It is an evil age (Gal 1^), yet it
is possible to live soberly, righteously, and godly
in it (Tit 2»-), and it has' an end (Mt 13«). In the
future 'age' there is 'eternal life' (Mk 10^, Lk
IS**). Those who are cormted worthy of it ' neither
marry nor are given in marriage, neither can tliev
die any more' (Lk 20'"-). It has 'powers' tha*t
may be ' tasted' in the present age (He 6*).
The contrast is regarded as that which is de-
scribed in Jewish writings as ran nViy and K|n c^jf,
'this age' and 'the age that is to' come.' These
are identified with the age before and after the
coming of the Messiah. There is much xmcertainty
as to the time when this contrast first arose.
Dalman says that 'in pre-Christian products of
JeNvish literature there is as yet no trace of these
ideas to be found' {The Words of Jesus, p. 148).
It is difficult to believe that a nation which ex-
pected so much from the advent of the Messiah did
not form some idea, at a date before the days of
Jesus Christ, of the vast changes which would be
produced when He did come, and look upon the
age which was so marked as one to be contrasted
\»-ith the age in which they were living. We can-
not follow Dalman when he says : ' It is not un-
likely that in the time of Jesus the idea of "the
future age," being the product of the schoob of
the scribes, was not yet familiar to those He
addressed ' {ib. p. 135). Dalman apparently donbts
whether Jesus used the term Himself, but says :
' The currency of the expressions " this age," " the
future age," is at all events established by the end
of the first Christian century.' He makes the
reservation that ' for that period the expressions
characterised the language of the learned rather
than that of the people ' {ib. p. 151 ).
7. Among the Gnostics (see Gnosticism) the
-^Eons were emanations from the Di\-ine. But this
meaning of the word belongs to a time when the
Gnostic ideas and terminology were more fully
developed than in the first century of the Christian,
era. It is enough to quote the opinion of Hort in
his Jttdfiistic Christianity, ' There is not the faint-
est sign that such words as . . . cuwi- . . . have
any reference [in the NT] to what we call Gnostic
terms' (p. 133, also p. 146).
LiTKRATrsB. — G. Dalman, The Words of Jetut, Eng:. te.
Edinbnr^ 19(>2, pp. 147 ff., 162 ff. ; HUB, art 'Worid';
Westcott,Coiiu<m(A«£putfeto(A«ff«frmr», tntoei*; F. Ren-
dall. ExpiiaiUn; 3rd ser.. viL [1888] 26&-278 ; AXnike-Grimm.
Clavia Nam TesUtmenti, &«. ; BRB, srtt. ' .£oii8' utd ' Ag^es of
the World'; F. J. A. Hart, Judaittie ChriManity, OunlMridge
•ad London, 18M, pp. 133, 146; H. B. Swete, Goipel according
to St. Mark, Lcmdon, 1903, pp. 66, 217; J. T. Marshall, EapT,
X. a8a(fr-99] 323 ; IJsrhtfoot, Com. on ColotsianM and Philemon^,
London, 1879, p. 73 ff.; C. Geikie, Life and Word* </ CAruf,
do. 1877, p. 625; J. A^ Beet, Last Thing*, do. 1IU3, pp. TO L,
132 f. ; Sanday-Heamam. JiomaiuS (ICC, 1902X
JoHX Reid.
AFFLICTION.— See Sufferixg.
A6ABUS {'Aya^ot, a word of nncertain derivsi-
tion). — The bearer of this name is menrioned on
two separate occasions in the Acts (ll*^-** 21**'^*)
and also by Eusebius {HE u. 3). He is described
as a prophet who resided in Jerusalem, and we
find hun in A.D. 44 at Antioch, where he predicted
that a great famine (9. f.) would take place 'over
all the world,' i.e. over all the Roman Empire.
The immediate effect of this prediction was to call
forth the liberality of the Christians of Antioch
and lead them to send help to the poor brethren
of Judaea (Ac 11^). The writer of the Acts tells
us that this famine took place in the reign of
Claudius. Roman historians speak of wide-spread
and repeated famines in this reign (Sueton.
Claudius, xviii. ; Dion Cass. Ix. ; Tac. Ann. xii.
43), and Josephns testifies to the severity of the
famine in Palestine and refers to measures adopted
for its relief (Ant. m. xv. 3, XX. ii. 5, v. 2).
Though Syria and the East may have suffered
most on this occasion, the whole £mpire could not
fail to be more or less affected, and it is hyper-
crirical to accuse the author of the Acts of
' unhistorical generalization ' for speaking of a
famine ' over all the world,' as is done by Schiirer
{GJV* I [1901] 543, 567 ; cf. Ramsay, St. Paul,
1895, p. 48 f. , and Was Christ bom at Bethlehem .',
1898, p. 251 f.).
Again in A.D. 59 we hear of Agabus at Caesarea,
where he met St. Paul on his return from his
third missionary- journey. Taking the Apostle's
girdle, he bound his own hands and feet, and in
the symbolic manner of the ancient Hebrew
prophets predicted that so the Jews would bind
the owner of the girdle and hand him over to the
Gentiles (Ac 21^*""). The prophecy failed to move
St. Paul from his resolve. There is no means of
ascertaining whether Agabus was a prophet in the
46
AGE
AIK
higher NT sense — a preacher or forth-teller of the
Word ; or whether he was merely a successful
soothsayer. It is difJicult to see what good end
could be served by the second of his recorded
predictions. Tradition makes him one of the
'seventy' and a martyr at Antiocli.
W. F. Boyd.
AGE. — The general significance of ' age ' is a
period of time, or a measure of life. Specially, it
expresses the idea of advancement in life, or of
oldness. Several Greek Avords are employed in
NT for « age.' (\) al^bv (see Mos). (2) yevei, 'a
generation, loosely measured as extending from
30 to 33 years. In Eph 3»-2i RV rightly puts
• generations ' for ' ages.' (3) WXetoj, ' full-grown '
or ' perfect. ' In He 5" for AV ' to them that are
of full age ' the RV substitutes ' fullgrown ' in the
text, and 'perfect' in the margin (cf. 1 Co 2",
where the R v has ' perfect ' in the text, and ' full-
grown ' in the margin). (4) rikLKLa. is the most
exact Greek term for ' age,' and especially for full
age as applied to human life. It includes also the
ideas of maturity or fitness, and of stature, as
when a person has attained to full development of
growth. In Eph 4^' ' the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ ' (EV) is somewhat diffi-
cult to interpret. The phrase is co-ordinate with
the words 'a perfect (or fullgrown, tA«os) man,'
which precede it in the text. Both phrases
describe the ultimate height of spiritual develop-
ment which the Church as the body of Christ is to
reach. The latter phrase explains what the former
implies. The general line or interpretation is that
the whole Church as the body of Christ is to grow
into ' a fullgrown or perfect man,' and the standard
or height of the perfect man is the stature of Christ
in His fullness (see Comm. of Meyer, Eadie, Ellicott,
in loc. ; Field, Notes on the Tr. of the NT, 1899, p.
6 ; Expositor, 7th ser., ii. [1906] 441 &.). In Gal V\
where the compound ffvvrjXiKidxTas is used, the word
has its primary meaning of ' age ' ( = ' equals in
age').
The question of age was of importance as regards
fitness for holding office in the Church (see NoviCE).
In later times tlie canonical age varied, but in
general it was fixed at thirty (see Cathol. Encyc.
art. 'Age'). It was also considered in relation to
the dispensing of the charity of the Church, at
least in the case of widows. In 1 Ti 5^ it is said :
' Let none be enrolled as a widow under threescore
years old.' The question naturally arises. Were
only widows of advanced years eligible for assist-
ance? It is possible that younger widows might
be in greater need of help. Because of this it is
supposed by some (Schleiermacher, etc.) that the
reference is to an order of deaconesses — a supposi-
tion that becomes an argument for a late and un-
Pauline date for the Epistle. Others think that
the reference is to an order of widows who had
duties which somewhat resembled those of the
presbyters (Huther, Ellicott, Alford). De Wette
believes that probably there were women who
vowed themselves to perpetual widowhood, and
performed certain functions in the Church ; but
evidences of such an order belong to a later date in
the Church's history. On the whole, and especially
if the Epistle belongs to an early date, it is best to
regard the instru<;tion as a direction about widows
who were entirely dcpcruhMit on the charity of the
Church. YouuLicr widows would receive help
according to their ni'f'd, hul were not enrolled like
the older widows as regul.ir r<'(i](ient8 of the
Church's charity. The .'ii:*^ limit lor an old age
pension is not a mw iiii;i. It \< impossible to
determine if the widows wh.j w, w enrolled were
bound to give some servio- in i(;tum for the
assistance which they received. The probability
is tliat they were not, assuming, of course, the early
date of the Epistle (see H. R. Reynolds, in E.r/tos.,
1st ser., iii. [1880] 382-390 ; HDB, art. 'Widows').
The dispensing of charity to widows was a great
and grnvf! ))rol)l*im in the early Church. The rule
;il)(iut fninliiicHi only when the threescore years had
boeii reached was t;vidently intended to restrict
the number of those who were entitled to receive
regular help. Nestle calls attention to ' the
punning observation in the Didascalia ( = Const.
Apost. lii. 6) about itinerant widows who were so
ready to receive that they were not so much x^pat
as irrjpai' (Deissmann, Light from, tlie, Ancient
East, p. 109, note). The pun may be rendered in
Englisn as ' not so much " widows " as " wallets."'
In 1 Ti 5^ and 1 P 5' 'elders' (irpea^vrepoi.) has
the primitive signification of ' men of advanced
age.' Cf. also the following article.
John Reid.
AGED. — In Philem ' the writer speaks of himself
as IlaOXos vpea-^&rris (AV and RV ' Paul the aged,'
RVm 'ambassador'). In strictness the transla-
tion 'ambassador' requires irpea^evr-fp, a word
which does not occur in the NT. The two forms
may have been confused in transcription or in
common use. The translation ' ambassador ' is
more fitting because Philemon, as father of Archip-
pus, who was old enough to hold some ' ministry *
in the Church (Col 4'^), must have been the equal,
or nearly the equal, of St. Paul in age ; and there
would be little or no ground for an appeal based
on considerations of age. It is also to be noticed
that the phrase ' ambassador and . . . prisoner of
Jesus Christ' is practically repeated in Eph 6-',
'an ambassador in bonds.' Taking the word as
meaning 'ambassador,' the appeal would have in
it a note of authority. It is not a relevant objec-
tion to say that St. Paul is beseeching Philemon
'for love's sake' (v.*). It is the peculiarity of
tlie Christian ambassador that he beseeches those
whom he addresses. Love and authority are com-
mingled in his mission, as in 2 Co 6'*- ^. The
likelihood of 'ambassador' being the right trans-
lation is strengthened by the fact that here as
elsewhere (2 Co 5^0, Eph G^") St. Paul uses a verbal
and not a noun form to express his position as an
ambassador. See J. B. Lightfoot, Com. on Col. and
Philemon^, 1879, in loc. ; and cf. art. Ambassador.
John Reid.
AGRIPPA.— See Herod.
AIR. — The apostles, like other Jews of their
time, regarded the air as a region between earth
and the higher heavens, inhabited by spirits,
especially evil spirits. In Eph 2^ the air is the
abode of Satan (see below) ; in Eph 6'* ' the
heavenlies' (to, iirovpdvia) — a vague phrase used
also in Eph P- '^ 2* 3'" to denote the heavenly or
spiritual sphere, the unseen universe* — is where
the wrestling of the Christian against the spiritual
hosts of wickedness takes place, and is apparently
in this case equivalent to 'this darkness' (cf.
Lk 22*^, Col 1'^ 'power of darkness,' i.e. tyranny
of evil). In Rev 12^ the war between Michael and
the dragon is in ' heaven. ' This can hardly refer
to the first rebellion of Satan, nor yet can we with
Bede interpret ' heaven ' as the Church ; but rather
the fiirlitiiiir is in the heavens, a struggle of Satan
to regain his lost place, ended by his final expul-
sion. ' As the Incarnation called forth a counter-
manifestation of diabolic power on earth, so after
the Ascension the attack is supposed to be carried
into heaven' (Swete, Com. in lac). But the con-
ception is not unlike that of St. Paul as noted
above.
There are several paralkls to tiiese passages in
that class of literature which is thougnt to be a
• The Peshitta renders it ' in heaven,' except in 6i2 where it
siprniflcantly has ' under heaven.'
AKELDA^IA
ALEXA^s'DRIA
47
Christian rehandling of Jewish apocalvptic writ-
ings. In the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs
tg.t;.) we read of the ' aerial spirit Beliar ' (Benj. 3).
In the Ascension of Isaiah {q.v.) there is described
iin ascent 'into the hrmament,' where were
Sammael and his powers, and there was a great
tight (vii. 9) ; Christ descends from the lowest
heaven to the firmament where was continual war-
fare, and takes the form of the angels of the air
(X. 29). In the Slavonic Secrets of Enoch the
apostate angels are suspended in the second heaven
awaiting the Last Judgment (§ 7 ; see Thackeray,
Relation of St. Paul to Contemp. Jeicish Thought,
London, 1900, p. 176 f,). These works in their
present form probably date from the latter part
of the 1st or the beginning of the 2nd cent. a.d.
The ideas seem to have had much currency among
Christians, for we find Athanasius (de Incam. 25)
speaking of the devil having fallen from heaven
and wandering about ' our lower atmosphere,'
'there bearing rule over his fellow-spirits . . .,'
' while the Lord came to cast down the devil, and
clear the air and prepare the way for us up into
heaven.'
The prince of the power of the air (Eph 2*) is
Satan. That he had authority over the evU spirits
whose abode is in the air was the general Jewish
belief, except among the Sadducees. St. Paul
does not, however, here say 'powers of the air,'
i.e. evil spirits, but the ' air-power ' or ' air-tyranny '
(for this meaning of i^ovcia see Ligbtfoot's note on
Col 1^). Satan is the arch-tyrant whose abode is
in the air.
LrrKRATTRS.— See wt. DnfOH. A. J. MaCLEAX.
AKELDAMA (kK€\Bafmx WH, 'AxeXdaftd TR).—
Akeldama is said to be equivalent to xf^P^o" cufiaros
in Ac 1^*, and to dypos alfuiTos in Mt 27': in that
case the word represents Aram. k2'i Spq and the
final X (which is retained also in the best Vulg.
text, acheldemach) transliterates k (which is only
rarely so found). It has, therefore, been suggested
as possible that the second part of the word repre-
sents Aram. Tfi'^^Koifrrp-fipt.ov, 'cemetery,' which
accords better with St. Matthew's explanation,
though not with St. Luke's. It is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that we have here an instance
of the occasional discrepancies and inaccuracies
which have from an early period crept into the
text of the NT. It would certainly seem as if the
explanation of the title 'field of blood' given in
Mt 27* is radically different from that suggested
in Ac 1^*, and that the former is more in accord-
ance with the facts, though still an incorrect trans-
lation of the Aram, title, while it is probable that
the whole section w.^^ ^ (with or without v.^) of
the latter passage is not part of St. Peter's speech,
but a comment or gloss either by the author of
the book (St. Luke) himself or even by some later
editor or transcriber, who has incorporated a less
trustworthy tradition in the text.
The site of Akeldama is the modem Hakk ed-
Dumm, on the south side of the Valley of i3innom.
See, further, art. s.v. in HDB and DCG.
C. L. Feltoe.
ALEXANDER ('AX^fapSpos, 'helper of men'). —
This name is found in the NT in five different
connexions, and possibly designates as many
different individuals.
1. The son of Simon of Cyrene, who bore the
cross to Calvary (Mk 15*»), and the brother of
Rufus. In all probability Alexander and his brother
were well-known and honoured men in the Church
of Rome (cf. Ro 16^ and art. RCFCS), to which
the Gospel of Mark was addressed, as St. Mark
identifies the father by a reference to the sons.
We may regard the allusion as an interesting in-
stance of the sons being blessed for the father's sake.
2. A leader of the priestly party in Jerusalem
at the period subsequent to the death of Christ.
After the healing of the impotent man we are told
that Alexander was present at a meeting of the
Jewish authorities along with Annas, Caiaphas,
and John, and 'as many as were of the kindred of
the high priest' (Ac 4*). It is probable, though
not quite certain, that this indicates that Alex-
ander belonged to the high-priestly class ; and it is
impossible to identify him with Alexander the
' alabarch ' of Alexandria and brother of PhiJo.
3. A leading member of the Jewish community
at Ephesus (Ac 19®), who was put forward by the
Jews at the time of the Ephesian riot to clear
themselves of any complicity with St. Paul or his
teaching, but whom the mob refused to hear. He
may have been one of the ' craftsmen,' though on
the whole it is unlikely that a Jew" would have
any connexion ^\^th the production of the symbols
of idolatry. There are, however, slight variations
in the MSS of Ac 19^, and ditierent views have
been taken with regard to Alexander and the in-
tention of the Jews. Meyer holds that Alexander
was a Jewish Christian who was put forward
maliciously by the Jews in the hope that he might
be sacrificed (cf. Com. in loco). The omission of
Tis, ' a certain,' before his name has been regarded
as an indication that Alexander was a well-known
man in Ephesus at the time.
i. A Christian convert and teacher, who along
with Hymensns {q.v.) and others apostatized from
the faith, and was excommtmicated by the Apostle
Paul (1 Ti li»-»).
5. Alexander the coppersmith, who did St. Paul
much evil and whom the Apostle desires to be
rewarded according to his works (2 Ti 4^*"^*). This
Alexander has been identified with both 3 and i.
We are able to gather certain facts regarding him
which would seem to connect him with 3. — (1) His
trade was that of a smith (see Coppersmith), a
worker in metal, originally brass, but subsequently
any other metal, which might associate him with
the craftsmen of Ephesus. (2) The statement re-
garding him was addressed to Timothy, who was
settled in Ephesus. On the other hand, we are
told that Alexander greatly withstood St. Paul's
words — a reference which seems to indicate a bitter
personal hostility between the two men, as well as
controversial disputes on matters of doctrine which
might rather connect him with i, the associate of
Hymenffius. It is possible that 3, i, and 5 may
be the same person, but Alexander was a very
common name, and the data are insufficient to
allow of any certain identification. Those who
hold the Epistles to Timothy to be non-Pauline
regard the statement in Ac 1^ as the basis of the
references in the Epistles, but the only thing in
common is the name, while there is no indication in
Acts that Alexander had any personal connexion
with St. Paul.
IJTBRATCRF.— R. J. Knowlingr, EOT, ' Acts," 1900 ; Comm. ot
Meyer, Zeller, Holtzmann ; ^V. M. Ramsay, St. Paul, 1885,
p. 279 ; artt. in HDB and EBi. "\V. F. BOYD.
ALEXANDRIA CAXe|dv5pta).— The city of Alex-
andria almost realized Alexander the Great's dream
of ' a city surpassing anything previously exist-
ing' (Plutarch, Alex. xxvi.). Planned by Dino-
crates under the king's supervision, and built on a
neck of land two miles wide interposed between
the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Mareotis (4/ar»ui),
about 14 miles from the Canopic mouth of the
Nile, it became successively the capital of Hellenic,
Roman, and Christian Egypt, ' the greatest mart
in the world ' (fUyurrov efiiroptov Trjs oiKovft^yns, Strabo,
xvn. i. 13), and next to Rome the most splendid
city in the Empire. About 4 miles long from E.
to W., nearly a mile wide, and about 15 nules in
48
ALEXANDRIA
ALEXANDRIA
circumference, it was quartered — like so many of
the Hellenic cities of the period — by two colon-
naded thoroughfares crossing each otlier at a great
central square, terminating in the four principal
gates, and determining the line of the other streets,
so that the whole city was laid out in parallelo-
grams. Tlie three regions into which it was divided
— the liegio Judceorutn, Bnicheium, and IlhacCtis
— corresponded generally with the three classes of
the population — Jews, Greeks, and Egyptians —
while representatives of nearly all other nations
commingled in its streets (Dio Chrys. Orat. 32).
Diodorus Siculus, who visited it about 58 B.C.,
estimates (xvii. 52) its free citizens at 300,000, and
it probably had at least an equal number of slaves.
'Its fine air," says Strabo, 'is'worthy of remark: this results
from the city beiiiR on two sides surrounded by water, and
from the favourable effects of the rise of the Nile,' one canal
joining the great river to the lake, and another the lake to the
sea. 'The Nile, being full, fills the lake also, and leaves no
marshy matter which is likely to cause exhalations ' (xvii. i. 7).
The name of the city does not occur in the NT,
but ' Alexandrian,' as noun and adj. ('We^avbpevs,
'A\e^av5piv6s), is found 4 times in Acts. There
was a synagogue of Alexandrians in Jerusalem
(6®), fanatical defenders of the Mosaic faith, roused
to indignation by the heresies of Stephen. Apollos
was ' an Alexandrian by race, a learned man (dvTjp
"Kbyios ; AV and RVm, ' eloquent '), mighty in the
scripttires' (18^). In one Alexandrian ship St.
Paul was wrecked at Melita (27*), and in another
he continued his voyage to Puteoli (28"). Here
are references to the three most striking aspects of
the life of Alexandria — her religion, culture, and
commerce. We invert the order.
1. Commerce. — Alexandria was built on a site
uniquely adapted for maritime trade. Served on
her northern side by the Great Harbour and the
Haven of Happy Return * (evvo(XTos), which were
formed by a mole seven stadia in length — the Hepta-
stadium — flung across to the island of Pharos,t and
on lier southern side by the wharves of Mareotis,
Alexandria entered into the heritage of both Tyre
and Carthage, and drew to herself the commerce
of three continents. Under the Ptolemys Egypt
largely took the place of the lands around the
Euxine as a grain-producing country, and ' corn in
Egypt ' became as proverbial as it had been in the
days of the Pharaohs.
'The corn which was sent from thence to Italy was con-
veyed in ships of very ^eat size. From the dimensions g'iven
of one of them by Lucian, they appear to have been quite as
large as the largest class of merchant ships of modern times '
(Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul*, 1880, p. 71 f.).
The cruisers and coasters of Alexandria traded
with every part of the Mediterranean, and it was
an ordinary occurrence to find vessels bound for
Italy in the harbours of Myra and Malta (Ac 27®
28"). Seneca gives a vivid picture of the arrival
of the Alexandrian fleet of merchantmen at Puteoli
{Ep. 77). The trade which came to Lake Mareotis
from the Nile and the Red Sea was equally im-
portant.
' Large fleets,' says Strabo (xvii. i. 13), ' are dispatched as
far as India and the extremities of Ethiopia, from which places
the most valuable freights are brought to Egypt, and are thence
exported to other places, so that a double amount of custom is
collected, arising from imports on the one hand, and from ex-
ports on the other.'
2. Caltore. — It was the ^eat ambition of the
Ptolemys to make their capital not only the com-
mercial but the intellectual centre of the world.
Alexandria really succeeded in winning for herself
the crown of science, and was for centuries the
foster-mother of an international Hellenic culture.
* Its inner basin, Kibotos, greatly enlarged, forms the modern
harbour.
t On the eastern point of the island was the famous Light-
house, one of the ' Seven Wonders ' of the world.
The proofs of her devotion to letters were seen in
the Bnicheium, or central quarter of the city, which
contained not only the mau.soleum* of Alexander,
the palaces of the Egyptian kings, the Temple of
Poseidon, and, at a later date, the Csesarium t in
which divine honours were paid to the Roman
emperors, but the Museum, which in many ways
resembled a modern university, with lecture halls
and State-paid professors, and the Library, in
which were accumulated the books of Greece, Rome,
Egypt, and India, to the number (according to
Josephus, Ant. XIL ii. 1) of more than half a
million. In this home of endowed research the
exact sciences flourished ; Alexandria had on her
roll of fame the names of Euclid in geometry,
Hipparchus in astronomy, Eratosthenes in geo-
graphy ; and her physicians were the most cele-
brated in the world. For literature her savants
did a noble work in collecting, revising, and classify-
ing the records of the past. On the whole, how-
ever, her literary school was imitative rather than
creative ; her poets trusted more to learning than
to imagination, and the muses rarely visited the
Museum. The artificial atmosphere of literary
criticism, which was the breath of life to gram-
marians, philologists, and dialecticians, chilled
rather than fostered original genius. Alexandria's
most brilliant scholars, detached from the realities
of life, immured in academic cloisters, were con-
noisseurs, not writers, of classics.
In the Roman period ' numerous and respectable labours of
erudition, particularly philological and physical, proceeded from
the circle of the savants "of the Museum," as they entitled
themselves, like the Parisians "of the Institute" ; but ... it
was here very clearly apparent that the main matter was not
pensions and rewards, but the contact ... of g^reat political
and great scientific work ' (Mommsen, Provinces^, ii. 271 f.).
3. Religion. — While the eclecticism of Alex-
andrian religion was represented in its pagan
aspect by the cultus of the Serapeum, the most
famous of the city's temples, in which the attempt
was made to blend the creeds of Greece and Egypt,
the grafting of Judaism on Hellenism flowered into
a system which had far more influence upon the
permanent thought of the world. The migration
of the Jews to Egypt, which began at the time of
the downfall of Jerusalem (Jer 42"), increased
rapidly under the Ptolemys, who welcomed them
as colonists, giving them equal civic rights with
the Macedonians and Greeks — rights which both
Julius Csesar and Augustus contirmed to them.
Occupying their own quarter of the city — the
north-eastern — and forming, under their ethnarch
or ' alabarch,' a community within a community,
they were yet profoundly influenced by their en-
vironment, and developed not only a genius for trade
but a passion for learning. In the beginning of
our era they amounted to an eighth part of the
population, and nowhere else was the scattered
race so wealthy, so cultured, or so influential.
Alexandria became the greatest of Jewish cities,
the centre of Semitism as well as of Hellenism (q.v. ).
Naturalized in a foreign city and inevitably breath-
ing its spirit, the Jews showed themselves at once
pliant and stubborn. Glorying in the retention of
their monotheistic faith, they yet dropped their
sacred Hebrew language. Their Scriptures, trans-
lated into Greeks for their own use, came into the
hands of their Hellenic neighbours, who gave them
• Near the centre of the city, perhaps represented by the
present mosque Nelii Daniel.
t Near it were ' Cleopatra's Needles,' one of which is now in
London, and the other m New York.
J The legend of the composition of the Septuagint, contained
in the Letter of Aristeat, is probably based on facts. The ini-
tiative seems to have been taken by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who
doubtless wished to promote the use of Greek aiiioni; the Jewish
population of the citv. The Law was translated in the 3rd
cent. B.C., the Prophets (probably) in the 2nd, and most of the
' Writings ' in the 1st, while Ecclesiastes and Daniel were not
translated till the 2nd cent. a.d.
ALEXANDRIANS
ALIEN
49
in exchange the classics of Athens. Alexandria
thus became the meeting-place of Eastern and
Western ideals. Both races were sensitive to im-
pressions : whUe the Jews felt the subtle influence
of a rich civilization and a lofty philosophy, the
Greeks were attracted by a strange note of assur-
ance regarding God. In an eclectic age and city,
the endeavour was consequently made to harmonize
the religion of Moses with that of Plato. Moramsen
remarks that they were the clearest heads and the
most gifted thinkers who sought admission either
as Hellenes into the Jewish, or as Jews into the
Hellenic, system (Provinces^, ii. 167). With perfect
sincerity, u by faulty exegesis, the Jewish men of
culture made their Scriptures yield up the doctrines
of the Academy and the Stoa. The literary ex-
ponent of this spiritual rapprochement is Philo(y.p. ),
who probably did little more than give expression
to the current opinions of his countrymen in the
time of our Lord. While not a little of his Neo-
Judaism must, on account of his persistent allegor-
izing, be regarded as pseudo-Judaism, he had the
supreme merit of combining the highest Eastern
with the highest Western view of the universe ; of
identifying the Hebrew ' wisdom ' with the Greek
' reason ' ; of developing Plato's conception of the
world as the Oeiov ■yewrtroi', the eUwr toD -ronfrov, the
fiovoyanfis (the Divine Child, the Image of its Maker,
the Only- begotten) into that of the Kocfios yoTtrds or
X070S, which is the Invisible God's rpiirroyovos or
■rfXinoroKos, His aratryaafia or xttp*'"^p ; and of thus
facilitating that fusion of Hellenism and Hebraism
out of which so much Christian theology has
sprung. Alexandrian thought provided the cate-
gories— in themselves cold and speculative — into
which Christianity, as represented by the writers
of Colossians, Hebrews, and the Fourth Gospel,
poured the warm life-blood of a historic and
humane faith. And if the Alexandrian exegetical
method was often unscientific — as when it made
Moses identify Abraham with understanding,
Sarah with virtue, Noah with righteousness, the
four streams of Paradise with the four cardinal
Wrtues — yet the writer of Hebrews could scarcely
have built a bridge between Judaism and Christi-
anity unless he had been trained in a school which
taught its disciples to pass from symbols to ultimate
realities. Apollos {q.v.), the learned and eloquent
(X&yios, dwaros ev rah ypm/xui), was a true Alex-
andrian, not impossibly ' of the Museum ' ; and
Luther was happily inspired in suggesting that he
may have been the writer who used the Hebrew-
Hellenic theology of Egypt to interpret the manger
of Bethlehem, ^ee also the following article.
LiTBRATTRE.— Art. 'AJexandria' in HDB, SDB, EBi, and in
Panly-Wissowa ; H. Kiepert, Zur Topog. des aUen Alex-
andria, Berlin, 1ST2 ; J. P. Maha%, Alexander's Empire,
London, 18SS, and The Silrer Age 0/ Vie Greek World, do.
190*3 ; T. Mommsen, Prov. 0/ Rom. Emp.^, 2 vols., do. 1909 ; J.
Drummond, PhUo-Judcem, 2 vols., do. 1S88; ct also
W. M. Ramsay's art. 'Boads and Travel (in NT)' in HDB,
^•'^^S. J.\MES STR.<VHAX.
ALEXANDRIANS. — Among the active opponents
of St. Stephen were 'certain of them that were
of the synagogue called the synagogue ... of the
Alexandrians ' (A\€^at>Spi(,}v, Ac 6*).
Grammatically the sentence is not in good form, and admits
of a varietT of interpretations. Some exegetes (Calvin, Bengel,
O. Holtzmann, Kendall) assume that the Libertines, Cyrenians.
Alexandrians, Cilicians, and Asiatics residing in Jerusalem all
worshipped in one s>-nag<c^ae. Others (Wendt. Zockler, Sanday,
Knowling, Winer-Moulton) think that the first three classes of
Jews had one synag<^ne and the last two another— an idea
favoured by the -ntv . . . twv after ti«s. T. E. Page groups
the Libertines in one place of worship, the men of ^exandria
and Cyrene in a second, and those of Cilicia and Asia in a third.
Rnally, some scholars (Schiirer, Meyer, Weiss, Hackett) be-
lieve tiiat each of the five classes had its own distinctive syna-
gogue in the holy city. A synagogue of the Alexandrians in
Jerusalem is mentioneid in Jerus. MegiUa, V3d, where it is also
said that there were in all no fewer than 4So synagogues in the
VOL. I. — 4
city— a statement which Schurer (HJP n. ii. 73) Hinmitff^ «« an
insipid Tklmudic legend, but which Renan (Tfc« Apostles, Eng.
tr., 113) is dis]>06ed to accept a« ' by no means improbable.'
The Jews of Alexandria {q.v.) were in a very
different position from the people of any modem
Ghetto. They were amongst the most opulent and
influential citizens. They formed a distinct muni-
cipal community, and |x)ssessed extensive political
privileges. At the foundation of the city Alexander
gave them equal rights with the Greeks {fStMce ri
iieroiK€ir /card rjji' x6Xv i$ Urorifiias rpds'EWrin.i), and
the Diadochoi permitted them to style themselves
Macedonians (Jos. BJ n. xviii. 7). Of the five
quarters {pujiipai) of the city, named after the first
five letters of the alphabet, two were called
'Jewish' (lovdcuKol \iyorrai [Philo, in Flac. §8]).
While one quarter, knoTs-n as Delta, was entirely
peopled by Jews (BJ n. xviii. 8), many more of the
race were scattered over all the other parts (e> rats
SXKaii oi'K 6\iyoi ffTopdSei [Philo, loc. cil.}), and none
of them were without their house of prayer (Philo,
Leg. ad Gaium, § 20). The special Begio Judceorum
lay in the N.K of the city, beyond the promontory
of Lochias, in the neighbourhood of the royal palace.
Till the time of Augustus the Jews were presided
over by an ethnarch, who, according to Strabo
(quoted by Josephus, Ant. XIV. vii. 2), ' governs the
people and adminbters justice among them, and
sees that they fulfil their obligations and obey
orders, just Kke the archon of an independent city''
Augustus instituted a council or senate (ytpowrla),
which was entrusted with the management of
Jewish affairs, and over which a certain number
of &prxovTes presided. The reign of Caligula was
marked by the first rude interruption of the policy
of toleration. The governor Flaccus issued an
edict in which he termed the Jews of Alexandria
'strangers,' thus depriving them of the rights of
citizenship which they had enjoyed for centuries.
He ordered 38 archons to be scourged in the
theatre, and turned the Jewish quarters into
scenes of daily carnage (Philo, in Flac. §^ 6-10).
But one of the first acts of Claudius was to re-affirm
the earlier edicts, and Josephus states that in his
own day (c. a.d. 90) one could still see standing in
Alexandria 'the pillar containing the privileges
which the great Caesar (Julius) bestowed upon the
Jews' (tt/i' oriiKriP . . . rh, diKoiufuiTa repUxovaap A
K(U0-a/> 6 /x^TOi rdis 'lovdaloii iSuKcv [c. Apion. ii, 4 ;
cf. Ant. XIV. X. 1]). Some AlexaniMan Jews held
responsible positions as ministers of the Ptolemys,
and others were in the service of the Roman
Emperors (c. Apion. ii. 5). Philo's brother Alex-
ander and others filled the office of ' alabarch ' (see
Schiirer, HJP n. ii. 280).
For a time the 'Alexandrians' were doubtless
bilingual, but ultimately they forgot their Hebrew
or Aramaic, and adopteii Greek as the language of
the home and the synagogue as well as of the
market. Living in a great university town, many
of them became highly educated ; the school of
Philo in particular assimilated many elements of
Greek philosophy ; and the Judaism of Egypt was
gradually differentiated from that of Palestine.
Even before becoming a Christian, the Alexandrian
Apollos had doubtless a breadth of sympathy, as
well as a richness of culttire, which could not have
been attained among the Rabbis of Jerusalem.
Yet in the great mass of the 'Alexandrians,' as
throughout the Dispersion generally, the Jewish
element predominated, and it need occasion no
surprise that those of them who chose to reside in
the Holy City were as zealous for the Mosaic
traditions, and as strenuously opposed to innova-
tions, as any Hebrew of the Hebrews.
T JtTR ATTBg. —See list appended to preceding article.
Jam£s Stkahak.
ALIEN.— See STEANaEB.
60
ALLEGORY
ALPHA AND OMEGA
ALLEGORY. — The word is derived from the
Greek dWrjyopla, used of a mode of speech which
implies more than is expressed by the ordinary
meaning of the language. This metliod of inter-
preting literature was practised at an early date
and among diflerent peoples. When ideas of a
primitive age were no longer tenable, respect for
the ancient literature which embodied these ideas
was maintained by disregarding the ordinary im-
port of the language in favour or a hidden meaning
more in harmony with contemporary notions. The
word ' allegory ' has come to be used more particu-
larly of a certain type of Scripture interpretation
iq.v.) current in both Jewish and Christian circles.
Its fundamental characteristic is the distinction
between the apparent meaning of Scripture and a
hidden meaning to be discovered by the skill of the
interpreter. In allegory proper, when distinguished
from metaphor, parable, type, etc., the veiled
meaning is the more important, if not indeed the
only true one, and is supposed to have been
primary in the intention of the writer, or of God who
inspired the writer. Jewish interpreters, particu-
larly in the Diaspora, employed this means of
making the OT acceptable to Gentiles. They
aimed especially at showing that the Jews' sacred
books, when properly interpreted, contained all
the wisdom of Greek philosophy. This interest
flourished chiefly in Alexandria, and found its
foremost representative in Philo iq.v.), who wrote
early in the 1st cent. A.D. His Allegories of tJie
Sacred Laws is one of his chief works, though all
his writings are dominated by this method of
interpretation. Similarly Josephus (ly. v.), a half-
century or so later, says that Moses taught many
things ' under a decent allegory ' (Ant. Prooem. 4).
Allegory was used freely also by Palestinian inter-
fyreters, though less for apologetic than for homi-
etic purposes. They were less ready than Philo to
abandon the primary meaning of Scripture, but
they freely employed allegorical devices, particu-
larly in the Haggadic midrdshim.
AVhen Christians in the Apostolic Age began to
interpret Scripture, it was inevitable that they
should follow the allegorical tendencies so prevalent
at the time. Yet the use of this method is far less
common in the NT than in some later Christian
literature, e.g. the Epistle of Barnabas iq.v.). St.
Paul claims to be allegorizing when he finds the two
covenants not only prefigured, but the validity of his
idea of two covenants proved, in the story of Hagar
{q.v.) and Sarah (Gal 42'*-^). Allegorical colouring
is also discernible in his reference to the muzzling
of the ox (1 Co 9»'-), the following rock (10*), and
the veil of Moses (2 Co S'^ff-)- The Epistle to the
Hebrews is especially rich in these features, which
are much more Alexandrian in type than the
writings of St. Paul (e.g. S"-" 9^ 10^ ll^-s 12-"-).
Certain Gospel passages also show allegorical traits,
where in some instances the allegorical element
may have come from the framers of tradition in
the Apostolic Age (e.g. Mk 4i»-2»=Mt 13'8-s» = Lk
811-15. T^Ik 12»-»=Mt2l'=»-«=Lk 209-19; MtlS^'-^O- 36-43
Jn 10>-'» 15'-8).
LiTERATURK.— See list appended to art. luTKRrRETATiON.
S. J. Case.
ALMIGHTY.— See God.
ALMS. — The duty of kindliness to and provision
for the poor is constantly taught in the OT ;
in the later Jewish literature, and especially in
Sirach and Tobit, it is even more emphatically
asserted. It is clear that our Lord and the Apos-
tolic Church taught this as a religious obligation
with equal force. In the Sermon on the Mount,
almsgiving is assumed to be one of the duties of
the religious life (e.g. Mt Gi^'*), and in several places
the principle is expressed directly. Our Lord says
to the rich young ruler, ' Sell whatsoever thou hast,
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure
in heaven' (Mk lO^^^) ; in the parable of the Judg-
ment, the place of men is decided on the ground
that they have or have not helped and relieved the
Lord's brethren (Mt 25*»-«), and in St. Luke our
Lord is reported as saying : ' Sell that ye have,
and give aims ; make for yourselves purses which
wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth
not' (Lk 1233).
We find the same principles spumed in the
literature of the Apostolic Church. In the Acts
we read of the Church of Jerusalem : ' All that
believed were together, and had all things common ;
and they sold their possessions and goods, and
parted them to all, according as any man had
need ' (Ac 2*»- « ; cf. 4.^ ^*- ^). What relation this
may have to the community of goods is considered
elsewhere (see art. Community of Goods) ; but it
is at least clear tliat the Church in Jerusalem
recognized the paramount obligation of the main-
tenance of the poor brethren, and it is worthy of
notice that the first officers of the Christian com-
munity of Avhose appointment we have direct
mention are the Seven who were appointed to
carry out the ministrations of the Church to the
poor widows of the community (Ac 6'-*).
In the letters of St. Paul we have frequent refer-
ences to the obligation of helping the poor (e.g.
Ro 1213, £pt^ 428^ I xi 618), and in certain letters we
find him specially occupied with the collections
which were being made for the poor Christians in
Jerusalem (Gal 2i», Ro lo^*- ^, 1 Co le'- 2, 2 Co 8
and 9). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
speaks of such deeds of charity as being sacrifices
well-pleasing to God (He IS^^). It is in the First
Epistle of St. John, however, that the principle of
the responsibility of Christian men for the main-
tenance of their brethren is most emphatically
expressed : ' Whoso hath this world's goods, ana
beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his
compassion from him, how doth the love of God
abide in him ? ' (1 Jn 3'^). For St. John the notion
that any man can love God without loving his
brother is a falsehood ( 1 Jn 4^).
The Christian literature of the end of the 1st
cent, carries on the same principles. The Teach-
ing of the Twelve Apostles (iv. 8) says : ' Thou
shalt not turn away from him that is in need, but
shalt share all things with thy brother, and shalt
not say that they are thine own : for if ye are
sharers in that which is immortal, how much more
in those things which are mortal.' The Epistle
of Barnabas contains almost exactly the same
phrases. We have thus in the NT and the sub-
apostolic literature the clearest enunciation of the
principle whose effect and practical applications
we have to study in the history of the Early
Church and of Christian civilization. There can
be no doubt that our Lord and the writers of the
NT looked upon the maintenance of the poor as a
primary obligation of the Christian life.
Literature.— Art. ' Almsgriving ' in HDB; 'Alms' In BBi
and Smith'8 DZJ2 ; 'Charity, Almsgriving (Christian)' in ERE;
G. Uhlhorn, Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, Eng. tr.,
Edinburgh, 1883; A. Harnack, Expantion of Christianity^,
London, 1008, i. 147; A. F. W. Ingrram, Banners of the
Christian Faith, London, 1899; W. C. E. Newbolt. Counsels
of Faith and Practice, do. 1894 ; B. F. Westcott, The Incar-
nation and Common Life, do. 1893; J. L. Davies, Social
Questions, do. 1888. A. J. CARLYLE.
ALPHA AND OMEGA These are the first and
last letters of the Gr. alphabet ; cf. Heb. 'Aleph to
Tati'', Eng. 'A to Z.' The title is applied to God
the Father in Rev P 21«, and to Christ in Rev 22"
(cf. 2^), The ancient Heb. name for God, m.T, has
been very variously derived, but its most probable
meaning is the ' Eternal' One—' I am that I am'
ALTAE
ALTAE
51
(Ex 3"). This idea of the Deitj, farther emphasized
in Is 41* 43'" 44*, is expressed in the language of the
Apocalypse by the Greek phrase ' A and Q,' which
corresponds to a common Heb. expression 'Ahph
to Tail,' of which the Talmnd and other Rabbinic
writings furnish many examples. R. H. Charles
adduces similar phrases in Latin (Martial, v. 26)
and Greek (ThecKloret, HE iv. 8) to express com-
pleteness. To those who believe in a Jewish
original for the NT Apocalypse, its presence there
wiS cause no surprise, and its application to Christ
will constitut* an instance of the Christian re-
modelling which that book has undergone. More-
over, Jewish writers {e.g. Kohler) have given
another explanation of its use as a title for (Jod,
calling it the hellenized form of a well-known
saying, ' The Seal of God is Emeth (rcK = ' truth '),
a word containing first, middle, and last letters of
tlie Heb. alphabet (cf. Gen. Bab. Ixxxi. ; Jems.
Sanh. L 18a ; Sank. 64a ; Yama 696). Josephus
(c. Apion.) probably refers to this saying (cf. also
Dn 1(P rcx i7.r?, ' the writing of truth"). Similar
is the use of Justin {Address to Greeks, xxv.).
Whatever may be the origin of the phrase, its
chief significance for Christians lies in its constant
application to Christ, of which this passage in the
Apocalypse supplies the first of countless instances.
Charles and ^Iuller agree that Patristic comment-
ators invariably referred all these passages to the
Son, and in so doing they plainly claimed the
Divine pri^-ilege of eternity for the Person of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and established the claim set
forth in the later creeds that ' the Word of God
was equal with God.'
Not only was this the universal opinion of the
earliest commentators, as of the Christian author
or editor of the Apocalypse ; it was an opinion
deeply rooted in the convictions of the Christian
congregations. We hear of no attempt to dispute
it ; and, relying on this as an established fact, the
Gnostic teacliers sought to deduce by various means
and numerical quibbles the essential identity
of all the Persons of the Trinity (cf. Iren. adv.
E(er. I. xiv. 6, xv. 1). Among others, Tertullian
{Monog. v.), Cyprian {Testimon. ii. 1, 6), Clem-
Alex. (Strom, iv. 25, vi. 16), Ambrose (£xp. in septem
Vis. i. 8), emphasized this view of the matter ; and,
before the last persecution of Diocletian was over,
many inscriptions had been put up on tombstones,
walls of catacombs, etc., in which these two letters
stood for the name of Christ. At a subsequent
period the practice became universal all over the
Christian world, and countless examples are still
extant to prove the general popularity of this
custom.
In most cases the letters are accompanied by
other symbols and titles of the Master, e.g.
p^ ; in a few examples they stand alone as a
reverent way of representing the presence of the
Redeemer. Most numerous in the period from
A.D. 300-500, they decline in number and import-
ance during the early Middle Ages, and are rare, at
least in the West, after the 7th and 8th centuries.
It is significant to not« that in none of those
hundreds of examples do the letters (often rudely
scrawled by poor peasants) refer to any one but
Jesus Christ. It is hard to conceive of any fact
more suited to emphasize the deep-rooted belief of
the early Christians in the true Divinity of their
Lord and Master, who had created the world,
existed from the beginning, and was still alive and
ready to succour His faithful followers.
LiTKRATTRK.— R. H. Chaxles, art. in BDB ; B. W. Bacon,
an. in DCG ; K. Kohler, art. in JE ; 'W. MUUer in PREi
(foU account of extant inscriptions); C. Schoettgen. Hor.Beb.,
Leipzig, 1733. L. St. ALBAX WeLLS.
ALTAR.— In the NT, as in the LXX, the usual
term for ' altar * is Ovauurr^piov — a word otherwise
confined to Philo, Josephus, and ecclesiastical
writers — while ^uitm, as contrasted with a Jewish
place of sacrifice, is a heathen altar. The most
striking example of the antithesis is found in 1 Mac
l**"*". Antiochus Epiphanes erected a small altar
to Jupiter — ' the alximination of desolation ' (v.**)
— upon the ffwruurr^piow of the temple, and ' on the
twenty-fifth day of the month they sacrificed npon
the idol-altar (pufiSs) which was upon the altar
of God [dvffuierr^pior).' The NT contains only a
single distinct reference to a pagan altar — the
^wfjuK which St. Paul observed in Athens bearing
the inscription ' Ayvuarip Qci^ (Ac 17^).
1. The altar on which sacrifices were presented
to (jod was indispensable to OT religion. Alike in
the simple cultus of patriarchal times and the ela-
borate ritual of fully developed Judaism, its posi-
tion was central. The altar was the place of
meeting between (jod and man, and the ritual of
blood — the supposed seat of life — was the essence
of the offering. Whatever details might be added,
the rite of sprinkling or dashiug the blood against
the altar, or allowing it to flow on the ground at
its base, could never be omitted. The Levitical
cultus was continued in Jerusalem till the destruc-
tion of the Temple by the Romans in A.D. 70, and
the attitude and practice of the early Jewish-
Christian Church in reference to it form an interest-
ing and difficidt problem. It has been generally
assumed that, when our Lord instituted the New
Covenant in His own blood (Mk 14", Lk 22*), He
implicitly abrogated the Levitical law, and that,
when His sacrifice was completed, the disciples
must at once have perceived that it made every altar
obsolete. But there is not wanting evidence that
enlightenment came slowly ; that the practice of
the Jewish-Christian Church was not altered sud-
denly, but gradually and with not a little misgiving.
Hort observes that ' respecting the continued ad-
herence to Jewish observances, nothing is said
which implies either its presence or its absence'
{Judaistic Christianity, 42). But there are many
clear indications that the first Christians remained
Jews — McGiffert (Apostol. Age, 65) even suggests
that they were ' more devout and earnest Jews
than they had ever been ' — continuing to worship
God at the altar in the Temple like all their
countrymen. ' They had no desire to be renegades,
nor was it possible to regard them as such. Even
if they did not maintain and observe the whole
cultus, yet this did not endanger their allegiance.
. . . The Christians did not lay themselves open to
thechargeof violating the law' ( Weizsacker,.4/>Gs<of .
Age, L &). They went up to the Temple at the
hour of prayer (Ac 3'), which was the hour of sacri-
fice ; they took upon themselves vows, and offered
sacrifices for release (21*'- **) ; and even St. Paul,
the champion of spiritual freedom, brought sacri-
fices (irpoff<f>opii) to lay on the altar in the Holy City
(24'~). The inference that the New Covenant left no
place for any altar or Mosaic sacrifice is first expli-
citly drawn by the writer of Hebrews (see Temple).
2. Apart from a passing allusion to the altars
which were thrown down in Elijah's time (Ro 11'),
St. Paul makes two uses of the Oxxftaarripior in the
Temple. (1) In vindicating the right of ministers of
the gospel to live at the charge of the Christian
community, he instances the well-known Levirical
practice : ' those who wait upon the altar have their
portion with {avfiiupLiorrai) the altar ' (1 Co 9"), part
of the offering being burnt in the altar fire, said part
reserved for the priests, to whom the law gives the
privilege 'altaris esse socios in dividenda victima'
(Beza). Schmiedel {in loc.) thinks that the refer-
ence may be to priests who serve ' am Tempel der
Heiden wie der Juden,' but probably for St, Paul
the only divtaffr^piov was the altar on which sacrifice
52
AMBASSADOR
AMEN
was offered to the God of Israel. (2) In arguing
against the possibility of partaking of the Eucharist
and joining in idolatrous festivals, St. Paul appeals
to the ethical significance of sacrifice, regarded not
as an atonement but as a sacred meal between God
and man. The altar being His table and the sacri-
fice His feast, the hospitality of table-communion
is the pledge of friendship between Him and His
worshippers. All who join in the sacrifice are par-
takers with the altar {koivwvoI toO dvaiaarjipiov), one
might almost say commensals with God. ' Accord-
ing to antique ideas, those who eat and drink together
are by the very act tied to one another by a bond
of friendship and mutual oblij^ation ' ( W. R. Smith,
Bel. Sem.^, 247). How revolting it is, then, to pass
from the altar of God or, by parity of reasoning,
from the Tpkne^a tov KvpLov, to the orgies of pagan
gods, the rpaire^a dainovlwv,
3. The ^vriter of Hebrews refers to the old Jewish
altar and to a new Christian one. (1) Reasoning
somewhat in the manner of Philo, he notes the
emergence of a mysterious priest from a tribe which
has given none of its sons to minister at the altar,
and on this circumstance bases an ingenious argu-
ment for the imperfection of the Levitical priest-
hood, and so of the whole Mosaic system (He 7'^).
(2) Against those Christians who occupy themselves
with (sacrificial) meats the writer says : ' We have
an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who
serve the tabernacle' (13^**). Few sentences have
given rise to so much misunderstanding. ''Exofiev
can only denote Christians, and what is said of them
must be allegorically intended, for they have no ry
ffKTjvy \aTpetJ0VT€s, and no 0v(natTT-f)piov in the proper
sense of the word ' (von Soden). The point which
the writer seeks to make is that in connexion with
the great Christian sacrifice there is nothing corre-
sponding to the feasts of ordinary Jewish (or of
heathen) sacrifices. Its r&iros is the sacrifice of the
Day of Atonement, no part of wliich was eaten by
priest or worshipper, the mind alone receiving the
benefit of the oliering. So we Christians serve an
altar from which we obtain a purely spiritual ad-
vantage, AVhether the writer actually visualized
the Cross of Christ as the altar at which all His
followers minister, like Xeirovpyol in the Tabernacle,
— as many have supposed — is doubtful. Figurative
language must not be unduly pressed.
The writer of Rev., whose heaven is a replica of
the earthly Temple and its solemn ritual, sees
underneath the altar the souls of martyrs — the
blood poured out as an oblation (cf. Ph 2^^, 2 Ti 4*)
representing the life or r^ux'J— and hears them cry-
ing, like the blood of Abel, for vengeance (Rev
6«- '» ; cf. En. 22«). In 8^ and 9"" the dvaiaffTiipiov is
not the altar of burnt-offering but that of incense
(see Incf.nse). In 14^* the prophet sees an angel
come out from the altar, the spirit or genius of fire,
an Iranian conception ; and in 16' he personifies
the altar itself and makes it proclaim the truth and
justice of God.
LiTBRATURE.— I. Beoziiieer, Heh. Arch., Freiburg, 1894, p.
London, 1894; J. Wellhausen, Reste ardb. Heidenthuins,
Berlin, 1887, p. 101 f. ; A. C. McGiffert, Apostol. Age, VAinh.
1897, i>. 36 f.; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostol. Age, 2 vols., London,
1894-95, i. 43 fit. JaMES STRAHAN.
AMBASSADOR. — Although this word occurs
twice (2 Co G-" and Eph 6»«) in the EV of the NT,
the corresponding Greek noun {irpea^evr-qs) occurs
nowhere. Instead, we find the verb vpta^eiu, ' to
be an ambassador,' while the connate collective
noun (RV ' ambassage ') is used in Lk 14*' 19'*.*
* npta-ptvu and irpecr/Sfvnjs were the recognized terms in the
Greek East for the Legate of the Roman Empire (Deissmanu,
Light from the Ancient East-, 1911, p. 379).
In the OT the idea behind the words translated
' ambassador ' (generally maVdkh) is that of going
or being sent, and of this the etymological
equivalent in the NT is not ' ambassador ' but
' apostle ' (dirArToXoj, ' one sent forth ') ; but both
the OT terms and the NT dir<5<rToXoj have to be
understood in the light of use and context rather
than of derivation. In this way they acquire a
richer content, of which the chief component ideas
are the bearing of a message, the dealing, in a re-
presentative character, with those to whom one is
sent, and the solemn investiture, before starting
out, with a delegated authority sufficient for the
task (cf. Gal 1""").
The representative character of ambassadorship
is emphasized bv tlie repeated vvip, * on behalf of,'
in 2 Co 5^, with the added ' as though God were
intreating by us.' The same preposition (i/vip)
occurs in Eph 6^ ; thus irpea/Sei^w is never found
in the NT without it. So also in Lk 14^2 19" the
context shows that the wpea^ela is representative.
There is no very marked difference between
'ambassador' and 'apostle.' vpea^evu, having
vpia^i)% (' aged ') as its stem, does suggest a certain
special dignity and gravity, based on the ancient
idea of the vastly superior wisdom brought by
ripeness of years. Probably, however, St. Paul
was not thinking of age at all, for irpea^fuu had
lived a life of its oyvn. long enough to be independ-
ent of its antecedents. His tone of dignity and of
pride springs not so much from his metaphor as
direct from his vividly realized relation to God:
inrip is more emphatic than irpea^evu). It is in
exactly the same tone that he claims the title
' apostle ' (see, e.g., Gal 1\ 1 Co 9^ IS'-i") ; cf. Gal
l^'^*, where his ' separation to preach ' expresses the
same thought in yet another form. Nevertheless,
his is a humble pride, for only grace has put him
in his lofty position (cf. 1 Co IS**). Moreover, his
commission is not to lord it over others, but to
' beseech ' them ; nay, God Himself only ' intreats '
(2 Co 5^^"). It is He who seeks ' arrangements for
peace' with men (cf. Lk 14*^). On the trpea^vriji
of Philem« (AV and RV 'the aged,' RVm 'an am-
bassador ') see art. Aged. C. H. Watkins.
AMEN.— The lack of a common language has
always been a barrier to the mutual knowledge and
intercourse of the great nations of mankind, all the
more tliat the days when the educated men of
all European nations were wont to converse in
Latin liave long since passed away. To a certain
extent the gulf has been bridged for men of science
by a newly-invented vocabulary of their own, and
a general use of Latin and Greek names for all the
objects of their study. In the world of religion
it still remains a great obstacle to all attempts to
realize a truly catholic and universal Church. The
Latin of the Roman Catholic missal, which seems
so unintelligible to the mass of the worshippers that
a sign language (of ritual) is largely the medium
by which they follow the services when not ab-
sorbed in the reading of devotional manuals in
their own mother tongue, is but a caricature of
such a general medium of interpretative forms of
worship. It is, therefore, a matter of great interest
to study the use of those few words of ancient
origin which have taken root in the relin;ious lan-
guage of so many great Christian nations, and
have come to convey, in all the services where they
are used, the same or a similar meaning. Of these,
perhaps the most familiar are the words 'Amen'
and ' Hallelujah.' These old Heb. phrases were
taken, of course, from the Bible, where, save in
the case of Luther's edition and the LXX version.
of the earlier books of the OT, no attempt has been
made to replace them by foreign equivalents.
They have a deep interest for Christian.^, not
A MEN
AMKN
53
merely as a reminder of their essential unitjr and
their ancient historj', and as a recollection of the
debt which we owe to a race so often despised, but
as a reminiscence of the very words which came
from our Lord's own mouth, in the days when He
was sowing the seed of which we are reaping the
fruits.
A brief examination of the history of the word
'Amen' will be sufficient to prove the meaning
which it had, the way in which it acquired this
meaning, and the certainty that it was one of the
very words which fell from the Master and had
for Him a message of rare and unusual signifi-
cance. The original use of the word (derived from
a Heb. root pit, meaning ' steadfast,' and a verb,
'to prop,' akin to Heb. rcg, 'truth,' Assyr. temenu,
'foundation,' and Eth. aihena, 'trust' [Arab, ami-
nun = ^ secure ']) was intended to express certainty.
In the mouth of Benaiah(l K l'^) and Jeremiah
(Jer 28*) it appears as first word in the sentence,
as a strong form of assent to a previous statement.
It was not till after the Exile that it assumed its
far commoner place as the answer, or almost the re-
frain in chorus, to the words of a previous speaker,
and as such took its natural position at the close
of the five divisions of the Psalms. It is uncertain
how far this formed part of the people's response
in the ritual of the Temple, but it is certain that
it acquired a fixed place in the services of the syna-
gogues, where it stiU forms a common response of
the congregation. This was sometimes altered
later, in opposition to the Christian practice, and
'God Faithful King' was used instead. The ob-
ject of this use of ' Amen ' was, in Massie's words,
'to adopt as one's own what has just been said'
(HDB i. 80), and it thus finds a fitting place in the
mouth of the people to whom Nehemiah promul-
gated his laws (^neh 5^^). To express emphasis,
in accordance with Hebrew practice the word was
often doubled, as in the solemn oath of Nu 5^ (cf,
Neh 8°). This was further modified by the inser-
tion of ' and ' in the first three divisions of the
Psalter. * Amen ' later became the last word of
the first speaker, either as simple subscription — as
such it stands appended to three of the Psalms
(41, 72, 89), and in many NT Epistles, after both
doxologies (15 times) and benedictions (6 times in
RV) — or as the last word of a prayer (RV only
in Prayer of Manasses ; but 2 others in Vulgate,
viz. Neh 13", To 13^8). In two old MSS of Tobit
(end), as in some later MSS of the NT, it appears by
itself without a doxology. The later Jews were
accustomed to use 'Amen' frequently in their
homes (e.g. after grace before meals, etc.), and laid
down precise rules for the ways of enunciating and
pronouncing it. These are found in the Talmudic
tract B'rdkhoth (' Blessings'), and are intended to
guard against irreverence, haste, etc. So great
was the superstition which attached to it that
many of the later Rabbis treated it almost as a
fetish, able to win blessings not only in this life
but in the next ; and one commentator, Eliezer ben
Hyrcanns, went so far as to declare that by its
hearty pronunciation in chorus the godless in
Israel who lay in the penal tires of Gehenna might
one day hope for the opening of their prison gates
and a free entrance into the abode of the blessed,
though Hogg suggests that this sentiment was
extracted from a pun on Is 26^ (Elijahu Zutta, xx. ;
Shab. 1196; Sicldur B. Amram, 136; cf. YcUk. iL
296 on Is 26-).
' Amen ' would naturally have passed from the
synagogues to the churches which took their rise
among the synagogue-worshippers, but the ilast«r
Himself gave a new emphasis to its value for Chris-
tians by the example of His own practice. In this,
as in all else. He was no slavish imitator of con-
temporary Rabbis. He spoke ' as having authority
and not as the scribes' (Mk I**), and in this capa
city it is not surprising that He found a new use
for the word of emphasis, which neither His pre-
decessors nor His followers have ventured to imi-
tate, though the title applied to Him in Rev 3" is
founded upon His own chosen practice. In His
mouth, by the common evidence of all the Gospels
(77 times), the word is used to introduce His own
words and clothe them with solemn affirmation.
He plainly expressed His dislike for oaths (Mt 5**),
and in Dalman's view { Words of Jesus, 229) — and
no one is better qualified to speak on the subject
— He found here the word He needed to give the
assurance which usually came from an oath. But
in doing this ' He was really making good the word,
not the word Him,' and it is therefore nattiral that
no other man has ever ventured to f oUowHis custom.
That it was His habitual way of speaking is doubly
plain from a comparison of aU four Gospels, even
though St. Luke, who wrote for men unacquainted
with Hebrew, has sought where possible to replace
the word by a Greek equivalent {a\TidQs, etc.). St.
John has always doubled the word, probably for
emphasis, since Delitzsch's explanation from a
word K^'wK= ' I say ' is shown by Dalman (p. 227 f.)
to be wrong and based on a purely Babylonian
practice.
The rest of the NT presents examples of all the
older uses of the phrase, though the earliest is
found only in the Jewish Apocalypse (Rev 7^ 19*)
which has probably been worked up into the Chris-
tian Book of ' Revelation,' and in one passage
(22*") christianized from it. Here it is perhaps a
conscious archaic form, brought in to add to the
mysterious language of the vision, which may
originally, like the Book of Enoch or Noah, have
been ascribed to some earlier seer. The language
of St. Paul in 1 Co 14^' shows that the synagogue
practice of saying ' Amen ' as a response early be-
came habitual among the worshippers of • the
Nazarene,' even if we had not been led to infer
this by the growing reluctance of the Jews to em-
phasize this feature of their service. The use
(? Jewish) in Rev 5" corresponds with this custom
(cf. Ps 106*^). It b plain that the complete absence
of the word in Acts — itself a link with the Third
Gospel — must be ascribed to the peculiar style and
attitude of the author, and not at all to the actual
practice in the churches.
Twice in the NT (2 Co 1* Rev 3") the word
' Amen ' is used as a noun implying the ' Faithful
God,' but it is hard to tell whether this is to be
understood as a play on words based on Is 65^*
(rcK, 'truth,' being read as jck, 'Amen'), or
whether it is connected i\ith the manner in which
the Master employed the phrase as guaranteed by
HLs own authority and absolute ' faithfulness.'
The Church of the Fathers made much of the
word ' Amen ' in all its OT uses, and introduced, it
into their services, not only after blessings, hymns,
etc. (cf . Euseb. iv. 15, viL 9), but after the reception
of the Sacrament — a custom to which Justin refers
in his [the earliest] account of the manner in
which this service was conducted (Apol. i. 64, 66).
This is confirmed bv Ambrose. The practice is
stUl in vogue in the feastem Church, was adopted
in the Scottish Liturgy of 1637, and dropped only
in the 6th cent, by the Western Church. Some-
times the 'Amen' was even repeated after the
lesson had been read. From the Jews and the
Christians it passed over to the Muhammadan
ritual, where it is still repeated after the first two
suras of the Qur'an, even though its meaning is
wholly misunderstood by the Muslim imams who
guess at various impossible explanations. In the
Book of Common Prayer it appears in various
forms — as the end of the priest's prayer, as the
response of the people, or as the unanimous assent
54
AMETHYST
AKANIAS
of both priest and people. Curiously enough,
among Presbyterians it is said by the minister
only. One relic of the Gospel language is retained
in the Bishojjs' Oath of Supremacy, which com-
mences almost in the style of one of Christ's
famous declarations. In legal terminology the
term has been introduced to strengthen attirmation,
and formed an item in the ' style ' of proclamations
until the 16th century. Hogg notes that in Eng-
lish, as in Syriac, it has come to mean ' consent,'
and has been enabled thus to acquire the sense of
'the very last,' even though it commenced its
career as first word in the sentence.
The foregoing remarks may enable the reader
to judge of the strange changes to which the mean-
ing of this word has been subjected, the important
part it has played, and the historical interest which
attaches to its every echo.
LiTERATrRE.— The artt. in HDB, DCG, EBi, and JE; G.
Dalman, The Words of Jesus, Eng. tr., Edinb. 1902, p. 226 ff. ;
H. W. Hoggr, in JQR ix. [1896] 1-23; Ox/. Hcb. Lex., s.v.
JDK; Grimm-Thayer, s.v. iixiji'; artt. in ExpT viii. [1897] 190,
by Nestle, and xiii. [1902] 563, by Jannaris.
L. St. Alban Wells.
AMETHYST (d/x^^wroj, Rev 212<>).— A variety
of quartz of rock-crystal, of purple or bluish violet
colour. Derived from d, ' not,' and nedvcKeiv, ' to
intoxicate,' it was regarded as a charm against the
efiects of wine. Quaffed from a cup of amethyst,
or by a reveller wearing an amulet of that sub-
stance, the vine-juice could not intoxicate. This
was doubtless a case of sympathetic magic, wine
being amethystine in colour. In the LXX (Ex 28'^,
etc.) ' amethyst ' stands for ahldmdh, a stone which
was regarded as a charm against bad dreams. The
amethyst was used as a gem-stone by the ancient
Egyptians, and largely employed in classical an-
tiquity for intaglios. Naturally it was often en-
graved with Bacchanalian subjects. Being com-
paratively abundant, it is inferior in price to true
gems, and is not to be confounded with the oriental
amethyst, a variety of corundum, or sapphire of
amethystine tint, which is a very valuable gem of
great brilliancy and beauty. James Strahan.
AMOMUM (d/iufiov, perliaps from Arab, hamma,
' heat '). — An aromatic balsam used as an unguent
for the hair, made from the seeds of an eastern
Slant which has not been identified with certainty,
osephus {Ant. XX. ii. 2) speaks of Harran as ' a
soil which bare ainomum in plenty,' and Vergil
(Ed. iv. 25) predicts that in the Golden Age
'Assyrium vulgo nascetur amomum.' The word
came to be used generally for any pure and sweet
odour. In Rev 18^* AV (with B i^'') omits the word ;
RV (with K *AC) accepts it and translates 'spice'
(RVm 'Gr. amomum'). The term is now applied
to a genus of aromatic plants, some species of which
yield cardamoms and grains of paradise.
James Strahan.
AMPHIPOLIS ('A/i(/>/7roXts). — This Macedonian
city played an important part in early Greek
history. Occupying an eminence on the left bank
of the Strymon, just below the egress of the river
from Lake Cercinitis, 3 miles from the Strymonic
Gulf, it commanded the entrance to a pass leading
through the mountains into the great Macedonian
plains. It was almost encircled by the river,
whence its name ' Amphi-polis.'
Thucydides (i. 100) says that the Athenians
' sent 10,000 settlers of their own citizens and the
allies to the Strymon, to colonize what was then
called the "Nine Ways" ('Evi/^a 6doL), but now
Amphipolis.' It was the jewel of their empire,
but they lost it in 422 B.C., and never recovered
it. It was under the ^Macedonian kings from 360
till the Roman conquest of the country in 167 B.C.
The Romans made it a free city and the capital of
the first of four districts into which they divided
Macedonia. It lay on the Via Egnatia, which
connected Dyrracliium with the Ileliespont. From
Philippi it was 32 miles to the south-west, and
' this was one of the most beautiful day's journeys
Paul ever experienced ' (Renan, Saint Paul, Eng.
tr., p. 91). The Apostle and his fellow-travellers
evidently remained in Amphipolis over night, and
next day went on to ApoUonia (Ac 17')' It is now
represented by Neochori.
LiTERATiTRE.— W. M. Leake, Northern Greece, London, 18.35,
iii. 181 f. ; G. Grote, Uist. of Greece, new ed. , do. 1870, liL 284 fl. ;
Conybeare-Howson, 8t. Paul, do. 1872, i. 374 ff.
James Strahan.
AMPLIATUS ('A/[X7rXiaros [Ro 168 j< ABFG], a com-
mon Lat. name of which AV Amplias f A/iTXiaj,
DELP] is a contraction). — Saluted by St. Paul and
described as ' my beloved in the Lord ' (rbv dyairriToy
fioij iv Kvpl(f)). The only other persons described in
Ro 16 as 'my beloved' are Epa;netus (v.*) and
Stachys (v.^). A woman is saluted — perhaps with
intentional delicacy — as ' Persis the belovecl ' (v.^).
The precise phrase ' my beloved in the Lord ' does
not occur again in the NT. The special term of
Christian endearment might suggest that Ampli-
atus was a personal convert of St. Paul's or closely
associated with him in Christian work. Such
friends, however, are referred to as ' beloved child '
(Timothy, 1 Co 4"), ' beloved brother ' (Tychicus,
Eph6^^), 'beloved fellow-servant' (Epaphras, Col V),
etc. (cf. art. Beloved). Nothing whatever is known
of Ampliatus beyond this reference.
Assuming the integrity of the Epistle and the
Roman destination of these salutations, he was
perhaps a Roman, whom St. Paul had met on one
of his missionary journeys, and who was known by
the Apostle at the time of writing to be residing
in or visiting Rome. It is interesting to find the
name Ampliatus several times in inscriptions be-
longing to the Imperial familia or household (see
Lightfoot, Philippians*, 1878, p. 174, and Sanday-
Headlam, Romans'^, 1902, p. 424). Sanday-Headlam
also refer to a Christian inscription in the catacomb
of Domitilla belonging to the end of the 1st or
beginning of the 2nd cent, in which the name
occurs, possibly as that of a slave or frecdman
prominent in the Church. If the view be held
that the salutations in Ro 16 were part of a letter
to the Church of Ephesus, Ampliatus must have
been a Roman, resident in Ephesus, with whom
St. Paul became acquainted during his long stay
in that city. It is possible that he was a Jew
who had taken a Latin name (cf. the names Paulus,
and Lucius a 'kinsman,' i.e. a Jew, Ro 16-').
T. B. Allwokthy.
ANANIAS (Gr. 'Ami'tas ; Heb. Ijn, ' Jahweh is
gracious'). — A very common name in later Jewish
times, corresponding to Hananiah or Hanani of the
OT. We find it occurring frequently in the post-
exilic writings and particularly in the Apocrj'pha.
In the history of the Apostolic Church, we meet
with three persons bearing this name.
1. An early convert to Cliristianity, best known
as the husband of Sapphira (Ac 5'"*). Along with
his wife, Ananias was carried into the early Church
on the wave of enthusiasm which began on the
day of Pentecost, but they were utterly devoid of
any understanding or appreciation of the new
religion they professed. In this period of early
zeal many of the Cliristians sold their lands and
handed the proceeds to the comnmnity of be-
lievers (cf. Barnabas, Community of Goods).
Ananias and his wife, wishing to share in the
approbation accorded to such acts of generosity,
sold their land and handed part of the i>rice to the
community, pretending that thej^ hail sacrificed
all. When 8t. Peter rebuked the male oliender
for his (hijilicity, Ananias fell down dead, and was
AXAXIAS
ANATHEMA
55
carried out for burial ; his wife also came in and
Mas overtaken by the same fate. The narrative
does not indicate that the two were punished
because they had in any way violated a rule of
communism which they had professed to accept.
The words of St. Peter, ' Whiles it remained, did
it not remain thine own, and after it was sold, was
it not in thine own power ? ' (Ac 5*) at once dispose
of any view of the incident which would regard
communism as compulsory in the early Church.
The sin for which Ananias and Sapphira were
funished is described as 'lying unto God' (v.*).
t was, says Knowling, ' much more than mere
hypocrisy, much more than fraud, pride or greed —
hateful as these sins are — the power and presence
of the Holy Spirit had been manifested in the
Church, and Ananias had sinned not only against
human brotherhood, but against the Divine light
and leading which had made that brotherhood
possible. . . . The action of Ananias and Sapphira
was hypocrisy of the worst kind,' an attempt to
deceive not only men but God Himself. Most
critics admit the historicity of the incident {e.g.
Baur, Weizsacker, Holtzmann, Spitta), while it is
undoubted that in the narrative the cause of death
is traced to the ^vill and intention of St. Peter,
and cannot be regarded as a chance occurrence or
the etiect of a sudden shock brought about by the
discovery of their guilt. Much has been written
on the need in the infant Church of such a solemn
warning against a type of hypocrisy which, had
it become prevalent, would have rendered the
existence of the Christian community impossible.
LiTERATCRK— F. C. Baar, Paulus, Leipzig, 1866, i. 28 ff.;
A. Neander, Planting of CkrUUanity, ed. Bohn, i. flSSO] 27 ff. ;
C. V. Weizsacker, ApottoL Age, L [1894] 24 ; R. J. Knowling:,
£«JT. Acts,' 1900, in loco; Oaaun. of Meyer, Zeller, Holtz-
mann, Spitta.
2. A Christian disciple who dwelt in Damascus,
and to whom Christ appeared in a vision telling
him to go to Saul of Tarsus, who was praying and
had seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming
in and laying his hands on him that he might
receive his sight (Ac 9^*""). On hearing this com-
mand, Ananias, knowing the reputation of Saul
as a persecutor, expressed reluctance, but was
assured that the persecutor was a chosen messenger
of Christ to bear His name to the Gentiles and
kings and the children of Israel. Thus encouraged,
Ananias went and laid his hands on Saul, who
received his sight and was baptized. In his speech
before the multitude at Jerusalem (Ac 22^"'*) St.
Paul describes Ananias as ' devout according to
the law," and as one ' to whom witness was borne
by all that dwelt ' at Damascus.
Later traditiou has much to say regarding Anani>M». He is
represented as one of the ' Seventy,' and it is possible he may
have been a personal disciple of Jesus. He is also described as
bishop of Damascus, and reported to have met a violent death,
slain by the sword of Pol, the general of Aretas, accordii^ to
one authority (B>x>t of the Bee, by Solomon of Basra [1&2],
ch. xxix., ed. Wallis Budge), or, according to another (see Aeta
Sanctorum, Jan. 25 [new ed. p. 227]), stoned to death after
undergoing torture at the hand of Lucian, prefect of Damascus.
His name stands in the Roman and Armenian Martyrolog^es,
and he is commemorated in the Ab>'ssinian Calendar.
3. The high priest who accused St. Paul before
Claudius Lysias in Jerusalem (Ac 23^^-), and who
afterwards appeared among the Apostle's enemies
before Felix at Caesarea (Ac 24^'). He is not
to be identified or confused with Annas {q.v.)
of Ac 4«, Lk 3^ or Jn 18'^ He was the son of
Nedebjeus, and is regarded by Schiirer (GJV* ii.
272) a.s the twenty-first high priest in the Roman-
Herodian period. He retained his office, to which
he had been appointed by Herod of Chalcis, for
about twelve years (A.D. 47-59). During the time
of his administration, bitter quarrels broke out
between the Jews and the Samaritans, which led
to a massacre of some Galilseans by Samaritans
and to the {plundering of Samaritan villages by
Jews. Ananias was summoned to Kome and tried
for complicity in these disturbances, but, at the
instigation or Agrippa the younger, was restored
to office. He ruled in Jerusalem with all the
arbitrariness of an Oriental despot, and his violence
and rapacity are noted by Josephus (Ani. XX. ix.
2), while his personal wealth made him a man of
consideration even after he was deprived of his
office. He did not scruple to make frequent use
of assassins to carry out his policy in Jerusalem,
and his Roman sympathies made him an object of
intense hatred to the national party. When the
war broke out in A.D. 66, he was dragged from his
Elace of concealment in an aqueduct and murdered
y the assassins whom he had used as tools in the
days of Ms power (Josephus, BJ n. xviL 9).
LiTERAicTtE. — ^Josephus, Ant. xx. ix. 2, BJ n. xrlL 9 ; E.
Schnrer, GJV* ii. [1907] 256, 272, 274.
W. F. Boyd.
AHATHEMA.— The transliteration of a Gr. w ord
which is used in the LXX to represent the Heb.
herein, 'a person or thing devoted or set apart,
under religious sanctions, for destruction' (Lv
27* *•, Jos 6"). It is capable of use in the good
sense of an offering to God, but was gradually
confined to the sense of 'accursed,' which is the
rendering adopted in AV in all XT passages except
1 Co 16-. Around the Heb. term there gathered
in course of time an elaborate system of excom-
mtinication, with penalties varying both in amount
and in duration, the purpose being sometimes
remedial of the offender and sometimes protective
of the community ; but these developments are
mainly later than our period. They may have
suggested lines on which a system of official
discipline in the Christian Churdi was afterwards
constructed, but it would be an anachronism to
read them into the simpler thoughts of the aposto-
lic literature. In patristic times the word de-
noted some ecclesiastical censure or form of
punishment, for which a precedent may have been
sought in the teacliing or practice of St. Paul.
To the Apostle, the OT allusion would be predomin-
ant, and his chief, if not his only, thought would
be that of a hopeless spiritual condition, from
which emergence could be effected, if at all, only
with extreme difficulty and by special forbearance
on the part of God.
In the Pauline Epistles the word 'anathema'
occurs four times, once in reference to the Apostle
himself, and on the other occasions in reference
to the maltreatment of his Lord.
t. The personal passage is Ro 9*, where there
is no serious difficulty to those who do not look
for strict reasoning in the language of the heart.
St. Paul has just expressed (8") his belief that
nothing conceivable could separate him from the
love of God ; and now, in his yearning over his
fellow-countrymen, he announces that for their
sakes he would be willing, if it were possible,
to be even hopelessly separated from Christ.
Clearly ' anathema ' need not, and does not here,
carry any sense of formal excommunication ; it
denotes a spiritual condition of which the two
features are exclusion from the redemption in
Christ and permanent hopelessness.
2. Greater difficulty attaches to Gal 1*, where
the Apostle, again under strong emotion, impre-
cates anathema upon others. The case he imagines
is one that would warrant extreme indignation,
though the language is that of justifiable passion
and pot to be interpreted literally. St. Paul
would he the last of Christian teachers to with-
draw all hope from a man, and it is possible that
in this ca.se he thought of anathema as being
remedial and temporary. He was the bond-
servant of Christ, and as such he resented entirely
66
ANATHEMA
ANCHOR
any conduct or teaching that dishonoured liis
Lord. That such teaching reflected also on him-
self would be a matter of little consequence ; but
Christ was sacred to him, and the preacher of
another gospel, whether one of his own colleagues
or even 'an angel from heaven,' was not to be
tolerated. His teaching made and proved him a
person set apart for destruction ; but whether
that destruction was final or only corrective would
depend upon the man's impenitence or reform.
Free association with him would be no longer
possible, and to that extent the beginnings of a
system of discipline may be traced in the phrase,
as in 1 Ti 1^ and 1 Co 5*, where the ultimate
restoration of the man is distinctly in view. But
the reference to ' an angel from heaven ' is suffi-
cient to prove that ecclesiastical censure, carry-
ing finality with it, was not the main thought.
3. and 4. Twice in 1 Cor. the word ' anathema '
occurs in the course of the sharp conflict excited
by the extreme party among converted proselytes
to Judaism ; ana the great idea is that everything
in the religion of a professed Christian is deter-
mined by his real relationship to Christ. Over
against the party of which the watchword was
' Jesus is Lord,' was a party whose irreligion was
manifested by their cry 'Jesus- is anathema'
(1 Co 12*). They were in a sense within the
Christian community, and conscious therefore of
certain obligations to Christ ; but they were so
provoked by the attempt to set Jesus on the same
level with the supreme God, and by the apparently
absolute incompatibility of that belief with their
fundamental conviction of the unity of God, that
they were jirepared to renounce Jesus and even to
denounce Him rather than to confess His Godhead
and submit to His claims. Or, introduced into
the Church from some form of paganism, they had
been so familiar with the evil inspiration that
swept them along to the worship of ' dumb idols '
(12'') as to be disposed to plead inspiration for any
tongues or doctrines of their own, to whatever
extent Jesus was degraded therein. In response
St. Paul sets up the great antithesis between real
inspiration and counterfeit. The Spirit of God is
the author of any confession that Jesus is Lord ;
ecstasy or even demoniac possession may be pleaded
for the assertion that Jesus for His teaching is
destined to Divine destruction, but never the
breath of the Holy Spirit. Between those two
extremes there are many halting-places, and the
insecurity of each of them is in proportion to its
remoteness from the confession of Jesus Christ as
Lord. So much is the Apostle aflected by this
dishonour done to his Lord, that it recurs to his
memory as the Epistle is being closed, and suggests
the footnote of 1 Co 16^. He adopts the word
used by the men of whom he was thinking, and
condenses his indignation into a curt dismissal,
'If any one loveth not the Lord, let him be
anathema. Maran atha.' In such a place again
the word cannot denote official ecclesiastical cen-
sure. It is really an antithesis to the prayer for
grace in Eph 6**, the handing over of the unloving
man to Satan, the refusal to have anything more
to do with him until at least some signs of a
newborn love for Christ are given.
As to the addition of Maran atha, both the
meaning of the words and their relation to the
context have been subjects of controversy. For a
discussion of the Aramaic phrase, Avitii related
questions, see HDB iii. 241 fl". It is either an
assertion, ' Our Lord cometh' (so RVm), or, more
probably, an ejaculatory prayer, ' O Lord, come,'
with parallels in Pli 4", 1 P 4^ Rev 22™, devotional
rather than minatory in its character and inten-
tion. If it be taken as an assertion, it may mean,
' Let those who do not love the Lord fear and be
quick to amend, for He is at hand in triumph,'
though the expected Parousia is not a recurring
feature of the Epistle. Or the idea may be, ' The
Lord is coming soon, and there is no need to trouble
further with these men, for with greater wisdom
thought may be given to Him.' But the term is
better detached entirely from the reference to
anathema, and considered simply as a little prayer,
in which the normal yearning of the Apostle
expresses itself, before he closes a letter or group
of letters, in the writing of which his pastoral
heart must have been pained again and again.
The sudden way in which the expression is intro-
duced suggests that it had already become a
popular form of something like greeting in common
use among the disciples, and had supplanted the
earlier * The Lord is risen,' unless both were
used, the one on meeting and the other on parting.
That would explain the absence of any attempt to
translate it from the vernacular, and is confirmed
by the usage of the next generation ; cf. Didache,
x. 6, where also the word follows a warning ; and
Apost. Constitutions, vii. 26, where any thought
of enforcing a penalty is rendered impossible by
the jubilant tone of the section.
In course of time 'anathema' came to mean
excommunication, for which sanction was found
in the Pauline use of the word, which a^ain was
carried back to our Saviour's teaching (Mt 18").
Such men as are referred to in 1 Co 16^^ would of
necessity find themselves excluded from associa-
tion with disciples, and rules for their treatment
were prescribed (1 Co 5», Tit 3^", 2 Jn^"-"), and
eventually expanded in great detail. But, while
this kind of ostracism was a natural accompani-
ment of anathema from the beginning, the word
itself implied a certain relation to God, a spiritual
condition with which God alone could deal, and
with which He would deal finally or remedially.
Execration and not official discipline is the dominant
idea, with the censure of the Church as a corollary.
See also artt. Discipline, Excommunication.
LiTERATURB. — See artt. ' Curse,' ' Excommunication,' ' Mara-
natha,' in HDB ; Grimm-Thayer and Cremer, s.v. acddefia ;
and the NT Comm. on the passages cited.
R. W. Moss.
ANCHOR (figurative).*— In He 6^^ the writer
describes the hope set before the Christian, to
which he has just referred in the preceding verse,
as ' an anchor of the soul. ' The use of an anchor
as a figure of hope was not new, for it is found in
pre-Christian Greek and Latin authors, and an
anchor appears on ancient pagan medals as an
emblem of hope. The figure would naturally
suggest itself to any one who reflected on the
nature and power of the faculty of hope. For it
is of the essence of hope to reach into the future
and lay hold of an invisible object, as an anchor
drops into the sea and catches hold of the unseen
bottom. Hope has power to keep the soul from
wavering in times of storm and stress, just as an
anchor by its firm grip keeps tlie ship from drift-
ing with the winds ana tides. But Christian hope
reaching out towards the eternal world is some-
thing much greater than our familiar human hopes
of blessings yet unrealized ; and the use which this
writer made of an anchor to represent the hope of
the Christian soul at once transformed the figure
(as the Catacombs bear witness) into one of the
dearest symbols of the Christian religion.
Simple and beautiful as the figure is, however,
some exegetical difficulties have to be faced in
determining the extent of its application in the
passage. These difficulties are reflected in the
various renderings of AV and RV. In the original
the word 'hope of v.^" is not repeated in v.'*.
Strictly rendered, the verse runs, ' which we have
• For anchor In the literal sense see art. Ship.
A>s^DRoyicrs
AXGELS
57
as an anchor of the soul both sure and stedlast
and entering into that within the veil' — a state-
ment which has been understood in two different
ways. AV, by supplying ' hope ' at the beginning
of the verse, makes ' sure and stedfast ' apply to
the anchor, and by introducing a comma at this
point leaves it doubtful whether the anchor is also
to be thought of as entering within the veil. RV,
by inserting ' a hope ' immediately after ' soul,'
limits the fagure to a declaration that hope is an
anchor of the soul, and makes the three epithets
' sure,' ' stedfast,' and ' entering ' apply to hope
itself and not to its symbol the anchor. The most
obvious construction of the Gr. vindicates RV in
making the three epithets hang together as all
relating to one subject. On the other hand, AV
is so far supported by the fact that (wr^X^ and
^e^aioM (lit. 'not failing' and 'firm') suggest that
the idea of an anchor was immediately in the
writer's mind. It is probably right, therefore, to
conclude that he means to say that the anchor is
sure, steadfast, and entering into that which is
within the veil, viz. the Holy of Holies. This is
really a mixture of metaphors — the metaphor of
an anchor entering into the unseen world to which
Christian hope clings, and another metaphor by
which the Holy of Holies becomes a type of that
world unseen. But, in view of what the wTiter
says at a later stage about the Most Holy Place
with its ark of the covenant and cherubim of glory
overshadowing the mercy-seat {^) as a pattern of
heaven itself where Christ appears before God on
our behalf (v.**), the figurative faultiness of the
language is more than atoned for by its rich
suggestiveness as to the Christian's grounds of
hope with regard to the world to come. It is the
appearance of our great High Priest * before the
face of God for us,' he means to say, that is the
ultimate foimdation of the Christian hope. Cf.
John Knox on his death-bed calling to his wife,
' Go read where I cast my first anchor ! ' with
reference to our Lord's intercessory prayer in Jn 17.
Cf. also his answer, when they asKed him at the
very end, ' Have you hope ? ' ' He.lif ted his finger,
"pointed upwards with his finger," and so died'
(Carlyle, Heroes, 1872, p. 140).
LrnatATtmK. — The Comm. on Hebrews, esp. A. B. HayiA-
son's ; £^pontor, 3rd ser. X. 4o S. J, C. LAMBERT.
AlfDRONICnS (XfSpoviKK, a Greek name).—
Saluted by St. Paul in Ro 16^, his name being
coupled with that of Junias or Junia.* (1) The
parr are described as ' my kinsmen ' (roin ffvyyereU
fjLov), by which may be meant fellow-Jews (Ro 9*),
possibly members of the same tribe, almost cer-
tainly not relatives. This last interpretation has
given rise to one of the difficulties felt in deciding
the destination of these salutations. Another
' kinsman ' saluted is Herodion (v.^'), and saluta-
tions are sent from three 'kinsmen' in v.^. The
only relative of St. Paul known to us is a nephew
(Ac 23i«).
(2) Andronicus smd Junia(s) are also described
as ' my fellow-prisoners ' ((n.vaixpMkwrovz fwv, lit.
'prisoners of war'). The meaning may be that
they had actually shared imprisonment with St.
Paul (the only imprisonment up to this time known
to us was the short confinement at PhUippi [Ac
16=3, but see 2 Co 11==]). Possibly they may not
have suffered imprisonment with the Apostle at
the same time and place ; but, as enduring persecu-
tion for Christ's sake, they were in that sense
'fellow-prisoners.' The only other mention of
• fellow-prisoner ' is in a description of Aristarchus
(Col 4^0) and Epaphras (Philem ^). The meaning in
these cases is evidently literal, both sharing the
* It is impossible, as this name occors in the accus. case, to
determine whether it is masculine or feminine. See art. Jxrsua.
Apostle's captivity at Rome, whether compulsorily
or ▼olontariiy.
(3) The pair are further described as 'of note
among the apostles' (ixurijtioi ip tms drtxTrSKou).
Two interpretations of this phrase are possible :
(a) well-known and honouied by the apostles, (6)
notable or distinguished as apostles. The latter,
although a remarkable expression (and all the more
so if the second name is that of a woman), is probably
to be preferred. This makes Andronicus and
Junia(s) apostles in the wider sense of delegated
missionaries (see Lightfoot, Gal.^, 1876, p. 92 ff. and
note on p. 96).
(4) Lastly, Andronicus and Junia(s) are said to
have been ' in Christ before me ' (ot Koi rpd i/uw
yiyovav ev Xpurr^), i.e. they had become Christians
before the conversion of Sank Seniority of faith
was of importance in the Apostolic Church. It
brought honour, and it may have also brought
responsibility and obligation to serve on behalf of
the community (cf. Clement, £p. 4ci ; and see 1 Co
16'''- ; also art. Ep,ent:tus). Note the prominence
given to Mnason (q.v.) as an 'early' or 'original'
disciple in Ac 21^*.
The name Andronicus occnrs in inscriptions be-
longing to the Imperial household (see Sanday-
Headlam, Romans^, 1902, p. 422).
T. B. Allworthy.
ANGELS.— 1. The scope of this article.— The
passages in the apostolic writings in which angels
are mentioned or referred to will be examined ;
some of them are ambiguous and have been inter-
preted in various ways. The doctrine of the OT and
of the apocryphal period on the subject has been
so fully dealt with in HDB that it is unnecessary
to do more than refer incidentally to it here ; and
the angelology of the Gospels has been treated at
length in DCG (see Literature below). But the
other NT writings have not been so fully examined,
and it is the object of this article to consider them
particularly. Of these the Apocalypse, as might
be expected from the subject, calls for special
attention ; no book of the OT or the NT is so full of
references to the angels, and it is the more remark-
able that the other Johannine writings have so few.
The Fourth Gospel refers to angels only thrice
(la 122»20i2 ; S'* is a gloss [see below, S (*)]), and the
three Epistles not at alL There are frequent refer-
ences to the subject in Hebrews, and occasional
ones in the Pauline and Petrine Epistles and in
Jude.
2. The litepal meaning of ayYcXos — £77e\os=
' messenger,' is found only once in the NT outside
the (Jospels : in Ja 2"^, it is used of Joshua's spies
(in Jos 6** [LXX], which is referred to, we read
roin KaraaKoreivdyras oCj dri<rreiXfw 'Ir/aovs). In the
Grospels fi77eXos is used of John Baptist in Mt
lli», Mk 1", Lk 7^ (from Mai S^ but not from LXX,
which, however, also has iyyeXm), of John's mes-
sengers in Lk 7-^, and of Jesns' messengers to 4
Samaritan village in Lk 9«. In Ph 2», 2 Co 8«
dxocrroXos is translated 'messenger.'
3. The angels as heavenly beings. — From the
earliest times the Israelites had been taught to
believe in angels, but after the Captivity the doc-
trine greatly developed. Yet some of the Jews
reject^ all belief in them, and this sharply divided
the Pharisees from the Sadducees, who said ' that
there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit' ;
the Pharisees confessed both (Ac 23*).
Angels are creatureg, as the Jews had always
taught (Thackeray, BeleUion of St. Paul to Jewish
Thought, p. 150). They were created in, through,
and unto Christ (Col 1"), who is the beginning as
well as the end of aU things (cf. 1 Co 8«). They are
not inferior deities, but fellow-servants {avwSaukoi.)
with man (Rev ig'* 22^). Therefore they may not
be worshipped (ib.)', the worship of angels was
68
ANGELS
ANGELS
one of the grave errors at Colossae (Col 2'*). So
idolatry is described as a worshipping of demons
(Rev 9*).
Much emphasis is laid, lest it siiould be tliought
that angels were of the same degree as our Lord,
on the fact that Jestis is immeasurably higher than
they ; as in He l*"^- (no angel is called ' the Son ' ;
angels worship the Firstborn), 1'* (no angel set at
the right hand of God), 2* (the world to come is not
made subject to angels, but to man — v.®'* shows
that the Representative Man is meant, who con-
descended to bo, in His Incarnation, made a little
lower than the angels). In 1 P 3'^* ' angels and
authorities and powers' are made subject to the
ascended Christ ; and so in Eph 1^'. In Col 2"
(an obscure verse), \\g may understand either that
our Lord, putting ofl' His body, made a show of
the principalities and the powers, triumphing over
them in the cross (so the Latin Fathers) ; or, with
the Greeks, that He, having stripped off and put
away the principalities, made a show of them, etc.
— i.e. that He repelled their assaults. Here the evil
angels are spoken of. But the complete subjection
of the powers of evil to Jesus will not take place
till the end of the world (1 Co 15^^-).
Angels are spirits (M.ii V- ^*); cf. Rev 16", ' spirits
of demons:.' In Ac 2.3*'- they seem to be difl'eren-
tiated from 'spirits' ('no resurrection, neither
angel, nor spirit . . . what if a spirit hath spoken
to him or an angel ? '). But this is not so. The
'angel' is the species, the 'spirit' the genus
(Alford). All angels are spirits, though all spirits
are not angels. In v.^ the Pharisees are said to
confess ' both,' i.e. both the resurrection and angel-
spirits ; only two categories are intended. We
must also remember that in v.* non-Christian Jews
are speaking.
But, though they are spirits, angels are not
oynnipresent or omniscient, for these are attributes
of Deity, For their limited knowledge cf. Eph 3'"
(whether good or bad angels are tliere spoken of) ;
it is implied in 1 P P* (the angels desire to look
into the mysteries of the gospel) and in 1 Co 2*^-,
if 'rulers of this Avorld' are the evil angels (see
Demon). It is explicitly stated in Mt 24=«, Mk \2?^.
The limitation of the angels' knowledge is also
stated in Ethiopic Enoch, xvi. 3 (2nd cent. B.C. ?),
where the angels who fell in Gn 6^ (so ' sons of God '
are interpreted) are said not to have had the hidden
things yet revealed to them, though they knew
worthless mysteries, which they recounted to the
women (ed. Charles, 1893, p. 86 f . ). In the Secrets of
Enoch (Slavonic), xxiv. 3 (1st cent. A.D. ?), God says
that He had not told His secrets even to His angels.
Ignatius says that the virginity and child-bearing
of Mary and the death of the Lord were hidden
tromifKadev) the ruler of this age (Eph. 19 ; for this
idea in the Fathers see Lightfoot's note).
The good angels are angels of light, as opposed
to the powers of darkness (2 Co 11''' ; ct. Eph 6^-) ;
so, when the angel came to St. Peter in the prison,
a light shone in the cell (Ac 12^). The name
' seraph ' perhaps means ' the burning one,' though
the etymology is doubtful ; cf. also Ps 104*.
They neither marry nor are given in marriage ;
and so in the resurrection life there is no marrying,
for men will be 'as angels in heaven' (Mt 22^,
Mk 12=*), 'equal to angels' (lcr6.yye\ot, Lk 2(P).
Some have thought that they have a sort of counter-
part of bodies, described in 1 Co 15*" as ' celestial
bodies' (Meyer, Alford), though this is perhaps im-
probable ; St. Paul's words may refer to the
' heavenly bodies' in the modem sense (Robertson-
Pluuimer), or to the post-resurrection human
bodies (cf. v.*) ; not to good men as opposed to bad
(Chrysostom and others of the Fathers).
They are numberless (Rev 5" [from Dn 7"],
He 12*^, ' myriads' ; in the latter passage they are
perhaps described as a 'festal assembly' [RVm,
6.yyi\<i)v iravrjyvpei]).
The unfallen angels are holy (Rev 14'", Mk 8**,
Lk 9=*", and some MSS of Mt 25*' ; so perhaps
1 Th 3'^ Jude" [see below, 5(a)]; cf. Zee 14" 'all
the holy ones '). This is tlie meaning of ' elect '
angels in 1 Ti S'^ — not angels chosen to guard the
EpTiesian Church ; they are mentioned here be-
cause they will accompany our Lord to judgment
or (Grimm) because they are chosen by God to rule.
4. Ranks of the angels.— There was a great
tendency in later Jewish writings to elaborate the
angelic hierarchy. In Is 6^ " we had read of sera-
f>him ; in Ezk 10 of cherubim. But in Eth. Enoch,
xi. 10 (these chapters are of the 1st cent. B.C. ?),
the host of the heavens, and all the holy ones
above, the cherubim, seraphim, and ophanim
( = ' wheels ' ; cf. Ezk 1'*), angels of power, angels of
principalities, are mentioned (cf. Ixxi. 7) ; in the
Secrets of Enoch (20) we read of archangels, incor-
poreal powers, lordships, principalities, powers,
cherubim, seraphim, 'ten troops.' The 'gene-
alogies ' of 1 Ti 1* and Tit 3* are thought by some
to refer to such speculations. St. Paul shows some
impatience at the Colossian fondness for elaborat-
ing these divisions ; yet in the NT we find traces of
ranks of angels. In Jude * the archangel (Michael)
is mentioned ; so in 1 Th 4'*, where Michael is
doubtless meant. In Romans, Colossians, and
Ephesians no organized hierarchy is mentioned ;
and sometimes the reference seems to be to the
whole angelic band, sometimes to the evil angels,
when principalities, powers, dominions, thrones are
referred to (Col 1'" dpdvoi, Kvpi&rriTes, dpxal-, e^ovcriai ;
210. 16 dpxv, i^ovffia ; Eph 1^' o-pxH, i^ovala., diivafxis,
KvptdTrjs ; 3"* 6'^ o,pxo-l, i^ovcriai ; Ro 8^ d77eXoi, dpxo-i,
5vvd/M€is ; 1 Co 15'-* dpxVt i^ovcrla, dvvafus). In the
passages in Col. and Eph. St. Paul takes the ideas
current in Asia Minor as to the ranks of the angels,
but does not himself enunciate any doctrine ; in-
deed, in Eph 1-' he adds, ' and every name that is
named Idi^o/Md^erai, i.e. reverenced] both in this age
and in that which is to come.' Some have thought
that he refers to earthly powers ; but, though
these may perhaps in some cases be included, there
can be little doubt that he is speaking primarily of
angelic powers, good and bad. ' Whatever powers
there may be, Christ is Lord of all, far above them
all.' In Eph 3'" only evil angelic powers are re-
ferred to — they are in the heavenly sphere {iv rois
iTTovpavLois) ; and so in 6'=, where they are contrasted
with 'flesh and blood' (see also below). With
these passages we may compare 1 P 3^ ' angels and
authorities and powers'; and possibly 2 P 2""-,
where the 'lordship' (RV 'dominion'), 'glories'
('dignities'), and angels are thought by some to
refer to ranks of angels ; if so, the highest rank is
'angels,' who are 'greater in might and power'
than the 'glories.' The cherubim of the ark
(Ex 25'^) are mentioned in He 9*.
The Christian Fathers and the heretical teachers
greatly elaborated the angelic hierarchy ; of these
perhaps the writer who had most influence was
pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (de C'cel. Hier.
vi.-ix., c. A.D. 600), who divided the heavenly host
into tliree divisions, with three subdivisions in
each : (1) thrones, cherubim, seraphim ; (2) powers
{iiowTlcu), lordships [KvpibTTrre^), mights (Swd/xets) ;
(3) angels, archangels, principalities (dpxai). On
the analogy of this list, the Syriac-speaking
Churches divided the Christian ministry into three
classes, each with three sub-cla.sses. For other
divisions of angels in pqst-apostolic times see
Lightfoot's note on Col 1'".
Very few names of angels ocnu in the NT. Of
the holy angels only Gabriel (Lk l'"- -") and Michael
(Jude », Rev 12") are named (from Dn 8'« 9-' lO'^- •"
12'). We also have the proper names Satan (thirty-
AXGELS
AXGELS
59
one times, niueteen outside the Gospels), Beelzebub
(Gospels onlj-, six times), and Belial or Beliar (2 Co
6"). See Devil, Belial. In the Apocryplia we
have Raphael in To 12'», Uriel in 2 Es 4^ 5» 10«, and
Jeremief in 2 Es -4^ (the last book perhaps is to be
dated c. A.D. 90). Many other names are found in
Jewish writings ; see D. Stone, Outlines of Chr.
Dogma, London, 1900, p. 38 ; Edersheim, Lvfe and
Times, App. xiii. ; Eth. Enoch, 20 (Uriel, Kafael,
Kaguel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel ; the Gr. frag-
ment [Charies, p. 356 f.] has Sariel for Saraqa^,
and adds Kemier[=Jeremiel]).
S. Function of the angels. — The XT represents
the angels as having a double activity, towards
God and towards man. Both these aspects are
found in He 1" (see below), as in Is 6^"'', where the
seraphim worship before God, and one of them is
sent to the prophet, and in Lk 1'^ where Gabriel
is said to stand in the presence of God, and to be
sent to Zacharias.
(a) Towards God. — The angels are 'liturgic spirits'
Q^xiTovpTfLKa Tvevfiara, He 1^"* ; of. Dn 7*" Aeirwp-
70W airrt^ [Theodotion ; the version in our Gr. OT]
for ajw??^ ' ministered unto him ' ; the Chigi LXX
has iOepd-revop airrov) ; their ministry is an ordered
one, before the throne of God : ' the whole host of
His angels . . . minister {XeirovfTfovaLv) unto His
will, standing by Him ' (Clem. Rom. Cor. 34 ; cf.
the 4th cent. Ignatian interpolator, Philad. 9, ' the
liturgic powers of Gk)d '). They worship God in
heaven (Rev S'"- 7" S^-* ; cf. Job 1^ 2^), and on
earth (Lk 2'^) ; they worship the Firstborn when
He is brought into the world (He 1*), and are
witnesses ot the Incarnation (1 Ti 3'® 'seen of
angels' — but Grimm interprets dyyeXots here as
the apostles, witnesses of the risen Christ, and
Swete thinks the reference is to the Agony in
Gethsemane [Ascended Christ, 1910, p. 24]). To this
heavenly worship there seems to be a reference in
1 Co 13^ 'tongues of angels.' In Jewish thought
there were 'angels of the presence,' the highest
order of the hierarchy, who stood before the face
of God, within the veU (Edersheim, Life and Times,
L 122 ; To 12»5 ; Eth. Enoch, 40). There may be
a reference to these in Rev 1* ' the seven spirits
which are before his throne ' (Swete interprets this
of the sevenfold working of the Holy Spirit); 8^
'the seven angels which stand before God ' (cf. v.*) ;
Mt 18^" ' in heaven [the little ones'] angels do always
behold the face of my Father which is in heaven ' ;
and in Lk 1'* (see above).
They will attend on the Son at the Last Judg-
ment (1 Th 4«, 2 Th 1', Rev 3') ; and tliis seems to
be the most probable reference in 1 Th 3'^ ' with
all his saints ' (or ' holy ones ' — tQv dyiav airrov) and
in Jude " ' with ten thousands of his holy ones ' (or
'with his holy myriads,' iv ayiais fnvpidaiv airrov),
where the words are quoted from Enoch, i. 9, the
text of the latter in the Gizeh Greek fragment
being aiv toTs {sic) fivpidcriy aiToO /tai rots ayloii a^oD.
The words in Jude are certainly to be understood
of the angels, and this makes the similar interpre-
tation of 1 Th 3»3 more likely. But Milligan (Com.
tn loc.) thinks that the latter reference is to 'just
men made perfect,' who are said to judge, or to be
' brought with' Jesus at the Judgment (1 Th 4".
Mt 1928. Lk 22»; cf. Wis 33; for 1 Co G^" see 7
below). No doubt the saints vnh rule ^\-ith Christ
(liev 2»'- 20^ etc.); but, as all men will them-
selves be judged (Ro U^o, 2 Co 51"), the interpre-
tation of the above passages as implying that the
saints will themselves be judges at the Last Day
is somewhat doubtful. The attendance of the
angels on the Great Judge is mentioned in all four
Gospels (Mt 13*' Iff^ 24'^ 2o*i, Mk 8=« 13^, Lk 9*
12^, and Jn 1^* [where the reference is to Gn 28^).
(6) Towards man. — The angels do service
(StoKovia) to man as heirs of salvation (He 1^*).
They ministered to our Lord on earth, in His
human nature, after the Temptation in the wilder-
ness (Mt4", Mk 1^, not in Lk.),andat Gethsemane
(Lk 22«» : this may not be part of the Third Gospel,
but is certainly part of a 1st cent, tradition ; it
could not have bieen invented by the scribes [see
Westcott-Hort, NT in Greek, IL App., p. 67]- The
{resent writer has argued for its bemg older than
rk., and reflecting the same stage of thought as
Mk. [DCG iL 124'>]). In Mt 26» Jesus says that
angels would have ministered to Him, had He so
willed, when Judas betrayed Him.
The angels are spectators of our lives : 1 Co 4' ' a
spectacle (Oiarpov) to angek ' ; 1 Ti 5" 'in the
sight of (Jod and Christ Jesus and the elect angels ' ;
1 P 1^, the angels 'look into' — 'glance at,' or
perhaps 'pore over' (see Bigg, Com. in loc.)— the
Church and its Gospel ; they rejoice over the
sinner's repentance (Lk 15^").
They are messengers to man. This is the office of
angels which is most prominent in the N T ; see Ac 7"*- »
(Moses) 8» (Philip) 10»- '• »■ » (Peter, Cornelius) 11"
(Peter) 12^-" (Peter in prison) 23* (Paul) 27*» (Paul
on his voyage), He 13* (reference to Abraham, Gn
18), and frequently in Rev. (e.g. 1^ 226). gj; p^ui
alludes to this work of the angels in Gal 1^, which
suggests that they must be proved, as spirits must
be (1 Co 1210, 1 Jn 4^, etc. ; see Demox, § 2), to see
whether they are true or false, and in Gal 4",
where there is a climax : ' as an angel of God,
nay, as one who is higher than the angels, as
Christ Jesus himself.' For this function in the
Gospels see Mt 1» 2"-" 28*-5 Mk 16*-^ Lk
111. 13. 19. S8. so. » 2«- a 24*- » Jn 12» 20" ; ^^^^ ^^
note that the ' angel of the Lord ' in the NT is not
the same as the ' angel of Jahweh ' in the OT : it
merely means an angel sent by God. This office
of the angels does not exclude the Di\'ine message
coming directly to man (Ac 9* 22« 26", Gal 1'^).
They are helpers of our worship. They offer the
' prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar '
(Kev 8^). Their presence at Christian worship is
a reason for decorum and reverence (1 Co 11": a
woman should be veiled in the assembly of the
faithful ' because of the angels ' ; this seems to be
the meaning, not ' because of the clergy who are
present,' as Ambrose, Ephraim Syrus, Primasius,
nor ' because of the evil angels,' with a reference
to Gn 6"-, as Tertullian [de Virg. Vel. 7 ; cf. 17],
nor yet ' because the angels do so,' i.e. veil them-
selves before their Superior [Is 6*] ; see Robertson-
Plummer, Com. in loc). For the presence of angels
at worship cf. Ps 138^ LXX and Vulg., To 12'*->*,
Three =".
They fghi for man against evil, under Michael
(Jude «, Rev 12«- W*- » 20»-») ; they are ' armies*
(ffTpaTev/jxjLTa, Rev 19") and a ' host ' (arpand, Lk 2^ ;
not in He 12** RV where iwpiAaiv is translated
' innumerable hosts '). They are the ' armies ' sent
out by the King in the Parable of the Marriage of
the King's Son (Mt 22^).
They were the mediators of the Law (Ac 7",
Gal 3'*, He 2*) ; i.e. they assisted at the giving of
the Law. St. Paul and the writer of Hebrews
argue from this the superiority of the Gospel as
being given without the interposition of created
beings (Lightfoot on Gal 3). The presence of
angels is not mentioned in Ex 19, but cf. Dt 33^
Ps 68' ; it was emphasized by the Jews as extolling
the Law (see Thackeray, op. eit. p. 162), and this
is perhaps the meaning in Ac 7**.
At death the angels carry the faithful departed
to Abraham's bosom (Lk 16^). This was a common
Jewish belief (DCG i. o7*).
At the Judgment they will be the reapers of the
harvest (Rev 14i'-i», Mt 1339- *»).
They are messengers of punishment (Ac 12"-*
[Herod], Rev 14"), and of judgment (Rev ^^
60
ANGELS
ANGELS
19"-" ; cf. the pouring out of the bowls, 16'"", and
the seven angels having seven plagues, 15'). In
1 Co 10'° the ' destroyer ' (6\odptvTi/is) is not Satan,
hut the angel sent by God to smite the people (the
reference is to Nu 16, where no angel is mentioned ;
but cf. Ex 12-^, 2 S 24'*). Satan is sometimes
called 'the destroyer' {diroWvwv, Rev 9"), but
oXoOpevTi^i is not used elsewhere in the Bible (see
Kobertson-Plummer on 1 Co 10'").
They intervene on earth to lielp man : an ' angel
of the Lord' releases tiie apostles (Ac 5'") and
Peter (12^); and, according to an ancient gloss,
probably African, originating before the time of
Tertullian, who quotes it (de Bapt. 6), ' an angel of
the Lord ' also ' troubled ' the water of Bethesda
(Jn 5'). (Tertullian applies this text to Christian
baptism, over which he says an angel presides.)
Generally, the angels guard men from evil. This
leads us to the question of guardian angels. It is
an ancient idea that each human being, or even
every creature animate and inanimate, has allotted
to it one or more special angelic guards. This
idea is to some extent confirmed by the words
of our Lord about the 'angels of the little ones'
in Mt 18'". It was a popular belief that these
i^uardians took the form of the person guarded,
and the people assembled in the house of Alary the
mother of Alark thought that Peter, when escaped
from prison, was ' his angel ' (Ac 12"). This
Jewish conception was long retained by the Chris-
tians. Tertullian thought that the soul had a
' figure,' a certain corporeity, an 'inner man, difler-
ent from the outer, but yet one in the twofold
condition' {de Anima, 9); this is not quite the
sjime idea, but we find it more clearly in the 4th
cent. Church Order, the Testament of our Lord (i.
40), where all men have 'figures of their souls,
wiiich stand before the Father of Light,' and which
in the case of the wicked ' perish and are carried
to darkness to dwell.' Similarly there are angels
of tire (Kev 14'^), of water (W^- ; cf. 7"- and Jn
o*), of winds (Rev 7'; cf. Ps 104*), of countries
(Dn 10'3-2o ; cf. Sir 17'^) ; and the angel of the abyss,
Abaddon (q.v.) or Apollyon (Rev 9"; cf. 20'). For
Rabbinical ideas see Thackeray, op. cit. p. 168, and
Edersheim, op. cit. App. xiii.
6. Angels of the Churches.— In Rev l^o 2'-8- "• '»
31. 7. 14 ^YiQ Seven Churches are said each to have
an ' angel.' These angels represent the Churches ;
what is said to them is said to the Churches (3^ ;
cf. 1*) ; things done by the Churches are said to be
done by them. Various interpretations have been
ottered, (a) They are said to be angels as in the
rest of the book. The strongest arguments for
this view are the writer's usage elsewhere, and the
mention of Jezebel (2* : ' thy wife ' in some MSS),
which is clearly symbolic. The difficulty is the
sin ascribed to these angels, as in any case a good
angel must, if this interpretation be taken, be
meant ; if so, the meaning must be that the angels
bear the sins of the Churches as representing and
guarding them. (6) They are thought to be earthly
representatives of the Churches, either delegates
to Patmos or the bishops or presbyters of the
Churches. This view accords better with the later
than with the earlier date assigned to Rev., with
the time of Domitian than with that of Nero,
(c) They are thought to be ideal personifications
of the Churches. On the whole the first view
seems to be the most prolmble. Compare and con-
trast the following article.
7. Fallen angels. — In the NT both good and evil
angels are mentioned ; but Avhen the word ' angel '
occurs alone, a good angel is to be understood
imless the context requires otherwise, though
jierhaps 1 Co 6^ is an exception (see below). The
fall is mentioned in Jude", 2 P 2* ; and probably
in 1 Ti 3', where it is ascribed to pride (see Dkvil,
§ 2). The Incarnation was not intended to help
the angels. Jesus did not ' take hold ' of, to help,
the angels (or, as AV, did not take hold of their
nature) ; see Westcott on He 2'*. Yet in Col 1»
God is said to reconcile through (the death of)
Christ ' all things ' to Himself — the whole universe
material and spiritual (Lightfoot) ; but it was not
by delivering them from death (Alford) : the fallen
angels are not saved by Christ's death. Accord-
ing to some interpretations, St. Paul says that
angels will be judged by men (1 Co 6^). Robertson-
Plummer interpret this verse, tentatively, as mean-
ing that, as Christ judges, i.e. rules over, angels,
so will saints, who share in that rule ; but, if the
Last Judgment is intended, then fallen angels
must be meant here, for good angels, not having
fallen, cannot be judged. For 1 Th 3'* see above,
5 (a). In the end Satan is bound, and Babylon
falls (Rev 18 and 20) ; nothing is said of his angels,
but the inference is that his angels fall with him,
and this is expressly said in Mt 25*'. See further.
Adversary, Air, Belial, Demon, Devil.
Metaphorically the ' stake in the flesh ' is called
an angel (messenger) of Satan (2 Co 12^). See art.
Paul.
8. Comparison of apostolic and other teaching.
— {a) Coviparison with that of our Lord. — Oesterley
(SDB, 32) contrasts Jesus' teaching with that of the
Evangelists and other NT writers, and says that
our Lord taught that the abode and work of the
angels are in heaven, not here below, while His
disciples taught (as the Jews did) that they are
active on earth. On the other hand, Marshall
{DCG i. 54*) maintains the complete identity of
teaching between Jesus and the Evangelists. To
the present writer the latter view seems to be the
right one. It is true that in our Lord's words the
work of angels on earth is not prominent. But in
Jn F' (our Lord is speaking) the order ' ascending
and descending' shows that the angels are ' already
on earth, though we see them not' (Westcott, Com.
in loc). The account of the angelic ministry at
the Temptation, like that of the Temptation itself,
could by its very nature have come only from our
Lord's own lips. Moreover, in Jesus' teaching,
the angels come to the earth to fetch Lazarus' soul
(Lk 16-^-) and to reap the Harvest (Mt 13=*''- •»»).
(b) Comparison with th* doctrine of false teachers.
— In Colossians we find an elaborate angelology,
taught by professing Christians whom St. Paul
attacks. Their heresy was partly Jewish, partly
Gnostic, though some think that two different
sects are meant. The Gnostic element shows it-
self in the tendency to put angels as intermediaries
between God and man, and to make angels emana-
tions from God with an elaborate hierarchy of
powers, dominions, etc. Against such teaching St.
Paul asserts that Christ is the only mediator (Col 1'*-"
2*-'*), and forbids the worship of angels because it
denies this. In the unique mediation of our Lord
lies the significance of the repeated phrases ' in the
Lord,' ' unto the Lord ' (3'*- ^- ^). Jesus is the one
dpx'7, or ' beginning' (1'^ ; cf. Rev 3'''), of creation, as
against the idea of angelic intermediaries when
the world was made (see Lightfoot's essay on tlie
Colossian heresy [Col., p. 71 fi'.]). Perhaps also in
the assertion of the unique mediation of Christ
lies the significance of the rhetorical passage in
which St. Paul says that no heavenly powers,
good or bad, can separate us from the love of God
(Ro 8=*). Passages in Eph. (above, i) seem to show
that the Colossian heresy was known also on the
Asian seaboard.
A later stage of angelological error is found at
the end of the Ist cent, in Cerinthus' teaching,
which resembled that of the Colossian heretics.
Cerinthus (q.v.) taught that the world was not
made by God, but by an angel, or by a series of
A>sGELS
A2s'GELS OF THE SEVEX CHURCHES 61
Swers or angels, who were ignorant of God ; the
osaic Law was given by them (cf. above, 5 (6)).
Cerinthus is the link between the Gnosticism at
Colossae and the developed Gnosticism of the 2nd
century (for his doctrine see Irenjjeus, Hcer. i. 26 ;
Hippolytus, Refut. vii. 21, x. 17). He claimed to
have had angelic visions, and was a millenarian
of the grossest sort (Cains in Eusebius, HE iiL 28).
See also Lightfoot, op. cit., p. 106 tf.
Speculations such as those attacked by St. Paul
found a congenial soil in ' Asia ' and Phrygia.
Even in the 4th cent, at the Council held at the
Phrj-^an Laodicea (c. A.D. 380), Christians are
forbidden to leave the Church of God and invoke
{drofid^eip) angels (can. 35 ; see Hefele, Councils,
Eng. tr., iiL 317). It is the proper jealousy for the
One Slediator, on the other hand, which has led
many modems to reject the doctrine of the exist-
ence of angels altogether. But both heavenly and
earthly beings can help man without being medi-
ators, as we see when one man helps another by
intercessory prayer. The NT teaching about
angelic helpers, so potent an antidote to material-
ism, in no way asserts that we are to pray to God
through the angels, or contradicts the doctrine
that Christ is the only Mediator between God and
man.
(c) Comparison tcith current Jewish teaching and
that of the later Babbis. — The apostolic teaching
is quite free from the wild speculations of Je^vish
angelology. (For dilierences between it and cur-
rent Je\^-ish ideas see Edersheim, op. cit. i. 142
and App. xiii. ) Of Jewish speculations the most
elaborate were those of the Essenes (q.v.), which
had a decided Gnostic tinge. This Jewish sect had
an esoteric doctrine of angels, and its members
were not allowed to divulge their names to out-
siders (Jos. BJ n. viiL 7 ; Lightfoot, Col., p. 87 ;
Edersheim, L 330 f.). A few Jewish speculations
may be mentioned. It was thought that new
angels were always being created — an idea derived
from a wresting of La 3^ (Thackeray, op. cit. p.
150). The angels taught Noah medicine {Book of
Jubilees, 10). The righteous will become angels
{Eth. Enoch, li. 4). An angel troubled the waters of
Bethesda for healing (gloss in Jn 5*). An elaborate
hierarchical system and numerous names were in-
vented for them (above, i). Contrasted ^nth these
ideas, we have in the NT a wise reserve, which
refuses to go beyond the things which are written.
One Jewish speculation must be noticed more
fully. The Rabbis taught that none of the angels
was absolutely good, that they opposed the crea-
tion of man and were jealous of him (Edersheim,
ii. 754). Thackeray (p. 151 f.) considers that St.
Paul also makes them all antagonistic to God. If
so, he contradicts the teaching both of our Lord
and of the other NT writers (above, 3). But this
view, based on St. Paxil's language about princi-
palities, powers, etc. , and on the idea that aU the
angels are the enemies who must be put under
Christ's feet (1 Co 15^), appears to be untenable.
St. Paul, while Affirming that some * powers ' are
evil, does not say that they all are so. See
above, i.
9. Nature of HT angelophanies. — It is unprofit-
able to ask whether angels took material bodies
when they appeared to men or whether they
merely seemed to do so. At any rate, they took
the form of men to the mind, though in some cases
there was something about them that produced
wonder or fear (Lk 1", Mt 28*, etc.). The accounts
of the angels who were seen after the Resurrection
vary. In Mt 28- the angel who roUed away the
stone was like lightning, his raiment white as snow.
In Mk 16^ we read only of a young man in a white
robe. In Lk 24* there are two men in dazzling
apparel (cf. v.** 'vision of angels'). In Jn 20^
there are two angels in white, sitting. In Ac !'"•
there are 'two men ... in white apparel.' To
Cornelius the angel was 'a man ... in bright
apparel ' (Ac 10**). Stephen's face was filled with
superhuman glory, ' as it had been the face of an
angel ' (Ac 6** ; so we reflect, as in a mirror, the
glory of the Lord, 2 Co 3"*). For an argument that
the appearance of the angels was 'objective' see
Plummer on Lk 1" ; but this is largely a matter of
definition. At the death of Herod (Ac 12**) no
appearance of an angel is necessarily intended.
10. The immediate successors of the apostles. —
Angelology was a favourite topic of the time ;
but, the literature of the sub-apostolic period
being very scanty, the references are few. For
Clement of Rome see above, 5 (a). Ignatius says
that the knowledge of angelic mysteries was given
to martyrs (Trail. 5) : ' heavenly things and the
dispositions {rorodeaias) of angels, and musterings of
rulers {awrrdtreis dpxorriKdi), seen and unseen' (cf.
Col 1^®). The ' dispositions ' would be in the seven
heavens. The iffxorres, 'rulers,' would be St.
Paul's apx<u, i.e. angels (Lightfoot, Ign. iL 165).
In Smym. 6 it is said that the angels, if they
believe not in the blood of Chi-ist, are judged;
this seems to imply that their probation is not yet
ended. See also above, 3. Papias (quoted by
Andreas of Caesarea, in Apoc., ch. 34, serm. 12;
Lightfoot-Harmer, Apostol. Fathers, p. 521) says
that to some of the angels Grfxl ' gave dominion over
the arrangement (Siajcoff/i^crewj) of the universe . . .
but their array (Td^w) came to naught, for the
great dragon, the old serpent, who is called the
Devil and Satan, who deceiveth the whole earth,
was cast down, yea, was cast down to the earth,
and his angels ' (quotation from Rev 12*). Papias
seems to date the fall of the angels after the
creation of the world. Hennas (for his possibly
early date see Salmon, Introd. to NT, xxvi.) describes
the building of the tower [the Church] upon the
waters by six young men (cf. Mk 16'), while
countless other men bring the stones ; and the
former are said to be the holy angels of (Jod, who
were created first of all ; the latter are also holy
angels, but the six are superior to them {Vis. iiL
1, 2, 4). In the Martyrdom of Polycarp, 2, martyrs
are said to become angels after death (see above,
8). In the Epistle to Diognetiu, 7, God is said to
have sent to men a minister {{mipinip) or angel or
ruler (S.pxo>rra). Justin interprets Ps 24^- ' [LXX]
as addressed to the rulers appointed by God in the
heavens {Dial. 36). To angels was committed the
care of man and of all things under heaven, but
they transgressed through the love of women {Apol.
iL 5, referring to Gn 6"'-). Angels, like men,
have free will {Dial. 141).
Ijrbatubx.— A. Edersheim, Life and Times tff Jetus the
Memalfi, London, 1897, i. 142, iL 748 (Appendix. xiiLX etc ;
H. St. J. Thackeray, The Belation of St. Paul to Contemporam
Jewish Thought, do. 1900; A. B. Davidson in HDB, ait.
' Angel' (almost entirely for OI) ; W. Fairweather in HDB,
ToL v., art. 'Development of Doctrine in the ApocrypbaX
Period,' I iiL ; J. T. Marshall in DCG, art. ' Angds' ; and the
Commentaries, esp. H. B. Swete, Apoeaiypte (/ iSL John,
London, 1906^ B. F. Westcott, Hebretcti, do. 1906; G.
MHHga". ThetmloniaHS, do. 1908 ; J. B. Lightfoot, ColomoM
and Philemon, do. 1900 (ISb ed. 1875) ; A. Robertsoo and A.
Plnmmer, 1 Corinthians, Edinburgh, 1911.
A. J. Macleak.
ANGELS OF THE SE¥EM CHURCHES.— The
general practice of NT writers points to the con-
clusion that the word 'angels,' used in this con-
nexion, is employed to denote superhuman and
celestial personalities. We are not, however,
without examples of its being used to indicate
ordinary ' messengers ' (cf. Lk 7"-* 9", Ja 2*, etc.).
In this case it would be equivalent to the irdaroXoi
iKKXijffiQv (2 Co 8^ ; cf. Ph 2P), who were in some
sense the oflBcial, if temporary, delegates of one
Church to another. The fact that in the Apocalypse
62 ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES
ANGER
these ' angels ' are to such a degree the recipients
of praise and blauie would seem to put both these
simple interpretations out of court.
Many ingenious attempts have been made to
emi)loy the expression as a collateral or subsidiary
proof that episcopacy had already been established
within the lifetime of the Johannine author. The
passages adduced from the OT in support of this
view are certainly irrelevant ; for, while it is con-
ceivable that the chief minister of a Church should
be styled AyyeXoi Kvplov (cf. Hag 1" and Mai 2'' ;
see also Is 44'* and Mai 3'), it is difficult to under-
stand the application to him of the designation
dyye\oi iKK\r]<xiai (Rev 2\ etc.). Nor, again, can the
(Hmtention be sustained that the expres.sion had
its origin in the office of the sh'liah zibbur, the
messenger or plenipotentiary of the synagogue —
for, as Schiirer has pointed out, these ' messengers '
were not permanent officials (see HJP II. ii. 67),
but persons chosen for the time by the ruler to
pronounce the prayer at public worship (cf. Light-
foot, Dissertations on Apostol. Age, 1892, p. 158).
In supporting the contention that by the ' angels'
of the Churches are meant the bishops, the strange
conclusion has been maintained that in the words
TTjj' yvvauca [<rou] ' lefd/SeX (Rev 2^) the author is re-
ferring to the Thyatiran bishop's wife (see Grotius,
Annotationes in Apoc, ad loc). It ought to be
pointed out that this theory is as old as Jerome,
who in his commentary on 1 Ti 3^ adopts a similar
interpretation ; and Socrates (HE iv. 23) describes
Serapion as ' the angel of the church of the
Thmuitae' (cf. Jerome, de Vir. illustr. 99, where
he mentions Serapion as * Thmueos Egypti urbis
Episcopus '). The same conception is attached to
the expression by the 6th cent, commentators,
Primasms the African {Com. in Apoc.) and Cassi-
odorus the Italian {Complexiones in Apoc.) in their
reflexions on Rev V.
An examination of the use of the word dyye\o$
in the NT Apocalypse, apart from its connexion
with the Churches, shows that the author invari-
ably employs it to describe a spiritual being
attached to the service of Gad or of Satan. We
are, therefore, confronted with the difficulty of
accounting for its presence here in a sense so
completely different as the episcopal theory in-
volves. I'here is, indeed, no valid reason to sup-
pose that the author, even in a work as highly
symbolical as this is, attaches an essentially differ-
ent idea to the word when he speaks of ' the
Angels of the Seven Churches.'
If we can accept the textual purity of the Ascen-
sion of Isainh, iii. 15, there is a remarkable parallel:
' the descent of the angel of the Christian Church,
which is in the heavens, whom He will summon in
the last days.' Even on the supposition that the
Ethiopic version, supported by some Greek MSS,
is a correct translation of the original, and the
simple word ' Cliurch' is substituted for 'angel of
the Ciiristian Cliuroh,' we are confronted by the
primitive identification of the Church and its angel
(see Charles, Asc. of Isainh, ad loc).
Perhaps the most curious feature of the letters
to the Asian Churches is the way in which the
writer expresses himself in terms of stern reproof
or of encouragement to their • angels.' The objec-
tion to this difficulty is considered by Origen,
wlio finds cause for marvel at the care shown by
God for men : 'forasmucli as He suffers His angels
to be blamed and rebuked on our behalf [horn, in
Num. XX. 3 ; cf. in Luc. xiii.).
As we have already seen, however, it is difficult
to sujipose that the writer intended the words to
be understood as referring literally to angels who
presided over the Churches. There is, no doubt,
a natural inclination to see in his u.se of the phrase
a reminiscence of the ' princes ' of the Apocalypse
of Daniel (6 &pxuy ^aaiXtlas Jltpffuy, Dn 10^ ; cf.
MtxarjX 6 dyyeXos, v.'^'). A similar belief with re-
spect to the guardianship of individuals is referred
to incidentally as held by Jesus (Mt 18'"), and we
need not be surprised to lind it applied to Churches
in their corporate capacity by a writer whose
teaching on the activity and functions of angeb is
so advanced.
Taking into account the symbolism of the whole
book and the obviously symbolic mention of Jeze-
bel (Rev 2*« ; cf. Milligan on Rev lO'-^ in SchatFs
Pop. Com. on the NT), there seems to be no inter-
pretation more in harmony with the spirit of the
writing than that which sees in this expression the
personification of the characteristic spiritual tone
and genius of each Church.
If we accept this conclusion as being most con-
sonant with tlie general trend of thought through-
out the writing, it may not be amiss to refer to the
remarkable parallel in the fravashis, or ' doubles,'
of Parsiism. Whatever the connexion between
Persian and Jewsh angelology — and it is not
necessary to insist on a direct borrowing — it seems
to be certain that, in the period immediately sub-
sequent to the Captivity, Parsi influence shaped,
at least indirectly and remotely, the development
of Hebrew thought. ' The fravashi of a nation or
community is a conception found in three Avestan
passages. . . , The fravashi is no longer a being
necessarily good, but becomes a complete spiritual
counterpart of the nation or the church, and cap-
able therefore of declension and punishment' (HDB
iv. 99P ; cf. JThSt iii. 520 tf.). The nexus may be,
and probably is, not so mechanical and direct as
J. H. Moulton seeks to establish. On the other
hand, it seems as if a relationship of some kind
between the allied forces of Magianism and Zoro-
astrianism, as they were refracted by the medium
of Hellenistic culture and Hebrew thought, must
be regarded as inevitable. It is enough to say
that the ' angel ' is the personified embodiment of
the spiritual character and ethos of the Church. If
this use of the word by the author has led to con-
fusion and obscurity, the reason lies probably in
the limitations of that symbolism which was the
characteristic vehicle of Jewish apocalyptic litera-
ture (see W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven
Churches, 1904, pp. 57-73). Compare and contrast
§ 6 of the preceding article.
Literature. — See the works referred to throughout the art.,
and the Commentaries on the Apocalypse.
J. R. Willis.
ANGER. — 1. Human anger.— Except by the
stoical mind which linds no place for strong
emotion in a moral scheme, anger has been recog-
nized as a quality which, under certain conditions
and within certain limits, may not only be per-
missible but commendable. Its ready abuse has,
however, led to its being commonly placed among
the evils of human nature. The teaching of the
early Christian Church recognizes both aspects.
Condemnation of the abuse of anger is not wanting
in the apostolic writings. Among the manifest
works of the flesh are enmities, strife, iealousies,
wraths {dviiol), factions (Gal 5-'*'). St. Paul fears lest
he shall find these evils in the Church when he comes
to Corinth (2 Co 12*). One of the marks of the
greatest of Christian virtues is that it ' does not
blaze forth in passionate anger ' (ov irapo^vverai [1 Co
13"]). In Christian circles, all bitterness and wrath
and anger must be put away (Eph 4*' ; cf. Col 3^).
The holy hands lifted up in prayer must be un-
stained with anger and strife (1 Ti 2^). The
'bishop' must be blameless, as Goti's steward,
not self-willed, not soon angry (Tit V). St. James
bids his readers be swift to hear, slow to speak,
slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not
the righteousness of God (!'•• ^). ' Be not prone to
ANGER
AXGER
63
anger,' says the Didache (uL 2), • for anger leadeth
to murder : nor a zealot, nor contentious, nor
quick-tempered, for mnrder also is the outcome of
these.'
On the other hand, Christian morality recognizes
a righteous anger. The section of the Sermon on
the Mount which teaches that whosoever is angry
with his brother is in danger of the judgment (Mt
6^»"-) is primarily aimed at something other than
passion — it is an emphatic condemnation of the
spirit which despises and seeks to injure a brother.
The violation of the law of brotherly love, manifest
in the anger of Mt 5-, might, indeed, provoke a
legitimate wrath, e.g. in the series of woes, terrible
in intensity of language, pronounced by Jesus
against the' scribes and Pharisees (Mt 23^**-). We
should hesitate to acknowledge a man as morally
and spiritually great who could remain unmoved
in the presence of the world's wrongs. The early
preachers would have been poor souls had they
been able to hide their indignation at the mur-
derers of Jesus (Ac 3^" o^^ 7*^ ). Could Peter well
have been calm with Anania.s and Sapphira (Ac 5^),
and later, with the commercially -minded, religious
adventurer, Simon Magus (S'*"-)? A certain prin-
ciple of discrimination seems, however, to have been
observed. Anger at personal insult or persecution
was discouraged. Anger provoked by personal in-
jury may have a protective value in a lower stage
of the world's life, but the attitude of Christian
ethics to this tvpe is governed by the law of non-
resistance laid down by the Sermon on the Mount.
Man must return good for evil, show kindness to
his enemy, leave retribution to Grod (Ro 12'*-*').
St. Paul claims that, ' when reviled, we bless ; when
persecuted, we bear it patiently ; when slandered,we
try to conciliate' (1 Co 4*-), thtis following the
example of Jesus (1 P 2^). One is tempted to
regard the apology which followed the momentary
outburst of St. Pauls passion against the high
priest (Ac 23') as an expression of the Apostle's
principles of non-resistance rather than as an ac-
ijnowledgment of priestly rights. But there is an
altogether diM'erent attitude when that which is to
be defended is a righteous principle, a weaker
brother, or the faith or ethical standard of the
Church. Elymas, the sorcerer, seeking to hinder a
work of grace, provokes a vigorous anger (Ac 13^''- ").
On behalf of the purity of faith St. Paul resists St.
Peter to the face (Gal 2"). The Epistle to the
Galatians is a piece of passionate writing, and a
note of indignation runs through the later chapters
of 2 Cor. (cf. 1 Co 1» 5*, etc.). The man who does
not love the Lord Jesus, or the one who preaches
a false gospel, let him be acctirsed — avadetw. ( 1 Co
16-). The indignation (d^oFdimjcrts) of the Cor-
inthian Church against the guilty person in the
case of umnorality, to which St. Paul has dra\sTi
attention, is commended by him (2 Co 7"). Simi-
larly, the Church at Ephesus is congratulated on its
hatred of the Nicolaitans (Rev 2*). St. Paul
' bums ' if another is ' made to stumble ' (2 Co ll^*).
In these instances, anger seems to have been re-
garded as compatible with, and indeed expressive
of, Christian character. "The obvious danger of
mistaken zeal for a cause or creed must, however,
be kept in mind. The case of St. Paul's early life
provides an illustration (Gal l^^, Ph 3«). there
may be a zeal for God, not according to knowledge
(Ro 10=).
But even legitimate anger may readily pass
into a sin. Passions beyond the control of the
rational self can hardly be justified, whatever the
cause. Self-control is a cardinal Christian virtue.
Hence the apostolic caution of Eph 4=*, 'Be ye
angry and sin not,' i.e. if angry, as one may rightiy
be, do not allow the passion to become an evil by
its excess. The wrath against which the waminK
is given seems indicated by the foUo\ving clause —
• let not the sun go down on your rapopyurfuit ' (' a
noun which differs from dpfyri in denoting, not the
disposition of anger, or an^er in a lasting mood, but
exasperation, sudden violent anger' [Salmond]).
Tiiere is no reference to deliberate indignation on
a matter of principle, such as the resentment which,
the author of Ecce Homo claims, was felt by Jesus
towards the Pharisees to the end of His life.
2. DiYine anger. — Most minds must have felt
the objection expressed by Origen, Augustine, and
the Neo-Platonist theologians generally, that we
cannot treat the Supreme as a magnih^ man and
attribute to Him such perturbation of mind as is
suggested to us by the term ' anger.' But we may
allow — and must do so unless we are prepared to
deny personality in God — that the quality, which
we find expressed under human conditions as the
righteous anger of a good man, must exist in God,
although in a form which we cannot adequately
conceive, owing to our inability to realize absolute
conditions. We may be helped to some extent by
recognizing that behind the human agitations of
personality in love, pity, indignation, etc., there are
certain principles and attitudes which no more
depend for their quality on the element of agita-
tion than the existence of steam depends upon the
appearance of white vapour which we ordinarily
associate with it. This underlying quality we
may attribute to the Deity, in whom life and per-
sonality, here expressed only in finite and con-
ditioned forms, have their perfect and unconditioned
being (Lotze).
The objection that anger, unlike love, is nn-
worthy of the highest moral personality (Marcion)
may be met by the answer that Divine love and
anger are not two opposing principles, but ex-
pressions of the one attitude towards contrary
sets of human circumstances. The IKvine anger
is actually involved in the Divine love (Tertullian,
Martensen, etc.). The one Lord whose name is
Truth and Love is, because of this, a consuming
flame to wrong (He lO'i 12'^).
The idea of the ' Divine anger ' — this attitude of
Deity towards certain courses of human life — is a
justifiable inference from the intuitions of con-
science, but another and an unsound argument
played a part in the historical formation of the doc-
trine. In the early stages of religious thought the
conception of the wrath of Gkni would naturally
come to men's minds from contemplation of the ills
of human life. The chieftain punished those with
whom he was angry, either by direct action or by
withholding his protection. Did not, then, physical
calamities, pestilences, reverses of fortune, defeat
in battle, indicate the displeasure of Deity (Jos 7,
2 S 21^ 24, etc.)? Such misfortune, when no
ethical cause could be recognized, would en-
courage the doctrine of imwitting and non-ethical
offences {e.g. the violation of tabu) and of non-
ethical propitiation. The ills of life — especially
death — suggested later a world lying under a curse,
due to Adam's sin. Against the popular doctrine
that misfortune indicated Divine displeasure, the
Book of Job is a protest. Human suffering has
educative values, and does not necessarily indicate
the disapproval of God (He 1^-).
Yet even in early times the idea of the Divine
anger did not restVhoUy on the facts of human
suflering. Men realized that the world, as they
found it, was not in harmony viith their conceptions
of the Highest, and thus in times of prosperity,
which, according to tliis theory, would indicate
God's contentment with His people, prophets such
as Amos argued for coming doom. From the con-
sciousness of the holiness of God it was inferred
that there must be Divine displeasure.
The turning atoay of the Divine anger. — Two
64
ANGER
ANGER
attitudes in regard to this problem appear among
the Hebrews, even as early as the 8th cent. B.C.
The prophets of that period ' do not recognize the
need of any means of reconciliation with God
after estrangement by sin other than repentance '
(Hos 14^ Am d'^-"*. Is V'- ", Mic 6«-8). On the
other hand, while repentance was always insisted
upon by Israel's religious teachers, there was a
tendency to assert the need of supplementary
means in order to bring about the reconciliation of
God and man. The conception may have origin-
ated in the practice of oflering a propitiatory gift
or legal compensation to an outraged person
(Gn 2016 32'8; cf. 1 S 26^\ 2 S 2i^*>'), or in the
primitive view of sin as having a material exist-
ence of its own which called for an appropriate
ritual treatment beyond the mental change of
repentance, or in the customs of Levitical ' sin-
ofierings,' which, although originally made in view
of ceremonial faults, for which ethical repentance
was strictly impossible, must have come to suggest
that, in addition to repentance, a sacrificial opera-
tion was needful even in cases of moral trans-
gression.
From the period of the Exile, prayer, fasting,
almsgiving, and especially the sufferings of tlie
righteous, were regarded as substitutes for material
sacrilices (see art. ' Atonement ' in JE). Is 53 is
the 'earliest expression of a conception [viz. the
atoning value of the suflerings of pious men] which
attained wide development in later times and con-
stantly meets us in the teaching of the Jewish
synagogues' (O. Whitehouse). One of the seven
brothers, during the persecutions of Antiochus
Epiphanes, prays that ' in me and my brothers,
the wrath of the Almighty may be appeased*
(2 Mac 7*^). 4 Mac 6^ gives a prayer, ' Let my
blood serve for purification, and as an equivalent
for their life {6,vtI\I/vxov) take my own' (cf. 4 Mac
111 924 1720-22 i84)_ These passages supply an inter-
esting link between the old Leviticism and the
NT doctrine of the sacrificial death of Jesus.
The doctrine of propitiation receives no support
from the teaching of Jesus as given in the Synoptics.
Repentance and new life are the conditions of the
restoration of the Divine favour. Jesus does not
appear to have ever taught that reconciliation
depended upon His own death as a propitiation
(see DCG, art. ' Sacrifice '), although He did teach
that the spiritual ministration involved suffering
and sacrifice, so that the death of Jesus might
be figuratively regarded as a ' ransom for many '
(Mk 1(F-**). Moreover, the teaching of Jesus is
not favourable to the view that legal right claims
a compensation beyond repentance, before the
Father will forgive. The moral of the parables of
the Prodigal and the Labourers (cf. Lk 23*^) is that
forensic conceptions are altogether inappropriate
in the religious sphere. Harmony with God is a
matter of attitude, not of purchase or compensation.
The teaching of the Acts of the Ajiostles agrees
with that of the Synoptics. There is no hint in
the early preaching of the Church, as recorded in
this work, of a propitiatory value in the death of
Jesus. Jesus is, indeed, described as a 'Saviour,'
but in the sense that He gives 'repentance to
Israel and remission of sins (Ac 5"), i.e. He is
able to bring about a change in the hearts of men,
and, in accordance with prophetic teaching, pardon
follows repentance (cf. the description of tlie
preaching of the Baptist, as that of ' repentance
unto remission of sins,' Mk 1*).
But, with the exception of the authors of the
Synoptics, the Acts, and the Epistle of James,
the writers of the NT are strongly influenced by
the propitiatory theory of the death of Jesus. Tlie
passage of the ' Suffering Servant ' (Is 53*^ '"•) sug-
gested a doctrine which seemed to throw light
upon the ignominious death of Jesus upon the
Cross. The ' stumbling-block ' to the Jewish mind
became the Christian's boast. How the sacrifice
was regarded as operating is not clear — the analogy
of Levitical blood sacrifices was evidently some-
times in the mind of the writers (Ro 3", 1 P 1",
Jn 1=**, etc.). St. Paul also holds the idea that the
death of Jesus is a sign of His human submission
to the elemental world-powers of darkness, who,
since Adam, have held the world under their
grievous rule ( HDB, art. ' Elements ' ; also Wrede,
Pavl, Eng. tr., 1907, p. 95). But, being more
than man, He rises from the dead. The Resur-
rection is a sign that Death — one of the elemental
principalities and powers, and representative of
the rest — has no longer dominion over Him
(Ro 6*), or over those in ' faith ' union with Him.
But these ' world-powers of darkness,' whose dues
the death of Jesus was conceived as satisfying, are
but a thinly disguised form of God's retribution
for Adam's sin. Ultimately the propitiation is
still made to God, although the emphasis is drawn
from the wrath of God to the love which inspired
the propitiatory action (cf. Jn 3^', Ro 3** 5^ etc.).
From this point, St. Paul follows the anti-legal
teaching of Jesus in asserting that ' justification —
right relations with God — depends on the new
attitude of ' faith,' not on ' works ' ; but legalism
with St. Paul must be satisfied by the prior trans-
action of Jesus on the Cross.
The diflBculty in the doctrine of propitiation does
not lie in the fact that no ultimate distinction can
be made between the Power to whom propitiation
is offered and the God of love who offers it. Inde-
pendently of the interests of this particular doctrine,
we must accept the paradox that the same God
who works under the limitation of law ordains the
law which limits Him. But we cannot accept the
interpretation of the death of Jesus as an exalted
Levitical blood sacrifice, or as a transaction with the
' world-powers of darkness,' nor can we be satisfied
with a presentation of an angry God, who needs
compensation or some mollifying gift before He will
turn away the fierceness of His wrath. The sacri-
fices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and con-
trite heart He will not despise (Ps 51'^). It would
seem more satisfactory to follow the su<fgestions
of the Synoptics and tne Acts, and find the recon-
ciling work of Jesus, as directed not towards God.
but towards men, bringing about in them a repent-
ance which makes possible their harmonious rela-
tions with the Father.
The death of Jesus may be regarded partly as a
vicarious sacrifice of the order recognized in the
Synoptics — sufi'eringand self-denial for the sake of
the Kingdom of God, for conscience, and men's
uplifting. The justification of this law of sacrifice
('Ever by losses the right must gain, Every good
have its birth of pain ' [Whittier, The Preacher])
is that it makes possible the exi>ro!?.sion of moral
qualities. In order that love may liave significance,
it must pay a price— must be written upon a hard
resisting world, as labour and self-denial. This
demand of law is obviously not indicative of Divine
displeasure or ojjposition.
The death of Jesus may also be regarded as part
of the penalty of human sin. If men had not been
selfish, hypocritical, apathetic to goodness and
justice, there would not have been the tragedy on
Calvary. In virtue of race solidarity, tlie sins of
an evil and adulterous generation fell upon Him.
This dark law — that the innocent must suffer the
results of transgression along with the guilty — has
an educative value in demonstrating the evil and
disastrous nature of sin, which is doubly terrible
since the suffering which it creates falls ujwn the
just as well as upon the unjust, sometimes even
more upon the former than upon the latter. The
AXGER
AKOINTLN'G
65
penalty of sin indicates the Divine displeasure
towards sin, but not necessarily towards those who
pay the penalty, for obviously God cannot be con-
ceived as being angry with innocent sufferers,
involved in the results of others' sins. Neither
must we regard (Jod as angry with a repentant
sinner because he continues to reap what he has
sown. The forgiveness of sin is distinct from
the cancelling of its results, which, in accord-
ance with educative moral law, must run their
course.
One's trust in the forgiveness of Grod rests upon
the sense of the divinity of human forgiveness —
' By all that He requires of me, I know what God
Himself must be' (Whittier, Revelation). If we
must judge the anger of God from the righteous
indignation of a good man, we cannot think of
His cherishing any vindictiveness, or needing any
propitiation to induce Him to forgive, when the
sinner seeks His face. Nor can a vie%y of recon-
ciliation held by the most sternly ethical of the
OT prophets, and by the purest soul of the NT,
be considered as weakening the sense of sin, and
minimizing the grace of pardon.
The Day of Wrath. — From the time of Amos,
OT prophetism had conceived a darker side to
Israel's still more ancient conception of the Day
of the Lord. It would be a time when human
wrongdoing, much of which was apparently over-
looked in this age, would receive its sure reward,
although genuine repentance would apparently
avert the coming anger (Jl 2, Am 5*^, Jer 18*).
That 'great and notable Day' (Ac 2^), with its
darker aspects, entered largely into NT thought
(Mt 3^ 7^, Lk 10'2, 2 Th 1^, etc.). It is to this
coming Dies Irce that the actual term ' wrath of
God ' (opyjj Tov deov) is almost uniformly applied by
NT writers. Some of the Divine indignation may
be manifested in the present operation of moral
law — the penalties experienced by the ungodly
heathen seem to be part of the Divine wrath
which ' is being revealed ' {dTOKaX&rreTai) from
heaven (Ro V^) ; and, according to 13^, the
temporal ruler punishing evil-doers is ' a minister
of God, an avenger for (Divine) wrath,' i.e. a
himian instrument carrying out in this age the
Divine retribution. But the emphasis is upon
'the ^vrath to come.' In the present age, moral
law only imperfectly operates. The sinner is
treasuring up for himself ' wrath in the day of
wrath ' (Ro 2*), when upon every soul that worketh
e^-il shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation
and anguish (v.^; cf. Rev IP* 6^®- ^^ where the
Divine anger is spoken of as ' the wrath of the
Lamb'). Repentance before the Day of Wrath
will save one from the coming doom (Ac 2^^ **• *,
Eph 2*), and the provision of these days of grace
modifies the conception of the Divine sternness
(Ro 9^). The 'Law,' in making transgression
possible, ' worketh wrath ' (Ro 4^'), but Chiist, by
His reconciliation of man and God, delivers the
believer from the 'wrath to come' (1 Th 1^° 5^).
The NT significance of opyrj 6eod is illustrated in
Ro 5®, where St. Paul argues from the fact of
present reconciliation with God that the saints
vrill be delivered from the 'wrath of God.' Even
where the Divine anger is described as having
already had its manifestation, the reference may
really be eschatological (Ritschl). The aorist of
1 Th 2^* {itpdacrep 5i e-r avroi/s ij dfrpj etj t^os) seems
to indicate that, in the Apostle's judgment, some
historical manifestation of Grod's wrath upon the
Jews has already taken place, but St. Paul may
regard such an indication of the Divine anger as
the preliminary movements of the Day of Wrath.
The clouds were already gathering for that con-
summation which the Apostle was expecting in
his own lifetime (1 Th 4^).
VOL. I. — 5
,— A. Ritschl, <U Ira Dei, Bonn, 1859, Jiutifiea-
tMMmmm^ AUmemuU, Eng. tr., Edinborgfa, 1900; R. W. Dale,
The Atonemenf, London, 1S78 ; D. W. Simon, Bedemplum qf
Marfi, do. 1906 ; O. Lodge, Manand tkt Unumtt da 1908, etw.
7 *nd 8 : P. Gardner, Saaloratio Bvangdiea, da 18B9, cbM, 29,
31. For human anger : J. Butler's Sermoiu, 8 and 9 ; J. R.
Seeley, EeeeHomo, 1866, pp. il-23 ; ToUtoi,&aayt and LeUen,
ch- 12. H. BULCOCK-
ANNAS (Gr. 'Arrat, Heb. jjn, 'merciful' pn
Josephus, Ananos"]). — Annas the son of Sethi, ap-
pointed high priest by Quirinius in A.D. 6 or 7,
retained office till he was deposed by Valerius
Gratus in A.D. 15 (Jos. Ant. XVIU. ii. 1, 2).
Josephus tells us that he was regarded as the most
fortunate of men, for he had five sons who all held
the office of high priest (Ant. XX. is.. 1). From
the Fourth Grospel we leam that Joseph Caiaphas,
the high priest at the date of the Crucifixion, was
a son-in-law of Annas ( Jn 18^^). His removal from
office in A.D. 15 did not by any means diminish hia
influence. Being extremely wealthy, he was able
to exert the powers of high priest long after he
was deposed. His wealth and that of his sons
was acquired by the institution of the * booths or
bazaars of the sons of Annas,' which enjoyed the
monopoly for the sale of all kinds of sacrificial
requirements. These booths were situated either
in the temple court (Keim, Jesus of Nazara, v.
116; Edersheim, LT iii. 5) or on the Mount of
Olives (J. Derenbourg, Essai sur Fhistoire . . . dela
Palestine, 1867, p. 465). The words of Jesus re-
garding the unholy traffic (Mt 21^, Lk 19«) aroused
the hostility of the priestly party and 1^ to His
arrest and examination by Annas ( Jn 18^*"-^). The
Talmud accuses the sons of Annas of ' serpentlike
hissings' (or whisperings [Pes. 57a]). Probably
the meaning is that they exerted private influ-
ence on the judges and perverted justice for their
own ends. Their attitude towards Jesus and the
apostles as revealed in the NT seems to bear out
this interpretation. Although, as we have seen,
Annas was deposed from the high-priestly office in
A.D. 15, he retains the title all through the NT.
Both Josephus and the writers of the NT uniformly
give the title ' high priest ' not only to the actual
occupant of the office at the time, but to all his
predecessors who were stUl alive, as well as to all
the more influential members of the families from
which the high priests were selected. The phrase
in Lk 3' 'in the high-priesthood of Annas and
Caiaphas' is unique, and may be accounted for
by the fact that the combination had become so
familiar in connexion with the history of the
Crucifixion that St. Luke couples the two to-
gether here (Ewald, HI, vol. vL [1883] p. 430,
n. 3).
The important and influential position held by
Annas even after his deposition is proved by the
fact that it was to him that Jesus was first sent
before He appeared at the more formal tribunal of
the Sanhedrin ( Jn 18"). The interview with Annas
(Jn 18'*-^) determined the fate of the prisoner, and
probablv Annas was the chief instigator in com-
passing'the death. In Ac 4^ Annas again appears
as the head of the party who tried the apostles
and enjoined them to keep sUent about the
Resurrection.
LrrBEATTRK.— Josephus, AnIiquitiM, fattim; A. Ed«-
heim, LT \. [1886] 263 ; T. Keim. Jenu of Sazam, 1887-1882,
tL 36ff. ; E. Schfirer, <?yF* iL [1907] 256, 270, 274,276.
W. F. BOYD.
AKNIHILATION.— See Eschatology.
ANOINTING.— Anointing was used in antiquity
in three chief connexions: (1) as a part of the
toilet, to beautifv, strengthen, and refresh the
body ; (2) medicinally ; (3) as a part of religious
ceremonial. From the last-named sprang (4) the
use of terms of anointing in a metaphorical sense
66
AKOmTtNG
ANSWER
to signify, e.g., the imparting of the Divine Spirit,
whether to the Messiah or to the Christian dis-
ciple.
1. So far as the first use is concerned, examples
within our period may be found in the anointing
of the Lord's feet (Lk T'®- *«, Jn 12=*) and in Mt 6'^
' anoint thy head, and wash thy face.'
2. Instances of the second occur in Jn 9*- ",
Rev 3'* 'eyesalve to anoint thine eyes,' and are
generally found in Mk 6^' ' they anointed with oil
many that were sick, and healed them,' and Ja 5'*
' Is any among you sick ? let him call for the elders
of the church ; and let them pray over him, anoint-
ing him with oil in the name of the Lord.' The
commentators on these texts generally quote pass-
ages to prove that the use of oil was well known
in medicine, and leave it to be understood that the
apostles in the Gospel and the elders in the Epistle
are thought of as making use of the simplest neal-
ing remedy known to them. This method of in-
terpretation does not seem satisfactory, because
the parallels quoted do not bear out the point. In
Is 1* and Lk 10^* oil is used as a remedy for
wounds, not for internal sickness. Herod in his
last illness was placed in a bath of warm oil (Jos.
BJ I. xxxiii. 5), but this was only one amongst
several methods of treatment used in his case, and
was no doubt employed because of the open and
running sores on his body. Galen {Med. Temp.,
bk. ii. ) speaks of oil as the * best of medicines for
withered and dry bodies,' but that does not mean
that he would have advocated the indiscriminate
use of oil in cases of sickness due to various causes.
Philo's praise of oil for imparting vigour to the
flesh (Somn. ii. 8) must not be pressed into an advo-
cacy of it as a panacea against all forms of dis-
ease. It must remain doubtful whether the two
NT passages can be reasonably understood to mean
that oil was used as a simple medical remedy with-
out deeper signification.
3. The use of anointing in religious ceremony
was very varied. It was applied both to persons —
as, e.g., to the kings and high priests— and to in-
animate things. This is not the place to investi-
gate the original signification of the act of anoint-
ing in religious ceremonies (see Robertson Smith,
Rel. Sem.\ 1894, pp. 233, 383 ; ERE, HDB, SDB,
EBi, art. \ Anointing '), but it seems clear that it
came to signifj'- the consecration of persons and
things to the service of God, and also the com-
munication to, e.g., the kings, of the Divine Spirit
(see E. Kautzsch, in HDB v. 659). That is to say,
anointing had in part the nature of a sacrament.
And it seems probable that something of this sort
underlies the passages Mk 6^*, Ja 5'*. The anoint-
ing oil was not merely medicinal, but consecrated
the patient to God, and, together with prayer, was
the means of conveying to him the Divine healing
life. We may compare a passage in the Secrets of
Enoch (22^), where Enoch, when carried into the
presence of God, is anointed with holy oil, with
the result (56^) that he needs no food, and is purged
from earthly passions.
4. Instances of the metaphorical use of anoint-
ing to signify the communication of the Divine
Spirit are to be found in 1 Jn 2^''- ^ ' ye have an
anointing from the Holy One,' 'his anointing
teacheth you all things.' ' Anointing ' here means
the material, not the act, of anointing, and so the
grace of the Holy Spirit. The same metaphorical
use is found in 2 Co P', 'He that hath anointed
us is God ' ; and in the passages in which Christ is
spoken of as having been anointed, Ac 4" 10^,
He 1" (OT quot.). A passage in the recently dis-
covered Odes of Solomon (36'), ' He hath anointed
me from his own perfection,' may be referred to
here. It is uncertain whether the speaker is Christ
or the Christian. Allusions to a custom of anoint-
ing dead bodies are found in Mk 14* and the
parallels, and in Mk 16'.
Lastly, reference should be made to the absten-
tion from anointing by the Essenes (Jos. BJ II.
viii. 3). This is explained by Schiirer (HJP II.
ii. 212) as a part of an attempt to return to the
simplicity of nature ; by Bousset {Rel. des Jud.^,
Berlin, 1906, p. 442) as a protest against the priest-
hood, whose authority rested upon anointing.
LiTEEATURB. — See the artt. 'Anointing' in ERE, HDB, and
EBi ; and, for the development of the doctrine of Extreme
Unction in the Church, J. B. Mayor on Ja 5i* (Ep. of St,
Jamea^, 1910); see also ExpT xvii. [190C] 418 fl., and the
literature there cited. WILLOUGHBY C. ALLEN.
ANSWER. — Passing over the very large number
of occurrences of this word in the common sense of
' reply ' {dwoKpbofiai, dirdKpio-n), there are one or two
interesting usages to note before we come to the
most theologically significant use of the term.
Thus in Tit 2* slaves are enjoined not to ' answer
again' (AV; RV 'gainsay,' avnX^yu); in Gal 4**
' this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answer-
eth to {i.e. ' corresponds with,' o-wrotx^w) the Jeru-
salem that now is ' ; in Ro 11* St. Paul, discussing
the despair of Elijah, asks ' What saith the answer
{XpvfJ-0'Ti<T/j.6s, ' Divine oracle') of God unto him ?'
The passages Avith which we are most concerned,
however, are those which speak of tlie Christian
answer or 'defence' (so usually in RV) against
critics from within or Avithout the Church (oto-
Xoy^ofiai, diroXoyia). In the life of St. Paul we have,
e.g. , his ' answer' or apologia before Felix (Ac 24'""^),
before Festus (25^°'-), and before Agrippa (26'*'').
The charges brought against him were tliat he had
incited the people to sedition (24' 25^), that he had
profaned the Temple (24*), and that he was a ring-
leader of the Sect of the Nazarenes (24'). His
defence was skilfully directed in each case to the
rebutting of the charges, to the conciliation of his
judges, and to the demand that as a Roman citizen
he should be tried before Ca?sar. Before Agrippa
and Festus he defended himself so successfully that
they agreed that, if he had not appealed to Coesar,
he might have been set at liberty, out having made
the appeal he could no longer withdraw. In 2 Ti
4'® St. Paul is represented as complaining that at
his ' first answer ' (before Ca?sar) no man took his
part, but that ' all men forsook him ' (cf . 1"). "With
these instances may be compared the remarkable
' answer ' of St. Stephen before the Sanhedrin (Ac 7).
Of probably even greater interest than these
defences before civil tribunals are St. Paul's
answers to those who denied his Apostleship,
the Judaizers who followed him from place to
place and attempted to undermine his teacliing
and influence among his converts in his absence —
a fact to which we largely owe the letters to the
Galatians and the Corinthians, or at least the
most characteristic and polemical portions of them.
The same or other enemies charged him with
inconsistency (1 Co ICF*" etc.), and brought other
charges against him (11^- "-^ 1 Co 9^), such as
the charge of being mean in appearance (10""^**),
of being rude of speech (11*), of being a visionary
(12^), and of other things not mentioned, which
evidently inspired certain obscure references
tliroughout these chapters. St. Paul's apologia
meets these charges with a vehement assertion of
his innocence, of his full Apostleship, of his com-
petency to utter forth the gospel from fullness of
Knowledge (11*), and of his abundant sufferings and
self-denial for the sake of his converts. The large
space given to these apologies and personal re-
joinders is remote from our modern habit of
mind, but it should be borne in mind that every
educated man in these days was expected by the
Greeks to be ready to take free part in polemics
AXTICHRIST
AimCHRIST
67
of this kind, and to defend himself vigorously
against attack. In 1 P 3" we have the well-known
injunction to be 'readv always to give answer to
every man that asketh you a reason concerning
the hope that is in you,' whether before a judge or
in informal conversation — which should probably
be interpreted in this sense. In v.*^ of the same
chapter ' the answer (AV) of a good conscience
towards God' is a difficult phrase, and the com-
mentaries should be consulted, i-refulrrrma can
hardly mean 'answer,' and the RV translates
' interrogation ' (see a long note in Huther in
Meyer s Com. pp. 192-197). C. Bigg (ICC, in loc.)
interprets it of the baptismal question or demand.
The Epistle to the Hebrews has been called ' the
first Christian apology,' in the sense of a definite
and reasoned defence of the Christian faith and
position. It had its forerunners in the speeches of
St. Paul already referred to, and its successors in
the long line of Ante-Nicene 'apologies,' of which
those of Justin Martyr and Tertullian are two
outstanding examples.
LiTBKATURS. — ConuD. OD the passages cited; E. F. Scott,
The Apoiogetie of the Sew TestaaiaU, 1907 ; H. M. Gwatkin,
Earlff Church Bistory, 1909, ch. xL, uid siiiular works ; W. M.
Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, St. Paul
the TracelUr and Roman Citizen, 1895 ; T. R. Glover, The
■Conjliet of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, 1909.
K Griffith Jones.
ANTICHRIST (awxpurros).— The word is found
in the NT only in 1 Jn 2i«- ^ i\ 2 Jn'', but the
idea further appears in the Gospels, the Pauline
Epistles, and above aU in the Apocalypse. It
is not, however, an idea original to Christianity,
but an adaptation of Jewi^ conceptions which,
as Bousset has shown (The Antichrist Legend),
had developed before the time of Christ into a
full-grown Antichrist legend of a hostile counter-
Sart of the Messiah who would make war against
[im but whom He would finally overthrow. The
!NT references to the subject cannot be rightly
appreciated without some previous consideration
of the corresponding ideas that were present in
Judaism before they were taken over by Chris-
tianity.
1. The Antichrist of Judaism. — Although the
word ' Antichrist ' does not occur tUl we come to
the Johannine Epistles, we have many evidences
in pre-Christian Jewish literature, canonical and
extra-canonical, that there was a widely spread
idea of a supreme adversary who should rise up
against God, His Kingdom and people, or His
Messiah. The strands that went to the composi-
tion of the idea were various and strangely inter-
woven, and much obscurity still hangs over the
subject. But it seems possible to distinguish
three chief influences that went to the shaping of
the Jewish conception as it existed at the time of
Christ.
(1) Earliest of aU was the ancient dragon-myth
of the Babylonian Creation-epic, with its represent-
ation of the struggle of Tiamat, the princess of chaos
and darkness, against Marduk, the god of order
and light. The myth appears to have belonged
to the common stock of Semitic ideas, and must
have become familiar to the Hebrews from their
earliest settlement in Canaan, if indeed it was not
Eart of the ancestral tradition carried with them
rom their original Aramaean home. In any case,
it would be re\-ived in their minds through their
close contact with the Babylonian mythology
during exilic and post-exilic times. Traces of
this dragon-myth appear here and there in the
OT, e.g. in the story of the Temptation in Gn 3,
where, as in Rev 12* '2flr, the serpent = the dragon;
and in the later apocalyptic literature a dragon
represents the hostile powers that rise up in
opposition to God and His Kingdom (Pss. Sol. ii.
29). But it was characteristic of the forward look
of Prophetism and Messianism that the idea of a
conflict between God and the dragon was trans-
ferred from cosmogony to eschatology and repre-
sented as a culminating episode of tne last days
(Is 27S Dn 7).
(2) Side by side with the dragon-myth must be
set the Beliar (Belial) conception, a contribution
to Jewish thought from the side of Persian dualism,
with its idea of an adversary in whom is embodied
not merely, as in the Babylonian Creation-story,
the natural forces of chaos and darkness, but all
the hostile powers of moral eviL In 1 Ch 21^
Satan is evidently represented as God's adversary,
just as we find him in later Jewish and primitive
Christian thought. And in the interval between
OT and XT Beliar is frequently used as a synonym
for Satan, the DevU or arch-demon (e.g. Jubilees,
15 ; cf. 2 Co 6*'). The Beliar idea was a much
later influence than the dragon-myth, for Baby-
lonian religion oflers no real parallel to a belief in
the Devil, and Cheyne's suggested derivation of
the name from Beltli, the goddess of the under
world (EBi, art. ' Belial '), has little to recommend
it. But a subsequent fusion of Beliar with the
dragon was very natural, and we have a striking
illustration of it when in Wis 2^ and elsewhere
the serpent of the Temptation is identified with
the Devil. Cf. Rev 12* 20^, where *the dragon,
the old serpent,' is explained to be ' the Devil and
Sat-an.'
(3) But the development of the Messianic hope in
Jndaism was s more determinative influence than
either of those already mentioned. The Jewish
Antichrist was very far from being a mere pre-
cipitate of Babylonian mythology and Iranian
eschatology. It was, above aU, a counterpart of
the Messianic idea, as that was derived from the
prophets and evolved under the experiences of
Jewish national history. Ezekiel's prophecy of
the overthrow of Gog and Magog (Ezk 38) ;
Zechariah's vision of the destruction of the de-
stroyers of Jerusalem (Zee 14) ; above all, the repre-
sentation in Daniel, with reference to Antiochus
Epiphanes, of a world-power that waxed great
even to the host of heaven (Dn 8^"), and trod the
sanctuary under foot (v."), and stood up against
the Prince of princes untU it was finally ' broken
Avithout hand (v.**) — all contributed to the idea
of a great coming conflict with the powers of a
godless world before the Divine Kingdom could
be set up. And when, by a process of synthesis,
the scattered elements of Messianic prophecy
began to gather round the figure of a personal
Messiah, a King who should represent Jahweh
upon earth, it was natural that the various utter-
ances of OT prophecy regarding an evil power
which was hostUe to Grod and His Kingdom and
people should also be combined in the conception
of a personal adversary. Fzekiel's frequent re-
ferences to GJog (chs. 38, 39) would lend them-
selves to this, and so would the picture in Daniel
of the little horn magnifying itself even against
the prince of the host (8^^). And the preoccupa-
tion of the later Judaism with utterances like
these, sharpened as it was by hatred of the
heathen conquerors not merely as political enemies
but as enemies of Jahweh and His Kingdom,
would render all the easier that process of per-
sonalizing an Antichrist over against the Christ
which appears to have completed itself within the
sphere of Judaism (cf. Apoc. Bar. 40, Asc. Is. 4^").
2. Antichrist in the NT.— Deriving from Judaism,
Christianity would naturally carry the Antichrist
tradition with it as part of its infieritance. That
it actually did so Bousset has shown by a com-
prehensive treatment of the later Christian exe-
getical and apologetic literature, which eWdently
rests on a tradition that is only partially dependent
68
ANTICHRIST
ANTICHRIST
on the NT (op. cit. ; cf. EBi i. 180 ff.)- But, so
far as the NT is concerned, the earlier Antichrist
tradition is taken over with important changes, due
to}the difierences between Judaism and Christianity,
and especially to the differences in tlieir conception
of the Messiah Himself. At the same time it must
be noticed that nothing like a single consistent pre-
sentation of the Antichrist idea is given by the
NT as a whole. Elements of the conception appear
in the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, the Apocalypse,
and the Joliannine Epistles ; but in each group of
writings it is treated diti'erently and with more or
less divergence from the earlier Jewish forms.
(\) In the Gospels. — In the Synoptic Gospels it
is everywhere apparent that Jesus recognized the
existence of a kingdom of evil under tne control
of a supreme personality, variously called the
Devil (Mt 41 13^, etc.), Satan (Mt 410 1226, Lk jqis^
etc.), or Beelzebub (Mt 122^il), who sought to
interfere with His own Messianic mission (4^"" IG^^H),
and whose works He had come to destroy (Mk 1^^ ^
311. 12. 18^ etc. ; cf . He 2'*). But from all the crude and
materialistic elements of the earlier tradition His
teaching is entirely free. In the reference to the
' abomination of desolation ' standing in the holy
place (Mt 24"> ; cf. Mk 13", Lk 21^), which occurs
m the great eschatological discourse, some critics
have seen a parallel to 2 Th l^'^' and an evident
allusion to the Jewish Antichrist tradition ; but
they do so on the presumption that the words
were not spoken by Jesus Himself and are to be
attributed to a redactor of the original source. If
they were uttered by our Lord, it seems most pro-
balile that they portended not any apocalypse of a
personal Antichrist, but the destruction of Jerusalem
bv the Roman armies — a calamity which He had
already foreshadowed as coming upon the city
because of its rejection of Himself (23^^'*). For the
adversaries of the Son of Man, the real representa-
tives of the Antichrist spirit in His eyes, were the
false Christs and false prophets by whom many
should be deceived (24'>- ^) — in other words, the
champions of that Avorldly idea of the coming
Kingdom which He had always rejected (Mt 4"^
1623, Jn 6^^), but to which the Jewish nation
obstinately clung.
(2) In the PaiUine Epistles. — A familiarity on
the part of St. Paul with the Antichrist tradition
is suggested when he asks in 2 Co 6'*, * What con-
cord hath Christ with Belial ? ' and when he speaks
in Col 2'" of Christ triumphing over 'the princi-
palities and powers.' This familiarity becomes
evident in 'the little apocalypse' of 2 Th 2^-^-,
where he introduces the figure of the ' man of sin,'
or more correctly 'man of lawlessness.' Nestle
has shown (ExpT xvi. [1904-5] 472) that the
Beliar-Satan conception underlies this whole
passage, with its thought of an opponent of Christ,
or Antichrist, whom the Lord at last shall ' slay
with the breath of his mouth and bring to nought
by the manifestation of his coming ' (v.^). But the
distinctive character of this Pauline view of the
Antichrist is that, while features in the picture
are evidently taken from the description of
Antiochus Epiphanes in Daniel (cf. v.* with
Dn 1^ 11"), the Antichrist is conceived of, not
after the ftishion of the later Judaism as a heathen
potentate and oppressor, but as a false Messiah
from within the circle of Judaism itself, who is to
work by means of false signs and lying wonders,
and so to turn men's hearts away irom that love
of the truth which brings salvation (v.*). See,
further, MAN OF SiN.
(3) In the Apocalypse. — As follows naturally both
from its subject and from its literary form, the
Apocalypse is more permeated than any other book
in the NT with the idea of the Antichrist. For
its subject is the speedy return of Christ to subdue
His enemies and set up His Kingdom (Rev 1' 2^' 3",
etc.), and its form is an adaptation to Christianity
of the ideas and imagery or those Jewish Apoca-
lypses, from Daniel onwards, which were chiefly
responsible for the growtli of the Christian Anti-
christ conception. It would be out of place to
enter here into any discussion of the conflicting
interpretations of the symbolism of the dragon and
the beasts that appear and reappear from ch. 11
to the end of the book (see artt. Apocalypse,
Dragon). But in ch. 11 'the beast that cometh
up out of the abyss ' was evidently suggested by
the dragon-myth as embodied in the Jewish Anti-
christ tradition, while the ' great red dragon ' of
12*, Avho is also described as ' the old serpent, he
that is called the Devil and Satan ' (v."), and who
is clearly represented as the Antichrist (vv.*- ^' "),
reproduces both the mythical dragon and the later
Beliar-Satan conception, now fused into one ap-
palling figure. Again, the scarlet-coloured beast
of 13^'''° and the realm of the beast in ch. 17 are
described in language which recalls the apocalyptic
imagery of Daniel (see esp. ch. 7), and clearly
applies to a hostile and persecuting world-power
represented by its ruler. In Daniel that power
was the kingdom of the Seleucidse under Antioclius
Epiphanes ; here it is very plainly indicated as
the Roman Empire (173-9-18) with the Emperor
at its head (13*"*). But to these pre-Christian
forms of the Antichrist tradition — the dragon,
Satan, and a hostile world-power — the Apocalypse
contributes two others which are peculiar to
Christianity and which play a large part in the
Christian tradition of later times.
The first of these is found in the application to
Christian ideas of the Antichrist of the con-
temporary Nero-saga, with its dream of a Nero
Redivivus who should come back to the world from
the realms of the dead (cf. Sib. Or. iv. 11911".;
Suetonius, Nero, 47 ; Augustine, de Civ. Dei,
XX. 19). That Nero is referred to in 13^' is most
probable, the number 666 being the equivalent
of Nero Cffisar (NEPflN KAISAP) when written in
Heb. characters (nop p"u). And the legend of his
return from the under world of the dead explains
in the most natural way the healing of the beast's
death-stroke (13'*^) and the statement that it
'shall ascend out of the bottomless pit . . . and
they that dwell on the earth shall wonder when
they behold the beast, how that he was, and is not,
and shall come' (17*). See also art. Apocalypse.
The second contribution was the idea of the false
prophet (161* 1920 2010), who is to be identified with
' another beast ' of 13" "•. It is most probable that
the false prophet represents the Imperial priesthood
as propagandists of the Caesar- cult, but it seems
not unlikely that elements in the representation
are taken from the legend that had grown up
around the name of Simon Magus (cf. Justin
Martyr, Apol. i. 26, 56 ; Irenaeus, c. Eoer. i. 23).
To the early Church, Simon with his magic arts
and false miracles was the arch-heretic and the
father of all heresy, and suggestions of his legend-
ary figure loom out from the description 01 the
second beast (13""''), even while the author attri-
butes to it functions and powers that belong more
properly to the ministers of the Emperor- worship
(4) In the Johannine Epistles. — In these writings,
where the word ' Antichrist ' appears for the first
time, the idea is spiritualized as nowhere else in
the NT except in the teaching of Jesus. The
Antichrist is not, as in the Apocalypse, a material
world-power threatening the Church from without,
but a spirit of false doctrine rising up from within
(1 Jn 2^*). It is true that Antichrist is spoken of
as still to come (2^* 4*), so that some culminating
man^estation is evidently expected— probably in
AXTLXOMIAXISM
A^rriocH
69
a definite personal form. But even now, it is said,
there are many antichrists (2^® ; cf. 2 Jn '), and the
spirit of Antichrist is already in the world (1 Jn 4').
And the very essence of that spirit is the denial of
'the Father and the Son' (2^), i.e. the refusal to
acknowledge the Son as well as the Father ; more
explicitly it is the refusal to confess that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh (4- », 2 Jn '). The
spirit of Antichrist, in other words, is a spirit of
heresy — such heresy as flourished in Asia Minor
towards the close of the 1st century through the
doctrines of Cerinthus (q.v.).
When the NT utterances regarding the Anti-
christ are looked at in their variety and as a whole,
it is diflicult to derive from them any justification
for the \-iew that the Church should expect the
advent of a personal Antichrist as an individual
embodiment of evil. The NT authors were evi-
dently influenced in their treatment of the subject
by contemporary situations as well as by an inherit-
ance of ancient traditions. To St. Paul, writing
out of his own experience of Jewish persecution
and Roman justice and protection, Judaism was
the ' man of lawlessness,' and Rome the beneficent
restraining power. To the Apocalyptist, writing
to a Church which had known Nero's cruelty and
now under Domitian was passing through the
flames once more, Antichrist was the Roman
Empire represented by a ruler who was hostile to
Christianity because it refused to worship him as
a god. In the Johannine Epistles, Antichrist is
not a persecuting power but a heretical spirit,
present in the world already but destined to come
in fuller power. The ultimate authority for our
thoughts on the subject must be found in the words
of Jesus when He teaches us to pray for deliver-
ance from ' the evil one ' (Mt 6^^), and warns us
against false Christs and false prophets who pro-
claim a kingdom that is not His own (24").
Literature. — H. Gnnkel, Sehop/ung und Chaos, Gottmgen,
1S95 ; W. Bonsset, The Antichrist Lenend, Eng-. tr., London,
1696 ; W. O. E. Oesterley, The Etoluticni of the Messianic
Idea, do. 190S ; C. Clemen, Primitite Christianitt/ and its
Son-Jewiih Sources. Eng. tr.. Edinburgh, 1912; artt. 'Anti-
christ ' in PBE 3, ERE, and EBi, and ' Man of Sin ' in HBB ;
H. Cremer, Bib.-Theol. Lex., s.x. ; J. Moffatt, ' Revelation ' in
EGT ; EipT xvi. [19'>l-5] 472, xxiii. [1911-12] 97.
J. C. Lajibekt.
ANTINOMIANISM.— See Law.
IMTIOCH ('Ajrrtoxeia).— 1. In Syria.— About 20
miles from the Mediterranean, the Orontes, turning
abruptly westward, enters a fertile plain, 10 miles
long and 5 \*"ide, which separates the CTeat Lebanon
range from the last spurs of the Taurus. Here
Seleucus Nicator, after his defeat of Antigonus at
Issiis in 301 B.C., discovered an ideal site for the
capital of his Syrian kingdom, the Asiatic portion
of the vast empire of Alexander the Great, and here
he built the most famous of the 16 Antiochs which
he foTinded in honour of his father Antiochus.
Planned by Xenarius, the original city occupied
the level ground between the river and Mt. Silpius,
and, like all the Hellenistic foundations in Syria,
it had two broad colonnaded streets intersecting at
the centre, or Omphalus. The Seleucid kings vied
with one another in extending and adorning their
metropolis. A second quarter was added on the
eastern side, perhaps by Antiochus l. ; a third, the
\ New City,' was built by Seleucus Callinicus on an
island — similar to the island in the Seine at Paris
— which has since disappeared, probably owing to
one of those seismic disturbances to which the
region has always been peculiarly subject ; and a
fourth, on the lowest slopes of SUpius, was the
work of Antiochus Epiphanes. Henceforth the
city was known as a Tetrapolis, or union of four
cities (Strabo, XVI. iL 4). Such was the magnificent
Greek substitute for the ancient and beautiful but
too essentially Semitic capital of Sjrria — Damascus.
A navigable river and a fine seaport — Seleucia of
Pieria — made it practically a maritime city, while
caravan roads converging from Arabia and Meso-
potamia brought to it the commerce of the East.
It attained its highest political importance in the
time of Antiochus the Great, whose power was
shattered by the Romans at Magnesia. In 83 B.C.
it fell into the hands of Tigranes of Armenia, from
whom it was wrested by the Roman Republic in
65 B.C. Thereafter it was the capital of the pro-
vince of Syria, and the residence of the Imperial
legate. Pompey made it a civitas libera, and such
it remained till the time of Antoninus Pius, who
made it a colon ia. The early emperors often visited
it, and embellished it with new streets and public
buildings.
During the Jewish wars (69 B.a) ' Vespasian took with him
his army from Antioch, which is the metropolis of Syria, and
without dispute deserves the place of the third city in the
habitable world that is under the Roman Empire, both in
magnitude and in other marks of prosperitj- ' (Jos. BJ m. iL 4).
In the 4th cent. Chrjsostom estimated the population at 200,000,
of whom 10i),000 were then Christians, and probably he did
not reckon slaves and children.
Antioch was called 'the Beautiful' (^ koXtJ
[Athen. i. p. 20]), but its moral repute was never
high. ' In no city of antiquity was the enjoyment
of life so much the main thing, and its duties so
incidental, as in "Antioch upon Daphne," as the city
was significantly called' (Mommsen, Prov.^, 1909,
ii. 128). The pleasure-garden of Daphne, o miles
from the city, 10 raUes in circumference, with its
sanctuary of Apollo, its groves of laurel and cypress,
its sparkling fountains, its colonnades ani halls
and baths, has come down through history with
an evil name. Daphnici mores were proverbial,
and Juvenal flung one of his wittiest jibes at his
own decadent Imperial city when he said that the
Orontes had flowed into the Tiber (Sat. iii. 62),
flooding Rome with the superstition and immorality
of the East. The brilliant civilization and perfect
art of the Greek failed to redeem the turbulent,
fickle, and dissolute character of the Syrian. In-
stead of either race being improved by the contact,
each rather infected the other with itscharacteristic
vices. Cicero flattered Antioch as a city of ' most
learned men and most liberal studies ' {pro Arch.
iii.), but the sober verdict of history is ditierent.
' Amidst all this luxury the Muses did not find themselves at
home ; science in earnest and not less earnest art were never
truly cultivated in Syria and more especially in Antioch. . . .
This people valued only the day. Ko Greek region has so few
memorial-stones to show as Syria ; the great Antioch, the third
city of the empire, has— to say nothing of the land of hiero-
gU'pbics and obelisks — left behind fewer inscriptions than many
a small African or Arabian village ' (Mommsen, op. eit. 130, XZXt.').
No city, however, after Jerusalem, is so closely
associated with the Apostolic Church. From its
very foundation it had in its population a strong
Jewish element, attracted by the offer of ' privileges
equal to those of the Macedonians and Greeks ' (Jos.
Ant. XII. iii. 1). The Jewish nation ' had the great-
est multitudes in Antioch by reason of the size of
the city. . . . They made proselytes of a great
many of the Greeks perpetually, and thereby, after
a sort, brought them to be a portion of their own
body'(.BJ'vu. iii. 3). Whilethe Judaism of Antioch
did not assimilate Hellenic culture so readily as that
of Alexandria, and certainly made no such con-
tribution to the permanent thounht of the world, it
yet did much to prepare the city for the gospel.
' Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch,' who Mas early
won to Chri-stianity, and is named among the Seven
of the Jerusalem Church (Ac 6'), was evidently one
of that great number of Antiochene Greeks who had
previously felt the spell of the Jewish faith. And it
was the mixture of national elements in the Church
of Antioch — pure Greeks with Greek-speaking Jews
— that peculiarly fitted her to play a remarkable
70
AXTIOCH
ANTIOCH
part in the Apostolic Ai^e. Her distinction was
that, while unquestionably the daugliter of the
Jewish Christian community at Jerusalem, full of
filial gratitude and devotion, she became the first
Gentile Cliurch, and the mother of all the others.
The diaspora that followed the death of Stephen
brought many fugitive Jewish Christian preachers
to Antioch, and some Cypriotes and Cyrenians
among them inaugurated a new era by going beyond
the Hellenist Jews for an audience and preaching to
'the Greeks also' (Ac 11^). kolI irpb^ Toi)i"E\\r]vM
is probably the correct reading, in spite of ' many
ancient authorities' who have 'EWijno-Tcis ; other-
wise the historian's words would be singularly point-
less. The new evangelism resulted in many con-
versions (IP'), and the vigilant Church in Jerusalem
sent Barnabas down, if not to assist in the work, at
least to supervise it. It was the merit of Barnabas
that he could not be a mere onlooker. Grasping
the situation, and flinging himself impetuously
into the novel movement, he went, apparently
Avithout consulting anybody, to Tarsus to summon
Paul to his lifework. In Antioch the two men
exercised a united and fruitful ministry for a year
(1122-26) !(; ^vas at this time and in this place that
•the disciples were first called Christians' (11-^),
the designation probably coming from the lively
populace, who quickly noted the new phenomenon
m their midst, and justified their reputation for
the invention of nicknames. Their wit never spared
anybody who seemed worthy of their attention.
' The only talent which Indisputably belonged to them — their
mastery of ridicule — they exercised not merely against the
actors of their stage, but no less against the rulers sojourning
in the capital of the East, and the ridicule was quite the same
against the actor as against the emperor.' While Julian 'met
their sarcastic sayings with satirical writings, the Antiochenes
at other times had to pay more severely for their evil speaking
and their other sins ' (Mommsen, Provinces, ii. 134, 135).
But the ' Christians ' gratefully accepted the
mockin» sobriquet bestowed upon them, changing
it into tne most honourable of all titles (cf . 1 P 4"^).
And the first Gentile Church was now to become
the first missionary Church. While Antioch was
never wanting in respect for Jerusalem, contribut-
ing li1icr;i!ly to its poor in a time of famine, and
consuliin.L; its leaders in all matters of doctrine
and practice, her distinguishing characteristic was
her evangelistic originality. Her heart was not
in Juda;a but in the Roman Empire. The fresh
ideas of Christian liberty and Christian duty,
which the mother-Church at Jerusalem was slow
to entertain, found ready acceptance in the freer
atmosphere of the Syrian capital. That the
victory over Judaism was not easily won even
there is proved by the fact that not only Peter
but Barnabas vacillated under the alternate in-
fluence of cosmopolitan liberalism and Jud.i'.an
narrowness, till Paul's arguments and rebukes
convinced them of their error ((!;il 2^"'^). But
contact with the great world and syiiipathy with
its needs probably did more than the force of
reason to lighten the Antiochene Church of the
dead-weight of Judaism. Christians of Hellenic
culture and Konuin citizcn-^liii) taught her a nolile
universalism, .and it wiis .•in iiiditiLrly at the in-
stance of the Churcii of Antiudi tli;it the Council
of Jerusalem sent to the (Jeutile ((inverts a circular
letter which became the charter of spiritual freedom
(Ac 15'-^"^). Above all, it was from Antioch that
Paul started on each of his missionary journeys
(Ac lI>-» 15^ 1823), and to Antioch tli.it he returned
again and again with ]iisr('i«iit of Iresh ctmquests
(14^ IS''^). It was the nl,■l^^'l minds of Chnstian
Antioch who at length cIi.uil;!'.! the pathetic dream
of ' a light to lighten the Gcn( il(>s ' into a reality.
Antioch gave rise to a -cliool of Christian
thought which was distinguished by literal inter-
pretation of the Scriptures and insistence uiion the
human limitations of Jesus. Theodore of Mop-
suestia was one of its best representatives. Be-
tween the years 252 and 380, ten Councils were
held at Antioch. Antakiyeh is now but a meagre
town of 600 inhabitants, tliough its environs ' are
even at the present day, in spite of all neglect, a
blooming garden and one of the most charming
spots on earth' (Mommsen, ii. 129).
LiTEEATimM. — C. O. Miiller, Antiquitates Antioehenee,
Odttingen, 1839 ; Conybeare-Howson, St. Paul, London, 1872,
i. 149 flf. ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and Roman
Citizen, do. 1895, also Church in Rom. Emp., do. 1893, chs.
ii.-vii., xvi. ; A. C. McGifFert, Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897;
C. V. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, Eng. tr., London, 1897.
2. InPi8idia(Ac 13" RV,'A. ttjv Uiaidlav, ' Pisidian
Antioch,' which is the correct reading, instead of
'A. TTJs lliffioiai). — This city was probably founded
by Seleucus Nicator (301-280 B.C.) alxjut the same
time as Syrian Antioch, being another of the many
cities which he called after his father Antioohns.
It was intended as a garri^on towii aini ;i ccmie
of Hellenic influence in the liciut of Asia .Min(»r,
commanding the great trade route between Ephesus
and the Cilician Gates. Guided by Strabo's de-
scription of the place (xil. viii, 14), as standing
' on a height ' to the south of a ' backbone of
mountains, stretching from east to west,' Arundell
identified it in 1833 with the extensive ruins of
Yalowatch, on the skirts of the long Sultan Dagh,
about 3600 ft. above sea-level, overlooking the gieat
plain which is drained by the river Anthios.
After the battle of Magnesia (190 B.C.), which
cost Antioclius the Great the whole of his dominions
north of the Taurus, the Romans made Antioch a
free city. In 39 B.C. Mark Antony gave it to king
Amyntas, after whose death in 25 B.C. it became
a city of the vast Roman province of Galatla. At
some time before 6 B.C., Augustus raised it to the
rank of a colony — Pisidarum colonia Ccesarca
(Pliny, HN v. 24) — and made it the governing and
military centre of the southern half of the province.
Its importance increased when the first emperors
found it necessary to pacify the ' barbarian ' high-
landers of Pisidia. ' In the mountain-land proper
no trace of Hellenistic settlement is found, and
still less did the Roman senate apply itself to this
difficult task. Augustus did so ; and only here
in the whole Greek coast we meet a series of
colonies of Roman veterans evidently intended
to acquire this district for peaceful settlement '
(Mommsen, Provinces, i. 336f.). Roman lojuis
connected Antioch with all the other colonies
founded in the district — Olbasa, Comama, Creiuna,
Parlnis, and Lystra. The work of pacification was
in especially active progress during the reign of
Claudius (A.D. 41-54), in which St. Paul visited
Antioch. The city was not yet ' Antioch in
Pisidia' (AV), being correctly styled by Stralx>
* Antioch towards Pisidia ' ('A. i) irpbs UifftdLq. Ka\ov-
nivrj [XII. viii. 14]), in distinction from Antioch
on the Mreander ; but St. Luke already calls it
'Pisidian Antioch,' to difterentiute it from Antioch
in Syria. The boundaries of i'i>iilia j:ia(lually
moved northward till it included most (jf Southern
Plirygia, and then ' Antioch of Pisidia ' became
the usual designation of the city. At a still later
period Pisidia was constituted a Roman province,
with Antioch as its capital.
On the South-Galatian theory, in tlie form nd-
vocated by Ramsay [Church in Rom. l-linp., 74 ti. ),
Antiochisregardedby St. Luketusbelon-i' ' ' >
Plirygio-Galatic region (t^v 4>pvylav Km
Xuipac, Ac 16*), Phrj'gian being a geograjil
and Galatic a political, the one used liy i he ( .!(( ks
and the other by the Roman goveiiuuent. hi
Ac IS'** the reuion is simply called 'Phrygian,' and
if, as many tliink, 'Ipt^iav is here to be taken as a
noun, the sense is still much the same (sen Cai.atia
and Phrygia). St. Paul's first mission to Antioch
AXTIPAS
APOCALYPSE
71
was so successful that the whole jwlitical regio of
which this colony was the centre soon heard of the
new faith (Ac 13^). In no other Asian city, except
Ephesu3, was the influence of his preaching so far-
reaching. His success was no doubt in great
measure due to the strong Jewish element in the
population, even though it was Jewish persecution
that compelled him to leave the city for a time
(Ac 13**-*'). The early Seleucid kings settled
Jews in many of their cities, and gave them the
same cine rights as the Greeks, finding them to
be trusty supporters and often real Hellenizers.
Antiochus the Great settled 2000 Jewish families
in Lvdia and Phrygia (Jos. Ant. xn. iii. 4), many
of .wLom must have found a home in Antioch.
Trade doubtless attracted others to so important
a centre, and thus the Jewish leaven had been
working for a long time before Christianity was
introduced. Ramsay thinks that ' the Jews are
likely to have exercised greater political power
among the Anatolian people, with their yielding
and easily moulded minds, than in any other part
of the Roman world ' (Hist. Com. on Gal., 193) ; and
their spiritual influence was at least as great.
St. Paul found many ' devout proselytes ' in
Antioch (Ac 13^), and his presence attracted ' the
whole city' to the synagogue (IS^**). While the
native Phrygian type of religious feeling was
more eastern than western, and thus had a certain
natural affinity with the Semitic type, the Phrygian
Jews, whose laxity gave deep ofience to the rigidly
orthodox, no doubt increased their power among
their neighbours by their freedom from bigotry.
The attraction of the Jewish faith for Gentile
women (rds at^ofUvai yvpouKas, Ac 13**) was a
familiar theme in ancient writings (Juvenal, vL
543; Jos. BJ n. xx. 2) ; and the influence of
' women of honourable estate ' (tAs ci<7x^A«>»'as), not
only in Antioch but in Asia ilinor generally, is
one of the most striking features in the social life
of the country (Conybeare-Howson, St. Paul, L
219; Ramsay, Church in Bom. Emp., 67). Strabo
(loc. cit.) mentions another fact which may help
to explain the rapid progress of Christianity in
Antioch : ' In this place was established a priest-
hood of Men Arcieus, ha\-ing attached to it a
multitude of temple slaves and tracts of sacred
territory. It was abolished after the death of
Amyntas by those who were sent to settle the
succession to his kingdom.' This drastic action
of the Romans had removed one of the greatest
obstacles to the new faith — the vested int^ests of
an old and powerful hierarchy.
LrreRATTRE.— F. V. J. AnmdeD, Diseoveriet m Asia Minor,
London, ls34, i. 2sl f. : Conybeare-Howson. St. P<nU, do.
1572, i. 204f. ; W. M. Ramsay, HUt. Com. on Gol., da. 1809,
pp. 196-213, Church in Bom. Emp., do. 1893, peutim ; J. R. S.
Steirett, Woffe ExpedUion to Asia Minor, Boflt<Hi, 188S,
P"l*'- Jaaees Strahan.
ANTIPAS.— See Hebod.
ANTIPAS (shorter form of Antipater [Jos. Ant.
XIV. i. 3 : ' this Antipatros was at first calle^i
Antipas'] as Hennas is of Hermodorus, Lucas of
Lucanus, and Silvas of Silvanus). — Antipas, other-
wise unkno%^-n, is mentioned in Rev 2^. Later
Greek tradition made him bishop of Pergamum,
martyreil under Domitian by being thrown into a
brazen bull which stood at the t«mple of Diana,
and so roasted alive.* The name has been allegor-
ized as anti-pas ( = * against all ') or anti-papa. The
character of the Apocalypse, again, admits the
hypothesis that the name refers to the God Pan.
Pan was worshipped at Ephesus and in many
* Xemnann (Der Rom. Stoat u. die aUgem^ine Kirehe, 1890, L
15) suggests that Antip«8 wms ttie only martyr who soffeied in
Peigamom, but Ramsay (Letters to the Seren Churches, 288)
maintains that he was the first of a long series.
cities in Asia Minor — no record of his worship at
Pergamum is extant — under the strong influences
of Arcadian and Peloponnesian cults. It is not
impossible, therefore, that the Christian Church
at Pergamum is praised for its opposition to the
heathen Pan. Cf. Balaam, Nicolaitaxs.
Ltteratuks.— .45, April, iL [1866J 3ff., 961; Roscher, iiL
1369; H. B. Swete, Apocalypse, ad loe. ; H. Alford, Gr. Test.,
ad loc. ; W. M. Ramsay. Church in the Roman Empin^, 1897,
Letters to the Seven Churches, 1904 ; C. ▼. ^Veizsacker, Apostolic
Age, Eag. tr. 1804 ; A. C McGiffiert, Hist, of Christianity in
tKe ApotL Age, 1897. W. F. COBB.
ANTIPATRIS CArrfxaTptj).— Antipatris, a Hel-
lenistic town of Palestine, stood at the eastern
edge of the Plain of Sharon, where the military
road from Jerusalem to Caesarea left the hills.
Under the protection of a body of Roman cavalry
and infantry, St. Paul was brought thither by
night, and thence, with a diminished escort, to
Cfesarea (Ac 23*^- ^). Antipatris was a border tovm
between Judsea and Samaria (Neubauer, Giogr. du
Talm.y 1868, p. 80 f.), and after it was reached there
would be less danger of a Jewish attack. Josephus
(Ant. XTL v. 2) gives an account of its foundation :
* Herod erected another city in the plain called Kiqi^iaraafaa,
where he chose out a fit place, both for plenty of water and
goodness of soil, and pr(^>er for the production of what was
there planted, where a river encompassed the dty itaelf , and
a grove of the best trees tat magnitude was ronnd aboot it :
tius he named Antipatris, from his tether Antipater.'
The historian elsewhere identifies it with Kaphar-
saba (Ant. xin. xv. 1), and Robinson (BMical
Researches, iv. 139 f.), followed by Schiirer (n. L
130 f.), naturally concludes that the site must be
the modem Kefr Saba ; but, as the latter place
cannot be described as well-watered, Conder,
Warren, G. A. Smith, and Buhl all favour Bas-
el-A in, a little farther south, at the source of the
Aujah. James Steahan.
ANTITYPE.— See Type.
ANTONIA.-See Castle.
ANXIETY.— See Cabe, Careful.
APELLES ('AxcXX^, a Greek name possibly con-
tracted from ApoUodorus, and apparently common
among Jews of tiie Dispersion [cf. Hon' Sat. i. 5.
100 : credat ludcetts Apella, and Gow's suggestion,
ad loc., that, as modem Jews take a Gentile name
which closely resembles their Hebrew name, so in
ancient times a Jew called Abel might choose the
name Apelles]). — ApeUes, saluted by St. Paul in Ro
le***, is called ' the approved in Christ ' (rdr dSKi/ior
iw 'KpuTTifi). The phrase may indicate that he had
been specially tested and tried by aflliction or per-
secution, or that he was a Christian who had gained
the approbation of the Church, sufliciently perhaps
to be called to the ministry (cf. 1 Ti 3^'*). Nothing
is known of Apelles beyona this reference.
Assuming the Roman destination of these saluta-
tions, he was probably a Jewish convert residing in
Rome as a member of the Imperial household.
As the salutation which follows is that to ' the
household of Aristobulus,' it has been suggested
that ApeUes' Christian activity may have lain in
that direction. If Aristobultis (q. v. ) was the grand-
son of Herod, Apelles would no doubt find in his
' household ' many members of his own race. The
name Apelles is known to have belonged to the
Imperial household. It was borne by a famous
tragic actor in the time of the Emperor Cains (see
Lightfoot, Philippians*, 1878, p. 174).
T. B. All WORTHY.
APOCALYPSE. — I. ISTRODUCTIOS. —±. The
word 'apocalypse' in the NT. — oTOJcdXi/^ti ('re-
velation '") occurs some eighteen times in the NT.
The general sense is ' instruction concerning Divine
72
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
things before unknown — especially those relating
to the Christian salvation — given to the soul by
God or the ascended ;Christ, especially through
the operation of the Holy Spirit (1 Co 2'°) ' (Grimm-
Thayer). The word was important to St. Paul
when he wished to express his independence of the
first apostles in reference to his knowledge of the
gospel and even to the steps taken to come to an
understanding with them (Eph 3», Gal 2*). The
object of diroKi\v\j/is is, therefore, a mystery
(Ro 16'"'). The gospel without it would remain
unknown, with it it is an 'open secret.'* The
source, as also the end or object, of diroKiXvpis is
God or Jesus Christ, and the mode may be vision
or ecstasy (2 Co 12'). It may also be, however,
events which strike the general eye, e.g. ' the
righteous judgment of God' (Ro 2'); ' iiroKd\v\j/is
of the sons of God' (8^*), i.e. 'the glory that is
manifestly given to some, showing them to be sons
of God ' ; ' dwoKd.\vxl/is of the glory of Christ '(IP 4'3),
i.e. 'the glory with which He will return from
heaven ' (Grimm-Thayer). The return is called the
' diroKd\v\f/ii of the Lord Jesus Christ' (2 Th 1^
1 Co 1', 1 P 1^ "). As a prophet is one to whom
truth comes not from man but from God, what he
utters may be called an dTroKd\v\//is, and he himself
may be said to ' have an diroKdXv^n,' or to speak
^v diroKa\}j\{/ei (1 Co 14^; cf. v.'). It is a fact of
much suggestiveness for the subject of this article
(see below) that, so far as the NT is concerned,
the prophet and the apocalyptist may be considered
one and the same.
2. The NT Apocalypse of John as the type of
apocalyptic writings. — Though in the sense of the
Cnristian creed the whole Bible is by pre-eminence
the literature of apocalypse or revelation, there is
only one book in each Testament to which the
name has been given. In the NT we have the
Apocalypse of John and in the OT we have the
Book of Daniel, which is unmistakably both in
style and substance of the same literary genus.
The latter is — apart from what may be called
apocalyptic fragments in the older prophetical writ-
ings, e.g. Is 24 — the oldest known Apocalypse, and
has served as a model for subsequent writings of
the class. Daniel and the Apocalypse of John
mark respectively the beginning and the end of
what may be called the apocalyptic period, which
thus covers upwards of 260 years (say 168 B.C. to
A.D. 96). t It thus appears that, while there is an
apocalyptic element in practically all the books of
tne NT (see below), there is only one writing be-
longing to the Apostolic Age which is as a whole
of the apocalyptic class, and which, despite much
controversy in the early centuries,^ has held its
place among the books of authority recognized by
the Christian Church. This circumstance alone
might warrant the almost exclusive devotion of
this article to an account of this book, but such
concentration oilers, besides, the advantage of
showing the leading features of the apocalyptic
style as they appear, so to speak, synthetically,
interwoven with an actual situation — a crisis — on
which the mind of the apocalyptist reacts. In
regard to the imcanonical apocalypses, if one may
not say, after studying the Apocalypse, ' Ex uno
disce omnes,' one may remember tne attention
paid to the lesser apocalypses during the last half-
century, and say that the creepers have not
suffered from the overshadowing of the cypress. §
• Denney, et al.
t Daniel belongs to the time of the persecution of the Jews
under the Greek-Syrian kinfr AntiochuB Epiphanes (168-165 B.C.) ;
the Apoc. of John probably to the persecution of the Christians
under the Roman emperor Domitian (a.d. 81-86).
J The canonicity of the Apocalypse was controverted, esp. in
the Eastern Church, and it was not till a.d. 215 that the
Western Church, under the leadership of Hippolytus, accepted
It. The East finally yielded to the West.
S Verg. Eel. i. 26 f., quoted by Moffatt (EOT v. 296).
3. Non-canonical apocalypses of the Apostolic
Age. — As, however, both the Apocalypse and the
otner books of the NT contain implicit references,
and, in at least one case,* an explicit reference to
other apocalypses, a list may here be given of the
non-c«nonica( apocalypses, either wholly or partly
extant, and of others whose existence may be in-
ferred from quotations of them found in the early
Fathers. They may be classified under three
heads : (A) Jewish, (B) Jewish - Christian, (C)
Hellenic or Gentile.
(A) Under this head fall : (a) The cycle known as Enoch, which
includes : (a) The Ethiopie Enoch, so called because it survive*
chiefly in an Ethiopie Version. It includes : (1) chs. 1-36, 72-108
(c. 100 B.C.); (2) chs. 37-71 ('Book of Similitudes'), which be-
longs probably to the early days of the Herodian dynasty, and is
therefore close to the Christian era. In this book't occur those
references to the pre-existent Messiah under the title ' Son of
man,' which Ililgenfeld and others have ascribed to Christian
interpolation, but whose direct debt is probably only to Daniel
(see esp. Dn 7'3). (/3) The Slavonic Secrets of Enoch, before a.d.
70. — (b) Assumption of Moses (<?.».) not later than a.d. 10.— (c)
Apocalypse of Ezra, usually cited as Fourth Ezra (^2 Esdraa
[q.v.] of English 'Apocrypha,' chs. 3-14), after a.d. 90. — (d)
Apocalypse of Baruch (q.v.), about the same time as U Ezra. —
(e) The Testament of Abraham,, perhaps the 1st cent. a.d. — (/)
The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs (q.v.), probably the 1st
cent. a.d. — (a), (6), (d), and (/) are best accessible to the English
reader in the careful editions of B. H. Charles, Oxford, 1893,
1897, 1896, 1908. In regard to (c), we have, in addition to the
scholarly editions of James and Bensly, O. H. Box's The
Ezra-Apocalypse (London, 1912). For (e), we have the edition
of M. R. James (Cambridge, 1892). N.B.—See now also R. H.
Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the OT, Oxford,
1913.
Closely related to the apocalyptical books are : (g) The
Psalm^s of Solomon, 64-40 B.C., edited by Ryle and James
(Cambridge, 1891) under the alternative title Psalms of the
Pharisees.— -(h) The Book of Jubilees, probably before Christ-
See Charles' translation in JQR vi. [1894J 710, vii. [1895] 297.—
(i) The Ascension of Isaiah (q.v.) — Jewish part=the Martyrdom
of Isaiah (2i-3i2 and 5--"), Charles' edition (London, 1900). In
addition to these extant books are 4, which are known to us
only through citations in Origen and other Fathers : (J) The
Prayer of Joseph ; (h) The Booh of Eldad and Medad ; (I) The
Apocalypse of Elijah ; (m) The Apocalypse of Zephaniah.
(B) Under this head would fall not so much apocalypses
written independently by Jews who were Christians — for, if we
except the Apocalypse of John, such books are hardly known
to have existed— as (a) Selections from Jewish apocalj-pses
of matter embodying beliefs common to Jews ond Christians ;
and (b) Christian interpolations of Jewish apocalj^yses. Of
these (a) are by far the more frequent. The OT was the Bible
of the early Christians, and such an example as that of Jude ^*f-
(cf. En. 19), taken along with the implicit references to apoca-
lyptic writings which are found in the Apocalj^ise and other
books of the NT (see below), reveals a tendency among the
Christians to extend the range of the Canon ; it points at the
same time to the large amount of matter, both within and be-
yond the Canon, that was common to Jews and Christians. It
is, indeed, a fact worthy of special notice that at an early period,
which we may date roughly from the fall of the Jewish State
in A.D. 70, apocalyptic literature begins to lose interest for the
Synagogue in proportion as it gains it for the Christian Church.
This fact invests the apocalyptic literature with a peculiar
interest for the student of the Apostolic Age. There is the
general question as to how that age of early Christians came to
value and even to produce apocalyptic books, which we convert
here into the more concrete question. How could it produce the
Apocalypse of John ? There is the dogmatic question. What are
the elements in this book which entitle it to the position of
authority it holds to this day? For (b), examples of Christian
interpolation may be found in The Ascension of Isaiah, which
is Christian in all but 2i-3i2 and 62-14 ; and in chs. 1 and 2, and
15 and 16 of A Ezra which are sometimes quoted as 6 and 6
Ezra respectively.
(C) Hellenic apocalypses. — The Sibylline OraeUt (q.v.),
' Jewish works under a heathen mask ' (Schiirer), are the best
instance under this head. They are the work of Hellenigtic
Jews, and are written in Greek hexameters for Gentiles, under
names which have authority for such readers. The fact that
they have been subjected to considerable Christian interpolation
testifies to the extent of their circulation. Much the best edition
of them, based on 14 MSS, is that of Rzach (Oraeula Sibyllina,
Vienna, 1891). English readers may consult Schiirer's HJP ii. iii.
288-92; Edinb. Review (July 1877); Deane's Pseudepigrapha
(1891), 276ff.i; Charles' Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, ii.
As an example of distinctively Christian work, produced
under more decidedly Hellenic influence than is to be found in
works of Jewish origin, may be mentioned the Apocalypse of
Peter, a large part of which was edited for the English reader
in 1892. Strong claims to canonicity were made for it in early
times, and its teaching largely influenced later Christian ideas
• Jude I4f- ; cf. Eth. En. !».
t 48-'!' 623 etc. See L. A. Muirhead, TA« TiiMt nf Chritt,
Edinburgh, lf06, pp. 141 f., 147.
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
73
of heaven and hell. ' It is as strongly Greek as Revelation [the
Apoc. of John] is Jewish, having a close relation to the Greek
Orphic Literature. It concerns the lot of souls after death,
whereas Revelation, like the Jewish apocal}-pee8, is more con-
cerned with the course of world-history ' (Porter, from wboee
Mettagei of the Apoe. WriUn, 7 ff., these lists are mainly taken).
i. Period and general characteristics of apoca-
lyptic literature. — Before passing to an account of
the Apocalypse of John we must try to form a
definite idea of the characteristic features of apoca-
lyptic literature — its design, form, and leading
ideas. From the point of view of the student of
the NT, apocalypse must be considered as of purely
Jewish growth.* As we have seen, the period
within which apocalyptic literature was produced
occupied over a century and a half before the
birth of Christ and about a century after. It is
thus the accompaniment and interpretation of the
last great struggle of the Jewish people for that
political independence — with an implicit idea of
supremacy — which seemed to be due to the Chosen
People. 'Within this period fall the comparative
victory (ilaccabsean triumph), varying fortnnes
(political importance, accompanied ^vith decline of
religious fervour ; dissensions between the lax
hellenizing and the puritanical patriotic party),
and the mtimate seeming extinction (capture of
Jerusalem by Titus a.d. 70) of this ideal. The
apocalyptists are the instructors and encotiragers
oi the people in the name of Grod in reference to
that Kingdom which, in spite of the greatness of
the world-powers that are their rivals and the
enemies of Jahweh, is yet to come to them from
God and to be realized in the world. In Daniel,
which belongs to the period of the Maccabsean
struggle, we may see the high-water mark of
spiritual faith reached by this ideal ; in the fact
that after the fall of the Je^vish State, the kernel t
of the nation, the Jews of the stricter synagogue,
ceased to cherish the apocalypses and perhaps
even suppressed ^ them, we have an index of the
limitations of the ideal. The Kingdom, however
loftily conceived by the seers of the nation, was
still in the actual thought of the orthodox Jew too
much of this world and of his own nation. Be-
tween this flow and ebb lies the history of apoca-
lypse, as it is to be read within the limits of
Judaism. It is a record of great hopes and fideli-
ties, but also of great disappointments and of
failures both in conception and fulfilment. The
mreat apocalypses were written in periods of stress.
Judging from Daniel, we may say, perhaps, the
greater the stress the truer the inspiration of the
apocalyptist. The leading ideas are simple but
great ; the tribulation is real. It will last for a
measured while, and even increase. The troubling
powers are fierce and violent. They rage like wild
beasts and seem to be of great power ; but their
power passes, and the Kingdom comes to the faith-
rul and the patient. Death does not end every-
thing either for the faithful or for the lawless, and
there is special bliss for those who lose life for
righteousness' sake.§
As to the literary form of the apocalypses, the
most salient distinguishing feature is a certain
* That is to say, questions as to the affinities of its phrase-
ology and conceptions with those of heathen mj-thology belong
rather to the study of the OT. Long before ' John ' writes, the
mythological conceptions have pas^ through the mill of the
spirit that is distinctive of the Jewish faith. What hirther re-
finement they need is supplied by the mill of the Christian
fulfilment.
t Yet what is here said is not altc^ether true of the Jews of
the Dispersion.
t The 'apocalypses survive for the most part not in their
native Hebrew or Aramaic bat in Greek, and in the dialects of
the districts where they were received, and where they were
read more by Christians than by Jews.
§ Dn 122 is fairly cited as probably the only passage in the OT
that clearly teaches a bodily resurrection for individual Israel-
ites. The resurrectioa would seem to be universal as regards
Israel (though this is doubtful), but nothing is said of the
heathen.
obscurity of imagery, which sometimes takes the
form of a grotesqueness, and of an incongmity in
details, which are excusable only upon the supposi-
tion that the awkward imagery was capable of the
twofold task of conveying the meaning to those
for whom it was intended, and of veiling it from
others.
This obscurity of style is connected with the
fact that apocaly^pses were, so far as we know, in
nearly every case pseudonymous. Daniel was not
written, like the prophecies of Isaiah or Jeremiah,
to be spoken. It was written to be read. Prob-
ably in the case of the author of Daniel, the
pseudonymity was due, not so much to the feeling *
that he would not be accepted by his fellow-
countrymen as a prophet, as to the necessity of
eluding the hostility and even the suspicion of the
Syrian authorities. A prophet might be arrested
in the street, a living author might be traced to his
desk. But what could the Syrian do with the
influence of writings that were three centuries
old? The example of the author of Daniel
made pseudonymity a fashion. Writers who had
no cause to fear arrest, but some perhaps to fear
neglect, wrote in the names of prophets or saints
of bygone days. It is difficult tor us to conceive
how any one able to handle a pen could have been
deceived by such fictions. On the other hand,
there is a certain impressiveness in the fact that
questions regarding the real state of matters (in
the literary sense) do not seem to have emerged.
Readers and interpreters of the apocalypses were
concerned with their message for their own time.
If an interpreter had thoughts of his own regarding
the literary structure of an apocalypse, he sup-
{)ressed them. His instinct told him, as its equiva-
ent teUs the modem preacher, that a text does
not become the word of God until it is released
from bondage to its historical meaning. At the
same time their artificial literary style takes from
the spiritual value of the apocalyptic writings. If
real history, in so far as it deals with the past, is
a veil — though a transparent one — between (jod
and the spirit of the reader, the fiction of history,
behind which the apocalyptic writer found it
necessary (even were it in the interest of his
message) to conceal himself, becomes, at least for
later residers, a veil that is opaque. Parables that
are puzzles can hardly be edifying. Some of the
parables of Daniel are puzzles to this day. It is a
question of some moment how far such criticism
applies to the canonical Apocalypse of the XT.
Besides community in general ideas and in
pseudonymity, apocalypses have a certain com-
munity in imagery. There is, as it were, a sample
stock of images always accessible to the apoca-
lyptist.
On the side of good, we have (to take great
examples) Gk)d and His throne, angels such as
Michael and Gabriel, or angelic beings resembling
men (of whom the chief, when he appears at all, is
the Messiah), books written with the names of the
saints, the paradise of God with its trees of healing
and nourishment, the new creation with its wonders
specialized in the new city and temple. On the
side of evU, we have Satan, the opposer, deceiver,
accuser, the monster of the deep (dragon or croco-
dile), wild beasts of the land, which, however, rise
out of the deep, t a 'man of lawlessness' who
* The feeling was, however, undoubtedly present. The
author's appeal to ' books' is a confession of it (Dn 9* ; cf. Jet
25Ut). SeeL. A.Mnirtae*d,7Ae j:KAatofo9yo/J««u«,Lond<xi.
1904, p. Tiff. ^ . _. *u
t Cf. Rev 13^«-, Dn 7«, U Ezr. 131*. in the last paasage Uie
figure of • one like a man ' (the Messiah) rises frwn the m*. and
then flies among the clouds, and the exi^anation is given : ' As
none can find out what is in the depths of the sea, so none <A
the inhabitants of the earth can see my S<m and his compamona
save at the hour of his day' (v.**^). The depth of the sea
rather than the height of heaven seemed to 'Eaa' the surest
74
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
embodies all blasphemy, a ' great whore ' who
incarnates all tlie abominations of the heathen
world. In view of this sameness of the underlying
imagery, the originality of an apocalyptist is to be
seen more in the use of his material than in the
material itself. The forces of good and evil remain
the same, the general aspect of conflict between
them — the inherent strength of God's rule and the
imminent collapse of the devil's — remains to the
prophetic eye the same, but persons and events
change. Tlie apocalyptist of truly prophetic spirit
has his eye fixed on God and his own time ; and,
while he uses what, abstractly considered, seems a
cumbrous and partly alien literary form, he does
so not to exercise a literary gift but to convey a
message, the urgency of which lies on his spirit as
a ' burden ' of the Lord. An obvious criterion of
the rightfulness of his claim to be a prophet will be
the ease and freedom with which he is able to
adapt the material, imposed by his choice of the
apocalyptic form, to the purpose of his message.
Judged in this way, the Apocalypse of John
shines in a light which no student of early Chris-
tian literature can call other than brilliant.
Whatever difficulties were felt by the early Fathers
in giving it a place in the Canon, there is no book
of tlie NT whose claim, once admitted, has been
less a matter of subsequent doubt. Until less
than a century ago, the Apocalypse was supposed
to contain a forecast* or the entire career of
the Church in time, but the modification of this
view through the clear perception that both pro-
phets and apocalyptists wrote for their own time,
attaching to its needs and prospects a certain
finality, has not altered the belief of Christians
in the permanent spiritual value of this unique
book.
II. The Apocalypse op John.— i. Scheme of
the book. — It is not possible to supply in this
article anything like a Commentary or even an
adequate Introduction to the Apocalypse. Yet it
may be useful to precede a discussion of some of
its salient features with the following scheme of
its contents, which is an abbreviated version of
that given by F. C. Porter in his invaluable
manual (op. cif. 179 f.).
Superscription, li-S.
A. The messaRes of Christ to His Churches represented by
the Seven Churches of Asia, 14-322.
(o) Introduction, including salutation, theme, attestation,
14-8.
(b) The Seer's Call, 19-20.
(c) The Seven Messages, cha. 2 and 3.
B. Visions of Judgment, composing the body of the book
(chs. 4-20) intersected at chs. 7, 11, 14, and 19, with visions of the
victory and bliss of the faithful.
(a) Visions of God and Christ respectively performing and
revealing, chs. 4 and 5.
J) First stages of the Judgment, including the opening of
six seals.t the salvation of the faithful, and the destruc-
tion of one-third of mankind at the sounding of six
trumpets, chs. 6-9.
(c) Last stages of the Judgment, issuing in the final overthrow
of Satan and Rome, especially the imperial cultus (the
'Beast'), and in the General Resurrection and Judgment.
The .Sof r receives a new commission. He describes the
coiitliot between the worshippers of the Beast and the
followers of the Lamb, and his vision of the wrath of God
in seven bowls, chs. 10-20. Note that a large portion of
this section consists of assurances to the faithful and of
songs of triumpl), and much the greater part of the
Judgment portion (chs. 12, 17, 18, and 19) describes the
fall of Rome.
C. The Blessed Consummation, including the coming of God
stronghold of secrets that should be inaccessible to men. On
the representation of this idea in the Genesis narratives of
creation and the relation of the l.-vtter to the Babylonian myth
of Marduk and Tiamat, see Gimkcl, Schopfung u. Chaos, 1896.
* In an obvious sense, of course, the book did contain such a
forecast. As with every prophet, the end is within the vision
of the writer. In his case it is to come 'shortly' — i.e. most
likely wthin his own generation.
t There are pauses after the 6th seal and the 6th trumpet.
The 7th seal contains, as it were, the 7 trumpets, and the 7th
trumpet contains the 7 bowls.
to dwell with men and the descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem,
chs. 21 and 22. Note that both the Epilogue and the Prologue of
the book solemnly emphasize the claim to be considered ' pro-
phecy ■ (22i8f- ; cf. 13).
2. Examples of the problems. — A few specimens
may be given of the many fa-scinating problems
which emerge for the student regarding: (1) the
literary striictnre of the Apocalypse ; (2) the sig-
nificance of some of its move promiTient details.
(1) In spite of its being, more than almost any
other book of the NT (see below), saturated with
reminiscences of books of the OT (esp. Dan., Ezek.,
Is., Jer., Joel, and generally all tlie portions of
the OT which describe visions of God or offer
pictures of bliss or woe), the book leaves the
reader with a strong impression of its spiritual
unity. The writer is a Christian and a prophet.
His central positive theme is Christ Cfrucified,
Risen, and Ascended (1"'- S"- ^*^-). The warrant,
substance, and spirit of his prophecy are 'the
testimony of Jesus,' a phrase in which the of seems
to incluae both a subjective and an objective
meaning* (19'"; cf. l'^-). The world to come is
imminent, and its inlieritors are the worshippers
of God and the Lamb (!"• 1^- etc.).
It is evident, however, as a few examples will
be sufficient to show, that this general unity goes
along with great looseness in the assimilation of
borrowed material.
Examples : (a) Ch. 11 is made up of portions of two apoca-
lypses, one of which (represented by vv.i-2) belongs to the
time of the siege of Jerusalem (c. a.d. 70), and the other
embodies a portion of the Antichrist legend, which related how
Antichrist would slay Enoch and Elijah, returned from heaven,
who would, however, be raised up by God or His angels
Gabriel and Michael (see Bousset's Antichrist ; and Tert. de
Anima). In the Apocalypse, Enoch becomes Moses, and what
was previously described (v. 2) as the ' holy city ' becomes ' spiritu-
ally Sodom and Egypt, where the Lord was crucified ' (v.8). The
general purpose — to teach that the worshippers of the true God
are safe (vv.i- 2), and that the powers of wicked men will not
prevail against the testimony of law and prophecy to the true
God (vv.3-12) — is evident. But it is equally evident that the
author is hampered in the expression of this message by a
superabundance of borrowed and not quite congruous niatenal.
Though the time of the testimony of the two witnesses in v.*
corresponds with that during which the holy city is to be
trodden under foot by the Gentiles (cf. vv.2.a)^ the situation
of the city at v.i3 does not correspond with that indicated at
v.2 any more than the holy city of the latter verse corresponds
with ' Sodom and Egypt ' of v.**
(&) An example of composite structure, better known to
modern students of the Apocalypse (through Gunkel's 5c^c7j/.
M. Chaos), but more difficult to exhibit with precision, is the
vision in ch. 12 of the Messiah-mother and the Dragon seeking
to devour her child. The teaching of ' John ' is, again, evident
enough. Satan has been overthrown by the birth and ascension
of the Messiah. He has been cast down from heaven, but he is
still permitted to persecute the Messianic conimui)it.v on earth.
If his wrath is fierce, it is because his time is short. Let the
persecuted lend their ear to the loud voice saying in heaven :
'Now is come salvation — and the Kingdom of our God'
(vv.17. 12. 10). It is clear, however, that, apart from a desire to
use materials which lay to his hand in fr.igments of Jewish ajiocA-
lypses, which borrowed and combined Babylonian, Egyptian,
and Greek myths, he would not have expressed his meaning in
the way we find in this chapter. The scene begins in heaven,
and the woman is described (v. i) in language approiiriate to a
goddess. Then she appears (v.o), without explanation, on the
earth, where she finds refuge and nourishment in the wilder-
ness. The Dragon is then cast out of heaven to the earth (v.O).
although this ejection seems already to be assumed at v.*, and
on the earth he pursues the woman to her retreat in the wilder-
ness. A Christian meaning can doubtless be put into it all, but
no one narrator could ever spontaneously have told the stor.v
in this way. For a brief and lucid attempt to conceive the
possible process through which the immediate and remote
materials passed in the hands of ' John,' see Porter, op. cit.
236 ff.
(2) Of problems turning on more special points
we have good instances in ch. 13. We may feel
satisfied that the first Beast is, in general the
Roman Empire embodied in the person of the
Emperor, while the second (the lamb that ' spake
as a dragon,' v.") is the priesthood of the Imperial
* The words ' the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy '
are a gloss (see the Commentaries), but they are entirely true
to the writer's thought (li), and form with 1 Co 123 an interest-
ing witness to the test applied to prophets in the early Church.
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
<o
cultas exercising a lamb-like office ^vnth all the
ferocity of dragon-like tyrants. We may be satis-
fied also that under the imagery of the first Beast
the author must have thought both of Nero and
Doraitian. Still the questions remain : (a) What
is the ' deadly wound ' that was healed (v.")? (6)
Who is the ' man ' whose number is the number
of the Beast (v.")? (c) Is the 'number' 666, or,
as in some MSS, 616 ? These three questions are
closely interdependent. It has been argued that,
as the Beast is rather the Empire than an individual
iimperor, the wound should refer to some event
of public rather than of personal import. To
the objection that v.^* speaks expressly of the
•number of a man,' it is replied that, on the
analogy of 21", this may simply mean that the
nnnaber is to be reckoned in a human and not in
a heavenly or angelic way. It is found that the
Greek letters * of the phrase meaning ' the Latin
Kingdom ' give the number 666, whUe the value
of the letters in 'the Italian Kingdom' is 616.
Against the identification of the Beast with Nero
it is further argued that the Hebrew equivalent of
'Nero Caesar,' rightly spelt (i.e. with the yod [']
in ' Caesar '), t gives not 666 but 676. Accepting this
point of view, we should still have to ask, What were
the events that were respectively the inflicting and
the healing of a deadly wouna, and we are pre-
sented witli the alternative theories : assassina-
tion of Julius Ceesar (wound), accession of
Augustus (healing) ; end of the Julian dynasty in
Nero (wound), rise of the Flavian dynasty (heal-
ing). On the other hand, it is contended that,
apart even from v.^^ the whole passage is too
intense and too definite in its reference to exclude
particular Emperors from the view of the author
or his readers. He must have thought of Nero.
Almost as certainly he must have thought of
Domitian, whom he conceived as Nero Hedivivus
(17"), and, not improbably, he also thought of
Caligula, to whose attempt to set up his o\\ti statue
in Jerusalem the Apocalypse of the blasphemous
beast (considered as material borrowed by ' John ')
might be supposed to have originally referred.^
This might explain the variant 616, which is the
number of Caligula's name. The omission of the
yod in writing the Hebrew form of Caesar is not a
serious difficulty (see Moflatt, op. cit.). Finally,
Gunkel, finding the Bab. original of the Beast in
the chaos-monster Tiamat overcome (in the crea-
tion mjrth) by Marduk, has shown that the Heb.
words njpc^p cSn^(T'hdm kadhmdni yah =' the primi-
tive monster') give the number 666. It might be
supposed, therefore, that what struck 'John ' was
that the number of this primaeval beast, tradition-
ally familiar to him, was also the number of a
man, viz. Nero. There are serious linguistic
objections to this view (see Moffatt), but it may
suggest to us that the number containing three
sixes had a traditional meaning. It may have
meant the constant eflbrt and failure of what is
human to attain the Divine perfection, of which
the number 7 was the symbol : so near yet so far
otF, ' O the little more, and how much it is.'
All these varying views of ' John's ' meaning
cannot be true in every particular. Yet we are,
perhaps, nearer the truth in saying that portions
of all of them must have passed tlu-ough his mind '
than in deciding dogmatically in favour of one of
* The letters of both the Greek and the Hebrew alphabets
have each a numerical ralne.
t "i;'2 not n;^ ; cf- art. Astichrist.
t Cf. V.5 with the description of Antiochus Epiphanes in
Dn 1136"^ It seems to the present writer that * John ' may
have thoogbt of Dooiitian as combining C^gnla and Xero in
himself in much the same way as the Beast, which is Rome
(133), combines in itself all the ferocities of Daniel's first three
beasts (lion, bear, leopard, Dn "*»•). like i Ezr. 121<M> he
would consider Daniel's /tnirtA beast to be Borne.
them. It seems to the present writer that the
loose way in which the prophet and pastor who
^vTote the Apocalypse deEilt with the traditional
material that lay to his band was probably as
intentional as the frequent grammatical anomalies
and harsh Hebraisms of his text, which no Greek
scholar supposes to be due to inadvertence. The
man who had the literary genius and the prophetic
inspiration to write the songs of triumph and the
hortatory portions of the Apocalypse may be be-
lieved to have had a method in his carelessness.
He was certainly capable of adopting a fixed style
of writing and carrying it through in the way
that style on the whole required. If he left some
strings flying for his readers to cut or fasten up as
the spirit might lead them, may it not be a sign
that he considered himself and his companions in
the ' kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ ' to
occupy a sphere which, just because it was
supreme and Divine, was not hermetically sealed
to the rest of the world, but was open, like the
New Jerusalem, to receive testimony and tribute
from every quarter ?
3. The Apocalypse of John as a product of the
.ftpostolic Age, and a testimony to Jesus as the
Christ. — Enough has perhaps been said to show
that questions regarding the importance and
function of apocalyptic literature in the faith and
life of the Apostolic Age are best answered in
connexion with a study of the Apocalypse of John.
No known apocalyptic writing of the same or
greater bulk is comparable with it in vitality of
connexion with primitive Christianity ; and there
is no likelihood that any such writing existed.
Attention may be fasten^ on three matters : (a)
the historical situation, (b) the relation of apoca-
lypse to prophecy, (c) the hortatory and dogmatic
teaching of tne Apocalypse.
(a) The historical situation. — We have seen that
the period of apocalyptic literature is roughly the
250 years of the last struggles of the Jewish people
for political and religious independence. The first
apocalypse of the OT is contemporaneous with the
great sacrifices made by the elite of the Jewish
people to maintain the national testimony to Jah-
weh. The sacrificial spirit passed into the com-
munity that confessed Jesus of Nazareth, crucified,
risen, and ascended, as Lord and Messiah. Very
early the sacrificial spirit was called forth. But
the first persecutors were not heathen in name.
They were the representatives of the city which
' spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also
the Lord was crucified' (Rev ll^; cf. 1 Th 2^^,
2 Th 2^-^). To St. Paul the power of Antichrist
lay in the jealousy of the Jewish synagogue, and
it would seem from the passage in 2 Th 2 that the
power ' that restrains ' (6 KaT^&w, rb narexw) is the
Roman Empire. Certainly the representation
in the Acts of the Apostles favours this view
(16" 21« 22««- 2^^). Between the ministry of
St. Paul and the time of the Apocalypse a change
had taken place. In the Apocalypse the Roman
Empire is clearly the instrument of Antichrist.
The Dragon gives power to the Beast (IS"*), and it
is obvious that in ' John's ' time, and especially in
the province of Asia, Christians were persecuted
under Imperial authority simply because of their
Christian profession. Christianity was a crime pun-
ishable with death, in so far as it was inconsistent
with the worship of the Emperor (1* 13'*^). Doubt-
less there were diflerences in the administration of
the law, but the tone of the Letters to the Seven
Churches (chs. 2 and 3) and of the whole Apoca-
lypse indicates a time when the worst might be
apprehended. The beginning of this Imperial
attitude to the Christians may perhaps be found
in the summer of A.D. 64, when, as Tacitus in-
forms us (Ann. xv, 44), Nero sought to fasten on
76
APOCALYPSE
^ypOCALYPSE
the Christians the odious charge of incendiarism,
and it lias been held that the Apocalypse belongs
to the time of the Neronic persecution. This view
may now be regarded as superseded. Nero is cer-
tainly a figure in the Apocalypse (see above), but
he is a figure of the past. The Beast is alive in
his bestial successor Domitian, whom 'John' con-
siders Nero Ecdivivus * (cf. 13* with 17'^-
It was under Domitian that persecution of the
Christians first became a part of the Imperial
ftolicy. It is this legalized persecution and the
act that the centre of the storm lies among the
Churches of Asia that rouse the spirit of prophecy
in the author of chs. 2 and 3, and, as we venture
to think, of the whole Apocalypse. And, assuredly,
it was the spirit of prophecy, and not of delusion,
that gave him the certainty that the Lord Jesus
would ' come quickly ' to deliver His people from a
situation in wiich the choice lay between death
and unfaithfulness to Him. Every prophet is an
eschatologist. He sees the end of what is opposed
to the will of holiness and love. It is only for a
moment — though the moments of God and history
may be long — that cruelty and violence can reign
or the meek and righteous be oppressed.
13'^ seems to indicate an edict actually in force
or about to be issued, under which ordinary con-
tracts of exchange should not be legal apart from
vows of allegiance to the Emperor as a Divine
person. This meant that Christians were excluded
from the business of the world, and so from the
world itself, and to 'John' it seemed justly a
challenge of God's supremacy, which God and His
Christ could not delay to take up. Quite apart
from the peculiar genius of its author, the Apoca-
lypse must have been to its first readers a message
of comfort and power. Its appeal lay in its in-
evitableness. In the situation as described, no
message short of that contained in the Apocalypse
could have seemed worthy of God or a ' testimony
of Jesus Christ.' Prophecy is never in vactio.
God's word is in the mouth of His prophet because
it is first in the events which His providence or-
dains or permits. It would be difficult to rate too
highly the literary and spiritual genius of ' John,'
yet the autlioritativeness of his message for his
own time and ours lies not in this but in its corre-
spondence with a situation of crisis for the King-
d!om of God. So long as it is possible for a situa-
tion to emerge in which we cannot obey man's
law without dishonouring God's, the Apocalypse
will be an authority ready for use in the hands of
the godly.
{b) Apocalyptic and prophecy. — If this view is
just, it contains the answer to two closely related
questions : ( 1 ) Is the writer, as he represents
himself, a ' companion in tribulation ' of those to
whom he writes (1"), or does he, like other apoca-
lyptists, including Daniel, write under the name
of some great personage of the past? (2) Is he
really a prophet as well as an apocalyptist ?
(1) The former question should be kept apart
from the question whether the writer can reason-
ably be identiJied with the Apostle John. There
is nowhere in the book the slightest hint of a
claim to apostleship ; 21''' and 18^ suggest rather
that the autlior distinguished himself from the
•holy apostles and prophets' and from the '12
apostles.' We do not know enough regarding the
Cnurches of Asia in the 1st cent, to say with
confidence that only one who was as highly
esteemed as John the Apostle (Ramsay) or John
the Presbyter (Bousset) could be confident that
his message would come with authority to those
• The ' Beven kings ' of n^OfT. are the seven emperors — exclusive
of the usurpers Oalba, Otho, and Vitellius — from Augustus to
Nero. The ' eighth that is of the seven (v.H) is Domitian, con-
sidered as Nero Redivimis.
to whom it was addressed. On the other hand,
it is more than possible, in view both of the liter-
ary apocalyptic convention of pseudepigraphy and
of the probability that concealment of the author's
name wjis an act of warrantable prudence, that
' John ' was not the author's real name, and that
(almost by consequence) the banishment in Patmos
was, so far as he was concerned, fictitious. But
the matter of real importance is not the question
whether the names of person and place are
fictitious ; it is the fact that — supposing them to
have been fictitious — here the fiction ends. The
writer is a Christian. He is in the same situation
with those he addresses. He neither desires nor
attempts to place himself in the distant past. The
Christian Church has its own prophets. Our
author solemnly claims to be one of tliem, and the
Church since the beginning of the 3rd cent, has
taken him at his own estimate.*
(2) But is not an apocalyptist, ipso facto, only
a pale shadow of a prophet ? Must not ' John ' lie
conceived, as regards inspiration, to stand to a
speaking prophet, say of Ephesus, as ' Daniel '
stands to tne real Daniel or to some prophet of the
time of Nebuchadrezzar ? It seems to the present
writer that the entire absence from the Apocalypse
of such a fiction as that in Daniel, in which the
past is in one part (the alleged writer's time)
adorned with legendary features, and in a much
greater part (the centuries between the Exile and
the Syrian Persecution) is treated fictitiously as
future, separates it longo intervallo from apocalyptic
writings of the purely Jewish type, or even from
Christian apocalypses like the Apoc. of Peter, which
resemble the Jewish type in the feature of imper-
sonation. It may be probable, though it is far
from certain, that ' John ' conceals his real name,
but the suggestion that he tried to personate any
one, or sought any authority for his message other
than what belonged to it as the testimony of Jesus
given to himself, seems to be as destitute of proba-
bility as of proof.
What, we may ask, is a Christian prophet but
one who has an diroKa\v^l/is (revelation) from God
through Jesus Christ concerning matters Ipertain-
ing to His Kingdom (1 Co 14'''*^-, esp. v.^*; cf.
Rev 19^") ? If a Christian could spealc so as to
bring home to his brethren the reality of the
promised Kingdom, or so as to flash the light of the
Divine judgment on the darkened conscience of an
unbeliever, he had the xa/J'^Ma or gift of prophecy
(1 Co 1422-=«-). St. Paul himself must have pos-
sessed the gift in an eminent degree. We judge
so not simply from what is told in the Acts or
from what he himself tells regarding the source
from which he derived the contents and manner of
his preaching or the directions necessary for liis
missionary journeys. We judge so rather from
the correspondence existing between his claim to
direct access to this source and the still operating
influence of his personality upon the conscience
and conduct of mankind. If it be said that St.
Paul was a preacher, and ' John ' was, so far as we
know, only a writer, it may be asked in reply :
What do we know of Paul the preacher that we do
not learn best from his own writings? No com-
panion of 'John ' has told us (as Luke did of Paul)
how he preached, but surely we may say that no
one could write as ' John does without being,
under favourable conditions, a preacher, and that
f»robably as much in proportion of ' John's ' Apoca-
ypse as of St. Paul s Epistles might have been
* Porter (op. cit. 183) asks whether the Apocalj-pse is ' a
direct or a secondary product of that new inspiration ' [Chria-
tian pro|)hec.v], and he replies, rather disconcertingly : ' Our
impression is that it is secondary.' No one has a better right
to speak with authority than Porter. But if the inspiration of
the -Apocalypse is secondary, what measure have we by which
to judge of that which is primary?
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
77
preached as it stands to his own contemporaries.
When it is remembered how apocalypses incom-
parably inferior in spiritual quality to the Apoca-
lypse were cherished by the early Church and even
quoted as Scripture, it will not seem hazardous to
assert that in the Apostolic Age the distinction
between apocalypse and prophecy, which is marked
in the pre-Christian period by the separation of
Daniel in the Hebrew Canon from ' the Prophets,'
has ceased to exist. Two things, unnaturally
separated (through the spirit of artihce), have come
together again. The prophet is the man who has
a 'revelation,' and the man who has a 'revelation,'
whether he speak it or write it, is a prophet. If
our argument is sound, we may venture to say
that once at least this ideal unity of apocalypse
and prophecy has been realized. It is realized in
the Apocalypse of John.
(c) The hortatory and dogmatic teaching of the
Apocalypse. — The best proof of the soundness of
the above argument lies in the abundance of
hortatory and dogmatic material of ; permanent
value to be found in the Apocalypse. ' John ' is,
in a sense, the Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel of
the NT. This is eminently true of the messages
to the Seven Churches (chs. 2 and 3). Ramsay's
Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (Lond. 1904)
probably exaggerates the extent to which the
writer may have had in his mind facts of geography
and history relating to the places mentioned ;
but such a book — from the pen of an unrivalled
authority on the antiquities of Asia Minor — could
not have been written of the messages in chs. 2
and 3 of the Apocalypse did they not proceed from
one who was thoroughly conversant with every-
thing in the environment of the Churches of Asia
which had a bearing on their spiritual condition.
A writer who closes each message with the formula,
'he that hath ears, etc' (27- "• ". 29 36. 13. 22.
cf. Mt 13®***, etc.), claims to stand to those whom
he addresses in the relation of a speaking prophet
to his hearers. Those who remember the function
these chapters still serve in that best type of
Christian oratory in which preaching is prophesy-
ing, may justly feel that the on-us prohandi rests
with those who deny the claim. But the immedi-
ately edifying elements of the Apocalypse are not
confined to these chapters. The book is written,
as it claims to be, in an atmosphere of worship. *
The inspiration came to ' John ' on the day in
which Christians remembered the Resurrection of
the Lord. The book is a message from the Lord
in heaven. Those who read and obey are blessed
because the time of their deliverance is at hand.
The sense of holy omnipotent power, not domin-
ated by but manifested through suffering — for
the power is redemptive — pervades the book. Its
refrain is Glory to God and to the Lamb (1*^), and
the note of the triumphant thanksgiving of the
faithful sounds, throughout, loudly behind the
curtain of judgment that shrouds the wicked
world (5*-i* 69ff- 7^^ S^'- ll"^' 1210-12 13»*- 14i-7- ^
151-4 191-8. 11-16 2a«-fi 21. 22). The worship-element
in the book is exquisitely beautiful as literature,
but it was too vital to the spiritual situation to
be intended as ornamental. The crucial element
in the situation is the liberty of worship. His-
tory has proved that the day of martyrs is emi-
• 110. The opinion of scholars is against the rendering : ' I
was, through the Spirit, in the Day of the Lord (or the Day of
Jad^ent),' though this rendering cannot be said to be gram-
maticall}' impossible ; and though it has the advantage of
attaching a good traditional meaning to 'Day of the Lord,"
which would thus retain its OT sense (Is 212, Am 520, etc), yet it
is hardly likely that €v would be used both in the instrumental
and the local sense in one short sentence ; and the analogy of
173f. 2110 suggests that, had the author intended this meaning,
he would have used a verb of transference (' I was carried by
the Spirit to, etc.'). The ' Day of the Lord' is, therefore, the
Christian Sabbath, the day of worship.
nently the day when this liberty is denied or
ignored.
The ethical teaching of the book is perhaps best
seen in such passages as B®-" 13*-i" 14"-" 20"-. The
essential virtues of the saints are patience and
courage. The weapon of force is not permitted
to them (131" . ^f^ ^^^ 26=2), but patience and faith
prevaU. On the other hand, patience is not mere
passivity. The command to worship the Beast
must be courageously disobeyed. Compliance is
fatal. First among those who have their part in
the ' second death ' are ' the fearful ' (21^). The
vital connexion of this teaching with the situation
is obvious. Not less but even more obvious is its
connexion with the dogmatic teaching of the book.
As we have seen, the Apocalypse must be con-
sidered, so far as the Apostolic Age is concerned,
a thing of Jewish origin and growth.* There are,
indeed, few direct quotations from the OT in the
Apocalypse ; but there are more OT reminiscences
in it than in almost any other book of the NT.t
This, no doubt, is due largely to the comparatively
stereotyped character of the apocalyptic imagery.
But, in view of the emphasis — in some cases
excessive — which many scholars have laid on the
Jewish character of the Apocalypse, a word seems
necessary on the question of how far the distinc-
tive Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah has
modified the type of teaching peculiar to a Jewish
apocalyptic book.
At first sight the change seems more formal
than real. The Apocalypse comes from Jesus
Christ (1^), but, beyond the features of His death
and resurrection, there is nothing in the descrip-
tion of the sublime Personage who overwhelms
' John' with His manifestations (1") suggestive of
any feature distinctive of the human Jesus of the
Gospels. The description of the Figure in 1^- 1"^-
and in IQ^"^- owes more to Daniel,! Zechariah,§
and Isaiah || than to anything that is original in
the Gospels. Such a fact gives a certain colour
to the view, propounded by Vischer in 1886, that
the book is a Jewish Apocalypse set in a Christian
framework (chs. 1-3, and 22^--'), and slightly inter-
polated. This extreme view has, however, yielded
to the strong impression of its unity and Christian
character, which, in spite of its eclectic form, the
book produces on the mind of the critical no less
than of the ordinary reader. As to the alleged
absence of the features of the Christ of the Gospels,
two considerations seem specially relevant. The
one is that the absence of the human features of
Jesus is scarcely more marked in the Apocalypse
than it is in every other book of the NT outside
the Gospels. Are references to the human Jesus
frequent or marked in the Acts of the Apostles,
though that book was written by a man who also
wrote a Gospel? Are they marked — or even, in
the latter case, at all present — in the Epistles which
bear the names of Peter and John ? Notoriously
they are so little marked in the known writings
of the greatest figure of the Apostolic Age that
their absence has supplied its one position of
apparent strength to the 'modem Gnosticism'
associated with the names of Jensen and Drews,
and has made the effort to exhibit real points of
contact between St. Paul and Jesus of Nazareth
a main task of modem Apologetics. Yet one of
St. Paul's companions was Mark, and another was
Luke. "We do not know all that St. Paul either
* That is to say, its affinities with pagan mythology may be
ignored, as belonging to the sphere of OT research.
t According to Hiihn, Matthew has 37 direct quotations from
the OT against 3 in the Apocalyj>se. But the latter has 463
reminiscences against 437 in Matthew. Thus Matthew comes near
the Apocalj'pse in this respect ; Luke, with 474 reminiscences,
goes beyond it. All the other books are much behind it
{Alttegt. Citate w. ReminUcenzen im NT, 1900, p. 269 flf.).
: Dn 7S 105ff.. § Zee 1210. y ig n* 63^-.
78
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
spoke or wrote, but we do know that, contempo-
raneously Avith the actoniiilishnient of his mission
to the Gentiles, or, at least, well within the Ajjos-
tolic Age, a demand for written rcininiscenees of
Jesus arose both in the Jewish and in the Gentile
portion of the Church. Men possess reminiscences
of personalities who have exercised a determining
influence upon them lonj,' before they think of
committing them to writing, and often, if not
usually — as witness the cases of Matthew and
Mark — the task of writing is undertaken only by
request (Euseb. HE iii. 39). If, then, the silences
of St. Paul, the contemporary of Jesus (who yet
possibly never saw Him in the llesh), do not, on
fair consideration, surprise \is, wliy should those
of a man some thirty years younger, a Chris-
tian prophet of the time of Domitian, offend
us?
The other consideration is more positive in char-
acter. It is that of what may be called the
eschatological outlook of the Apostolic Age. It
was believed by all the NT writers of the first
generation that the return of Christ to His own
in glory and power would be witnessed by some in
their own time while they were yet in the flesh.
The expectation appears in the Gospels (Mk 9^ 13l|),
and it is a matter much discussed how far it is due
to convictions definitely entertained and expressed
by our Lord Himself. It was certainly entertained
by St. Paul (I Co 15", 1 Th 5''"^-) ; and, though on the
whole it hardly affected, and never unwholesomely,*
his ethical teaching, it surely explains why letters
to fellow-Christians, who had been for the most
part his own converts and catechumens, in so far as
they were not occupied with matters of immediate
perplexity and duty, should be concerned rather
with prospects of the Lord's coming and glory than
with reminiscences of the days of His flesh. If
St. Paul had been asked to state his essential creed
as briefly as possible, he might fairly be conceived
to reply : For the past, Christ died in the flesh for
our sins ; for the present, Christ rose and lives for
our justification ; for the future, Christ will come
to confirm and receive His own to Himself in the
glory of God. Would the modem religious man,
whose creed has any title to be associated Avitli the
NT, say anything, even in regard to the future,
that is really different from this ?
Whatever worth may belong to these considera-
tions in reference to St. Paul belongs to them a
fortiori in reference to a writer whose express aim
is to show to the servants of God the ' things that
must shortly come to pass' (P). Even if we put
out of account the limitations of apocalyptic
literary method, the last thing we shall expect
such a writer expressly to deal with will be
reminiscences of the historic Jesus. If we assume
that the Apostolic Age, whatever may be its
defects, supiilies the norm of the religion which
is final, we shall require of the Christian prophet
'John' only that he accomplish his declared
purpose in a manner conformable both to the
situation he has in view and to the spirit and
teaching of the apostolic faith. No critic con-
tends tliat chs. 2 and 3 do not indicate a writer
Avho is in the matters of main account in close
touch with the communities he addresses, and
who writes to them in prophetic vein, on the
whole just as he might be conceived to speak. In
the rest of his book, he drops special reference
to the Asiatic Churches, devotes himself to the
recounting of visions, mainly of final judgment,
which are of account for the whole Church and
world of his time, and makes, as the nature of his
theme requires, larger use of material that is more
or less common to all imaginative religious speech
* 1 Oo 729ff. seems to the present writer an illustration rather
than an exception.
or literature.* He has the definite belief that
the last instrument of Antichrist is the Koman
Imperial system, and that with the removal of
the 'Great Whore' (19^)— the 'Babylon' which is
Rome — especially the cult of the Emperor, the
last obstacle to the glorious advent of the Kingdom
will be taken away. It is true there is nothing
in his general estimate of the situation of the
worshippers of the true God, suffering from the
Koman persecution, that might not have been
conceived by ' Daniel ' or any other OT prophet.
There is scarcely a detail in the wonderful lament
of triumph over the fall of the Roman Babylon
(ch. 18) that has not its close parallel in Isaiah
and Jeremiah (for the details see Porter, op. cit.
267).
But what significance has such a fact other
than that of illustrating, in general, the claim of
Christianity to fulfil OT prophecy, and, in par-
ticular, the claim of this Christian seer to be in
the succession of the prophets (1^ lO""^- 19^" 22i*'*'-)?
Once it is seen that it is the work of a Christian,
and that every detail in it has to the author's
own mind a significance, determined by his own
attitude and that of his readers to the Messiah
who was crucified (1"- 11* 12"), the book must be
allowed to possess a unique value for edification
both in itself and in reference to the place assigned
it by Christian authority — that or closing the
canonical record of revelation contained in the
Bible.
* A good instance o( the author's eclecticism, acting under
control of spiritual insight, is his combination of an earthly
and a heavenly view of the Consummation. The binding of
Satan and the thousand jears' reign of the martyred saints
precedes the final destruction of the Antichristian'power and
the descent of the Heavenly City (ch. 20 ; cf. with chs. 21 and
22). Why does the prophet not close his book at 19io? It ig
the poorest conceivable answer to say that he continues his
text for literary reasons, having a desire to utilize traditional
material that was too good to be neglected. But the reason
may well be that, while the destruction of the colossal im-
posture of the Roman Imperial cult is the last preliminary to
the Consummation that comes within his definite conviction,
a complex instinct, which we may consider part of his prophetic
equipment, warns him against the danger of confounding
definiteness of result with deflniteness of time and manner.
Tlie large doings of God permit of fluctuation in detail, and
the prophet is practical as well as inspired. One matter that
genuinely concerned him as a prophet, and had concerned
brother-prophets before him (cf. Dn 12iff-, En. Oliaff-, Bar 408,
and, for a Christian example, 1 Co 15-oa), was the question what
special reward would be granted to those who had maintained
tlieir faithfulness to God at the aost of their lives. And here
the traditional idea of a reign of the saints preliminary to the
Final Consummation came to his aid. In En. 91i2f- (cf. Bar 40")
we find a scheme according to which all human history, in-
cluding the reign of the Messiah, is divided into heavenly
weeks. In 4 Ezr. 728 the period of the reign of the Messiah ia
400 years — a, number which, as the Talmud (Sank. 99) explains,
is obtained by combining Gn 153 with I's 9016. The 1000 years
of our prophet would be obtained in a somewhat similar fashion
by combining Gn lif- (the 'day' of the Creation-narrative)
with Ps 90^. The 'day ' ( = 1000 years) is the rest-day of God's
saints, who are in particular the martyrs. In tlic Jewish tradi-
tion (cf. Jub. 430 and Secrets of Enoch 33if-) the seventh 'day'
was the reign of the Messiah. With ' John ' it is the reign of
the Messiah with His faithful martyrs, ond of course neither
they nor He die at the end of it, as in 4 Ezr. 7^. Satan, however,
is unbound and leads the powers of evil in a final assault upon
the saints of the earth. He is overthrown and cast into the
'lake of fire' with the Beast and the False Prophet. Then
follows the General Judgment, in which those whose names are
not found in the ' book of life' are cast into the lake of fire, and
the rest who are faithful join the saints of the Millennium in
the final bliss. It is obvious that these details are not strictlv
reconcilable with those of the Apocalypse that ends at lO^O,
and again at 1921. But surely we may credit the prophet with
being aware of the inconsistency. He handles his manifold
material freely. What is important to him is not to reconcile
discrepant details, but to express through them ideas of destin^v
that are worthy of God and His Messiah. And it was mani-
festly important to him, as it was also, in part, to St. Paul, to
express the ideas : (1) that believers who died before the Advent
Buffered no disodvsuitage above others (1 Th 41'"''- ; cf . Uev (JW.) ;
(2) that the earth needed to be prepared for the final glory by
the prevailing presence in it of the saints (1 Co Ib'^f- ir^f- ; of.
Rev 20^-i«) ; (3) that there were special rewords for those who
made special sacrifices, In particular the sacrifice of life, for the
sake of the Kingdom (2 Ti 2"f- ; cf. Mk ItfKTI, and passages in
Rev. above cited).
APOCALYTSE
APOCALYPSE
79
The following examples may be given of the
teaching of the Apocalypse on detinite articles
of the Christian creed. (1) The Messiah is the
historical Person of the seed of David, who was
crucified at Jerusalem (5* 11*).— (2) Grace and
peace come from Him equally with Him who * is
and was and is to come' and with the 'seven
spirits which are before the throne' (manifest
apocalyptic equivalents for the Father and the
Spirit). He is the 'faithful witness,' the 'First-
begotten of the dead, the Prince of the kings of
the earth' (1*^ T^").— <3) The ' revelation ' contained
in the book is not only mediated by Jesus Christ,
it is the revelation of Him (1^). The prophets
are those who have the ' testimony of Jesus, and
the latter is the 'spirit of prophecy' (19'<*). The
prophet is a fellow-ser^-ant and companion of all
faitnful believers in Jesus. For they also have
the testimony. They are made prophets as well
as priests and kings (1^*). — (4) The fundamental
work of the Messiah is the redemptive self-sacrifice.
No doubt the ' Lamb ' is a leader and a warrior,
whom His servants follow. His 'wTath' is the
destruction of His enemies. Yet even in the glory
of His power 'in the midst of the throne He
remains for the Christian seer a ' Lamb as it had
been slain,' and the innumerable multitude of the
glorified faithful in heaven are those whose robes
have been ' made white in the blood of the Lamb.'
The motive of service even in heaven is the
gratitude of those who have been forgiven and
cleansed (14i-» 19^^ 1^-). Agreeably with this,
the fundamental virtues of the saints are ' patience
and faith ' ; though, as there is a ' wrath of the
Lamb,' so there is a certain fierceness in the
conflicts and triumphs of the saints. Those who
find fault with the vindictiveness of the Apocalypse
should make allowance for the dramatic style of
the book and should not forget that at bottom
the battle between the saints and their oppressors
is a battle between patience and violence (18**
13«- U^).
(5) The conception of Christian duty and bliss,
similarly, is profoundly ethical and spiritual.
The saints must show no half-hearted timidity
in resisting the order that is supreme in the world.
The resistance is to be maintained in the sense in
which maintenance is victory. The promise is to
' him that overeometh,' and no sacrifice is too
great (•2i» 21''-). The reward of this holj^ sacrificial
attitude of the will is complete union with Christ,
and participation in all the privileges of sonship.
The sun that lightens the city of pearls and makes
its splendours real is none other than Gk)d Himself
and the Lamb. Its bliss is the life of its citizens
(7i5ff. i97fl. 22Jff-). The guests at the marriage-
supper of the Lamb do not wear jewellery. They
wear the 'crown of life,' and the 'fine linen of
the righteousness of the saints' (2^* 19^). In
reference to the fidelity of the servants of God,
the emphasis laid on worship is noticeable. It is
not accidental. It is due to the twofold fact that
the book reflects a situation in which liberty of
worship was denied, and that worship in spirit
and in truth is the loftiest expression of the soul's
loyalty. The emphasis is negative as weU as
positive. Twice over, the seer is warned not to
worship him that showed him these things. The
worship of angels was a heresy not unknown in
the Asiatic Churches. Perhaps 'John' felt that
the elaboration of the conception of angelic agency
and mediation, however inevitable in apocalyptic
literature or even in the thoughts proper to
true religion, had its dangers (19^" 22*; cf. Col
OlSff. ),
(6) Finally, the spirit of gracious evangelism
that finds expression in '23P deserves acknowledg-
ment. Evangelism is scarcely to be expected in
a book announcing finalities, and concerned so
largely with the Judgment. 'John' does not
believe that there is much more chance of repent-
ance for the rank and file of those who mtve
yielded to the apostasy of his time than for the
Beast and the False "Prophet who have led it.
There is not much chance, for there is not much
time (1' 2210'-). Yet the last word of the book-
as from the Spirit (in, say, the prophet himself),
as from the Church, already the ' Bride,' as from
the chance hearer, and as from the Nameless who
is above every name — is ' Come ' : ' whosoever will,
let him take the water of life freely.' On all
these points — and others might be named — the
close touch of the Apocalypse with the teaching
of the other books of the ^^T is obvious.
III. Thu apocalyptic elemeat ly other
BOOKS OP THE XT AXD IS CHRISTIASITT.—
Though it is impossible to treat the subject here
in detail, a word may be said in conclusion regard-
ing what is commonly called the ' apocalyptic ele-
ment': (1) in. the other books of the N't; (2) in
Christianity itself. We use the phrase 'apoca-
lyptic element ' with reserve, because it may weU
appear from our study of the Apocalypse that the
whole of Christianity is an apocalypse or revela-
tion whose containins sphere is the Person of Jesus
Christ (Col 23- 9). the view of the NT and of
the early Fathers (see Didache, 11) regarding the
Christian prophets is that expressed by St. Paul
(1 Co 12^, Eph 4"), viz. that they are next in
rank to the apostles. Yet what distinguished the
apostles from the prophets was accidental. The
apostles were received as witnesses of Jesus at
first hand, men who had ' seen the Lord ' (1 Co 9*).
They moved from place to place, and founded
churches. In the sub-apostolic Church these
functions probably passed over largely to the
prophets, who in any case were one with the
apostles in the essential qualification of having
received their commission not from man but from
God and who spoke and acted by aroK6.\vif/is (Ac 4"
20**^ 21i«-, Gal 11 T-). The expression ' apocalyptic
element' indicates phrases, sentences, or longer
passages in the apocalyptic style occurring in writ-
ings that do not on the whole bear the lit«rary
character of apocalypses. It is obvious even at a
superficial glance that, so understood, the apoca-
lyptic element in the NT is considerable; and
when we remember that it includes phrases directly
relating to the order that already exists in heaven
or to the processes through which it will come to
earth, we shall, perhaps, leel that apocalypse is a
leaven rather than an ingredient in the ]J^T. The
life reflected in the NT is saturated with the super-
natural.
1. The Gospels. — Besides words and phrases, the
Synoptic Gospels contain long passages of alleged
discourses of Jesus — notably, e.g., Mk 13.i — which
are entirely in the apocalyptic style. In view of
the fact that Jesus, when before Caiaphas, de-
clared Himself the Messiah in words that were
virtually a quotation of Dn 7^ (Mk 14**;!), it can-
not be said to be impossible that He spoke the
contents of Mk 13 substantially as they are re-
ported. On the whole, however, it is probable
that the Evangelists incorporated in their texts a
Jewish-Christian apocalypse which gave the sub-
stance of our Lord's utterance in a form adapted
to the case of the Christians in Jerusalem at the
time of the Jewish-Roman war (a.d. 66-70). It
may surely be said ^vith truth and reverence that
our Lord Himself was the best example of a speak-
ing apocalyptist, or of the union between apo<^
lypse and prophecy. The saying recorded in
Lk 10^ would alone be suflBcient to prove the
point.
In the Grospel of John matters lie in a difierent
80
APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE
perspective. The heavenly has come rather tlian
IS coming. That does not mean, however, that
there is no room for apocalypse. It means that
all is apocalypse. The Gospel is an account of the
manifestation in the flesh of the Word that was
God {V- ").
2. The Acts of the ipoBtles.— Just as to John
(the Evangelist) the appearance and action of
Jesus in the world are themselves an apocalypse,
so to Luke in the Acta the events that mark the
{)rogre8s of the gospel are largely sensible apoca-
ypses of the Divine favour or power. Ch. 2
(wind, and tongues of fire), 3 (healing), 4 (earth-
quake), 5 (strokes of judgment, death by a word),
7 (transfiguration, 6^* ; cf . 7*"), 10 (coincident visions),
12 (deliverance through an angel) are conspicuous
instances.
3. The Epistles. — (a) In general, the expecta-
tion of the Lord's coming, and coming soon, is
dominant in all these writings, except (For wholly
accidental reasons) Philemon and 2 and 3 John.
Even in the later writings, where the colour of the
expectation may be supposed to be more sober,
the sense of the imminence of the coming glory
is not lost. Even John is confident that it is the
'last time' (1 Jn 2'^). The difference between
earlier and later appears chiefly in the choice in
the later writings of phrases indicating the mani-
festation of a Divine reality already existing rather
than the coming from heaven of something new
(Col S^«- ; cf. Eph 58- ", 1 Jn 3^«-). The apocalyptic
element, even in the literary sense, in 2 Peter —
perhaps the latest writing in the NT — is sufficiently
obvious (2 P 3^-^3).
(6) Of special interest are the earlier Epistles of St.
Paul, 1 and 2 Cor., Gal., and 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
The passages 1 Co 7*''- IS^'^- have already been
referred to. Those in 1 Co 12iff- and U^«- on the
tests of prophecy (cf. Did. 11) and on its value for
edification and conversion are of peculiar interest
to the student of Christian prophecy as manifested
in the Apostolic Age (U^^- i«.8iff.). in the enu-
meration in 14^, the prophet is clearly the person
who 'has an diroKdXv^pis.' Prophecy and 'tongues'
might be alike in respect of irapermanence (13*),
but prophecy, while it lasted, was by far the more
valuable gift (14^). St. Paul probably believed
that prophecy, exercised under proper self-control,
would last until the Advent, whereas the rational-
istic spirit, however little it deserved to be en-
couraged, would quench the inspiration of the
tongues (cf. U^''- with 13»'- and 1 Th 5^^'-). In
our study of the Apocalypse we have seen some-
thing of the difficultv or even impossibility of find-
ing an eschatological scheme of perfect consistency
in detail even in so purely apocalyptical a writer
as 'John.' The eschatology of St. Paul is beyond
the range of this article. Yet it is pertinent to
make two remarks. The one is that St. Paul is as
certain of the need and value of prophesying and
of the reality of the supernatural nappenings with
which prophecy is concerned as any apocalyptical
writer could be. We prophesy, indeed, in part ;
still we must prophesy so long as we believe. The
other is that, where St. Paul enters, so to speak,
upon the sphere of the apocalyptist, as he does
so markedly in the Corinthian and Thessalonian
Epistles,* his practical motives are clear and
cogent. They are the same as the motives of
'John,' viz. to encourage believers to continue in
patience and hope. The proposition will bear
examination that in practically every case where
believers are addressed in the NT regarding the
final glory that is to come soon — presumably with-
in their own life-time — a leading motive of the
utterance is to insist that other important things
• Loee. citt. in 1 Cor., also 2 Co 61K 12l«'-, 1 Th i^ss. 2 Th
must happen first.* This is a paradox, but it is
true — as true as the more comprehensive paratiox
that the Bible is the most eschatological book in
the world and, at the same time, the most etliical.
i. In Chpistianity. — May we extend the paradox
to Christianity itself as the spirit and power of
the religion of the 20th century? Or are those
' modernists ' right who say that the Christianity
of the future must be stripped of ' eschatological
delusions'? The question, perhaps, cannot be
answered with perfect satisfaction to the mind
without the aid of psychology and metaphysics;
and possibly the new ' intuitionalism ' of our day,
associated with the name of Bergson, may help
some religious men, whom mental training has
fitted to desire and receive such aid. We could
hardly be satisfied with the impossibility of search-
ing out God to perfection unless it were permis-
sible, or, for some, even necessary, to attempt the
task. Yet, on the whole, the moral and spiritual
life of mankind goes its own way independently
of philosophy. But it does not proceed independ-
ently of God. He ' is and was and is to come,' and
He ' reveals ' Himself to those who trust and obey
Him. Our situation in reference to Him is para-
doxical. We rest in Him, yet cannot rest, for His
promise leads us forward to horizons that vanish
and enlarge as we approach. We suffer, yet we
hope. We are disappointed, yet we are comforted ;
for the fulfilment is greater than the hope. Life
is an experiment, not a theory, and the object of
the experiment is God. Those who thus think
will look rather to history and to personal and
social religious experience than to philosophy for
a solution of the eschatological question.
Could Jesus be the Reveal er of God and of Son-
ship with God and yet be under illusion as to the
end of the world? Yes, because human life in-
volves this ignorance, and the Son of God was
made flesh. And yes, again, because the illusion
was to Him the transparent veil of the certainty
that the Righteous Father lived and reigned.
But what of the religion of the future? Must
we not leave eschatology and put evolution in its
place? No, because these are not alternatives.
Evolution no more excludes eschatology than
science excludes religion. No, again, because one
cannot have religion without eschatology. To the
religious man human history is not a mere spectacle.
It is a work in which he is involved as a partner
with God. It is the working out of God's purpose.
And it must have an end, because God must fulfil
Himself. Only, let our eschatology be a thing of
dignity and freedom. Let it be reserved even
when it speaks Avith eflusion. Let it never be
separated from the spirit of moral discipline and
religious worship. Let it be ' in the spirit on the
Lord's Day,' and go with Him to a height where
we see more than ' all the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them ' because we see Him. Let
it be ' a companion in tribulation ' with the hum-
blest of men and women, who are the servants of
God and the redeemed of Jesus Christ. Fulfilling
these conditions, it will recover (should it have
lost it) the note of authority that is struck in the
NT and attains such lofty expression in the Apoca-
lypse of John. If we do not call this note science,
it IS because we must use a greater word and call
it prophecy. The heart of Christian prophecy is
the • testimony of Jesus.' It is the confidence
gained not from man but from God, that history has
no other end than the reconciliation of sinful man
to God through Jesus Christ, and the reign of holi-
ness and love in their hearts. The ' Lamb ' is also
• This point is clearly and admirably brought out in reference
to our Lord in C. W. Emmet's article {Expositor, 8th ser. xxiii.
[1912] 423) entitled, ' Is the Teaching of Jesus an Interinu-
ethik^'
APOLLOXIA
APOLLOS
81
' the Lion of the tribe of Judah ' who has prevailed
to open the book of human destiny. ' John ' used
largely the language of primitive religious im-
agination to convey his prophecy, and who will
say that in his hands the language has not shown
itself lit ? If the modem Christian prophet thinks
he can do better with the language of evolution,
let him put his belief to the test of experiment.
In its passage seawards, the river of life is
joined by innumerable tributaries. But there is
only one force of gravity, and only one main
stream. The tributaries reach the ocean only by
first reaching the main stream. There is some-
thing in God that is akin to everything that is
human, yet it may well be that nothing human
reaches the end or fulfilment of Grod — nothing, as
' John ' might say, receives the ' crown of life ' or
finds its * name written in the Lamb's book of life '
— save through the channel of the sacrificial will
and the heart of faith. These do not come by
evolution or any involuntary process. They come
through the travail of self-discipline and prayer
and sympathy with our fellows. And, when they
come, it is by vision and revelation. It may
surely be claimed that the abiding and the loftiest
witness to this in literature is the Apocalypse of
John.
LrrKRATTRE. — The handbooks, C. A. Scott's ' R«velation,' in
the Century BibU, London, 1905, and F. C. Porter's The
Mesgaget of the Apoealjfptieai Writers, do. 1905, will be found
(esp. the latter) extremely helpful. Of the larger commentaries
may be mentioned : J. MofEatt {EGT ; see esp. ' Literature ' in
the Introduction) ; Lucke-deWette, Bonn, lfe52 (epoch-making
for the modem method of interpretation); W. Bonsset,
Gottingen, 1906 ('Excursuses' and history of the interpretation
of the Apocalypse specially valuable) ; J. Weiss, in Sehriften
d. HT neu ubinetzt u. JUr d. Gegenwart erkidrt, do. 1908.
For Biblical Eschatolo£7 mav be noted : A. Titins, Die neutett.
Lehre von der SeligkeU, Tubingen, 1895-1900 ; E. Hanpt, J>ie
eichat. Ausiagen Jesu in den syn, Etang., Berlin, 1895 ; and
I_ A. Muirhead, EtehatoL of Jetus, London, 1901 (the two
last for the GtspelsX For the Epistlea of St. Paul : H. A. A.
Kennedy, St. Paut* Conceptions of the Last Things, do. 1904 ;
R. Kabisch, Eseh. d. Paulas, Gottingen, 1393. On Jewish Eschat-
ology in general, see the great relative works of W. Bousset
and P. Volz, and the still valuable work of A. Hilgenfeld, Die
jiid. Apokalpptik, Jena, 1857. On the mythical groundwork of
eschatology : H. Gunkel, Sehopfung «. Chaos, Gottingen, 1895 ;
H. Gressmann, Der Ursprung der tsraei.-jiid. EsehaMogie, do.
1905.
Headers of (zerman will find readiest and fullest access to the
texts of most of the extra-canonical apocalypses in the invalu-
able work, representing many scholars. Die Apokryphen «.
Psextdepigraphen des Alien Testaments, 2 vols., ed. E. Eautzsch,
Tubingen, 1900. The texts are given in German translations.
There are critical introductions and notes.
Lewis A. Muirhead.
APOLLONIA ('AxoXXw^Ia).— A town of Myg-
donia in Macedonia, S. of Lake Bolbe (Athen.
viii. 334), and X. of the Chalcidian mountains.
It lay on the Via Egnatia, and St. Paul ' passe<l
through' Amphipolis and Apollonia on his way
from Philippi to Thessalonica (Ac 17^). The
intermediate towns were probably remembered by
him as resting-places. According to the Antonine
Itinerary, Apollonia was 37 Roman mUes from
Amphipolis, and 37 from Thessalonica. Leake
identities it with the modem village of PoUina.
J. Strahan.
APOLLOS.— In Ac 18'*-»Apollos is described as
• a Jew, an Alexandrian by race, a learned man,
mighty in the Scriptures, instructed in the way of
the Lord, fervent in spirit,' who came to Ephesus
when Aquila and PrisciUa had been left there
by St. Paul to do pioneering work pending the
Apostle's return. Apollos ' spake and taught care-
fully the things concerning Jesus ' ; but his know-
ledge of Jesus was limited, for he knew ' only the
baptism of John.'
It is not easy to elucidate the meaning of the
rather obscure phrases in 18^*. Schmi^el cuts
the knot by making IS'*^- '^^ later accretions.
Wendt throws out the whole of v.^, regarding
Apollos as a Jew having no connexion with John
VOL. I. — 6
or with Jesus. McGilfert is of opinion that the
description of Apollos as * instructed in the way
of the Lord ' and as teaching ' the things con-
cerning Jesus' is erroneous ; v.*» must have been
added by St. Luke. ' ^ye are to think of Apollos as
a disciple of John who was carrying on the work
of his master and preaching to his countrymen
repentance in view of the approaching kingdom of
God' (Apostolic Age, 291 f.). Hamack says:
* Apollos would appear to have been originally a
regular missionary of John the Baptist's move-
ment ; but the whole narrative of Acts at this
point is singularly coloured and obscure ' {Expan-
sion of Christianity, L 331 n.).
Without falling back on any of these somewhat
contradictory explanations, we gather that Apollos
had an imperfect hearsay acquaintance with the
story of Jesus, though enough to convince him of
His'Messiahship. If the twelve men found in
Ephesus by St. Paul (Ac 19^ *) may be treated as
disciples of Apollos, he had not heard 'whether
the Holy Ghost was given.' His bold eloquence in
the synagogue attracted Aquila and Prisciila [g.v.),
who ' took him unto them and expounded the way
of Grod more carefully.' This indefinite expression
does not carry us very far. It seems unlikely that
Apollos was baptized at Ephesus, for the twelve
disciples are stUl ignorant of baptism, nor was
there a Christian Church in Ephesus untU after St.
Paul's return later. In this connexion, the West-
em reading is interesting : that ' the brethren ' who
encouraged Apollos to go to Achaia were Corin-
thian Christians. Perhaps they recognized the
need of fuller instruction than could be given in
Eph^us for such a promising disciple, who was
likely to become a powerful Christian teacher.
The work of Apollos in Corinth is described as
' helping them much which had believed through
grace ' (Ac 18^). St. Paul's mission must have left
a number of uninstructed Christians in Corinth.
These converts had been persuaded to 'believe
through grace.' But the Christian life of some
was undeveloped ; and the powerful preaching of
Apollos did much to help them.
This conception of the work of Apollos in Corinth
is in accord with St. Paul's words in 1 Co 3*, ' I
planted ; ApoUos' watered.' It is justifiable also to
recognize Apollos in St. Paul's reference to men
who 'build on the foundation' he had laid (S"-*^),
and to ' tutors in Christ ' (4^*) in contrast to him-
self as their 'father.' Evidently Apollos' work
was not so much preaching the gospel to the un-
converted as buttressing the faith of Christians,
partly by an eloquent exposition of the OT, and
partly by a powerful apologetic which silenced
opponents and strengthened believers.
But this confirming work done by Apollos in
Corinth had ; other effects which were less useful.
It appears to have been infiuential in determining
the subsequent character of the Church. Preach-
ing to recent converts whose intellectual equipment
was slender and whose Christian knowledge must
have been elementary, Apollos, whose own instruc-
tion had been impertect, would inevitably put the
impress of his own mode of thinking upon them.
Thus there arose a party in the Corinthian Church
with the watch-word ' I am of ApoUos.' Although
some of these had been converted by St. Pam's
preaching, they had been ' much helped ' by Apollos.
Under the influence of their ' tutor in Christ,' their
interpretation of Christian truth and duty took on
the hue of Apollos rather than of St. Paul.
The distinctive elements in the preaching of
Apollos may be gauged from two considerations.
(1) He was ' a Jewish Christian versed in the Alex-
andrian philosophy,' whose 'method of teaching
differed from that of Paul, in the first place in
being presented in a strikingly rhetorical form.
82
APOLLOS
APOSTLE
and also by the use of Alexandrian speculation and
allegorical interpretation of Scripture. . . . Apollos
sought to reinforce the Gospel which was common
to both [Paul and himself], by means of the
Alexandrian philosophy and methods of exegesis '
(Pfieiderer, i. 145 f.). It is questionable, however,
whether the gospel he preached was in all respects
' common to both Paul and himself.' It cannot be
without significance that St. Paul has to emphasize
the work of the Holy Spirit so definitely as he does
in 1 Cor. (of. 2»»-i« S^" 12i-*). Apollos when h6 arrived
in Ephesus did not know of tne giving of the Holy
Spirit. Even in Corinth his efiorts were to show
by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ (Ac
IS^). It seems likely that his preaching had this
Jewish tone all through, and lacked the spiritual
note so dominant in St. Paul's preaching. It was
not Judaistic ; it was ' a middle term between
Paulinism and Judaism ' (Pfieiderer, i. 148).
The last NT reference to Apollos (Tit S^^) con-
nects him with ' Zenas the lawyer,' probably a
convert from the Jewish scribes. This confirms
the idea that Apollos maintained a Hebraistic type
of preac'hinjj, though his Alexandrian training
differentiated him from the ' Judaizers ' who pur-
sued St. Paul so relentlessly. Apollos did not
recognize that he was anti-Pauline. But the in-
evitable result of his preaching was to produce a
ditierent type of Christian from the type St. Paul
desired.
(2) Despite Weizsacker's disclaimer, some of the
results of the teaching of Apollos can be recognized
in those irregularities in the Corinthian Church to
which St. Paul refers in 1 Corinthians. Would not
his eloquence, his philosophical bent, and his re-
iteratea emphasis on Jesus as the Christ, lead to
imperfect conversions ? And may not the prefer-
ence for the gift of tongues, or the difficulties about
marriage, be traced naturally to this eloquent
ascetic? In Corinth, St. Paul resolved 'not to
know anything save Christ, and him crucified' (1
Co 2^). Apollos was less conscious of the dangers
of another mode of preaching ; and his convincing
eloquence might win converts who had not ' believed
through grace.' This judgment is in harmony with
St. Paul's references to Apollos. They scarcely
justify the remark of Pfieiderer that St. Paul and
Apollos were ' on the best of terms ' (i. 146). The
relations were correct, but hardly cordial. The
two men were friendly ; but they occupied different
standpoints, and could not always agree. St. Paul
was very anxious to avoid friction in Corinth.
Therefore he wrote about ' the parties ' in a con-
ciliatory spirit, acknowledging generously the work
of Apollos. In the same spirit, Apollos did not
accept the invitation of the Corinthians (1 Co 16^^).
But there are hints that St. Paul did not reckon
Apollos among the great Christian teachers. He
is not mentioned among the founders of the Church
in 2 Co 1'®. In 1 Co 16^^ he is referred to only as
' the brother,' where other people's work is de-
scribed with enthusiasm. St. Paul's references to
his own preaching ' not in wisdom of words ' ; to
'wood, nay, stubble' as possibly built on the
foundation he has laid ; to ' ten thousand tutors in
Christ ' who may conceivably mislead : these are
compatible at least with St. Paul's fear lest the
work of Apollos might be somewhat subversive of
his own. Then in Tit S^^ St. Paul links Apollos
with Zenas in a kindly spirit, but not as if he were
an outstanding leader. Probably, whilst sincerely
respecting each other, they recognized frankly the
ditlerences between them ; and in a very creditable
manner each man went on his own Avay. Like St.
Paul, Apollos tried to avoid fomenting the party
spirit in Corinth ; and the NT leaves him in Crete,
as a travelling preacher.
Several scholars favour the theory, suggested by
Luther, that Apollos was the author of ' Hebrews.'
Probably we must accept Bruce's summing nj):
' Apollos is the kind of man wanted. With this
we must be content ' (HDB ii. 338").
LiTERATURB. — Artt. in HDD and EBi on ' Apolloa,' 'Corinth,'
'Corinthians'; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paid the Traeeller and
the Kotrum Citizen, London, 1895, pp. 252, 267 ff. ; O. Pfieiderer,
Prim. Christianity, do. 1»06, i. 146-160 ; C. v. Weizsacker,
Apostolic Age, i.2 [do. 1897] 319-322, 11. [1895] 97 ; A. Harnack,
ExparutUm of Christianity-, do. 1908, i. 79 ; A. C. McGiffert,
Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 290 ff. ; A. Wright, Some
NT Problems, London, 1898, p. 309 ; A. Deane, Friends and
Fellow- Labourers of St. Paul, do. 1907, p. 20; F. J. A. Hort,
JThSt, Oct. 1905; and Schaff-Herzogr, art. 'Apollos.' For
authorship of ' Hebrews,' see Comm. on Heb. by M. Dods
{EGT), 229, and art. in HDD on ' Hebrews, Epistle to.*
J. E. IlOBERTS.
APOLLYON.— See Abaddon.
APOSTASY.— The Gr. word diroaraffla {apostasia)
is found twice in the NT, but in neither case does
EV render 'apostasy.' In Ac 2P' a charge is
brought against St. Paul of teaching all the Jews
who are among the Gentiles 'to forsake Moses'
(lit. ' apostasy from Moses '). In 2 Th 2^ St. Paul
assures the Thessalonian disciples that the day
of the Lord shall not come 'except the falling
away (lit. ' the apostasy') come first, and the man
of sin (marg., with better textual justification,
'lawlessness') be revealed.' It is sometimes as-
sumed that the word 'first' indicates that the
revelation of the ' man of sin ' must be preceded
in time by the apostasy (cf. art. Man of Sin,
and HDB iii. 226) ; but the relation of v.2 to v.»
makes it more natural to understand ' first ' as
signifying that the apostasy and the revelation of
the ' man of sin,' regarded as contemporaneous,
must come before the day of the Lord. This is
confirmed if we accept Nestle's contention (ExpT
xvi. [1904-1905] 472) that i] diroaracria in this pa.ssage
should be taken as a translation of the Heb. ^]IV?^
(Belial [q.v.]) — a rendering that occurs frequently
in Aquila's version and also in 3 K 21" in the
Cod. Alexandrinus. In any case the Apostle's
reference is to the wide-spread expectation in the
primitive Church (Mt 24^^, 1 Jn 2'8; cf. Dn 12")
that the return of Christ would be preceded by
such a revelation of the power of the Antichrist
(q.v.) as would lead to apostasy from the faith on
the part of many professing Christians.
J. C. Lambert.
APOSTLE.— The term ' Apostle ' (Gr. dv6<TTo\os)
is more definite than ' messenger ' (Gr. dyyeXos) in
that the apostle has a special mission, and is the
commissioner of the person who sends him. This
distinction holds good both in classical and in
biblical Greek. There is no good rea.son for doubt-
ing that the title ' apostle ' was given to the Twelve
by Christ Himself (Lk 6i8=Mk 3'*, where 'whom
he also named apostles ' is strongly attested). That
the title was used in the first instance simply in
reference to the temporary mission of the Twelve
to prepare for Christ's own preaching is a conjecture
which receives some support from the fact that, in
the Apostolic Church, Barnabas and Paul are first
called 'apostles' (Ac 14*- ^*) when they are acting
as envoys of the Church in Antioch in St. Paul's
first missionary journey. On this hypothesis, the
temporary apostleship, though not identical with
the permanent office, was typical of it and i)re-
paratory to it (Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, 1897,
p. 28 f.).
There is fundamental agreement between the
work of the apostles during Christ's ministry and
their work after the Ascension : their functions
undergo no radical change. But the changes are
considerable. Christ chose them in the first in-
stance (Mk 3") 'that they might be with him,'
to be educated and trained, ' and that he might
send them forth to preach ' and do works of mercy.
APOSTLE
APOSTLE
83
Instruction is the main thing, and ' disciples' is the
usual designation ; mission work is secondary and
temporary. After the Ascension their mission
work becomes primary and permanent. Apostle-
ship is now the main thing ; in Acts ' apostles' is
the dominant appellation, and in the Epistles
'disciples' are not mentioned. Instead of being
led and guided, the Twelve now become leaders
and guides ; or rather, instead of having a visible
Guide, they now have an invisible one — instead of
Jesus, ' the Spirit of Jesus ' (Ac 16"), who helps
them to lead others. The guidance of the Spirit
is the dominant idea in the Apostolic Church-
Nevertheless, the other way of stating the change
is true ; they have become teachers rather than
disciples. But the purpose is the same ; their
mission is unchanged. With enlarged experi-
ence, with powers greatly augmented at Pente-
cost, and with an enormously extended sphere of
work, they have to make known the Kingdom of
Gol. Cf. art. DiSClPLE.
This extension of sphere is one of the special
marks of the transfigured apostleship. It is no
longer restricted to ' the lost sheep of the house of
Israel,' but is to embrace ' all the nations ' through-
out 'all the world.' The tentative mission to the
inhabitants of Palestine at a peculiar crisis has be-
come one which has no limitations of either space
or time (Mt 28»», Lk 24", Ac 1»). But this uni-
versality of sphere was not the only or the most
important characteristic of the new mission. The
chief mark was the duty of bearing witness. The
Twelve seem to have been select^ originally be-
cause of their fitness for bearing witness. They
were not specially qualified for grasping or ex-
pounding theological doctrines ; nor were such
qualifications greatly needed, for the doctrines
wliich the Master taught them were few and simple.
Yet they had difficulty in apprehending some of
these, and sometimes surprised their Master by
their inability to understand (Mk 7" 8" 9»). But
because of their simplicity they were very credible
witnesses of what they had heard and seen. They
had been men of homely circumstances, and their
unique experiences as the disciples of Christ made
a deep impression upon them, especially with re-
gard to the hopeless sense of loss when He was put
to death, and to the amazing recovery of joy when
their own senses convinced them that He had risen
again. They were thus well qualified to convince
others. They evidently had not the wit to invent
an elaborate story, or to retain it when it had been
elaborated, and therefore what they stated with
such confidence was likely to be true. They were
chosen to keep alive and extend the knowl&dge of
events that were of the utmost importance to man-
kind— the knowledge that Jesus Christ had died
on the Cross, and had risen from the grave. That
He had died and been buried was undisputed and
indisputable; and all of them could testify that
they had repeatedly seen Him alive after His
burial. This was the primary function of an
apostle — to bear witness of Christ's Resurrection
(Ac 1^ 4*-»), and the influence of the testimony
was enormous. The apostles did not argue ; they
simply stated what they knew. Every one who heax^
them felt that thej- were men who had an intense
belief in the truth of what they stated. There is
no trace in either Acts or the Epistles of hesitation
or doubt as to the certainty of their knowledge ;
they knew that their witness was true (Jn 21==^,
1 Jn V-^). And the confidence with which they
delivered their testimony was communicated to
those who heard it all the more effectually because,
without any sign of collusion or conspiracy, they
all told the same story. They differed in age,
temperament, and ability, but they did not difiter
when they spoke of what they had seen and heard.
Nay, this still held good when one whom they had
at first regarded with fear and suspicion (Ac 9")
was added to their company. Greatly as Saul of
Tarsus differed from the Twelve in some things,
he was entirely at one with them respecting funda-
mental facts. He, like them, had seen and heard
the risen Christ (1 Co 9^ 15*-"; Latham, Pastor
Pastorum, 1890, pp. 228-230).
It was probably owing to St. Paul's persistent
claim to oe an a{X)stle, equal in rank with the
Twelve (Gal 1*, 1 Co 9*), that it became customary
from very early times to restrict the appellation
of 'apostle ' to the Twelve and the Apostle of the
(Jentiles ; but there is no such restriction in the
NT. It is certainly given to Barnabas, but perhaps
primarily as being an envoy from the Church of
Antioch (Ac 13'- * 14*- "), rather than as having
a direct mission from Christ. St. Paul seems to
speak of him as a colleague, recognized by Peter
and John as equal to himself in the mission to the
Grentiles (Gal 2*), and as one who, like himself,
used the apostolic privilege of working for nothing,
although he had a right to maintenance (1 Co 9*).
"We need not doubt that Barnabas continued to
be called an apostle in a general sense after the
mission from Antioch was over.
Perhaps the simplest and most natural way of
understanding Gal 1" is that James, the Lord's
brother, had the title of 'apostle' in the wider
sense. It may be regarded as certain that this
James was not one of the Twelve. But 1 Co 15'
ought not to be quoted as implying either that
there was a company of apostles larger than the
Twelve or that James was a member of this larger
company. • Next he appeared to James ; then to
the whole body of the apostles.' There is no
emphasis on 'all,' implying an antithesis between
' to one, then to all.' Such an antithesis, as well
as the idea that James was in some sense an
apostle, is foreign to the context. The ' all ' prob-
ably looks back to ' the twelve ' in v.", which is an
official and not a numerical designation, for only
ten were there, Thomas and Judas being absent.
' Then to all the apostles ' probably means that on
that occasion the apostolic company was complete
(for Thomas was present) rather than that some were
there who were called apostles although they were
not of the original Twelve. It is highly probable
that James, the Lord's brother, was such a person,
but 1 Co 15^ ought not to be quoted as evidence of
this. It is after the murder of James the son of
Zebedee that James the Lord's brother comes on
the scene. He may have taken the place of his
namesake in the number of the Twelve.
That Silvanus and Timothy were regarded as
apostles in the wider sense is not improbable. In
both 1 and 2 Thess. they are associated with St.
Paul in the address, and in both letters the first
person plural is used with a regularity which is not
found in any other group of the Pauline Epistles :
' our gospel,' i.e. ' the gospel which we apostles
preach,' is specially remarkable (1 Th 1*, 2 Th 2").
StUl more remarkable is the casual addition,
' when we might have been burdensome as apostles
of Christ '(1 Th2«).
Ro 16^ probably means that Andronicus and
Junias were distinguished as apostles ; but there
are two elements of doubt : iritntfiot ir toTj dxwrrdXotj
might mean ' well known to the apostles,' but it
more probably means that among the apostles they
were illustrious persons ; and 'lovricw may be masc.
or fern., Junias or Junta. If Junta is right, the
probability that Andronicus and Junia (?inan and
wife) were distinguished members of the apostolic
body is lessened. But Chrysostom does not shrink
from the thought that a woman may be an apostle.
He says that to be an apostle at all is a great thing,
and therefore to be Ulustrious amongst such persons
84
APOSTLE
APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS
is very high praise ; and ' liow CTeat is the devotion
of this woman, that she should be even counted
worthy of the appellation of apostle ! ' (Sanday-
Headlam, ad loc. ).
The fact that there were people who claimed,
without any right, the title of 'apostle' (2 Co ll'^
Rev 2^) amounts to proof that in the Apostolic
Church there were 'apostles' outside the Twelve
with the addition of St. Paul. It is incredible tliat
there were people Avho claimed to belong to a body
so well known as the Twelve, or any who tried to
personate St. Paul ; and ' it would be unprofitable
to waste words on the strange theory that St. Paul
is meant by these false apostles' (Hort, Judaistic
Christianity, 1894, p. 163). Very soon, though not
in the NT, tlie title of ' apostle ' was given to the
Seventy. It is not likely that Joseph Barsabbas
and Matthias were the only persons among the 120
gathered together after the Ascension (Ac 1"*) who
had the apostolic qualification of having seen the
Lord ; probably most of them had been His personal
disciples. All of those who took to missionary work
would be likely to be styled ' apostles ' ; and it is
not impossible that the ' false apostles ' who op-
posed St. Paul had this qualification, and therefore
claimed to have a better right to the title than he
had.
The cumulative effect of the facts and probabili-
ties stated above is very strong — so strong that we
are justified in affirming that in the NT there are
persons other than the Twelve and St. Paul who
were called apostles, and in conjecturing that they
were rather numerous. All who seemed to be
called by Christ or the Spirit to do missionary work
would be thought worthy of the title, especially
such as had been in personal contact with the
Master. When it is said that this reasonable
affirmation, based entirely upon Scripture, is con-
firmed by the account in the Didache of an order
of wandering preachers who were called ' apostles,'
we must be careful not to exaggerate the amount
of confirmation. There is no proof, and there is
not a very high degree of probability, that the
'apostles' of the Didache are the same kind of
ministers as those who are called ' apostles ' in the
NT, although not of the number of the Twelve.
We must not infer that they are the lineal de-
scendants, officially, of workers such as Silvanus,
Andronicus, and Junias. But the fact that in the
sub-Apostolic Age there were itinerant ministers
called ' apostles does give confirmation to the
assertion that in the NT there were, outside the
apostolic body, ministers who were known as
' apostles.' Chief among these were Paul, Barnabas,
and James, of whom Paul certainly, and the other
two probably, were regarded by most Christians
as eoual to the Twelve. Like the Twelve, Paul
and Barnabas had no local ties : they retained a
general authority over the churches which they
founded, but they did not take up their abode in
tliem as permanent rulers. They trained the
churches to govern themselves. The Twelve are
to be twelve Patriarchs of the larger Israel, twelve
repetitions of Christ (Hamack, Expansion of Chris-
tianity, Eng. tr., 1904-5, i. 72), and at first they
were the whole ministry of the infant Churcli.
The first act of the infant Church was to restore
the typical number twelve by the election of
Matthias ; and it is worthy of note, as indicating
both the undeveloped condition of the ministry
and also the germs of future developments, that in
Acts all three terms, ' diaconate ' ( 1"- '^), ' bishopric '
(1**), and ' apostleship ' (1^), are used in connexion
■with the election of Matthias. There is no good
ground for the conjecture that the choice of
Matthias did not receive subsequent sanction, that
he was set aside, and that St. Paul was Divinely
appointed to take his place. It is true that he
subsequently falls into the background and is lost
from sight ; but so do most of the Twelve.
The absence from Christ's teaching of any state-
ment respecting the priesthood of the Twelve, or
respecting the transmission of the powers of the
Twelve to others, is remarkable. As the primary
function of the Twelve was to be witnesses of what
Christ had taught and done, especially in rising from
the dead, no transmission of so exceptional an office
was possible. Even with regard to the high author-
ity which all apostles possessed, it is not clear that
it was a jurisdiction which was to be passed on from
generation 1 to generation. Belief in the speedy
return of Christ would prevent any such intention.
The apostles were commissioned to found a living
Church, with power to supply itself with ministers
and to organize them.
Literature. — In addition to the works already cited, gee
J. B. Lightfoot, Galatiam, ed. 1892, pp. 92-101 ; E. Haupt,
Zum Verstdndnis des Apostolats im 2iT, Halle, 1896 ; H.
Monnier, La Notion de I'apostolat, Paris, 1903 ; P. Batiffol,
L'Bglise naissante'^, do. 1909, pp. 46-68 ; also art. ' Apostle,'
in SDB, DCG, EBi, and EB^f. ALFRED PlUMMEK.
APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS AND CANONS.—
This work (of the 4th or 5tli cent. A.D., but based
on more ancient materials) is divided into eight
books, dealing, in rambling and hortatory fashion,
with the problems of church life and discipline.
The chief interest of its contents lies in the mis-
cellaneous information afforded regarding the
customs of an early period ; the theological lean-
ings, if definitely juesent at all, are difficult to
determine ; the copious Scripture quotations often
support 'Western readings. At the end of the
eighth book come 85 'Apostolic Canons,' which
have attracted special attention.
The claim made by its title (AiaTa7ai ruv ayluv
d,iro(rT6\o}V 5id KXrifiefTOS rod ' Fu/xalui' iiricrKdirov re Kai
iroXLrov. KadoKiKT) diSaffKoKta) is re-stated in the
conclusion and amplified in vi. 14, 18 : ' We now
as.sembled, Peter and Andrew, James and Jolin,
Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew,
James the son of Alphseus, and Lebbaeus who is
surnamed Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite,
and Matthias who instead of Judas was numbered
with us, and James the brother of our Lord and
bishop of Jerusalem, and Paul . . . and have written
to you this catholic doctrine [which] we have sent
by our fellow-minister Clement.' The direct
authority of Christ is also adduced in ii. 1 : ' Con-
cerning bishops we have heard from our Lord ' ;.
and in v. 7 : * We teach you all these things which
He appointed by His constitutions.' The collective
apostolic authorship is recalled to the reader's
mind from time to time by casual plirases such as
' we twelve,' ' Philip our fellow-apostle ' ; while by
a curious device, from time to tune, without any
break in the discourse, one or other of the apostles
takes the word out of the common moutii and
speaks in his own name, especially at points where
the reference is to his personal experience ; as ii.
57 : ' Head the gospels which I, Matthew and John,
have delivered unto you,' and v. 14 : 'I arose up from
lying in His bosom.' Near the end the apostles
in turn each deliver one or more 'constitutions.'
For any modern reader a cursory glance will
dispose of these claims. The detailed injunctions
about ordinations and festivals, the triumphant
proof of the possibility of the Resurrection by a
reference to the phoenix, do not strike the apostolic
note ; and it is easy to remark definite points such
as the reference to the heresy of Basilides (vi. 8),
and the conversion of the Romans (vi. 24), which,
show the suggestion of the title to be unwarranted.
The author, however, found the apostolic, claim
made in the sources he used ; his own contribution
to the fiction is the assertion that Clement was the
channel of communication.
APOSTOLIC COXSTITUTIOXS
APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS 85
In 692 the TruUan Council of Constantinople
repudiated the 'Constitutions' as having been
tampered with by heretics, but accepted the 85
Canons ; while, although in the Gelasian Decree
they are called apocryphal, Dionysius Exiguus (c.
A.D. 500) had translated 50 of the Canons into
Latin, and thus these 50 obtained acceptance in
the West. The 85 Canons were translated into
Svriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic ; and, though the
' Constitutions' was not translated as a whole, and,
in the West, remained unknown, we find Nicetas
(A.D. 1154) quoting books v. vi. vii. in his book
contra Latinos. After the first publication of the
Greek text at Venice, in 1563, by the Jesuit
Turrianus from a good Cretan MS, the spuriousness
of their authority soon came to be recognized. The
convenient edition of W. Ultzen (Schwerin and
Rostock, 1853) is based on this text.
Modem criticism, it may be said summarily,
has shown that the ' Apostolic Constitutions ' is a
compilation made by a single writer, often referred
to as pseudo-Clement, who seems identifiable with
the author of the spurious Ignatian epistles ; that
it is of Syrian origin, and that it must be dated in
the 4th or early in the 5th century. One leading
consideration is the absence of a polemical theo-
logical note, which demands a period sufficiently
subsequent to the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325).
Interest is thus transferred to the task of dis-
tinguishing the older mat«rials present, and tracing
Lq them, and in the modifications made by the
compiler, and by stiU later hands (especially in
book viii. , which, being most in practical use, was
subject to current alteration), the flux of ecclesi-
astical usages — a task in which the Church historian
still waits to some extent for the textual critic.
Books i.-vi. are based on the Didascalia, a book
originally written in Greek, but known only
through a single MS of the Syriac version, now in
Paris, published as Didascalia apostolorum syricux
by P. Lagarde (Leipzig, 1854), by M. D. Gibson
with Eng. tr. in Horce Semiticce, i., ii. (Cambridge,
1903), by H. Achelis in TU xxv. 2 [1904]. This
document is to be placed in Syria about the
middle of the 3rd century. It contemplates a large
city-church attended by all sorts and conditions,
conscious of the gulf between Christians and
pagans, yet apparently neither persecuted nor
unpopular. After some general exhortations to
men and women, the subject of the bishop and
his duties is treated in detail. Remarkable
emphasis is laid on a ready and kindly reception
of the penitent. We hear of Church courts for
civil cases between Christian disputants, which are
to meet on Monday, so that feeling may be cooled
before the days of worship. The church building
lies eastwards — in the direction of the earthly
Paradise — and is arranged with special seats for
the Presbytery and the different sexes and ages in
the congregation. Deacons, sub-deacons, deacon-
esses, widows, orphans, martyrs, readers, are
mentioned as special classes. By a strange chron-
ology of the Passion, a foundation is oliered for
Easter regulations evidently requiring defence,
whether as new or as in conflict with neighbouring
custom. There are some Jewish-Chrisrian mem-
bers, and at the close these are specially addressed.
The style throughout is homiletic, with copious
citations from Scripture. A short account of this
book is given in Hamack, The Mission and Ex-
pansion of Christianity^ (tr. Moffiatt, London, 1908)
ii. 157, 158.
The work of the compiler of the ' Constitutions '
is seen in the additional Scripture references, moral
reflexions and exhortations. He makes, for ex-
ample, an unhappily conceived attempt at an
elaborate analogy between a well-arranged church
■and a ship, the deacons being the sailors, the congre-
gation passengers, and so forth. He revises the
account of the Passion referred to, in the interests
of the shorter fast of his dav (v. 14). He boldly
reverses the direction to follow the Jewish com-
putation for Easter (ib. 17). He refers to the
Roman adoption of Christianity (vi, 24), where
instead the Didcucalia mentions persecution.
Book vii. consists of an amplification of the
Didache (5'.r.)with modifications. An injunction
to fear the king (ch. 16) and pay taxes willingly is
inserted. The permission of warm water at baptism
is omitted (ch. 20). The rule about weekly fast-
days is taken to apply to the Easter fast. The
connexion of Eucharist with Agape, apparent in
the Didache, is avoided. A number of liturgical
forms are appended, among which the baptismal
symbol in ch. 41 has been doubtfully attributed to
Lucian of Antioch — a suggestion which might, as
Achelis points out, connect the 'Constitutions*
with his congregation. For a comparison of book
viL with the Dulache see Hamack, ' Didache,' in
TU ii. 2 [1884], and art. Dedache below.
Behind book viii. are various sources. The first
two paragraphs are thought by Achelis to be
founded on Hippolytus' lost work xept xap«r/«iTftw.
After there treating of the diversity of spiritnal
gifts, the writer goes on to 24 chapters, in which
the apostles, gatliered in council, deliver singly,
in turn, ' constitutions ' concerning the choice and
ordination of bishops and other oflicers ; concerning
presbyters, deacons, sub-deacons, readers, widows,
exorcists, and their functions ; concerning tithes
and oflFerings, the reception of catechumens, holy
days, church services and prayers. The main
source is thought to be the ' Egyptian Church
Order,' originally in Greek, but known through
its Coptic and Ethiopic versions, this in turn being
based upon the * Canons of Hippoljrtus ' (c. a.d.
220). Both of these may be compared with the
' Constitutions ' in TU vi. 4 [1891], pp. 39-136. The
dependence of the ' Constitutions' on these Canons,
though not noted in the complete MSS (unless,
indeed, the old conjecture were revived that in the
title, after KX^^jtoi , . . i-ruTK&rov should be read
Kal'l-rwoXiJTov, instead of re /to2 vaiXirov), is pointed
out by the title Aiard^ets tQsp ayUof d-roarokuv repl
XftporoviQp Sia ' I-w~rai\vrov, in excerpts from book
viii. Whether, however, the ' Egyptian Church
Order ' needs to be inserted as a link between book
viii, and the 'Canons of Hippolytus' has been
disputed.
The most noteworthy sections of book viiL are
those containing a complete liturgy for the cele-
bration of the Lord's Supper. The catechumens,
hearers, unbelievers, and heterodox are to depart.
Mothers are to ' receive ' their children — that is, to
keep them quiet, else they would continue straying
to and fro between the women's seats and their
fathers, as may still be seen in Eastern Christian
worship. Two deacons are to fan away flies from
the cups. The high priest consecrates, the service
proceeds with responses and pravers. First the
bishop, then the presbyters and deacons partake,
and then the people, who after further praj'er are
dismissed with the benediction 'Depart in peace.'
To the older sotirce the compiler of the ' Constitu-
tions ' adds that the high priest puts on ' his
shining garment' and crosses himself; and, after
the deacons, adds a long list of classes of partakers,
ending with the children ; and orders Ps 33 to be
said while the distribution takes place.
In comparison with its sources, book viii, shows
a hardening of ecclesiastic rule, e.g. in the decision
that a confessor must not on any account be dis-
pensed from the need of being ordained if he
proceeds to oflSce. A stUl later change is seen in
the suppression of all mention of porters in this
book. This cannot be due to pseudo-Clement,
86 APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS
APPIUS, MARKET OF
for he names them in the preceding books ; when
they had disappeared in practice, tlie references
must have been deleted from the fuiniliar book
viii., but left unnoticed elsewhere.
The 85 ' Canons ' at the end of book viii.
gained, as we have seen, a partly independent
currency : 20 are derived from the Synod of
Antioch (A.D. 341) ; at least 24 repeat regulations
from the ' Constitutions ' ; the others are likelier to
be taken from various sources than to be original
inventions. They are to be put a little later than
the ' Constitutions." The most remarkable is that
which enumerates the canonical books of Scripture,
omitting the Apocalypse from the NT canon, but
inserting the two epistles of Clement and the
'Apostolic Constitutions,' and, after this audacity,
with an artistic touch modestly placing ' the Acts
of us Apostles ' at the bottom of the list.
Other matters contained in the ' Apostolic
Constitutions' may be briefly noticed. In the
•bidding prayers' in book viii. a touching light is
thrown on the composition of the Church by the
reference to those in bitter servitude (viii. 10 ; cf.
the instruction to admit a slave concubine to
membership if faithful to her master [ib. 32]). A
diflerent aspect of allairs is revealed by the list in
iv. 6 of those whose gifts should not be received —
adulterers, cruel employers, idol-makers, thieves,
unjust publicans, drunkards, usurers. A strange
piece or advice follows — that, if such contribu-
tions have to be taken, they shall be expended
in fuel for the needy rather than in food, as the
putrid sacrificial meat is ordered in Lv 19^ to be
burnt.
The transition from ' Sabbath ' (Saturday) to
* the Lord's day ' (Sunday) as the day of worship is
seen in process. Book ii. 36 enjoins observance of
Sabbath ; in ch. 47 the language suggests both days,
althougli the thought has in view perhapsjonly one ;
ch. 59 shows the hesitancy of a time of change,
saying first ' principally on the Sabbath,' then ' on
the Lord's day meet more diligently.' Bk. v. 20
enjoins both days ; vii. 23 enjoins first both, then
says ' there is one only Sabbath to be observed in
the whole year,' that before Easter, as a fast, for
then Christ was in the tomb. Book viii. 33 enjoins
rest for slaves on both days. As regards other
holy days, Christmas, Epiphany, Holy Week, are
mentioned (v. 14, 15) ; further, Pentecost and St.
Stephen's Day (viii. 33).
Baptism ritual is elaborate. Before and after
immersion there is anointing. Presbyters can
baptize, though not ordain (iii. 10, 11). Deacon-
esses are useful, especially in the baptism of
women (ib. 15). Canon 50 orders trine immersion.
The bishop is to be ordained by two or three
bishops after he is chosen by the people, who are
to be repeatedly asked for their consent to pro-
cedure (viii. 4). A chief duty of his, requiring
acuteness and tact and honour, is the charge of
the almsgiving (ii. 4). Exorcists are recognized
as doing good work, though they are not to be
ordained.
In public worship (ii. 67) the bishops and presby-
ters sit, the deacons stand near, the congregation
are seated according to age and sex, children
may stand beside their parents. Deacons walk
about to check whispering, laughing, or sleeping.
Lessons from the historical and poetical books of
the OT respectively are followed by a Psalm sung
solo, the congregation joining ' at the conclusions
of the verses ' ; then comes a lesson from the Acts
or Epistles, and after this all stand at the reading
of the Gospel. If visiting bishops, presbyters, or
deacons are present, they uie to l>e recognized as
such, and, especially visiting l.ishoiis, are to be
asked to speak. Then* i~ ilnily inorniiiLr and
evening service (ii. 5S>, \ iii. ;>J, iioj, uiui tcmpuuiou
both to neglect it and to attend heathen and
Jewish services.
Curiosities of thought and diction are : <
ings to males against dressiness — they ma\
snare the frail fair (i. 3) ; warnings to women ikh
to paint the face, 'which is God's workmansliip '
(ib. 8) ; the reason in favour of secrecy in alms-
giving, that thus comparisons and grumbling are
prevented among the recipients (iii. 14) ; an elabo-
rate comparison of spiritual and physical healing
(ii. 41), wnich gives a vivid picture of contemjKjrary
medicine and surgery, at least as it appeared to
the author's imagination :
' If it be a hollow wound or g^reat gash, nourish it with a suit-
able plaster ; ... if foul, cleanse with corrosive powder, tliat
is, words of reproof ; if it have proud flesh, eat it down with
a sharp plaster — threats of jud^ent ; if it spreads, cut off the
putrid flesh ; . . . but if there is no room for a fomentation, or
oil, or bandage, then, with a great deal of consideration, and
the advice of other skilful physicians, cut off the putrefied
member, that the whole church be not corrupted. ... Be not
hasty with the saw, but first try lancing.'
A quaint story is told by Peter (vi. 8 f.) about
Simon Magus, who, to recommend his heresies, flew
in the air in a Roman theatre supported by demons,
till Peter exorcized them and Simon fell and Itroke
his legs, whereupon the people cried out : ' There
is only one God, and Peter rightly preaches the
truth."'
LiTERATURB. — In addition to the references already given,
full notes will be found in H. Achelis' valuable art. ' .4postol.
Konstitutionenu.Kanones' in PHE3 i. [1896]. The ' Ante-Xicene
Library ' (vol. xvii.) contains an Eng. translation. See also the
notices in A. Harnack, Gesch. der altchrist lichen Litteratur,
pt. i. [Leipzig, 1893] ; A. J. Maclean, Recent Ducoveries iUnst rat-
ing Early Christian Life and Worship, Ix)ndon, 1904 ; W. E.
Collins, art. • Apostol. Constitutions' in ElirU ii. [1910].
R. W. Stewart.
APPEAL.— See Trial- at-Law.
APPEARING.— See Parousia.
APPHIA (in some MSS and VSS Aphphia or
Appia). — A Christian lady of Colosste, designated
by St. Paul (Philem^) as ' sister ' (d.8e\<pjj, so K ADE),
in the Christian sense. AV, following inferior MS
testimony, substitutes ' beloved ' (dyair-riTrj) ; some
MSS have both Avords. Grotius regards the name
as a softened and hellenized form of the Latin
Appia; but Lightfoot (Col. and Philein.'^, 1ST9.
p. 306) and Zahn (Introd. to NT, 1909, i. 458) ^lu.u
that the name is Phrygian and is found in nunurou^
ancient Phrygian inscriptions.
Most commentators (following Chry.so>toni and
Theodoret) regard Apphia as Philemon's wife, since
otherwise her name either would not have been in-
troduced at all in a private letter, or at least would
have been put after the name of Archippus (q.v.),
who was an otJice-bearer. As the wife of Philemon,
Apphia would have some claim to be consulted in
such a matter as the forgiveness and emancipation
of a slave. The possibility, however, of her being
the sister (literally) of Philemon is not grammatic-
ally excluded if the reading ' sister ' be accepted.
The ancient Greek Martyrology represents
Apphia (along with Philemon) as suffering martyr-
dom under Nero on Nov. 22 (see Mencea for
November).
Literature.— See under Philemon. HeNRY CowAN.
APPII FORUM.— See Appius, Market of.
APPIUS, MARKET OF ('Awwlov <t>hpov, Ac lN-" :
AV Appii Forum). — A town on tlic ]">■' .\y:n.,.
the usual resting-place for travclk r.- mnii \\i<w<' -.a
the end of the hrst day's journey, tlion^h iluia<e
says of himself and his companion : 'IIo( iter i-nivi
divisimus' (Sat. I. v. 5). The site of thf \>>\\\\ is
marked by consideial.lc ruin>. ni':ir ilv i ;,'iii
railway st-ation of Fvrn Jptno, where Up- ii'.nl
ancient milestone is still lu-eserved. It v:i- ilie
iimtheru terminus of a lanal ifo.s^sa), wliirh o.\-
APROX
AQUILA AND PRISCILLA 87
tended, parallel with the line of road, thiough the
Pomptine marshes as far as the neijrhbourhood of
Tarracina. Strabo says that travellers from the
South usually sailed up the canal by night, 'em-
barking in the evening, and landing in the morning
to travel the rest of their journey by road ' (v. iii.
6). Pliny mentions Appii Forum among the muni-
cipal towns of Latium (III. v. 9). Horace (loc. cit.
4-15) sets do^m his W^d recollections of a place
• crammed full of boatmen and extortionate tavern-
keepers,' where ' the water was utterly bad,' where
at night ' the slaves bantered the boatmen and the
boatmen the slaves," where ' troublesome mosqui-
toes and marsh frogs ' kept sleep from his eyes.
SL Paul and St. Luke remembered it gratefully as
the first of two places — Tres Tabema (see Three
T.A.VEEXS), 10 miles further north, being the other —
whither brethren came from Rome to greet them
and escort them on their way. J. Strahax.
APRON.— The word cri/uKlpeta (pL), a modified
form of the Latin semicinctia, occurs only in Ac
19^, where it is translated 'aprons,' and placed in
an alternative relation to <rovddpta (see Haxdker-
CHIEF). The two articles are not to be identified.
The ffifiixtpdiop is, as the derivation suggests, a half-
girdle, or forecloth ; not an essential of dress, like
the girdle itself, but an accessory, worn by artisans
and slaves for protection of their clothes during
work. Presumably the material was linen or cotton.
Still there is some doubt as to its precise nature
(see L. S. Pot^vin. Here and There in the Greek Xeic
Testament, New York, 1898, p. 169, where a parallel
from Martial, xiv. 151 if. is quoted).
It is not said that the aprons were the property
of St. Paul ; but, judging from the word used for
body (dx6 toD xp<^os), this is not impossible. The
deduction has been made that he used them in pur-
suing his craft as a tentmaker. AU that was needed,
however, was that the articles should have touched
his person, and thereafter those suffering from dis-
ease (cf. Lk 8"). For the usage, and belief under-
lying, cf. Ac 5'^, and for modem instances, HDB
(«.r.), and S. I. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Beligion
To-Day, London, 19«>2. p. 91 f.
W. CRUICKSH.A.XK.
AQUILA AND PRISCILLA (or Peisca).*— The
references to this husband and wife are Ac 18,
Ro \&, 1 Co 16i», and 2 Ti ^^. These pj^ssages
suggest that Aquila and Priscilla were, in St.
Paul's eyes, people of importance in the early
Church, though ecclesiastical tradition has little
to say about them. The careful description of
Aquila as ' a Jew, a man of Pontus by race ' (Ac 18*),
rather implies that PrisciUa his wife was not a
Jewess ; because her name is usually put first, it
is thought that she was of higher social standing
than her husband. Evidence has been offered by
de Rossi that Priscilla was a well-connected Roman
lady. Discussing this eWdence, Sanday and Head-
lam suggest that both Aquila and Priscilla ' were
freedmen of a member of the AcUian gens ' (Boman^,
420). But they admit the possibility of Priscilla
being ' a member of some distinguished Roman
family.' Ramsay strongly urges this theory, and
it explains much in the sU)rT — their social position,
their command of money, their influence in Rome,
their freedom from Jewish prejudices, etc. Another
explanation of why PrisciUa's name comes first may
be that she was the more vigorous and intelligent
Christian worker. Thus Hamack describes them
as ' Prises the missionary, with her husband
Aquila' (Expansion of Christianity^, i. 79).
Aquila and Priscilla came from Italy to Corinth,
' because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to
depart from Rome ' (Ac 18-). Suetonius says the
* St. Luke uses the form PriteOia Qn ActsX St. Piml the
fonn Prisea (in his EpistlesX
expulsion was caused W a series of disturbances
'due to the action of Chrestus' (Claud. 25); i.e.
Christian ferment was one cause of the edict. It
is probable, therefore, that Aquila and Priscilla
had been influenced in Rome by Christian teaching,
though it cannot be decided wnether they were al-
ready converts to Christianity. For this reason
they were compelled to leave the country, though
the edict was not rigidly enforced on all Jews.
Priscilla accompanied her Jewish husband to
Corinth, where they followed their trade as tent-
makers. They seem always to have been able to
maintain a fair position, for their house was a
meeting-place for the Church both in Ephesus and
in Rome. Probably, then, they were people of
considerable means, though their expulsion from
Rome limited their resources for a time. Com-
radeship in trade is given as the reason why St.
Paul lodged vrith Aquila and Priscilla in Corinth ;
but their favourable attitude to Christianity must
have been a strong inducement on both sides.
Under St. Paul's influence they became not only
earnest Christians, but also enthusiastic helpers of
the Apostle. Writing to the Corinthian Church
in after years, the Apostle says : ' Aquila and
Priscilla greet you much in the Lord' (1 Co 16").
This is a warm personal greeting, in the way not
merely of friendship but of love and service to
Christ — a suitable greeting from those who had
helped St. Paul to found the Church.
When St. Paul went to Ephesus, Aquila and
Priscilla went with him and remained there to do
pioneer work whilst he visited Jerusalem. They
shrank from the responsibility, and wanted the
Apostle to remain (Ac 18**). But he urged them
to stay, promising to return. So the initial work
in Ephesus was done by Aquila and Priscilla.
They tried to prepare the ground before St. Paul
returned, and to sow the seed of Christian teach-
ing as far as they were able. During this time
Apollos iq.v. ) came to Ephesus, with his imperfect
apprehension of Christianity. Aquila and Priscilla
admired his learning and lus earnestness ; and, re-
cognizing that such a man must either be a strong
supporter of the cause or an influential opponent,
they did their best to instruct him more carefully
(Ac 18*). Subsequent events throw doubt on the
ability of this couple, who were themselves recent
converts, to educate the eloquent Alexandrian in
the Pauline interpretation of the gospel. Would
not his presence overshadow Aquila and Priscilla,
tending to make their work more diflicult? The
elementary and even chaotic state of things in
Ephesus at this period is shown by the incident of
the twelve men 'knowing only the baptism of
John ' whom St. Paul found when he returned to
the city (Ac 19^'- )• As nothing is said about the
baptism of Apollos, and as the twelve men 'had
not heard whether the Holy Spirit was given,' it
seems unlikely that there had been any Christian
baptism in Ephesus before St. Paul came to super-
intend the work. Nevertheless, Aquila and Pris-
cUla seem to have fulfilled their mission with skill
and courage ; and, when a Church was gathered,
the members met in their house (1 Co 16**). This
may explain their presence in Rome when the
Epistle to the Romans was written. As St. Paul
left them in Ephesus to do pioneering work, so he
seems to have sent them to Rome to prepare the
way for his coming there. The decree of expul-
sion was not enforced permanently ; their con-
nexion with a leading Roman family made it
more possible for them to return to Rome than
for Jews with no influence ; whilst their know-
ledge of the city, their social standing, as well a.<
their experience in Corinth and in Ephesus, with
their devotion to himself, fitted them pre-eminently
for such work as St. Paul contemplated-
88
ARABIA
ARABIA
The recognition of the social position of this
devoted couple, and of their valuable pioneering
work, invests them with special interest as having
assisted St. Paul in his missionary labours in a
unique way. Their devotion to the Apostle was
signalized in some remarkable fashion, apparently
when he was in diinger. His description of them
as ' my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who for my
life laid down their own necks ; unto whom not
only I give thanks but also all the churches of the
Crentiles' (Ro W-*), sets them side by side with
the Apostle. They have laboured along with him
in a pre-eminent manner, and have attested their
worth as independent workers (cf. Weizsacker, i.
394). ' They furnish the most beautiful example
known to us in the Apostolic Age of the power
for good that could be exerted by a husband and
wife working in unison for the advancement of
the Gospel' (McGiflert, 428).
The references to Aquila and Priscilla have been
used as arguments against the historicity of parts
of Acts and in favour of treating Ro 16 as not part
of that Epistle. But the two reasons relied on are
not strong enough to carry the conclusions. It is
supposed that both were Jews (so Weizsacker,
McGiffert ; cf. Lightfoot on Phil.*, 1878, p. 16)—
though Priscilla was probably a Roman ; and their
migratory life is fully explained if they were people
of means, who became enthusiastic helpers in St.
Paul's missionary labours, and whom he selected to
do pioneering work in Ephesus and in Rome. In
particular their return to Ephesus at a later period
(2 Ti 4^') is quite comprehensible. Not only would
they have trade connexions with the city, but also
their presence would be specially welcome because
they had been actually the founders of the Church.
Aquila and Priscilla have been selected by some
scholars as likely authors of * Hebrews.' Harnack
has argued strongly for this suggestion, and Rendel
Harris favours it. M, Dods says :' All that we know
of Aquila seems to lit the conditions as Avell as any
name that has been suggested ' (Com. on ' Hebrews '
[EGT], 234). It has to be said, however, that the
suggestion implies a closer intimacy with Judaism
than seems likely in their case. The influence of
the Roman wife probably preponderated over the
Jewish influence of the husband. They were not
Christians of the Judaistic type, but cordial
workers on Pauline lines among Gentiles. At the
same time, the discussion of a Jew's difficulties by
such a vigorous mind as Priscilla possessed may
have qualified Aquila to write ' Hebrews ' with
his wife's help. It is a question, however, whether
their authorship would harmonize with the inde-
pendent use of Pauline thoughts characteristic of
the Epistle (cf. Expositor, 8th ser., v. 371 ff.).
LiTBRATURE.— Artt. in HDB on ' Aquila,' ' Priscilla,' ' Corinth,'
•Corinthians' ; in EBi (hy Schmiedel)on 'Acts' and 'Aquila' ;
and in SchaffHerzog on 'Aquila'; Sanday - Headlam,
Romans^, Edinburgh, 1902, Introd. § 3, and p. xl, also pp. 418-
420 ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman
Citizen, London, 1896, pp. 253ff., 267fif. ; A. Harnack, Ex-
pansion of Christianity'^, do. 1908, i. 75 and 79; C. v.
Weizsacker, The Apostolic Age, i.2 [do. 1897] 307 fif. ; O.
Pfleiderer, Primitive Christianity, i. (do. 1906] 246; A. C.
McGififert, Apostolic A ne, Edinburgh, 1897, pp. 273, 427 f.;
EOT, 'Hebrews,' Introd. p. 228, 'Acts of Apostles,' p. 383,
•Romans,' pp. 560, 718 f. J. E. ROBERTS.
ARABIA. — Arabia (Apa^la, from a-yr), which now
denotes the great peninsula lying between the Red
Sea and the Persian Gulf, was in ancient times
a singularly elusive term. Originally it meant
simply 'desert' or 'desolation,' and when it became
an ethnographic proper name it was long in ac-
quiring a fixed and generally understood meaning.
' Arabia ' shifted like the nomads, drifted like the
desert sand. It did not denote a country whose
boundaries could be defined by treaty, shown by
landmarks, and set down in a map. Too vast and
vague for delimitation, it impressed the imagina-
tion like the steppe, the prairie, or tlie veldt, while
it had a character and history of its own. To the
settled races of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine,
it meant any part of that hinterland, skirting the
confines of civilization, which was the camping-
ground of wandering tribes for ever hovering around
peaceful towns and spreading terror among their
inhabitants. It was the dim Border region, not so
wholly unproductive as to be incapable of support-
ing life, interposed between cultivation and the
sheer wilderness. So uncertain was the applica-
tion of the term, that there was no part of the semi-
desert fringe extending from the lower Tigris to
the lower Nile which was not at one time or another
called Arabia. To the propliets of Israel the word
had one meaning, on Persian inscriptions another,
and to Greek writers (Herod, ii. and iii. ; Xenophon,
I. V. 1, VII. viii. 25) still another. Every one used
it to denote that particular hinterland whose tribes
and peoples were more or less known to him ; that
was his Arabia.
But by the 3rd cent. B.C. the Arab tribe of the
Nabataeans had become a powerful nation, with
Petra as their capital, and from that time onward
Arabia began to be identified, especially in the
Western mind, with the Nabatsean kingdom.
While 1 Mac. still distinguishes the Nabataeans
from other Arabs (5^ 9**), 2 Mac. speaks of Aretas,
the hereditary king of the Nabataeans, as ' king of
the Arabs' (5*). In the time of Josephus this
people 'inhabited all the country from the Eu-
phrates to the Red Sea' {Ant. I. xii. 4). Soon
after taking possession of Judaea, the Romans sent
an expedition, under Marcus Scaurus, against the
Nabataeans (59 B.C.) ; and, though their subjugation
was not accomplished at that time, it must have
taken place not much later. From the days of
Augustus the kings of the Arabians were as much
subject to the Empire as Herod, king of the Jews,
and they had the whole region between Herod's
dominions and the desert assigned to them. To
the north 'their territory reached as far as
Damascus, which was under their protection, and
even beyond Damascus, and enclosed as with a
firdle the whole of Palestinian Syria' (Mommsen,
'rovinces^, Lond. 1909, ii. 148 f . ). "The Arabians who
were present at the first Christian Pentecost (Ac 2")
were most likely Nabataeans, possibly from Petra.
The Nabataean kings made use or Greek official
designations, and St. Paul relates how 'the gov-
ernor ' (6 idvdpxv^) of Damascus ' under Aretas the
king ' was foiled in the attempt, probably made at
the instigation of the Jews, to put him under arrest
soon after his conversion (2 Co IP'"-). This
episode, which has an important bearing on the
chronology of St. Paul's life, raises a difficult his-
torical problem. Damascene coins of Tiberius
indicate that the city was under direct Roman
government till A.D. 34 ; and, as the legate of Syria
was engaged in hostilities with Aretas till the close
of the reign of Tiberius, it is very unlikely that this
emperor yielded up Damascus to the Nabataean
king. But the accession of Caligula brought a
great change, and the suggestion is naturally made
that he bought over Aretas by ceding Damascus to
him. The fact that no Damascene coins bearing
the Emperor's image occur in the reigns of Cal-
igula and Claudius is in harmony with this theory
(Schurer, EJP I. ii. 357 f. ). The view of Mommsen
(Provinces'^, ii. 149), following Marquardt {Rom.
Staatsvenvaltung, Leipzig, 1885, i. 405), is ditt'er-
ent. Talking of the voluntary submission of the
city of Damascus to the king of the Nabataeans,
he says that
' probably this dependence of the city on the Nabattsan kings
subsisted so long as there were such king^ [i.e. from the begrin-
ning of the Roman period till a.d. 106]. From the fact that the
ABAMATC
AKEOPAGITE, AKEOPAGUS 89
city struck coins with the heads of the Roman emperors, tber«
follows doubtless its dependence on Rome and therewith its self-
administration, but not its non-dependence on the Roman raasal-
prince ; such protectorates assumed shapes so various that these
arrangements might well be compatible with each other.'
See, further, Aretas.
In the Galatian Epistle (1") St. Paul states that
after his escape from Damascns he ' went away into
Arabia,' evidently for solitary communion vdth
God ; but he does not further define the place of
his retreat, and Acts makes no allusion to this
episode. When he quitted the city under cover of
darkness, he had not a long way to flee to a place
of safety, for the desert lies in close proximity to
the Damascene oasis. Possibly he went no further
than the fastnesses of ^auran. Lightfoot {Gal.
87 f.), Stanley {Sinai and Palestine, Loud. 1877,
p. 50), and others conjecture that he sought the
solitude of Mt. Sinai, with which he seems to show
some acquaintance in the same Epistle (Gal 4®).
But he could scarcely have avoided, specific refer-
ence to so memorable a journey, which would have
brought him into a kind of spiritual contact with
Moses and Elijah. Besides, the peninsxda of Sinai
was about 400 miles from Damascus ; and, as
military operations were being actively carried on
by the legate of Syria against Aretas in A.D. 37
—the probable year of St. Paul's conversion — it
would scarcely have been possible for a stranger to
pass through the centre of the perturbed country
without an escort of soldiers.
In A.D. 106 the governor of Syria, Aulus Cornelius
Palma, broke up the dominion of the Nabataean
kings, and constituted the Roman province of
Arabia, while Damascus was added to Syria. For
the whole region the change was epoch-making.
' The tendency to acquire these domains for civilisation and
specially for Hellenism was only heightened by the fact that the
Roman government took upon itseU the work. The Hellenism
of the East . . . was a church militant, a thoroughly conquering
power pushing its way in a political, religious, economic, and
literary point of view ' (Mommsen, op. eit. ii. 152).
Under the strong new regime the desert tribes were
for the first and only time brought under control,
with the result that no small part of ' the desert '
was changed into * the sown. ' ' Rome won the
nomads to her service and fastened them down in
defence of the border they had otherwise fretted
and broken. . . . Behind this Roman bulwark there
grew up a curious, a unique civilisation talking
Greek, imitating Rome, but at heart Semitic
{G. A. Smith, HGHL, London, 1894, p. 627).
LiTBRATCRK.— E. Schtirer, HJP i. ii. 345 ff. ; J. Enting-,
SabalaUeht Inschriften au* Arabien, Berlin, lS«o ; H. Vincent,
Le» Arabet en Syrie, Paris, 1907 ; G. A. Cooke, Sorth-Semitic
Inttripticru, London, 1903 ; and the art. ' Arabs (Ancient),' by
Th Noldeke, in EIi£ L 659. JaMES STRAHAK.
ARAMAIC— See L.^nguage.
ARATUS.— See Quotations.
ARCHANGEL.— See AXGEL.
ARCHIPPUS CA/JxtTxoj).— An office-bearer of
the Apostolic Church referred to in Col 4^" as exer-
cising a ministry 'in the Lord,' i.e. in fellowship
with, and in the service of, Christ. He is addressed
by St. Paul as ' feUow-soldier ' — a designation pos-
sibly occasioned by some special service in which the
two had been engaged together during St. Paul's
three years' abode at Ephesus, where the Apostle
had severe conflicts with as^dlants (1 Co 15**).
More probably, however, the expression refers to
the general fellowship of the two men in evangel-
istic work (cf. Ph 2^). The military figure may
have been suggested by the Apostle's environment
at Rome.
Archippus may have been a presbyter bishop, a
leading deacon, an evangelist, or a prominent
teacher at the time when St. Paul wrote. From
Philem^ he appears to have been a member of
Philemon's household, and he is regarded by meet
commentators (after Theodore of Mopsnestia) as
his son. Accordingly, it is generally snppoeed
(after Chrysostom) tnat Archippus was an office-
bearer of the Colossian Church. Against this
inference Lightfoot adduces (1) the mention of
Archippus in Col. immediately after a reference to
Laodicea ; (2) the alleged unlikelihood of Archippus
being addressed in Col 4^' indirectly instead of
directly, if he were himself an oflicial of the Church
to which St. Paul was writing ; (3) the tradition
(embodied in the Apost. Constitutions, viL 46) that
Archipptis became ' bishop,' or presiding presbyter,
of Laodicea. Lightfoot infers that Archippus ful-
filled his ministry at Laodicea, which was not many
miles from Colossae : and the mention of him in
PhUem. is accounted for by supposing that St.
Paul (through Tychicus, the bearer of his letter to
Philemon) might have suggested that Onesimus
should be employed not in the city where he had
lived as a slave, but in the Laodicean Chxirch under
Archippus. The usual supposition, however, that
Archippus lived with Philemon at Colossse and also
laboured there, appears, on the whole, more natural
and probable.
The me-ssage conveyed to Archippus ('Take heed
[look] to the ministry,' etc.) is held by Lightfoot
(Coio«s.^ 42f.) to imply a rebuke, as it Archippus
had been remiss or unfaithful in the discharge of
official duty ; and Lightfoot, believing that Archip-
pus held office at Laodicea, compares the admonition
to him with the censure on account of lukewarm-
ness administered in Kev 3 to the angel and church
of the Laodiceans. The message, however, to
Archippus can hardly be regarded as necessarily
suggesting more than that his work was specially
important and arduous, demanding from himsell
earnest watchfulness, and from an older 'feUow-
campaigner,' like St. Paul, the incentive of sympa-
thetic exhortation and warning. Theophylact, in
his commentary, supposes that the apostolic
message is purposely made public, instead of being
conveye< ; in a private letter, not so much to suggest
Archippus' special need of admonition, as to enable
him, without offence, to deal in like manner with
brethren under himself.
In the Greek Martyrology, Archippus appears
(in the Mencea under Nov. 22) as haN-ing been
stoned to death, along with Philemon, at Chonae,
near Laodicea. His alleged eventual ' episcopate '
or presiding presbyterate at Laodicea is at least
possible, and even probable ; but the inclusion of
his name in the pseudo-Dorothean list (6th cent.)
of the Seventy of Lk 10 is quite incredible.
LrrKRATrKE. — J. A, Dietelmaier, de Archippo, Altdorf, 1761;
J. B. Lightfoot, Colotsianifi, 1879, pp. 42 f., 3i8ff. ; see also
Literature under PmLXMOX. HeJTEY CoWAX.
AREOPAGITE, AREOPAGUS.— In Ac 17^ the
title ' the Areopagite ' is given to one Dionysius, a
convert to the Christian faith at Athens, imply-
ing that he was a member of the council of the
Areopagus.
Areopagus (Ac 17" AV and RY; v.« AV
'Mars' Hul,' RV 'Areopagus'; the RV is correct
in rendering ' Areopagus ' in both places, as it pre-
serves the ambiguity of the original). — (a) The
name denominated a rocky eminence N.W. of the
Acropolis at Athens, which was famous in the his-
tory of the city. Between the hill and the Acro-
polis was a narrow declivity, now largely filled in.
On the N.E. the rock is precipitous, and at the foot
of the precipice the worship of the propitiated
Furies as the Eumenides was carried on, so that the
locality was invested with awesome associations.
It is approached from the agora, or market-place,
by an old, worn stairway of sixteen steps, and
90 AREOPAGITE, AREOPAGUS
AEETAS
upon the top can still be seen the rough, rock-hewn
benches, forming three sides of a square, upon
which the court sat in the open air, in order that
the judges shouhi not be under the same roof as
the accused. — (b) The expression was also used of
the court itself (Cicero, ad Att. 1. 14. 5; de Nat.
Deor. ii. 74 ; Bep. i. 27). From time immemorial
this court held its meetings on the hill in question,
and was at once the most ancient and most revered
tribunal in the city. In ancient times it had su-
preme authority in both criminal and religious
matters, and its influence, ever tending to become
wider, aftected laws and offices, education and mor-
ality. It thus fulfilled the functions of both court
and council. Pericles and his friend Ephialtes (c.
460 B.C.) set themselves to limit the power of the
court (Aristotle, Const. Ath. 25), and it became
largely a criminal court, while religious matters
seem to have been controlled, at least in part, by
the King Archon. But the reforms of Ephialtes
mainly concerned interference in public affairs ;
and the statements of ^Eschylus in the tragedy
Eunienides, which appeared at the time in defence
of the court, appear to be exaggerated. In any
case, in the Roman period it regained its former
powers (Cicero, ad Fam. xiii. 1. 5 ; de Nat. Dcor.
li. 74). As to the origin of the court, according to
popular legend Ares was called before a court of
the twelve gods to answer for the murder of
Halirrhotius (Paus. I. xxviii. 5), but ^schjdus
(Eum. 685 ff. ) attributes its foundation to Athene.
The questions which arise out of the narrative
of Acts are these : Was St. Paul taken before the
council or to the hill? Or did he appear before
the council sitting in the traditional place ? Was
he in any sense on trial ?
The King Archon held his meetings in the Stoa
Basileios, and it was there that Socrates had been
arraigned on a matter similar to that which exer-
cised the minds of the philosophers in the case
before us. It seems probable that this Stoa became
identified with the discussion of religious questions,
and that, when the council of the Areopagus re-
gained its full powers, it held its meetings here,
reserving its old judgment-seat for cases of murder
(so Curtius, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Berlin,
1894, ii. 528 f., Stadtgesch. von Athen, do. 1891, p.
262 f. ; but Harnack, Acts of the Apostles, Lono.
and N.Y., 1909, p. 108, remarks: 'Curtius' ex-
Elanation seems to me untenable ' ; see also Cony-
eare, in HDB i. 144). The whole picture, indeed,
is in favour of this view. There is no reason why
the Stoics and Epicureans should have carried
away the Apostle to an isolated spot. Further,
Kamsay truly remarks : ' The Athenians were, in
many respects, flippant ; but their flippancy was
combined with an intense pride in the national
dignity and the historic glory of the city, which
would have revolted at such an insult as that this
stranger should hjirangue them about his foreign
deities on the spot where the Athenian elders had
judged the god Ares and the hero Orestes' (St.
Paid the Traveller, Lond. 1895, p. 244). Moreover,
the Apostle's speech was not a philosophical dis-
quisition but rather a popular oration, suited to
the general populace of idle Athenians and dilet-
tante Roman youths whose education was not
considered complete until they had spent some
time in the purlieus of the ancient university. If
the council happened to be sitting, as was evidently
the case, it was a most natural impulse to hurry
the newcomer, who ' babbled ' apparently of two
new deities, Jesus and ' Resurrection ' (for so they
would understand him), to its meeting-place, that
the question might be settled as to whether or not
he was to be allowed to continue. Yet it can
hardly be said that the proceedings were even re-
motely connected with a judicial inquiry. It was
no nnakrisis, or preliminary investigation, though
the philosophers may have hoped that something
of the sort would be the outcome. It is of little
importance whether the phrase ' they took him
and brought him' implies friendly compulsion or
inimical intent. The feelings of the listeners
would be very mixed, and they would quite
naturallj' be excited by the curious message of the
new preacher. The professin<j teachers were all
interested in new ideas and yet resented un-
warranted intrusion. The council was in the habit
of making pronouncements on the subject of new
religious cycles of thought, and it was no doubt
felt that, if their attention was drawn to the sub-
ject, official proceedings would follow. It is evident
that there was much in the address of St. Paul that
awoke sympathy in his audience. One member of
the council, at least, was converted, to wit, Diony-
sius. There may have been others. But the
general effect produced by the mention of the
Resurrection was contempt. A few were ready to
hear more on the subject, possibly a minority sug-
gested a more formal examination ; but the result
of the hearing', as of the visit, outwardly and
visibly, was failure. The council of the Areopagus
made judicial procedure impossible, by refusing to
treat the matter seriously, and the Apostle left
them, a disappointed, and no doubt a somewhat
irritated man.
Literature. — Besides the authors quoted, see W. M.
Ramsay, in Expositor, 5th ser. ii. [1895] 209, 261, also x. [1899] ;
E. Renan, St. Paul, Eng. tr. 1890, p. 193 f. ; A. C. McGiffert,
Iliatoiij of the Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 257 ff. ; i'ZirS,
art. 'Areopagus'; R. J. Knowling-, in EGT ii. [London, 1900]
368 f. F. W. WORSLEY.
ARETAS ('Ap^ras, Arab. Haritha).—T!he Gr.
form of a name borne by several rulers of the Na-
bata^an Arabs, Avhose capital was Petra in Arabia.
1. The first known to history, ' Aretas, prince of
the Arabians,' is said to have had the fugitive high-
priest Jason shut up at his court (2 Mac 5* ; the
Gr. text is doubtful). His designation as ' prince '
(Tipavvos) indicates that the hereditary chieftain of
the tribe had not yet assumed the dignity of king-
ship. The royal dynasty was founded by Erotimus
about 110-100 B.C., Avhen the Greek kings of SjTia
and Egypt had lost so much of their power, ' ut
adsiduis proeliis consumpti in contemptum liniti-
morum venerint praedaeque Arabum genti, im-
belli an tea, fuerint' (Trog. Pomp. ap. Justin.,
xxxix. 5. 5-6).
2. The second Aretas, called 6 'Apd^uv ^a<n\e\ji, is
mentioned by Josephus {Ant. Xlll. xiii. 3) in con-
nexion witli the siege of Gaza by Alexander Jan-
naeus in 96 B.C.
3. Aretas ill., who reigned from about 85 to 60
B.C., is known as ' Aretas the Philliellene,'this being
the superscription of the earliest Nabattean coins
that are known. Under him the mountain fortress
of Petra began to assume the aspect of a Hellenistic
city, and the Nabataean sway was extended as far
as Damascus. He incurred the displeasure of the
Romans by interfering in the quarrel of Hyrcanus
and Aristobulus, but the war which Scaurus waged
against him left his power unbroken [Ant. XIV. v.
i. ; BJ I. viii. 1 ). He couldinot, however, i)revent
LoUius and Metellus from taking possession of
Damascus (Ant. XIV. ii. 3 ; BJl. vi. 1), which there-
after was permanently under the suzerainty of
Rome.
i. Aretaslv.,Philopatris,the lastand best-known,
had a long and successful reign (c. 9 B.C.-A.U. 40).
He was originally called iEneas, but on coming to
the throne he assumed the favourite name of the
Nabatsean kings. He soon found it necessary to
ingratiate himself with Rome.
Augustus * was angry that Aretas had not sent to him first
before he took the kingdom ; yet did ^Eneas send an epistle
.VRISTAKCHUS
ARK
91
and presents to Csesar, and a crown of gold of the weisfat of
many talents.' . . . The Emperor 'admitted Aretaa% ambaasa-
dors, and after he had jost reprored him for his rashness in
not waiting till he had received the kin^om from him, he
accepted hi^ presents, mad confirmed him m the government '
(Jos. Ant. XVI. ix. 4, x. 9).
This Aretas' daughter became the wife of Herod
Antipas, who divorced her in order to marry
Herodias (Mk 6^'). Border disputes gave the in-
jured father an opporttinity of revenge. Again
acting, at this new juncture, >vithout consulting
Rome, he attacked and defeated Antipas (a.D. 28) ;
and again fortune smiled on his daring disregard
of consequences. The belated expedition which
Vitellius, governor of Syria, at Tiberius' command,
led against Petra, had only got as far as Jerusalem,
when the tidings of the Emperors death (A.D. 37)
caused it to be abandoned.
There is circumstantial evidence, though perhaps
too slender to be quite convincing, that Tiberius'
successor Caligula favoured the cause of Aretas.
St. Paul was converted probably about A.D. 36 (so
Turner), and, some time after, the Jews of Da-
mascus conspired to kill him (Ac 9^^). In recall-
ing this fact he mentions a detail (2 Co ll**) which
the writer of Acts omits, namely, that it was the
governor {idydpxvi) tmder Aretas the king who —
doubtless at the instigation of the Jews — guarded
the city to take him. The question is thus raised
when and how Aretas Ijecame overlord of Damascus.
It is inconceivable either that he captured the city
in face of the Roman legions in Syria, or that
Tiberius, who in the end of his reign was strongly
hostile, ceded it to him. But it is probable that
Caligula favotxred the enemy of Herod Antipas.
One of his first imperial acts was to give the
tetrarchy of Philip and Lysanias to Agrippa {Ant.
XTUI. vi. 10), and he may at the same time have
given Damascus to Aretas as a peace-oftering. It
was better policy to befriend than to crush the
brave Nabatajans. Antipas was ultimately de-
posed and banished in 39.
It was only for a short time, however, that Rome
relaxed her direct hold upon the old Syrian capital.
There are Damascene coins with the figure of
Tiberius down to A.D. 34, and the fact that none
has been found with the image of Cains or Claud-
ius is significant of a change of regime ; but the
image of Nero appears from 62 onwards. To the
view of Marquardt {Rom. Staatsverwaltung, 1885,
i. 405) and Mommsen (Province^, 1909, iL 149),
based on 2 Co 1 1^, that Damascus was continuously
in subjection to the Nabatfean kings from the be-
ginning of the Roman period down to A.D. 106,
there are the strongest objections(see Schiirer, HJP
I. ii. 354). Cf. art. Arabia.
More coins and inscriptions date from the time
of Aretas iv. than from any Nabataean reign.
^YhUe the standing title of Aretas m. was 4>tXA-
\i)voi, that which the last chose for himself was cm
•T25?, 'Lover of his people." He set country above
culture ; he was a Nabatsean patriot first and a
Hellenist after^ivards. It was probably this success-
ful reign that Josephus had in view when he
^vrote of the extension of the Nabataean king-
dom from the Euphrates to the Red Sea {Ant. L
xii. 4).
LiTERATrsus.— In addition to the anthorities cited in the body
of the art., see Literature appended to art. Akabu, and P.
Ewald, art. 'Aretas,' in PR&. J AMES StRAHaX.
ARISTARCHDS ('Apf<rropxos). — A Macedonian
Christian and a native of Thessalonica who became
one of the companions of St. Paul on his third
missionary journey. He is first mentioned on the
occasion of the riot in Ephesus, where along with
another companion of the Apostle named Gains
{q.v.), probably of Derbe, he was rushed by the
excited multitude into the theatre (Ac 19^). He
seems to have been an influential member of the
Church of Thessalonica, and was deputed along
with Sectmdus (q.v.) to convey the contributions of
the Church to Jertisalem (Ac 20*). He was thus
present in the city at the time of St. Patil's arrest,
and seems to have remained in Syria during the two
years of the Apostle's imprisonment in Csesarea,
for we find him embarking with the prisoner on
the ship bound for the West (Ac 27*). It is not
certain that he accompanied St. Paul to Rome.
He may, as Lightfoot supposes {Phil.* 34), have dis-
embarked at Myra (Ac 27'). On the other hand,
Ramsay {St. PauP, 316) believes that both Aris-
tarchus and St. Luke accompanied the Apostle on
the voyage as his personal slaves. In any case Aris-
tarchus was present in Rome soon after St. Paul's
arrival, and it is not impossible that he came later
with contributions from the Philippian Church to
the Apostle. When the EpLstles to the Colossians
and to Philemon were written, Aristarchus was
with the Apostle in Rome. In the former (Col 4^*)
he is called the 'fellow-prisoner' (ffwotxAwiXwros)
of the writer, and we find the same term, which
usually indicates physical restraint, applied to
Epaphras {q.v.) in Philem**. While the idea in
the Apostle's mind may be that Aristarchus, like
himself, was taken captive by Jestis Christ, it is
more probable that Aristarchus shared St. Paul's
prison in Rome, either as a suspected friend of the
prisoner or voluntarily as the Apostle's slave — a
position which he and Epaphras may have taken
alternately. In PhUem** he is called 'fellow-
labourer ' of the writer. Nothing is known of his
subsequent history. According to tradition he
stilfered martyrdom tmder Nero.
LiTBRATTRE.— W. M. Ramsaj, St. Paiul the Ttvxdler\
London, 1897, pp. £79, 316 ; J. B. Lightfoot, CoUmiana and
PhilemoH?, do. 1879, p. 236, Philippian*^, do. 1878, p. 34 ; artt.
in HDB and in EBi ; R. J. Kno^iriu^, in EGT n. [1900] 414.
W. F. Boyd.
ARISTOBULDS ('Ap«<rT<5j3oi'Xor, a Greek name
frequently adopted by Romans and Jews, and
borne by several members of the Maccalwean and
Herodian families). — In Ro 16^* St. Patil salutes
* them which are of the household of Aristobulus '
(to«>s iK tQw 'Apurro^o6kov), i.e. the Christians in his
familia or establishment of freedmen and slaves
(perhaps known as Aristobxdiani, for which the
Greek phrase would be eqtiivalent). Lightfoot
thinks that Aristobulus was a grandson of Herod
the Great, smd brother of Agrippa and Herod.
This Aristobulus lived and died in Rome in a
private station (see Jos. BJ n. xL 6, Ant. XX. i.
2). After his death it is sup}X)sed that his ' house-
hold ' passed over to the Emperor, but retained the
name of their former master. The ' household of
Aristobnlns ' wotild naturally include many Ori-
entals and Jews, and therefore probably some
Christians. The name Herodion (q.v.), which
immediately follows, suggests a connexion with
the Herodian dynasty. If Lightfoot is right, the
reference to the ' household of Aristobulus ' is
strong evidence for the Roman destination of
these salutations. The Christians in the ' house-
hold' would naturally form one of the distinct
commtmities of which the Church at Rome was
apparently made up (cf. v." and the phrases in
vv.*-"). We have no knowledge as to whether the
master himself was a convert. See Lightfoot,
Philippians*, 1878, p. 174 f.
T. B. Allwoktht.
ARK.— The LXX and the NT use «^an-6i=a
wooden chest or box, as a terminus teehnicus both
for Noah's ark (n?n), and for the ark (jii*?) of the
covenant.
1. An interesting aa^unt of the successive phases
of modem opinion regarding the former ark will be
found in £J5r" (s.v.). The writer of Hebrews (W),
92
AEMAGEDDOK^
ARMOUR
taking the story as he finds it, refers to Noah's
forethought as a supreme instance of that faitli
which is the conviction of things not seen — a faith
by which he not only virtually condemned the
world, bringing its careless infidelity into strong
relief, but became heir of that righteousness which
is faith's crown and reward (t^s Kard. irlimv BiKaio-
ffijvijs). St. Peter (1 P 3^^^-), supplementing a tradi-
tion which is found in the Book of Enoch (6-16 ;
cf. Jubilees, 5), imagines Christ, as a bodiless spirit,
preaching, in the days between His Passion and
His ResuiTection, to the spirits in prison. These
are the disobedient and, to bt. Peter (himself like a
spirit in prison during those three days), unhappy
children of the unlawful union between angels and
the daughters of men, condemned rebels who in
vain sought the intervention of Enoch on their
behalf in that time of Divine long-suffering when
Noah was preparing the ark in which he saved
himself and his family (see R. H. Charles, Bk. of
Jub., Lond. 1902, p. 43 fF.).
2. The writer of Hebrews mentions the ark of
the covenant {rrju Ki^wrbv rijs diaO-j^Kij^) as the inner-
most and most sacred piece of furniture contained
in the Tabernacle. His description of it as ' com-
pletely overlaid with gold ' {irepiKeKaXv/xn^vrjv irdvTodev
Xpvcrlq)) corresponds with the directions given in Ex
25" (iffwOev Kai f^wOev -xfivauiffei^ airn/iv). The desig-
nation ' the ark of the covenant,' which was pro-
bably coined by the writer of Deut. , was historically
later than 'thearkof Jahweh,'and * the ark of God'
( JE), and earlier than ' the ark of the testimony '
<P). It was a contraction for * the ark containing
the tables of the covenant,' the Decalogue being a
summary of the terms which Israel accepted on
entering into covenant with God. In Kautzsch's
Heilige Schrift it is rendered die Lade mit dem
Gesetz, ' the ark with the law.' When the Deca-
logue came to be known as ' the testimony,' the
new name i] Ki^urbs toD fiaprvpLov was introduced,
but it did not displace the older phrases. The
golden pot of manna (the adj. is an embellishment
upon Ex 16'^) and Aaron's rod that budded, which
in the original narratives were laid up before the
Lord {ivavTiov rod deov, Ex 16^ ; ivuiriov rQv
fiapTvpiuv, Nu 17^°) are supposed by the writer of
Hebrews to have been within the ark.
The ultimate fate of the ki^wtSs is involved in
obscurity. The popular imagination could not
entertain the idea that the inviolable ark was irre-
coverably lost, and there arose a tradition that
before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the
Tabernacle with all its sacred furniture was hidden
by Jeremiah (or, according to the Talmud, by
Josiah) in a cave of Mt. Nebo (2 Es 10^^ ; cf. 2 Mac
2'), whence it was to be miraculously restored to its
place at the coming of the Messiah. In the second
and third Temple the Holy of Holies contained no
ark. ' In this was nothing at all,' is Josephus'
emphatic testimony {BJ V. v. 5). Pompey, on
entering, found ' vacuam sedem et inania arcana '
<Tac. Hist. V. 9). The thought of that emptiness
oppressed the minds both of devout Jews and of
Jewish Christians, and in Rev ll^^, when the
seventli angel has sounded, and the temple of God
in heaven is opened, the ark of the covenant is
there. ' All we have willed or hoped or dreamed
of good shall exist ; not the semblance but itself.'
LiTERATURK. — Besides the artt. in // DB (J. Macpherson and
A. R. S. Kennedy), SDB(A. R. S. Kennedy), and especially
ERE (R. H. Kennett), see R. Kraetzschmar, Die Bimde.ivor-
stellung, Marbur;;, 1896 ; H. Couard, ' Die reliiciose nationale
Bedeutungder Lade,' mZATWxW. [1892]; Volck, art. 'Bun-
deslade,' in PiJ£3. JaMES STBAHAN.
ARMAGEDDON.— See Har-Magedon.
ARMOUR. — As Jews, the disciples of our Lord —
not to speak of Himself — were exempt from mili-
tary service. They had the privilege of iffTpartia,
which Lentulus conceded to tne Jews of Asia (Jos.
Ant. XIV. X. 13 f.), and Julius Caesar to those of
Palestine {ib. x. 6). The Roman auxiliaries who
garrisoned Judsea were recruited wholly from the
Greek cities of Palestine, such as Sebaste and
Coesarea. Probably, therefore, none of the dis-
ciples ever wore armour, or, with the possible
exception of Simon the Zealot, became skilled in
the use of weapons. St. Peter once carried a sword,
but made a very blundering use of it (Mk 14*',
Jn 18^"). The only sword of which Christianity
approves is that which is the symbol of the puni-
tive ministry of the magistrate (Ro 13*). Never-
theless, it was impossible for Christians not to be
profoundly interested in the brave men who were
taught that it was dulce et decorum pro patria mori,
and Christ Himself sanctioned the use of illustra-
tions drawn from the warfare of kings (Lk 14*^), It
is not surprising, therefore, to find that St. Paul
regards the valour and endurance of the world's
conquerors and the Empire's defenders as worthy
of emulation, and that he transfigures the armour
of the Roman legionary into the panoply of the
Christian soldier (Eph 6""^).
Descriptions of tne equipment of soldiers are
frequent in Greek authors. (1) Homer lets us see
his TTpSfjuixoi arming before they go forth to battle.
Paris (II. iii. 32811.) cases his limbs in greaves
(Kvrjfudes) ; a splendid cuirass (ddipa^) covers his
breast; a baldrick sustains the sword (^i^oj) that
glitters at his side ; his great round shield (o-d/cos)
is then displayed ; over his brows he places his
helmet (Kwitj) with nodding plume ; and last of all
he grasps his spear (?7xos) in his hand (cf. //. iv.
132 ff"., xi. 15ff'., xvi. 130 ff., xix. .364 ff".). 'The
six pieces of armour are always mentioned in the
same order, in which they would naturally be put
on, except that we should expect the helmet to be
donned before the shield was taken on the arm*
(Leaf's Homer, i. 106).— (2) Polybius (vi. 23) de-
scribes the armour of Roman soldiers in the time
of the Punic wars. The heavy-armed carried an
oblong^shield (dvpeb^, scutum), 'iieet by 2|, incurved
into the shape of a half-cylinder ; the helmet {-irepi-
K£<f)a\ala) of bronze had a crest of three feathers; and
a greave protected the rirfit leg. The wealthier
soldiers wore a cuirass of chain-armour (lorica), the
poorer a bronze plate 9 inches square. For de-
fence they all carried a Spanish sword (/idxat/)o),
straight, double-edged, and pointed, which was
used for both thrust and cut; and two long
javelins (vacroL, pila), which were either hurled at
a distance or used at close quarters like modem
bayonets. — (3) Josephus (BJ ill. v. 5) describes the
equipment of Roman soldiers under the Empire.
The neavy-armed had a helmet (/cpdfoj), a cuirass,
a long sword worn on the left side and a dagger on
the right, a pilum (^varbv), and a scutum (dvpein).
The detachment which attended the commander
had a round shield (aairh, clipeus) and a long spear
(Xityxfi)- The cavalry wore armour like that of the
infantry, with a broadsword (^idxatpa), a buckler
slung from the horse's side, a lance, and several
javelins (S-Kovre^), almost as large as spears, in a
sheath or quiver.
In his enumeration of the weapons of spiritual
warfare St. Paul omits the spear, and by implica-
tion adds girdle and shoes (^oxrriip and caligce).
The complete equipment consists of six pieces,
defensive and offensive — the girdle of tnitn, the
breastplate of righteousness, the sandals of readi-
ness to carry good tidings, the shield of faith, the
helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.
The Christian soldier is clad cap-ii-pie in super-
natural armour— the panoply which is the gift of
God. There is no defence for the back, which
should never need any.
AEMY
ARTEMAS
93
' The next day they took him [Christian) into the armoury,
where they showed him all manner of furniture, which the Lord
had provided for pilgrims, as sword, shield, helmet, breastplate,
all-prayer, and shoes that would not wear out. And there was
enough of this to harness out as many men for the service of
their Lord as there be stars in the heaven for multitude'
(Bunyan, Pilgrim't Progress).
In 1 Th 5* the breastplate (dvp€6i) is faith and
love. In the realm of the imagination a happy
idea will present itself in various aspects to differ-
ent minds, and even to the same mind at different
moments. Isaiah (59^^) had already suggested the
thought of a panoply in which God Himself is
clothed, and the \\Titer of Wisdom had worked
it out thus (5"'*) : ' He shall take His jealousy as
complete armour ; . . . He shall put on righteous-
ness as a breastplate, and shall array Himself with
judgment unfeigned as with a helmet ; He shall
take holiness as an invincible shield, and He shall
sharpen stem wrath for a sword.'
LiTKBATirRE. — In addition to the sources cited in the article,
see arc. 'Anna,' in Smith's Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Ant.^,
London, 1891, and art. ' Armoiir, Arms ' (A. R. S. Kennedy), in
SD£. James Strahak.
ARMY.— This term occurs in Ac 23^7, Rev 9"
1914. 19 (in ^}jg last three instances referring to
armies [a-TparevfuiTa] of apocalyptic vision). On
the outbreak of a tumult in the Temple at Jeru-
salem, the chief captain of the band came on the
scene, as he afterwards reported, cim T<p aTparev/jiaTi
(AV 'with an army,' RV 'with the soldiers').
The little force thus described (Ac 23^") was a frac-
tion of the vast army which maintained law and
order throughout the Roman Empire. In the first
month of 29 B.C., a year after the battle of Actitim,
the gates of the temple of Janus at Rome were
closed for the first time in 200 years. That signifi-
cant act was the beginning of the Pax Romana.
The Civil War was ended, and the State had no
more foreign foes to fear. Augustus found himself
master of three standing armies, his own and those
of Lepidus and Antony, amounting to 45 legions.
He at once undertook that task of military re-
organization which was perhaps his greatest and
most original achievement. By ruthlessly elim-
inating inferior elements he obtained a thoroughly
efiBcient force of 25 legions. The time for great
field forces, such as Scipio and Caesar had wielded,
was now past. An army that could be swiftly
mobilized was no longer a necessity, and might
easily become a menace, to the Empire. Augustus
initiated the policy, which was respected by his
successors down to the time of the Antonines, of
' maintaining the dignity of the Empire, without
attempting to enlarge its limits' (Gibbon, Hist.,
ch. 1). His conservative policy determined his
use of the army. Distributing the legions in the
frontier provinces of the Empire — which had the
Atlantic as its boundary on the west, the Rhine
and the Danube on the north, the Euphrates on
the east, and the deserts of Arabia and Africa on
the south — he charged them to guard the borders
which were exposed to the attacks of restless bar-
barians. Italy itself was garrisoned by the Prae-
torian cohorts (see Pr^torium).
The legions were recruited from the Roman citi-
zens of Italy and the provinces. Each consisted
of 6000 heavy infantry divided into ten cohorts,
with a troop of 120 horsemen to act as dispatch
riders. The legion was no longer under six tribunes
commanding by turns. The supreme authority
was now entrusted to a legatus legionis, who was
the deputy of the Emperor as commander-in-chief
of the whole army. The efiiciency of the soldiers
depended largely upon the 60 centurions, who
formed the backbone of the legion. The term of
service was 20 years, and on discharge the legion-
ary received a bounty or land. Many colonics
were formed for the purpose of providing homes
for veterans. Each legion bore a title and a
number, e.g. , ' VI. Victrix ' stationed at York, ' III.
Gallica ' at Antioch,
But the legions were not the only guardians of
the peace ot the Empire. Augustus developed
a new order of auxUia. Regiments of infantry
(cohortes) or cavalry [cUas], ^K) to 1000 strong,
were recruited from the subiects, not the citizens,
of the provinces, and formed a second force equal
in numbers if not in importance to the first. It is
estimated that the two forces together made up a
regular, long-service army of 400,000 men. The
auxiliaries were more lightly armed than the
legionaries (see Armour); they were not so
well paid ; and on their discharge they received a
bounty or the Roman franchise.
As Judaea was a province of the second rank,
governed by a procurator, it was not (like Syria)
garrisoned oy legionaries, but by auxiliaries, who
had their headquarters in Caesarea. The cohortes
and alas were recruited from the Greek cities of
Palestine, from which they derived their names,
such as ' Cohors Sebastenorum,' or ' Tyriorum.'
The Jews were expressly exempted from military-
service under the Roman banners and eagles, which
they regarded as idolatrous. Julius Caesar's edict
granting this privilege is preserved by Josephus
{Ant. XIV. X. 6).
At the time of the death of Herod Agrippa
(A.D. 44), an ala of cavalry and five cohorts were
stationed at Caesarea (Jos. Ant. xix. ix. 1-2).
Probably they had once belonged to the army of
Herod the Great, and had been taken over by the
Romans after the deposition of his son Archelaus
in A.D. 6 (Schiirer, EJP I. ii. 51). They are often
mentioned in the period A.D. 44-66 [Ant. XX. vi. 1,
viii. 7), and they were finally drafted into Vespa-
sian's army in A. D. 67. The relation of the Italian
and Augustan cohorts (see Augustax Band
and Italian Bakd) to fthese auxiliaries is a
difficult question. The cohort {aveipa), military
tribune (xtXtapx"^)* ^^^ centurions (eAcarofrapxcu)
mentioned in the story of St. Paul's arrest at
Jerusalem and transference to Caesarea (Ac 21-
23) certainly belonged to the Judaean auxilia. A
single cohort formed the normal garrison of the
Holy City (Jos. BJ v. v. 8, where rajfia is used
instead of the more correct a-reTpa). The barracks
(rapefjL^oXri, used six times in the same narrative)
adjoined the fortress of Antonia, close to the
N.E. comer of the Temple area (see Castle). At
the Jewish festivals a stronger body of troops was
drafted from Caesarea for the purpose of keeping
order among the pilgrims in the crowded Temple
precincts, as the Turkish soldiers now do at Easter
among the Christian sects in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre. St. PanI was escorted from
Jerusalem to Antipatris by 200 foot-soldiers, 70
horsemen (in-xets), and 200 spearmen (5eftoXd/3ot),
and thence to Caesarea by the horsemen alone.
The precise function of the Se^ioXd^oi (an exceed-
ingly rare word, meaning apparently ' those who
grasped their weapons with the right hand') is
very doubtful ; see Schiirer, I. ii. 56, and Meyer, in
loco.
LiTERATURB. — Art. ' Exercitus ' i n Smith's Diet, of Gr. and Rom.
Ant.S, London, 1S91 (by W. Ramsay), and in Pauly-Wissowa,
(by Liebenam) ; E. Schiirer, HJP 1. ii. 49 ff. ; E. G. Hardy,
Studies in Roman History, London, 1906-09 ; and art. 'Army'
(A. R. S. Kennedy) in SDB. JAMES StRAHAN.
ARTE MAS. — Artemas is mentioned only in Tit 3^*.
St. Paul urges Titus to ' give diligence to come to '
him, 'when I shall send Artemas unto thee, or
Ty chicus. ' This implies that Artemas was capable
of relieving Titus in the oversight and organization
of the Church in Crete. Therefore he must have
D4
AETEMIS
ARTS
been a Christian of considerable experience and of
hiyh cliaracter, and free to devote iiimself to Cliris-
tiaii work ; oneof St. Paul's coiii|i;Liiiiins fruiu w Imiii
the ' iijiostolic legates' were helectud. The. iiaiuu
is Greek ; but that tells nothing about his
nationality.
LiTBKATURB. — Artt. in II I)l> on 'Artemas,' 'Titus,' and
• Titus, Epistle to ' ; £G'r on Tit i;'-;. J. E. ROBERTS.
ARTEMIS.— See Diana.
ARTS. — This article surveys the indtistrial arts of
the Apostolic Age, from data furnished by the NT,
the Gospels excepted. ' Art ' may be co-ordinated
with ' craft,' which, liowever, has been replaced by
•trade,' ' Imsiness,' in RV (see Ac 18^ \^-^);
' craft -^man/ 'craftsmen' being retained (Ac 19-*"^,
Rev Ls--, where 'craft' also survives).
In the Avritings of St. Paul are numerous indica-
tions of the close contact of the Apostle with the
artisan class, which is to be expected in view of what
is known concerning his own manner of life. This
point is emphasized by Deissmann (Light from the
Ancient East^, London, 1911, p. 316 ff. ; but cf. Re-
view of Theology and Philosophy, viii. [1912-13]
p. 317). 'Work,' 'works' (and derivatives) figure
prominently in the Pauline vocabulary (Eph 2^" 4^^,
Col 323, 1 xh 4", 2 Ti 2i^ Tit 3^, etc. ). Many social
relationships proceed upon a work-basis, e.g.
masters, servants (slaves), bond, bondmen (Eph 6'* ",
Col 322, etc. ; cf. 1 P 216- ^\ Rev 6^5 IS^").
1. About one-half of the references to labour
within the apostolic writings refer to agricaltupe,
which, in the widest sense of the term, also belongs
to the industrial arts. In so far as these references
are quite general, or purely metaphorical, and such
as are common to literature in all ages, we shall
omit them. Toilers on the land are here regarded
more in their relation to craftsmen of whatsoever
craft (Rev 18^^). The time had passed when agricul-
ture was a self-contained industry ; there were now
many departments, and much subdivision of labour.
Behind the actual tillers of the soil stood those who
were owners of land, such as are mentioned in Ac
437 5iff. (cf. Josephus, Life, 76). The care of the
crop and of animals occupied so much time that
commerce in grain (Ac 27^ , Rev IS^'') and in stock
had to be made over to other's. The workers with
agricultural implements could not at the same time
fashion them, at least to advantage. Thus it came
about that the carpenter, the smith, the worker in
leather, found their customers largely among the
agricultural community. The plough, the yoke (so
frequent in St. Paul's metaphors : 2 Co 6", Gal 5^
Ph 43, 1 Ti 61 ; cf. Ac IS"), the goad (Ac 26^*), in-
struments for reaping (e.g. the sickle, Rev 141*)
and for threshing, the muzzle (1 Co 9», 1 Ti 5^8,
only in quotation), the bridle (Ja 3^), and harness in
general, millstones (Rev IS^^- ^^), weights and
measures (Rev 6^) — all these more or less called for
the skill of the artisan proper. In rural parts mill-
ing and baking may indeed have continued to be
woman's work in the house (or tent), but in towns
there had arisen millers and bakers, the latter in
particular exercising their craft in shops, many of
which were found in the same district or quarter,
as is still the practice in the East to-day.
We read once of the shambles (fi6.KeKKov =
macellum, 1 Co 10-'), which in reality was a meat
and provision market, with many booths or shops,
such as every great city of the time could boast.
The market-place (iyopd, forum, Ac 17"), althougli
put to many other uses, was not without signifi-
cance as a trade centre.
Specialized forms of agriculture, relating to the
vine, the olive, and the fig, are less frequently
Alluded to (Ja 3>» ; cf. Ro IV''-^*, 1 Co 9', Rev 6'" 11*
li'**-), but the products of -wine and oil are named
as matt IT- oi
The illl|Mil l;iiir
slni\\]i hy I)iM>^iu
coininon kii(i\\l(Ml;.'c (Ucv 6« 18'=*).
Ml' the (ili\i' in ijarLiciil,-i.r lias lifc^ri
nwiSf. Paul, London, Ilil-J. p.
I'll u/ (lie and other Stml' , do.
in>/s
o ail
1906, p. 21911'.). It maybe noted that the palm ii:
only m Rev 7*, although at this time it was al
important culture (Jos. Ant. Xiv. iv. 1). ''ri.tin
articles of commerce enumeratcil in K' \ is -
cinnamon, spice, etc — presuppose at .suiue puiuL (jr
other an activity in intensive arboriculture. For
basket-making, see art. Basket.
The rearing of cattle, sheep, horses, etc. is but
slightly referred to (1 Co 9», Ja 3^, 1 P 2-», Rev 18"),
but products come to light in the industries of tan-
ning and weaving. From the prevalence of sacrilice,
pagan (Ac 14i3- 1* 15^' ^ etc.) no less than Jewish,
we may also infer that this gave support to several
important branches of industry.
2. Next to the arts concerned with food supplies
come those connected with clothing and shelter.
Spinning and weaving were fundamental industries,
then, as aforetime, embracing the coarser fabrics
involved in the tent-cloth (see Tent, Ten'T-makixg)
made of goat's hair, for which Cilicia a\ .is famed,
and at the making of which St. Paul and his
companions, Aquila and Priscilla, wrought (Ac 18*
20*», 1 Co 4l^ 2 Co IP, 1 Th 29, 2 Th 3«), and the
finer sorts for human wear, culminating in articles
embroidered, inwrought with gold and silver,
adorned with precious stones and pearls, such as the
royal apparel of Ac 12^1 (cf. 1 Ti 2", 1 P 3*. Rev.,
passim). The treatment of the material, probably
while in the raw state, with dye (producing purple,
scarlet, etc. ), and with minerals for bleaching (i.e.
the process of fulling), Avas an allied industry (see
especially Ac 16" and cf. art. Clothes, etc.). The
art of the tailor was less in evidence, perhaps, his
place being taken by the weaver and by the women
in the home (cf . Ac 9^"), although in Talmudic times
he figures among other artisans.
3. The care of the person was then carried to a
great degree. The elaborate system of baths which
prevailed must have provided work for many,
including the apothecary, who supplied unguents
and salves (Rev 3^8 IS^^). The barber (Ac W^ 21«
1 Co 11"-) had also a well-established position.
4. The tanner has been brought into prominence
by one instance (Simon [<?.'??.], Ac 9^ 10'- 3^). While
an important craft, this was a despised one, and
the fact of Simon's house having been by the seaside
was due as much to enforced separation from the
town as to the necessities of business. The prepara-
tion of leather for foot-wear (see SHOE, SANDAL)
was but a small part of the tanner's occupation.
He was a necessary coadjutor of the maker of
articles for house-furnishing, and also of the
harness-maker.
5. Building arts. — The first part of the Apostolic
Age Avitnessed great activity in building within
Palestine, notably the completion of Heron's ambi-
tious projects. The Temple was finished, only to
be demolished again by the Romans. The con-
querors took up the like work for themselves, but
along lines of their OAvn. References to building
in the Apostolic Avritings are, however, fcAV. The
Avork of the mason underlies such passages as Ro
1520, 1 Co 3»»-, 2 Co 5"'-, 1 P 2*^-, He 3f'-. Specific
parts of buildings are named in the ' middle Avail of
Partition ' (Eph 2", perliaps reminiscent of the
eniple), the ' foundation ' and ' chief corner-stone '
(Eph 2**). The builder's measuring-rod (reed) is
mentioned in Rev W. Carpentry appears only
metaphorically in 1 Co '^'^'^, and in the figure of
speecli employed in Col '2'^.
6. Workers in metal. I'lu' numerous references
to arms Avithin tlie apostolic Avritings shoAv that
the art of the smith must have been familiar in
those days. No doubt it AA'as largely extraneous
ARTS
XSIOX
95
to Palestine, being maintained, however, for behoof
of the conquering Romans. There and elseMliere
it was an industry that ati'ected the early Christians
adversely, being associated for the most part with
prisons and detention, e.g. spearmen, etc (Ac
23^), chains (Ac 12* 21»28» Eph &», 2 Ti 1«), iron
gate (Ac 12'*). The ApocaJypse is especially rich
in V arlike imagery : breast-plates of iron (9*),
chariots (9^ 18"), sword (1" 2'* etc. ). See also Eph
6'^-, 1 Th 5^. Cf. art. Armoltj.
In connexion with ships and boats the smith's
(and carpenter's) art must also have been largely in
evidence : anchor (He 6"), rudder (Ja 3*) ; cf. the
narrative of St. Paul's voyage. It most be remem-
bered that navigation was itself an juct, requiring
a shipmaster and mariners (Rev 18'^), a steersman
(Ja ^), etc. But, as in the case of arms, this
activity stood largely apart from the Ufe of the
early Church.
Thus far the crafts have been regarded on a
large scale. But iron- work (see Ibox) took finer
forms (Rev 18'^) : e.g. certain parts of the warrior^s
equipment ; also the balance, if made of this
metal (Rev 6*). This is equally true of working in
wood : idols (Rev 9^) ; thyine wood, most precious
^vood, in juxtaposition to ivory (Rev 18^') ; foot-
stool (Ja 2^) ; vessels (2 Ti 2»). The coppersmith
iq.v.) is expressly named in 2 Ti 4". With the
free use of iron at this time it is probable the copper-
smith worked mostly on ornamental lines, being
r-killed in allovs. refining, engraving, burnishing
Rev 1-5 2'S). 'Mirrors (1 Co 13*^, 2 Co 3", Ja 1*»)
nong the articles produced (see Mirror).
- should in all probability be replaced by
• bronze ' or ' copper ' tmroughout the NT.
Still finer was the work done in gold, silver, and
precious stones. The sDversmiths of Ephesus (Ac
19^^) were a powerful gild, working at a particular
craft, \"iz., the making of silver shrines or models
of the Temple of Diana (see Ramsay, The Church
in the Roman Empire, London, 18^, p. 112 flF. ;
and art. DiANA). This was part of a wider
practice of fashioning idols in the precious metals
(Ac 17^, Rev 9*). These elements entered into
dress and personal ornament (1 Ti2®, 1 P 3^ Ja2^),
as also into house furniture (2 Ti 2*"). The refer-
ences in Rev. are too numerous to mention, includ-
ing garments (girdle, etc.), articles for food and
drink (bowl, cup. etc.), and even altar and throne.
Although these here appear as seen in vision, they
were all of them possible to antiquity.
The use of gold, silver, etc., in coinage should
not be overlooked. See artt. Gold, Silver.
7. There were also workers in stone and clay
(including terra-cotta) along artistic lines. When
graven by art and device of man (Ac IT"), stone,
especially marble, took high value (Rev #» 18").
Tablets of stone were also fashioned for commem-
orative purposes (Ac 17**, 2 Co 3*-^ Rev 2»'),
attached to statues, tombs, etc., and the inscrip-
tions in certain cases remain, yielding welcome
archpeological evidence.
The potter's art (see PoTTER) was as necessary
as ever for household use (2 Co 4^, 2 Ti 2", Rev 2").
It proWdes St. Paul with a well-known metaphor
(Ro 9^). Interesting details regarding Jewish pot-
tery of this period are to be found in Conferences
de Saint-Etienne, 1909-10, p. 99 ff. Glass appears
only figuratively (Rev 2ps- ^ ; cf. 4« 15*). But it
was quite a common article of mantLfactnre at this
time (see, further, art. Lamp, etc. ).
A whole system of trade (Ac ' ?"' 2"- '. Ja 4^,
Rev IS"*-) was built upon the pi; leh arts
as have here been passed in revic .. . ^^. ..^^ a liveli-
hood to merchants, money-lenders, and also tax-
collectors. The correspondence necessitated by
trade and by the ditfusion of knowledge must also
have given occupation to many who prepared the
materials for writing (parchment, papyrus, pen,
ink, etc).
8. Serious as most arts were, we yet learn that
many spent their lives in following after pseudo-
arts, e.g. the ' curious arts ' (t4 repiefrya) of Ac 19" ;
cf. Simon Magus (Ac 8*^), Elymas (Bar-Jesns;
Ac 13"^), and the masters of the Philippian maid
(Ac 16**). As seriously taken as any were the
gymnastic arts : running, boxing (1 Co 9*"^), and
wrestling (Eph 6"). See art. Games.
LrrBKATCKB.— "Die ait. ' Arta and Ciatts' in SDB may be c<«-
salted. An exbaustiTe list of aotiioritatave works wiQ be found
in HDB v. 57*-, appended to the art. ' New Testament TBioea.'
Another verr complete Ust of a spedalized order appears in S.
Kranss, Taimud. Arehdologie, Leipcig^, 1910-11, ii. 249. ThM
work is very important. M. B. Schwalm, La VU prioee du
peupU jvif a Vepogfue de Jettu-Ckrist, Paris, 1910, written
from the sociological standpoint, is ns^oL The works of W.
M. Ramsay and A. Deissmann are also helpfoL
W. Cruickshaxk.
ASCENSION.— 1. NT statements.— The his-
torical account of the Ascension is given in Ac
1*"^, for the Gospel story does not carry us so far.
The Ascension, the last of the series of the post-
Resurrection appearances, is a new subject, and
the description of it be^ns a new book. This is
the case \i-hatever view we take of the text of Lk
24*1, as i^ijat in any case is no detailed description
of the event, but only a brief summary of the in-
cidents. The First and Fourth Grospels end before
the final departure, and so probably did the Second,
the conclusion of which (after 16*) we have lost.
The place of the Ascension was Olivet (Ac 1",
'EXoM^r — so, according to some editors, we ought to
read the word in Lk 19® 21"), usually called the
Mount of Olives. It was ' over against Bethany '
(Lk 24**), and therefore on the far or S.E. side of
the hill, looking down on Bethany, which lies in
a hollow ; the reputed site overlooks Jerusalem,
and is unlikely to have been the real one (Swete,
Appearances, p. 103 ; but see C. Warren, in HDB
iii. 619). As they were talking, Jesus lifted np
His hands and blessed the disciples (Lk 24^), ana
in the act of blessing He was taken up, and a
cloud received Him out of their sight (Ac 1').
Two angels (• men in white apparel ') appeared and
assured them of His future return to earth, and
they went back to Jerusalem (v.^""^) with great
joy (Lk 24*^). There had been no record of angelic
appearances when the risen Jesus was seen by the
disciples, as we might have expected from Jn 1*' ;
the angels appeared only to announce the Resurrec-
tion and to explain the Ascension. The account
in Lk 24**"** can hardly apply to Miy other parting
than the Ascension, even if with * Western ' author-
ities (DA, some Old-Lat. MSS, Augustine*) we
omit the last half of v." : ' was carried np into
heaven.' On no other supposition can the 'joy'
of the disciples be understood. At anj rat«, the
person who inserted the words, whether the
Evangelist or a scribe, so took them.
The XT is full of references to the Ascension.
It is called an 'assumption' (dj^dXi^^ts), in the
hymn quoted in 1 Ti 3^* (' received up [d^eX^^^j
in glory'), in the Appendix to Mk. (16**, drcX^^)
and Lk 9*^ ( ' the days of his assumption,' dwdK-ifij/eui),
as in Ac 1*- "• ** (cf. inri\a^, v.*). The same verb
is used of Elijah (2 K 2" LXX, Sir 48*) and of
Enoch (Sir 49^*), and also of the vessel received up
into heaven in St. Peter's vision (Ac 10"). On the
other hand, we read of an ' ascension ' (ipA^ani) in
* ATig:astine inserts the words mace, and <Mnit8 them once.
SjT-fiin is also quoted for the omission ; it reads : ' when he
Messed them, he was lifted np (cttrtm) fn»n them,' which
seems to be an abbreriaticMi of the fuller text, and, if so, to be
a witaiess against the omia^on (the ix. 'taken awar' is pos-
siUe but 1^ probable; D-Iat has 'discessit'). Svr-sin also
omits 'and they worshipped him,' with 'Western' texts.
The Feshitta Syriac has the full text (with ethpreA^ 'was
separated,''for the first rerfoX as has the lAtin Vulgate. The
omission may be due to hcMnoioteleutQn.
96
ASCENSION
ASCENSION
Jn 6«^ 20", and in Eph 48'-, where Ps 68'8 is quoted,
the first clause nearly following the LXX, the
latter differing from it. St. Paul was probably
guided by an old Jewish interpretation (Robinson,
Com. in loc.) ; so in Ac 2^ St. Peter says that
David did not ascend (dv^/Sij) into the heavens.
The word ' ascension ' has less of a mystical mean-
ing than 'assumption,' and emphasizes the his-
torical side of the matter ; ' assumption ' may be
misinterpreted in a Docetic sense, as it is in the
Gospel of Peter, 5, where our Lord's death is so
called {iveXi/jcpdri) by the Docetic author. For this
reason Irenseus speaks of the Ascension as an
' assumption in the flesh ' {iv<rapKov d.v6.\-n\l/i.v [Hcer.
I. X. 1]; see also Swete, Ap. Creed, 70). Other
words are used elsewhere in the NT. Jesus is the
High Priest who has ' passed through ' {dieXrjXvd&ra)
the heavens (He 4") — the reference is to the idea
of seven heavens (cf. 7^ ' made higher than the
heavens ') ; He ' entered ' {ela^XOe) within the veil
as a forerunner on our behalf (6^), not into a holy
place (^710) made with hands, but into heaven itself
(gi2. 2ij Tjjg Ascension was a * departure ' ( Jn 16'',
diriXeto), a ' parting ' (Lk 24", diicrTT)), according to
many MSS a * carrying up ' into heaven {ib. , dvetpi-
pero [see above], a verb used of the taking up of
the disciples to the Mount of Transfiguration, Mt
n\ Mk 92), a 'lifting up' (Ac P, iTr'^pOr), a verb
used of lifting up the eyes to heaven, Lk 18^*, Jn
17^), and a 'journey' (1 P 3^^^ iropevOels, used of
the nobleman who went into a far country, a par-
able looking forward to the Ascension, Lk 19^^).
The Ascension of our Lord was not a death.
David did not ascend, though he died and was
buried (Ac 229- "). So in Jn 3^8 those who had died
had not 'ascended.' This verse would hardly
have been recorded if the Evangelist had not as-
sumed the Ascension of Jesus as a historical fact,
and it is in effect a prophecy of that event; it
asserts the pre-existence (Kara^ds), and points for-
ward to the Ascension, though it does not assert
that our Lord had at that time actually ascended
{dva^i^TjKev).
The Ascension is implied by the expected return
or 'descent' of our Lord, 1 Th 4^^ (/corajSiJo-erai), a
return called a * revelation ' (diroKdXvfi^) of the
Lord Jesus in 2 Th 1^ 1 Co 1'. The disciples did
not look for any other appearance such as had
taken place in the Forty Days, until He should
come at the end of the world.
2. Session and exaltation of our Lord. — In the
passages given above, the Ascension is described
as the parting of Jesus from the disciples at the
last of the Resurrection appearances ; for there-
after there were no such manifestations as those
in which Jesus had been touched bv the disciples
and had eaten in their presence (Mt 28^ Lk 24*^
and probably vv.*"- ^, Jn 20^7— though St. Thomas
perhaps did not actually touch the Lord when in-
vited to do so — and possibly 20^'') ; the appearances
to St. Paul at his conversion and to St. John in
Patmos were of quite another nature. In the de-
scription of the parting a symbolical tinge is seen.
The glorified body is received by a cloud as it
gradually vanishes from the disciples' eyes. But
' up ' and ' down ' are symbolical words ; heaven is
not a place vertically above the Mount of Olives,
nor is it a place at all, but a state ; the Ascension
is a transition rather from one condition to
another than from one place to another (MUligan,
The Ascension, p. 26). The fact that men were
accustomed to speak symbolically of heaven being
' above ' was doubtless the reason of the last dis-
appearance taking the form that it did ; it would
seem that when Jesus disappeared on former occa-
sions during the Forty Days (for the Gospels de-
scribe His Resurrection body as being not bound
by the ordinary laws of Nature) He did not vanish
by an apparently upward movement. In the
statements about the ascended life of our Lord
symbolism has to be still more freely employed,
as no human language can adequately describe
the new conditions. Just as symbol was neces-
sary to describe the Temptation of our Lord, or
the overthrow of Satan by the efforts of the
Seventy disciples (Lk lO^^**), or the eventual triumph
over evil foretold in the Apocalypse, so was it
necessary in describing the heavenly life of Jesus.
The use of symbolism, of which the Bible from
beginning to end is full, does not mean that the
incident or condition described is mythical, but
that it cannot be expressed in ordinary human
words. Sanday, in his striking lecture on 'The
Symbolism of the Bible ' (Life of Christ in Recent
Research, Oxford, 1907), defines it as 'indirect
description.'
The symbolism used to describe our Lord's
ascended life is that of Ps 110^ which is quoted
directly in Mk \2^, Mt 22**, Ac 2="'-, 1 Co \o^. He
jis ioi2«-^ and indirectly in numerous passages which
speak of Jesus being, sitting, or standing, on God's
right hand till all His enemies are subdued. In
some passages it is said that He 'sat down' (^/cd^tcrei'.
He 13 81 IQi^ ' Mk ' W^) or ' hath sat down' {KeKdOiKev,
He 12^, inferior MSS iKdOiaev) ; so in Eph !*• it is
said that God 'made him to sit' {Ka6laa.%), and in
Rev 321 Jesus says ' I sat down {iKddiaa) with my
Father in his throne ' (cf. 12'), In other passages
Jesus is said to ' be sitting,' as in Col 3^ (iaTiv . . .
KaO-^/xevos) ; so in Mk 14®^ and || (see below). While
the former method of expression emphasizes the
historic fact of the Ascension on a certain day, the
latter denotes that the Session was not an isolated,
but is a continuous, action. The latter point of
view is seen also in Ro 8**, 1 P 3^ ('who is at the
right hand'), and in Ac 7"'" where Stephen sees
the Lord ' standing ' at the right hand of God —
ready (such seems to be the meaning) to help His
martyr (cf. also Rev 5* 14'). And we note that in
Ps 110' [LXX] the imperative 'sit' {Kddov) marks
the continuance of the Session (Westcott on He 1").
This variation in biblical usage is reflected in the
use of both ' sitteth ' and ' sat down ' (sedet, sedit)
in different Creeds. The former is the usual form,
e.g. in the 'Constantinopolitan' form of the Nicene
Creed (KaOe^dnevov ; cf. Tertullian, de Virg. Vel. 1,
'sedentem nunc'). But the latter is sometimes
found, especially in the 4th cent., as in the Creed
of Jerusalem (Cyr. Jer. Cat. xiv. 27, KadiaavTa 4k
de^iwu Tov Uarpds) ; in the Testament of our Lord (ii.
8) ; the Verona Latin fragments of the Didascalia
(ed. Hauler, p. 110) ; the Egyptian and Ethiopic
Church Orders; and in the Creeds of the Abtx)t
Pirminius (8th cent.), of the Bangor Antiphonary
(7th cent.), of the Gallican Sacramcntary (7tn
cent. ; Codex Bobiensis), and of the Missale Galli-
canum (Mabillon) ; cf. also Tert. de Prater. 13,
' sedisse. '
The Session is 'at the right hand of God' — either
4k Se^iQv or 4v Be^i^ ; the former in Ps 110' [LXX]
('at my right hand') and in the quotations of it
in Mt 22**, Mk 123«, Ac 2«, He l^^, also in the
allusions to it in Mk 14«^ and || Mt 26«* (both ' of
power') and || Lk 22** ('of the power of God') and
' Mk ' 16'», Ac 7»'- twice ('of God '). But St. Paul,
St. Peter, and the writer of Hebrews prefer ii> df^i^ :
Ro S'**, He 10'* (though v.'* is a quotation from
Ps 110'), Col 3', 1 P 3-^ (all these have 'of God') ;
so He 1* ('of the Majesty on high') 8' ('of the
throne of the Majesty in tne heavens') 12* ('of the
throne of God '), Eph I'-* (' his right hand '). With
these phrases cf. Ac 2** ('being therefore by the
right hand of God exalted,' ii^uOeh) 6" ('him did
God exalt with his right hand'), in both of which
places RVm reads 'at' for 'by* or 'with.'
The symbolism of Session, according to Pearson
ASCENSION
ASCENSION
97
(On the Creed, art. vi.) and Westcott {Historic
Faith*, 1890, p. 52), is that of perfect rest from all
pain, sorrow, disturbance, and opposition. Yet,
as Swete points out {Ascended Christ, p. 14), this
is, at best, incomplete. The seated monarch on
earth is not idle, and so the seated Christ ' rests
not day nor ni^ht from the unintermitting energies
of heaven.' The symbolism of the right hand is
unmistakable. It expresses the exaltation and
glory of the Ascended Christ as Man. Jesus did
not merely return to His former glorv (cf. Jn 17' :
' which I had with thee before the world was'), but,
in addition, was glorified in His human nature.
For the exaltation see Lk 24^ ('to enter into his
gl5ry ' — the glory which was His due), Jn 7^ 12'^,
Ac 2^ ( ' God hath made him — caused him to be re-
cognized as — both Lord and Christ' ; with reference
to the Session), 2 Co 3^"^^ Ph 2* (aurdi' inrep&if/uffe,
'highly exalted him,' in consequence of the self-
emptym^ and self-humUiation), 1 Ti 3^* ('received
up in glory'). He 2* ('crowned with glory and
honour '), and the passages given above. The ex-
altation or ' lifting up ' (C^owtj) is spoken of by our
Lord in immediate reference to the Crucifaxion
(Jn 3" 828 1232- ^), but doubtless with the further
thought that death leads to glory (cf. Jn 13^^ ; see
also Slilligan, op. cit. p. 78 f.). — It is not improbable
that the period of Forty Days was one of increasing
glory, of which the Ascension was the consumma-
tion. In Jn 20^^ our Lord says to Mary Magdalene,
'I ascend' {dva^aivw), that is, not 'I shall ascend,'
as our looser English use of the present tense may
suggest, but ' I am ascending.' ' The Resurrection
had begun the great change ; from Easter morning
He was already ascending ' (Swete, Holy Spirit in
NT, p. 374). But the last parting was the definite
act of Ascension.
3. The work of the ascended Christ. — (a) Jesus
has ascended to make intercession for us as our
Priest, Ro 8^, He 7^ (a perpetual intercession).
The High-Priesthood of Christ is one of the great
themes of Hebrews, and Ps 110^* is quoted in He
56. 10 717. 21 Jesus is High Priest for ever after the
order of Melchizedek, not of the Aaronic order (see
below). He is our 'great priest' (lO-^). One of
the meanings of ' Paraclete ' is ' Advocate ' or
' Intercessor,' and Jesus is our Paraclete (1 Jn 2^),
as He Himself implies in calling the Holy Ghost
'another Paraclete' {iXkov HapaKX-qrov, Jn 14^^).
His very presence in heaven is the intercession
which fie offers. He 'appears before the face of
God for us' (He Q^"*). This is the meaning of the
references in Hebrews to the high priest entering
into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement
(414-16 620 -27 g3 97.12.24 etc.). But we must notice
two differences between the type and the antitype.
The earthly high priest stands to offer (10"), while
Jesus is usually (though not always) depicted as
sitting (above, § 2). And the earthly high priest
enters into the Holy of Holies alone, leaving the
people outside, while Jesus carries the people with
Him within the veU and gives them access to the
Father {v\.'^-^). Jesus is the Mediator (8« 12--^),
and on His mediation all human intercession is
based (1 Ti2^-'). Mediation and intercession axe
not, indeed, quite the same thing. A mediator
brings the contending parties together. But our
ascended Mediator goes further, and offers inter-
cession for all men (see Swete, Asc. Christ, p. 93).
In this connexion we must notice that there is no
contradiction between the intercession of the Holy
Ghost and that of our ascended Lord. St. Paul
speaks of both intercessions in the same context
(Ro 8'^'- *♦). The two are not to be separated ; they
are really one act, though the insufficiency of
human language makes them seem two. The
intercession of our Lord in heaven and that of the
Spirit in the hearts of believers are one. Christ in
VOL. I. — 7
heaven sends the Holy Ghost to intercede within
us. This double conception is parallel with that
of the Holy Spirit coming down to us here on earth
at the same time that we are taken up to ' the
heavenlies' with Jesus (Eph 2*).
It has long been disputed when the High-Priest-
hood of Christ began. He was the Priest-Victim
on the Cross, and some passages in Hebrews point
to a Priesthood on earth, whUe others point to one
in heaven only. Westcott {Hebrew^, p. 229, Add.
Note on 8') says that Christ fulfilled^ two types,
and that there are two aspects of His Priesthood,
one as fulfilling the Levitical High- Priest hood on
earth before the Session, and the other as fulfilling
that of Melchizedek thereafter. The priesthood
was thus, as it were, completed by the Ascension.
But Milligan {op. cit. p. 72 ff". ) denies the two types
of priesthood, and says that our Lord's Priesthood
began with His glorification, and that the Death
was part of this glorification, falling in the sphere
of the heavenly Priesthood. There seems to be
much truth in both views. The Priesthood of
Christ is one, but as the earthly high priest only
fulfilled his priesthood when he brought the blood
of the victim within the Holy Place, so Christ did
not fulfil His Priesthood till the Ascension (see
J. H. Bernard, in EEE ii. 157).
(6) Jesus has ascended to rule over and to fill all
things ; He is our King. This is specially empha-
sized in Rev (1« 51"- IP" lO^^- 1« 20*). Jesus is the
ruler of the kings of the earth, and is worthy to
receive the power and the might ; the kingdom of
the world is become the Kingdom of our Lord [the
Father] and of His Christ ; Jesus has many diadems
on His head, and is King of kings and Lord of
lords ; He reigns with His saints for a thousand
years. St. Paul also emphasizes the Kingship of
the Ascended Christ. He must (Set) — it is fitting
that He should — reign till His enemies are con-
quered (1 Co 15^). He is seated far above all rule,
authority, and power, both in this and in the coming
age (Eph 1-^) ; He ascended that He might fill all
things (Eph 4^' ; cf. 3^"). His rule is with a view to
the restoration of the universe to order, and is not
only over Christians, but over all. He was exalted
that in His name every knee should bow throughout
the whole universe (Ph 2*'-). »•«• in the name which
the Father gave Him (v.*), namely, the Divine
Majesty : to the Divine Jesus aU shall do homage
(see Lightfoot's note). He is the Head of the
Church, and in all things has the pre-eminence
{-IT purr fvwv), for in Him all the fulness dwells (Col
jisf. . fQj. xXi}pw/ia, see Robinson, Ephesians, p. 255) ;
cf. Eph 4^"- 5^. So St. Peter speaks of angels and
authorities and powers being made subject to the
Ascended Christ ( 1 P 3^). All authority in heaven
and earth has been given to Him (Mt 28^^). He is
the Priest- King, the ' priest upon his throne ' of
Zee 6^^ ; and His Kingship assures us that good
wUl triumph over evil.
(c) The office of the Ascended Jesus as Prophet
is not so explicitly mentioned in the NT as His
Priesthood and Kingship. Yet it is clearly im-
plied. His prophetic or teaching office did not
cease at the Ascension ; on the contrary. He there-
after teaches more plainly ; not, as formerly, in pro-
verbs (Jn 16^) ; the teaching is through the gift of
the Spirit, who was to teach us all things (14**),
and guide us into all the truth, not speaking from
Himself, 'for he shall take of mine and shall
declare it unto you ' (IGi^*-). This is illustrated by
the outpouring of the gift of prophecy upon the
infant Church ; ' the testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy ' (Rev 19'"). Now the Ascension
is intimately connected with the gift of the Spirit.
The Ascension was not a mere spectacle to reassure
the disciples, but the mode by which we are given
a new life. Until Jesus was glorified it was not
98
ASCENSION-
ASCENSION
possible for the new mode of His presence to take
etl'ect ( Jn 7^" 16^ ; cf. Lk 24**). Hence the necessity
of our Lord's death : otherwise the grain of wheat
could not bear fruit ( Jn 12'^). The Ascended Christ
became a life-giving Spirit (1 Co 15*"). The con-
nexion between the Ascension and the gift of tlie
Spirit is also seen from the fact that the last words
oi Jesus (Ac 1*) were that the disciples should re-
ceive power when the Holy Ghost should be come
upon them, and so they would be Jesus' witnesses
in all the world. This explains to us the purport
of the words ' after he had spoken to them, in the
Appendix to Mk. {16^").
(a) Another work is referred to in He 6^*. The
Ascended Christ has entered within the veil on
our behalf as a Forerunner {wpddpofios [see FORE-
RUNNER]), to prepare a place for us (Jn li'^; for
the * many resting-places,' see Swete, Asc. Christ,
105 ff.), that we may sit with Him on His throne
{Rev 3^1).
4. Interval between the Resarpection and the
Ascension. — In Ac P Jesus is said to have appeared
to the disciples ' by the space of forty days' {Si' imepQiv
Te(Tffap6.KovTa). This interval has been usually taken
as exact, and when the Festival of the Ascension
was instituted, in the 4th cent. , the sixth Thursday
after Easter was selected for the purpose (Ap. Const.
V. 20 ; cf. viii. 33, ed. Funk), and has been so ob-
served ever since. But St. Luke's words do not
necessarily imply an exact period of forty days,
and there have been other calculations. In the
Third Gospel he describes all the events which took
place after the Resurrection till the 'parting' of
24"^ (see above, § 1), without any note of time, and
the deduction has been drawn that when he wrote
the Gospel he supposed that all the post-Resurrec-
tion appearances which he describes took place on
Easter Day itself, but that he learnt a more ac-
curate chronology before he wrote Acts (cf. art.
Acts of the Apostles, V. 1). This is scarcely
credible, and assumes that the Gospels are what
they never claim to be — chronological biographies,
like modern 'Lives.' This view makes St. Luke
get in all the events which happened after the
evening meal at Emmaus (v.^*), including the return
journey of the two disciples 7 or 8 miles to Jeru-
salem, before nightfall, for none of the authorities
suggests that the Ascension took place at night.
In Ilk 24 we have a series of events foreshortened
(probably because the author had already planned
Acts), and no note of time is suggested.
There are, however, some indications that the
words ' forty days ' were not always taken exactly.
* Barnabas ' makes the Ascension take place on a
Sunday (§ 15) ; but he does not say that it was the
same Sunday as the Resurrection ('the eighth
day ... in which also Jesus rose from the dead,
and, having been manifested, ascended up to
heaven'). He mentions the 'eighth' rather than
the ' first ' day because it follows the seventh day
or Sabbath, or which he is treating ; he hints at the
replacement of the Jewish Sabbath by the Christian
Lord's day, but only obscurely. With this we may
compare the fact that in the Edessene Canons
(4th cent.) the Ascension was commemorated on
Whitsunday, and so in the Pilgrimage of 'Silvia'
(Etheria), though in that work the fortieth day after
Easter was observed for another purpose ; see the
present writer's art. ' Calendar, The Christian,' in
VCG i. 261*. This is some confirmation of the
suggestion that the Ascension took place on a
Sunday. There are also some speculations of an
extravagant nature, such as the Valentinian idea
that the interval between the Resurrection and the
Ascension was 18 months, or that of certain Opliites
that it was 11 or 12 years, or that of Eusebius in
one place (Dem. Evang. viii. 2) that it was as long
as the Ministry before the Crucifixion ; see Swete,
Ap. Creed, p. 69 f. All that we can deduce from
these facts is that, while the Ascension nmy have
taken place on tlie Thursday, it may also have
happened on the following Sunday, or on any day
between or close to these dates.
5. Hodern objections to the Ascension.— The
present article is mainly concerned with the facts,
and the reader may be referred for an answer to
objections from a philosophical point of view to A.
S. Martin's article in DCG i., which is very full on
this head. Here it is enough to say (a) that the
objection that it is impossible for a body to disobey
the laws of gravity and to ascend instead of fall,
presupposes that the Resurrection body of our
Lord was under the same material conditions as
His body before Easter Day, which all the Evan-
gelists' accounts show not to have been the case.
Objections on this head are therefore really objec-
tions to the Resurrection, not to the Ascension.
(b) It is impossible to regard the account in Ac 1 as
a myth unless we adopt the now exploded theory
that the whole gospel story is such. The narrative
bears the same stamp of truth as the evangelical
records. For example, Sanday well points out the
authentic touch about the disciples desiring the
restoration of the earthly kingdom of Israel (v.®'- ;
see HDB ii. 643*). However we may interpret the
narrative, there can be little doubt that it repre-
sents what the eye-witnesses believed to have tajcen
place.
But an allegation of Hamack must be briefly
noticed here, as it deals with the facts. He says that
the special prominence given to the Ascension in
the Creeds is a deviation from the oldest teaching,
and that in the primitive tradition the Ascension
had no separate place (Das apost. Glaubensbekennt-
niss, Berlin, 1892). He aUeges the silence of the
Synoptists, of St. Paul in 1 Co 15^*^-, and of the
chief sub-apostolic writers; the placing, in some
old accounts, of the Session after the Resurrection
as if they were one act ; and the discrepancy noted
above as to the interval between the Resurrection
and the Ascension. These allegations have been
ably answered by Swete (Ap. Creed, ch. vi.). Tlie
argument from silence (always precarious) is invalid
in the case of Mt. and Mk., which do not carry the
narrative so far as the Ascension (the end of Mk.
is lost) ; at best it hardly applies to Lk. (see above,
§ 1), and the mention of the Ascension in 1 Co
253flF. -would have been irrelevant to St. Paul's argu-
ment. Moreover, the Ascension belongs to the
history of the Church rather than to the gospel
narrative, and therefore it is not to be expected
that it should be found there except in allusion.
It is hard to see any force in the argument from
St. Paul's silence in one place when elsewhere he
so emphatically states his belief in the Ascension.
As to the sub-apostolic ^vriters, the Ascension is
explicitly mentioned by 'Barnabas' (§ 15), by Justin
(Dial. 38), and is probably referred to by Ignatius
(Magn. 7). The allegation that the Session and the
Resurrection were regarded as one act may be
tested by Ro 8**, where St. Paul names successively
the Death, Resurrection, Session, and Intercession
of Christ. If the second and third of these are
one act, why not also the iirst and fourth ? The
argument from the interval has already been dealt
with (above, § 4). For fuller details, see Swete, Ap.
Creed. It is quite intelligible that those who believe
that our Lord is mere Man should find difficulties
in the doctrine that He ascended ; but it is not
really possible to maintain that the disciples did
not believe it.
6. Importance of the Ascension for the practical
life. — This iias been indirectly pointed out above
(§ 3). The Ascension shows that the work of Christ
for man has never ceased, but is permanent,
although He has never needed to repeat His sacri-
ASGKN'SIOIT OF ISAIAH
ASCENSION OF ISAIAH
99
lice. It has brought Jesus into closer touch \*-ith
us ; He has never ceased to be Man, and in the
heavenlv sphere is not removed far away from us,
but is wath us until the end of the world (Mt 28*).
He raises our ideals from earthly things to heavenly;
and, giving us through the Spirit the new life
which enables us to follow Him, by His Ascension
teaches us the great Sursum Corda : ' Lift up your
hearts ; we lift them up unto the Lord.'
LmsATURB. — W. Milligran, The Aseentum and Heavenly
PrUithood of OUT Lord (&kird LectureX London, 1892 ; H. B.
Swete, The ApotOe^ Creed, Cambridge, 1894, The Holy Spirit
m tMe A«w Tettament, London, 1909, Appendix E, The Appear-
aneet <^ our Lord ttfter the Pattion, do. 1907, 2%« Ascended
Christ, do. 1910 ; J. Pearson, On the Creed, art. vi. ; J.
Denney, art. ' Ascension,' in HDB L ; W. Sanday, art. ' Jesos
Christ,' ^. iL ; A. S. Martin, art. ' Ascension,' in DC6 i. ; J. G.
SiafMon, art. 'Ascension,' in SDB; J. H. Bernard, art.
* Aasomptioo and AacensioD,' in ERE ii. ; B. F. Westcott,
Conk on HebretM, London. 1906 ; R. L. Ottley, The Rule of
Faith and Hope, da 1912, p. S2flf. ; A. J .Tait, The Heavenly
Setation of our Lord, do. 1912 ; S. C Gayford, elaborate
reriew of foregoing, in JThSt xiv. [1913] 458.
A. J. Maclean.
ASCENSION OF ISAIAH.— This is an apocryphon
now extant in a complete form in the Etmopic
Version alone. It is composite in structure, and
contains three separate parts of different author-
ship, one being of Jewish and two of Christian
origin, but all alike apparently composed during
the 1st cent. a.d. It is thus of considerable im-
portance in the light which it throws upon the
views held in certain circles of the Christian Church
of the apostolic period with regard to the doctrines
of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection,
the Seven Heavens, the Antichrist, angels and
demons. It adds, moreover, to our knowledge of
the internal and external conditions of the Church,
and of the stage which had been reached in the
development of its organization. In phraseology
and ideas it presents interesting parallels with the
New Testament.
1. Composite character. — The title ' Ascension of
Isaiah ' is strictly appropriate only to the latter part
of the work, chs. 6-11, in which Isaiah is success-
ively led through the firmament and six lower
heavens to the seventh heaven, and receives dis-
closures regarding the descent, birth, Morks, cruci-
fixion, and ascension of the Beloved. The first five
chapters deal in the main ^ith Manasseh's wicked-
ness and Isaiah's martyrdom, with a curious inser-
tion (3^^-4>*) which claims to be a vision foretelling
the life of Christ and the fortunes of His Church,
awkwardly introduced as explaining the wrath of
Beliar which occasioned the martyrdom of Isaiah.
A careful examination of the diction and subject-
matter of each section leads to the clear discrimina-
tion of three distinct sources.
(a) The Martyrdom of Isaiah (V- =»• «»""• 2^-3^
5ib-i4) This narrates how in the twenty-sixth year
of his reign Hezekiah caUed Manasseh to receive
accounts of ^-isions which he had seen ( 1^ -). Isaiah,
who is present, warns the king of Manasseh's future
wickedness, and foretells his own martyrdom (1^"*^).
After Hezekiah's death, Manasseh, as foretold, for-
sakes the service of God and serves Satan, whereupon
Isaiah withdraws first to Bethlehem and then to
the desert with his companions (2^""). Meanwhile
Belchira, a brother of the false prophet Zedekiah,
son of Chenaanah, accuses Isaiah and his fellow-
prophets to the king, of prophesying evil against
Jerusalem, and claiming to have seen (iod, and
calling Jerusalem Sodom, and the princes the people
of Gomorrah (2^-3'*'). Manasseh seizes Isaiah and
has him sawn asunder with a wood-saw. Isaiah
dies ^^•ith wonderful firmness and constancy, com-
muning with the Holy Spirit till the end. This
narrative is mainly historical in form, and contains
nothing specifically Christian. In its outlook it
might well be Jewish, and this supposition is con-
firmed by the Patristic references (e.g. in Origen
and Jerome) which attribute the account of the
sawing asunder of Isaiah to Jewish traditions, and
also by the fact that the Talmud contains a similar
account of Isaiah's death. Further, the original
was probably written in Hebrew. In 2' a play upon
words appeare when the passage is re-translated in-
to Hebrew (.T?rj •'^y;?). The name 'Malchira' in P is a
transliteration of in '?^, as S. A. Cook has observed.
Above all, the curious term ' a wooden saw ' can
hardly be explained except as a misrendering of
pg Tw?, ' a wood-saw.'
(6) The Vision of Isaiah (6-1 1 ). In the twentieth
year of Hezekiah, Isaiah, in the presence of the
King, when speaking in the Holy Spirit, is taken up
in mind (cf. 2 Co 12^~*) through the firmament and
each of the six lower heavens in turn, and finally
arrives at the seventh heaven, to which he is ad-
mitted by special command of the Lord Christ.
There he se^ all the righteous from the time of
Adam, including Abel, Seth, and Enoch, stript of
the garments of the flesh, not sitting on their
thrones nor as yet wearing their crowns of glory,
until the Beloved has descended to earth (9^ ") and
ascended again (9'*). He sees the Great Gloi-y, and
on His right the Lord (the Beloved) and on tfis left
the Holy Spirit. He worships the three, and his
Lord and the Holy Spirit worship the Great Glory.
The Father commissions the Son to descend to earth,
and tells of His ascension and final judgment. The
Son descends through each heaven in turn, assum-
ing in each the form of the angels who dwell in
them, and finally passes through the firmament and
then the air to the earth. There Isaiah beholds His
wonderful birth, miracles, and crucifixion, resurrec-
tion, mission of the Twelve, ascension, and session
on the right hand of the Great Glory. Isaiah returns
to his body and binds Hezekiah to secrecy concern-
ing the vision.
The date of this narrative is probably in the 1st
cent. A.D. The vision is quoted not only by Jerome,
Com. in Isaiam, Ixiv. 4 (Vallarsi, iv. 761), but also
by the Actus Petri Vereelletues, ch. xxiv. (p. 72, ed.
Lipsius), and by Hieracas ihe heretic, according to
Epiphanins, S(er. IxviL 3. There is also a remark-
aole parallel between Ignatius, Ep. ad. Ephes. xix.
and Asc. Is. 11". There appears to be a reference
to the sawing asunder in He 11". The author wrote
in Greek, and was a Christian with a Docetic tend-
ency and a crude conception of the Trinity.
Tne title ' Ascension of Isaiah ' properly belongs
to this section of the work. Jerome so quotes it,
Epiphanins refers to it as rh 'XvaSariKov "Htreubi'.
The Ethiopic, Slavonic, and Latin texts of 6^ imply
the title ' Vision of Isaiah,' and so does Montfaucon s
Canon.
(c) The Testament of HezeJdah, a Christian Apo-
calypse (3'*-4'*). This title is given in Cedrenus
L r20-121 (ed. Bonn), and is appropriate only to the
above section. As Charles observes : ' that such a
work was incorporated in the Ascension might also
be inferred from l^**"**, which describe the contents
of Hezekiah's vision.' It describes, briefly string-
ing together various details in the manner of an
epitome, the coming and death of the Beloved ; the
descent of the angel of the Christian Church ; the
ascension ; the falling awaj of the Church, and the
prevalence of error, impurity, strife, and covetous-
ness ; the coming of Beliar in the likeness of a law-
less king, a matricide, who claims to be GSod, and
demands Divine worship, and persecutes the saints
for three years, seven months, and twenty-seven
days. This persecution is ended by the second
coming of the Lord, who drags Beliar into Gehenna,
and gives rest to the godly, sets up a kingdom of the
saints, who afterwards are transformed, and ascend,
apparently, to heaven. The final judgment follows,
and the godless are annihilated.
The date cannot be later than A.D, 100, for 4"
100
ASCENSION OF ISAIAH
ASCENSION OF ISAIAH
Eresupposes that there were a few still alive Avho
ad seen the Lord in the flesh. The fusion of the
three originally distinct conceptions of the Anti-
christ, of lieliar, and of Nero Itedivivus cannot Avell
be put earlier than a.d, 88 (see Charles, Asc. Is. pp.
li-lxxiii). So the date of this section falls between
A.D. 88 and 100.
2. Importance for New Testament study. — (a)
The Trinity. — i. The First Person is called ' the
Great Glory' (9=" 10'« IP^), ' the Most High ' (6» 1^
108- 7), and ' Father ' (S^s ; cf. 7^ 10«- ' in Charles'
restored text).
ii. The Second Person is generally referred to as
« the Beloved ' (!*■ »• ''• " 3^ "• " 4?- «• »• ^^ ^i 515 717. a
818. 25 912) or i my Loj.(j > (gis 937 iqv. 16. i7)^ and also once
as * Lord of all those heavens and these thrones ' (8*).
His name is as yet unknown. He is ' the Only-
Begotten, • . . whose name is not known to any
flesh ' (7^^), ' the Elect One whose name has not been
made known, and none of the heavens can learn His
name ' (8^). The title * Christ,' and the phrase ' who
will be called Jesus ' (see 9' note in Charles' ed. ) are
probably original to the work. The title ' Son of
Man' in the Latin and Slavonic versions of 11^ is
probably original, and was excluded by the editor of
the present Greek version for doctrinal reasons (see
Charles, Asc. Is. p. xxvi).
It is noteworthy that the title ' the Beloved ' is
bestowed on Christ by the Bath Qol in Mk 1" 9^
and it is used by St. Paul in Eph 1^. As Armitage
Robinson (HDB ii. 501 ) points out, it was probably
a pre-Christian Messianic title. It is used in the
OT of Israel, and so would naturally be trans-
ferred from the people to the Messiah, like the
titles ' Servant' and ' Elect.' It was, moreover, a
term interchangeable with the Messianic title * the
Elect,' as Luke (9^^) substitutes 6 iKXeXey/jL^vos (K B,
etc.) for 6 dyaTrr)T6s (Mt 17', Mk 9'). In early
Christian writings also the title is applied to
Christ, e.g. Ep. Barn. iii. 6, iv. 3. 8 ; Clem. Rom.
lix. 2 f . ; ign. Smyrn. inscr. ; Herm. Sim. ix. 12. 5.
No doubt the writer thought the term most appro-
priate in a work claiming to be an ancient Jewish
prophecy of Christ, but its vagueness also betrays
the undeveloped Trinitarian conceptions of the
period. The Son and the Holy Spirit receive
worship (9^"^"), but they in turn v.'orship the Great
Glory (9^"). They stand, one on His right hand
and the other on His left (9^). (We may compare
the Hieracite doctrine in Epiph. Hcer. Ixvii. 3.)
The command to descend to earth is given by the
Father (10^). The conception of the gradual
descent from heaven to heaven, with corresponding
transformation in form, suggests a Gnostic colour-
ing, and possibly a Docetic tendency, as do also
the statement that the Beloved escaped recognition
at eacii stage, and the miraculous appearance of
the born babe two months after the Virgin's con-
ception. The Protev. Jacobi and the Actus Petri
have interesting parallels to the narrative here
(U'-"), while we can hardly doubt that it is the
source of Ignatius' words in ad. Ephes. xix., /cat
fKaOev rbr Apxavra rod alCjuo^ tovtov i] irapdevia MapLas
Kai 6 TOKerbs airnjs, d/xolus Kai 6 Odvaros tov KvpLov,
'The concealment of the real nature of Christ is
the entire theme of lO^-ll'*.' He is, however,
really crucified, and descends to the angel of Sheol
(Ijiu. 20. cf. 10*). In His ascension He has resumed
His proper form, and all the angels of the firma-
ment and the Satans see Him and worship Him
(11^ ; cf. 10"). On arriving in the seventh heaven.
He sits down (not stands, as in 9**) on the right
hand, and the Holy Spirit on the left (IP". 33)
His session with God, however, will not be realized
by the angels of the world until the final judgment
(10").
The significance of the crucifixion is nowhere
noticed, but in 9** the ' plundering of the angel of
death ' (cf . Ign. ad. Magn. ix. ; Mt 27'^- ^ ; Evang.
Nicodcmi, i. i, xi. 1 [ed. Tiscli.]) is ref^arded as the
result of the desceiisio in infci-na (cr. 1 P 3^ 4*).
In the Test. liez. (i.e. 3'^''-4'*) His work includes
the founding of the Church ( ' the descent of the
angel of the Christian Church,' 3*"), and, after
coming forth from the tomb on the shoulders of
Gabriel and Michael, the sending out of the Twelve.
Those who believe in His cross will be saved, and
many who believe in Him will speak through the
Holy Spirit. The Ascension, not the Resurrection,
is the distinctive object of faith to the believer in
2' 3'*. At His second coming the Lord will Him-
self drag Beliar into Gehenna (4"), and give rest to
the godly still alive in the body (cf. 2 Th !*• '', 1
Th 4"). The saints (i.e. the departed) will come
with the Lord (1 Th 318 4") and descend and be
present in this world (4^^), and the Lord will minister
to those who have kept watch in this world (cf. Lk
12^). Apparent^ an earthly Messianic Kingdom
is impliea (cf. Rev 20^"*). It is followed by a
spiritual translation to heaven, the body being left
in the world (4"). Then follows ' [a resurrection
and] a judgment,' and the godless are entirely de-
stroyed by fire from before the Beloved (4^").
iii. The Third Person is spoken of as an angel,
the angel of the Spirit (4^1 9^- « 10* 11*) or the
angel of the Holy Spirit (3i« 7^ 9»« ll^^). In com-
munion with Him, Isaiah endures his martyrdom,
and also is carried in spirit to the third heaven.
The Holy Spirit stands (9^), and after the Ascen-
sion sits (11^) on the left hand of the Great
Glory. The angel of the Holy Spirit in 3^® must
be regarded as Gabriel, and in 11* He performs
the part of Gabriel in the Annunciation.
(b) The Resurrection is apparently a spiritual
one. The 'garments,' i.e. spiritual bodies, are
reserved for the righteous, with the robes and
crowns in the seventh heaven (4^' 7^ 8'*- ^). These
garments are received at once after death (8^* 9").
the thrones and crowns not till after the Ascension
of Christ (9^- ^^). The living whom the Lord finds
on His return will be 'strengthened in the gar-
ments of the saints.' There is a temporary
Messianic Kingdom, and (?) a feast (4^*), followed
by a spiritual consummation in heaven (cf. Ph S'-'-',
1 Co 15'^- '^). The righteous from Adam downwards
are already in the seventh heaven, stript of the
garments of the flesh, though not yet seated on
their thrones and crowned (9"). The Final Judg-
ment is referred to in 4^^ and 10".
(c) Beliar. — The idea of demonic possession is
very prominent in the Martyrdom of Isaiah.
Beliar is regarded as served by Mana.sseh and
ruling in his heart (I*- «• " 2i- *• "> 3" b^- "), and as
aiding Belchira (5^). The name ' Beliar ' is absent
from the Vision, and in the Test. Hez. it has quite
another meaning, the Beliar Antichrist appearing
in the form of a man — Nero (4^* "■ "• '*). In the
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs Beliar appears
in both meanings, at times as the source of immoral
deeds, and at times as the Antichrist (see Charles,
Asc. Is. 1%.). In the Sibylline Oracles, ii. 167 he is
to come as the Antichrist, working signs ; in iii.
63-73 to proceed from the Roman Emperors, deceive
the elect, and finally be burnt up. He is also
called Matanbuchus (2*) and Mechembechus (5=*).
His relation to Sanmiael is puzzling. In part the
two seem identical ; both awell and rule in the
firmament (7* 4^), take possession of Manasseh
(2' 1* 3'^ 5^), are wroth with Isaiah for his visions
(5" 3" 5'), and cause Isaiah to be sawn asunder
(11*^ 5"). But in part Sanimael seems to be sub-
ordinate. He exerts himself to win Manasseh as
the subject of Beliar (1*). Beliar has kings under
him (4"), and is the prince of this world (1* 4* ;
cf. 4^*). He will finally be cast into Gehenna with
his armies (4^*). In 2 Co 6" St. Paul asks ' What
ASCENSION OF IS AT AH
ASCENSION OF ISAIAH
101
concord hath Christ with Beliar?' Here either
meaning of Beliar is |)ossible. In 2 Th 2^-^ the
two ideas appear to be fused with yet a third — that
of a human sovereign with miraculous powers.
The • man of lawlessness ' is possibly a translation
of 'Beliar' (cf. LXX: irSpes rapoMofioi in Dt 13^
etc.). In Asc. Is. 2* Beliar is the angel of lawless-
ness, and makes Manasseh strong in apostatizing
and lawlessness (cf. 2^). The sins specified are
witchcraft, magic, divination and au^uration,
fornication, and the persecution of the righteous.
The 'falling away' of 2 Th 2^ is referred to in
Asc. Is. S-^: 'on the eve of His approach. His
disciples will forsake . . . their faith and their
love and their purity.' Cf. ' few in those days will
be left as His servants' (4^ ; cf. Lk 18«).
(d) The Antichrist and Ifero Bedivivus. — ^In 4*
we are told :
' Beliar the great mler, the king of this world [ct Jn 12S1 14*'
1611] will descend, who hath ruled it since it came into being ;
vea he will descend from his firmament [cf. Eph 22 &^ in the
likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother [i.e.
Xero ; cf. Sib. Or. iv. 141, v. 145. 363, viii. 71] . . . will persecute
the plant which the Twelve Apostles . . . have planted [<.«. the
Church]. Of the Twelve, one {i.e. Peter] will be delivered into
his hands. . . . There will come with him all the powers of this
world [cf. Rev Ifti* 20"-9]. ... At his word the sun will rise at
night [cf. Rev 131^ 1320, 2 Th 29]. ... He will say "I am Ck)d "
(cf. 2 Th 2«] . . . and all the people in the world will believe in
him, and they will sacrifice to him [cf. Rev 13*- a i*). . . . And
the ^rreater number of those who shall have been associated
together to receive the Beloved, he wUl torn adde alter him [cL
Mt 24^, Mk 1322 ; contrast 2 Th 21*>-13]. . . . And he will set np
his image ... in every city [cf . Rev 1$14].'
The time of his sway will be 3 years, 7 months,
and 27 days (4^). This period points back to Dn
7^ 12^ (cf. Kev 12") ; but in 4" the time is given as
(one thousand) three hundred and thirty-two days.
During this period the few believers left flee from
desert to desert (^^ ; cf. Rev 12*- "). Beliar is finally
destroyed, not by Slichael but by the Lord Him-
self (4").
(e) Angels. — ^While there is no reference to the
functions of good angels as mediators or inter-
cessors, spiritual powers are conceived of as the
true cause of all action. Manasseh and Belchira
are only agents of Beliar and Sammael and Satan.
Xero Kedivivus is only an embodiment of Beliar
(4°). Angels, authorities, and powers rule in this
world under Beliar their prince (1*; cf. Eph 1^ 3^'
6", Col li« 2i»- ", 1 P 3^). The angel of the Chris-
tian Church (cf. Rev 2** *• " etc. ) descends from
heaven after our Lord's passion. The Holy Spirit
and the angel of the Holy Spirit (see under
' Trinity ') are identical, except perhaps in 3'* and
11*. There is an angel of death (9^^ 10"), and an
angel of Sheol (IP*). Each heaven has its angels,
with the superior ones to the right of the throne.
The sun and the moon also have each an angel (cf.
Rev ly"). The judgment of the angels is referred
to in 15 418 1012.
(/) T?u Seven Heavens. — The conception of the
seven heavens which we find e.g. in the Testaments
of the Ttoelve Patriarchs and in Slavonic Enoch is
not to be found in the Asc. Is. Evil is found only
in the firmament and the air ; it is entirely absent
from all the heavens. Nor is there any reference
to natural phenomena or heavenly bodies in them.
Each heaven is merely a duplicate of the one above,
with no distinction, except of glory, until the
sixth and seventh are reached (8^ •). The sixth is
not under any subordinate angel or 'throne,' but
is ruled by the Great Glory in the seventh. There
is an angel over the praise-giving of the sixth
heaven, however, who challenges Isaiah when pro-
ceeding to the seventh (9'- *). In the seventh are
the Patriarchs, the righteous, the crowns and
thrones and garments of the righteous, the Great
Glory, the Beloved, and the angel of the Holy
Spirit.
(g) TTie Christian Church and its eircumstanees. —
The angel of the Christian Church which is in the
heavens will be summoned by God in the last days
(3"). The Church is the plant planted by the
Twelve Apostles (4'), It consists of those who are
' associated together to receive the Beloved ' at His
Second Coming (4*). A great persecution is re-
garded as imminent, in which the few faithful
remaining will ' flee from desert to desert, awaiting
the coming of the Beloved.' For the expectation
of the Coming, cf. I Th 1", 1 Co 1^ Ph 3* He 9».
The Neronic Antichrist is r^arded as destroying
one of the Twelve Apostles (4'), and deceiving
many of the faithful (4*). In 3""" we have a con-
temporary picture of the Christian Church regarded
as guilty of serious declension from its high (^ing.
Church organization is not yet developed. We
have mention of pastors and elders (3**- '*). There
is a general disbelief in the Second Coining and in
prophecy generally (3*- "• ^), but prophecy is still
existent, though there are 'not many prophets
save one here and there in divers places.' The
' faith ' (3^) is spoken of objectively, as in the
Pastoral Epistles {e.g. 1 Ti V\ Faith, love, and
purity are the distinctive Christian virtues (as in
1 Ti 4^2). There are lawless elders (3**), and much
hatred exists among the Church leaders (3®).
Covetonsness and slander are common vices (of.
2 Ti 3^ »). The 'spirit of error' (3"^) is at work
among Christians (cf. 1 Jn 4*, 1 Ti 4^). Caesar-
worsMp is already a difficulty (4''"").
(A) Apocrjffihal work. — The only reference to
another apocryphon occurs in 4^, where the book
' Words of Joseph the Just ' is probably to be
identified with the Upoffeux^J tow 'Iukt^ (Fabricius,
Cod. Pseud. V.T. i. 761-769 ; see HDB iL 778).
3. The text. — (a) In its complete form the
Asc. Is. is found only in the Ethiopie Version, and
even this needs to be corrected and at times supple-
mented by other authorities. Of this Version
there are three MSS, one at the Bodleian, and two
inferior ones in the British Museum.
(6) There are two Latin Versions. — (L ) The fuller
of the two was printed at Venice in 1522 from a
MS now unknown, and reprinted by Gieseler in
1832. — (iL) The other version occurs in two frag-
ments discovered by Mai in 1828 in the Codex
Bescriptus of the Acts of Chalcedon, Vat. 5750, of
the 5th or 6th century.
(c) The Greek Versions are likewise twofold : (i. )
a lost Greek text on which the Greek Legend was
based ; (ii. ) the Greek text from which the Slav-
onic and the fuller Latin Versions were derived.
Of this text 2^-^* have been recovered in the
Amherst Papyri by GrenfeU and Hunt.
The Greek Legend was found by O. von Giebhardt
in a Greek MS of the 12th cent. (no. 1534, Biblio-
thfeque Nationale, Paris). This work is reaUy a
lection for Church use, and so takes liberties in
the way of rearranging and abbreviating the text.
The yiartyrdom is brought to the end, and other
details are added. It is, however, very valuable
for correcting and restoring the text.
(d) The Slavonic Version \& extant in a !MS in
the Library of the XJspenschen Cathedral in
Moscow. It belongs to c. A.D. 1200.
In all these authorities two recensions may be
traced. The Greek Papyri, the Ethiopie, the
Slavonic, and the fuller Latin Version follow the
second recension of the Greek ; the Greek Legend
and the Latin fragments support the first Greek
recension. Charles in his edition of the Asc. Is.
(1900) has produced a crirical text founded on all
these authorities. To this work the present writer
would express his deep indebtedness.
LrTKRATTR*.— L Critical Inquiries.— B.. Laurence, Ateen-
siolsaitz V<Ux», Oxford, 1819, pp. 141-180 ; K. I. Nitzsch, SK,
1830, TO>. 209-246 ; G. C. F. Lacke, BitUat. m die Qffiatbarunp
dMJokannesfi, Bonn,lSo2, pp. 274-30S; A. Dillmann, Aaeetuw
102
ASCETICISM
ASIARCH
Jtaice, Leipzig, 1877, pp. v-xviii ; G. T. Stokes, art. ' Isaiah,
Ascension of,^ in DCB iii. [ISSZ] 298-301 ; W. J. Deane,
Pseudepigravha, Edinburgii, lSt)l, pp. 23()-275 ; A. Harnaclc,
Geseh. der altchnsll. Litteratur, Leipzig, 189a£f., i. 854-8r)(i, li.
573-679, 714 ; C. Clemen, ' Die Hiramelfahrt des Jesaja,' ZWT,
1896, pp. 388-416, also 1897, pp. 455-40r. ; J. A. Robinson, art.
*l8aiah,A8censionot,'in£ri>i3,ii. 499-501 ; G. Beer, in Kautzsch's
Apok. und Pseudepig., Tubingen, 1900, ii. 110-123; R. H.
Cnarles, Aseention of Isaiah trantlated from the Ethiopie
Version, tehieh, together with the New Greek Fraument, the Latin
Vergians, and the Latin Translation of the Slavonic, i» here pub-
lished in full, London, 1900, also Apocrypha and Pseudepi-
grapha, Oxford, 1913, ii. 166-158 ; E. Littmann, JE vi. [1904]
642 f.
n. Editions.— {a) Ethiopia Version.— R. Laurence, A.
Dillmann, and R. H. Charles, opp. cit. supra. (6) Latin
Versions. — (i.) J. K. L. Gieseler, in a Gottingen programme,
1832 ; (ii.) A. Mai, Scriptorum veterurn nova coUectio, Rome,
1826-38, iii. 238 f. ; both are given in the editions of Dillmann
and Charles as above, (c) Greek Vendoiis. — ^i.) The Greek
Legend — a free recension : O. v. Gebhardt, in Hilgenfeld's
ZWT, 1878, p. 330 ff. ; R. H. Charles, Asc. of Isaiah, pp.
xviii-xxxiii, 141-148 ; (ii.^ Papyrus fr^^^ment : Grenfell and
Hunt, Ancension of Isaiah, London, 1901; R. H. Charles,
j4sc. o/ /samA, pp. xxviii-xxxi, 84-95. (d) Slavonic Version.—
R. H. Charles, Asc. of Isaiah, pp. xxiv-xxvii, 98-139.
A. Ll. Davies.
ASCETICISM See Abstinence.
ASHER.— See Tbibes.
ASHES.— See Heifer and Moukning.
ASIA ('A(r/a). — Asia had a great variety ot mean-
ings in ancient writers. It niiglit denote (1) the
western coast-land of Asia Minor ; (2) the kingdom
of Troy (poetical) ; (3) the kingdom of the early
Seleucids, i.e. Asia Minor and Syria (frequent in 1
and 2 Mac. ) ; (4) the kingdom of rergamuni (Livy) ;
(5) the Roman province Asia ; (6) the Asiatic conti-
nent (Pliny). In Strabo's time — the beginning of
the 1st cent. A.D. — the province was ij Idius KoKovfiivr)
'Affia. (Geog. p. 118), and in the NT (where the
name is found 22 times — 15 times in Acts, 4 times
in the Pauline Epistles, once in 1 Peter, twice in
Ilev.) Asia almost invariably denotes proconsular
Asia. St. Paul the Roman citizen naturally as-
sumed the Imperial standpoint, and made use of
Roman political designations, while the Hellenic
Luke, though he frequently employed geograph-
ical terms in their popular non-Roman sense, was
probably to some extent influenced by St. Paul's
practice of using the technical phraseology of the
Empire.
The province of Asia was founded after the death
of Attains ill. of Pergamura (133 B.C.), who be-
queathed his kingdom by will to the Roman Re-
public. The province was much smaller than the
kingdom had been, until, on the death of Mithri-
dates (120 B.C.), Phrygia Major was added to it.
Cicero indicates its extent in the words : * Namque,
ut opinor, Asia vestra constat ex Phrygia, Caria,
Mysia, Lydia' {Flac. 27); but the Troad and the
islands or Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Patmos, and Cos
should be added. Pergamum, so long a royal city,
naturally became the capital of the province, and
officially retained this position till tne beginning
of the 2nd cent. A.D. ; but long before that time
Ephesus iq.v.) was recognized as the real adminis-
trative centre. When the provinces were arranged
by Augustus in 27 B.C., Asia was given to the
Senate ; it was therefore governed by proconsuls
{dvO&iraroi, Ac 19^). Its beauty, wealth, and culture
made it the most desirable of all provinces.
The only passage in which St. Luke certainly
uses 'Asia' in the popular Greek sense is Ac 2%
where he names Asia and Phrygia together as
distinct countries, whereas in Roman provincial
language the greater part of Phrygia belonged to
Asia. In such an expression as ' the places on the
coast of Asia ' (Ac 27") the sense is doubtful ; but
it is probable that, where the historian refers to
Jews of Asia (Ac 6* 212^ 24>«), to 'all the dwellers
in Asia'(19'''; cf. IQ^*-), and to St. Paul's sojourn
in Asia (19^^20'*-'*), he has the province in view.
St. Paul almost certainly uses the word in its
Roman sense when he speaks of * the lirstfniits of
Asia ' (Ro 16» IIV), the clmrches of Asia (1 Co 16"*),
aitlictions in Asia (2 Co 1^), apostates in Asia (2 Ti
li«).
Though the Roman meaning of Asia is generally
assumed by adherents of the S. Galatian theory, it is
not incomi)atible with the other view. Thus Light-
foot, an advocate of the N. Galatian theory, holds
that, while St. Luke usually gives geographical
terms their popular significance, ' the case ot Asia
is an exception. The foundation of this province
dating very far back, its official name had to a
great extent superseded the local designations of
the districts which it comprised. Hence Asia in
the NT is always Proconsular Asia' {Gal.^, 1876,
p. 19, n. 6). Only those who find ' the Phrygian
and Galatic region ' (Ac 16*) in the north of Pisidian
Antioch are obliged ([like Conybeare-Howson, i. 324)
to assume that Asia ' is simply viewed as the west-
ern portion of Asia Minor, for the Paroreios be-
longed to proconsular Asia, in which preaching
was expressly forbidden (Ac 16'). See Phrygia
and Galatia.
1 P 1^ is a clear instance of the use of geograph-
ical terms in the Roman administrative sense.
The four provinces named — Bithynia and Pontus,
though here separated, being really one — sum up
the Avhole of Asia Minor north of Taurus. The
Seven Churches of Revelation were all in pro-
consular Asia (Rev 1*- "), and it is possible that
the so-called ' Epistle to the Ephesians ' was an
encycla to a group of churches in that province.
Por the ' Asiarchs ' (RVm) of Ac 19^^ see follo>ving
article.
LiTERATURB.— F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter,
London, 1898, p. 167 f. ; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edin-
burgh, 1897, p. 273 f.; W. M. Ramsay, Church in Roman
Empire, London, 1893, and St. Paul the Traveller and the
Roman Citizen, do. 1895, passim. JAMES StrAHAN.
ASIARCH.— In Ac 19^1 RVm reads 'Asiarchs'
for RV ' chief officers of Asia ' and AV ' chief of
Asia.' The word is a transliteration of the Gr.
'AffLapxns, derived from 'Acia, ' province of Asia,'
and &pxfi-v, ' to rule,' and belongs to a class of
names, of which 'BiOwidpxv^, TaXaTdpxv^t KairiradoK-
dpxv^, AvKidpxv^, Ilovrdpxv^, ^vpLdpxv^ are other
examples. The titles are peculiar to Eastern,
Greek-speaking, Roman provinces. As the real
rulers of these provinces were the Roman Emperor
and the Roman Senate, with their elected repre-
sentatives, it is clear that such titles must have
been honorary and complimentary. With regard
to the duties and privileges attached to the dig-
nities thus indicated there has been much discus-
sion. The titles occur rarely in literature, mucli
more often in inscriptions ; and the lessons we
learn from inscriptions are in direct proportion to
their number. Several scholars of repute have
held the view that the term 'Aaidpxv^ is equivalent
to d/)X'e/>ei>s 'AaLas ('high priest of Asia'), the pre-
sident of the Diet of Asia (Koivbv t-^s 'Ao-Ioj, co7n-
mune Asicc). This Diet of Asia was a body
composed of a number of representatives, one or
more of whom were elected by each of a number
of cities in the province. The principal duty of the
president of this body was to supervise the worship
of Rome and the Emperor throughout the province
(see under art. Emperou - Worship). Certain
considerations, however, militate against the view
that the terms ' Asiarch ' and ' high priest of Asia '
are interchangeable. The word Aaidpxv^ is never
feminine, whereas the title ' high priestess of Asia '
is often applied to tlie wife of the high priest.
There was only one dpx'epei^s ' A«rfas (without further
designation) at a time, whereas there were a
ASP
ASSASSINS
103
uuniber of Asiarchs. Another (civil) office could
be held concurrently with the Asiarchate, but not
with the chief priesthood of Asia. Further, the
title ' Asiarch ' was held only during a man's
period of office (probably one year *), but he was
eligible for re-election. The origin of the view
that ' Asiarch ' and ' high priest of Asia ' are two
convertible terms is to be found in the Martyrdom
of Polycarp (A.D. 155), where two separate persons
named Philippos have been confused : (1) Philip of
Sravma, Asiarch, who superintended the games;
(2) Philip of Tralles, who was high priest of Asia
(the latt«r had been an Asiarch a year or two be-
fore). It is clear, therefore, that the honorary
position of Asiarch was inferior to the office of
high priest of Asia. Yet there was a connexion
between the two. The high priest presided over
the games, etc., but the Asiarens did the work and
prolSibly paid the cost. Their election by their
fellow-citizens to this honorary position was re-
warded by games and gladiatorial shows. Both
the Asiarchs and the high priest disappear aft«r
the early part of the 4th cent., for the obvious
reason that, as the Empire was henceforth offici-
ally Christian, the machinery for Emperor-worship
had become obsolete.
When we come to study the connexion of the
Asiarchs with the Acts narrative, we are puzzled.
It seems at first sight so strange that men elected
to foster the worship of Rome and the Emperor
should be found favouring the ambassador of the
Messiah, the Emperor's rival for the lordship of
the Empire. This is only one, however, of a
number of indications that the Empire was at first
disposed to look with a kindly eye on the new
religion. Christianity, with its outward respect
for civil authority, seemed at first the strongest
supporter of law and order. Artemis-worship,
moreover, bulked so largely in Ephesus as perhaps
to dwarf the Imperial worship. Thus St. Paul,
whose preaching so threatened the authority of
Artemis, may have appeared in a favourable light
to the representatives of Caesar-worship, as likely
to create more enthtisiasm in that direction.
See also artt. Diaxa and Ephesus.
LnTRATTRE. — C. G. Brandis, , «.cr. 'Asiarches,' 'Bithyni-
arches,' ' GaUtarches,' in I^aulr-Wiaiowa, Stattgut, ISMCF. ;
J. B. Ligrhtfoot, Appendix, 'The Asardutte' in hat Apottolie
Fathers, pt. iL voL iii., London, 18^, p. 40(ff. ; W. M. Ram-
say in CUuneal Review, iii. [1SS9] 174, »nd St. Paul the
TrazeUer and the Roman Citizen, Loodoo, 1895, p. 280 f.
A. SOUTEB.
ASP [iff-rU). — The Greek word occurs in the
classical writings of Herodotus (iv. 191) and
Aristotle (de Anim. Hist. iv. 7. 14), and generally
represents the Heb. jn^ (pet?ien) in the LXX (pethen
IS translated ' asp ' in Dt 32^3, Job20i*- ^\ and Is ll^,
but ' adder' in Ps 58* Ql^^). In the NT the ' asp'
is mentioned only once (Ro 3^': 'The poison of
asps [id* d<rTi5wi'] is under their lips'). Here it is
introduced in a quotation from Ps 140» (139*), where
the Heb. word used is 3»?s (a ira^ Xey. and prob-
ably corrupt, perhaps read et'^is, 'spider'), but
the LXX word is dirrit, as in Romans. The
general meaning of the passage is obvious (cf.
Ja 3^ : ' The tongue can no man tame — a restless
evil — full of deadly poison'), and the position of
the poison-bag of the serpent is correctly described.
The serpent referred to is without doubt the
Na^ja haje, or small hooded Egyptian cobra,
which, though not fotmd in the ciiltivated parts
of Palestine, is well known in the downs and
plains S. of Beersheba (cf. Tristram, Natural
History of the Bible, p. 270), and frequents old
walls and holes in the rocks (cf. Is 11* : 'And the
sucking-child shall play on the hole of the asp').
It does not belong to the viper tribe (Fiperute)
but to the Colvbndee, which includes the ordinary
* But see Lightfoot, Apoitoiie Fatherg, pt, iL voL iiL p. 412 ff.
British grass-snake. The chief peculiarities of
cobras are : (a) a clearly defined neck, which they
can dilate at will, and (b) the equality in size of
the scales on the back with those on the other
parts of the body. There are about ten different
species, of which the Xaja haje, or Egyptian asp,
and the Naja tripudians, or Indian cobra, are the
best known. The latter is the species upon which
Indian snake-charmers usually practise their skill,
while the Naja haje is used tor this purpose in
Egypt
See also Sekpekt, Viper.
LrmuTUBX. — H. B. Tristram, JToteroZ Hitttny </ tht
BibUio, London. 1911, p. 270t.: SWP viL 146: R. Lydekker
inTheCondae tnawuagelfatwrnlHittonf, 1^7, p. 424 ; Bae-
deer's Paiatint tmd Sfritfi, 1912, p. M ; W. Aldis Wright.
The Bible Word-Boo», 1884, p. 60, fw the nae of the word ;
cf. also Sanday-Headlam, Romarufi, 1902, p. 79; Driver,
Deutenmomifl, 1396, p. 372 ; HDB, toL iv. p. 469 ; EBi, toL ir.
ooL 4394 ; Mnrray's DB, p. 67; SDB, p. 837.
P. S, P. Hajtdcock.
ASSASSINS (or, more properly, Sicarii [cf. Ac
21"], 'dagger-men'). — The name given, according
to Josephus, to a body of radicals in the Jewish
Messianic agitation which culminated in the out-
break of A.D. 66. The name was derived from the
short daggers worn by the members of the body
{siea, a short, curved, possibly Persian sword),
which they kept concealed in their clothing imd
used to stab people among the crowds. The Siearii
seem to have appeared first during the procurator-
ship of Felix, although Josephus in BJ vn. viii. 1
might be interpreted as ascribing their origin to
a somewhat earlier period. He has a number of
references to these men, whom he describes as
follows {BJ n. xiiL 3) :
"Diere sprang np another sort of robbers in Jemsalem \rbo
were called Siouii, who slew men in the daytime in the midat
of the city, eqieciaUy at the festivals, when they mixed with
the multitnde, and ctmoeaied little daggers under their gar-
ments, with, which they stabbed tboae that were their enemies ;
and when any fell down dead, the nmrderen joined the bv-
standeis in expressing their indigmtinn, ao that from their
I^aaaibility they ooold by no means be diaoorered. The first
nun who was shin hy^ than was Jonathan the high jHiest, after
whom many woe sbun every day, and the fear men were in of
being so treated was mofc harasdng than the cahunity itself,
everybody expecting death every Ixmr, as men do in war. So
menk^aloMK-oatfor their enemies at agreat distance, and
even if their Mends were cconing, they dorst not trust than
any longer, bat were slain in the midst of tbeir sospkaiMis and
precaotioDB. Sacfa was the oderity of the plotteia, and so
conning was their oontcivance against detec&m.' See also BJ
vn. X. 1.
It is difficult to say whether these Siearii at
first constituted an organized body, although such
a view would seem to be implied by Josephus {BJ
vn. viii. 1). They joined the Zealots {ib. n. x\iL
7), and inaugurated the reign of terror which filled
Jemsalem after the outbreak of the Revolution.
Subsequently they seized the great fortress of
Masada {ib. TV. vii. 2), and there maintained them-
selves by plundering the neighbouring country,
until they were besieged by the Romans under
Flavins Silca. Their commander was one F.leftatr
{ib. vn. viii. 1), whom Josephus describes as an
able man and a descendant of that Judas who had
led the revolt against the census under Quirinius.
After a considerable siege the Romans were on
the point of taking the fortress when the Sicarii
massacred themselves, one old woman alone
escaping.
In Ac 21* they hare *the Egyptian* as a leader.
Josephus mentions this Egyptian as having ap-
peared dtiring the procuratorship of Felix, but
does not connect the Sicarii with him {Ant. XX.
viii. 6 ; BJ u. xiii. 5). The Siearii seem to have
dispersed after the Roman war and to have dis-
appeared from history, the references to Siearii
in the Mishna {BikJcur. L 2, ii. 3; Gitiin v.
6 ; Machsh. i. 6) probably being to robbers in
general.
104
ASSEMBLY
ASSOS
LiTERATORB. — See E. Schiirer, OJV^ i. [Leipzig;, 1901] p. 674,
n. 31 (IJJP I. ii. 178), where further references will be found.
Shailer Mathews.
ASSEMBLY.— In the Acts and Epistles (AV
and KV) the English Avord 'assembly' occurs as
follows, but in each instance a difl'erent Greek
noun is translated by it.
1. In Ac 1932.39. *i 'assembly' {^KKXrjala) stands
for the tumultuary mob gathered by Demetrius
and his fellow-gildsmen in Ephesus to protest
against the teaching of St. Paul, which was
destroying the business of the shrine-makers.
Though iKK\r}<xia strictly denotes an assembly of
the citizens summoned by the crier {icTjpv^), this
was a mere mob, with all a mob's unreasonable-
ness : • Some cried one thing, and some another,
for the assembly was confused, and the more part
knew not wherefore they were come together.'
So runs St. Luke's * logical, complete, and photo-
graphic' narrative, (tor a similar description of
a Roman gathering, cf. Virgil, ^n. i. 149 : ' Saevit-
que animis ignobile vulgus. ) In Ephesus the man
revered for his piety and worth was the Secretary
of the City (ypofificereiii [see TOWN Clerk]), who
calls the gathering a riot (o-rcicrts), and a concourse
{ffv<TTpo(f>-^). If Demetrius and his gildsmen had
just ground of complaint, they should have carried
their case before tlie proper court, over which the
proconsul presided, for the present gathering was
outside the law, and had ' no power to transact
business.' He, therefore, referred them to the
lawful (AV) or regular (RV) assembly {ij ivvofws
iKK\i)(ria), which is ' the people duly assembled in
the exercise of its powers ' (Ramsay). The Re-
visers' change of ' lawful ' into ' regular ' is perhaps
hypercritical ; for in practice, under the Roman
rule, the distinction is not appreciable.
2. Ac ^23'': 'The assembly [RV ; A V the multi-
tude] was divided ' [icrx^crdi) rb irXrjdos). The refer-
ence is to the council {irav rd <rvvidpiov, 22*")
summoned by Lysias the tribune of the Roman
garrison in the tower of Antonia, consequent upon
the tumult in the Temple, and St. Paul's arrest.
We are not to understand a regular sitting of the
Sanhedrin, but an informal meeting for what is
known in Scots Law as a precognition ( ' a meeting
of the councillors, aiding the Tribune to ascertain
the facts ' [Ramsay]). As Lysias called the meet-
ing, he probably presided and conducted the busi-
ness. This would account for St. Paul's ignorance
of the fact that Ananias was the high priest, and
explains his apology. As to the charge made
against him, the Apostle conducted his defence
in a way that won for himself the sympathy of
the Pharisees. It is a needless refinement to find
here difficulties of an ethical kind. 'Luke saw
nothing wrong or unworthy in this, and he was
best able to judge. Paul was winning over the
Pharisees not merely to himself but to the
Christian cause. Paul states the same view more
fully in 26''8 where there is no question of a clever
tricK, for there were no Pharisees among his
judges' (Ramsay, Pictures of the Apostolic Church,
1910, p. 283). The result of this defence was that
t6 ffwiSpiov became rb TrX^dos.
8. Ja 2- : ' If there come into your assembly '
(AV and RVm ; RV and AVm 'synagogue': eZs
r^v a-vvayuryi/iv). — James, writing 'to the twelve
tribes scattered abroad,' uses the old familiar
word ' synagogue, ' which had become hallowed in
the ears of the Dispersion by associations of
worship and fellowship. This usage is a delicate
indication (unintentional on the writer's part, of
course) that the Christian meeting had its ties not
with the Temple, but with the synagogues which
for ages had nourished the faith of Israel.
i. He 12^ : 'Ye are come ... to innumerable
hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church
of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven ' (RV ;
fMvpidtriv iyy^Xuv, vavrjyvpei Kal iKKXijcrlqi. vptororbKuv
dTToyeypafifidvuv iv oiipavoh). In classical usage
ravT^vpis is the festal assembly of the whole nation,
gathered for some solemnity, such as the Olympic
Games. But the word occurs only here in the
NT, though it is found in LXX Ezk 46", Hos
2" 9*, Am 5*^ The passage has given rise to
considerable variety of interpretation, indication
of which may be seen in RV text and margin.
The difficulty is to determine how many classes are
referred to.
(a) A. B. Davidson ('Hebrews,' Bible Class
Handbooks, in loco) holds that the only subject
is angels, and translates : ' to myriads of angels, —
even a festal assembly and convocation of first-
borns enrolled in heaven.' In this interpretation
he is followed by A. S. Peake (Century Bible,
'Hebrews').
(b) On the other hand, Westcott (Hebrews) con-
tends for two classes — angels and men; and
renders the passage : ' to countless hosts of angels
in festal assembly, and to the Church of the first-
born enrolled in heaven.' So also Farrar (Cambridge
Bible for Schools) and Edwards (Expositor's Bible).
Against this latter interpretation, it may be
pointed out that men are mentioned separately —
'and to the spirits of just men made perfect' —
and it is improbable that the groups occur twice.
' Tens of thousands ' is an almost technical term
for angels ; and, though ' firstborn ' is not elsewhere
applied to them, it is a quite natural name for the
sons of God. Besides, if living Christians are
referred to, as this interpretation seems to imply,
it is awkward 'to speak of their coming to a
company which includes themselves ' (A. S. Peake).
On the whole it appears better to abide by the first
interpretation. It is the picture of noble souls
returning home to God, and welcomed with the
'joy that is in the presence of the angels of God.'
Students of Dante will compare the corresponding
passage in the Convivio : ' And, as his fellow-
citizens come forth to meet him who returns from
a long journey, even before he enters the gate of
his city ; so to the noble soul come forth the
citizens of the eternal life.' Bernard's great hjmn
(Neale's translation) 'Jerusalem the Golden' may
also be cited as instinct with the spirit of He 12"*.
W. M. Grant.
ASSOS ("Atro-oj). — An ancient Greek city on the
Adramyttian Gulf, in the south of the Troad.
Originally an ^Eolic colony, it was re-founded,
imder the name of ApoUonia, by the Pergamenian
kings, whose dominions were converted into the
Roman province of Asia in 133 B.C. Its situation
was one of the most commanding in all the Greek
lands. 'It is a strong place,' says Strabo, 'and
well fortified with walls. There is a long and
steep ascent from the sea and the harbour. . . .
Cleanthes, the Stoic philosopher, was a native of
this place. . . . Here also Aristotle resided for
some time ' (xill. i. 58). The walls are still well-
f)reserved, and the harbour mole can be traced by
arge blocks under the clear water. The summit
of the hill was crowned by the Doric temple of
Athene (built c. 470 B.C.), the panels of which —
now mostly in the Louvre — are among the most
important remains of ancient Greek art. The
modern town, Behram Kalossi, is still the chief
shipping-place of the southern Troad.
On a Sunday afternoon, probably in the spring
of A.D. 56, St. Paul, having torn himself away
from the Christians of Troas, walked or rode the
20 miles of Roman highway which connected that
city with Assos, first passing along the western
side of Mt. Ida, then tlirough the rich Valley of
the Tuzla, and finally reaching the Via Sacra, or
Street of Tombs, which still extends a great dis-
ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
105
tance to the N.W. of Assos. In the haven he
joined his ship, which had meanwhile taken his
companions round the long promontory of Lectum
(Ac 20^).
Utkraitrb.— J. T. Clarke, Aaaot, 2 vols., Boston, 1882 and
1898; C Fellows, Tnuelt and Buearthes in Aiia Minor,
London, 1S52 ; Murray's Handbook of Asia Minor.
James Strahan.
ASSUMPTION OF MOSES.— A curious state of
afiairs exists with regard to the so-called ' Assump-
tion of Moses.' The title is incorrectly applied to
what is really the ' Testament of Moses, a work
which is extant in a more or less complete form in
a Latin fragment discovered by Ceriani in a 6th
cent. MS in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and
published by him in 1861. The true ' Assumption '
survives only in quotations and references in the
NT and early Christian writers ; but from certain
facts it appears that it was at a very early date
appended to the ' Testament.' For example, in
Ceriani's Latin MS in 10^^ we have the reading
' From my death [assumption] xmtil His advent.'
Here the duplicate reading ' assumption ' would
appear to be an attempt to prepare for the account
of the Assimiption appended to the Testament.
Moreover, as early as St. Jude's Epistle, we find
quotations from both works in close juxtaposition.
Under these circumstances, the present article in-
cludes an account of both works.
Both works alike must have been written in the
1st cent. A.D., and the former, if not the latter, in
Hebrew, between the years 7 and 29. A Greek ver-
sion of both, of the same century, is presupposed by
the quotations and parallels in Ac 7^, Jude •• **• ",
2 Baruch, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.
The author was a Pharisaic Quietist. His silence
with regard to the Maceabaean rising and its leaders
is most significant. There cotild be no severer
censure on the political and bellicose Pharisees of
his time. For him Eleazar and his seven sons had
been the true heroes,and not Judas and his brethren.
He expects the ultimate triumph of Israel, but this
is to be brought about by Divine intervenrion and
not by the sword, and the human conditions pre-
requisite are a stricter observance of the Law and
a national repentance.
The work is of great value in the stress it lays on
spiritual reli^on and quietism. In this and in its
singular freedom from the Jewish doctrine of merit
it aifords a parallel to NT teaching. On the other
hand, it is thoroughly Judaic in its exaltation of
the person of Moses, which seems to be set up as a
Jewish cotmterpart to that of our Lord, while the
pre-existence of Moses and Jerusalem is expressly
asserted in 1^^ ^".
1. Contents (historical and other allusions are
explained in brackets). — i. In the 2500th year from
the Creation, after the Exodus, Moses calls Joshua
and appoints him his successor as minister of the
people and of the tabernacle of the testimony, at
the same time committing to his charge certain
books which were to be preser\ ed in the place which
God had made from the beginning of the world
(Jerusalem). — ii. After Joshua has secured to Israel
their inheritance, the people are to be ruled for
eighteen years (i.e. the fifteen judges, and the three
kings, Saul, David, and Solomon) by chiefs and
kings, and for nineteen years (the nineteen kings
of Israel) the ten tribes shall break away. The two
tribes maintain the Temple worship for twenty years
(reigns), of which, however, four are evil and idola-
trous.— iii. Then a king from the East (Nebuchad-
rezzar) shall come and bum their * colony ' (Jera-
salem) and the Temple and remove the sacred vessels.
The two tribes are carried into captivity, and con-
fess their punishment to be just, as also do the ten
tribes. — iv. At the end of the 77 years' captivity,
one who is over them (Daniel) will pray for them.
A king (Gyms) has compassion on them, and parts
of the two tribes return, while the ten increase
among the Gentiles in their captivity. — v. Even
the faithful two tribes sin, and are punished through
the kings who share in their guilt (the Seleucids).
They are di\-ided as to the truth, and pollute the
altar with their non-Aaronic priests, 'not priests
but slaves, sons of slaves ' (Jason and Menelaus). —
viiL A • second visitation ' follows. The king of
the kings of the earth (Antiochus Epiphanes)
crucifies those who confess to circumcision, and
compels them to blaspheme the law and bear idols,
and persecutes them with tortures. — ix. Thereupon
a man of the tribe of Levi, named Taxo ( = Eleazar),
exhorts his seven sons to fast for three days and on
the fourth to go into a cave and die rather than
transgress the commands of the Lord of lords. — vi.
Next there are raised up kings bearing rule who
call themselves priests of the Most Hi^ God (the
Maccabees). They work iniquity in the Holy of
Holies. They are succeeded by an insolent ting
not of the race of the priests (Herod), who ^ill carry
out secret massacres and rule for 34 years. His
children are to reign for shorter periods. A power-
ful king of the West (Varus, governor of Syria) in-
vades the land, bums part of the Temple, and cruci-
fies some of the people. — vii. The times shall then
be ended. Destructive and impious men (Sadducees)
shall rule— treacherous, hypocritical, gluttons, op-
pressing the poor, and lawless. Though unclean in
band and mind, they say, ' Do not touch me, lest
thou shouldest pollute me.' — x. Then (Jod's king-
dom shall appear, and Satan shall be no more, and
the angel who has been appointed chief (ilichael)
shall avenge them of their enemies. The earth is
shaken, the sun and moon fail, and the sea and
the waters dry up. The Gentiles are punished, and
Israel is happy, and triumphs over the Eagle
(Rome),is raised to the stars,and beholds his enemies
in Gehenna and rejoices over them. Until thisadvent
of God there shall be 250 times from Moses' death.
— xi. Joshua mourns that he is not able to take
Moses' place as guide and teacher, prophet and
advocate. The Amorites will assail Israel when
Moses is not among them. — xii. Moses replies by
placing Joshua in his own seat, and assures him
that all is foreseen and controlled by God.
At the end of ch. vii. and agaiin at the end of ch.
xii. the MS breaks ofiF in the middle of a sentence.
Chapters viii. and tx. are read between v. and vi., as
Charles suggests in his edition (pp. 28-30). They
obviously refer to the Antiochian persecution, and
are quite out of place after ch. vii., which describes
the Sadducees who were contemporaries of the
author. Burkitt argues (HDB iii. 449) that 'the
Theophany in x. comes in well after the story of
the ideal saint Taxo in ix. , but very badly after the
description of the wicked priests and rulers in viL'
But ch. vii. is mutilated at the end, and we cannot
argue from the last reference which happens to be
preserved in it. He suggests that the author ' filled
up his picture of the final woes from the stories of
the Antiochian martyrs.' But surely he would not
need to borrow his picture of the ideal saint of the
last times (and his name) from the same period.
2. Date. — The date of composition is clearly fixed
by the words in 6^ ' and he (Herod) shall beget
children who succeeding him shall rule for shorter
periods.' As this is a prediction which was falsified
by the event, for Antipas reigned forty-three years
and Philip thirty-seven (while Herod reigned thirty-
four), we must postulate a date earlier than thirty-
four years from Herod's death, ».«. a.d. 30. A date
nearer to the deposition of Archelaus in A.D. 6,
which would suggest the impending deposition of
his brothers, woi3d be still more suitable.
3. Author. — The author is generally supposed to
have been a Zealot (so Ewald, Wieseler, DUlmann,
106
ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
Schiirer, Deane, and Briggs). But, while well aware
of the Maccabsean movement, he shows his aversion
to Maccabaean methods by his silence in regard to
the exploits of Judas and his brethren. His hero,
Taxo, instead of taking up arms, withdraws into a
cave to die, with the words ' Let us die rather than
transgress.' It is not militancy but God's direct
and personal intervention that will bring in the
kingdom.
The same arguments prove that he was no Sad-
ducee. His was no earthly ideal, but that of a
heavenly theocratic kingdom ( 10"- )• A Resurrection
is not taught, it is true, but it is implied in the con-
summation of Israel's happiness m these verses.
The Sadducees are attacked, and in 7'- " there is a
play on their name and their claim to be just (D'pns
ana D'pns).
He was not an Essene. He is a strong patriot
and keenly interested in the fortunes of the nation.
The Law is of perpetual obligation and is itself
sufficient. The Temple is bmlt by God Himself
(2^) in tlie place He prepared from the creation (1*^).
Its profanations are often mentioned {2^- ^ 3^ 5'- *
6'- '). The sacrificial system is regarded as valid
(2^), and its cessation is a cause of lamentation (4*).
The altar is polluted only W injustice (5*). The
Essenes did not value the Temple sacrifices, and
objected to animal sacrifice altogether. The future
heavenly abode of the righteous, and the future
punishment of Israel's enemies in Gehenna, are dis-
tinctively Pharisaic ideas. The pre-existence of
Moses in 1^* is regarded as a unique distinction.
The Essenes believed in the pre-existence of all
souls alike.
We must conclude, therefore, that the author was
a ' Pharisee of a fast-disappearing type, recalling
in all respects the Chasid of the early Maccabean
times, and upholding the old traditions of quietude
and resignation' (Charles, 1897, p. liv).
4. The Latin text. — The Latin text presents a
difficult task to the critical reconstructor of the
original Hebrew text. To begin with, Ceriani's
MS is a palimpsest, in which whole verses are at
times indecipherable. In the next place, it is not
the original Latin translation but a copy, in Avhich
the Latin itself has been corrected and corrupted.
Thus in 5^ we have six lines of duplicate rendering,
and there are dittographies also in 6' S** IP*. In
11* the copyist has misread 'eum'as 'cum,' and
corrects ' Mouses ' into ' Monse ' accordingly. The
version, however, is very literal, and, in spite
of corruptions and carelessness, its Greek source is
occasionally evident ; and the original Hebrew
idiom is frequently preserved. Greek words like
clibsis { = d\i\{/is, S'') and herermis ( = €p^/xoi, 3"), and
even a reading \ikejinem in 2', which presupposes
8pov in Greek [corrupt for SpKov], suffice to prove
translation from the Greek ; while corrupt passages
like 4* 5' 10* 11'^ (see Charles' text) require re-trans-
lation into the original Hebrew in order to explain
the corruption. In 7' we have a play on the name
Sadducees (D'pns)
' dicentes se esse justos (D'p'is) '
which is possible only in Hebrew. An Aramaic
original postulated by Schmidt, Merx, and others
is not necessitated by the order in l^" 3* (see
Charles, 1897, pp. xxviii-xlv).
5. The original 'Asaumption of Moses.'— The
subject-matter of the extant work (preserved
largely in Ceriani's Latin MS) proves it to be a
Testament of Moses, as it deals with the dying pre-
dictions and charges of Moses as related to Joshua,
quite in the manner of the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs (q.v.). It nowhere describes his 'As-
sumption,' and only in an interpolation (10'*) re-
fers to it. The opening words have been thus re-
stored by Charles to fill the gap in the MS—' Testa-
mentum Moysi | Quae praecepit ano vi|tae eius
Cmo et xxnio.' Throughout the work Moses is to
die an ordinary death (e.g. 1'' 3'^ 10"-"). In a
Catena quoted in Fabricius {Cod. Psettd. Vet. Test.
ii. 121, 122), and again in Section xiii. of Vassiliev's
Anecdota Grmco-Iiyzantina (pp. 257-258), we find
references to a natural death of Moses, which may
be derived from the original ending of the ' Testa-
ment.' In Vassiliev's work the words that follow
seem to be derived from the true 'Assumption,'
while Josephus (Ant. iv. viii, 48) seems to be aware
of the new claims put forth for Moses' Assumption,
while explaining the Scripture statement of his
death as a precaution against deification of the
national hero : vi<l}Ovs al<pvi5iow vir^p a&roD ardvTo^,
itpavLl^erai Kard rtvos <j}6,payyo%. Tiypa(pe d' avrbv iv
Tttij lepaii /3I/3Xots redveOra, delffas u-V Si virtp^oXTjv ttjs
irepl ainrbv dperTJs irpbi rb ffeiov ainbv duaxojprjcai
ToX/XT^aucriP elweii'.
The fragments of the true ' Assumption of Moses '
preserved in various sources are as follows. — We
read in Jude ^ : ' But Michael the archangel, when,
contending with the devil, he disputed about the
body of Moses, durst not bring against him a rail-
ing judgment, but said, " The Lord rebuke thee." '
Clem. Alex, quotes this verse in Adumbrat. in
Ep. Jud(B (Zahn's Supplement. Clementin., 1884,
p. 84), and adds : ' Hie confirmat Assumptionem
Moysi.' Didymus Alex, in Epist. Judce Enarratio,
and tlie Acta Synodi Niccen. ii. 20 also refer to
St. Jude's words as a quotation from ' Moyseos
Assumptioi' or ' A.vd\7]\pis Muvaius. The Devil's claim
which Michael thus rebutted was (1) that he was
lord of matter (Uti. ifibv rb (tw/jui ws rrjs vXrjs Se<nr6^ovTt.
[Cramer's Catena in Ep. Cath., 1840, p. 160: also
Matthsei's edition oiSept. Epp. CathoL, Riga, 1782,
pp. 238, 239]) ; (2) that Moses was a murderer.
The answer to the second claim is not given, but
the answer to the first is in fuller form than in
St. Jude, in Acta Synodi Niccen. ii. 20 : dirb yap
TveijfMTOS dylov a&rov Trdvrei iKTLaOrjfiev, thus claiming
all creation as the handiwork of God's Holy Spirit.
Origen (de Princip. iii. 2. 1) adds a reproach uttered
by Michael to the serpent : ' a diabolo inspiratum
serpentem caosam exstitisse praevaricationis Adae
et Evae.'
The Assumption finally 'takes place in the
presence of Joshua and Caleb, and in a very peculiar
way. A twofold presentation of Moses appears :
one is Moses "living in the spirit," which is carried
up to heaven ; the other is the dead body of Moses,
which is buried in the recesses of the mountains '
(Charles, p. 106). So Clem, Alex., Strom, vi. 15;
Origen, hom. in Jos. ii. 1 ; Euodius, Epist. ad.
Augustin. 258, vol. ii. p. 839 (Ben. ed. 1836). This
' twofold presentation would appear to be due to
an attempt to reconcile Dt 34"- with the Jewish
legend. Cf. Josephus, quoted above.
6. Value for New Testament study. — i. Paral-
lels in phraseology. — These are conlined to five
passages : (a) Stephen's speech in Ac 7*'', where the
words 'in Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the
wilderness forty years' are the same as in Ass.
Mos. 3". Cf. also Ac 1^- ^ with Ass. Mos. 3".—
(b) Jude " : cf. Ass. Mos. V ' complainers ' ; 7' ' and
their mouth will speak great things ' ; 5" respect-
ing the persons of the wealthy,' Jude" 'in the
last time '=^55, Mos. V 'the times shall be
ended.'— (c) With 2 P 2'' cf. Ass. Mos. 7* 'lovers of
banquets at every hour of the day,' and with 2*
cf, T ' devourers' of the goods . . . saying that
they do so on the ground of justice (or mercy).'
The signs of the end in sun, moon, and stars in
Ass. Mos. 10° resemble those in Mk 13**- ^, while
the phrase in 8' 'there will come upon them a
second visitation and wrath, such as has not be-
fallen them from the beginning until that time,'
is nearer Mt 24^' than Dn 12' and Rev le^*.
There is also the well-known reference to the
ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
ASSUEANCE
107
lost 'Assumption ' in Jude * (generalized in 2 P 2""")
— ' Yet Michael the archangel,' etc.
ii. Parallels in doctrine and ideas. — (a) The
parallels >%-ith the NT doctrine of Christ are re-
markable. Moses appears to fill the place which
would be taken by Clirist in Christian belief, as a
Divinely appointed mediator, bound by no limita-
tions of time or space, interceding on behalf of
God's people. His pre-existenoe and mediatorship
are as^serted in 1". He was ' prepared before the
foundation of the world (cf. Alt 25**) to be the
mediator of His (God's) covenant' (cf. Gal 3"*).
Christ, too, was ' before all things ' (Col 1", Jn 1^ 8»
I7*)j and was the Mediator of a new and better
covenant (He 8® 9" 12^). Baldensperger sees in
IP a definite attack on Christian views. The
body of Moses would know no local sepulchre, nor
would any dare to move his ' body from thence as
a man from place to place.' This seems to imply
the Jewish view that not only was Christ buried,
and His body moved from the cross to the grave,
but that His disciples had removed it from the
sepulchre (Mt 2S^). In 11' Joshua says: 'Thou
art departing, and who will feed this people [cf.
tiie commission to Peter in Jn 21""^^, or who is
there who will have compassion on them, and . . .
be their guide by the way (cf. Mt 9^), or who
will prav for them, not omitting a single day?'
cf. 11^' CRo 8**, He 7^). But not only is :Moses !
regarded as shepherd, compassionate guide, and
intercessor; in 11'® he is described as 'the sacred
spirit who was worthy of the Lord (cf. Wis 3* 7**),
manifold and incomprehensible, the lord of the
word, who was faithful in all things (He 3'), God's
chief prophet throughout the earth, the most per-
fect teacher in the world.' Cf., in regard to Christ,
Jn 3- ' Thou art a teacher come from God,' 6®
'Thou hast the words of eternal life.' For the
'manifold Spirit,' cf. 1 Co 12"-^, and for Christ
as Spirit, 2 Co 3^' 'the Lord is that Spirit.' In
12* Moses is ' appointed to pray for their (Israel's)
sins and make intercession for them ' (cf. He 7^).
Moses also was the appointed revealer of God's
hidden purpose (P^ "). God had 'created the
world on behalf of his people ' (a common Jewish
view ; contrast He 1^, Col l^*, Ro ll**, Jn 1^— where
Christ is the final cause of creation). 'But he
was not pleased to manifest this purpose of crea-
tion from the foundation of the world in order
that the Gentiles might thereby be convicted ' (by
their own false theories). Cf. Ro 16=*- * ' . . . the
preachingof Jesus Christ . . . the revelation of the
mystery which hath been kept in silence through
times eternal, but now is manifested . . . unto all
the nations unto obedience of faith.' In Eph I'- ^^
the mystery of Grod's will, 'according to ms good
pleasure, which he purposed in him,' is not Israel
but Christ as the goal of all creation. In Eph
3*-" it includes the bringing in of the Gentiles into
the scheme of final restoration. In 1 Co 2^, Eph
3®, Ro 16^ the purpose precedes the creation of
the world.
(b) Justification and good works. — The Rabbinic
doctrine of man's merit is entirely absent. Cf. 12"
' Not for any \-irtue or strength of mine, but in His
compassion and long-snffering, was He pleased to
call me' Cf. Tit 3*, 2 Ti R
(c) Day of repentance. — Jerusalem is to be the
place of worship till ' the day of repentance in the
visitation wherewith the Lord shsdl visit them in
the consummation of the end of the days' (1^*).
This repentance in Mai 4* and Lk l^*- " is to be
brought about by Elijah. It is the theme of John
the Baptist (Mk \*) and of Christ (1"). It is to
usher in the ' ^-isitation,' or the establishment of
the theocratic Kingdom by Grod Himself in person.
(d) Michael is regarded as the chief antagonist
of Satan and of Israel's foes. In IQr he is ap-
pointed chief, and ' will forthwith avenge them of
their enemies.' Cf. Rev 12".
(e) Gehenna is still the place, not where the
wicked and immoral suffer, but into which Israel's
foes, the Gentiles, are cast. The dividing line be-
tween the future blessed and accursed is a national
and not a moral one.
(/) Messianic Kingdom. — There is no Messiah.
In lO' we are told 'the Eternal God alone . . .
will . . . punish the Gentiles.' The Kingdom will
come upon a general repentance (1") 175C» years
(lO'*) after Moses' death, i.e. between a.d. 75 and
107. The ten tribes share in the promises (3*) and
in the final restoration (10*) Israel is finally ex-
alted to heaven (10^) and beholds iti> foes in Gie-
henna (10'").
Lttbratubb. — (a) Cmiv kdibokb op thb IiAtix tnr. —
A. Ceriani, Mtmumetttamteraet prof ana, l i [1861] 5»-M; A.
Hilgeofeld, ST extra Caiumem reemtumfl, 1878, pp. 107-135 ;
G. Volkmar, Mo$e Pnplutie u»d Htmmtifakrty IjeSpag, 1867 ;
Scbmidt-Merx, ' INe AwwHiipUo Moob . . .' {Arehivf. vinen.
Erfortek. dea AT, ed. Menc. 1868, i. fi. 111-152); O. F.
Fritzsche, LOH Apoertpki V.T., 1871. pn. 700-730; R. H.
Charlen, The Atnmption of Motu . . . tie wumettded Text
. . . togiHuT with the Text in its . . . eritieaUgemtendedFormy
LoDd«», 1807 ; C Clenw^, The Asmmftkm of Mooe$, Cub-
bridge, ISNM. (b) Cmxr cxmcAii nKgaaaa. — Rfinsch, ZWT,
xL [1868] 76-108, 466-468, xiL tlSBO] 213-228, xir. [1871] 89-93,
xviL [1874] 542-5^ xxviiL [1885] 108-104 ; F. Rosenthal, rier
apoe. Bueher, 1885, pp. 13-S8; E. Schnxer. HJP n. iiL 73-83;
W. Baldenq>etKer, Daa StOitlbtwmaltuin Jesa, 1888, Mt.
^0-31 : AV. J. Oeane, PaeMdirigrafka,\tafy, pp. 85-130; E. de
Faye, Le* Apoealjfpees Junes, 1893, pp. 67-75 ; R. H. Cbaxles,
op. eit. xiii-lzr; C. Clemen, in Kantmcfa's Apok. «md Ptettd.,
a. [1900] SU-331; F. C. Borkitt, in HDB m. 448^50; R. H.
Charles. Afoanifka and PaeudepigntfiM, Oxford, 1913, iL
*07-43*. A. LI. DaTIES.
ASSURANCE.— 1. The word and its Greek
equivalents. — 'Assurance' (with the kindred forms
' assure,' ' assured of,' ' assuredly') is employed in the
EV to render several Gr. words expressing certi-
tude, or setting forth grounds of certainty. — (1) In
Ac 17^ it is used to render xiVtij, 'faith,' which
has the meaning here of 'pledge' or 'guarantee,'
the Resurrection of Christ heing taken by St. Paul,
in addressing the Stoics and Epicureans of Athens
on Mars' Hill, as warranting the faith, or impart-
ing certainty to the conviction, of judgment to
come. — (2) It is used in He 11^ (RV) to translate
uTOffTOffii, 'substance,' 'confidence,' where rUmr
itself is defined as ' the assurance of things hoped
for, the pro\'ing {iXeyxoi) of things not seen.' — (3)
In 1 Jn 3^ we find the verb employed to translate
reUrofjLfv from reideip : * Hereby shall we know that
we are of the truth and shall assure our heart
before him,' where rtiffofiey, translated 'shall
asstire,' signifies the stilling and tranquillizing of
the heart that has been agitated by doubts, mis-
givings, or fears. (TcUro/iep ia only once again
employed in the XT in this sense : in Mt 28^*, where
it is rendered 'persuade,' and where Tmdale's
quaint translation is 'pease' [appease], the object
of the persuasion being the Roman governor at
Jerusalem.) — (4) In 2 Ti 3^* the passive form of
the verb is found as the rendering of erurru&ijs,
' thou hast been assured of,' referring to Timothy's
training in the knowledge of the ' sacred writings
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.' —
(5) In Ac 2^'' we find the adverb ' assuredly ' em-
ployed to translate da<f>a\ws, 'surely,' 'certainly,'
recalling d«r^dXc«ar in Lk 1*.— (6) In Ac 16^* the
word ai^ifiipd^vw, ' combining,' ' putting this and
that together,' ia translate in AV 'assuredly
gathering,' which in RV has given place to the
word of logical inference, ' concluding.'
(7) The word, however, of which ' assurance ' is
the definite and specific rendering is ■r\ripo<popta (1
Th 1', Col 2^, He 6" 10*^), with which may be taken
the kindred verb r\r)po<popfTp, passive r\ripo4>opeur6au
In determining the precise meaning of the Gr.
original we receive no help from Gr. literature in
108
ASSUEANCE
ASSURANCE
general, where the word is not found at all till a
late period. The word TrXripofjyopdv, however, has
been found in papyri signifying ' to settle fully an
account,' ' to give satisfaction as to a doubtful
matter,' ' to be completely satisfied with regard to
something that was owing' (A. Deissmann, Light
from the Ancient East, London, 1910, p. 82), It
occurs once in LXX (Ec 8"). Otherwise its use is
exclusively NT and Patristic. — (a) ■ir\r}po<popia is
used absolutely in 1 Tli 1"*, and, though RVm
gives ' much fulness ' as the translation of iroWrj
ir\7jpo(()opia, this is weak and inadequate, and ' full
assurance' of AV and RV brings out the proper
force of the word and really expresses the Apostle's
thought. The second term of the composite word
(^-<(>opLa, -<j)opdv, -eiffdai) seems to carry with it a sub-
jective force both in the noun and in the verb, as
may be gathered from examples in the NT and in
the Fathers. To this 2 Ti 4« and Lk 1^ may be ex-
ceptions. "We are justified, therefore, in rendering
in Col 2- ' full assurance of the understanding ' ; in
He 6" 'full assurance of hope' ; and in 10'-'' 'full
assurance of faith.' In 1 Clem. xlii. 3 fj.eTk
TrX-rjpotpoptas irveijfiaros ayiov is ' with full assui'ance
produced by the Holy Spirit,' although it might be
'with full reliance upon the Holy Spirit.' This
Clementine passage has the verb also (ir\7]po(popT]-
divres) and is peculiarlv instructive as to the nature
of the ' assurance ' wnich possessed the apostles
as they went forth to be ambassadors of Christ :
' Accordingly having received instructions and
having attained to full assurance (■tr\7]po<f>opy]divTe$)
through the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ
and having been put in trust with the word of God,
they went forth in full reliance upon the Holy
Spirit, preaching the glad tidings that the kingdom
or God was about to come.' — [b) Tr\r]po<pope'i(r6ai has
the subjective force we have attributed to it in
most of the Pauline and Patristic examples of its
use. Of Abraham it is said that he Avas ' fully
assured' {irXtjpocpoprideis) that what God had promised
he was able also to perform (Ro 4^^). In regard
to doubtful questions in the Apostolic Church, St.
Paul bids each man be 'fully assured' in his own
mind (Ro W RV). The prayer of St. Paul and
his friends for the Colossian Christians is that they
may stand perfect and 'fully assured' (ireirXrjpo-
ipoprj/jLivoi) in every thing willed by God (Col 4'^).
in the Epp. of Ignatius, who contends so strenu-
ousljr agamst Docetic views of the Person of Christ,
we hnd the saint and martyr employing the verb
in the same sense as St. Paul. He bids his readers
be on their guard against the seductions of error
and be fully assured {Treir\Tipo<popTjffdai.) of the Birth,
Passion, and Resurrection as historical facts, for
these things were truly and certainly done by Jesus
Christ ' our Hope, from which hope may it never
befall any of you to be turned aside' {Magn. 11).
Elsewhere, speaking of the OT prophets, Ignatius
declares that they were inspired by the grace of
Christ Jesus ' to the end that unbelievers might be
fully assured [eh rb w\T]po((>op7)di]vai) that there is one
God who manifested Himself through Jesus Clirist,
His Son' {Magn. 8).
2. The doctrine in the teaching of the apostles.
— From an examination of the words employed by
the NT writers to express Christian certamty, with
the illustrations, which might easily be added to,
from the Apostolic Fathers, we can gain a clear
outline of the character of 'assurance.' It em-
braces a conviction of the truth of the Christian
history, of the historical reality of the Birth,
Passion, and Resurrection of Christ ; trustful re-
liance upon the promises of God in Jesus Christ
His Son ; the exercise of the intelligence and the
reasoning powers to know without doubt what God
requires or His i)eople ; and the consciousness of a
personal interest in Christ and His great redemp-
tion, wrought by the Spirit in the individual soul.
Tiiis outline we are able to till in from the apostles'
teaching in passages where the word itself is not
employed. Assurance, as an experience of the
apostolic writers and their readers, meets us in
nearly every one of the Epistles. St. James, in
his Epistle, negatively urges it when he dwells
upon the evils of the divided mind, and he has
words of commendation for the perfected faith of
Abraham (Ja 1*- ^ 22"-). St. Jude knows the secret
when he commends the readers of liis brief Einstle
to Him that is able to keep them from falling and
to present them faultless before the presence of His
glory with exceeding joy (Jude *•). The writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he bids his
readers show diligence to the full assurance of hope
unto the end (He 6"), means ' that your salvation
may be a matter of certainty, and not merely of
charitable hope' (A. B. Bruce). And pointing to
the blood of sprinkling, and the rent veil, and the
new and living way, and the heavenly High Priest,
he bids them keep approaching ' with a true heart
in full assurance of faith' (lO*^^). But St. Peter,
St. John, and St. Paul have teaching on the sub-
ject which may be a little more fully drawn out.
(1) St. Peter's teaching Ls given in Acts and in the
Epistles that bear his name. St. Peter's speeches,
on the day of Pentecost and afterwards, set forth
the grounds of the assurance of the Resurrection and
Ascension of Jesus which possessed the apostles and
their believing hearers. These grounds are (a) the
prophetic words of Scripture finding their fulfil-
ment not in David or any other, but in Jesus ; {b)
the personal testimony of the apostles to the things
which they had seen and heard ; (c) the manifesta-
tion of the risen Lord's presence and power in the
miracles wrought in His name ; {d) the inner wit-
ness of the Spirit — ' we are witnesses of these things
and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to
them that obey him ' (Ac 5*^) — ' the historical wit-
ness borne to the facts and the internal witness of
the Holy Ghost bringing home to men's hearts the
meaning of the facts' (Knowling, ad loc. ; of. 2^*'**
42oir.) n jg ^hjg assurance which the Apostle holds
forth to the sojourners of the Dispersion in his First
Epistle (1 P 13-9), -whom the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ had begotten again to a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead ; ' who by the power of God are guarded
through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed
in the last time.' Whether 2 Peter be the produc-
tion of St. Peter or of some disciple writing in his
spirit at a later time, it is the voice of full assurance
we hear when the author says : 'We did not follow
cunningly devised fables, when we made known
unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty '
(2 P P*). Thus convincingly does the external and
the internal witness blend in St. Peter's doctrine of
assurance.
(2) St. John^s teaching in his Epistles lays the chief
stress upon the ethical tests, and has less to say of
the inner witness. Not that the latter is overlooKed.
'The anointing which ye received of him,' he says,
referring to the Holy Spirit or a function of the
Spirit, ' abideth in you, and ye have no need that
any one teach you (I Jn 2-"). But St. John's
doctrine of assurance embraces great Christian
certainties. ' We know and have believed the love
which God hath in us ' (1 Jn 4>*). ' We know that
we have passed out of death into life, because we love
the brethren ' (3"). ' Hereby shall we knoio that
we are of the truth, and shall assure our iiearts liefore
him' (3'*). 'We /fcnot^; [being the children of God
and recipients of redeeming love] that, if he shall be
manifested, we shall be like him ; for we sliall see
him even as he is ' (3-). ' We know that we have
come to a knowledge of him, if we keep his
ASYNCRITUS
ATHENS
109
commandments ' (2»). ' Hereby we know that we
are in him ; he that saith he abideth in him ought
himself also to walk even as he walked ' (2*'-)-
Law apUy characterises St. John's doctrine of per8(»ial mbot-
ance when he says : ' With St. John the grounds of assorance
are ethical, not emotionaJ ; objective, not subjective ; plain and
tanidWe, not microscopic and elusive. They are three, or, rather,
th-v are a trinity : Belief, Bighleousneas, Love. By his belief
-ist, his keeping God's conun&ndmentB.aLi)d his love to the
. r '• n. a Christian man is recognised, ana recognises himself
as LciTOtten of God' (Tert* of Life, Edinburgh, 1909, p. 297).
St. John applies his doctrine of assurance to
prayer. ' Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we
have boldness toward God ; and whatsoever we ask,
we receive of him, because we keep his command-
ments ' (3^"-)- ' And this is the boldness which we
have towards him, that, if we ask anything accord-
ing to his will, he heareth us ' (5"). And while this
assurance gives boldness and confidence in prayer,
it also gives boldness in the Day of Judgment :
' Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may
have boldness in the day of judgment; because as
he is, even so are we in this world. There is no
fear in love : but perfect love casteth out fear' (4"*-).
(3) St. Paul's teaching lays the stress upon the
inner witness which we desiderated in St. John.
And yet in his enumeration of graces under the
designation of 'fruit of the Spirit" we have sure
evidences of the Spirit's indwelling whereby to
'assure our hearts' before Him. St. Paul's assur-
ance rests also upon a broad basis of fact in the
Person and work of Christ : ' I know him whom I
have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able
to guard that which I have committed unto him
against that day ' (2 Ti V-). When, however, he
uses the expression ' we know,' uttering his assur-
ance of personal immortality, he attributes it to
God who gave him the earnest of the Spirit (2 Co
5^*- ). In two great passages, Rom 8^*"- and Gal 4"-,
St. Paul sets forth the witness of the Spirit to the
sonship of the believer, which is the ground of his
full assurance, by the chUdlike confidence which it
works and the perfect liberty which it brings. And
so he can exclaim : ' We know that to them that
love God all things work together for good, even to
them that are called according to his purpose. . • .
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord ' (Ro 8^ *'•)•
But, although St. Paul cherishes this assurance
and has no doubt or misgiving as to his personal
salvation, this assurance does not cause him to
slacken in the fulfilment of service and the pursuit
of the eternal prize. Even he is moved by the
wholesome fear lest he who had preached to others
should yet himself become a castaway {dSoKt/xoi,
1 Co 9^), and be cast out of the lists as one who
had not contended according to the rules.
' We must remember,' says a Christian writer before the middle
of the 2nd cent., 'that he who strives in the corruptible contest,
if he be found acting unfairly, fouling a competitor in the race,
or trying with guile to overreach his antagonist, is taken away
and scourged and cast forth from the lists. What then think ye?
If one does an j-thing unseemly in the incorruptible contest, what
shall he have to bear ? ' (2 Clem. vii.). It is in the same spirit that
the author of the Didache, writing before the close of the 1st
cent., says : ' For the whole period of your faith will profit you
nothine tmless ve be found fijly perfected at the last ' (2>td. xvL
2 ; cf. ip. of Bam. iv. 9%
ISTK&iTCBJi. — F. H. R. von Frank, System of Christian Cer-
tainti/, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, lsS6; W. J. Townsend, H. B.
Workman, and G. Eayrs. Sew Hist, of Methodism, London,
1909; R. Seeberg. in PRE3 vi. 160; the art. 'Assurance,' in
HDB, SDB, and DCG ; art. 'Certitude,' in CE, and art. ' Cer-
tainty (Eeligious),' in ERE, with the literature there cited.
T. XlCOL.
ASYNCRITUS ('Jux^KpiToi, or 'A<rjrKpiTOi, a Greek
name). — The first of a group of five names (all
Greek) of persons 'and the brethren with them'
saluted by St. Paul in Ro 16". Nothing is known
of Asyncritus or of any member of this group. It
is suggested that together they formed a separate
iKK\ij<riay or church, within the Church of Rome.
That such little communities existed in Rome,
each with its own place of meeting, would appear
from other similar phrases in Ro 16 : ' the chtirch
that is in their house ' (v.*), ' all the saints that are
with them' (v."), and from the references to the
Christian members of the ' households ' of Aristo-
bulus and Narcissus (w."- "). This, of course,
assumes the Roman destination of these saluta-
tions. If the Ephesian destination be preferred,
there is evidence of similar house-churches at
Ephesos in 1 Co 16^, and perhaps in Ac 20* (see
art. Patbobas). The name Asyncritus has been
found in an inscription of a freemnan of Augustas
(see Sanday-Headlam, Bomans^, 1902, p. 427).
T. B. Allwobthy,
ATHENS CAe^vai).— Athens, which St. Paul
visited in the autumn of A.D. 48 (Hamack), or 50
(Turner), or 51 (Ramsay), was now in some respects
very diflerent from the city of Pericles and Plato.
Her political and commercial supremacy was gone.
Greece had for two centuries been the Roman
province of Achaia, of which Athens was not the
capital. The governor had his residence at Corintli .
and the merchant-princes had forsaken the Pir£eu>
for Lecheum and Cenchreae. But Athens was still
the most beautiful and brilliant of cities, the home
of philosophy, the shrine of art, the fountain-head
of ideals. Aa the metropolis of Hellenism she had,
indeed, a wider and more pervasive influence
than ever, which the Roman conquerors, like
the Macedonians before them, did their best to
extend. ' From tlie Philhellenic standpoint, doubt-
less, Athens was the masterpiece of the world'
(T. Monunsen, Provinces of the Soman Empir^,
London, 1909, L 258). To be among her citizens
was to breathe the atmosphere of culture. Her
Lyceum by the Ilissus, her Academy by the groves
of Cephissus, her Porch in the Agora, and her
Garden near at hand, were stiU frequented by
Platonists, Peripatetics, Stoics, amd Epicureans.
Her University drew to itself a host of foreign
students, especially from Rome, and became the
model of the younger foundations of Alexandria,
Antioch, and Tarsus.
Neither the Republic nor the Empire ever fully
applied the subject-relation to Greece, and the
Athenians were always treated >vith special kind-
ness. ' The Romans, after their conquest, finding
them governed by a democracy, maintained their
independence and liberty ' (Strabo, EC L 20). Even
in the Mithridatic war, when an ordinary town
behaving as Athens did would have been razed to
the ground, 'the citizens were pardoned, and, to
this time, the city enjoys liberty, and is respected
by the Romans' {ib.).
The outward aspect of Athens was little altered
in St. Paul's time. Plutarch, who wrote half a cent-
ury later, says in regard to Pericles' public edifices :
' In beauty each of them at once appeared venerable
as soon as it was built ; but even at the present
day the work looks as fresh as ever, for they bloom
with an eternal freshness which defies time, and
seems to make the work instinct with an unfading
spirit of youth ' (Pericles, xiii. ). Cicero conveys the
impression which the city made upon every cul-
tivated mind in his time : ' Yalde me Athenae
delectarunt, urbe dumtaxat et urbis omamento,
. . . sed multum ea philosophia' {E^. ad Att. v.
10). The Philhellenism of the Empire surpassed
that of the Republic, and of all the Roman bene-
factors of Athens the greatest was Hadrian, who
not only completed the temple of Zeus Olympius,
which had remained unfinished for 700 years, but
embellished the city with many other public build-
110
ATHENS
ATONEMENT
ings, and gave the name of Hadrianopolis to a new
quarter.
But, though Athens was outwardly as splendid
as ever, she was inwardly decadent, being, in philo-
sophy, letters, and art, a city living upon tradi-
tions. Her first-rate statesmen and orators, poets
and thinkers, did not outlive the nation's freedom.
' The self-esteem of the Hellenes, well-warranted in itself and
fostered by the attitude of the Roman government . . . called
into life ainontr them a cu^ttw of the past, which was compounded
of a faithful clinging to the memories of greater and happier
times and a quaint reverting of matured civilisation to its in part
very primitive beginnings. . . . The bane of Hellenic existence
lay in the limitation of its sphere ; high ambition lacked a cor-
responding aim, and therefore the low and degrading ambition
flourished luxuriantly ' (Mommsen, op. cit. i. 280, 283).
The decay of Athens was due less to the exhaus-
tion of her creative energy, with the substitution
of imitative for original work, than to the simple
fact that the thought and art of her citizens were
no longer wedded to noble action and brave endur-
ance. Full of aesthetes and dilettantes, loving the
reputation more than the reality of culture, letting
a restless inquisitiveness and shallow scepticism take
the place of high aspiration and moral enthusiasm,
she became blind to the visions, and deaf to the
voices, which redeem individual and collective life
from vanity.
The devouring appetite of the Athenians for
news had long been one of their best-known traits.
Demosthenes (Phil. i. p. 43) pictures them bustling about the
Agora inqiiiring if any newer thing is being told (irvveavdiievoi.
Kara rijf ayopdu el Tt Xeyerat veoJTepov), the tragedy being that,
while they were talking, Philip was acting. Thucydides (iii. 38)
makes Cleon say to them : ' So you are the best men to be im-
posed on with novelty of argument, and to be unwilling to follow
up what has been approved by you, being slaves of every new
paradox, and despisers of what is ordinary. Each of you wishes
above all to be able to speak himself. ... In a word, you are
overpowered by the pleasures of the ear, and are like men sitting
to be amused by rhetoricians rather than deliberating upon
State affairs.'
Among the philosophers of St. Paul's time the
penchant for news took the form of an eagerness
to hear the latest novelty in speculation or religion
which any <nr€pno\6yos (picker-up of scraps of infor-
mation) might have to publish (Ac 17'^'), in order
that they might exercise their nimble wits upon it,
and most probably hold it up to ridicule.
Though St. Paul spoke the language of Hellas,
and acknowledged himself a debtor to the Hellenes
(Ro 1^^), yet Athens does not seem to have
exercised any fascination over him. She did not
beckon him like Rome ; he did not see her in his
dreams, or pray that he might be prospered to
come to her ; he never exclaimed, with a sense of
destiny, ' I must see Athens.' That he ever visited
her at all was apparently the result of an accident.
He was hurried away from Bercea before he had
time to mature his plans of future action, and he
merely waited at Athens for the arrival of his
friends, Silas and Timothy (Ac 17^"- )• To picture
him wandering among temples and porticos, lost in
admiration of works of genius, and 'perhaps wit-
nessing the performance of a play of Euripides,' is
to misunderstand him. He did not spend his
leisure in Athens, any more than Luther m Rome,
in appraising the masterpieces of plastic and dra-
matic art. They were both 'provoked ' * by what
they saw as they passed by. They were consumed
with the prophetic zeal which seeks to replace a
false or imperfect religion with a true and perfect
one. St. Paul, indeed, knew the Hellenic world
too well to imagine that, while the city was 'full
of idols ' (KarelSuXov), its men of culture were given
to idolatry. In their case the worship of the gods
survived only in that cultus of physical beauty to
which innumerable sculptured forms bore silent
* napo^vyoixou. IB often used in the L\X to express a burning
Divine (and prophetic) indignation against idolatry (Hos 8*,
Zee 103).
witness, while such spiritual faith as they still re-
tained found expression rather in altars 'AyvwaTif)
Qev ; to the existence of which Pausanias (I. i. 4)
and Philostratus ( Vit. Apollon. vi. 2) testify (see
Unknown God).
St. Paul's address before the court or council of
Areopagus (q.v.) is a noble attempt to find common
ground with the Athenian philosophers, an ap-
preciation of what was highest in their religion,
an expression of sympathy with their sincere
agnosticism, an appeal to that groping, innate
sense of spiritual realities, that universal instinct
of monotheism, which lead to the true God who is
near to all men, and who, though unseen, is no
longer unknown. Renan suggests that St. Paul
was ' embarrassed ' by all the wonders that met
his eyes in Athens, as if Athene herself had per-
haps cast her spell upon him and made him some-
what doubtful of the Galilsean ; but there is no
sort of foundation for such a fancy. It is certain,
however, that the Apostle had a new experience
of a different kind in Athens. Faced by an
audience half-courteous and half-derisive, he was
first ridiculed and then ignored, when he would
have preferred to be contradicted and persecuted.
Not driven from the city by hostile feeling, but
quitting it of his own accord, too unimportan4
to be noticed, too harmless to be molested, he
departed with a crushing sense of failure, and,
apparently as a consequence, began his mission in
Corinth 'in weakness and fear and much trem-
bling' (1 Co 2^). It is possible that he felt he had
made a mistake. All that he said to the philo-
sophers of Athens was true, but ineffective. It
did little or nothing to storm the enemy's citadel.
In a modern phrase, it was magnificent, but it
was not war. Another power was needed to
humiliate the wise, as well as to end the long reign
of the gods of Greece. It is significant that in
Corinth the Apostle determined — not, indeed, for
the first time, but certainly with a new emphasis
— not to know anything save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified (1 Co 2^*), who was for both Jews
and Hellenes the power of God and the wisdom of
God (P*).
The Athenian synagogue (Ac 17"), in which St.
Paul met some 'devout persons' — a-e^Sfj-evoi, Gen-
tiles more or less influenced by Judaism — was pro-
bably small, for the university city did not attract
his compatriots like Corinth, the seat of commerce.
His reasoning ' in the Agora every day with those
who met him ' naturally recalls those Socratic dis-
putations in the same place, of which Grot« gives
a lively account in his History of Greece (London,
1869, viii. 211 f.). That the address before the
Council of the Areopagus was not entirely fruitless
is proved by the conversion of a man holding so
important an official position as Dionysius the
Areopagite (q.v.).
Literature. — W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, Life
and Epistles of St. Paul, new ed., Ixmdon, 1877, i. 405 f. ; W.
M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen,
London, 1895, p. 237 f. ; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Aqe, Edin-
burgh, 1897, p. 257 f. ; E. Curtius, Gesammelte Abhandlnngen,
Berlin, 1894, ii. 528 f.; A. Mommsen, Athena Christiano;
Leipzig, 1868 ; J. P. MahaSy, (;ri?eifc Life and Thought, London,
1887, and The Silver Age of the Greek World, do. 1906 ; A.
Holm, History of Greece, Eng. tr., London, 18;>4-9S.
James Strahan.
ATONEMENT.— Although found only once in
the NT (Ko 5") and there in the AV alone, this
word has become the elect symbol in theological
thought to indicate the doctrine in the Apostolic
Church which placed the death of Christ in some
form of causative connexion with the forgiveness
of sins and with the restoration of men to favour
and fellowship with God. The development of a
doctrine of atonement in the NT is almost entirely
the product of the experience and thought of the
ATOXEilEXT
ATONEMENT
111
Apostolic Church. It moved along two lines ;
these were neither divergent nor exactly parallel,
nor is it probable that one was precisely supple-
mentary to the other ; they are best considered as
converging towards an ultimate point of unity in
which Godward and manward aspects are merged.
The J have been contrasted as objective and sub-
jective, juridical and ethical, sul»titutionary and
mystical. They correspond also to two definitions
of'the word itself. Originally and etymologically i
the word means ' at-one-ment ' ; it is a synonym ■
for ' reconciliation ' as an accomplished fact. His- ;
torically its usa^ signifies ' a satisfaction or I
reparation made by giving an equivalent for aii j
injury, or by doing or suffering that which is ,
received in satisfaction for an offence or injury'
(Imperial Diet., s.v.). Here its synonym is
'expiation' as a means to reconciliation. Theo-
logically it has been chiefly used in this latter
sense, to indicate ' the expiation made by the
obedience and suffering death of Christ to mark
the relation of God to sin in the processes of human
redemption.' A decided modem tendency is to
return to the more original use of the word. It
will probably be seen that both uses are required
to state the rullness of the apostolic doctrine.
The literature preserved in the NT witnesses to
the undoubted fact that the Apostolic Church had
very early established a close connexion between
the' death of Jesus the Messiah and the redemp-
tion of men from their sins. Within seven years
of His death — or probably considerably less — a
' doctrine of the cross ' was freely and authorita-
tively preached in the Christian community ; it
appears to have been distinctly Pauline in general
character ; it held a primary place in the apostolic
preaching ; it was declared to be the fulfilment of
the OT Scripture ; it was set forth as the essence
of tlie gospel, and was definitely referred to the
teaching of Jesus for its ultimate authority. This
much seems to be implied in what is probably the
earliest testimony, if regard be had to the date of
the writings in which it occurs, concerning the
apostolic doctrine of the atonement. It is St. Paul's
confident assertion, ' I delivered unto yon first of
all that which also I received, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the scriptures ' (1 Co 15^).
This is undoubtedly typical of the teaching accepted
by the primitive Church ; whatever St. Paul's
differences with other apostolic teachers on other
matters may have been, agreement seems to be
found here. The confidence of this common wit-
ness so early in the Apostolic Church raises many
interesting questions, some of which must be con-
sidered. To what extent can we find the more
elaborate Pauline doctrine, which we shall find
elsewhere in his writings, presented in such frag-
ments of the teaching of the first Christians as we
possess? How far is the apostolic interpretation
of Christ's death sustained by appeal to the experi-
ence and teaching of Jesus Himself? By what
means had the swift transition been made by the
apostolic teachers themselves from the state of
mind concerning the death of Jesus which is pre-
sented in the Synoptic Gospels to the beliefs
exhibited in their preaching in the Acts? How
was the unconcealed dismay of a bewildering dis-
appointment changed into a glorjlng? It is clear
from the contents of the Synoptic Gospels that,
whatever the confusion and distress in the minds
of His disciples which immediately followed the
death of Christ, they were already in possession of
memories of His teaching which lay comparatively
dormant until they were awakened into vigorous
activity by subsequent events and experiences ;
these, together with the facts of their Lord's life
and the incidents of His death, may be spoken
of as the sources of the apostolic doctrine of the
atonement, as to its substance. For the forms
into which it was cast we mast look to the religious
conceptions — legal, sacrificial, ethical, and eschato-
logical — which constituted their world of theologi-
cal ideas, and the background against which was
set the teaching of Jesus.
I. Sources.— ±. In the Synoptic Gospels.— Briefly
summarized these are: (1) The intense and con-
sistent ethical interpretation that Jesus gave to
the Elingdom He came to establish, and to the
conception of the salvation He taught and pro-
mised as the sign of its establishment in the indi-
vidual soul and in the social order. It was no
mere change of status ; it was a becoming in
ethical and spiritual character sons of God in like-
ness and obedience ; it was actual release from the
selfishness of the unfilial and unbrotherly life, and
access into living communion in holy love with His
Gfod and Father.
(2) The Baptism and the Temptation of Jesus,
which initiated Him into the course of His public
ministry, were events associated in the minds of
those who preserved the Synoptic tradition with
the voice from heaven, ' Thou art my beloved Son ;
in thee I am well pleased ' (Lk 3**). Apparently
the consciousness of Jesus as He realized His
vocation, judging from what He afterwards taught
His disciples of its inner meaning, was aware of
this combination of Ps 2" with Is 42"^ — the Son of
Grod as King, and the suffering Servant of the Lord.
The inference Denney draws, though obviously
open to keen criticism from the eschatological
school, has a suggestive value : the Messianic con-
sciousness of Jesus from the beginning was one
with the consciousness of the suffering Servant;
He combined kingship and service in suffering from
the first. * This finds support in the accounts of
the Temptation, which was supremely a tempta-
tion to avoid suffering by choosmg the easy way.
(3) All the Sj-noptics assure us that, when Jesus
received the first full recognition of Messiahship
from His disciples. He instantly met it by the open
confession that His suffering and death were a
necessity. ' The Son of Man must {bet) suffer —
mu3t go up to Jerusalem and be killed ' (Mk 8",
Mt 1621, Lk 9^). Henceforth His constant subject
of instruction was concerning His death, which,
when ' the Son of Man was risen from the dead,'
His disciples were to interpret. The necessity
associated with His death was not merely the
inevitable sequence of His loyalty to His ideal of
righteousness in face of the opposition of His
enemies. It was that, but it was more. In the
career of one such as Jesus the violent and unjust
death to which He was mo\ing could not be separ-
ated in thought from the Father's will to which
He was so exquisitely sensitive, and which He
came perfectly to fulfil. What was in His Father's
will was appointed and could not be the mere
drift of circumstances into which He was cast and
from which the Divine purpose was absent. The
necessity was inward, and identical with the will
of God as expressed in Scripture ; to His disciples
it was incomprehensible.
(4) Jesus described His death as for others and
as voluntarily endured. Definite terms are selected
in which the meaning more than the fact of the
death is set forth. ' The Son of Man came ... to
minister, and to give his life a ransom (Xw-por) for
many ' (Mk 10**). Whether we approach the mean-
ing of this term (see Raxsom) from Christ's con-
ception of His life-work as a whole, or by closer
exegetical or historical study of the word itself, it
is clear that the giving of His life was to Jesus
much more than the normal experience of dying ;
it was a dying which was to issue in largeness and
freedom oi life for mankind — it was probably even
» Death irfCkritt,lAL
112
ATONEMENT
ATONEMENT
more than 'on behalf of,' 'in the service of; it
was ' instead of ' {dvrl) men. From what He is to
release them, however, is not definitely stated.
The objection often made that the term is an
indication of Pauline influence on Mark is part of
the general problem of Paulinism in the Gospels,
too large for discussion here. The saying is in
perfect harmony with its setting.
(5) The other selected term is connected with
the critically difficult passages recording the in-
stitution of the Supper. ' This is my blood of the
covenant [possibly the 'new' covenant] which is
shed for many unto remission of sins' (Mt 26^).
Here the purpose or ground of the death of Jesus
is set forth. It is only just to say that Matthew
alone makes the reference to ' remission of sins.'
The earliest account of the Supper — St. Paul's
(1 Co 1123-26) — omits this reference ; he is followed
by Mark and Luke. Questions also turn on the
sacrificial significance of 'blood of the covenant.'
The reference is obviously to the solemn ratifica-
tion by blood-sprinkling of the covenant of Sinai
(Ex 24*). Whether this was strictly sacrificial
blood with expiatory value is debated. Robertson
Smith * and Driver f niay both be quoted in favour
of the view that ' sacrificial blood was universally
associated with propitiatory power.' J Whilst too
much should not be built upon a single authority
for the precise Avord of Jesus, the criticism does
not touch the value of the citation as an index to
the mind of the Apostolic Church.
(6) The awful isolation of the cry of Jesus on
the cross, ' My God, my God, why nast thou for-
saken me?' (Mk 15**) cannot easily be separated
in the experience of the sinless Son of God from
some mysterious connexion with the sin He clearly
came to deal with by His death. It is at least
capable of the suggestion that for a time His con-
sciousness had lost the sense of God's presence,
whose unbroken continuity had hitherto oeen the
ethical and spiritual certainty of His spirit.
To complete the material provided for the apos-
tolic doctrine in the Synoptics there should be
added to the points already mentioned the minute-
ness and wealth of detail — quite without parallel
in the presentation of other important features of
His life — with which the death of Jesus is recorded,
and also the extent to which the writers insist
upon the event as a fulfilment of the OT Scriptures.
We have, therefore, in the Synoptics, whatever
view may be taken of the position largely held,
that they were the issue of ' the productive activity '
of the early Church under the stimulating influence
of redemptive experiences attributed to the death
of Christ, at least the starting-point of the ethical
and juridical views of the atonement subsequently
developed in the primitive community ; they lack
doctrinal definiteness, and distinctly favour the
ethical more than the legal view of tlie process
of redemption ; they are also accompanied oy evi-
dences that the disciples listened unintelligently
or with reluctant acquiescence to the words of
Jesus concerning His death. This last feature
indicates the dependence of the apostolic doctrine
upon another source.
2. The apostolic experience. — The doctrine of
atonement arose out of the Christian experience ;
it was the issue of a new religious feeling rather
than a condition of faith. The springs of this new
spiritual emotion must be sought, if the doctrine
which is its result in the Apostolic Church is to
be rightly appreciated. In tnis way also we shall
provide a statement of the transition from the
desolation wrought by the death of Jesus in the
hopes of His followers to the triumphant temper
• Rel. S«m.2, London, 1894, p. 319 f.
t HDB, art. ' Propitiation,' iv. 182.
X Denney, Death of Christ, 53.
and abounding joy of the primitive faith and
preaching. The elements of this experience are :
(1) The Resurrection. — This is the starting-point
of the new experience : the ultimate root of the
apostolic doctrme of atonement was the presence
or the Kisen Christ in the consciousness of the
primitive Christian community ; for it was the
secret of the restoration and enrichment of per-
sonal faith, the re-creation of the corporate con-
fidence of the community, which ' was begotten
again unto a living hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead' (1 P 1*). It was
also the revealing light that brought meaning into
the mystery of His death. Now and for always
these two — death and resurrection — stood together.
When the apostles stated the one, they implied
the other ; the Resurrection was the great theme
of the apostolic preaching because it interpreted
the significance of the Death. Both were closely
and instinctively connected with the forgiveness
of sins : ' The God of our fathers raised up Jesus,
whom ye slew, hanging him upon a tree. Him
did Goa exalt with his right hand to be a Prince
and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and
remission of sins ' (Ac 5*"-)- The redeeming virtue
issues from the Death .and Resurrection as from a
common source, though the cross ultimately be-
came its chosen symbol. Beginning to search the
Scriptures to discover whether death had a place
in the proplietic presentation of the Messiah, the
disciples were surprised into the apprehension of
the meaning of the words of Jesus spoken whilst
He was yet with them ; they thus came to see
that the Death was only the shadow side of an
experience by which He passed to the exaltation
and authority of His redeeming work ; the catas-
trophe was seen to have a place in the moral
order of God, and the scandal of the cross was
transfigured into the glory of the Divine purpose
of redemption. This experience was followed by —
(2) The Great Commission. — The terms of this
are influential for discerning the apostolic doctrine.
As they appear in Mt. (28'9'-) and in Mk. (16'"-)
associated with baptism, which in the primitive
Church was always connected with remission of
sins, they are suggestive, but not free from criti-
cal difficulties. As they appear in Lk. (24'"''^'),
from an excellent source, thej- have their chief
significance ; they are there bound up with ' my
words which 1 spake unto you while I was yet
with you'; with the fulfilling of the Scriptures
concerning the necessity that ' tlie Christ should
sufler and rise again from the dead the third day ;
and that repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in his name' ; and especially with
the opening of the minds of those who were to be
' witnesses of these things ' that they might under-
stand them. The historicity of this as conveying
the experience and convictions of tlie Apostolic
Church is strong, and it atlords exactly the link
needed to unite what we iind in the Synoptics
with what appears as preaching and teaching in
the primitive society. The illumination of the
apostolic mind for its construction of a doctrine of
atonement resulting from the Resurrection and the
Great Commission was perfected by the experi-
ences of —
(3) Pentecost. — The coming to abide with them
of the Holy Spirit, 'the promise of the Fatlier'
(Ac 1*), ' the Spirit of Christ,' was for the Apostolic
Church the ultimate certainty of guidance into
all the truth, and the supreme authority for its
adequate utterance. The work of the Spirit as
Jesus had defined it was : ' He shall take of mine
and shall declare it unto you' (Jn 16'*). To the
fullness of His ministry the Apostolic Church
owed the interpretation of the cross, the inspira-
tion of its preaching, the construction of its doc-
ATOXEMENT
ATONEMENT
113
trine, and especially the moral and spiritual results
in the life of the individual and of the community
which were the living verification of its power,
and also the justification of the moral grounds on
which the declaration and experience of remission
of sins were based. The meaning of the words of
Jesus is understood through the worksof His Spirit ;
the significance of His death can be apprehended
onlv in the light of the experience it creates.
Only so can an adequate soteriology be reached.
From first to last the apostolic doctrine of the
atonement is the effort to interpret this experience
in the relations in which it was conceived to stand
to the Christian conceptions of God and man.
II. The doctrise preached. — l. In the Acts
of the Apostles. — The early chapters of the Acts
contain the one partuiclar account of the earliest
form the doctrine of atonement took in the Apos-
tolic Church ; for it is generally admitted that
some source of considerable value underlies the
speeches of Peter. Both their christology and
soteriology are primitive in type — it is surely not the
doctrine of the 2nd century. In this account the
suli'erings and death of Jesus the Messiah have a
fundamental place. The cross is now more than
a scandal ; the ' word of the cross ' is more than
an apologetic device for getting over the difficul-
ties of accepting a cruciJtied Messiah. Although
the great feature of the apostolic preaching is
not the explanation of the death of Christ in re-
lation to the remission of sins, but its power in
spiritual renewal, it contains much which enables
ns to perceive how the primitive community was
taught to regard it. Stmimarized, this is — (I)
The death of Christ was a Divine necessity, ap-
pointed by God's counsel and foreknowledge. It
was a crime whose issue God thwarted for His
redeeming purpose (Ac 2^ 3^). — <2) Jesus as the
Messiah is identified with the suffering Servant of
the Lord (4-'' 8^"^). This conception, abhorrent
to the Jewish mind and a sufficient ground for
rejecting the Messianic claims of Jesus, is the
assertion of the vicarious principle of the righteous
one suffering for the unrighteous many and also
the sign of a Divine fellowship. — (3) The great
gift of the gospel — remission of sins — is set in
direct relation to the crucified Jesus (2* 3^" 5"
10°). The prominence given to this in every
sermon suggests that this connexion cannot be
considered accidental. — (4) Reference to the fre-
quent observance of the Lord's Supper (2**).
When it is remembered that nothing in the Apos-
tolic Church is more primitive than the sacra-
ments, and that both of them bear implications
of Christ's relation to the remission of sins, this
reference is significant. — (5) Christ's death is not
distinctly represented as the ground of forgiveness,
by setting forth the Messiah's death as a satisfac-
tion for sin or as a substitute for sin's penalty. It
is set forth as a motive to repentance and a means
of turning men away from sin, but its saving
value L-5 not more closely defined. It is certain,
however, that the early Apostolic Church attached
a saving significance to the death of Christ.
2. In 1 Peter.— It is usual to associate with the
indications of the doctrine in the early chapters of
Acts the constructive tendencies found in 1 Peter.
The Epistle of James is too uncertain in its date
and authority, and its aim is too purely practical
to warrant appeal to it on the apostolic doctrine
of atonement. Indeed, 1 Peter is far from being
free from difficulty when used for this purpose.
The signs of Pauline influence are too strong for
its use as a source of primitive Christian ideas with-
out some hesitarion. StiU, the fact that St. Paul
and St. Peter are represented as in harmony on the
significance of the redemptive work of Christ, when
they are manifestly at variance in other important
VOL. I. — 8
factors of the primitive faith, is not without its
value ; it is possible also that their similarities may
be accounted for by their common loyalty to the
accepted Christian tradition. Taken as it stands,
St. Peter's contribution may be epitomized thus : (1)
Whilst the suffering death of Christ holds, as else-
where in apostolic writings, the central place, its
strongest appeal is made in regard to the moral
quality of the sufferings. The patience and inno-
cence of the Sufferer for righteousness' sake control
its theological presentation. The exhortation to
suffer Avith Christ by expressing His spirit in the
life of discipleship obviously emphasizes the ethical
appeal of His example, but this is based upon a
due appreciation of His sufferings on our behalf.
Quite a procession of theological ideas thus emerges.
--<2) The covenant idea with its sacrificial implica-
tion in ' sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ ' is
present (1*), possibly reminiscent of the words at
the Supper.— {3) Ransomed ' with precious blood,
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,
even the blood of Christ' (1"), combines the idea of
the sacrificial lamb with possibly an echo of the
' ransom ' of Mk 10*. — (4) The close connexion of
Christ who 'suffered for vou, leaving you an
example, that ye should follow his steps,' and its
ethical appeal, with the clear interpretation of the
Passion as a sin-bearing, 'who his own self bare
our sins in hb body upon the tree' {2'*), and its
profound moral issues, ' that we having died, unto
sins, might live unto righteousness ; by whose
stripes ye were healed ' — shows how intimately
what are termed the objective and subjective con-
ceptions of the atonement are associated in the
writer's thought ; the end is moral and dominates
the means, but the means are clearly substitution-
ary, to the extent that the obligations to righteous-
ness involved in 'our sins' are assumed by the
sinless Lamb of God. — ^5) The writer once again
glides with simple ease and familiarity from the
torce of the example of Christ to the aoiding fact
of His sin-bearing (3^*) : ' Because Christ also
suffered for sins once (axo^, 'once for aU'), the
righteous for (i-x^p) the unrighteous, that He might
bring us to God.' Access to God is regarded as a
high privilege obtained by a great self-surrender
and not as a native right to be taken for granted.
Of course these ideas, which the writer of 1 Peter
discusses in this apparently incidental way, are
closely akin to those of the righteousness by faith
and ethical obedience 'in Christ' which St. Paul
discusses so fully and of set purpose in Ro 3 and 6
respectively, and this may suggest his influence.
If so, then the evidence of 1 Peter will fall into the
later Pauline period of apostolic doctrine, which
we shall now consider at length ; but that would
not depreciate its value as a witness to the faith of
j the Apostolic Church in its wider range.
III. The doctrise developed.—!. The
Pauline type. — It will be obvious to any reader of
the literature of the Apostolic Church that its
doctrine of atonement was the subject of consider-
able development in form. In tracing this the
Pauline writings must be our main source. Of all
NT writers, St. Paul goes into the greatest detail
and has most deliberately and continually reflected
upon this subject. Indeed, the abundance of the
material he provides is embarrassing to any one
seeking a unijfied doctrine. In St. Paul we find for
the first time a philosophy of the death of Christ
in relation to the forgiveness of sins, which is ulti-
mately based upon an anaij'sis of the Divine
attributes and their place in the interpretation of
the doctrine of the cross. At the same time the
emphasis he lays upon this is regarded by him as
in accordance with the belief and teaching of the
primitive community ; it is the centre of his gospel
and theirs. It may be assnmed, therefore, that
114
ATOITEMENT
ATONEMENT
we are as likely to leam from him as from any
other source Avnat was the inner meaning of the
Erimitive Christian belief. He declared that what
e preached concerning the dying of Christ for our
sins according to the Scriptures he * received * (1 Co
15'). Whilst it is possible that this statement finds
a fuller definition m his further assertion, ' Neither
did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but
it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ '
(Gal V), it seems clear that St. Paul's doctrine
rested upon the common apostolic data given in (1)
the words of Jesus respecting the necessity of His
death on man's behalf ; (2) the very early Christian
idea that it was included in the Divine purpose ; (3)
the conception of the vicarious sufferings of the
righteous and their merit founded on Is 53 which
had been elaborated in later Jewish thought.*
Although it seems clear that this late Jewish doc-
trine was a source of St. Paul's theory, it under-
went partial transformation at his hands ; it was
ethicized ; moreover, it was probably the vicarious
idea, as it was associated witii the prophetic rather
than with the priestly or legal conceptions, that he
appropriated ; it was not the literal legal substitu-
tion and transfer, but the vicariousness of a real
experience in which the righteous bear upon their
hearts the woes and sins of the sinful, t
(1) St. Paul's early preaching. — The earliest
indication of St. Paul's view of atonement would
naturally be sought in his preaching during the
fifteen or more years before he wrote the letters in
which he sets forth more deliberately and with ob-
vious carefulness his matured doctrinal judgments.
The author of the Acts gives little light on St.
Paul's method of setting out his interpretation of
the death of Christ in his discourses ; now he was
accustomed to place it in relation to forgiveness of
.sin in his earliest preaching does not definitely
appear. The discourse at Antioch in Pisidia may
illustrate the character of his reference to it :
' through this man is preached unto you forgive-
ness of sins' (Ac 13^) ; out nothing is defined more
closely. To the Ephesian elders at Miletus he
speaks about ' the Church of God, which he pur-
chased with his ovna blood ' (20^). St. Paul himself
fives us the only valuable account of his preaching.
ts dominant topic was the crucifixion — 'the
preaching of the cross' (1 Co 1^'); *I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ
and him crucified ' (2^). No explanation is given.
But the fact that he made the cross supreme when
it was regarded as a direct antagonism and provocat-
ive by those he sought to win — a scandal to Jews
and foolishness to the Gentiles — implies that it was
associated Avith an interpretation that made it
something different from a martyrdom. Such a
martyrdom neither Jew nor Greek would have
regarded with the scorn they exhibited for the
interpretation St. Paul gave them in order to meet
their challenge for explanation.
(2) The Pauline Epistles. — On the whole, St. Paul's
preaching carries us no further towards a know-
ledge of any reasoned doctrine of atonement than
the position reached in the preaching of his fellow-
apostles — that ' Christ died for our sins according
to the Scriptures.' Of course this is in itself a vast
doctrinal implication. Still, for the structure of
the Pauline doctrine we are shut up to his teach-
ing in his Epistles. In his earliest writings —
the Thessalonian Epistles — we practically get no
further towards his doctrine than in his preaching,
except perhaps that the idea emerges that in some
way Christ identifies Himself with our evil that
He may identify us with Himself in His own good
(1 Th 5"'-). We meet the organized body or his
* Cf. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, 59, 122.
t Cf. O. A. Smith, Mod. Crit. and Preaching of OT, London,
1901, p. 120 fl.
doctrine in the well-authenticated group of hia
writings to the Galatians, Romans, and Corinth-
ians, with a supplementary view in the Imprison-
ment Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians.
We may differentiate this teaching, but it has
throughout most important underlying principles
in common. It falls conveniently into five divisions
— Atonement and Law ; Atonement and Righteous-
ness ; Atonement and Personality ; Atonement
and Newness of Life; Atonement and the Universe.
In briefly reviewing these, it should be remembered
that according to St. Paul the love of God is the
first and last motive of redemption, and that none
of the atoning processes is separable from the full
activities of the Divine Personality.
(a) Atonement and Law. — This is the form iii
which St. Paul construes his doctrine in the Galatian
Epistle, which deals more exclusively than any
other NT document with the significance of the
death of Christ. ' Christ redeemed us from the
curse of the law, having become a curse for {vv^p)
us ; for it is written. Cursed is every one that
hangeth upon a tree' (Gal 3^'). The conception
here is distinctly juridical ; whether it is also penal
will depend upon the definition of ' penal.' If
punishment implies guilt, the sufferings of Christ
were not strictly penal, for He is always set forth
as guiltless ; moreover, guilt cannot be transferred
as guilt. His sufferings did, in St. Paul's judgment,
serve the end of punishment ; thev were representa-
tively penal ; Christ took the place of the guilty
as far as it involved penal consequences ; for special
emphasis is laid upon the instrument of death — the
cross — and upon its curse, though there seems
nothing to justify the attributing to Christ of the
position suggested by the allusion to Dt 21''^ of one
' accursed of God ' which has at times been pressed
by expositors. That He endured the consequences
of sucn a position and in this sense was ' made a
curse on our behalf ' is the Apostle's application of
it. This endurance is regarded as the recognition
of the just requirement of the law of God — not the
ceremonial law alone, but also the moral demands
arising out of God's holy and righteous nature,
and especially those which empirically St. Paul
had put to the test in vain in his seeking after
personal righteousness. St. Paul does not deny
the authority of this law ; he asserts it, but the
fact that it was added to the promise for ' the sake
of transgression ' resulted in its making men sinful ;
it brought a curse : ' Cursed is every one which con-
tinueth not in all things that are written in the
book of the law, to do them ' (3'"). With this curse
in its consequences Christ identifies Himself, as in
the Apostle's thought He had identified Himself
with mankind in being 'bom of a woman, born
under the law' (4*). By thus making Himself
absolutely one with those under ban, absorbing
into Himself all that it meant, He removed the
obstacle to forgiveness in the righteous attitude of
God towards sin which could not be overcome until
sin had been virtually punished. It was thus that
the way was opened for man to identify himself by
personal faith and living experience with Christ s
death, so that St. Paul was justified in saying :
' For I through the law died unto the law, that I
might live unto God. I have been crucified with
Christ ; yet I live ; and yet no longer I, but Christ
livethinme'(2'»'-).
This conception of St. Paul's adds the ethical
idea of atonement to the juridical, which other
passages reiterate (5^" 6"). It is, however, essenti-
ally Pauline to regard the ethical as depending
for its possibility and efficacy in experience upon
the juridical ; othervrise 'Christ died for nought.'
God must vindicate His law so that He may
justly forgive ; the operation of grace is connected
I with the assertion of^ justice. But ultimately St.
ATONEMENT
ATONEMENT
115
Paul's conception really transcends these contrasts ;
for it is God Himself who in His love provides
the way to be both just and gracious ; He, not
another, provides the satisfaction. In the last
analysis God is presented as removing His own
obstacles to forgiveness ; the death in which His
righteous law is exhibited is the provision of His
antecedent love ; the commending of His love is
the prior purpose resulting in Christ being ' made a
curse on our behalf.'* Consequently the whole
Christian life is resolved into a response to God's
love exhibited in the death of His Son ; it does
away with the hindrance to forgiveness in God's
law,' and at the same time inspires the faith which
conducts into ethical conformity to Christ in man's
experience.
(b) Atonement and Rightemtsness. — This is dealt
with exhaustively in the Epistle to the Romans ;
the great question the Epistle discusses is — How
sliall a sinful man be righteous with God ? and the
answer is — By receiving ' a righteousness of God '
which is 'revealed from faith to faith.' In the
interpretation of this answer we reach the heart
of the apostolic doctrine, and upon it the great
bulk of later historical discussions has turned.
For more than the briefest hints here given of the
points of exegesis involved, reference should be
made to commentaries on the Epistle. St. Paul
distinctly states the two sides of the meaning
of atonement referred to in the beginning of this
article. But his interest is primarily absorbed
by the efl&cient cause of at-one-ment as the ideal
end, viz. the atonement, the Divine provision of
the satisfaction which the Divine righteousness
requires to be exhibited in order that forgiveness
of sins may be bestowed and a restoration of
fellowship between God and man achieved. To
this he devotes his utmost strength ; he regards
it as primary in the order of thought as well as in
the redemptive process. Still he is nobly loyal to
both conceptions, if, indeed, they were for him
really two ; for he thinks of the unity of the pro-
cess ^vith the end as exhibiting the perfectness of
the Divine purpose of grace. This point will be
discussed later. Meanwhile it must be pointed out
that the strong divergencies revealed in the inter-
pretation of the apostolic doctrine have frequently
resulted from regarding one or other of these
phases of the Pauline doctrine as in itself adequate
to explain the whole. Ethical theories have sought
to ignore the juridical means ; juridical theories
have often stopped short of the ethical end. The
Pauline doctrine does neither. Both are met in
the conception, essential to his doctrine, of the
ideal and actual identification of Christ \vith man
in his sin, and of man with Christ in newness of
life ; and also in the identification of both mth
God in His unchanging righteousness and in His
eternal love ; for St. Paul with ceaseless loyalty
carries all the processes of redemption in time up
to the initiative and executive of the Divine pur-
pose.
Righteousness is the starting-point of his discus-
sion ; it is seen in ' the wrath of God revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous-
ness of men' (Ro 1^). God can never be at
peace vnth sin. Law brings no righteousness ; ' by
the law is the knowledge of sin' (^). All have
sinned ; not one is righteous ; the necessity for a
righteousness apart from the law is obvious.
The provision of this, ' even the righteousness of
God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them
that believe ' (3^), is the Divine atonement. This
implies, of course, in its completion a great moral
and spiritual change in the nature and character
of those who ' have received the atonement ' ; that
* Cl. P. Wemle, Anfange umertr Reliffion, Tabingen, 1901,
p. 146 ; Stevens, Ckrittian Doctrine of Salration, 67.
end does not yet receive St. Paul's attention ; his
mind is preoccupied with the means. He is not even
at present intent on demonstrating the necessity
of this ethical transformation ; he is in subjection
to the arresting fact that all ungodliness and un-
righteousness of men was exposed to the Divine
wrath, and is constrained to snow how the wrath
was withheld. This was not primarily to be son^t
in the measure in which men might be arrested oy
the fact and cease to sin ; they must and would do
that in proportion as they received the atonement.
But for the time being St. Paul is confining his
thought entirely to the ' objective ' work of Christ
in the atonement, whereby was provided and set
forth the means by which the ' subjective ' work of
Christ in personal union with the believing soul
might be possible ; indeed, in some respects it had
been actual also in the past, for sins had already
been remitted by God. ' Being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus : whom God set forth to be a propitiation,
through faith, by his blood, to show his righteous-
ness, because of the passing over of the sins done
aforetime, in the forbearance of God ; for the
showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present
season : that he might himself be just, and the
justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus ' {3***-).
Thus St. Paul conceived the method of deliver-
ance from the wrath of God which was inevitable in
the presence of unrighteousness ; it is an objective
work and is in response to faith, however fuU of
personal renewal in righteousness its ethical impli-
cations may eventually become ; for the destrucrion
of sin and the gift of life are regarded as depending
upon a free bestowal on sinners of a righteousness
of God. The interpretation of this crucial passage
and its context depends upon the meaning assigned
to the terms ' righteousness of God ' and ' propitia-
tion.' The idea expressed in the former term
occupies the central place in St. Paul's conception
of atonement. Righteousness was hLs passion ; its
quest the summum boniim of his life; 'he had
sought it long in vain, and when at length he found
it he gave to it a name expressive of its infinite
worth to his heart: the righteousness of God.'*
To this title — * a righteousness of God ' — he firmly
adheres ; it is distinctive ; to him it is something
belonging to the Christian man, yet it is not his
personal righteousness of character ; he receives it.
It also belongs to God, but it is not His personal
righteousness which is imparted to the believer.
St. Paul's conceprion of it does not occur in the
Gospels, where the term stands for tJie righteous-
ness of which God is the centre, which is His
essential attribute. The nearest approach to the
Pauline sense in the teaching of Jesus is the grace
of God in the free pardon of sin. In St. Paul,
righteousness is a ' gift ' from God to him who
believes in Christ. He is dealt with as righteous.
To regard the righteousness of GJod as essentially
self-imparting, taking hold of human lives and
filling them with its Divine energies, without any
reference to the problem sin has created, is not
Pauline. To St. Paul, as well as to all XT teaching,
God's righteousness was the affluent, overflowing
source of all the goodness in the world, but he felt
that sin made a ditference to God ; it was sin against
His righteousness ; and His righteousness had to
be vindicated against it ; it comd not ignore it.
Any view which failed to appreciate this problem
would miss the characteristic solution that bt. Paul
unceasingly presents in the ' propitiation ' in the
blood of Christ, 'whom God had set forth to show
his righteousness in passing over sins done afore-
time.' Ritschl's view, that always in St. Paul the
righteousness of God means the mode of procedure
which is consistent with God's having the salva-
* Bmce, St. PauTi Conception of CArutimity, 144.
116
ATONEMENT
ATONEMENT
tion of believers as His end,* overlooks the emphatic
contention of the A])ostle, that it is the ungodly to
M'hom God is gracious rather than the faitliful
within the covenant privilege ; this latter is the
class referred to in the Psalms and Second Isaiah,
to whom God exhibited His righteousness in pres-
ence of the wrongs done them by their enemies.
Ritschl's conception is an attractive presentation of
the meaning of the term in other relations, but it
is irrelevant to St. Paul's distinctive meaning. The
suggestive view of the term expounded by Seeberg
in Der Tod Christi, that the righteousness of God
means simply His moral activity in harmony with
His true character, the norm of which is that He
should institute and maintain fellowship with men ;
that if He did not do so He would not be righteous
and would fail to act in His proper character, leaves
unanswered in any distinctive Pauline fashion the
question what means God takes to secure fellowship
with sinful men so that He may act towards the
ungodly in a way which does justice to Himself.
St. Paul does not leave the presentation of Christ
as a means by which this fellowship may be
instituted, without a much closer definition ; he
clearly relates it to the vicarious principle lying for
him in his elect word ' propitiation,' whether it be
taken as a strictly sacrificial term or not (see, in
addition, art. Propitiation).
Denney, who discusses these views at Iength,t
maintains that the righteousness of God has not
the same meaning throughout this passage (S^'*-) ;
it has ' in one place — say in v.^ — the half-technical
sense which belongs to it as a summary of St.
Paul's gospel ; and in another — say in \.^ — the
larger and more general sense which might belong
to it elsewhere in Scripture as a synonym for God's
character, or at least for one of His essential at-
tributes.' But these two views are not unrelated ;
they cannot be discussed apart ; we see them har-
monized as complements in the true meaning of
'propitiation.' Christ is set forth by God as a
propitiation to exhibit their unity and consistency
with each other. When the Pauline view of ' pro-
pitiation,' as 'relative to some problem created by
sin for a God who would justify sinners,' is accepted
in a substitutionary sense and the argument of the
passage reaches its climax, the two senses of the
righteousness of God in it ' have sifted themselves
out, so to speak, and stand distinctly side by side.' J
God is the Just in His own character ; and at the
same time, in providing a righteousness of God
through faith, which stands to the good of the
believing sinner. He is the Justifier. That both
these meanings are present in atonement and are
there liarmonized with one another, is what St.
Paul seeks to bring out.
St. Paul would show God righteous in His
forbearance in 'the passing over of sins done
aforetime.' But, as he defines the effects of the
pronitiation, he leaves the wrath of God in the
background ; the forbearance of God becomes the
centre of his thought ; that is a gracious fact and
must be accounted for. Why has God never dealt
with sinful men according to their sins ? He has
always been slow to anger and of great kindness, a
gracious God and merciful ; sins done aforetime were
passed over. Does the doing of this impugn His
righteousness ? St. Paul finds his apology for, and
explanation of, the universal graciousness of God in
the propitiation which He has set forth in Clirist
by His blood. God cannot be charged with moral
indifference because He has always been God, the
Saviour. Sin has never been a trivial matter ; any
omission to mark it by inflicting its full penal con-
sequences has been due to forbearance, which now
in the propitiation justifies itself to His righteous-
• Reehtfertigung und Versohnung, ii. 117.
t Death of Christ, 164 S. J lb. 165.
ness. If, apart from this, God had invested with
privilege those whose sin deserved the manifesta-
tion of His wrath, He would, St. Paul thinks, have
suppressed His righteousness. To show the Justi-
fier, whether ' in respect of sins done aforetime ' or
' at this present season,' to be Himself just, St. Paul
holds the setting forth of His righteousness by the
propitiation in the blood of Christ to be necessary.
Christ's death, therefore, was something more than
a great ethical appeal of the love of God in sufier-
ing for sin to the heart and conscience of men ; it
had been rendered necessary by the remission of
sins in ages befoie the Advent, as well as to justify
the readiness and desire of God to remit the sins of
any man who ' at this present season ' • hath faith
in Jesus.'
This exaltation of the forbearance of God as the
ultimate explanation of the propitiation is intended
to make known the ultimate fact that the wrath of
God against sin lies within the supreme constraint
of the love of God — ' His own love' which He com-
mendeth toward us in that while we were yet sinners
Christ died for us (S**^-)- Christ was set forth by God
Himself ; His love provided the propitiation ; there
was no constraint upon Christ. He gave Himself up
for us ; there was no conflict between the Divine
wrath and the Divine love ; they were reconciled in
God, and their reconciliation set forth in the pro-
pitiation in the blood of Christ. The wrath is tlie
expression and minister of the love ; mere self-con-
sideration is unknown in the Divine activity. More-
over, where the love has prevailed, the wrath fails,
'While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us ; much
more then being now justified in his blood shall we
be saved through him from the wrath. For if while
we were enemies we were reconciled to God through
the death of his Son, much more being reconciled,
shall we be saved by his life' (5^^'). The achieve-
ment of redemption in its ethical value proceeds
from the death of Christ as the supreme demonstra-
tion of the Divine love, by evoking in sinful souls
the response of a personal surrender to the newness
of life to which it constrains. This may introduce
the classical passage in St. Paul's writings on the
doctrine of atonement. 'AH things are of God,
who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ,
and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation ; to
wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself, not reckoning unto them their tres-
passes, and having committed unto us the word of
reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore on
behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by
us ; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye
reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin he made
to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the
righteousness of God in him' (2 Co 5'**^). The
Pauline doctrine receives its most satisfying and
probably its most permanent interpretation in the
restoration of acceptable personal relations between
God and man, and the perfecting of these in a
fellowship of holy love.
{c) Atonement and Personality. — Love, the perfect
expression of the Divine Personality, constrained
God to identify Himself in Christ with us, and con-
strains us to identify ourselves in Christ with God.
Personality^ finds its perfection in fellowship ; self-
identification Avith others is the ultimate of fellow-
ship. Identification is the principle on which an
interpretation of reconciliation most easily proceeds
(see Keconciliation). Love is essentially self-im-
partation. Keconciliation is an exchange, the giving
and receiving of love; 'at-one-ment' is its issue.
This is based in the Pauline thought upon the Divine
initiative. God ' made him who knew no sin to be
sin on our behalf,' that there might be identification
of righteousness as well as of love in the reconcilia-
tion, ' that we might become the righteousness of
God in him,' ' not reckoning unto men their tres-
AToxr^n:xT
ATONEMENT
117
passes.' These woiu:: ...__ : the idea of such an
identitication of men *in Christ" that there is on
Gixl's part a general justification of mankind in the
form of a non-imputation of sins, on the purely
objective ground of God's satisfaction by self-giving
in Hira who knowing no sin was made sin on our
behalf. Individual identification of man will follow,
as, in response to God's entreating, each man is
reconciled to God. ' For the love of Christ con-
straineth xis ; because we thus judge, that one died
for all, therefore all died ; and he died for all, that
they which live should no longer live unto them-
selves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose
a-ain ' (2 Co 5'"-). As the race died in Christ, His
death is a true crisis in every man's history ; there
is a new creation, which includes both a new statos
and a new creature. That all died in Christ is
neither wholly subjective nor wholly objective.
St. Paul's full doctrine requires both ; their death is
died by Him, and His death is died by them. But in
the order of thought He must first die their death,
that they may die His. We never read that G^
has been reconciled ; He reconciled Himself to the
world in Christ, but men are reconciled or ' receive
the reconciliation.' St. Paul's judgment is that the
atonement is a finished work, but that the ' at-one-
ment ' is progressive ; reconciliation is first a work
wrought on men's behalf before it is ^Tought within
their hearts ; it is a work outside of men, that it
may be a work within them ; there is objective
basis for the subjective experience.
Some interpreters, e.g. Denney,* would limit the
reconciliation to what God in Christ has done oat-
side of us ; others, e.g. Kaftan,t hold that nothing
is to be called reconciliation unless men are actually
reconciled. St. Paul's doctrine isconsistent with the
view that reconciliation is both something which is
done and something which is being done. The ex-
pression of that which is done and the source of that
which is being done are seen in the solemn assertion
that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on
our behalf. No exegesis is more than a halting in-
terpretation of the profound significance of this say-
ing. At least the words mean that He died for our
sin in regard to its consequences. They seem, how-
ever, to mean more ; but in what sense God's love
in the gift of Christ can be said to be identified
with ' sin on our behalf,' it is impossible to say.
Certain it i> that St. Patil had other and more osnal
ways of saying that the sinless One was a sin-bearer
in the sense of an otiering for sin. The strength of
the saying is that He died to all that sin could mean,
and that, in this dying unto sin once for all, the
race with which He "identified Himself in His suffer-
ings and death died with Him ; it is a death which
contains the death of all, rather than solely a death
which would otherwise have been died by all ; in it
their trespasses are not imputed unto them, and by
the constraint of its demonstration of love they live
not unto themselves but unto Him who died for them
and rose again. The statement that all this was
the work of ' God in Christ ' suffices to refute any
reading of the process of reconciliation which sug-
gests a contrast that approaches competition be-
tween the righteousness of God and the love of
Christ. It is identification which is supreme here.
For, while it is no doubt true that the conception of
Christ as substitute suits the interpretation of His
death as sacrificial, the idea of representation best
accords with the whole group of passages from which
by induction St. Paxil's law of redemption is to be
gatheretl. In these, Christ appears as a central
Person, in whom the race is gathered into an ethical
unity, having one responsibility and one inheritance.
In this identity even those realities usually regarded
as inseparable from personality, such as sm and
righteousness, are treated as separable entities pass-
* Death of Christ, 145. t DoffmatH, § 52 ff.
ing freely from the one participant in the identitica-
tion to the other— sin to the Sinless One, righteous-
ness to the unrighteous. An objective identitj' of
this order, however, does not permanently satisfj^
so keen a thinker as St. Paul ; ne cannot rest short
of subjective identity between Redeemer and re-
deemed. Not only in virtual oneness by Divine ap-
pointment, but in actual union by living experience,
is identification to be achieved. This provides the
basis for St. Paul's teaching on —
(d) Atonement and Newness of Life. — The work
of redemption was not whoUy a matter of juridical
substitution and imputation. Another line of
thought of great importance is pursued, besides
the freeing from the curse and the deliverance
from wrath. The relation of men to the salvation
of Christ is not purely passive.* They must enter
into intimate tmion of life with Him. They must
die in effect with Christ to sin on His cross, and
rise with Him in newness of life. Through their
faith they constitute His mystical body ; they
have corporate identity with Him in 'the life
which is life indeed ' ; they are saved from the
power as well as the guilt of sin ; freedom from
the law of sin and death completes the release from
its condemnation ; the release from past sin in the
atonement in Christ's death does not exhaust its
aim; it involves the actual renunciation of the
selfish life and the realization of the life of holy
love.
Although this conception is not wholly out of
mind in chs. 3 and 4 of Romans and elsewhere (cf.
Gal 2^, Col 220 3^ Ph .3»^). in which the juridical
view of Christ's death is developed, it finds its full
presentation in reply to an imaginary objection to
the juridical view in Ro 6 and the following three
chapters. The question. Shall we continue in sin
that grace may abound ? starts St. Paul upon an
exposition of the essential relation between the
righteousness which is by faith in Christ as ' pro-
pitiation,' and the righteousness which is personal
and real, through vital fellowship with His death
and resurrection ; 'crucified with him, buried with
him, raised with him,' believers also walk with
Him ' in newness of life.' There is something in
the experience of Christ which they repeat so far
as its ethical implications can be realized in their
own experience ; for the cl<^est of Unks exists be-
tween the saving deed of Christ and the ethical
issues of the salvation it has brought about. Al-
though St. Paul does not make any direct use of
the spotless holiness and perfect obedience of
Christ save in so far as they issue in His death,
still these ethical qualities of the Redeemer be-
come the ethical demand in the redeemed as their
union of life with Him is unfolded. The great
Pauline conception ' in Christ ' is required to com-
plete on its ethical side the salvation which is
' through Christ ' on the legal side.
In recent exposition the relation between these
two — the ' subjective-mystical ' view of salvation
and the ' objective-juridical ' — has been much dis-
cussed. Is the former an addition, a supplement,
a correlative, or a transformation of the latter?
' Probably a majority of recent scholars hold that
the conception of freedom from sin through a new
moral life is primary in the thought of the
Apostle ' ; t others reverse this relation. J Denney
strongly maintains that Christ's substitutionary
death is primary, and that the ethico-mystical
views are direeuy deduced from it; the latter
• A. G. ilcGiffert, ApoKtoUc Age, Edinbnigfa, 1887, p. 120.
f E.g. Stevens, Chrutian Doctrine qf Sateation, 70; W.
Beysohlag, ITT TkeoL, 'Eog. tr., 1895, ii. 198-201; a v.
\\ eiz^cker, Daa apottolit^e ZeitalUr, Freibaig L B., 1880, p.
13y (Eng. tr., London, 1895. ii. lOttX
: E.a. O. Pfletderer, J>iu Ordtriitentitm, Berlin, 1887, p. 2S9;
E. yienigoz, Le PidU et la Btdem^tian ^apri* St. Paul, 1882,
ii. 251 ff.
118
ATOI«"EMENT
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indicate the inevitable result of a true appropriat-
ing faith in the substitutionary death of Christ,
the sole object of which was to atone for sin ;
gratitude to Christ for this redemptive act of love
Being sufficient to evoke the whole experience of
salvation on its ethical side. St. PauPs thought
has only one focus — Christ's ' finished work,' His
' atonement outside of us.' * A. B. Bruce fears
that the practical schism between these two ex-
periences of faith in the objective work of Christ
and personal union in His deatli and resurrection
is too real for such a view ; he thinks that the
doctrine of an objective righteousness wrought
out by Christ was first elaborated, that this ' met
the spiritual need of the conversion crisis,' and
that ' the doctrine of subjective righteousness
came in due season to solve problems arising out
of Christian experience ' ; consequently they are
' two doctrines,' two revelations serving different
purposes, but not incompatible with or cancelling
one another.t Lipsius regards the two lines of
thought as parallel or interpenetrating.! H. J.
Holtzmann makes the interesting suggestion that
the expiatory doctrine is built up by St. Paul's use
of popular Jewish conceptions and sacrificial cate-
gories applied to Christ's death, while the ethico-
mystical view is the more direct product of his
experience interpreted through Hellenistic ideas,
especially the contrast of flesh and spirit. § Whilst
the two doctrines lie side by side within the same
Epistle, it is difficult to regard them as separate
doctrines representing quite distinct epochs of
thought or experience in St. Paul. His teaching
elsewhere on the work of the Holy Spirit should
not be ignored in making adjustments between
the two sides of his view of the atonement. It is
on the interpretation of the place of St. Paul's
ethical teaching on this doctrine that most marked
differences exist ; his doctrine of expiation is ex-
pounded with substantially the same results by
scholars of the most divergent theological ten-
dencies. II
(e) Atonement and the Universe. — In two of the
Epistles of the Imprisonment — those to Eph. and
Col. (Phil, repeats the same circle of ideas as Rom.
and Gal.) — St. Paul extends the reconciliation
wrought by the death of Christ from the human
race to the universe as it sustains moral relations
to God ; it is the cosmic view of the atonement,
and is a result of seeking to provide a basis for the
ruling idea of the absoluteness of his gospel. The
' world ' for which Christ died is no longer the world
of sinful men, as in 2 Co 5^® and Ro 3^" ; it is vaster
(cf. Ro 8*^*); it includes angelic and possibly
super-angelic beings, ' things in (or above) the
heavens ' (Eph P") ; God has been pleased ' through
him to reconcile all things unto himself, having
made peace through the blood of his cross, through
him, whether they be things on earth, or things
in heaven ' (Col P*). Here we pass from the region
of the historical and experimental into that of
vision and spiritual imagination. How far the
categories of juridical and ethical, into which St.
Paul's doctrine has been cast elsewhere, may be
applied to the processes of the restoration of the
whole universe to perfect unity with God in Christ,
it is difficult to say. R. W. DaleU argues that
they are fulfilled in removing the objective cause
of estrangement ; but it is evident that, if this is
• Death of Christ, 179-192.
t St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, 214 fl.
j Dogmatik^, Brunswick, 1893, p. 510.
% NT Theol. ii. 117 f.
II E.g. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Saloation^t. i. ch. iv. ;
Denney, Death of Christ, ch. iii. ; Pfleiderer, Pavlinismtii^,
Leipzig, 1890, ch. iii. (Eng. tr., 1877); Mdnbgoz, Le Pichi, etc.,
iJ. ch. iii. ; H. J. Holtzmann, NT Theol. ii. 97-121 ; H. Cremer,
Die Paulinische Rechtfertigungslehre^, Giitersloh, 1900, pp.
424-448.
t The Atonements, 253 flf.
in itself inadequate for the realized salvation of
the human race, it will not be likely to suffice for
a higher race of moral intelligences ; the personal
union of sympathy and life implied in the subjec-
tive and mystical view will still be necessary for
at-one-ment.
The Pastoral Epistles, though probably mucii
later than St. Paul's earlier group in which his
doctrine is chiefly stated, add no fresh ideas to his
interpretation. This may imply that his doctrine
had already become fixed in form and could be
taken for granted, or that it is unwise to lay stress
upon the view that it was a slowly developed teach-
ing. The influence upon other NT writers of St.
Paul's doctrine of the relation of the death of Christ
to the forgiveness of sins should be carefully con-
sidered ; the subject goes beyond the scope of this
article.
2. The type presented in the Epistle to the
Hebrews. — This is distinctive. Some suspect
possible affinities with the thought of the apostolic
group in the Church at Jerusalem. The writing
exhibits many resemblances in language to tlie
Pauline type, but the same terms are used witli a
dift'erent connotation, and there is an absence of
many of St. Paul's characteristic forms of thouglit.
The Pauline principle of substitution prevails, but
it is presented more in the spirit and method of
the Alexandrine exegesis and philosophy of religion
— the relation of shadow to reality — or in the sym-
bolism of the Jewish sacrificial system. Althougli
one of the most theological of all the NT writings,
it assumes rather than states a philosophy^ of the
Christian redemption. The deatn of Christ is re-
garded as exclusively sacrificial. As atonement
it is presented mostly on the objective side ; even
more than St. Paul, the writer emphasizes the work
Christ does outside us, 'on our behalf.' St. Paul's
supplement to this view in his ethico-mystioal
doctrine is only slightly considered. The term
' in Christ ' does not occur ; the circle of ideas it
represents is absent; ethical implications of the
vicarious view are found, but they are different
and slighter. The idea of finality is the character-
istic conception which dominates the presentation
of Christ's redeeming work ; it is ' eternal ' in this
sense. The ethical value of a sinless Offerer in
perfect sympathy with His sinful brethren, for
whom He presents His sacrifice perfect and with-
out blemish, is a prominent characteristic in the
doctrine of the atoning work. The perfect human-
ity implied makes it possible to start the interpret-
ation of the doctrine of atonement in the Epistle,
with Westcott, from the Incarnation ; or, with
Seeberg, from the Passion of the Offerer as identi-
cal with the historic Jesus. As His perfect Priest-
hood, which is almost identical with the latter,
also includes the former, both in the historic fact
and in the mind of the writer of the Epistle, it is
more satisfactory to adopt it as the ruling idea.
(1) Priesthood. — Priesthood is the clearest way
of access to the writer's main teaching ; it unities
the distinguishable orders of sacrifice — sin-offering,
burnt-oflering, etc. — in the one characteristic
function of the priest, which is to offer sacrifice
and so to establish and to represent the fellowship
of God with man, which is the root-idea of atone-
ment. Such fellowship is visible and incorporate
in the priest's person ; through him tlie people
draw near to God themselves, have their fellowship
with Him, and become His people. The necessity
for a priest and his mediation is that sin stands in
the way of this fellowship ; it cannot be ignored ;
its defilement is the acute problem in thought and
experience which constrains the writer to set forth
the Divinely appointed way for its removal. For
this end God has appointed His own Son a High
Priest for ever, that He may make 'propitiation'
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119
for the sins of His people (He •2*^). This is possible
in only one way — sacrifice. The OT conception,
upon the analogy of which this NT structure is
built, is that propitiation must be made for sin, if
sinful men are to have fellowship with God at all ;
the only propitiation known is the shedding of
blood in sacrificial ofierings. A root-principle,
therefore, of the writer's theory is : * Apart from
shedding of blood there is no remission ' (9**). This
sacrifice Christ provides in His blood ; He is at
once Priest and Sacrificial Ofiering ; He is on this
account capable of dealing efiectively with sin as
the obstacle to the fellowship of God and man ;
'once (fixal — 'once for all') at the end of the ages
hath he been manifested to put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself' (9*).
(2) Sacrifice. — This offering of Himself is illus-
trated from the three elements of the Levitical
system— (a) the sin-offering, (b) the covenant-
offering, (c) the offering on the great Day of Atone-
ment. As sin-offering, Christ's death was a final
sacrifice for sins ( 10^- '^), it made propitiation for
the sins of the people (2'"), it put away sin (9*).
As a covenant-sacrifice, it ratified the new cove-
nant, of which He was the mediator, by 'blood of
sprinkling' (12**); for this covenant also, that it
might become operative. His death was necessary.
As the high priest entered every year into the
Holy Place, Christ has entered into the heavenly
sanctuary to appear before the face of Gktd for us
(9^^). He also suffered without the camp (13^^).
The writer dwells much upon the fact that all
these were only symbolic and morally ineffective as
types. Only in Christ's sacrificial offering of Him-
self and in the functions of His changeless Priest-
hood could be provided the eternal reality (see
Sackifige). The writer also further defines aU
that Christ did and suffered in its relation to God
— and especially to His love. It was by the grace
of God that He tasted death for every man (2^).
God is not conceived in any sense as a hostile Being
who is to be won over ty sacrificial gifts to he
gracious to man ; these are never said to ' recon-
cile' God. The Priesthood of Christ was God's
appointment and calling (5*). Christ's supreme
ministry was 'to do thy will, O God' (10'). The
same will was fulfilled ' through the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all' («*-a|, lO^O).
Christ's life and death are in perfect obedience to
God, and are a revelation of the mind and love of
God ; such is God's gracious way of making it
possible for the sinful to have fellowship with Him,
of ' bringing many sons unto glory ' (2^") ; it was
entirely congruous, the writer asserts, with God's
perfect ethical nature and with man's sinful state.
It is in the latter sense that the ^vriter defines
further the relation of the sacrifice of Christ to sin.
His work is described as ' having made purification
of sins ' (1^). He was offered to bear the sins of many
(038 217 ioi2tt). By whatever sacrificial illustrations
His offering of Himself in His blood is set forth, the
expiatory significance is common to them all ; they
represent the Divinely appointed way of deal-
ing with sin as a hindrance to commimion with
God.
(3) rA«ory.— Beyond the relation to (Jod and sin
referred to, it is not easy, without going outside
the pages of the Epistle, to state a doctrine which
explains to the reason the grounds on which the
sacrificial ministry of Christ as Priest and Offering
becomes available for the establishing of the fellow-
ship with God which is plainly set forth as its
object. It is said ' to sanctify ' men (2" 10^"- ^*
13^) ; to enable them ' to draw near to God ' (4^®
7i9ir. 1022); «to make perfect' (2io 7" lO^*) ; 'to
purify ' {,^*). It is difficult, however, to give a
close definition of these terms. Primarily they
refer to status ; men's relation to God is altered
rather than their character changed into ethical
states befitting these terms as symbols of personal
qualities ; the immediate effect upon men is religious
rather than ethical. But ultimately this effect
is inadequate. As much as this was acknowledged
to have been accomplished by the ancient priest-
hood and sacrifices, and it is the persistent plea of
the writer that these ceased because they were in-
adequate : the blood of bulls and of goats can never
take away sin or serve for the purification of the
conscience. Christ's Priesthood and Offering were,
on the other hand, 'better,' 'perfect,' 'eternal,' or
final ; they did what others could not do. In the
end, therefore, those who shared their benefits
would enter into possession and enjoyment of the
ethical realities for which they were the surety;
such persons were to become partakers of Christ
(y*-^ 6*). Identification was to follow the more
strictly vicarious relation. Meanwhile, however,
the writer is Pauline to this extent that, whilst
not excluding the ethical from the results of
Christ's substitutionary work, he emphasizes first
and strongly the objective benefits. He holds that
eventuaUy conscience and character will share in
the blessings asured by access to God, but the
ethical change is considered as the outcome of the
change in the religious and juridical relation.
Before the ' sanctiffed ' become sinless or the
' perfect ' faultless or the ' purified ' pure, they
have the status towards God of these, which is
expressed in the privilege of fellowship. This is
the effect of Christ's ' finished work ' in His death :
it is primary ; and the moral renewal, though
assured as its outcome, is secondary. Christ's
death has done something in regard to sin once for
ail, and by one offering has brought men for ever
into a perfect religions relation to God. That
such an objective result is thus brought about
seems clear from the Epistle, but what it is pre-
cisely which in God is related to this work is not
stated by the writer, nor what constitutes the
necessity in God for the Divinely appointed death
of Christ. He does not go behind the Divine
appointment ; that Grod wills it is sufficient ; this
is for him axiomatic ; in what its absoluteness lies
is not stated. How far it is legitimate to read
into the Epistle the Pauline ideas is doubtful ; it
has only the value of inference. The efficiency of
the fact that Christ's death is the putting away of
sin is the writers contribution to the apostolic
doctrine of atonement rather than its explanation.
Denney finds the one hint of an attempt at explana-
tion in ' Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself without spot to God' (9^*). The
sinlessness of Jesus gave to BUs offering an absolute
and ideal character beyond which nothing could
be conceived as a response to God's mind and
requirements in relation to sin. The ideal
obedience even unto death may be the cine — the
spiritual principle of the atonement that gives the
work of Christ its value. The Epistle lays great
stress on Christ's identification of Himself with
man.
3. The Johannine type. — This is a sufficiently
definite term to stand for a characteristic view of
the atonement in the Apostolic Church found in
the Fourth Gospel, in the three Catholic Epistles
bearing the name of John, and in the Apocalypse.
Criticism still leaves the problem of authorship in
much uncertainty, but tends to greater agreement
in ' ascribing all these writings to the same locality,
to pretty much the same period, and to the
same circle of ideas and sympathies.' * Reflecting
probably the thought and experience of the last
quarter, or even the last decade of the first century,
they are later than all our other sources; and,
being dominated by theological interest, they are
* Denney, Death of Ckritt, 2*L
120
ATONEMENT
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of particular importance for judging the views
taken of the death of Christ and its relation to
sin towards tlie close of the Apostolic Age.
Wliilst the Epistle which deals with the death
of Christ presents a more reflective interpretation
of it than is found in the Gospel, both unite in
dwelling upon the ethical and spiritual results of
Christ's death in the experience and possibilities of
the Christian sanctiiication rather than upon its
relation to the satisfaction of the Divine law of
righteousness. But the latter is by no means
overlooked ; it is present frequently by implica-
tion, it is occasionally explicitly referrecf to. The
Johannine type is distinctly more favourable to
the conception of * at-one-ment ' than to that of
atonement ; it is ethical and mystical rather than
juridical. So much is this so that selected sayings
could be collected which would easily weave them-
selves into a theory that Jesus saves by revelation,
by the illumination of Divine light which becomes
the light of life and the assurance of our fellowship
in the life eternal. Redemption by revelation
would be a fair interpretation, say, of the Prologue
to the Gospel and of those portions of it in which
the ideas of the Prologue rule. Salvation is in
Christ's Person : ' this is life eternal, that they
should know thee the only true God and him whom
thou didst send, even Jesus Christ ' ( Jn 17*). Jesus
redeems men by revealing to them the truth about
God in Himself ; His work is supremely that of
the Propliet of God, who so redeems His people
into fellowship with God. Knowledge of God as
He is draws men from sin. Christ dies, but this is
inevitable because He is the Word made flesh, and
must therefore share the end of all flesh and die,
and ' so fulfil the destiny of a perfect man by a
perfect death as by a perfect life. ' * Broadly speak-
ing this is true, but it is certainly not the only
Johannine view of the saving work of Christ. It
may be suggestive to discern the contrast between
the Pauline view that revelation is by redemption,
and the Johannine that redemption is by revela-
tion, but it is not exhaustive ; for the Johannine
writings are also pervaded by a conviction of the
necessity and saving value of Christ's death ; He is
as truly 'propitiation' as 'revelation.' St. Paul's
view that, apart from His purpose of dying for
redemption, Christ would not have come in the
flesh at all, is not avowed by St. John, but it is not
contradicted by him ; his main interests are much
more with the realities and issues of redemption
than with its presuppositions and processes. Sin
is the real problem for him as for St. Paul, and the
death of Christ is the only means of removing it.
This is stated in Gospel and Epistle with a wealth
of variety. Whether they afford material for a
full theory of expiation, as some expositors assume,
may be questioned ; but that they clearly state a
connexion between the death of Christ and the
cleansing away of sin, and indicate a theory of
this relation which has affinities with the Pauline
view and with that of the writer to the Hebrews,
cannot reasonably be doubted.
Whilst in the very brief review of these references
we must refrain from reading the Pauline meaning
into the Johannine ideas and terms, we must not
decline to recognize such similarities as we find are
present in the writings.
(1) References in Gospel. — These fall into char-
acteristic groups : — (a) The. references to the Lamb
of God. — Whether the saying p\it into the mouth
of the Baptist (Jn 1**) be critically valid or not, it
is good evidence of the Johannine thought. We
accept the saying as referring to Jesus who ' taketh
away the sin of the world.' Its chief value is the
* Cf. B. F. Westcott, Epistles of St. John, London, 1883, p.
34 ff., Epistle to the Hebrews, London, 1880, p. 293 ff.; H.
Schultz, Die Gottheit Christi, Gotha, 1881, p. 447.
use of the sacrificial symbol, ' the lamb ' ; Jesus
takes away sin by the sacrificial method. The re-
ferences in the Apocalypse to ' the Lamb' as it had
' been slain ' (Rev 5°- ^'^}, to ' those who have washed
their robes in the blood of the Lamb' (7"), who
overcame ' because of the blood of the Lamb ' (12"),
indicate that the power and purity of the new
life in Christ were definitely associated with the
shedding and sprinkling of His blood in the sacri-
ficial sense. The phrase ' in the Lamb's book of
life' (13"), though it may not bear the strain of the
idea of an eternal redemption, since 'from the
foundation of the world ' belongs grammatically to
' written ' (see art. Book OF Life) rather than to
' slain,' indicates nevertheless that there is salvation
in no other. — (i) The references to ' the lifting up '
(Jn 3^* 12*-). These are best expounded by tne
comment of the writer himself. ' Tiiis said (Jesus),
indicating by what kind of death he was to die '
(12^). They refer to the lifting upon the cross,
though the exaltation that followed may be implied,
in order that men might see Him in order to live
and be drawn to Him by the appeal of His cross.
If there be any expiatory idea here, it is implicit ;
it is not stated. — (c) The references to eatitifj His
flesh in Jn 6. Alone these might well be satisfied
by the ethical interpretation of a spiritual appro-
priation of Christ ; this conception is natural in the
context ; but, as it is scarcely possible at the late
period of this writing to deny a reference to the
' Supper ' and its connexion with remission of sins,
the expiatory idea is most probably involved. In
the exposition of any Johannine writings the place
held by the sacraments in the Apostolic Church
should never be ignored. — {d) The references to the
laying down of His life. — 'The Good Shepherd'
(Jn 10"), the prophecy of Caiaphas (ll*"), the corn
of wheat (1223^-), life laid down for friends (IS'*)—
these with distinction of aspect show the applica-
tion to Jesus of the vicarious principle ; in the first
and last instances the voluntary character of the
self-sacrifice is important, whilst in the context of
the third the soul-troubling of Jesus in presence of
death suggests that the death was neither ordinary
nor accidental. But there is no indication of a
theory of how His death avails for the benefit of
others. The one explanation that is sure is that
He lays down His life in obedience to the constraint
of love's necessity. This love is regarded by the
writer both as Christ's own love and as the
Father's. ' God so loved that he gave.' Love in
each case is the gift of self.
(2) References in Epistle. — In passing from the
Gospel, where the Johannine writer has emphasized
the fact of the self-surrender in the death of Christ,
obviously bringing it in wherever possible without
attempting a definition of its relations, to the
Epistle, we find a closer definition of these realities
awaiting us. But here also the stress is laid upon
the correlation of the death of Christ with the
actual cleansing from sin rather than with the
cancelling of guilt or the satisfaction of the law.
Still, whilst the realization of purification, and not
merely a provision of the means of its cleansing, is
the primary meaning of the references to the re-
demptive work of Christ as the bearer of light and
salvation, the latter is set forth in terms so inti-
mately allied with the sacrificial terminology of
the writers of the earlier apostolic Epistles, that
the contention that there lies behind tlie passages
the assumption of a judicial satisfaction for sin
cannot be fairly evaded. The passages are : ' "The
blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin '
(1 Jn F) ; 'And if any man sin, we have an
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the right-
eous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins ; and
not for ours only, but also for th& whole world '
(21'.) ; 'Your sins are forgiven you for his name's
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121
sake ' (2") ; ' And ye know that he was manifested
to take away sins ; and in him is no sin ' (3*) ;
' Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that
he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation
for our sins ' (4^*). With these it is convenient to
associate the strongest saying in the Apocalypse
on the subject : ' L' nto him that loveth us, and
loosed us from our sins in his blood' (Rev 1').
That the immediate interest in these references is
to the ethical and spiritual results issuing from the
death of Christ in its relation to sin wUl not be
doubted. The question at issue is how far the
inference from them, that they assume an ante-
cedent value belonging to the death of Christ in
putting away the judicial obstacle to the cleansing
in the law and righteousness of Gk)d, can be estab-
lished. The cleansing obviously depends upon the
' death ' and the ' blood ' of Christ,
We need not draw the distinction made by West-
cott,* between the blood in the double sense of a
life given and of a life liberated and made available
for men, in order to justify a backward as well as
a fon;\ard look in the symbol. The main burden
of proof that the Johannine doctrine includes an
objective as well as a subjective work of Christ is
upon the use of 'propitiation.' It is not the same
word (i\a<Tti6s, not iXa<rr^pto»') as is used in the
Pauline Epistles, but it is very closely akin. Is it
likely, in being applied here to the same object, to
have a different meaning? Used in the same
Christian community within approximately the
same period, and dealing ^\"ith the same element in
a common faith, is not the term probably used in
the same accepted sense by the Johannine writer
as by the writer to the Hebrews and St. Paul ? If we
are to interpret it, these usages are the only means
at our disposal unless the Johannine literature
itself pro\ides others. This is not done. On the
contrary, other terms are used that suggest that
the place of IXcurfios is in the same system of re-
demptive ideas that we find in the other apostolic
^^Titings. It is, for instance, co-ordinated with
Jesus Christ as ' the righteous,' standing thereby
in some relation to the moral order of the world,
and with ' an Advocate,' which touches the judicial
system of ideas ; it is connected also with ideas of
sacrifice and intercession which relate it to a
system of mediating priesthood ; the marked con-
trast between 'loveth ' and ' loosed' in the opera-
tion of the love of Christ, which is the source and
eflBcient cause of redemption in His blood from our
sins in Rev 1*, may also suggest a combination
between the progressive liberation from our sins
and the achievement once for all of onr redemption
in Him. The further statement that the ' propi-
tiation ' is not for our sins only but also for ' the
whole world,' is not satisfied by the merely personal,
and therefore for the present partial, experience of
a subjective salvation. These are only inferences
and nothing more, but they are of value in con-
struing the Johannine witness into terms of the
general apostolic teaching. The supreme value,
however, of this witness is the matchless grace
t\-ith which the ^vrite^ relates ' propitiation ' to the
love of God. St. Paul had taught this as the ulti-
mate source of redemption, but had associated with
its expression the righteousness of law and the
wrath of God against sin. The Johannine ^^T-iter
transcends these in dwelling with holy joy upon the
issues of the propitiation, not only in'actual cleans-
ing from sin, but in lifting men' into the presence
of an eternal reality in which propitiation is an
interchangeable term with the Divine love itself.
In 4^" lie defines propitiation in terms of love :
'He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitia-
tion for our sins ' ; in 3^* he reverently identifies
love with ' propitiation ' — ' In this have we known
* EpistU* of St. John, 54 ff . ; EpUtU to the Hebrews, 293 ff.
love, in that he (iKurn) for us (irrkp vf^^) laid
down his life.' The contrast such love implies
is the ultimate of the apostolic doctrine of^the
atonement — it is the perfect expression of what the
writer means when he declares that ' God is love,' *
4. The sub-apostolic period. — In the age im-
mediately succeeding the apostolic, the Church
appears to hare exhibited no desire to interpret
the relation of the death of Christ to the forgive-
ness of sins either with greater fullness than, or by
any divergence of view from, that found in the
apostolic writings ; the forms exhibit«i there were
found sufficient. The early Fathers treated the
atonement as a fact, without any attempt to ex-
plain its grounds. They had no theory: they
describe it mostly in the actual words of Scripture,
with little or no comment ; the types of interpreta-
tion given were sufficient to satisfy their intelli-
gence concerning the experience of forgiveness of
sins which so richly satisfied their heart. Clement
of Rome in his First Epistle exhorts the Corinthians
to ' reverence the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood
was given for us' (xxL), who 'on account of the
love He bore us gave His blood for us by the
Avill of God ; His flesh for our flesh and His soul
for our souls ' (xUx.). There is no clear statement
as to the reasons that moved the will of God,
The ethical appeal of the death of Christ is pre-
dominant ; it is the supreme motive to gratitude,
humility, and self-sacrifice. The references in the
writings of Ignatius are chiefly that the death of
Christ on the cross reveals His love,and that through
His death we become partakers of spiritual nourish-
ment in His body and blood (cf. Troll, viii. and
Bom. vi. ). Poll/carp reminds lus readers that ' the
earnest of their righteousness ' is Jesus Christ, who
' bore our sins in His own body upon the tree ; who
did not sin, neither was guile found in His mouth,
but endured all things for us, that we might live
in Him' (Phil. viiL). The Epistle ascribed to
Barnabas deals with the subject in its relation to
the sacrifices of the Jewish Temple, which are
abolished in order that ' the new law of our Lord
Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of neces-
sity, might have a human oblation ' (ii.). The Son
of God is spoken of as One who ' suffered that His
stroke might give us life ' ; ' let us therefore believe
that the Son of God could not have suffered except
for our sakes' (vi.). Our Lord's sufferings were
necessary ; why, it is not said. (For catena of
quotations, consult R. W. Dale, The Atonement,
270 ff. ; Moberlv, Atonement and Personality,
326 ff. ; Scott Lidgett, Spiritual Principle of Atone-
ment, 420 K).
IV. CoycLUSioy.—i. Is there an apostolic
doctrine of the atonement ? — Clearly the passages
we have examined, which form the data for a
doctrine of atonement, are brief and fragmentary
in character. It is frequently pointed out that the
books from which they are taken are in no strict
sense a unity-, and were not written with the object
of being related to each other to form a unified
volume ; that they are only parts of a larger and
richer whole which interpreted the faith of the
Apostolic Age; that their unity is factitious.t
This view is plausible. It must be admitted that
the doctrine of atonement found no uniformity of
expression in the Apostolic Church ; but there is
little room for doubt that there existed a central
unity around which varied statements consistently
moved ; the latter were not a mere fortuitous
grouping ; they were orderly, and their movements
were organized in response to a central gravity.
The fact that the death of Christ had a direct re-
lation to the forgiveness of sins and to the restora-
tion of fellowship between God and man is funda-
* Cf. Denney, Death o/Ckritt, S7&
t lb. 2, for t jpical iilustratioas.
122
ATONEMENT
ATONEMENT
mental to the most divergent interpretations of the
fact. The occasion of the reference, the purpose
of the writers, and especially their immediate
conception of tlie character of God and His relation
to the moral order of the world, largely account for
the varying forms of expression and illustration.
For, taken apart, the aspects in which the death of
Christ is viewed in the apostolic writings give
sufficient warrant for the main types — legal and
ethical — which mark the history of the doctrine in
the subsequent thouglit of the Church.
But the most critical survey of these aspects does
not sanction the contention of some recent writers
that an apostolic doctrine of the atonement can-
not be constructed.* A perfect doctrine may be
so deeply grounded and so many-sided that no
personal or corporate thought can completely ex-
pound it, and there may be many theories each
having its value. The judgment expressed by
R. F. Horton, ' The NT has no theory about the
Atonement,' t is too easy a release from the in-
tellectual necessity of seeking an interpretation of
the profound fact which dominated the whole of
the apostolic experience and teaching. The mate-
rials are certainly present in the apostolic litera-
ture for the construction of a theory — and more,
a theory itself is potentially present and virtually
expressed in the common experience and preaching
of apostolic times where it is not formally defined.
It is quite contrary to the spirit and attitude of
the Apostolic Church to speaK of the atonement,
as Coleridge does, as 'the mysterious act, the
operative cause transcendent. Factum est : and
beyond the information contained in the enuncia-
tion of the FACT, it can be characterized only by
the consequences.':!: The apostolic writers regjird
fact and theory as permanently inseparable ; ' re-
conciliation ' involves its ' logos,' and they attempt
an explanation of the great fact which had become
the ground and appeal of their evangel ; a fact of
such a kind as the death of Christ, so rich in ra-
tional, ethical, and emotional content, and appealing
to the whole ethical and spiritual being of man,
could not be left without a ' meaning.' The simple
connexion in any degree of causal relation between
the fact of the death of Christ and the experience
of forgiveness of sins is itself a profound theory as
well as the mother of theories,
2. General character of the apostolic doctrine. —
This, as presented in the literature of the Apostolic
Age, is a unity in diversity. The diversity is ap-
parent ; it emerges as the stress of the interpreta-
tion of the death of Christ falls upon that which is
accomplished by it objectively to man's inner ex-
perience and moral desert.in contrast with the etiects
subjectively achieved in the spiritual history of the
individual believer and of the Christian community.
The former represents Avhat God does in and of and
by Himself which, as exhibited in the life and death
of His Son, justifies to Himself and in Himself the
manifestation of His grace in the remission of sins ;
the latter is what man experiences in actual cleans-
ing from sin and in conscious reconciliation with
God in Christ ; the former is represented as accom-
plished once for all in the sacrificial obedience of
Christ even unto death ; the latter is realized in the
self -surrender of man under the constraint of the
love of God in Christ, so that he enters into an in-
ward spiritual fellowship with the suffering death of
Clirist, and in the power of his resurrection experi-
ences the reality of ethical union with Christ ; the
former is regaraed as a finished work, the latter as
a progressive achievement ; the former is atone-
ment, the latter is ' at-one-ment.' The presence of
this diversity of view in the faith of the Apostolic
* Cf . Life and Letters of Dean Church, Ix»ndon, 1895, p. 274.
t Faith and Criticism^, London, 1893, p. 222.
t Aids to Reflection, ed. London, 1918, Com. xix.
Church seems undeniable. Both aspects are dwelt
upon ; neither appears to be adequate alone. Each
is carried back to the abiding purpose of God and
regarded as the interpretation of His eternal love ;
the juridical stands for a realitj' in His nature as
truly as the ethical ; much in the apostolic doctrine
is not covered by the conception of atonement which
represents it as a perfect confession of sin on behalf
of man by Christ as man's Representative ; the
juridical conception is not fairly stated as an argu-
mentum ad Jndceos, or as the mere inheritance of
Jewish thought. For, although the idea of literal
substitution lay so near to hand in later Jewish
theology and was everywhere enriched for them by
historic and Divinely-appointed ritual observance,
the apostolic thinkers so deepen and transfigure it
that it no longer tolerates the superficial conven-
tional idea of an easy or mechanical transfer of man's
guilt and penalty to another so that the sinner is
exempt from further responsibility.
An objective view of atonement exaggerated into
a system of imputations and equivalents is not found
in the teaching of the Apostolic Church, neither is
it ever set forth as a device for overcoming God's
reluctance to forgive sins. We are presented rather
with an intensely ethical conception of God's re-
quirements and with a mystical view of man's rela-
tion to Christ as the Representative of the race.
Substitution is thus deepened into moral identifica-
tion and solidarity ; even the outstanding feature
of the apostolic view of atonement as ' propitiation '
is explicitly correlated with the ethical nature of
God ; behind the figures of speech and juridical
phraseology the redeeming work of Christ is pre-
sented as concerned primarily with personal rela-
tions and moral realities. In this reference in
the processes of reconciliation to the Divine purpose
and activity — ' God in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself — and, still further, in the recogni-
tion of the fact that the sufferings of the righteous
benefit the unrighteous, the unity of the apostolic
doctrine is found. Objective and subjective views
being thus regarded as manifestations of the self-
imparting love of God, originating in Him, not
in Christ apart from Him, justice and mercy as
contrasted attributes in the Divine nature are tran-
scended. The apostolic mind also rests more upon
the declaration of the Divine righteousness in the
blood of Christ than upon its satisfaction thereby.
God declares Himself reconciled by something He
had done whilst men were yet sinners. On Christ's
part the reconciliation takes place through an act
of self-emptying prior to, but manifest in, the Incar-
nation,with its obedience unto death, even the death
of the cross. The unity of ' objective ' and ' sub-
jective ' is verified also in the true experience of
personal redemption, which is never regarded in
the apostolic teaching as adequate apart from an
ethical surrender of the self to God in Christ by
the obedience of faith. Union with God in Christ
is in the apostolic teaching a closer definition of
having ' received the reconciliation.'
3. Finality and authority of the apostolic doc-
trine.— The interesting question whetlier the apo-
stolic doctrine of the atonement is final for the
thought of the Church and binding upon her teach-
ers, is a phase of the living controversy respecting
the permanent place of apostolic teaching in Chris-
tian thought, and lies beyond the scope of this
article. It must suffice to point out that the teach-
ing of the Apostolic Church gives no sanction for
the view that the illumination of the minds of men
respecting the significance of the death of Christ is
limited to one type of interpretation or to one
feneration of men. It is possible to recognize a
istinction between the contingent thought-forms
of the Apostolic Age and the essential spiritual life
with its fundamental certainties in an experience
ATONEMENT
AUGUSTAN BAND
123
of reconciliation, made real by God in Christ, which
these thought-forms sought to express. This ex-
perience in the Apostolic Age, as in every other,
was something more than a composite of the terms
used in its interpretation, even when these terms
were the coinage of the apostolic mind. The usual
conditions for the discovery of truth which satisfies
the intellectual nature will prevail here as else-
where. The one way in which truth, which is the
only reality having authority for the mind, reveals
its authority is in taking possession of the mind
for itself.* Truth justifies itself in the mind that
receives it ; it derives its authority in the realm of
the moral and spiritual by the experience it creates.
The mind, once it has come to loiow itself, cannot
submit to receive its con\-ictions on blank authority;
even when that authority is an utterance of the
apostolic mind, it mtist commend itself to the
christian consciousness by its power rationally to
justifj* the facts to which that Christian conscious-
ness knows it owes its existence. The question,
therefore, whether the forms of the apostolic ex-
planation of the relation of the death of Christ to
the forgiveness of sins are final and binding upon
faith, will depend upon their adequacy permanently
to int€rpret the experience that Christian men wiU
always owe to their knowledge of those facts in
which the Christian experience first originated. The
conviction that those facts have been mediated to
the world through the Apostolic Church, will prob-
ably always suggest that the apostolic explanation
of them will antecedently be regarded with atten-
tion commensurate with the unique value of its
source. It seems fair, therefore, to expect that
where the modem mind finds the unity of the apo-
stolic doctrine of the atonement, it will also find
its finality ; and, where finality is found, permanent
authority is readily acknowledged. But finality is
in the living truth of the doctrine, not in its human
source.
LiTZRATTRB. — I. Mor« dircctlv on the apostolic doctrine : A.
B. Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianitp, Edinborg-h,
IS^ ; A. Cave, The Seripturai Doctrine of Satrifiee and
Atonement-, do. 1890; T. J. Crawford, The Doctrine of Holy
Scripture respecting the Atonement i, London, 1S74 ; R. W.
Dale, The Atonement, do. 1875 {1*1S92) ; J. Denney, The Death
of Christ : its Place and InterpretatUm in the ST, do. 1902 ;
R. J. Dminmond, TA* Relation of the Apostolic Teaching to
the Teaching of Christ, Edinburgh, 1900 ; C, C. Everett, The
Gospel of Paul, Boston, 1893; J. Scott Lidgett, The Spiritual
Principle of the Atonement, London, 1S97 ; E. Menegroz, Le
Piehi et la RMemption d'aprt* St. Paul, Paris, 1SS2, and La
ThMogie de VSpitre aux Hibreux, Paris, 1894 ; G. Milligran,
The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebreurs, Edinbunrh, 1899 ;
G. F. Moore, art ' Sacrifice ' in EBi ; A. Ritschl, Jfeehtferti-
gung und Versohnurig*, Bonn, 1895-1902 (Eng. tr. The Chris-
tian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation, by Hackintosb
and Macaulay, 1902); W. Sanday, Priesthood and Sacrifice,
London, 1900 ; A. Seeberg, Der Tod Christi, Leipzig, 1895 ;
G. Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Atonement €U tavght by the
Apostles, Edinburgh, 1870 ; G. B. Stevens, The Christian Doc-
trine of Salvation, do. 1905 ; W. L, Walker, The Gospel of
Reconciliation, do. 1909 ; relevant sections in (a) Bible Diction-
aries, (b) NT Theologies (esp. those of H. J. Holtzmann [1911],
B. Weiss [3 1880], G. B. Stevens [1S99]), (c) Commentaries on
the .\postolic Epistles (esp. Sanday- Headlam and B. Jowett
on Rom., and Westcott on Hebrews and the Jobaonine
wTitingsX
II. Dealing with the doctrine generally: Anselm, Omr
Deus Homol, 1098 ; E. H. Askwith, in Cambr. TheoLEttays,
London, 1906, p. 175 ff. ; Athanasins, de Incamatume (c. 360) ;
A. Barry, The Atonement of Christ, London, 1871 ; A. B. Bruce,
The Humiliation of Christ^, Edinburgh, 1881, pp. 317-400;
H. Bnshnell, The Vicarious Sacrifice, London, ed. 1891 ; J.
McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonements, do. 1S78 ;
R. S. Candlish, The Atonement: its EAeaey and Extent, do.
1867 ; A. B. Davidson, OT Thectogry, Edinburgh, 1904, div. iiL
ch. 2; D. C. Davies, The AUmenunt and Intercession of Christ,
do. 1901 ; J. Denney, T}ie Atonement €md the Modem Mind,
London, 1903 ; C. A Dinsmore, Atonement in Literature and
Life, Boston, 1906 ; A. M. Fairbaim, The Place of Christ in
Modem Theology, London, 1393 ; P. T. Forsyth, The Crucial-
ity of the Cross, do. 1909 ; C. C. Hall, The Gospel of the Divine
Sacrifice, Xew York, 1596 ; T. Haring, Zur rersohnungOehre,
Gottingen, 1S93 ; W. Herrmann, Der Verkehr des Christen nut
* Cf. Dennev, TA« Atonement and the Modem Mind, 6 ff. •
W. L. Walker, The Gospel of Reconciliation, 60 ff.
Gott (Eng. tr. The Communion of the Christian ^eith God,
London, 1906) ; F. R. M. Hitchcock, The AtonemerU and
Modem Thought, do. 1911; A. A. Hodge, The Atonement,
PhUadelphia, 1867 ; J. T. Hutchinson, A View of the Atone-
ment, Hew York, 1897 ; T. W. Jenkyn, The Extent of the Atone-
ment in iU Relation to God and the (Tniterse, Boston, 1S35 ; J.
Kaftan. Dogmata, Tiibingen, 1897, p. 531 ff. ; G. Kreibig, Die
VeraShnungalehre, Berlin, 1878; W. F. Lofthonse. Ethics and
Atonement, Loodon, 1906 ; A. Lyttelton, * Atonement ' in Lux
Mundia, 1891, p. 201 ff. ; F. D. Maurice, The Doctrine of
Satri*ee,new ed., London, 1893; R. C. Moberly, Atonement
and PertonaUty, do. 1901 ; W. H. Moberly, 'The Atonement*
in Foundations, A Statement of Christian Belief in Terms of
Modem Thought, do. 1912; H. N. Oxeoham, Catholic Doe-
trine of the Atonement, London, 1886; E. A. Park, The Atone-
ment, Boston, 186S ; L. Pullan, The Atonement, London, 1906 ;
J. Riviire, Doffme de la ridemption, Paria, 1905 ; A. Sabatier,
La Doctrine de Peajnmtion et ton Hnlution historique, do. 1903
(Eng. tr., LoDd<», 19M) ; D. W. Simon, JSeeoneXation by In-
carnation, Edinborgfa, 1898; Torretin, On the Atonement of
Christ, Eng. tr.. New York, 1859; T. V. Tymms, The Chris-
tianldea ^the Atonement, iMBOaa, 1904 ; W. L. Walker, The
Oroa tmd the Kingdom, Edinborg^ 1902 ; R. Wardlaw, The
Extent «^ the Atonement, CUaagow, 1830 ; B. F. Westcott,
The Victory <if the Cross, LondMi, 1888 ; G. C. Workman, At
Onement, New Toric, 19U ; Hu Atonement in Modem Religious
Thought : a Theologieal Sympoeium, London, 1900 ; relevant
artt. m Bible Dictionaries and sections in S>yBteni«te llieologies,
e.g. W. N. Claiice, An Outline of Christian Theology, Edin-
boi^fa, 1896, K>. 321-382 ; J. A. Domer, A System of Christian
Doctrine, ^«. tr., Edinburgh, 1880-82, iv. 1-124 ; C. Hodge,
Systematie Theology, London, 1873, iL 464-691 ; W. B. Pope,
A Compendium of Christian TheUom, IL [London, 1877] 141-
316 ; W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatie Theology, ii. [Edinborgfa,
1889] 378ff. : A. H. Stcong, Systematic Theology, Philadelphia,
1907, ii. 713 ff. FBEDEEIC PLATT.
ATTALIA ('ArraXeio, Tisch. and WH -la).— This
maritime city of Pamphilia was founded by, and
named after. Attains n. Philadelphus, king of
Pergamos (15&-138 B.C.), who desired a more con-
venient haven than Perga (15 miles N.E.) for the
commerce of Egypt and Syria. It was pictur-
esquely situated on a line of clifls, over which the
river Catarrhactes rushed in torrents — or cataracts
— to the sea- Attalia difiered from its riv^ Perga,
a centre of native Anatolian religiotis feeling, in
being a thoroughly Hellenized city, honouring the
usual classical deities — Zeus, Athene, and Apollo.
Paul and Barnabas sailed from its harbour to
Antioch at the close of their first missionary tour
(Ac 14'^). Both politically and ecclesiasricaUy it
gradually overshadowed Perga, and to-day it is
the most flourishing seaport, with the exception of
Marsina, on the south coast of Asia Minor. It
has a poptilation of 25000, including many Chris-
tians and Jews, who occupy separate quarters.
The name has been slightly modified into Adalia.
LnBRATURK. — ^W. M. Ramsay, HisL Geog. tff Asia Minor,
l/ottdoa, 1890, p. 420 ; C Lanckoronski, Villes de la Pamphylie
etdela PisidU, L [Paris, 1S90]. JaMES STEAHAN.
AUGUSTAN BAND During his voyage from
Caesarea to Italy, St. Paul was in the charge of the
centtirion Julius, of the crfipa 'Ze^aa-H], or ' Augus-
tan cohort ' (Ac 27^ RVm). Two ^videly different
views prevail as to the composition of'this body
of soldiers.
1. The theory of Schiirer (HJP L ii. 51 f.) is
mainly based on data supplied by Josephus.
While legionary soldiers, who were Roman citizens,
were sent only to provinces of the first order,
governed by legati, those of the second order,
administered by procurators — e.g. Judaea — were
garrisoned by atixiliary cohorts of provincials, each
from 500 to 1000 strong, usually attended by an
ala of cavalry, and each named after the city from
which it was recrtiited, e.g. 'cohors Sebastenorum.'
At the time of the death of Herod Agrippa (A.D.
44) there was an ala of Kowopcrs and Zf^atmjpoi
with five cohorts stationed in Caesarea (Jos. Ant.
XIX. ix. 1 f.). For their indecent demonstrations
of joy at the king's death, they were at first
threatened with banishment, but were tiltimately
forgiven and taken over by the Romans. They
aire frequently referred to during the period A-D.
124
AUGUSTUS
AUGUSTUS
44-66 {Ant. XX. vi. 1 || BJ II. xii. 5 ; Aiit. XX. viii.
7 II BJ II. xiii. 7). In a.d. 67, Vespasian finally
drafted from Citjsarea into his army live cohorts
and one ala of cavalry {BJ III. iv. 2). Schiirer
holds that the ' Augustan cohort ' is undoubtedly
one of these live coliorts. He does not, however,
regard a-ireipa Se^ao-r?; as synonymous with aireipa
Se/Sao'TTjj'tDj'. Se/SacTTj) is ratiier a title of honour,
equivalent to Augusta, and the full name of the
cohort in question would probably be cohors
Augusta Sebastcnorum {HJP I. ii. 53).
2. Mommsen, followed by Kamsay, attempts to
connect the <rire7pa Ze^aari; with a body of officers
detached from the foreign legions and known as
frumentarii, who were employed under the Empire
not only, as their name indicates, in connexion
Avith the commissariat, but as agents maintaining
communications between the central government
and the distant provinces. As they were con-
stantly passing backwards and forwards, it was
natural that prisoners should be entrusted to them,
and in time they became hated as police-agents
and spies. When Julius {g.v.), who on this theory
was one of these couriers, arrived in Home, he
handed over his charge (Ac 28'^, AV and RVm) to
the (XTpaTOTreSdpxn^, which is commonly translated
'captain of the Praetorian Guard.' Mommsen,
however, thinks that the prcefectus prcetorio can-
not have had laid upon him the humble duty of
receiving prisoners, and prefers another interpreta-
tion based upon the term princeps peregrinorum,
which appears in an Old Lat. version (called Gigas)
as the equivalent of a-TparoTreddpxv^. Peregrini,
' soldiers from abroad,' was the name given to the
frumentarii while they resided at Rome, and their
camp on the Caelian Hill was called Castra Pere-
grinorum. It is suggested (1) that Luke, who as
a Greek Avas careless of Roman forms and names,
used the Greek term a-irelpa 1,e^a(XT'f) not as the
translation of an official Roman designation, but
as ' a popular colloquial way of describing the
corps of officer-couriers' (Ramsay, St. Paul^,
London, 1897, p. 315) ; and (2) that his (rrparoweS-
dpxvs is an equally unofficial title, for Avhich the
Latin translator, being more at home in Roman
usages than Luke, Avas able to supply the correct
technical term. It is admitted that ' this Avhole
branch of the service is very obscure. Marquardt
considers that it Avas first organized by Hadrian ;
but Mommsen believes that it must haA'e been
instituted by Augustus' {ib. 349). The chief ob-
jection to the present theory is that the foundation
seems too slender for the superstructure. There
is no clear evidence that the title princeps peregri-
norum came into use before the time of Septimius
Severus (193-211). On the other hand, St. Paul's
case woiild seem to be on all fours Avith that of an
appellant mentioned in the correspondence of
Trajan and Pliny {Ep. 57), regarding Avhom the
Enij)eror giA'es this rescript: 'vinctus mitti ad
pnef ectos prsetorii mei debet. '
Literature.— On the one side, Th. Mommsen, Sitztmgs-
hericht'- il. JUtrl. Akad., 1895, p. 495 f. ; W. M. Ramsay, he. cit.
.supra; F. Randall, Acts, London, 1897, p. :if'!. uii tlie other
silk', Schiirer, luc. cit.; Th. Zahn, Introd. to ST, lOng. tr.,
Edinbur-h. 1909, i. CO, 551ff. ; A. C. Headlam, art. 'Julius' in
JIDIS; P. W. Schmiedel in EBi i. 909.
James Strahan.
AUGUSTUS. — 1. The name.— The Lat. name
.l/^7//v//<.v occurs only once in the RV of the NT,
namely in Lk 2^ 'fhe Avord, cognate with augur,
had a sacred ring about it, having been applied
(n) to places and objects Avhich either possessed by
nature or acquired by consecration a religious or
hallowed character ; (6) to the gotls. It avjis a neAV
thing to apply it to a human being, and the Sen-
ate felt and intended it to be so, Avhen it conferred
tlie title vipon Octavian on 16 Jan., 27 B.C. By
this title they Avent as near to conferring deifica-
tion upon a huniiin beiiiu .-k rnliii-i Iialiim common-
sense A\-ould allow. ' It Miu._'i',~u-il i(jli-ioii^ .sjiiici ily
and surrounded the son ot tlie dritied Julius Avith a
halo of consecration ' (Bury, A History oftfte Roman
Empire, 1893, p. 13). The official Gr. equivalent
of Augustus Avas 26^cwt6s. It is noteAVorthy that
Luke in his OAvn Greek narrative keeps the Latin
Avord, whereas he puts the Greek ^e^aards into the
mouth of Festus(Ac 25"-^; AV 'Augustus,' RV
' the emj>eror,' RVm ' the Augustus '), The differ-
ence is important. A Greek Christian like Luke
could only use the word Se^acrris (which meant ' to
be Avorshipped,' ' Avorthy of Avorship ') of God
Himself : being a Greek, Avriting his oAvn language,
he had not the same objection to the foreign word
Augustus, and he had to be intelligible. The
absence of Beds (' god,' diuus), Avitli tlie name of the
deceased and deified Emperor in Lk 2^, is also
perfectly consistent Avith the Christian attitude
(on Ac 27S see Augustan Band).
2. Life. — The Emperor of whom Ave commonly
speak as Augustus Avas originally named Gains
Octavius [Thurinus], like his father, and was born
on 22 Sept., 63 B.C., the year of Cicero's consul-
ship. The ancestral home of his race Avas Velitrse
(modern Veletri) in the Volscian country, at no
great distance from Rome. The family was
equestrian and rich, the father of the future
Emperor being the first of his race to enter the
Senate. He had an honourable and successful
official career, attaining to the pnetorship and
the governorship of the province of Macedonia.
He died suddenly, and left three children, one of
them the future Emperor (aged 4), Avhose mother
Avas Atia. This Atia Avas the daughter of M.
Atius Balbus and Julia, the sister of the great
dictator Julius Coesar. Augustus Avas thus the
grand-nephoAv of the dictator. He receiA'ed the
dress of manhood at 15, and Avas alloAved to
accompany his grand-uncle to Spain (47 B.C.),
Avhere he already shoAved the quality of courage.
Soon after he Avas sent to Apollonia on the other
side of the Adriatic, to pursue his studies. He
was still there when the dictator Avas assassinated,
on 15 March, 44 B.C. It Avas then that he re-
vealed Avhat was in him. Though only eighteen
and a half years of age, he, having been adopted
into the Julian family by the aaIU of his grand-
uncle, Avhose heir he AA\as at the same time con-
stituted, took the name Gains Julius Csesiar
Octavianus, and immediately left for Italy, to
claim not only the private out also tlie public
inheritance of his grand-uncle. His great career
is best folloAved in the next section. His private
and family history may be summed up here. As
a young man he Avas betrothed to a daughter
of P. Servilius Isauricus, but he broke off this
engagement, and for political reasons married
Claudia, step-daughter of Mark Antony, in her
extreme youth. Her he immediately divorced,
and afterAvards Scribonia, his second Avife. Im-
mediately after the second divorce he robbed
Tiberius Claudius Nero of his Avife, Livia Drusilla
(38 B.C.), and with her he lived all the rest of his
life. His immediate household consistt^d of her,
her tAA'o sons by her previous liusliaiul, the future
Emperor Tiberius {q.v.), and Drusus, as well as liis
own daughter Julia, Scribonia's child. Julia bore
five childron to the second of her three husbands,
M. Vipsaiiius Agrippa, namely Gaiii>. Lu(in>,
Agrippa, .lulia, and Agrippina. (lain-aiul l.mius
Avere adopted by their grandfather, but dieil early.
All his direct descendants in fact died early or
disgraced him, and he Avas forced to fall back on
his step-son Tiberius fur tlie -neif ^.m. !)ni-us
haA'ing perished in 9 B.C., Tiberius \\a~ (uiMixll.il
in his turn to adopt his nepheAV Gcrmanicu.s.
Augustus died 19 August, a.d. 14.
AUGUSTUS
AUTHORITIES
125
3. OflScial career. — The stages in Augiistus'
official career may be summed up as follows.
He was recognized by the Senate in 44 B.C. ; re-
ceived pnetorian imperiutn against Antony, on 19
August made consul (though hardly twenty years
of age), elected triumuir rei publicce const ituendce
(with Antony and Lepidus) for five years, 43 ;
appointed augur, 37 (or later) ; first conferment of
tribunicia potestas, 36 ; between 37 and 34 elected
XVuir sacris /aciundis; 30, fourth consulship
(hence annually, with certain exceptions, until
the 13th was reached in 2 B.C.) ; 27, title Augustus
and imperial pow^ers ; 23, the tribunicia potestas
conferred on him for life ; 22, a special ciira
annonce ; 18, imperial powers renewed for 5 years ;
16 (before this date), elected septemuir epulonum ;
15, coinage of gold and silver for the Empire
reserved to Emperor ; 12, elected ^on^i/ea; maxirnus ;
8, imperial powers renewed for ten years; 2,
received title of pater patrice ; A.D. 3, imperial
powers renewed for ten years, and again in a.d.
13. The ' deification ' took place on 17 Sept., 14.
i. Achievements. — This bare enumeration marks
the steps by ■which the power of Augustus was
gradually consolidated, and with it the Empire
itself. The achievements of Augustus which led
to this result can only be briefly enumerated.
Amongst the most important, because without
them nothing further could have been attained,
are his military achievements. His military career,
with few exceptions, was continuously successful.
It began by the driving of Antonius into Gallia
Transalpina (43 B.C.), and was followed up by the
defeat of Brutus and Cassius at PhUippi (42), the
defeat of Sextus Pompeius (36), and the defeat of
Cleopatra and Antonius at Actium (31). At this
poinc ci\il war ends, aU his Roman enemies and
rivals are removed, and he can give attention to
frontier problems. A succession of frontier wars
ends in N^ctory for the Romans : in 19 the Cantabri
were exterminated, in 15 the Raeti and Vindelici
were conquered. The German wars gave great
trouble throughout the later part of his reign, in
which most valuable help was rendered by his
step-sons Tiberius and brusus. In the earlier
period Augustus was most fortunate in possess-
ing such an able lieutenant as M. Vipsanius
Agrippa.
In other respects also Augustus was extremely
active — in the spheres of law, religion, architecture,
and building. He did all he could to restore the
sapped virtue of the Italians by his encouragement
of family life and his attempts to recover the
simplicity of the ancient Italian religion. He
was a patron of literature, and was greatly helped
in his aims by the writings of Virgil and Horace.
In all his schemes for the betterment of Rome,
Maecenas, an Etruscan knight, himself a patron
of literature, was his right-hand man. Among
the important statutes passed were the Lex Lulia
de adidteriis (18 B.C.), the Lex de maritandis
ordinibus, and the Lex Papia Poppcea — all in the
interests of a worthy family life, which Augustus
recognized to be the indispensable foundation of a
truly great State. The Lex ^lia Sentia (4 B.C.)
regulated the status of manumitted slaves, a large
class of growing influence in the State (see
Clattdius). Augustus' interest in religion was
shown by his acceptance of several sacred offices,
as well as by the restoration of many decayed
temples and rituals. His boast that he had found
Rome made of brick and left it made of marble
probably means no more than that he faced the
(regular) brick core of buildings with marble slabs,
but he certainly spent vast sums on building.
Among the most important monuments of his
reign are the Portus lulius (37 B.C.), the Templum
Diui luli (29), the temple of Apollo on the Palatine
Hill, equipped with public libraries of Greek and
Latin literature (28), and the theatre of Marcellus
(11). The personal ability of Augustus is some.
times unjustly depreciated. It may be questioned
if he owed more than inspiration to nis grand-
uncle.
5. Administpation. — The Emperor's administra-
tion covered not only the whole of Italy, but the
imperial (or frontier) provinces, where an army
was required. He had financial agents also in the
senatorial provinces. The great achievement of
Augustus was that he ruled the Roman Empire as
a citizen (though the chief citizen, princeps), under
constitutional forms. In theory the Empire ceased
with the death of the Emperor, but under these
constitutional forms he laid the foundations of a
lasting despotism. Luke refers in 2^ to a census
of the whole Empire ordered by him. This was
one of his administrative reforms, and the census
recurred every 14 years. A census of Roman
citizens, as distinguished from subjects of the
Empire, was taken tAnce in his reign, in 28 and
8 B.C. Cf. art. C^SAK.
LiTBRATURK. — ^Therc are many vexed questions connected
with the career of Augustus, which will make one always regret
that T. Mommsen did not write the fourth volume of his
Romisehe GetehiehU, which was to cover Augustus' reign ; of.,
however, the second edition of the Rei Gegtte Divi Avgutti
(Berlin, 1883X edited by him ; V. Gardthausen's Avffusttig tmd
seim Zeit, Leipag, 1891 ff. (2 parts, each in three volumes,
first jiart text, second part notesX has not filled the gap.
Chronology of chief events is best g^ven by J. S. Reid in A
Companion to Latin Studies (ed. J. E. Sandys, Cambr. 1910X
129 S. The theor}' of the Empire is best expounded in the same
writer's chapter in the Cambridge Medianal History, i., Cambr.
1911 ; a splendid account is .found also in H. F. Pelham, Out-
line* of Roman History, London, 1893 ; A. v. OomaszewsJd's
Gesek. derriim. Kaiser, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1909, voL L pp. 11-250,
by a master of Roman history and antiquities ; etc. The chief
ancient authori ties are the J/anu7n«ntum.<ine}nvnum,Suetonius'
Life of Augustus, Velleius Paterculus, Appian, DioC^sdus, and
the early chapters of TacitOB. A. SOUTKK.
AUTHOR AND FINISHER.— In He 12^ Jesus is
called the ' author (AV and RV ; AVm ' beginner,'
RVm ' captain ') and finisher ( AV ; RV ' perfecter ')
of (our) faith.' The Gr. word rendered 'author'
{ipXTt^) occurs in three other passages, viz. Ac 3'*
5^1 and He 2'<'. It is translated ' captain ' in He 2^'^
(AV; but RV 'author'); in Ac 2,^ 'prince' (AV
and RV ; AVm and RVm ' author ') ; in Ac 5*^
' prince. ' In classical Greek it is used for a ' leader,'
one who precedes others by his example, and so for
an ' originator.'
The reference in He 12* is to the previous chapter.
The writer, in summing up the list of heroes of faith,
bids us look unto Jesus, who is pre-eminently the
Leader in that great company, and the Perfect
Example of that virtue of which to a certain extent
they have been witnesses. The insertion of the
word ' our ' in the EV obscures the meaning. ' The
faith ' refers to that which has been the main theme
of ch. 11.
Alford, Bleek, Ebrard, Wordsworth, and A. B.
Davidson translate apxvy^^ in He 12- by ' leader' ;
Wyclif has ' the maker ' ; but Tindale, Cranmer,
the Geneva and the Rheims all have ' author.'
As Jesus is the Leader in the great army of the
Faith, so is He also the Finisher or Perfecter
(reXctwr^s). Therefore we run the race looking
unto Him as our Leader and the only one who can
sustain us to the end and perfect that which He
has begun (cf. Davidson, in loc).
MOKLEY STEVEXSON.
AUTHORITIES.— The word occurs thrice in the
English NT: Lk 12ii RV (AV 'powers'; Gr.
^^ovaiai). Tit 3' RV (AV ' powers ' ; Gr. e^ovcriai), and
1 P 3=^ (Gr. i^omiai). This is by no means a com-
plete list of the occurrences of i^ovcia (sing, and
plur.) in a quasi-concrete sense in the NT. It is
characteristic that in the first and second of these
places the word should be united with apxai, and
126
AUTHORITY
BABBLER
in the third with dwd/xet^. This collocation of
words denoting power in some manifestation or
other is due to the later Jewish theology, whicli
postulated the existence of a number of spiritual
powers (cf. artt. Dominion, Power, Principality,
Throne, etc.) inhabiting the air. These powers
were defined in Greek under the various aspects of
dOfafjLis (physical force), dpxT^ (magisterial power),
and ^^ovala (moral authority). At first each of the
words was, no doubt, intended to carrv a precise
signification, and the complete list would comprise
every sort of spiritual power man could conceive ;
but later the enumeration became so familiar as to
be repeated without any clear distinction between
the individual terms (so 1 P 3^). The frequency
of the use to indicate spiritual powers has a reflex
efiect. The word i^ovalai is used in the first and
second passages with reference to earthly powers.
It does not seem possible to say precisely what
powers are intended, but in the Gospel passage
(where the wording is peculiar to Luke) it is prob-
able that the Sanhedrin and the Roman procurator
of Jddfea would be included, while in the Titus
Epistle the reference is to all those set in authority
over the people — the Emperor, the governor and his
suite, as well as the local magistrates. See also
the following article. A. Souter.
AUTHORITY. — This word, which occurs much
more frequently in RV than in AV, in most cases
represents the Gr. i^ovcrla. It is used of delegated
authority in Ac 9" 26^''* ^"^ ; of the authority of an
apostle in 2 Co 10^ and 13"> (RV) ; of earthly rulers
('authorities') in Tit 3^ (RV), cf. Lk 12^^; and in
RV of Apocalypse is substituted frequently for AV
' power ' ; cf. Rev 6* 12i» 13*-'2 17^2 (in 1713 it replaces
AV ' strength '). Yet in many places RV still re-
tains ' power ' as the translation of i^ova-la ; cf. Ac
819, Col li», Ro 13i-», Rev 9i» 11« etc. In 1 Co lli"
i^ova-La is used in a peculiar sense ( ' for this cause
ought the woman to have i^ovaiav on her head,
because of the angels'), where a veil appears to be
meant. Here AV gives ' power,' RV ' a sign of
authority,' with 'have authority over' in the
margin.
In several passages i^ovffla is used to designate a
created being superior to man, a spiritual potentate,
viz. 1 Co 15^^ Eph 1", Col 2", and, in the plural,
Eph 31" 61=*, Col 116 215, 1 p 322^ In 1 Co 15-* and 1 P
3^, AV and RV render ' authority ' and RV also in
Eph l''!, the reason probably being that SOva/iLs also
occurs in these verses for which the word ' power '
was needed. In the other references the transla-
tion is 'power' or 'powers.' Seeing that i^ovfflai
appear to be a class of angelic beings distinct from
dvi/d/xeii, it would have been conducive to clearness
if the word ' authority ' had been used in all these
passages. In Eph 6i^ evil principles are obviously
referred to (cf. 2'') ; in 1 Co 15'^ both good and evil
angels may be included (Lightfoot, Uol.^ 1879, p.
154). See, further, under Principality, and cf.
the preceding article.
In a few places 'authority' in AV represents
other Gr. words, viz. Ac 8^ AV, RV, ' a eunuch of
great authority' (Swdo-riji) ; 1 Ti 2^ AV ' for kings
and for all that are in authority ' {iv inrepoxv), RV
' in high place ' ; 1 Ti 2i* AV ' I suffer not a woman
... to usurp authority over the man ' (avdivrelv
6.v5p6i), RV ' to have dominion over ' ; Tit 2" ' re-
buke (AV reprove) with all authority ' (eVtra-yTjs).
W. &. DUNDAS.
AVENGING.— See Vengeance.
AZOTUS ('AfwTos).— Azotus, the Gr. form of
' Ashdod,' occurs often in 1 Mac. (4"5''10"- ^'- etc.),
and once in the NT. St. Philip met the Ethiopian
on ' the way that goes down from Jerusalem to
Gaza,' and, after baptizing him, ' was found at
Azotus ' (Ac 8-*- **). Ashdod was the most import-
ant of the Philistine cities which formed the Penta-
polis. Situated midway between Joppa and Gaza
— about 25 miles from each — it passed through
many vicissitudes. It appears often in the histori-
cal and prophetic books or the OT, in the Assjnrian
records, in the Maccabsean annals, and in Josephus.
Herodotus (ii. 157) says that the siege which Azotus
endured before it was subdued by Psarameticus,
king of Egypt, was the longest on record, lasting 29
years. Ashdod survives in the modem Esdud, a
village on the slope of a wooded artificial mound {tell)
— once, no doubt, a strong fortress — about 3 miles
from the sea-coast, where the traces of a harbour
have been found. The ancient city lies beneath the
sand-drift that now threatens to bury the mud
hovels of the village, among which some remains
of old stone bnililings are to be seen. The wide
plain to the east is exceedingly fertile.
James Strahan.
B
BAAL. — Baal (Ro 11*, in a quotation from 1 K
191*) was a generic name for a god among Semitic
peoples, the literal meaning being ' owner ' or ' lord . '
Attempts have been made to show that this was the
original name of the Sun-god, or that it represents
the Supreme Being worshipped by the Canaan-
ites. Neither of these contentions can be proved ;
indeed it is evident that the Baal of one place
differed from that of another. Thus the reference
in the text is to Melkart, the Baal of Tyre. The
feminine article (t^ BadX) in the Greek of Ro 11*
is due to the frequent substitution of bdsheth
(in Greek al<rx>iyv), * shame,' for Baal by the
Hebrews.*
LrrBRATURB.— A. S. Peake, art. 'Baal' in HDB\ G. F.
Moore in EBi ; L. B. Paton In ERK ; W. R. Smith, RS\
London, 1894, p. 93 ff. F. W. WORSLEY.
* Hence frequently in LXX if BaoA (=:^ aXrxyyt), though in
1 K 19^'* the reading is rep BooA.
BABBLER (Ac 17").— Augustine and Wyclif
wrongly derive the word cvepfioXSyos from airelpu
\6yovi and translate it ' sower of words.' It is
properly derived from a-n-ipfM, ' seed,' and X^«i',
' to gather.' Originally an adjective, the derived
substantive was used of small birds gathering
crumbs (Aristophanes, Av. 233, 580). It was after-
wards applied to loafers in the market-place who
gained a precarious livelihood by what tney could
pick up, and it thus connotes ' a vulgar fellow,' • a
parasite.' Greek writers used it as a term of con-
tempt for plagiarists and nseudo-philosophers (cf.
Eustathius on Homer, Oayss. v. 490), and Zeno
thus names one of his followers. W. M. Ramsay
{St. Paul the Traveller and the Boman Citizen, 1895,
p. 242) speaks of the word as 'characteristically
Athenian slang, clearly caught from the very lips
of the Athenians.' The word thus contemptuously
implies one who is an outsider and yet wishes to
pose as one of the inner circle, and probably does
BABBLINGS
BA2sD
127
not refer to anything that the Apostle had said. I
It would seem, therefore, that the expression was j
used by the philosophers who have just been
mentioned rather than by the populace in general.
They resented the intrusiooi of one who had no
credentials, and from the first viewed him with
hostility (see, further, Ramsay, ' St. Paul in Athens,'
in Expositor, 5th ser., iL [1895] 262 S.
r. W. WORSLEY.
BABBLINGS ( 1 Ti 6», 2 Ti 2i« ^f^^Xovi Kevcx^vlas).
— The ' profane babblings, and the oppositions of
the knowledge which is falsely so called' are all
profitless speculation and empty religious talk
which only minister questions, but have no value
in the equipment of a man of God, or in the build-
ing "up of the Church. The implied contrast is
between intellectualism in religion and genuine
pietv in heart and life (cf. F. Godet, Expositor,
Srdser., vii. [I888]45flF.).
Some have seen in 'the oppositions {opTideffeu)
of the knowledge which is falsely so called,' a
reference, covert or open, to Marcion's Antitheses ;
but this has scarcely bsen made out, and it is better
to take the words as pointing to an incipient
Gnosticism, hardly yet conscious of itself, against
which the writer — be he St. Paul or a Paulinist —
warns his readers {cf. M. Dods, Introd. to NT,
London, 1888, p. 174). The Greek mind was always
desirous of being saved by dialectic, and ready to
hear or to tell some newer thing (cf. Ac 17'^^). In
the fermenting vat of the Greek cities in the Apos-
tolic as well as in the sub- Apostolic Age there were
frothy, windy men who knew everything about
religion except 'the practick part''(cf. Didache,
ii. 40-45 : ovK Irrai 6 \6yos aov ^euSrjs, oil Kev&s, 6Wd
IJtefieorwfUvm rpd^ei — ' Thy speech shall not be false,
nor empty, but filled with doing '). Practical piety
is the writers theme, and he calls Christians to
cultivate simplicity as it is in Jesus ; not to lose
themselves in a cloud of words, but to be direct
and devout. Cf. A. Rowland (1 Tim., London,
1887) : ' It is easier to quibble over Christ's words
than to imitate His life.' To the same etfect,
Butler {Charge to the Clergy) advises them 'not to
trouble about objections raised by men of gaiety
and speculation,' but to endeavour to beget a prac-
tical sense of religion 'upon the hearts of the
people ' (cf. EBi iv. 5094).
The standing type of the religious babbler is
Bunyan's ' Talkative,' who will ' talk of things
Heavenly or things Earthly . . . things sacred or
things profane, things past or things to come,
things more essential or things circumstantial.'
To this masterly characterization ' of the evil ex-
cesses of some of the prophets, lunatic preachers,
and loquacious hypocrites ' in Puritan tmies may
be added R. H. Button's description (C&n^e/nporary
Thought and Thinkers, London, 1894, i. 257) of a
certain rampant sceptic of yesterday as a man
' hurling about wildly loose thoughts over which
he has no intellectual control.' These are the
profane babblers of the Pastoral Epistles. They
were not only unsettling to the Church — ' If I had
said " I will speak thus," I should have been faith-
less to the generation of thy children,' Ps 73" —
but the unreal words corrupted the babbler himself,
as the writer not obscurely hints. His nature
is suMued to what he works among (cf. Emerson :
• I cannot listen to what you are saying for thinking
of what you are ').
To use unreal words, to be constantly dealing
with the greatest things, and yet to be too shallow
or flippant to realize their majesty, was, in the
Apostolic Age, and ever since has been, the peculiar
snare and peril of religious speakers, and gives
point to the taunt of Carlvle : ' When a man takes
to tongue-work, it is all over with him.' The
Carthusian student who went to a teacher and got
the text ' I will take heed to my wavs that I sin not
■«-ith my tongue,' found that enougli for a lifetime.
On the whole subject Newmans lines ('Flowers
without Fruit,' in Verses on Various Occasions) are
an apt and instmctiTe commentary :
' Prune tboa tbjr words, tibe thoosfato control
That o'er thee audi and thitxv/
Utkrattbx.— In addition to the worto cited abore, we
A. Whyte, Bunyan Ckaratten, L [Edinburgh, 1895] 180 ; J.
Kelman, The Road, L [do. 1911] 180 ; Joseph Butler, Sermont,
ed. Gladstone, Oxford, 188«, na 4. V\'. !M. GraXT.
BABYLON.— See Apocalypse and Pktkk, Fibst
Epistle of.
BACKBITING.— See Evil-speakixg.
BALAAM. — The somewhat prominent place
that Balaam holds in the Apostolic Age may be
appraised by the three references to him in the
NT (2 P 2^, Jude ", and Rev 2") ; by the legends
which grew round his name in Hellenistic and
Haggadic literature, and later in Muhammadanism ;
and perhaps by the apparent popularity of the dis-
cussion of the ' Blessings of Balaam ' by Hippolytus.
Balaam has become the representative of false
teachers and sorcerers, and we may suspect a play
on his name in Rev 2^* (perhaps = 'lord of the
people'), in order to brand certain Gnostic teachers
as making gain for themselves out of the simple
folk by the use of magic and by the teaching of a
gnosis which tended to laxity of practice. (It is
not improbable that in the Nicodemus of Jn 3 is
enshrined a counter-play of words — the Jewish
party also, it is hinted, had a false and carnal
doctrine of their own. ) Balaam becomes in legend
a counsellor of Pharaoh ; he and his two sons
Jannes and Jambres (q.v.) were compelled to flee
from Egypt to Ethiopia, where Balaam reigned as
king till conquered by Moses. On this he and his
sons returned to Egypt and became the master-
magicians who opposed Moses. Finally, Phinehas
attacked Balaam, who by his magic flew into the
air, but was killed by Phinehas in the power of the
Holy Name. See Nicolaitaxs ; also JE ii. 468 f .
W. F. Cobb.
BALAK. — Balak is named in Rev 2" along with
Balaam. Like Balaam {q.v.), Balak is to be re-
garded here as a typical figure. The former
teaches doctrine which is false in itself, corrupt in
its motive, and immoral in its fruits ; while Balak
is, as in the OT, the heathen power which thrusts
Balaam's sorceries on the faithful. It is difficult
to resist the conclusion that, if Balaam is the
teacher of Gnosticism, Balak is the Roman power
which has adopted syncretism and seeks to compel
the Christians to adopt its ways also, and so makes
them fall into the corruptions attendant on pagan
worship. W. F. Cobb.
BAND {<rreipa, always 'cohort' in RYm). — As a
province of the second rank, governed by pro-
curators, Judaea was not garrisoned by legionaries,
who were Roman citizens, but by auxiliaries, who
were levied from subject races. £ach cohort, vary-
ing from 500 to 1000 infantry, usually strengthened
by an ala of cavalry, was named after the Greek
city from which it was recruited — ' cohors Sebas-
tenorum, Ascalonitarum,' etc. The Jews them-
selves were exempted from military service-
Various data supplied by Josephus (see the refer-
ences in Schiirer, HJP I. ii. 51 f.) indicate that
the Judaean forces were originally the troops of
Herod the Great, which were taken over by the
Romans after the deposition of Archelaus in A.D. 6.
At ordinary times Jerusalem was garrisoned by
one cohort — called by Josephus a riyfia {BJ V. v, 8)
1 — which was stationed at the tower of Antonia, on
128
BAPTISM
BAPTISM
the north side of the Tenii)le, under the com-
mand of a diiliarch (Ac 21*^). Part of this cohort
— 200 infaiitrj', 70 horsemen, and 200 5«|to\<i/3ot, an
obscure term translated ' spearmen ' (see Schiirer,
op. cit. 56) — formed St. Paul's protecting convoy
wlien he was transmitted by Claudius Lysias to
the governor Felix in Csesarea.
James Strahan.
BAPTISM — 1. Christian baptism in the NT.—
It will be convenient at the beginning of this article
to collect the narratives of and allusions to Chris-
tian baptism in the NT. The command of our
Lord to make disciples of all the nations by bap-
tism (Mt 28^"; see oelow, 4 and 8) was faithfully
carried out by the first disciples. Actual bap-
tisms are recorded in Ac 2*** *^ (the 3000 converts),
8i2t. 16 (Samaritans, men and women, and Simon),
gss. 3s (the Ethiopian eunuch), 9^8 22ie (Saul), 10"'-
(Cornelius and his friends), IB^"^ (Lydia and her
household), 16^ (the Philippian jailer 'and all
his '), 18* (Crispus and his nouse, and many Cor-
inthians), 19' (about twelve Ephesians), 1 Co 1^*- "
(Crispus, Gains, and the household of Stephanas).
In addition to these narratives there are many
allusions to Christian baptism in the NT — Ro
6^'-, Col 2^2, baptized into Christ Jesus, into His
death, buried with Him in baptism : a common
thought in early times — e.g. Apost. Const, ii. 7
and often in that work (see A. J. Maclean, Ancient
Church Orders, 123).— 1 Co 6^^ sanctification and
justification connected with the washing of bap-
tism ; three aorists, referring to a definite event :
' ye washed away {aireKoiffacrOe, middle) [your sins]
... in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in
the Spirit of our God ' ; cf. Ac 22^® (above) : ' arise
and be baptized ' {^awTLffai, ' seek baptism ') and
wash away (diroXova-ai) thy sins.' — 1 Co 12'^, [Jews
and Gentiles] all baptized in one Spirit into one
body. — Gal 3", baptized into Christ, put on Christ.
— Eph 4', 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism.' —
Eph 5^, Christ sanctified the Church, having
cleansed it by the washing (Kovrpc^) of water mth
the word. The 'word' is said by Robinson {Com.
in loc.) to be the ' solemn invocation of the name
of the Lord Jesus ' ; Westcott (in loc. ) adds :
'accompanied by the confession of the Christian
faith, cf. Ro 10*'; Chase (J ThSt viii. 165) inter-
prets it of the word or fiat of Christ, and compares
Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. iii. 5).— Tit 3«, ' by the
washing of regeneration (5tA Xovrpov TraXiyyevecrias)
and renewing of the Holy Ghost ' ; see below,
8. — He 6^" *, the first principles are repentance,
faith, teaching of baptisms (^airTia-fiQv) and of
laying on of hands, resurrection, and judgment ;
Christians were once enlightened ((jximadivras) and
tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made par-
takers of the Holy Ghost ; hence the name ' illumi-
nation ' (<^wTt(rAi6s) and ' illuminated ' for ' baptism '
and 'the baptized' in Justin (Apol. i. 61, 65) and
elsewhere. Westcott interprets the 'teacliing
[StSax^J, but B reads •■l)v, which is adopted in
RVm and by WH] of baptisms ' as instruction
about the ditlerence between Christian baptism
and other lustral rites. Chase (Confirmation in
Apostol. Age, p. 44 f . ) denies this, and interprets
the phrase of the baptism of different neophytes,
' the Christian rite in its concrete application to
individual believers ' : the ' heavenly gift ' is one
part of the illumination or baptism, i.e. the gift
of the Son, of Eternal life, or sonship (Chase) ;
the partaking of the Holy Ghost is the other part.
In any case the iwiOecm x^^P^" niust refer to the
laying on of hands which followed immersion (see
below, 6), thou";h Westcott would extend it to
benedictions, ordinations, etc., as well. — He 10*"-,
' our body washed with pure water ' (our sacra-
mental bathing contrasted with the symbolic
bathings of the Jews [Westcott]), ' let us hold fast
the confession (hfioXoylav) of our hope.' — In 1 P 3"
baptism is the ' antitype ' of the bringing of Noah
safe througli the water ; the antitype is here the
'nobler member of the pair of relatives' (Bigg,
ICC, in loc), the fulfilment of the type ; but in He
9^ it is used conversely, as it often is in Christian
antiquity when the Eucharistic bread and wine
are called the antitype of our Lord's body and
blood, e.g. Verona Didascalia (ed. Hauler, p. 112)
* panem quidem in exemplar quod dicit Graecus
antitypum corporis Christi'; so Cyr. Jer., Cat.
xxiii. 20; Tertullian similarly uses 'figura'(arfw.
Marc. iv. 10), and Serapion hfiolw/Jia (Liturgy, § 1).
For other instances, see Cooper-Maclean, Test, of
our Lord, Edinburgh, 1902, p. 172 f., and Apost,
Const. V. 14, vi. 30, vii. 25. In Ps.-Clem. £ Cor.
14 the flesh is the ' antitype ' of the Spirit.
In the Gospels, Christian baptism is three times
referred to : Mt 28i9, ' Mk ' 16^8, Jn S^- ». In the
last passage the words ^f iidaros, read in all MSS
and VSS, have been judged by K. Lake (Inaug.
Lecture at Leyden, 17th Jan. 1904, p. 14) to be
an interpolation, as they are not quoted by Justin.
This deauction is very precarious (for an examina-
tion of it, see Chase, JThSt vi. [1905] 604, note,
who deems the theory un.scientific) ; but in any
case the ' birth of the Spirit ' could not but con-
vey to the Christian readers of the Fourth Gospel
a reference to baptism. Westcott truly remarks
(Com. in loc.) that to Nicodemus the words would
suggest a reference to John's baptism. An
attempt to explain ' water ' here Avithout reference
to baptism is examined by Hooker (Eccl. Pol. v.
59), who lays down the oft-quoted canon that
'while a literal construction will stand, the
farthest from the letter is commonly the worst*
(see below, 8).
In these passages water is not always mentioned ;
but the word ^airrtfw, whicli to us is a mere
technical expression, and its Aramaic equivalent
(rt. h^a) would to the first disciples at once convey
the idea of water. The element is mentioned or
alluded to in Ac 8^, I Co 6" 12'8 ('drink of one
Spirit '), Eph 5^0, Tit 3», He lO^^, 1 P 32», and is
necessitated by the metaphor of burial in baptism
in Ro 6'', Col 2^^. Justin (Dial. 14) emphasizes
the element used, by calling baptism the ' water
of life' : so in Hermas (Vis. lii. 3) the Church (the
tower) is built on the waters, ' because your life is
saved and shall be saved by Avater.'
More indirect allusions to Christian baptism are
found in the NT. The Israelites, by a metaphor
from it, are said to have been baptized into (els)
Moses in the cloud and in the sea (1 Co 10*).
Whatever view is taken of baptism for the dead
(1 Co 15^), it alludes to the Christian rite. It has
been interpreted (a) of vicarious baptism on be-
half of those who had died unbaptized (cf. 2 Mac
2243(r-, ollering made for the dead) ; this AA'as the
practice of some heretics (so Tert., de Res. Cam.
48, adv. Marc. v. 10, and Goud^e, Alford). But
there is no evidence that it existed in the 1st cent.,
and the practice may have originated from this
verse ; could St. Paul have even tacitly approved
of such a thing? — (b) The AA'ords inrip tQv yfKpQp
are rendered by many Greek Fathers ' in expecta-
tion of the resurrection of the dead ' ; but this
forces the grammar, and gives no good sense to
{nrip a&rQv, Avhich is the best attested reading at
the end of the verse ; also ' they Avhich are bap-
tized ' means not all Christians, out some of them.
—(c) Others interpret the verse of people being
draAvn to the faith and to baptism out of affection
for some dead friend ; Robertson-Plummer (ICC,
in loc.) incline to this.— (rf) Estius and Calvin
render 'as now about to die,' jamjam morituri;
but see (b).—(e) Luther renders ' over the graves
of the dead ' ; here again see (b). Many other
BAPTISM
BAPTISM
129
suggestions have been made. It is probable that
the problem is insoluble with our present know-
ledge, and that the reference is to some ceremony
in tne then baptismal rite at Corinth of which we
hear no more, but not to vicarious baptism (see
Plummer in HDB i. 245).
Other allusions to baptism (the complete rite,
see below, 6) may probably be found in the meta-
phors of anointing and sealing. For anointing,
see 2 Co 1-'* (xp«ffas, aorist), 1 Jn 2"-*- ^ (the anoint-
ing abides in us and is not only a historical act).
Though anointing may have accompanied the rite
in the NT, and Chase (Confirmation, 53flF.) decides
that it wa-s so used, yet it is also not improbable
that its institution at a very early age of the
ChuYch may have been due to these very passages
— that the practice came from the metaphor. We
notice that in the Didache, § 7, anointing is not
mentioned, but that in Apost. Const, vii. 22 (4th
cent. ), wliich incorporates and enlarges the Didache,
it is introduced. It was certainly used very
early. Irenaens says that some of the Gnostic sects
anointed after baptism (c. Haer. I. xxi. 3f.) ; and
as the Gnostic rites were a parody of those of the
Church, this carries the eWdence back to c. A.D.
150. It is mentioned by Tert. , de Bapt. 7, de Bes.
Cam. 8 ; by Cyr. Jer., Cat. xxii. 1. From the
anointing came the custom of calling the baptized
'christs,' xP'<'^TO' (Cyr. Jer., loc. cit. ; Methodius,
Banquet of the Ten Virgins, viii. 8, where Ps 105"
LXX is quoted*. In the NT, xP't'" is used meta-
phorically of our Lord; cf. Lk 4»8, Ac 4" 10^,
For sealing, see 2 Co 1** (same context as the
anointing), Eph 1" ('having believed ye were
sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise'), 4*
('sealed in the Holy Spirit'). The aorists in all
three passages, which connect the Holy Ghost
with the sealing, point to the definite time when
they became believers (Chase, Confirmation, p.
52). (The metaphor is used in Ro 4^^ of circum-
cision ; and otherwise in Jn 3*^ 6^, Ro 15^, 1 Co
9=^, 2 Ti 2^*.) Hence in Christian antiquity the
baptismal rite, either as a whole or in one or other
of its parts, is frequently called ' the seal,' atppayls ;
e.g. Hermas, Sim. is. 16, ' the seal is the water ' ;
cf. viiL 6; Ps.-Clem., 2 Cor. 7; Clem. Alex.,
Quis dives, 42; Tert., de Spect. 24 {signacidum) ;
CjT. Jer., Cat. iv. 16, etc.
To these passages must be added those which
speak of Christian adoption : Ro 8"- ^, Gal 4*,
Eph 1' ; for these see art. ADOPTION.
2. Predecessors of Christian baptism. — (a) The
words jSaxTij'cj, /Sottktjuoj, /Sdxrto-jua are used in the
NT of various ceremonial icashings of the Jews.
The verb is derived from ^amj, 'to dip' (found
in the NT onlv in Lk 16-*, Jn IS^*, and some MSS
of Rev 19", always literally), and has in classical
Greek the same meaning. In the NT jSaxrifw is
used either metaphorically, of the Passion of our
Lord (Mk lO^*'-, Lk 12»>, and some MSS of Mt 20^^
— so also ^rTicTfia) and of the descent of the Holy
Ghost at Pentecost (Ac 1' IP^, see below, 6), or
else of baptism and of Jewish ablutions. For
these last, see Mk 7* (the Jews 'baptize,' v.l.
sprinkle, themselves before meat and have ' bap-
tizings,' ^a-TTifffwvs, of vessels), Lk 11^ (of washing
before breakfast, i^-rriaOr) rpb roO apiarov), He 9^''
(divers 'baptisms,' i.e. washings).* Ceremonial
ablution was a common practice of the Jews (Ex
29* etc., Mk 7' -rvyfiy vixpwyrai, Jn 2® 3'^) ; and the
allusions to washing in connexion with baptism
(above, 1) would be familiar to the early Christians,
* /Stt»Tt<Tfi6« is used of Christian baptism in Col 213 (p./.
PawTUTfia), and in the plural in He 62 (see above, 1) ; Josephus
(Ant. xvni. v. 2) uses it of John's baptism. fiairruTfui is used
in the NT 12 times of John's baptism and 3 (or 4) times of
Christian baptism ; for its metaphorical use see above.
VOL. I. — 9
who also had the metaphor of cleansing ; see 2 Co
V, 1 Jn r. Rev 1» (some MSS) 7'* ; cf. 2 P 2».
(b) Baptism of proselytes. — The Jews admitted
'proselytes of rignteousness,' i.e. full proselytes,
with baptism, circumcision, and sacrifice. This
custom was very common in Rabbinical times,
though Josephus and Philo do not mention it, and
some have therefore concluded that it did not exist
in the 1st cent. ; but Edersheim has clearly proved
from ancient evidence that it was then in use [LT
ii. 746, App. xii.). It may be added that the Jews
in later times would not have borrowed baptism
from the Christians, though it is intelligible that first
John and then our Lord and His disciples should
have adopted a custom already existing and have
given it a new meaning. Such a baptized person
was said by the Rabbis to be as a little child just
bom (cf. Tit 3* ; see Edersheim, loc. cit.).
(c) The baptism of John is described in all the
Gospels. It was a preparatory baptism (Mt 3*^),
the baptism of repentance (Mk 1*, Lk 3», Ac 13**
19*), intended, by an outward symbol, to induce
repentance which is the essential requisite for the
reception of spiritual truth. So marked a feature
of his teaching was baptism, that John is called
pre-eminently 'the Baptist' (6 /SaTrwr^s, Mt 3*
IP"-, Mk 8«, Lk 7»-»9i»; Josephus, Ant. xvm.
V. 2 ; in Mk 6"- ***• 6 /Saxrt'fwp), But he himself
shows the difference between his baptism and that
of Jesus, in that the latter was to be Avith the Holy
Ghost (Mt 3'i, Mk P, Lk 3'«, Jn 1^) and with fire
(Mt., Lk.). For the meaning of baptism 'with
the Holy Ghost,' see below 6 and 8 (e). Baptism
' with fire ' is explained in Mt 3'^ ; it is a baptism
of judgment separating the wheat from the chaff,
and burning the chaff with fire unquenchable
(Allen, Com. in loc. ; so ;; Lk 3'^). This interpre-
tation, however, is denied by Plummer (ICC on
Lk 3**), who prefers a reference to the purifying
power of the grace given, or to the fiery trials that
await Christians. Others see a reference to the
' tongues like as of fire ' at Pentecost (Ac 2*).
However this may be, the fundamental difference
between the two baptisms is that John's was a
ceremonial rite symbolizing the need of repent-
ance and of washing away sin, while that of our
Lord was, in addition, the infusing of a new life ;
see below, 8. The baptism of John is mentioned
in the NT outside the Gospels in Ac 1«- ^ 10" ll'«
13** 18** 193^ ; the last two passages show that it
survived after Pentecost among those who had not
yet received the gospel.
To this preparatory stage is also to be assigned
the baptism of Jesus by John ; it was not the
institution of Christian baptism, though it paved
the way for it, and in some sense our Lord may be
said to have thereby sanctified ' water to the
mystical washing away of sin. ' Such also was the
baptizing by Jesus' disciples during His earthly
ministry ( Jn 3** 4') ; we note that our Lord carried
on the Baptist's teaching about the approach of the
kingdom and about repentance (Mk 1" ; cf. Mt 3*'),
though in His teaching the Good Tidings pre-
dominated, while in that of John repentance was
the chief note (Swete, Com. in loc.).
3. Preparation for baptism. — Instruction in
Christian doctrine before baptism is to some extent
necessary, because otherwbe there cannot be faith
and repentance. Our Lord commanded the dis-
ciples to teach (Mt 28**, diSoffKoyres) as well as to
baptize. St. Peter instructed the people and Cor-
nelius before he commanded them to be baptized
(Ac 21*-^ 10^*»- *8). Philip instructed the Samari-
tans and the Eunuch before baptism (S"-^**).
The instruction of TheophUns (Lk 1*) was probably,
at least in part, before baptism. Lydia's baptism
followed a preaching <Ac 16'*), as did that of the
Corinthians (18*). But in most of these cases the
130
BAPTISM
BAPTISM
teaching was very short, in some of them not last-
ing more than one day. And no instruction that
can be properly so called is mentioned in the case
of Saul (Ac 9'8 2218), or the Philippian jailer (18«;
note * immediately '), or the twelve Ephesians (19*).
Apollos had been instructed {^v Kar-qx-ntidvos) in the
way of the Lord, but only imperfectly, and Pris-
cilla and Aquila taught him more carefully (d/cpt-
^^ffrepov, Ac 18^*). The allusions to the instruction
of Christians in 1 Co W^, Gal 6« (/carijx^w), Ro 12^
Col 1** etc. (5t5d<r/cw), have no special reference to
baptism. In Ro 2'* KaTrix^u is used of Jewish
instruction.
At a later period, persons under instruction for
baptism were called catechumens {Karrjxov/j.ej'oi,
' those in a state of being taught ' ; cf. Gal 6*), and
their preparation was called catechesis (/carvJx'7''''^ 5
cf. our word ' catechism ' from KarTjxKr/Mdi, through
Latin). The catechumens were taught the Creed,
or Christian doctrine, during their catechumenate,
and their instruction was called the * traditio
symbol! ' ; they professed their faith at baptism,
and this profession was called the ' redditio symboli '
(see below, S). The baptism in later times norm-
ally took place in the early morning of Easter Day,
and the selection of candidates for baptism took
place on the 40th day before ( Cyr. Jer. , Cat. , In trod.
§ 4 ; it was called the ' inscribing of names,' dvofw.-
Toypa(f>ia) ; thenceforward the selected candidates
Avere called 'competentes,' ffwairoOvTes. In the
4th cent, the catechumenate lasted two years
(Elvira, can. 42) or three years {Ap. Const, viii.
32, and several Church Orders) ; but this was never
a hard and fast rule. Catechumens were not
allowed to be present at the main part of the
Eucharist or at the Agape (Didache, 9, and often in
the Church Orders). See, further, A. J. Maclean,
op. cit. pp. 16-19, 97 ; DCA, art. ' Catechumens.'
i. Formula of baptism. — It is not quite clear
what words were used for baptism in NT times.
In Mt 28^* our Lord bids His followers make
disciples of all the nations, baptizing (/SaTrr/foj/res,
present part.) them into the name (et's rb bvofw.,
AN ' in the name,' see 8) of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. These words are in
all MSS and VSS, but F. C. Conybeare {ZNTW,
1901, p. 275 ft'. ; HJ i. [Oct. 1902] 102 ft".) and K.
Lake (Inaug. Lect. at Leyden, 17th Jan. 1904) dis-
pute their authenticity, because Eusebius often
quotes the text without them or with ' make dis-
ciples of all the nations in my name. ' The careful
refutation of this view by Chase {JThSt vi. 483 ft'. )
and Riggenbach (• Der trinitar, Taufbefehl Matth.
28'*,' in Beitrdge zur Forderung christl. Theol.,
Giitersloh, 1903) has made this position untenable,
and we can with confidence assert that the full
text is part of the First Gospel. It has, however,
been denied that the words were spoken by our
Lord. But the view that He made some such
utterance, of which the words in Mt 28'" are
doubtless a much abbreviated record, is the only
way in which we can comprehend how such a
Trinitarian passage as 2 Co 13'* could have been
written, or understand the numerous passages in
the NT which affirm the Godhead of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost (Chase, JThSt vi. 509 f . ; see also
art. ' God '^ in SDB).
In Acts we read of people being baptized (almost
always in the passive) * in {ev) the name of the Lord
Jesus' (2*^ [v.l. iirl']), or ' into (eU) the name of the
Lord Jesus ' (8" 19*), or ' in (iv) the name of Jesus
Christ' (lO'^). In the Pauline Epistles we read of
baptism into Christ Jesus, into His death (Ro 6*),
into Christ (Gal 3'") ; with these passages cf. 1 Co
118.18 ('into the name of Paul,' ' into my name '),
10= ('into Moses'), 12" (' into one body '), Ac 19^
('into what?' — 'into John's baptism'); all these
passages also have the passive ' to be baptized,'
except 1 Co 10' whicli (according to the best read-
ing) has the middle i^airTLaavro (cf. 1 Co 6", Ac
22'" ; above, 1) ; 1 Co 6" has ' in (^i*) the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.'
Of these passages only Ac 8" 10*^ 19* are narra-
tives of baptisms.
The Pauline references clearly do not refer to
the formula used, though 1 Co 1'*- " makes it prob-
able that in some form the ' Name ' was mentioned
in the words of baptism. Do the other passages
refer to a formula ? On this point there is much
diversity of opinion, (a) It is maintained that the
formula at first ran ' in the name of the Lord
Jesus ' or the like ; and that the First Evangelist
introduced into his Gospel the Trinitarian formula
which was in use towards the end of the Ist century
(Robinson, EBi, art. ' Baptism '), It is not easy to
see how, if the other formula was the original
apostolic usage, this one could have been invented
in the third or even in the last quarter of the Ist
cent., unless indeed our liOrd had reallj' spoken
such words as are found in Mt 28'* ; and in that
case it is hard to see why the apostles should have
used a quite different formula. — (6) It is thought
that the passages in Mt. and Acts alike refer to the
formula used, l)ut that baptism into Christ's name
is necessarily the same as baptism into that of the
Holy Trinity. The latter statement is quite true,
but it does not meet the whole difficulty. — (c) It
is said that none of the passages in Acts refers to
a formula at all, but only to the theological import
of baptism (see below, 8). This is quite probable ;
at least the difterences of wording show that if
a formula is referred to at all in Acts, it was not
stereotyped in the first age. — (d) Assuming that our
Lord spoke, at any rate in substance, the words re-
corded in Mt 28'", many think that He did not here
prescribe a formula, but unfolded the spiritual
meaning of the rite (so Chase, JThSt vi. 506 ft'.,
viii. 177 ; Swete, Holy Spirit in NT, p. 124 ; W. C.
Allen, ICC, in lac). This view is extremely prob-
able, whatever inter})retation we put ujjon the
Eassage, for which see below, 8. It was our Lord's
abit not to make regulations but to establish
Erinciples ; so Socrates (HE v. 22), speaking of the
eeping of Easter, contrasts the practice of Jesus
with that of the Mosaic Law in the matter of the
making of rules.
It is quite possible that no formula of baptism is
given in the NT at all, and even that at first there
were no fixed words. It is probable that all the
NT passages refer primarily to the theological
import of the rite, though they may have a remote
allusion to the mode of baptizing. But though we
cannot assert that there was in the Apostolic Age
a fixed form of words, it was a sound instinct
which induced the Church, at least from the 1st
cent, onwards, to adopt the Trinitarian formula,
and it would be rash indeed to depart from it. If
our Lord's words did not prescribe a form of wonls,
at least they suggested it. We find it in the
Didache (§ 7 : ' baptize into the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost '), though in
describing Christians in § 9 the writer speaks of
them as 'baptized into the name of the Lord.'
So Justin paraphrases : ' They then receive the
washing with water in the name (ix 6v6ixaro%) of
God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of
our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit,'
and says that ' he who is illuminated (see above, 1)
is washed in the name of Jesus Christ . . . and
in the name of the Holy Ghost' {Apol. i. 61).
Tertullian says that the formula has been pre-
scribed [by Christ], and quotes Mt 28'* exactly {de
Bapt. 13 ; note especially that he translates eh rb
dvofia by •' in nomen ' though Mi^ne, aj)parently by
error, gives 'nomine'). In de Praescr. 20 he
paraphrases the text : ' He ba^le them ... go and
BAPTISM
EAPTISM
131
teach the nations who were to be baptized (intin-
guendas) into the Father (in Patrem), and into the
Son, and into the Iloly Ghost ' ; and in adv. Prax.
26 thus : ' He commands them to baptize into the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy (jhost, non in
tinum ' — i.e. not into one Person. The Trinitarian
formula is the only one found in the Church in
ancient times. It is prescribed or referred to in
Origen, Horn, in Lev. viL § 4, in the Church Orders
(Can. of Hipp. xix. [ed. Achelis, § 133] ; Ap. Const.
iii. 16, vii. 22 ; Ethiopic Didascalia, 16, ed. Piatt ;
Test, of our Lord, n. 7), in the Acts of Xanthippe
twice (XI. K. James, Apocr. Anecd. i. [ = 2'5ii. 3,
Cambridge, 1893] p. 79), and in the Apostolic
Canons [c. A.D. 400], can. 49 f. The fact that this
last "work forbids any other form probably shows
that in some heretical circles other words were used.
Most of the Eastern Churches, Orthodox or
Separated, use the passive voice ' N. is baptized,'
or the like. The Westerns, on the contrary,
alwajrs use the active : ' N., I baptize thee.' The
latter is perhaps the older form ; it is found in the
Canons of Hippolytus and (in the plural, ' We
baptize thee ')'\m\\QActsof Xanthippe (as above) ;
and it is favoured by Mt 28" itseu ('baptizing
them ') and Didache, 7 (' baptize,' imperative). It
is also found among the Copts and Abyssinians
(DCA L 162''; H. Denzinger, Eitus Orientalium,
Wurzburg, 1863, i. 208, 230, 235).
We may ask what is meant by the invocation of
the Divine name over the persons who were being
baptized, of which we read in Justin, Apol. i. 61
('tnenameof God is pronounced over Mm') and
Ap. Const, iii. 16 ('having named, ivovofuLras,
the invocation, eTiKXrjcriv, of Father and Son and
Holy Ghost, thou shalt baptize them in the water,
iv Ti} fSart'). In connexion with this, Ac 22'*
(' calling on his name ') is quoted ; but there it is
the baptized, not the baptizer, who ' invokes ' ;
baptism is given in response to the prayer of the
candidate. More to the point are Ac 15^^ ('the
Gentiles upon whom my name is called,' from Am
9^-), and Ja 2^ ('the honourable name which was
called upon you,' KVm, rd irixkridiv e4>' ifids) ; cf.
Nu 6^'^, where God's name is put upon the Israelites
by the threefold blessing, and Ac 19^, where the
Jewish exorcists named the name of the Lord
Jesus over the demoniacs, saying, ' I adjure you
by Jesus . . .' It is quite possible that in the
liT passages there may be some reference to the
words used in baptizing, which, as we have seen,
probably (at least in the ordinary way) included a
mention of the Name. But there is no evidence
that any invocation Avas part of the rite in apos-
tolic times, and Chase denies that it was so (JThSt
viiL 164). Is it necessary- to suppose that Justin
and the writer of the Apostolic Constitutions refer
to anything else than the Trinitarian formula of
baptism ':
5. Baptismal customs. — Some traces of customs
which were part of the rite in the early Church
are found in the NT, (a) A profession of faith
and renunciation of evil is common in ancient
times {e.g. Justin, Apol. i. 61, where the candidate
undertakes to be able to live according to the
faith ; Tert. de Bapt. 6, de Idol. 6, de Cor. 3, de
Spect. 4 — Tertullian mentions the renunciations,
for which see EEE i., art. ' Abrenuntio '). To such
a profession the gloss of Ac 8*^, which is older
than Irenaeus who mentions it (c. Ha^r. m. xii. 8),
is the oldest certain reference. But it is possible
that there is an allusion to it in 1 Co 15^* — or at
least to an instruction before baptism — though no
form of Creed can be intended (note v.^: ' I
delivered unto you first of all that which also I
received' — the 'delivery' of the faith to the
catechumens, see above, 3) ; also in Ro 6" 10^,
1 Ti 61-, 2 Ti 1"*-, He lO^^*-, 1 P 3=' (for this verse
see ERE i. 38), Jude^". While, however, it is ex-
tremely probable that some sort of a profession
of faith was always made at baptism, the NT
passages fall short of j)roof of the fact.
(b) Trine immersion is a very early custom, being
mentioned in the Didache (§ 7) and by Tertullian
(de Cor. 3, adv. Prax. 26). The practice of im-
mersion would probably be suggested by the word
jSaxr/fw (see above, 1). But J. A. Robinson (JThSt
viL 187 ff.) denies this, and says that as the word
is used of ceremonial washings in Mk 1*, Lk 11",
it need not imply immersion, though pdxTu (see
above, 2) does; but need only denote ceremonial
cleansing with water. Chase (JThSt viii. 179 f.)
replies that the vessels in Mk 7* must have been
dipped in order to be cleansed, and also that Lk
11** means bathing ; to this may be added that
ceremonial ' baptizing ' of ' themselves ' in Mk 7* is
shown by v.' to mean the dipping of their hands
into water. However this may be with regard to
those passages, it seems more than probable that
the word /Saxri^w to the first disciples, when used
of baptism, conveyed the idea of immersion, both
because it would be difficult otherwise to explain
the metaphor of baptismal burial and resurrection
(Ro 6*, Col 2^*), and because the Jewish practice in
proselyte-baptism (see above, 2) was to undress
the candidate completely, and to immerse hiin so
that every part ot his body was touched by the
water (Eiersheim, LT iL 745 f.; the canmdate
also maide a profession of faith before the ' fathers
of the baptism ' or sponsors). But it is also prob-
able that total immersion could not always be
practised, as in the case of the PhUippian jailer ;
and that when this was the case the candidate
stood in the water, which was then poured over
him.
There is no trace in the NT of trine immersion,
which doubtless was founded on the Trinitarian
formula, though this is no evidence against its ex-
istence in the apostolic period. Flowing (' living ')
water, if it can be had, is prescribed in the Didache
(§ 7) and in several Church Orders (Maclean, p.
104). In case of necessity the Didache {loc. cit.)
expressly allows atfusion. Immersion is implied
in Ep. of Barnabas, § 11, where we read of going
down into the water laden with sin, and rising up
from it bearing fruit in the heart.
(c) Clothing the neophytes. — In the early Church
the putting off of the clothes of the candidates
before baptism, and the clothing of them afterwards,
usually in whit« robes, were emphasized as cere-
monial actions ; but of this we have no certain
evidence before the 4th century. Constantine was
buried in his baptismal robes (ri (pufkbria, DCA i.
162). The Church Orders make a great point of the
clothing, and the Test, of our Lord mentions white
robes (ii. 12, see Maclean, p. 105), as does Ambrose,
de JIt/st. 34 (vii.). Even from the first, whether
immersion was total or partial, there must have
been an unclothing and a re-clothing ; and this, as
it would seem, gives point to the metaphor about
'putting off' (areKSwd/ieroi) the old man, and
' putting on ' (irdvadfievoi) the new, in Col ^, and
alx>ut ' putting on ' Christ in baptism in Gal 3*^ ;
cf. Ro 13''*, Eph 4^. The metaphor goes back in
some degree to OT times ; in Zee 3^*- Joshua the
high priest is stripped of his fUthy garments as a
symbol, and Justin (Dial. 116) perhaps applies
this to Christian baptism : ' even so we . . . have
been stripped of the filthy garments, that is, of our
sins.' Josephus tells us (BJ U. viii. 5) that the
Essenes clothed themselves in white veils and
bathed as a puiification, and then partook of a
common meal with benediction before and after it ;
then, laying aside their garments, they went to
work tiU the evening. But there was apparently
no symbolism about this clothing.
132
BAPTISM
BAPTISM
(d) The kiss of peace after baptism is common in
Christian antiquity. Justin (Apol. i. 65) describes
it as taking place after the newly-baptized are
received among the faithful and after the people's
prayers, i.e. at the Eucharist which followed the
rite of baptism. Cyprian (Ep. Iviii. 4, ad Fidum)
alludes to it at the baptism of infants. In the
Church Orders it is used at Confirmation, as well
as at the Eucharist, and (apparently) at all times
of prayer (Maclean, pp. 18 f., 108). Tertullian
{de Orat, 18) says that some did not observe it
in times of fasting. There could be no better
symbol of Christian love than this, and it is
highly probable that it was used in worship in NT
times ; such would seem to be the suggestion of
the 'holy kiss' in Ro 16^ 1 Co IG-^*, 2 Co IS^^
1 Th 52«, and of the ' kiss of love ' in 1 P 5^*. But
there is no evidence in the NT as to its use in
baptism.
(e) For a possible use of anointing in the NT,
see 1 ; for the laying on of hands, see 6. The sign
of the cross was used in early times, and was often
called the ' seal' (Maclean, p. 108 ; Cyr. Jer., Cat.
xiii. 36). Some think that this is referred to in
the passages cited above in 1 about ' sealing ' ; but
this is more than doubtful.
(/) Of three other early baptismal customs
there is no trace in the NT. (a) Sponsors are men-
tioned by Tertullian in de Bapt. 18 ('sponsores') ;
of. de Cor. 3 ('inde suscepti'). They Avere called
' susceptores ' (iv&doxoi.) because they ' received ' the
newly- baptized when they came up from the font ;
cf. d.va\r)<pd€U, Socrates, ilE vii. 4. They are found
in the Church Orders (Maclean, p. 98f. ); and,
especially in the case of infants, when they make
the responses for them, they might be the parents
or others of their ' houses ' (Test, of our Lord, ii. 8).
In Justin (Apol. i. 61) ' he who leads the person
that is to be washed to the laver ' seems to be the
baptizer. (j3) Fasting before baptism is ordered in
the Didache (§ 7), and is mentioned by Justin (Apol.
i. 61) and Tertullian (de Bapt. 20 ; cf. de Jejun. 8),
and frequently in the Church Orders (Maclean, pp.
133 f., 137 f.). This is analogous to the fasting in
Ac IS^* before the sending forth of Barnabas and
Saul. (7) The tasting of milk and honey by the
newly-baptized after baptism (and conmiunion)
seems originally to have been an Egyptian and
' African ' custom only. It is mentioned by
Tertullian (de Cor. 3, adv. Marc. i. 14), by Clement
of Alexandria (Paed. i. 6), and in the Egyptian and
Ethiopic Church Orders, the Canons of Uippolyttis,
and the Verona Didascalia (all these four are
probably Egyptian), but not in the Test, of our
Lord or in the Apostolic Constitutions (see Maclean,
p. 46). It was, however, probably introduced into
Kome by the 4th cent. , for Jerome mentions it (Dial,
c. Luciferianos, 8), and he was baptized in Rome c.
A.D. 365. Thereafter it is several times mentioned
in the West. It is suggested by Ex 3^, which
describes the promised land as flowing with milk
and honey ; though the Canons of Hippolytus (xix.
[ed. Achelis, §§ 144, 148]) say that it is because the
neophytes are as little children whose natural food
is milk and honey, or because of the sweetness of
the blessings of the future life.
6. The complement of immersion: the laying on
of hands. — In Acts we have two detailed accounts
of baptism in the Apostolic Age (8^-'" 19*'*), and
in both cases we read first of an immersion and
then of a laying on of hands, the latter being
expressly connected with the gift of the Holy Ghost.
In Ac 8 Philip, one of the Seven, had preached to
the Samaritans, and they were baptized. But as
yet the Holy Gliost had fallen upon none of them,
onlj- tiiey had been baptized into the name of the
Lord Jesus. Then the apostles Peter and John,
who were sent down from Jerusalem by their
fellow apostles, prayed for the newly-bjiptized that
they miglit receive the Holy Ghost, ana laid their
hands upon them ; and tliey received the Holy
Ghost. In ch. 19, St. Paul finds about twelve men
at Ephesus who had received John's baptism ;
these are ' baptized into the name of the Lord
Jesus,' and St. Paul himself lays his hands upon
them and the Holy Ghost comes upon them. We
may note in passing that ' there is nothing in the
narrative to lead us to suppose that he followed at
Ephesus a course which he did not follow else-
where' (Chase, Confirmation, p. 32). With these
passages we may take He 6"''- (see above, 1), where
the 'teaching ... of the laying on of hands' is
added to that of ' baptisms ' as part of the ' founda-
tion.' Even if it does not refer exclusively to the
baptismal imposition of hands after immersion, it
at least incluaes it.
The meaning of this laying on of hands will be
considered in § 8 below. Here we must notice
the other passages of the NT which speak of the
gift of the Holy Ghost. But two preliminary
remarks must be made, (a) It would save much
confusion of thought if it were remembered that in
Christian antiquity 'baptism' is constantly used
to comprehend the whole rite, immersion, and also
laying on of hands, and other similar actions. It
would therefore be well if we more often used the
word 'immersion' (including in it all possible
varieties of usage, total or partial immersion or
affusion) when we are speaking of the action at
the font, rather than the technical name ' baptism.'
We are apt to put ancient references to baptism
into a Avrong perspective because we are accustomed
to the long-continued separation of the two parts
of the rite in the West. — (b) In studying Acts we
shall do well to remember that St. Luke does not
attempt in his narrative to give all the details of
the historical actions which he records. As W. M.
Ramsay truly observes, an author like St. Luke
' seizes the critical events, concentrates the reader's
attention on them by giving them fuller treat-
ment, touches more lightly and briefly on the less
important events, omits entirely a mass of unim-
portant details' (St. Paul, London, 1895, p. 3).
In numerous passages of the NT the gift of the
Spirit is explicitly connected with baptism (in its
fullest sensed, as in Ac 2=« 8>'-" 9"'- 10**- *''• (before
baptism) 19», 1 Co 6" 12is, Tit 3*, He Q^-* \(^ (which
appears to refer to the repudiation of the baptismal
confession and covenant ; see Westcott, Com. in
loc. ; cf. v.'''^'-), and in the passages which refer to
' sealing,' 2 Co P"-, Eph P^'- A^ (see above, 1) ; also
in the Gospels, Mt S^S Mk 18, Lk 3i«, Jn 1=" 3», see
above, 2 (c). "The close connexion between the gift
of the Spirit and baptism is seen also in the fact
that our Lord calls the Descent at Pentecost a
baptism (Ac 1'; cf. IP®), although in the case of
those on whom the Holy Ghost then came there
was no immersion.
To these passages we may add several where a
definite historical bestowal of the spirit is men-
tioned : Ro 5* (SodivTOi), 81* (Ad/Sere), 1 Co 2'=
(eXd^oiMev), 2 Co 5" (5oi's), 11* (ot5(c Ad/3rre, speaking
of a ' ditlerent Spirit ' in contrast to the Holy
Ghost), Gal 32 (iXd^ere ; cf. v.» ' having begun in
the Spirit,' and v.* where the present participle
marks the continuance of the gift of the Spirit), 4*
(^^aw^cxTeiXev), 1 Th 4"- (iKdXtffe, the definite call,
connected with t6v diddvra, ' who ever giveth ' the
Spirit : some MSS have the aorist 56vTa ; G.
Milligan, Com. in loc, takes the present part, as
meaning ' the Giver of the Spirit '), 2 Th 2^^ (dXero),
1 Jn 3''''* (iduKey ; cf. 4", where the perfect B^duKev
denotes the permanent eflects of the gift ; Brooke,
ICC on 3="). These aorists* point to a definite
• The RV has often been criticized as having too slavishly
followed the Ureek aorist in » way that does not suit the
BAPTISM
BAPTISM
133
event, and, taken with the passages in the preceding
paragraph, would seem to refer to the Christian
initiation.
In the other records of baptisms the imposition
of hands is not mentioned, and in some the gift of
the Holy Ghost is not alluded to. It would be
unsafe (see above), especially in view of He 6'^, to
infer that the laying on of hands was not practised
except in the cases where it is explicitly referred
to. But the case of Cornelius must be specially
considered. Here the Holy Ghost was given before
baptism and without any outward sign such as the
laying on of the Apostle's hands. Yet St. Peter
does not judge that, even after such a signal mark
of God's favour, it is unnecessary for Cornelius and
his household to be baptized in the usual manner.
From this we may with Chase (Confirmation, p.
28) see on the one hand that it is wrong to under-
value the sacraments, and on the other that God
is not tied down to them, but may give His grace
without the interposition of outward ordinances.
He is not bound, if we are. The same thing was
seen at Pentecost, when the Spirit was given with-
out the outward act of immersion having preceded.
Again, other reference to the laying on of hands
after immersion is seen by some in 2 Ti P (which
is usually taken to refer to Timothy's ordination,
though Chase refers it — not 1 Ti 1" — to his baptism,
i.e. confirmation). In Ac 9^^ (of. v.^) also, Ananias
lays his hands on Saul before baptism ; but the
allusion in both cases is doubtful. For the anoint-
ing, see above, 1.
The name confirmation, i.e. ' strengthening,'
for the complement of immersion is not found
before the oth cent. ; it may be founded on the
use of ^e^aioa in 2 Co 1*"- with the allusion there
to baptism.
For many centuries the baptismal rite — im-
mersion, anointing (when practised), and laying on
of hands — was normally one, and took place at
■one time. Tertullian (de Bapt. 8) speaks of the
immersion, unction, and imposition of hands with
invocation of the Holy Ghost as being administered
on the same occasion ; and the Church Orders are
equally definite (Maclean, pp. 18f., 105 ff.). Laying
on of hands is also referred to in Tert. de Res.
Cam. 8 (with immersion, unction, sealing with the
sign of the cross, and communion), and by Cyprian
{Ep. Ixxi.), who speaks of those who have been
baptized by heretics being received into the Church
with imposition of hands that they might receive
the Holy Ghost (cf. Ep. Ixxii. 9, referring to Ac 8).
Origen (de Princ. I. iii. 2) says that the Holy
Spirit was given by the laying on of the apostles'
hands in baptism ; so Athanasius, ad Scrap. Orat.
i. 6. It is curious that Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat.
xx.-xxii.), who mentions immersion, anointing, and
the communion of the neophytes, omits the laying
on of hands, seeing that the contemporary Church
Orders strongly emphasize it. It is a mistake to
suppose that this custom ceased with Tertullian.
The baptismal Eucharist with the first communion
of the neophytes follows immediately in the Church
Orders ; cf. also Tertullian and Cyril as above,
and Justin (Apol. i. 65).
In case of necessity there might be an interval
between the immersion and the imposition of
hands, as there had been in Ac 8. The Council of
Elvira (c. A.D. 3<J5, can. 38, 77) says that in such a
case if the baptized dies before [his confirmation],
he may be justified by the faith which he has
professed ; cf . also Jerome, Dial. c. Lucif. 9, who
mentions the laying on of hands.
English idiom. Whatever justification there may be for this
criticism in a version intended for public reading (though even
(here it is surely important that the hearers should know what
the sacred writers exactly meant), yet it cannot be too strongly
asKFted that it is essential for the student to pay the greatest
attention to the accuracies of the Greek tenses.
For the theological significance of the laying on
of hands, see below, § 8.
7. Minister of baptism. — We gather from the
NT that the apostles themselves did not usually
baptize ; their task was ' to preach the Gospel,'
and St. Paul only rarely administered the sacra-
ment himself, lest any should sav that his converts
were baptized into his name (1 Co 1^*"^"). It is not
recorded who baptized the 3000 at Pentecost (Ac
2*^), or the Samaritans (8'**-, probably Philip), or
Lydia and her household (16**), or the jailer at
PhUippi and 'all his' (IB**), or the Corinthians
(18*), or the Ephesians ( 19*) ; St, Peters companions
clearly baptized Cornelius and his company (IC'-) :
he ' commanded ' them to be baptized. Philip
baptized the Eunuch (8"), and evidently AnanLis
baptized St. Paul (9'* 22"). It has been suggested
that baptism was one of the functions of John
Mark as 'minister' (irxi7p^$) to Barnabas and
Saul (13*; Rackham, Com. in loc.). On the other
hand, St. Peter and St. John laid their hands on
those who had been baptized in Samaria (8*'), and
St. Paul laid his hands on the Ephesian neophytes
(19«; ct. v.«).
A similar rule is found in the baptismal customs
of the succeeding ages. In the Church Orders the
bishop is normally present at baptisms, but the
presbyters actually immerse, and the deacons
assist ; then the newly-baptized are immediately
brought to the bishop for anointing and laying on
of hands ; though the custom as to the person who
anoints and the number and place of the unctions
in the rite varies, the bishop always lays on hands
(for details, see Maclean, p. 104fif.). AV'hen, there-
fore, it is said that the bishop was the normal minis-
ter of baptism, it is not meant that he actually
immersed, though doubtless he sometimes did so.
St. Ambrose (de Myst. 8 [ui.]) speaks only of the
bishop (stimmum sacerdotem) interrogating, and
hallowing (the water, or the oil [?]). As time went
on, either the immersion and the confirmation had
to be separated, or else the latter was adminbtered
by the presbyter with oil consecrated by the bishop.
Deacons were allowed at Elvira (can. 77) to bap-
tize in case of necessity ; and so Tertull. de Bapt.
17 (who, like Elvira, allows laymen to baptize in
such a case), Te^. of our Lord, ii. 11, Didascalia,
iii. 12 (ed. Funk) ; but this is forbidden in Ap.
Const, viii. 28, 46 (ed. Funk). The Ap. Const.
(iii. 9) and the 'Fourth Council of Carthage,'
.\.D. 398 (can. 100, Hefele, Councils, Eng. tr., ii.
[1896] 417), forbid women to baptize. There is
perhaps a permission to deacons to baptize in
country places, in Cyr. Jer., Cat. xvii, 35; but
this is uncertain. There may be a trace of pres-
byters confirming in the Sacramentary of Serapion
and in the Ap. Const, (see Maclean, pp. 107, 110,
155).
8. Theological aspects. — (a) A study of the NT
leads us to the conclusion that baptism is no mere
ceremony whereby outsiders are fitly received into
the Christian Church. It is a means of grace — it
conveys by an outward sign the grace of God, but
always under certain conditions, for which see
below (f). St, Peter says that water after a true
likeness (itn-irvrov) saves us, even baptism : a
cleansing of the body, but also a cleansing of the
soul ; the outward part, water, is the symbol or
sign of the inward washing (1 P 3*^). God saved
us (iawffsv, aorist) through the washing of regenera-
tion and renewing of the Holy Ghost (Tit 3*). The
writer of the Appendix to Mk. says that ' he that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved* (16'*).
And this is in accordance with God's usual way of
working. He normally uses outward instruments
and means, though He is not bound by them and
can work otherwise if He wills. On the one hand.
He uses human beings as His instruments (cf., e.g..
134
BAPTISM
BAPTISM
Ac 9" 13", Gal V"-, Eph 3^ for men as preachers
of the gospel), and, on the other hand. He uses
inanimate things or outward actions. Thus the
'gift of God' is conveyed by imposition of hands
(2 Ti 1*). Jesus ordinarily (but not always) used
outward means in healing and in doing other
mighty works {DCG i., art. * Gestures,' 1). So He
instituted outward means (water, bread, and wine)
for the two sacraments of the gospel. Among OT
analogies may be noted the cloud and pillar of fire,
which symbolized God's presence. By using out-
ward means, God shows that matter is not, as
Gnostic dualism asserted, naturally evil, but that
it is consecrated by Him for His sacred purposes.
The same truth may be expressed by saying that
baptism is a, pledge or ivitness of grace, by which
God assures us that He will perform His part of
the covenant between Him and man ; cf. the pas-
sages where the gift of the Spirit, the earnest
(dppa^ihv) of our inheritance, is associated with
faith, and by implication with baptism (Eph l^^'- ;
see above, 1).
(b) Baptism is a union with God. The baptized
is incorporated into the Divine Being, united with
Christ, apart from whom we can do nothing ( Jn 15').
This baptismal union is clearly asserted in Ro 6*,
Gal 3=", and by contrast is implied in 1 Co P^- is 10^;
it is made possible only by the Incarnation, and
by the glorifying of Jesus' humanity ; see Jn 7^.
It involves sonship by adoption (Ro S*'**'- [note the
aorist iXd^ere, pointing to a definite time]. Gal
326f. 44f. . gee art. ADOPTION). This aspect of bap-
tism as an incorporation into God holds good what-
ever view we take of the meaning of the Lord's
command to baptize, which must now be considered
carefully, as it is essential to the understanding of
baptism.
(c) Meaning of baptism 'in' or 'into the Name.'
— The words eh rb 6i'0fia (or els alone) in the bap-
tismal passages are usually interpreted as denoting
incorporation into a person or society, and the pur-
pose for which the baptism is administered ; but
another view interprets tlie words in Mt 28'® as
meaning 'by the authority of.' (For a full dis-
cussion, see F. H. Chase in JThSt vi. 500 ft'., viii.
161 if. ; J. A. Robinson in JThSt vii, 186 ff., and
EBi, art. 'Baptism.')
It is agreed that by a Hebrew idiom common in
Hellenistic Greek ' tlie name ' of a person is used
for the person himself. To believe in the name of
some one is to believe in him (Jn V^ 2^ 3'^, 1 Jn 5'^
iriffTedu) els ; 1 Jn S^'* iricrr. with dative — for the dif-
ference, see Westcott on Jn 6" S^"'- ; cf. Ac 3'*) ;
to come, or to act, or to receive a person, in the
name of some one, is to come or act or to receive
one as his representative (Mt 18" 21» 23^, Mk 9"
119 136^ Lk 13«, Jn 5« 1025 jo'S 14^«, all with iy [ry]
dvdfjMTi ; Mt 24' with iir dvd/xari) ; to hojie in God's
name is to hope in Him (INIt 12-', with simple dative,
= Is 42* LXX with iirl) ; to have life in Christ's
name is to receive life from Him (Jn 20^') ; to ask
or give thanks in (iv) Christ's name is to do so in
Him, i.e. for His merits (Jn 14'3'- 15'« 162"- =«, Eph
5'*) ; to adjure in (iv) the name of a person is to
adjure by him (Ac 16'* ; cf. 1 Co 1"* did) ; to receive
remission of sins through {did) Jesus' name is to
receive it througli Him (Ac 10^). In Jn 17'"-
Jesus prays the Father to keep the disciples ' in {iv)
thy name which thou hast given me ' (so best text ;
cf. Ph 2"), and says that He has kept them while
on earth in the Father's name — a verj' difficult
passage. The latter phrase must mean 'as the
Father's representative (as above) ; for the former,
cf. 17*- *, where the ' name ' stands for God and His
attributes, and we may perhaps paraphrase : ' in
thyself, with whom I am one ' (cf. 10«>). In Col 3'"
to do all in (^i') tlie name of Christ is to do all ' in
Christ,' however we are to understand that charac-
teristic Pauline phrase (see J. A. Robinson, Ep/ies.,
London, 1903, ]>. 2211".). So again in Lk 6-'* 'cast
out your name ' is equivalent to 'cast you out ' ; in
Ac IS'* Barnabas and Paul are said to have hazarded
their lives for tlie name of Jesus, i.e. for Him.
In the above passages the translation ' by the
authority of ' is not possible. But ' in the name '
can well be so translated in some passages, as when
tlie discii)les spoke or preached in Jesus' name, Ac
4'"- (inl) d^(^v) ; cf. Lk 24« (^tt/) ; though here also
it can be rendered 'as the representatives of.' So
'by the authority of suits best in passages where
devils are cast out or mighty works done 'in the
name,' as Mt 7" (dative witnout prep.), Mk 9"''
(if, iirl), 'Mk' 16'7 (^i'), Lk O-'M^", v.l. iwL), Ac3«
(eV ; cf. 4''- '") ; and in Lk 10", where demons are
subject in (iv) Christ's name.
Three passages remain to be considered. Mk 9*'
has ' in {iv) name that ye are Christ's,' which is
usually treated as an idiom : ' because ye are
Christ's' (RV, Swete ; the text followed by A'V
is faulty here), though Chase {JThSt viii. 170)
renders 'in the Name, because ye are Christ's.'
In Mt 10*^'- 18*" eh is used. In the former passage,
' into the name of a prophet ' or ' disciple ' can only
mean 'as a prophet' or 'disciple,' i.e. with a view-
to the prophetic office or to discipleship. In the
latter, 'gathered together into my name' is best
rendered as ' drawn nigh to me ' ; cf. Dt 12*, 1 K 9*
(so Chase, loc. cit.).
Another line of interpretation of the passages
with ' in the name ' is that of F. C. Conybeare, who
makes 'in the name of Jesus' a theurgic formula,
an application of ancient magic {JQB ix. 66, 581).
For an answer to this theory, which is quite in-
applicable to several of the passages cited above,
and which takes no account of the OT use of ' the
Name,' see G. B. Gray in IIDB iii. 480.
We may now consider the baptismal passages.
In Mt 28'», Ac S'" 19', 1 Co l''*- " we read of baptism
' into {els) the name' ; and so 1 Co 10'^ ' into Moses,'
12'^ 'into one body,' Ac 19^ 'into John's baptism,'
Ro 6^ Gal 3" 'into Christ,' or 'into his death';
while in Ac 2^ 10^*, 1 Co 6'' we read of baptism ' in
{iv) the name.' The usual interpretation, at least
of the former set of passages, is that the neophytes
are in baptism incorporated with the Holy Trinity,
or with Christ, with a view to {els) remission of
sins (Ac 2^*) or to dying with Christ ; the disciples
of John are baptized with his baptism. Further,
' into the name ' implies proprietorship : we are
baptized so as to belong to God ; and the same
idea attaches to in dvdfiaros, by which Justin ex-
plains baptism to the heathen (above, 4 ; see Swete,
Holy Spirit in NT, p. 125 ; Chase. JThSt vi. 501).
If /SttTTT/fw conveyed to the first Christians the idea
of immersion (above, 5), this interpretation follows
necessarily. In that case, what is the difference,
if any, between baptism 'in' and 'into'? Chase,
who upholds the above interpretation, thinks that
both involve the idea of incorporation or union,
though the latter emphasizes the entrance into the
name, while the former conveys the idea of the
name encompassing the baptized {JThSt viii. 177,
184).
This line of interjiretation is denied by Robinson
{EBi, art. ' Baptism,' and JT/; 67 vii. 191), who holds
that els and iv are synonymous in the NT, as they
undoubtetlly are in the "Slodeni Greek vernacular,
which has entirely lost ^i* except in a few phrases,
Wj having taken its place. On this view, ' in the
name ' is the translation preferred, and it is taken
to mean 'by the authority' of the person men-
tioned. The statement that the two prejwsitions
have the same meaning in tlie NT is hardly borne
out by the facts. It is true that the tendency to
confuse them had begun in the Apostolic Age ; but
it had not got very far, hardly beyond a fondness
BAPTISM
BAPTISM
135
for 'constnictio praegnaus," as in Mk P, where
e^airricrdrj ejs t6v 'Iop5ciy77v = ' went into the Jordan
and was baptized there' liu v.' we li.ive efia-n-Tl^ovTo
(V Tif 'lopddvTj), or else—" \\;i.-- iiiiiut'i:>uil in Jordan'
(Swete, Co/n. in loc.) ; cf. also Ac 8'**' evpedi] ets
'A^orrov, ' went to Azotus and was found there,' and
Lk 4**. The nearest approach to a real confusion
of the i)repositions is in Mt 5*"- : ' Swear not . . .
bylfV) the heaven . . . nor by (ev) the earth . . .
n.M I'v (.'-■. KVui ' toward') Jerusalem,' where Chase
(■I [ii>t \iii. Kiti) ^uti'^ests that ev ' lepcxroXt/joots is
avoided so as to exclude a local meaning, and that
eh represents the directicm of the oath, just as in
Ac 2"^, Eph 5*^, He 7^^ ets can only mean ' with
reference to.'
In the opinion of the present writer no argument
can be deduced from the fact that our Lord spoke
Aramaic, and that both eh rb dvofw. and ev t<^ dvbfian
represent the simple phrase era. For (though we
know little of the Palestinian Aramaic of the 1st
cent.) the preposition in Syriac not infrequently
denotes motion ; see Payne Smith, Thesaur. St/r.,
O.xford, 1879-1901, i. 430. And, as Chase remarks
(JThSt vi. 507), the argument from the Aramaic
preposition is robbed of all its force by the con-
sideration that the Peshitta uses it in Ro 6^, Gal
3"" for ' into Christ [Jesus],' which can only denote
incorporation. Therefore the Aramaic phrase D2>2
can mean '(incorporation) into the name.'
The crrave objection to Robinson's interpretation
is that it does not suit the Pauline passages, which
cannot be put aside as irrelevant. That ' Paul was
not crucified for the Corinthians and they were not
baptized into his name' (1 Co 1^^'*), is a proposition
in direct contrast to the statement that ' all we
who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized
into his death' (Ro 6^). The latter passage
denotes incorporation, and so therefore must the
former. Indeed, the passage in 1 Cor. would lose
aU force if it were translated ' by his authority.'
For a long list of Greek Fathers who interpret
Mt 28^^ of incorporation, see Chase, JThSt viii.
173 if. On the other hand, Robinson says that the
Western formula 'in nomine' can only mean 'by the
authority.' This is not clear, and in any case it is
signiticant that Tertullian, the father of ecclesi-
astical Latinity, understood Mt 28^^ otherwise, for
he translates by 'in nomen,' and paraphrases by 'in
Patrem,' etc. ; see above, i. He clearly understood
the baptismal command to denote incorporation.
The issue does not rest on tlie question whether
eh and iv are interchangeable. It is the whole
sentence in ^Mt 28^** which must be considered, and
it is difficult to follow Robinson in thinking that
it conveyed no idea of immersion to the first
Christians. No doubt our Lord gave a new and
more spiritual significance to a Jewish method of
speech, but this is just what He did frequently in
His teaching. If, as is probable, the account in
Mt. is greatly condensed (above, i), there is no
difficulty about this. No doubt He explained His
meaning to the disciples ; we are led to interpret
it by the writings of the disciples themselves. For
these reasons the present writer cannot but think
that Chase's interpretation is right, and that the
RV has properly given the words as 'into the
name.'
(d) Meaning of 'being horn anew' or 'from
above.' — In Jn 3'-° our Lord speaks to Nicodemus
of another birth, which He connects with water
(see above, 1) and the Spirit, and which is requisite
for seeing or entering the Kingdom of God ; this
birth is dvwdev, which may be translated ' anew '
(RV, and Westcott, Com. in loc.) or 'from above'
(RVm, and Swete, Holy Spirit in ST, p. 131). In
favour of the latter is Jn 3^^ (' he thatcometh from
above,' SLvudev) and 19", and the fact that the
writer often speaks of our being begotten of God
(Jn P^ 1 Jn 38 4^ 51. 4. is. !„ Jn 3»-» the word is
yevvrte^). In this case it is a heavenly birth that
Jesus speaks of. In favour of the former is Gal 4»
(ttAXw &vujdev = ' over again '), but especially the fact
that Nicodemus takes this meaning (v.*), and also
that the term ' regeneration ' (waKiyyeveaia), which
was used in the Apostolic Church (Tit 3^) can best
be explained as a reminiscence of our Lord's words
on such an occasion, handed down orally. But
may not both meanings of S-vudev in Jn 3 be valid ?
The birth is both 'from above' and 'new.' A
single word with more than one meaning is often
used to express more than one truth.
This new or heavenly birth is the new start, the
implanting of the new life, which is given to us by
the Ascended and Glorified Christ through the
Holy Ghost. And this new life is expressly con-
nected with Christian baptism, whatever view we
take of €$ i'Saros in Jn 3^ ; St. Paul speaks (Col 2'^-)
of the Christian having been buried with (o-uj/ra-
<f>4vTes) Christ in baptism, ' wherein (not ' in whom,'
i.e. Christ) ye were raised -svith him {crvvTiyipOr^Te),
. . . and you being dead . . . did he quicken
together with him ((rwe^uoirolTiaev) ' — note the
aorists, denoting an action at a given time ; cf.
also Eph 2^'- (the ' sitting in heavenly places ' in
v.^ is not future, but present). This new implanting
of life is called 'regeneration' in Tit 3^ (as above),
and is effected by washing or a laver (XovrpoO), that
is, by baptism. (7roXi77ei'eo-ta is used in Mt 19-® of the
new age hereafter [cf. Ac 3-^ ' the restitution of all
things '] ; the application of it to the present age,
as has been lately suggested, is most unlikely : for
its use by non-Christian writers, see Swete, Holi/
Spirit in NT, p. 390, App. M.)
But the new life is like a seed. It may blossom
and flourish, or it may die. It is the opportunity,
the talent ; but if it is not seized and put to good
use, it is of no avail to the recipient, and even con-
demns him ; see, further, below (/).
The figure of a new birth is very common in the
Fathers in connexion with baptism ; e.g. Justin,
Apol. i. 61, 66, and Irenaeus, c. Haer. I. xxi. 1, in.
xvii. 1 (avayevvTjffi^) ; Tert. adv. Marc. i. 28, de Res.
Cam. 4ri (regeneratio).
(e) Baptism and tJie gift of the Spirit. — We have
seen (above, 6) how closely the gift of the Spirit is
connected with baptism in the NT. We may now
consider the meaning of that gift. Though the
Holy Ghost is the Agent of all the Divine working,
and therefore must be the Giver of life (cf. Ro 8" "
etc. ) at the immersion, yet the gift of the Spirit
is said in Ac 8^^ not to be bestow'ed then, but at a
later stage of the same rite — at the laying on of
hands (see above, 6). Tertullian remarks (r/e Bapt.
6) that ' in the waters we do not receive the Holy
Spirit, but, having been cleansed in the water under
the influence of an angel {sub angelo), we are pre-
pared for the Holy Spirit.' AVhat, then, did St.
Peter and St. John pray for when they prayed
that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Ghost
(Ac 8'5) ? What w^as the gift of the Holy Ghost
received in v. ^'^ ? One answer which has been given
to this question must be dismissed as quite insuffi-
cient—that the miraculous signs vouchsafed in the
infancy of the Church were the gift. It may be
said that in v.'* Simon saw that the Holy Ghost
was given, and that therefore there must have
been some outward manifestation. In Ac 19* the
neophytes spoke with tongues and prophesied (cf.
2^ 10^). To state the matter in this way, however,
is to confuse the outward evidences of the activity
I of the Spirit with the gift of the Spirit Himself.
No one could suppose that all that the Church
received on the Day of Pent«cost was a mere speak-
ing with ' other tongues.' To understand what the
gift is, we cannot do better than consider our Lord's
promise of the gift, in Jn 14-16. As He describes
136
BAPTISM
BARAK
it, it is a gift of guidance and teaching (14^
IQ-M iQS. isir.)^ anil, above all, a continued presence
of the Spirit with us for ever (14'*"-). It was not
to be a gift for one generation only, but for us in
modern times as well as for the hrst Christians.
There is nothing in these chapters about the gift
of tongues or other wonderful signs. Indeed, as
Chase remarks (Confirmation, p. 114), 'in the
teaching of the Apostles the thought of extra-
ordinary charismata has a quite subordinate place.*
When Saul received the Holy Ghost (Ac 9") there
appear to have been no outward phenomena. And,
whether the laying on of hands in 2 Ti 1® was at
baptism or at ordination (see above, 6), it is signi-
ficant that the ' gift of God ' which was in Timothy
by the laying on of St. Paul's liands was the ' spirit
of power and love and discipline' (<r<ij<ppopifffiov).
Indeed, it is difficult to suppose that the apostles
could have laid so much stress on the gift if it was
merely a speaking with tongues (which St. Paul
somewhat disparages in 1 Co 14-), or prophesying.
Throughout the Epistles, the gift of the Spirit is a
very different thing ; it is that inward strengthen-
ing which enables the Church to fight the battle
with the hosts of evil and to win the victory. And
this is what our Lord promised in the Jonannine
chapters quoted above.
(/) Baptism not a magical charm. — To say that
God uses outward means or instruments as the
normal manner in which He gives His grace is not
to assert, on the one hand, that all who receive the
outward means receive the grace, or, on the other
hand, that God cannot give the grace otherwise.
Hence the emphasis on the need of repentance and
faith in those who are baptized ; e.g. cf. Ac 2^ for
repentance, 18* for faith : ' believed and were
baptized ' ; in IQ'*'- ' when ye believed ' is equiva-
lent to ' when ye were baptized ' (viffTeva-ai/res —
ipairTl<Td7)Te). One or two references to the early
Fathers (out of a large number) will show how
strongly they felt this. Repentance and faith are
both insisted on by Justin (Apol. i. 61). Origen
says that the Spirit may leave the unworthj'
Christian after baptism (in Joann. vi. 33). Cyril
of Jerusalem says that the outward rite will not
convey the gift of the Spirit if the candidate does
not come in faith (Cat. xvii. 35 fi'.). It is equally
recognized in Christian antiquity that it is possible
for man to receive the grace without the outward
sign in cases of necessity. For example, the
' baptism in blood ' of unbaptized martyrs is recog-
nized as sufficient by Tertullian, de Bapt. 16, and
in the Church Orders (Test, of our Lord, ii. 5 ; Can.
of Hippolytus, xix. [ed. Achelis, 101] ; Egyptian
Church Orders, 44) and elsewhere. The work of
God is mighty, though the instrument is insig-
nificant. Thus Tertullian (de Bapt. 2, 4) remarks
on the simplicity of baptism, which makes people
disparage the greatness of its effect, not realizing
that the Spirit sanctities the water.
9. Infant baptism. — There is no historical
account in the NT of an infant being baptized ;
but the indirect evidence of the practice is strong.
In view of tlie analogy of circumcision, it would
be strange, supposing that infants had been ex-
cluded from baptism, that such exclusion should
not have been mentioned. If infants needed to be
brought into the inferior covenant by the outward
sign of circumcision, still more would they need to
be brought into the higher covenant by the out-
ward sign of baptism. The Talmud says that
infant children of proselytes are to be baptized
with their i)arents (John Lightfoot, ffor. Hear, on
Mt 3« in Works, xi. [London, 1823] 53 ff.), and this
was probably the custom in the 1st cent, (see
above, 2). Our Lord by blessing little children
with an imposition of hands (Mk 10'"^- -iraihla. ; Lk
18'* (ip^i>v, ' babes') shows that they are capable of
receiving grace. In Mt 10*^, Jesus speaks of giving
' one of these little ones ' a cup of cold water ' in
the name of a disciple,' i.e. as a disciple (above, 8),
showing that infants can be disciples. No limit is
placed on the baptismal command of Mt 28'* (' all
the nations,' not 'all the adults'). The house-
holds of Lydia, the Philippian jailer, Crispus, and
Stephanas, not improbably included some infants,
but all were baptized (cf. Ac 16^, 'all his'). It is
disputed whether 1 Co 7'* refers to infant baptism
(Robertson-Pluramer, Com. in loc, think that it
does not), but at least it seems to point to the
right of children to baptism, for otherwise could
they be called * holy' or ' consecrated ' (S,yia) ? Cf.
Goudge and Alford, Comm. in loc.
When we turn from the NT to the successors of
the apostles, we find that the practice of infant
baptism was probably in force at least c. A.D. 69.
For Polycarp at his martyrdom (c. A. D. 165 : for
the date see Lightfoot, Apostol. Fathers, pt. ii.
vol. i. [1889] 437 tf.) says that he had served Christ
for 86 years. It is extremely unlikely that he waa
older, or at any rate more than 3 or 4 years older,
than this at his death, and he must therefore have
been baptized when he was an infant, or at least
as a very young child ; he seems to have been born
of Christian parents (ib. ). Justin speaks of men and
women of 60 or 70 who had been made disciples
(4fxadr]Te6dria-av) from childhood (Apol. i. 15), and
compares baptism to circumcision (Dial. 43). Iren-
aeus (c. Haer. li. xxii. 4) says that Jesus came to
save all who through Him are born again to God
— ^infants, children, boys, youths, and old men.
He passed through every age, becoming an infant
for infants, thus sanctifying infants, etc. Ter-
tullian (de Bapt. 18), who advocates delaying
baptism lest it should be rashly administered,
especially in the case of infants, bears witness to
the common practice of his day. It is to be noted
that he does not blame infant baptism as a novelty,
as he assuredly would have done had it been such.
And thereafter the evidence of its existence is very
abundant; see, e.g., Cyprian, Ep. Iviii.; Can. of
Hipp. xix. (113, ed. Achelis), and all the Church
Orders.
It is objected to these ar^ments that faith is
required in the NT for baptism, and that infants
cannot have faith. But this is not a true objec-
tion. If an adult coming to baptism has not faith,
he puts the barrier of non-faith between God and
himself ; he cannot be in a neutral condition, but,
if he does not believe in God, must disbelieve in
Him. With an infant it is not so. In the age of
innocence he cannot put a barrier between God
and himself, and therefore the fact that he has
not yet learnt to have an active faith does not
preclude the working of the grace of God within
him.
LiTBRATORE.— R. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., bk. v. (ed. Bayne,
London, 1902), esp. chs. Ivii.-lxvi.; H. B. Swete, The Uoty
Spirit in the Ne%o Testament -, do. 1910, esp. App. I and J ; D.
Stone, Uoly Baptism, do. 1899 ; A. J. Mason, 3Vic Jiilation
of Confirmation to Baptism^, do. 1893; D. Macleane, The
Heavenly Citizenship of Infants, do. 1891; F. H. Chase,
Confirmation in the Apostoli-c Age, do. 1909 ; A. C. A. Hall,
Cmitirmatioii, do. 1900 ; F. E. Warren, Litnrny and Ritual
of the Ante-Nieene Church'^, do. 1912; A. J. Maclean, The
Ancient Church Orders, Cambridge, 1910 ; artt. on ' The Lord's
Command to Baptize ' in JThSt vi. (11)04-05], vii. [1905-06), viii.
[1906-07], by F. H. Chase and J. A. Robinson; artt. on
' Baptism ' in 11 DB i. (A. Plummer), DCG i. (M. Dods), SDB
(C. A. Scott), EBi i. (J. A. Robinson), ERE ii. (J. V.
Bartlet, K. Lake, H. G. Wood); art. 'Laying on of Hands'
in BOB iii. (H. B. Swete); artt. 'Confirmation' in ERE
iv. (H. J. Lawlor and H. Thurston).
A. J. Maclkax.
BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD.— See Baptism.
BARAK.— Barak (Bapdic) was the ally of Deborah
in the life-and-death struggle of Israel with the
Canaanites. He won the great battle of Kishon
( Jg 4. 5). He is named in the roll of the ( )T heroes
BARBAKIAN
BAE-JESUS
13<
of faith (He 11*^). He was one of those who Sia
irUrreus ' waxed mighty in war, turned to flight
armies of aliens ' (IP*). JAMES SXRAHAN.
BARBARIAN.— The Greeks of the age of in-
dependence divided mankind into two classes —
Hellenes or Greeks, and Barbarians, the latter
term having a special reference to those who did
not speak tne Greek language and were thus un-
intelligible to the inhabitants of Hellas. The
word itself is almost certainly onomatopoetic,
being an imitation of the way in which the peoples
seemed to speak. It occurs for the first time in
Homer (/?. ii. 867), and is used of the Carians
(Kapes ^ap^apb<pu)voi). Plato divides the human
race into Hellenes and Barbarians (Polit. 262 D).
Even the Komans called themselves Barbarians
till Greek literature came to be naturalized in
Rome ; and both Philo and Josephus regard the
Jews and their tongue as barbarous. By and by
the word came to be used as descriptive of all the
defects which the Greeks thought foreign to them-
selves and natural to all other peoples, but the
first and the main idea conveyed by the term is
that of difference of language.
In the NT history of the early Church we find
the term used in four different places. — (1) In
Ac 28-'* it is applied by St. Luke to the Phoenician
inhabitants of Malta, perhaps with a slight hint
of contempt on the part of the author. (2) The
Apostle Paul in 1 Co 14^^ refers to the ecstatic
speaking with tongues, and declares that if any
speak in an unknown tongue, 'I shall be to him
that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh
wUl be a barbarian unto me.' Here the word is
used in the original sense of one who speaks in an
unknown tongue. (3) In the statement (Ko 1^*),
' I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians,'
St Paul uses the common conventional division of
mankind; and, like Philo and Josephus, classes
the Jews among the Barbarians. (4) In Col 3" we
have a looser use of the term ' Greek and Jew
. . . barbarian and Scythian.' The Apostle has
been speaking of the abolition of all distinction in
the offer of the gospel, and the classes selected are
not mutually exclusive but mentioned with refer-
ence to heresies in the Colossian Church (cf. J. B.
Lightfoot, Colossians^, 1879, p. 216). The Apostle
offers the gospel not merely to learned Greeks
but to barbarians, and even to Scythians, who are
popularly regarded as the lowest type of this class.
Ltterattjre. — Grimm-Thayer, g.v. ; see also artt. in HDB
and EBL W. F. BOYD.
BAR-JESUS.— In Ac 13^ Bar-Jesus is described
as ' a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew '
whom Barnabas and Paul found at Paphos in the
retinue of the proconsul in Cyprus. The comparison
of him with ' the modem gipsy teller of fortunes ' is
'misleading and gives a false idea of the influence
exerted on the Roman world by Oriental person-
ages like this Magian' (Ramsay, St. Paul the
Traveller, 78) ; nor can he be called an impostor.
He was a representative of a class of men, very
numerous in that day, ' skilled in the lore and
uncanny arts and strange powers of the Median
priests ' (cf. HDB, art. ' Barjesus '), who possessed
a familiarity with the forces of Nature not shared
by their fellows, and which was commonly re-
garded as supernatural in its origin. They were
both magicians and men of science ; moreover,
their system presented a religious aspect to the
world. The presence of an influential exponent of
such a current religious and philosophical system
in the train of the comites of a Roman governor
was quite natural ; nor is there any need to suppose
that Sergius Paulus (who was 'a man of under-
standing') was dominated by the Magian in any
other sense than that Bar-Jesus had considerable
influence and credit with his patron — an influence
he was able to turn to his own private advantage.
Hearing of Barnabas and Paul as travelling teachers
in the island, the governor, a highly educated man,
interested in science and philosophy, invited them
to his court. He listened with such pleasure to
their exposition that it became clear to all his reti-
nue that they were making a marked ett'ect on him.
This was a challenge to Bar-Jesus, who had been
the dominant religious influence in the court. He
took steps to minimize the effect and to retain the
governor's interest in himself and his system. The
challenge was accepted by Paul, who superseded
Barnabas as the chief Christian protagonist at this
point. Special interest attached to the incident as
an early but typical case of the meeting of two
religious systems ; it was the first collision of
Christianity with the great religious force of
Magianism. The result was a striking manifesta-
tion of the superior power residing in the Christian
missionary, by which Bar-Jesus was struck blind
for a season, and which deeply impressed the pro-
consul in favour of Christianity.
A phrase occurs in v.^ which has caused perplex-
ity : ' Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by
interpretation).' All attempts to explain Elymas
as the interpretation of Bar-Jesus have failed.
This has been used to discredit the historicity of
the narrative. Thus Schmiedel says it suggests
the 'amalgamation of two sources,' and illustrates
the tendency of Acts to establish a ' parallelism
between Peter and Paul ' {EBi i. 480 f. ) — a theory
urged by Weizsacker, who considers this portion of
Acts ' is far from being historical ' (i. 275, 239-240),
and finds a proof of double authorship in the use
of the two names 'Saul who is also called Paul.'
But Ramsay has explained the latter usage most
convincingly. It was the fashion in bilingual
countries to have two names, the native and the
Greek. Amongst Jewish surroundings Paul's Jew-
ish name ' Saul ' was used naturally ; but ' by a
marvellous stroke of historic brevity ' (Ramsay, 83)
the author sets forth by a formula how in the
court of the Roman governor, when the Apostle
challenged the system represented by Bar-Jesus, he
stood forth as Paul the Roman citizen, a freeborn
member of that Greek-Roman world to which he
carried his universal gospel. Does not the same ex-
planation hold good for his opponent ? Bar- Jesus is a
Jewish name — the name of ' a Jew, a false prophet.'
Elymas is the man's Greek name. It is the Greek
form of an Arab word allm meaning ' wise,' and
6 /jAyot ('the sorcerer,' AV and RV) is its transla-
tion. From the Jewish point of view the encounter
was between Saul the Jewish teacher and Bar- Jesus
the Jewish prophet. From the wider point of view
it w^as between Paul the Roman citizen who
championed Christianity, and Elymas the Greek
philosopher and magician. It was not only Bar-
Jesus the Jewish false prophet whom Paul blinded,
but Elymas the Magian, the representative of that
Oriental theosophy which Christianity was destined
to meet so often. Luke the historian has special
interest in describing the first encounter between
the systems, and the signal victory won by the
Christian Apostle over one who practised the occult
arts. Paul probably shared the opinion of educated
Judaism, that magic was associated with idolatry
and the realm of darkness, and was therefore to be
shunned as demoniacal. This explains the vigour
of his denunciation.
LiTERATUKK.— Artt. in HDB on 'Barjesus' (Massie) and
' Magic ' (Whitehouse), and in EBi (Schmiedel) on ' Barjesus ' ;
W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, London, 1895, pp. 73-
88 (cf . Was Christ bom in Bethlehem ?, do. 1898, p. 54) ; C. v.
Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, i.2 do. 1897, pp. 80, 111, 240, 274 ;
A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edinburffh, 1897, pp. 174-176 ;
EOT on ' Acts," 1900, p. 287. J. E. RoBERTS.
i;
BARNABAS
BARNABAS
BARNABAS (otherwise Joses [AV] or Joseph
[IIV]). — A member of the primitive Church of
Jerusalem and a close associate of Paul in the
early years of his Christian career. He is not to
he identilied with Joseph called Barsabbas (Ac
1^), tlion<jli he is sometimes substituted for him by
ecclesiastical writers (see JosKPH [Barsabbas]).
Information regarding iiim is mostly derived from
Acts. According to 4*', the surname Barnabas
was given him by tiie apostles, presumably as an
honourable distinction, and signilies ' son of con-
solation or exhortation ' (vlbs irapaKX-^crecjs = Aram.
bar, ' son,' and Heb. root which appears in ndbhi',
'prophet'). This etymology draws upon two
ditterent languages, and leaves the terminal form
unexplained. Besides, the name may have been
self -assumed, in accordance with a common j»ractice
of the Jews in their intercourse with the Gentile
world. Other derivations therefore have been
proposed, which give ' the son of Nebo,' ' the son
of peace' (=Aram. bar n'^vahdh), etc., as the
meaning. In any case, the statement of Acts
implies that Barnabas was noted for his prophetic
or preaching gifts ; and comparison with 14'^ prob-
ably warrants the further inference that he was
more fluent in Aramaic than in Greek.
In Ac 4*"- Barnabas is introduced as a Levite of
Cyprus, who sold land that he possessed, and
devoted the proceeds to tiie use of the Church.
No other Levite is mentioned by name in the NT.
His ownership of land, in contravention of the law
(Dt 10") which excluded Levi from part or inherit-
ance with his brethren, is not surprising, as in
later times this Deuteronomic prohibition cannot
have been enforced ( Jer 32^"*''* ; Jos. Vita, 76).
From Cyprus the youthful Barnabas may have
passed over to the neighbouring Tarsus, famous in
liis time for its culture as Avell as its commerce,
and there made the acquaintance of Paul. At any
rate, he appeared as his friend, and stood sponsor
for him on his first visit to Jerusalem, when other
members of the Church regarded him with distrust
(9-'<"). Thereafter Paul retired to Tarsus, but
Barnabas remained in Jerusalem till tidings
reached the mother Church of the success of the
gospel in Antiocii, when he was commissioned to
visit that city and confirm the disciples. Having
sought out Paul at Tarsus, he induced him to join
him in his work in Antioch. After a year of
service there, the two fellow-labourers were dis-
l»atched to Jerusalem with alms for the needy
Christians of Judiea (\V^-^). Soon after their
return to Antioch they were solemnly set apart
liy the Church for special evangelization work,
and started on what is usually called the first
missionary journey, in the course of which they
visited Cyprus and the southern parts of Asia
Minor, accompanied as far as Perga in Pamphyiia
by Joim Mark (q.v.)—a. relative of Barnabas (Col
410J — whom they had brought with them from
Jerusalem. In the account of tiie journey, the
independent character of Paul appears in the
])recedence gradually accorded him over Barnabas,
whose name has previously had lirst place in the
narrative, probably because he had oeen better
known in Antioch and Cyprus. Following upon
this mission came a prolonged stay at Antioch,
broken at length by another visit to Jerusalem, in
consequence of dissensions that hud arisen over
the necessity of circumcision. A judgment on this
question having been obtained from tlie leaders of
the mother Church met in Council, Paul and
Barnabas repaired again to Antioch, and began to
<'onsult about anotlier missionary journey. As
Barnabas, iiowever, insisted on taking Mark with
them, in spile of his defection on the previtius
journey, a sharp contention took place between
them, witli tlie result that Paul chose Silas as his
coniiianion, and proceeded to Syria and Cilicia,
while Barnabas set sail witli Mark for Cyprus
( 12^-15*'), There is no further notice of Barnabas
in Acts.
Galatians (chs. 1-2) partly covers the same
CTound as Acts, but between the two narratives a
(liscrepancy appears which has provoked mucii
discussion. Reviewing his association with the
Church of Jerusalem, Paul asserts that it did not
extend beyond two visits. One of these (P*) seems
to have been the occasion of his introduction by
Barnabas, and the other (2') has usually been
identified with the visit to tlie Council ; but, in
that case, what becomes of the intervening visit
in Acts — that on wliicli Paul and Barnabas con-
veyed the offerings of the Antiochene Christians ?
Its comparative recentness and the asseveration of
1^ preclude the supposition that it could have
been forgotten or passed over by the Apostle.
One solution of the difficulty is obtained by re-
jecting entirely the story of this visit in Acts, and
taking the rendering of the facts only from Gal.
(EBi i. 486). Others endeavour to harmonize the
two accounts with a smaller sacrifice of the credi-
bility of Acts. Such is the suggestion of Neander,
Lightfoot, and others that, while Paul and Barna-
bas were both commissioned to carry the contribu-
tions from Antioch to Jerusalem, only the latter
actually accomplished the journey ; and that the
author of Acts, finding the record of the appoint-
ment in his sources, naturally a.ssumed that Paul
had fulfilled his part of the mission. Such also is
the view very generally held that the second and
third visits of Acts were really one and the same
— the visit to the Council recorded in Galatians ;
but that, as it was undertaken with the twofold
object of bearing alms to the poor and discussing
circumcision with the leaders of the Church, two
accounts of it came into existence which the
author of Acts erroneously supposed to refer to
separate events. A third form of solution has
been advanced by Rtimsay and others, which
would identify the second visit of Gal. with the
second visit of Acts. Recently this view has been
ably maintained by C. W. Emmet (The Eschato-
logical Question in the Gospels, Edinburgh, 1911,
p. 191 ir.), who also contends that Gal. was written
before the third visit of Acts had taken place, that
is, before the Council of Jerusalem. On this
theory, the accuracy of Acts is fully vindicated,
but an early date is required for Galatians, which
may not be generally conceded. Cf., further,
Galatians, Epistle to.
On one point — the parting of Paul and Barnabas
— Gal. has been regarded as supplementing Acts.
In Paul's account of the trouble with Peter at
Antioch over the eating with Gentiles (2^^"'*), his
co-worker is represented as taking part with his
opponents. Probably, for the moment, the mediat-
ing character of Barnabas betrayed him into a
policy of vacillation which wsis the real origin of his
disagreement with the Apostle. Their quarrel
may have culminated in a separation over John
Mark, but its actual cause was a matter of
Erinciple. From a subsequent reference of Paul to
larnabas (1 Co 9*) it may l)e inferred that they
were reconciled in later years, though not neces-
sarily that they were again associated in their
work.
Tradition has been busy with the name of Bar-
nabas, but has prcserveit little that is deserving
of trust. According to one legend, he was a
personal disciple of Clirist, even one of the Seventy
mentioned in Lk 10', and preached the gospel in
Rome iluring the lifetime of our Lord. Another
asserts tiiat he was the founder ami first bishop of
the Church of Milan, though Ambrose makes no
mention of him as one of his pretiecessors in that
BARNABAS, EPISTLE OF
BAENABAS, EPISTLE OF 139
see. A tliird makes him the missionary or apostle
to Cyprus, and states that he died by martyrdom
at Salamis in A.D. 61. From an early date also
the writing of an Epistle has been ascribed to him :
(1) the Epistle to the Hebrews, the authorship of
which was claimed for him by Tertullian ; and (2)
the Epistle to which his name has been attached
since the time of Clement of Alexandria (see
followin«r article). In both cases the internal
evidence is strongly against the authorship of
Barnabas, such references, for instance, being
made to the Jewish Law as were not likely to
come from a member of the Jerusalem Church and
a sympathizer with Peter at Antioch. McGiffert
{Apostol. Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 598 f.) argues
very ingeniously in favour of Barnabas as the
author of 1 Peter ; but the reasons adduced by
him, though plausible, are scarcely suflBcient to
establish bis theory. There is nothing in the
Epistle to necessitate a Levite authorship, and
Barnabas need not have remained anonymous
(Moffat. LNT, 343 n., 437).
LiTKKATrK£. — In addition to references already given, see
works generally on Paul, Acts, Galatians, and the Apostolic
A«e- D. Frew.
BAENABAS, EPISTLE OF 1. Object. — The
chief object of the author of this Epistle was to
impart to his readers a knowledge of what pertains
to salvation that they might be saved in the Day
of Jesus Christ (ii. 10, iv. 1, 9). The two lessons
he impresses upon them are: (1) that the literal
observance of the Mosaic Law is useless for salva-
tion ; (2) the necessity and duty of a moral life.
This is the letter of a true Christian pastor of much
moral and spiritual earnestness ; he is deeply con-
cerned for the salvation of his flock and desirous
of imparting to them the best that he has.
2. Moral interest. — It is only right to emphasize
our author's moral and spiritual arms because a
large part of what he says, consisting of allegorical
interpretations of the Mosaic Law, apj>ears to
modem minds strangely unreal and fantastic. But
if his letter abounds in allegory, it is only because
he is deeply impressed with the idea that the Law,
if literally observed, will make shipwreck of men's
salvation (iiL 6). His earnest advice is : ' Let us
flee from all vanity, let us entirely hate the works
of the evil way' (iv. 10 ; cf. 9). In his closing
chapters (xix.-xxi.) he forsakes the allegorical
method entirely, and devotes himself to a setting
forth of ' the two ways,' the way of light and the
way of darkness. The duties of loving, fearing,
praising, and obeying Glod are named first. Then
follows a series ot injunctions, some negative and
some positive in form, concerned chiefly with one's
relations to others. A man's neighbour must be
loved more than his own soul. The waj' of the
' Black One ' is set forth in the form of a catalogue
of vices and evil actions. Only two Command-
ments are quoted from the Decalogue — the third
and the seventh. There is no direct appeal to
either the teaching or the example of our Lord.
3. Attitude towards Judaism. — The main in-
terest which the Epistle has for us to-day lies in
the light which it throws ujwn the relations be-
tween Judaism and the Church. In order to
appreciate the position of this Epistle in early
Christian literature, it is necessary to make a brief
review of the transition from Judaism to Christi-
anity. Christianity did not come into the world
at a point where there was a religious vacuum. It
was founded by One who claimed to be the An-
ointed One of a definite national religion, which
had existed for many centuries. He and His
apostles believed in the Jewish religion, as the
only true religion, used the Jewish Scripttires as
the very word of God, and observed the national
forms of worship as the Divinelv-appointed mode
of serving God. How then did His followers ever
come to abandon the Law ? Did they at any point
make a complete break with all that was Jewish
and begin afresh on an entirely new basis? By
no means ; there was no break, but merely a re-
organization. The followers of Jesus believed that
He, as Messiah, had authority from God to insti-
tute a new Covenant between God and His people
Israel, and that He actually did so when He oflered
Himself on the cross as a sacrifice for sin. The
logical consequences of this belief were not per-
ceived all at once, but were bound to come to light
as time went on.
(1) If the death of Jesus is sufficient to obtain
salvation, the observance of the Law cannot be
essential any longer. Hence, though believing
Jews may continue to observe the Law if they
will, there is not sufficient ground for compelling
Gentiles who turn to God and believe on Jesus to
do so also. This recognition of the Gentiles is the
first step in the process, and is the position reached
at the Council of Jerusalem (Ac 15). The next
step was to admit that it was not necessary for be-
lieving Jews to observe the Law, when such observ-
ance caused them to separate from their Gentile
brethren. Tliis step was being taken during the
lifetime of St. Paul (Gal 2i**-, 1 Co 92>). The last
step was to condemn all observance of the Law,
whether by Jewish or by Gentile believers.
This last step is reflected in the pages of our
Epistle. There is, however, this peculiarity about
its position : the main stream of Christian thought
believed that the Mosaic Law had been given by
God to the Jews to be literally fiUfilled. Our
author, however, does not believe that the Law
ever was intended to be taken literally ; he says it
was uttered in a spiritual sense which the Jews
did not imderstand (x. 9). This error of the Jews
was the work of an evil angel (ix. 4 ; cf. viii. 7) ;
the true spiritual interpretation is known to
Christians because God circumcised their ears
(ix. 4). This spiritual interpretation of the Law is
nothing more or less than a series of allegories.
The scapegoat of the Day of Atonement is the
type of Jesus who was to sufler (ch. vii.). The
prescription that certain animals must not be eaten
is explained as meaning that one must have no
dealings with certain kinds of evil persons (ch. x.).
If Abraham is said to have circumcised 318 men,
the real meaning is Jesus and the Cross, because
' in the number 18, I stands for ten, H for eight.
Here thou hast Jesus (THZOTZ). And because the
cross in the T was to have grace, he saith also
three hundred. So he revealeth Jesus in the two
letters and in the remaining one the Cross ' (ix. 8 ;
cf. his treatment of the Red Heifer of Nu 19 in ch.
viii.).
This position is supported by citing the prophetic
condemnation of the idea that sacrifice and ritual
can be made a substitute for a moral life (chs. ii.
and iii.). In dealing with circumcision, our author
seizes on those passages which speak of a circum-
cision of the heart (Jer 4*, Dt 10'«, Jer 9*), and
argues that the Jewish circumcision ' is abolished,
for he hath said that a circumcision not of the flesh
should be practised' (ix. 4). The six days of
creation are in reality 6000 years ; hence the true
Sabbath cannot be obser\ed until the coming of
the Son of God (ch. xv.). Similarly the building
of a material Temple was a mistake ; the true
Temple is a spiritual Temple — the hearts of those
with whom God dwells (ch. xvi.) ; thus all that is
outwardly distinctive of the Jewish religion is
interpreted in a spiritual sense : distinctions of
clean and unclean, circumcision, the Sabbath and
the Temple.
(2) Another logical consequence of belief in Jesus
140 BARNABAS, EPISTLE OF
BARNABAS, EPISTLE OF
as Messiah will further illustrate the mind of our
writer. If the Messiah has indeed come in tho jier-
son of Jesus, then the national religion of the Jews
is not destroyed but proved to be the true service of
the Living God, and its claim that it had received a
direct Divine revelation is not exploded but vindi-
cated by God Himself. Every one who believed
in Jesus, believed that He came in fulGlment of
Eromises made by God to the Jewish fathers ;
ence a Christian believer could not but regard the
ancient Jewish Scriptures as the record of a unique
revelation and treat them as the very word of God.
This, too, is the position of our author ; for, though
he regards the literal observance of the Law as
having been from tlie very first a fatal mistake,
yet all his proofs of this are drawn from the
OT itself anfl from what he believes to be its true
exegesis. ' The Lord has made known to us by
His prophets, things past and present.' The words
of Scripture he constantly quotes as words spoken
from the mouth of God (ii. 4, 5, 7, iii. 1, iv. 8, v.
5, 12, etc. ; cf. iv. 7, 11, v. 4, etc.). Moreover, he
uses the Scriptures to explain the mystery of the
suflering of the Son of God. * How did He endure
to sufler at the hand of men ? Understand ye.
The Prophets receiving grace from Him, prophesied
concerning Him' (v. 5, 6, 13, 14; cf. vi. 6, 7, x.,
xi. ). The OT was his only source of authority in
religion ; he does not appeal to any Christian writ-
ing, or even to the words of Jesus ; he feels he has
fully proved his point if he can show that his doc-
trine IS grounded in the Jewish Scriptures.
(3) If Jesus was the Messiah, He was clothed
with full authority to mould the national religious
life according to the will of God. Those who re-
fused to believe and obey Him refused to obey
and believe God, and by this act of disobedience
cut themselves off from the Covenant and the
mercies of God. On the other hand, those who did
believe God and were obedient to His Messiah,
became the true people of God, the New Israel, the
{•resent possessors of all the privileges that once be-
onged to the Jewish nation, and the recipients of
all the Messianic blessings. If the purpose of God
in creating the Avorld and in calling Abraham had
been fulfilled in Jesus, tlien it was not for the sake
of unbelieving Jews but for tlie sake of the believers
in the Messiah that the world had been created and
Abraham called. They are the new People and yet
the old, for they have been latent in God's intention
since the Creation. Thus the Christians denied to
the Jews any share whatever in the glorious herit-
age of the Jewish nation, and claimed it entirely
for themselves.
This position throws light upon the mind of our
writer. He is sure that the patriarchs from Abra-
ham to Moses stood in a special relation to God
and received special promises from Him (v. 7, xiii.
7, xiv. 1). But, whereas St. Paul would say that
the physical descendants of Abraham were not cut
oft' from this special relationship until they cut
themselves off" when they refused to believe in
Jesus (Ro 11), our author thinks that they were
cut off" long before this, as long ago as the day of
Aaron's golden calf. A Covenant, he says, was
given to Moses to deliver to the Jews, but it was
never really received. 'He hath given it (the
Covenant), but they themselves were not found
worthy to receive it by reason of their sins ' (xiv.
1); for, when Moses perceived their idolatry, he
cast out of his hands the two tables which he had
received in the Mount, and they Avere broken in
pieces (xiv. 1-4, iv. 6-8). St. Paul and the Epistle
to the Hebrews know of two Covenants — an old
and a new ; and the old was in force until the
coming of the Messiah (Ro 7-'^-, Gal 32«- 4", He 8").
The Epistle of Barnabas says that only one Cove-
nant was ever in force— the Covenant of Jesus.
Our author does not cut Cliristianity away from
all historic connexion witli the Jewish past ; on
tlie contrary, he denies a place of privilege to the
Jews after Mount Sinai, in order to show that
that place really Itelonged to the Christians.
There are two peoples — the Jews and the Chris-
tians. Of these, the Jews, the elder, are in the
position of Esau and of Manasseh, who, though
the first-born of their respective fathers, did not
inherit the blessing ; the Christians, like Jacob and
Ephraim, though in each ca.se the younger, have
been made the recipients of the promises (ch. xiii.).
Accordingly, to our author, the Christians have
now come into what was always their own and had
never belonged to the nation of Israel. • Do not
then say, "Our covenant remains to them also."
Ours it is, but they have lost it in this waj^ for ever,
when Moses had just received it ' (iv. 6 ; cf. 8).
The Christians are 'the new people' of God (v. 7,
vii. 5 ; cf. xiii. 6), a holy people (xiv. 6), who have
been cleansed, forgiven (vi. 11), whose hearts have
been redeemed out of darkness (xiv. 5), 'created
afresh from the beginning ' (xvi. 8), ' a new type '
(vi. 11) ; ' He Himself prophesying in us. He Him-
self dwelling in us, opening for us who had been in
bondage unto death. . . . This is the spiritual
temple built up to the Lord ' (xvi, 9, 10 ; cf. vi. 15).
It is not correct, then, to say with Kriiger (Hist,
of Early Christian Lit., New York, 1897, p. 21)
that to the writer of this Epistle 'Judaism was
an error with which Christianity could have noth-
ing to do, but which it must reject.' Our autlior
accepts the Jewish Scriptures, the patriarchs, the
promises, Moses, and the Law in its (to his mind)
correct spiritual interpretation. His animus is
against the Jews, not against the Jewish religion ;
from Sinai onwards they have in reality stood out-
side that religion ; its privileges were always the
peculiar property of the Christians, held in reserve
for them until the coming of the Messiah.
4. Christology. — In the facts of the earthly life
of our Lord the Epistle of Barnabas has but little
interest. From incidental notices one gathers that
Jesus had performed wonders and miracles (v. 8) ;
that He had chosen twelve apostles to preach His
gospel (v. 9, viii. 3) ; that He was crucified, set at
naught and spit upon (vii. 9) ; that He was given
vinegar and gall to drink (vii. 3). It is evident that
the writer did not think that his readers stood in
need of instruction in the details of the life of
Christ.
Nor does he aim at expounding a doctrine of
Christ's Person and work ; but when one gathers
together from diff"erent parts of his work the pas-
sages which refer to our Lord, one can see that his
teaching is in line with that of the Catholic
Church. Christ is ' the Beloved ' of God (iii. 6, iv.
3, 8). He ' manifested Himself as the Son of God '
(v. 9, 11, vii. 9), who was pre-existent, being pre-
sent at and taking an active part in the Creation
(v. 5, 10, vi. 12) ; One who came among men in the
flesh (v. 6, 10, 11, vi. 7, 9, 14, xii. 10) ; who should
not be called Son of David but Son of God, for
David himself called him not son, but Lord (xii.
10, 11) ; wlio is about to come again, and that
quickly, to judge both the quick and the dead (v.
7, vii. 2, XX i. 3).
His teaching on the Atonement belongs to the
same early period of Christian teacliing. He
knows that Christ suff"ered for us (v. 5, vii. 2) and
as a sacrifice for our sins (vii. 3, 6, v. 2), that we
might be forgiven, sanctified (v. 1), and saved (v.
10) ; and that we may reign with Him hereafter
when we have been made perfect (vi. 18, 19) ; that
He might annul death, show the resurrection (v. 6)
and give us life (vii. 2, xii. 5) ; that He might sum
up the tale of the sins of those who persecuted His
prophets (v. 11 ; cf. xiv. 6). He has no theory of
BARNABAS, EPISTLE OF
BAEXABAS, EPISTLE OF 141
the Atonement and no detinition of sacrifice ; he is
content to show that according to the Scriptures
Christ died for our sins and that we are thereby
saved.
5. Aathonhip. — The Epistle is anonymous.
Tradition, however, has ascribed it to Barnabas the
fellow-worker of St. Paul. Clement of Alexandria
quotes it as the work of ' the Apostolic Barnabas,
who was one of the seventy and a fellow- worker of
Paul ' (Strom, u. 20 ; cf. iL 6, 7, 15, 18, v. 8, 10).
Origen speaks of ' the Catholic Epistle of Barnabas '
(c. Ceis. i. 63). Eusebius calls it ' the Epistle of
Barnabas,' i.e. the Apostle (HE vi. 14, iii. 25).
It seems to have been held in high esteem in Alex-
andria towards the end of the 2nd cent. ; and, since
it is found in Codex Sinaiticus beginning on the
leaf where Revelation ends, one may conclude that
it was once read in churches. In the West it was
never regarded as canonical. Eusebius objected to
it, and finally its connexion with the NT was
severed entirely.
The external evidence is thus wholly in favour
of the apostolic authorship. But, coming as it
does from a period as late as the closing years of
the 2nd cent., this testimony cannot overbalance
the weighty considerations drawn from internal
evidence which make it impossible to ascribe it to
the companion of St. Paul. What we know of the
apostolic Barnabas indicates that he took a view
of the Mosaic Law wholW' diflerent from that re-
flected in this Epistle. The ' Son of Consolation '
belonged to the earliest stage of the Jewish Chris-
tian controversy; he was ready to give the Gfen-
tiles liberty, but by no means ready to say that
the Jews might abandon the Law altogether (Gal
2"). It is, of course, quite possible that, after the
incident of Gal 2, Barnabas might have come to
acknowledge the entire freedom of the Jews, but
even this would not bring him into the atmosphere
of our Epistle ; for here there is no question as to
whether a believing Jew may or mav not abandon
the Law ; the main idea is that no ^ew, believing
or unbelieving, ought ever to have observed the
Law at any time, even before Christ came. Such
an attitude as this lay altogether outside the pur-
view of the thoughts of St. Paul's companion, if
we may judge from what St. Paul tells us of him.
And it is difficult to think that any Jew, bom
under the Law, and nurtured in the stirring tra-
ditions of its maintenance in the face of cruel per-
secution, could come to feel so little enthusiasm
for and interest in the national struggles and
heroisms that he could sweep them all away as
things which never ought to have been. A soul
so dead to patriotism was no true Jew. None but
an alien could be so unsympathetic to the national
history of the Jews.
Not very much more can be added to this. The
author was probably one of the class distinguished
by a charisTna or ' gift ' of teaching. Though he
disclaims any intention of writing professionally,
yet he was conscious of possessing • some claim to a
deferential hearing' (Bartlet, EBr^ iii. 409). Two
theories are advanced to account for the ascription
of the Epistle to Barnabas. It was the work of
a namesake of St. Paul's companion ; or, it was
known as coming from Alexandria, and hence
was ascribed to Barnabas as to one prominent
in the early history of that Church.
6. Place. — There is a general agreement among
scholars that Alexandria is the probable scene of
its composition. The general style and the use of
the allegorical method are thoroughly Alexandrian.
At Alexandria, again, the Jews were particularly
strong, and in constant conflict with the Christians.
Hence the bitter opi)osition to the Jews as a nation,
and the anxiety to cut ott' all sympathy with Jew-
ish practices. It has been observed that there are
serious blunders in the descriptions of Jewish rites ;
our author agrees neither with the OT nor with
the Talmud. But possibly his knowledge is de-
rived from -Alexandria rather than from Palestine.
Kohler, in JE ii. 537, remarks that the letter shows
an astonishing familiarity with Jewish rites.
7. Date. — There is much less agreement on the
question of the date of the Epistle. It is plainly
later than the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus
in A.D. 70, for it alludes to that event (xvi. 4).
Again, it is earlier than the second destruction
under Hadrian in A.D. 132 ; otherwise, as Light-
foot remarks, some reference to this event would
have been found.
A closer determination of the date depends
mainly on the interpretation of a passage from ch.
iv. This chapter contains a warning that ' the
last offence ' is at hand ; for the Lord has shortened
the times and the days that His beloved may come
quickly. As a proof that the last offence, i.e. the
Antichrist, is at hand, the writer quotes a prophecy
from the Book of Daniel (Dn 7^- *•) to the efl'ect
that ten kings shall reign, and after them shall
arise a little king who shall subdue three of the
kings in one {v<^ ep). It is evident that the writer
j thinks that this prophecy has been, in part at
i least, fulfilled ; he hsLS seen something in recent
! history which corresponds with this vision. Thus
much then seems clear ; when he wrote this, there
had been ten Cjesars on the Imperial throne.
Unless we are to omit some of the Emperors from
the list — a proceeding for which there seems no
justification — the tenth Emperor brings us to the
reign of Vespasian. If the ' little horn ' had al-
ready appeared when the Epistle was written,
then we must look for three Emperors subdued by
the successor of Vespasian. And this, of course,
Titus did not do. Hence it seems better to inter-
pret the little horn as Antichrist, who has not yet
been revealed, for this gets rid of the difficulty of
finding one Emperorwho had already subdued three.
The i^Titer found this reference to three kings in
his text of the prophecy, and meant to leave it to
the future to show who the three were and how
they would be overthrown. But no matter how
this point is settled, the tenth horn can scarcely
be other than Vespasian, and this fixes the date of
the Epistle at between a.d. 70 and 79. Another
chapter (xvL) is sometimes referred to as having
a bearing on this question. This chapter speaks
of a building of the Temple of God. Many com-
mentators, including Hamack, take this as refer-
ring to the material Temple at Jerusalem, which
they say the Jews expected Hadrian to rebuild.
Hence they place this Epistle c. .\.D. 120. But
this rests on a misinterpretation of ch. xvL It
seems certain that the writer has in view the
spiritual Temple built up in the hearts of believers,
and hence the passage has no bearing on the ques-
tion of date (cf. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 241).
Certain other considerations, such as the absence
of a reference to Gnosticism and the apparent
possibility of a relapse into Judaism, have also
been brought forward. Suffice it to say that none
of these is incompatible with the date given
above.
8. Text. — Until the discovery of the famous
Codex Sinaiticus (K) in 1862, this Epistle was
known only in a Latin translation and in eight
Greek MSS. The Latin Version is found in a
MS of the 8th cent., but the translation was made
from a text supposed by Miiller to be earlier than
K. It does not contain the last four chapters.
The Greek MSS all lacked exactly the same
portion of the Epistle — the first five and a half
chapters — and joined the remainder of Barnabas
on to the end of the Epistle of Polvcarp as though
it were all one letter. Being thus plainly de-
142
BARS ABBAS
BARUCH, APOCALYPSE OF
fecended from a common source, they are not in-
dependent witnesses for the text. With the
publication of i< by Tiachendorf in 1862 a complete
Greek text appealed for tlie first time. In this
Codex our Lpistle follows Revelation, and is
followed by the Shepherd of Hennas. Another
complete Greek MS was discovered in Constan-
tinople by Bryennios in 1875. A good account of
the MSS will be found in Hamack's Altchristl.
Litteratur, i. 58-61, and in Gebhardt-Harnack's
Pat. Apost. Op. i. 2, pp. vii-xx.
9. Integrity. — Attempts have been made by
Schenkel, Heydecke, J. Weiss, and others to
show that tlie Epistle contains many interpola-
tions. Hefele, Hilgenfeld, and Gebhardt-Harnack
have maintained the opposite. Of special interest
is the relation of our Epistle to the Didanhe (q.v.) ;
for both set forth much the same moral teaching
under the title of 'The Two Ways.' Rendel
Harris {Teaching of the Apostles, Cambridge, 1888,
pp. 17-20) maintains that the writer of Barnabas
Knew the Didache and quoted it from memory.
Harnack, however, seems more successful in show-
ing that the writer of the Didache used and ini-
pro\ed upon our Epistle (cf. Die Lehre der zwolf
Apostel, Leipzig, 1884, pp. 81-87).
Literature. — Euglish translations will be found in J. B.
Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1 vol., London, 1891 ; The Writ-
ings of the Apostolic Fathers, tr. Roberts, Donaldson, and
Crombie (=Ante-Nicene Christian Library, i.), 97 ff. ; K. Lake,
Apostolic Fathers, London, 1912. Reference should also be made
to Gebhaxdt-Harnack, Patrum Apost. Op. i. 2 [Leipzig, 1878],
who give a complete list of titles down to 1878 on pp. xlii-xliv ;
A. Harnack, Gesch. der altchristl. Litteratur, Leipzig, 1893 ;
A. Bardenhewer, Gesch. der altkirchl. Litteratur, Freiburg i,
B., 1902-03; J. Donaldson, Apostolical Fathers, London, 1874
( = new ed. of vol. i. of Crit. Uist. of Christ. Lit. and Doct.) ; W.
Cunningham, A Dissertation on the Epistle of St. Barnabas,
do. 1877 ; C. J. Hefele, Pat. Apost. Op. iv. S [Tubingen, 1855] ;
S. Sharpe, Epistle of Barnabas, London, 18S0 ; G. Salmon,
Introd. to the JVT«, London, 1892, pp. 513-519 ; K. Kohler in
JE ii. [1902] 537 f.; W. Milligan in BOB 1. [1877] 260 ff.;
J. Vernon Bartlet in BBrn iii. [1910] 408 f. ; J. G. Muller,
Eikldrung des Bamabasbriefes, Leipzig, 1869.
Harold Hamilton.
BARSABBAS.— See Joseph, Judas.
BARUCH, APOCALYPSE OF.— The subject of
this article is a Jewish work composed not long
after the Destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70, and
now preserved only in Syriac. This Syriac is a
translation from the Greek, of which only a tiny
fragment is extant ; the Greek itself seems to have
been a translation from an Aramaic or Hebrew
original.
The Apocalypse o/Baruch was first published as a whole by
Ceriani from the Ambrosian MS of the Peshitta OT (6th cent.).
The Latin translation appeared in 1866, and tlie Syriac text in
1871. An English translation with full critical and explanatory
commentary by R. H. Charles appeared in 1896. In Patro-
logia Syriaca, vol. ii. [1907] 1055-131)6, M. Kmosko gives the
Syriac, together with an amended text of Ceriani's translation.
The Greek fragment appeared in 1903 in Oxyrhynchus Papyri,
vol. iii. pp. 3-7. By some oversight Kmosko does not notice
this important discovery.
1. Contents. — The work professes to be written
by Baruch, the scribe of Jeremiah, immediately
alter the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar.
It does not readily fall into sections, but may be
analyzed as follows :
i.-xx. The capture of Jerusalem, and the vindi-
cation of God's power and justice in respect to it.
Baruch is miraculously shown the destruction of the wall of
Jerusalem bj- angels and the hiding of the holy vessels* (vi. vii.),
after which the Cbaldseans enter. Baruch laments over Zion
(x. 6-xii. 4) ; after seven days Qod reveals to him that justice
will be done on the heathen (xiii. 6-12) ; the Fall of Jerusalem is
a step towards the final judgment (xx. 2).
xxi.-xxxiv. Prayer of Baruch, and first Messianic
revelation to him.
* Note that the seven-branched candlestick is not included :
thaX was actually carried in triumph by Titus.
The world will last until all the pre<leslined sons of .\dam
have been born (xxiii. 4, 6). At the end will come the Messiah,
the Manna will descend again, and Behemoth and Leviathan
will be there for the saitits to eat (xxix.). After that cornea
the resurrection of the dead (xxx.).
Baruch assembles the people and warns them that Zion will
be rebuilt and then again destroyed ; the tribulation at the end
of time is the worse (xxxii. 2, 6).
xxxv.-xlvi. Vision of the cedar and the vine.
The cedar is the Roman Empire, the vine is Messiah (xxxix.
5, 7) ; in the end the last great heathen ruler will be destroyed
by Messiah (xl.).
Baruch again warns the people to keep the Law (xliv. 3,
xlvL 6).
xlvii.-lxxYii. Second prayer of Baruch, followed
by a revelation to him about the resurrection of
the good and the bad, and the vision of the black
and the bright waters.
The dead will rise unaltered, but the righteous will then
become glorious while the wicked waste away (1. Ii.). All
history is divided into 12 parts: the black waters are the six
bad periods, beginning with the Fall (' O Adam, what hast thou
done to all those who are born from thee 't ' xlviiL 42) ; the
bright waters are the short alternating gleams of rightieous-
ness, beginning with Abraham (Ivi.-lxxii.). At the end the
saints will have a glorious time (Ixxiii f.).
Baruch again warns the people to keep the Law : if they do
so, those left in the Holy I>and will never be removed (Ixxvii.
5, 6). To the captive Jews in Babylon he sends a letter by hand
(Ixxvii. 17), while to the lost Nine-and-a-ball Tribes he sends a
letter by an eagle (Ixxvii. 19 ff.).
Ixxviii.-lxxxYii. Baruch's letter to the Lost
Tribes.
Baruch tells them of the destruction of Jerusalem, announces
the approaching end of all things, and exhorts them to keep tha
Law. ' If we set our hearts straiglit we shall receive everything
that we have lost and more ' (Ixxxv. 4).
2. Problems raised by the book. — The chief
problems connected with th& Apocalypse of Baruch
are (1) its place in Jewish thought, especially in
connexion with 4 Ezra (i.e. '2 Esdras ' in the
English Apocrypha, which it much resembles) ; and
(2) its literary history in Syriac and the relation
of the Syriac text to the underlying Greek. It
will be convenient to take this second group first.
(1) Literary history, etc. — The Ambrosian MS is
the only one that contains the whole work, but
the Epistle of Baruch (chs. Ixxviii.-lxxxvii., see
above) is extant in several Syriac MSS and found
a place in the Paris and London Polyglots. Tliis
extract must be of exclusively Jacobite origin :
it appears as a sort of Appendix to Jeremiah and
is included in the Jacobite Massora. Its readings
are inferior to that of the full text preserved in the
Ambrosian Codex,* where it is dissociated from
Jeremiah and immediately precedes 4 Ezra.
The Sj'riac style indicates a very early date for
the translation. It is idiomatic and flowing, like
the Syriac translation of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical
History. So full, indeed, is it of genuine Semitic
idiom that various perfectly good Syriac phrases
have actually been regarded by R. H. Charles as
the survival of original Hebrew idioms, persisting
through the lost Greek intermediary. Especially
is this tlie case with regard to the use of the infini-
tive absolute for emphasis, which is quite good
Syriac and occurs in the Ev. da-Mepharreshe,
though the construction is usually avoided in later
forms of the Syriac NT.f And this general im-
pression has been signally contirmed by the dis-
covery of the Oxyrhynchus Fragment. Short as
the fragment is, it gives us enough of tlie Greek
text of chs. xii. xiii. and xiv, to tell us in what
* Here and there the extract is better, e.g. Ixxxii. 4, where all
the editors rightly prefer ' drop'( = oTa'yu»»', Is 40") to 'pollution.'
t A good instance is Eus. UE iv. 15. 29, where raina. ovv fitra
TCKTovTou raxovi iyivtro Oarrov ij i\eyero is rendered in S\Tiac,
' And these things quicker than they were said were indeed
done (mest'Sru est'ar).' It is obvious that sudi a rendering,
while perfectly adei^uate, does not enable us to reconstruct the
wordmg of the original.
BAKUCH, APOCALYPSE OF
BAEUCH, APOCALYPSE OF U3
manner the Syriac translator has gone to work.
Especially important is xiii. 12, where the Greek
has [vfifts yip (iitpyferovuffOi ael Trx.olP^'^f^'^f (a**)].*
but the Syriac is ' For always I have been benefit-
ing you, and ye have been denying benefit always.'
This sentence sufficiently shows how difficult it
would be to reconstruct the Greek from the Sj-riac
of Baruch, and how impossible to argue back to
the wording of a hypothetical Hebrew or Aramaic
original. At the same time 'denying benefit'
{kdphar betaibutha) is actually used for axaptaros in
2 Ti 3- and in Lk 6** syr.-sin. (not Pesh.): in a
word, the Syriac of Baruch is akin in style to the
earliest Syriac translations of the NT.
The Apocalypse of Baruch contains no formal
quotations from canonical Scripture, but several
sentences are obviously moulded upon the OT. As
Charles has founded an argument on these for a
Hebrew original, it is necessary to point out that
the evidence is really indecisive. ' The quotations
from the OT agree in all cases but one with the
Massoretic Hebrew against the Septuagint,' says
Charles. In support of this he adduces eight
passages. In four of these, however (iv. 2, vi. 8,
n. 4, IviiL 1), Baruch agrees with the Peshitta, as
we might expect in a work which pays so much
attention to byriac idiom and is so little of a word-
for-word rendering of the Greek. In two others
(' Thy wisdom is correctness,' xxsviii. 2 ; and ' fled
under Thy wings,' xli. 4) the Syriac does not agree
with any "biblical text.t The allusion in xxxv. 2
is admitted by Charles to be merely a paraphrase.
The remaining passage is Ixxxii. i, 5, where the
heathen are said to be ' like a drop ' and ' counted
as spittle': this agrees with the LXX of Is 40'*
((1)1 (TTa-ftJiv ... (is ffteXos), but not with the He-
brew or the Syriac. :J: Thus the biblical allusions in
Baruch do not prove that the author was acquaintod
with the Massoretic text : they merely show that
the Syriac translator was familiar with the Pesh-
itta. It is possible, of course, if the Greek be a
translation from Hebrew or Aramaic, that the
Greek translator changed the wording of Ixxxii. 5
to agree vrith. the Greek Bible ; but there is no
actual evidence which points in that direction.
The ' sirens,' the ' Lilith,' the ' devils,' and the
' jackals ' of x. 8 are all found in the Peshitta of
Is 13"i- 23 and M^^- ". It should be added' that
there is nothing to suggest that the Syriac trans-
lator of the Apocalypse was a Christian rather
than a Jew.
(2) Relation to 4 Ezra. — It is obvious that the
Apocalypse of Baruch and that of Salathiel, com-
monly known as 4 Ezra, have a great deal in
common, both in ideas and in language. § They
must have issued from the same circle, if they are
not actually the work of the same author. And,
further, it is almost certain that they must have
been originally composed in the same language,
either both in Greek, or both in Hebrew or
Aramaic. As has been indicated in the preceding
paragraphs, most of the arguments for a Semiric
origin of Baruch founded upon the Syriac text are
inconclusive ; but if the Latin text of 4 Ezra
(which is undoubtedly a literal translation of the
lost Greek) creates the impression that this Greek
was itself a translation, then after aU we must
regard the Greek of Baruch also as a translation.
* The reconstmction is practically certain, except the last
t In xli. 4, Charles translates 'fled for refuge ... * But
'fmq means ' fled ' : the ' taking refuge ' which is inherent in the
Heb. .^0^ (Buth 2i'- etc.) is not erpressed in the Syriac
X The same comparisons are used in U Ezra 6^, which must
similarlv also be considered to show the influence of the Greek
Bible.
$ A good account of these resemblances is to be found in
H. St. J. Thackerai-'s art. ' Esdras, Second Book of,' in HDB L
763 f. See also G. H. Box in Charles' Apoe. and Pteudepigr.
a. 563 tf.
From the linguistic side the chief arguments
concern the names used for God and the occurrence
of the infinitive absolute. Beside words which
imply KOpios (as in the LXX), we find Altissimus
and Fortis (e.g. 4 Ezra 9**) in both works ; these
must correspond to 'Tif/urrot and 'Itrxypbt in the
Greek.* 'T^urros in a Jewish writing corresponds
to \\''^v (Aram. ^kSf) ; but as it was auso a name of
God in Greek its occurrence proves nothing as to
the original language of our book. 'Irxypin, on the
other hand, is only found as a name of God in
translations, and implies "jk (El) ; it is characteristic
of the later Jewish translators Aquila and Theodo-
tion, to a less degree of Symmachns, and not at all
of the genuine LXX, which only uses itrxypot as an
adjective in the ordinary sense of ' strong ' (Ps 7^
41*). Thus a reader of the Greek Bible would not
be likely to use it by itself as a proper name for
' the Almighty.' Its presence in Apoc. Baruch and
4 Ezra must therefore be held to suggest that the
Greek texts of these works are translations.
The use of the infinitive absolute points in the
same direction. If it were merely attested in
Syriac, it might be explained away as an idiom
introduced by the translator. But its frequent
occurrence in the Latin text of 4 Ezra ( e.g. exce-
dens excessit, 4-) cannot thus be disposed of, and
at present no real example of this idiom is known
in works composed originally in Greek, though it
is common in translations such as the LXX. The
linguistic evidence, therefore, though not quite
conclusively, points to a Semitic, and consequently
to a Palestinian, origin for both 4 Ezra and the
Apocalypse of Baruch. But, as explained above,
we are very far from being able to reconstruct
the text of this hypothetical Hebrew or Aramaic
original (Ixiv. 7, 8).
Not only the language, but also the contents,
of Baruch favour a Hebrew or Aramaic original.
The circle of thought and tradition is throughout
Palestinian, and uninfluenced by Greek speculation
and culture. The legends incidentally referred to
are specifically Jewish, and can be illustrated from
the Talmud, such as that of Behemoth and Levia-
than created to be the food of the saints (xxix. 4) ;
or the story of Manasseh, who was cast into the
brazen 'horse' {i.e. mule), and who, though he
prayed from it to God and was delivered, yet was
finally tormented.t
3. integrity. — In what has been said above, the
Apocalypse of Barueh has been treated as an
organic whole. This has been controverted by
Charles, who splits the lxx)k up into no fewer
than six (or seven) separate fragments, on the
assumption that an apocalyptist's anticipations of
the future will be clear-cut and self -consistent.
But this is hardly to be expected in a work which
reflects the mind of an orthodox Jew just after the
Destruction of Jerusalem. The Temple with its
priests and sacrifices, nay, the very national exist-
ence, had been brought utterly to an end bj- the
heathen. The individual Jews that remained were
left with nothing but the Law and a ttuuult of im-
possible hopes. The author is swayed by his sub-
ject. He may believe that the captured city was
not the true, the heavenly Jerusalem (iv. 2-6), and
that it had been destroyed by the angels of God be-
fore the enemy were allowed to capture it (vL-viii. ).
Yet the catastrophe is too recent to allow him
calmly to contemplate the Fall of Zion, and his
* The Greek fragment of Apoc Barueh actually contains the
word t<rxv{pov)-
t Another instance, important from the incidental manner of
its occurrence, is in txxvii. 25, where we read : * S<d(Maion also
. . . whithersoever he wished to send or seek for anything,
commanded a bird and it obeyed him ' This is a manifest allu-
sion to the story of the wildiowl by which Solom<m sent a letter
to the Queen of Sheba at Kittor (2nd Targtun to Esther, L 2). a
legend familiar in Arabic, but not current in Greek
144 BARUCH, APOCALYPSE OF
BASKET
lament over the ruins (x. 6-xii. 4) is uninterrupted
by any gleam of hope. Surely this is what might
be expected in a work of literature, apart from the
fact that it is not till later in the book that revela-
tions about the future are given to Baruch.
While, however, absolute consistency is not to
be expected, it is necessary to show that the Fall
of Jerusalem is assumed all through the book. A
Jewish apocalyptist may vary in his anticipations
of tlie future, but after A.D. 70 he could never
write as if the Temple were still standing. No
great weight, indeed, can be laid on passages like
ch. xxvii., where neither the building nor the de-
struction of the Herodian Temple is mentioned ;
for the historical situation implied throughout is
that of Baruch lamenting over the ruins of the
recently destroyed Solomonic Temple, it being
obvious that the author often practically identi-
fies himself with Baruch, and his own recently
destroyed Temple with the Solomonic. But be-
sides these passages it has been asserted that the
present existence of a Temple at Jerusalem is
assumed in xxxii. 2fiF., lix. 4, and Ixviii. 5. On
closer examination, however, this is seen not to be
the case. Ch. xxxii. is an address by Baruch to
the Jews left in the land after the Fall of Jerusalem.
He tells them that Zion will be built again (v.^) ;
but that building will not last : it will be thrown
down and remain desolate, and only afterwards
will it be renewed in glory (vv.^*). The whole
context shows that it is a prophecy of the re-building
of the Temple of Zerubbabel and its subsequent
destruction, and we must interpret, or if necessary
amend, the wording of v.^ in accordance with that
context. It is literally, ' Because after a little
time the building of Zion will be shaken that it
may be built again.' Either, therefore, this is an
adaptation of Hag 2*, Ezk SV, or the word for
' shaken ' is a mistranslation for some Avord like
' set in motion.' In lix. 4 it is said that God showed
Moses ' the likeness of Zion and its measurements,
made in the likeness of the present Sanctuary.'
But this phrase, corresponding to rd vvy &yia., does
not necessarily mean ' the Sanctuary which is now
in "ood repair ' ; it need mean no more than ' the
modern Temple,' as contrasted with the heavenly
Pattern (Ex 25^"). In Ixviii. 5, Baruch is told that
Zion will be built again, but in the later predictions
of the final troubles before the advent of Messiah
no mention is made of its subsequent destruction.
But this is not conclusive, as no detailed historical
predictions are made in Ixix.-lxxiv. ' The Most
High . . . alone knows what will befall ' (Ixix. 2).
In all this it must be borne in mind that Apoc.
Bancch is known to us only from a single MS of a
not very literal translation into Syriac of a Greek
translation of a Hebrew or Aramaic original. It
is, therefore, only likely that some minor incoher-
encies may be due to accidents of transmission.
But they are, after all, very few.
4. General point of view. — The Apocalypse of
Baruch, then, is here regarded as a unity, and as
the work of a Palestinian Jew writing soon after
A.D. 70. 4 Ezr. 3-14 may be described in similar
terms. We have noticed some of the linguistic
connexions between these works.* They coincide
also in much of their teaching, in the aivision of
history into 12 parts, in the importance attached
to Adam's sin, in the legend of Behemoth and
Leviathan, in the interest taken in the Lost Tribes,t
in the stress laid on the permanence of the Law.
The chief difi'erence between them lies in the
• Amonf? single phrases, the political situation is reflected in
habilatio Hierusalem (4 Ezr. icf*^) and ' the habitation of Zion '
(Bar. Ixxx. 7), i.«. 'the {act that Jerusalem, or Zion, was
inhabited.'
t It is possible that to this interest the books owed their pre-
servation in Syriac. Edessa itself is situated on ' the other
side' of the Euphrates, and thoae Eklessenes who read the '
psychology of the writers. The fate they antici-
pate for Israel is similar, but it afi'ects them dif-
ferently. The author of 4 Ezra is not really a
pessimist in the sense of believing that evil is ulti-
mately victorious in tliis world. The eagle, i.e.
Rome, is destroyed in the end ; the last act in the
world -drama is the glorious 400 years' reign of
Messiah. Then comes the other world or full
retribution. The scheme satisfies the Most High,
who says, ' Let the multitude perish, which was
born in vain' (9^). The really interesting thing
is that it does not satisfy Ezra. ' This is my
first and last saying,' says he, * that it had been
better that the earth had not given Adam, or else
when it had given him to have restrained him from
sinning' (7** [116]). 'We are tormented, because
we perish and know it. Let the race of men
lament and the beasts of the field be glad, for it
is better with them than with us ; for they look
not for judgment, neither do they know of tor-
ments or of salvation promised unto them after
death '(7«*«f-)-
There is nothing of this arraignment of Provi-
dence in the Apocalypse of Baruch. When the
author thinks for a moment about the fate of
apostate Israelites, he falls into intentional ob-
scurity (xlii. 4, 5). In general, he is quite content
to nerve himself to believe that the Mighty One
will ultimately make the Israelites triumph in this
world, and that, after that, in the world to come,
the righteous will be abundantly rewarded and
the sinners tormented. His main interests are
immediate and practical. He has a definite mes-
sage for his countrymen. Let those who are left
in the Holy Land stay there (Ixxvii. 6), and let one
and all, especially the exiles, hold fast by the Law,
though the Temple be destroyed. ' Zion hath been
taken from us, and we have nothing now save the
Mighty One and His Law' (Ixxxv. 3) ; but ' if ye
have respect to the Law and are intent upon wis-
dom, the lamp will not fail, and the shepherd will
not depart, and the fountain will not rmi dry'
(Ixxvii. 16). This is the message of the last of the
great series of Jewish Apocalypses. As Daniel
shows us what was the spirit that nerved the
Hastdtm to resist Antiochus, so Baruch lets us
see in what frame of mind it was possible for the
Rabbis under Johanan ben Zakkai and his succes-
sors to sit down and adapt the religion and the
hopes of Israel to the times of the long dominion
of the Gentiles.
Cf. also art. Esdras (SECOND).
Literature. — This is sufficiently indicated in the first para-
grraph of this article. In addition, since this article was written,
the Apocalypse of Baruch has been rc-edited by R. H. Charles
in The Apocrypha and Psemiepigrapha of the OT, Oxford,
1913, ii. 470-526 ; but the positions adopted in that edition only
differ in unimportant det^iils from the separate edition of 1896,
to which Charles frequently refers back for the discussion of
deUils. F. C. BURKITT,
BASKET.— Two different words for ' basket ' are
used in connexion with St. Paul's escape from
Damascus, one, a<t>vpl% or ffvvph (Ac 9-*), being the
same as is found in the miracle of feeding the 4000
(Mt 15*^, Mk 8®), the other, ffapydvri, being peculiar
to the Apostle's own version of the incident (2 Co
11^). The former kind of basket plays an import-
ant part in relation to the miracles of feeding, and
the argument for its larger size as compared with
k6<Pivos is supported by a reference to its use in
facilitating St. Paul's escape (but see DCG, art.
' Basket'). The latter calls for detailed treatment
here. It has been thought of: (1) as flexible,
coming near the idea of reticule or net ; (2) as
rigid : either braid- work (used especially of fish-
Epistle may have half fancied that the Epintle of Barueh wu
addreased to their own ancestors.
BEAST
BED, COUCH
145
luu^kets [EBi]), or wicker-work. This last seems to
be nearest the truth. In Jewish usage the root
iio (T») attaches to weaving in the rigid form {e.g.
basket-making) as opposed to the dexible (e.g.
."spinning). ■ One species of work-stool is called pro.
The basket-making industry was located in the
neighbourhood of the Sea of Galilee, with head-
quarters at Scythopolis, and a ready outlet for the
manufactured article was found in Damascus (see
S. Krau^, Talmud. Archdologie, ii. [Leipzig, 1911]
269 f., where many kinds are spetilied).
In the absence of knowledge as to the nature
and size of the window (fit-pis), and other details of
St. Paul's escape, we cannot hope to attain to a pre-
cise result re^utling the structure of the <rap>dnj.
It need not he said that present-day traditions in
Damascus are of little value. Only the lower half
of the wall dates possibly from NT times {see£Bi,
art. ' Damascus ')• For the device of letting a
person down through a window, see Jos 2" and 1 S
19" ; cf . also Josephus, BJ l. xvi. 4.
"W. Cbctckshank.
BEAST. — The word appears with three references.
— 1. It signifies simply un irrational animal (2 P
2") ; a beast of burden (Ac 23-*) ; an animal used for
food (Rev 18^), or for sacrifice (He 13'^) ; or it is
used as symbolizing Nature in its highest forms of
nobility, strength, ^visdom, and s^viftness (Rev 4?^^ ;
cf. Ezk 1 and Is 6). — 2. St. Paul writes that he
fought with 'beasts' at Ephesus (1 Co 15^). If
these were actual beasts, then the Apostle, who
had come oflF conqueror in the tight, instead of
being handed over to the executioner, was set free
by the provincial magistrate (cf. C. v. Weizsacker,
Das apostol. Zeitalter, 1886, p. 328 [Eng. tr., The
Apostfjlic Age, i. (1894) 385] ; A. C. McGitiert, The
Apostolic Age, 1S9~, n. 280 ff.). The uncertainties
and difficulties of this position are, however, so
serious that it is commonly abandoned in favour
of a metaphorical interpretation, and for these
reasons : (a) St. Paul was a Roman citizen ; (6)
neither in Acts nor in 2 Cor. is there any allusion
to an actual condict with beasts ; (o) had he so
fought, he would not have survived. Ignatius,
referring to his journey to Rome where he was
to suffer martyrdom, Avrote, ' I am bound to
ten leopards, that is, a troop of soldiers . . . ' {ad
Bom. 5). Some explain St. Pauls allusion by Ac
19 ; but this tumult was probably later, and such
explanation disagrees with 1 Co 16*- *. Ramsay
alleges a mixture of Greek and Roman ideas — in
the Greek lecture-room St. Paul would become
familiar with the Platonic comparison of the mob
with a dangerous beast, and as a Roman citizen he
would often have seen men fight with beasts in the
circus {St. Paul, 1895, p. 230 f.). Max Krenkel
{Beit rage zxir Aufhellung der Gesch. und der Brief e
des Apost. Paulus, Brunswick, 1890, pp. 126-152)
suggests that Christians used ' beast ' (cf. Rev. 13^
with a cryptic reference to Rome's power (cf. the
four beasts in Dn 8^-)- ^Ve are certain only that
St. Paul referred to some extreme danger from
men through which he had passed in Ephesus, of
which the Corinthians had heard (P. W. Schmiedel,
Hand-Kommentar zum Xeuen Testament, Freiburg
L B., 1893, p. 198).— 3. In Rev. {IV W) two
beasts are described, one (13''*'*; cf. Dn 7^'"^) sym-
bolizing the hostile political world-power of Rome
and the kings of Rome as vassals of Satan, the
other (13"*'*) the hostile religious power of false
prophecy (cf. 16^' 19^ 20^') and magic, enlisted
as allv of the political power — a false Christ or
Anticlirist, by which the worship of the Caesar
was imposed on the provinces. See, further, art.
Apocalypse. C. A. Beck with.
BEATING.— The AV uses the word 'beat' to
express some form of corporal punishment, without
VOL. I. — ID
defining the particular mode of infliction. 1. In
Ac 5** 22'* when dtpta ('to scourge, so as to flay off
the skin') is thus translated, the allusion is to the
Jewish mode of castigation, inflicted with a leathern
scourge, in the former instance by the authority of
the supreme Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, in the latter
by that of the rulers of the synagogues, or local
Sanhedrins, at the instigation of Saul. St. Paul
himself, during the period of his apostolic career
previous to the writing of 2 Cor., was subjected to
this species of chastisement on no less than five
occasions (2 Co 11**), none of which is referred to
in the Acts.
2. In Ac 16^, when ^a^liv is rendered by the
verb ' beat,' the allusion is to the Roman punish-
ment ^^•ith rods. In defiance of the Roman Law,
which exempted every citizen from the disgrace of
being scourged with rods or whips, the duumvirs
at Philippi subjected St. Paul and Silas to this
cruel form of maltreatment. St. Paul suffered
from two other inflictions of the same sort, regard-
ing which the Acts is silent.
3. In Acl8'^ 21*^ the verb ruma is used to denote
another mode of beating, namely, that inflicted by
mob violence. In the case of Sosthenes, the assault,
apparently by members of the Greek lower order,
entailed no danger to the life or limb of the victim.
In St. Paul's case, on the other hand, the onslaught
by the fanatical Asiatic Jews was of such a violent
character that nothing but the timely intervention
of the Roman tribune prevented a fatal result.
See, further, art. SCOUKGIXG.
W. S. MOXTGOMERT.
BEAUTIFUL GATE.— See Temple and Door.
BED, COUCH.— In the relevant section of the
NT four different Greek words are translated ' bed.'
In He 13*, where the imperatives of the RV should
be noted, the marriage-bed (xotrij) is referred to,
and is synonymous with the state of marriage itself.
In Rev 2^ the clause ^dXXw a.vTi\v etj K>Mnfr is to be
taken metaphorically, representing the enforced
recumbent position of the sick (cf. Mt 9^, Mk 7*,
also Mt S*- "), paralleled in the same verse by e/i
ffXi^tf fuyiXiip, the portion of tovs fioix^vo>^o,s fier
avriji.
The remaining instances are concret«, involving
K\iyapio>p {'beds') and KpaBdrrur ('couches') in Ac
5", and Kpa^rrov (this time translated ' bed,' both
in AV and RV) in Ac 9**. Regarding the former
of these we find that KXtrapiuy, the reading of the
principal MSS, has replaced an earlier kXimup.
Kpa^drruv (Vul^. grabatis) has equal MS authority
with KSj.vapiwi'fim.t Kpa^ixroi^uw) and Kpa^^Tov{wp)
are alternative spellings, particularly in Ac 9".
It is difficult to distinguish between the two kinds
of beds. jcXx^dpiof is a ' small bed,' with or without
reference to structure. In Jewish usage Kpd^rroi
appears to be descriptive, and to have some con-
nexion with the bands of leather that were used to
fill up the framework, by means of which a couch
or seat by day could be converted into a bed by
night. It is equated to ffKifirovs, (TKifixodiop, which
is defined as a mean bed for accommodating one
person (Grimm-Thayer), but may with equal pro-
priety be taken as akin to couch or sofa (see S.
Krauss, Talmud. Archdologie, L [Leipzig, 1910] p.
66). Eiach kind was portable, and to this end a
framework of some sort would have been of service,
but was not essential. Meyer justly refuses to
accept a distinction which makes the one word
mean a soft, costly bed, and the other a poor, humble
one. The story of .Eneas (Ac 9^ ") suggests the
presence of soft materials, which could be smoothed
out {ffTfHbaoy ; cf. Mk 14^). The references to bed
and couch are indicative of simplicity, not to say
poverty (cf. the fcenum, bed. of haj-, characteristic
of the Jews [Juvenal, Sat. iii. 14 and vi. 541]).
146
BEGINNING AND END
BENEDICTION
The refined and luxurious modes that without
doubt prevailed in the Graeco-Roinan world are
only matter of inference from Kev 18'*.
Although there is no mention of bed in Ac 12*,
the passage may be cited as aftbrding a vivid picture
of one rising up from sleep, ungirt, with sandals
Eut off, and the upper garment laid aside or per-
aps having been used as a covering by night.
The passage He 11'-'^ may reasonably be brouglit
within the scope of this article, since it is likely
that 'stafi"' should be rendered 'bed' (cf. Gn 47"').
See article Staff. W. Cruickshank.
BEGINNING AND END, -See Alpha and
Omega.
BELIAL, BELIAR. — This word occurs only once
in the NT (2 Co 6'*). To understand its meaning
there we must trace its use in the OT. The word
is Hebrew (Vy:^^), but its etymology is uncertain.
The ordinary derivation (from '^|, 'without,' and
rt. hsi', which in Hiph. '?'yin = ' to profit ') seems to be
the best, and this makes the word mean ' worth-
lessness.' But T. K. Cheyne (Expos., 5th ser., i.
[1895] 43511". ; cf. also art. 'Belial' in EBi) makes
it mean ' one may not ascend ' (so suiting Sheol in
Ps 18*'- ; see below), or ' hopeless ruin,' The Talmud
makes it mean 'without the yoke' (h'\i! '^^). The
Syriac lexicographers (see R. Payne Smith, Thesaur.
Syr., Oxford, 1879-1901, i. 534) understand it to
mean • prince of the air ' ; they seem to have de-
rived it from ^ys, ba'al, 'lord,' and the Syriac ikx
= dL-fip, 'air.' But the last two derivations ai'e
certainly wrong.
Taking the meaning 'worthlessness,' we note
that the ordinary use of ' Belial ' in the OT suits it
very well ; ' sons of Belial ' or ' men of Belial ' means
' worthless or wicked men,' according to the com-
mon Hebrew idiom which substitutes a genitive
for an adjective. The word is, however, twice
used in the OT as a quasi-proper name. In Ps 18*''
we read of ' the cords of death,' ' the floods of
Belial,' ' the cords of Sheol,' ' the snares of death ' ;
here Belial = the under world. Again, in Nah P"
we read that Belial shall no more pass through
Judah ; he is utterly cut off. In this passage
Belial almost exactly corresponds to the ' man of
lawlessness, the son of perdition ' of St. Paul (2 Th
2*, on which see Milligan, Thessalonians, London,
1908).
In 2 Co 6", where the best MSS (B C L P N) and
most of the VSS (but not the Vulgate) read ' Beliar '
rather than ' Belial ' (Peshitta ' Satan,' but the
^arl^lensian Syriac ' Beliar '), the word is iised as
a proper name = Satan, or else Antichrist, Satan's
representative. This use of the word is found fre-
quently in the literature of the period. In the
Test, of the XII Patriarchs (Benj. 3), Belial is the
'aerial spirit' (see Air), and frequently in this
book (c. A.D. 100 ?) is identified with Satan. In the
Sibylline Oracles (iii. 63, 74, where the reference to
the ' Augustans ' or ^f^aarrjvol shows the passage to
be a later interpolation, probably of 1st cent. A.D. ;
see also iL 167), Belial is Antichrist. In the As-
cension of Isaiah (iv. 2), Beliar is 'the great angel,
the king of this world.' This work in its present
form is probably not later than A.D. 100.
There are many forms of this name, chiefly due
to the phonetic interchange of liquids : Belial,
Beliar, Beliam, Belian, Beliab, Bellas, Serial.
LiTBRATURB.— W. Baudisstn in PRE3 ii. [1897] 548, and in
ExpTviii. [1896-97] 360, 423, 472, ix. [1897-98] 40 ; T. K. Cheyne
in Expositor, 5th scr., i. (189i'i] 435, in ExpT ix. 91, 332, also in
EBi, S.V.; P. Jensen in ExpT ix. S&l ; F. Hommel in ExpT ix.
.'■)67; W. Bousset, Der Antichrist, Gottinpen, 1895, pp. 86, 99;
R. H. Charles, Ascension of Isaiah, Loudon, 1900, pp. li, 6;
Levi-Kohler in JE ii. aW. A. J. MACLEAN.
BELIEF.— See Faith.
BELOVED (ayavriTd^, sometimes -nyairri/j^vos ;
dvaTTTjTij is also .sometimes translated in EV ' dearly
beloved ' [Ro 12'"] or ' well beloved ' [16», 3 Jn ']).—
In the NT outside the Gospels ' beloved ' is found
as (a) a description of Christ, (6) a description of
Christians.
(a) For the first usage, cf. Eph 1' {rtyavrifi^vos) ;
also 2 P 1" * This is my beloved (d7air7;T6s) Son, in
whom I am well pleased.' The latter is a quota-
tion from the gospel story (cf. Mt 17').
(b) As applied to Christians the term is much
more frequent. Sometimes it refers to their rela-
tion to God. ' dyavTiTol $€ov is applied to Christians
as being reconciled to God and judged by Him to
be worthy of eternal life' (Grimm-Thayer, s.v.
dyairrrr6s). Cf. Ro V, 1 Th 1*, Col 3'* (the Gr. in
the last two cases is riyaTrrifiivos). The commonest
usage, however, is in reference to the mutual re-
lations of Christians one to another ; cf. Philem ",
1 Ti 6^^. ' Hence they are often dignified with this
epithet in tender adaress, both indirect (Ro 16*"',
Cfol 4") and direct (Ro 12i», 1 Co 4'*, He 6», Ja 1",
1 P 2", 2P 3»)' (Grimm-Thayer). Particularly
noteworthy is the phrase dyair-nrbi iv Kvpiip (Ro 16*).
In the sub-apostolic literature we find similar
usages. ■fiyavTjfjL^voi is used of Christ in Barn. 3* 4*- *
(some place this work in the 1st cent. A.D., though
a 2nd cent, date is more usual). In 1 Clem., which is
generally admitted to be of the 1st cent., we have
dyairtirds of the relation of Christians to God (8*) ;
while in the same epistle it is also found of the
mutual relation of Christians to one another, and
was a mode of address : ' beloved ' (1^- ■* etc.). Cf.
also Barn. 4^"®.
Origin and significance of the above usage. — In
reference to Christ the origin of the term dyavjirhi
(■fiyavri/iivoi) is in Is 42'. As a name of our Lord it is
Sarallel with iK\eKT6s : both belong to the original
lessianic stratum of early Christian theology,
which, when set in opposition to the later developed
' pneumatic ' Christology, receives the name of
'adoptianist.' Such opposition is, however, not
necessary, as is shown by the occurrence of the term
in Ephesians along with a highly developed Christ-
ology.
The use of dyairTjTbi to describe Christ is, however,
undoubtedly closely associated with the descrip-
tion of Christians as ■^aTrrj/Mivoi deov. Cf. Harucack,
Hist, of Dogma, Eng. tr., London, 1894-99, i. 185,
note 4, where it is pointed out that ' Barnabas, who
calls Christ the "Beloved," uses the same expres-
sion for the Church.'
As regards the usage in reference to the mutual
relation of Christians one to another, the only
points which need comment are its frequency, and
the evidence this affords of the spirit of brotherhood
which characterized the Primitive Church.
Robert S. Franks.
BENEDICTION (eiiXoyla, benedictio). — This term
has in the NT all the senses of bfrOkdh in the OT.
It signifies : (a) praises given to God or Christ
(Rev 5'2-" 7^=*, Ja 3'") ; (6) in a sense exclusively
biblical, favour or blessing from God (He 6^) ; (c) a
blessing asked for (He 12'^) ; {d) the blessingof the
Christian gospel or calling (Ro 15^, Gal 3'*, Eph P,
1 P 3') ; (c) the gifts or temporal goods bestowed
on others (2 Co 9*) ; (/) by a figure, the cup of the
Lord's Supper, on account of the thanksgiving and
praise oflered in connexion with it (1 Co 10'*) ; {g)
the fine and flattering speeches (Ro 16'*) used by
false teachers to lead away Christians— the only
place in the NT where the word has its classical
sense. It is the thought of the Apostle that
Christianity is specially a religion which leads its
followers to help and bless others (Ro 12", 1 Co 4"
14"^, 1 P 3*)— an altruistic faith which reminds one
by contrast of the luxuriant use of anathema and
excommunication in the Middle Ages. From the
BENEDICTION
BENEDICTION
147
verb ei^v/fiy has come the purely biblical and
ecclesiastical word evXorrrrSt, V'ulg. benedictus,
' blessed,' which is the LXX translation of bdr&k,
participle of bdrdk. Gkxi is called thus because
E raises are made to Him and He is the source of
lessings (Ro 1^ 9», 2 Co 1» \V\ Eph P, 1 P l^).
The word ' benedictions' is more commonly used
of those well-wishings or spiritual blessings in
Christ which form such a characteristic part of the
closing sentences of the Epistles of the NT, especi-
ally those of St. Paul. One of these benedictions,
under the title of the Apostolic Benediction, has
}>assed into use in the public worship of many
Churches of Christendom. Let us take these
sentences in chronological order. (1) 'The peace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you' (1 Th 5^).
The verb in these greetings is omitted, but it is
better, with nearly aU scholars, to interpret them
as prayei^, and so supply elt), than as declarations
and supply iarL* The usual closing good wish in
the letters of this period was tppaao or ippw<7de=
vale, 'farewell,' lit. 'be strong.' With St. Paul
everything was looked upon from the standpoint
of Christ, and even courtesies were to receive a
new significance. (2) 'The peace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with you all' (2 Th S^S). This is
preceded by a statement that the greeting is added
by St. Paid in his own handwriting, and that this
will be a constant custom as a certificate of
genuineness. Compare the (reffTj/ieiw/jMi ('I have
noted [or written, or sealed]"), generally contracted
into (xeffTj, with which many of the Egyptian papyrus
letters and ostraca close.t or the postscript in one's
own handwriting {^vfi^oXow) which guaranteed an
ancient letter. J (3) ' The peace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen ' (Gal
6^*). The word ' spirit ' is added as in keeping with
the emphasis on spirit in the letter, and the word
* brethren ' is given as a token of St. Paul's affec-
tion in closing an Epistle in which he had to use
stem rebuke. (4) ' The peace of oxir Lord Jesus
Christ be with yon. My love be with you all in
Christ Jesus. Amen' (1 Co 16^=^). The second
clause is peculiar here. It is explained by the fact
that St. Paul had been compelled to use censures,
and he wished the Corinthians to know that his
love was still abounding towards them. It never
failed (13^). It was, as Ghrysostom says, 'some-
thing spiritual and exceedingly genuine.' But
that love is only in the sphere of Christ, so that
everj-where the verb of desire (elrj) is to be under-
stood, as in the strict sense St. Paul could not love
those who did not love the Lord (v.—) or who de-
stroyed God's temples (3^"). § P. Bachmann speaks
of St. Paul's final benediction here in these fitting
words : ' So ends a sound of faith, of hope and
of love out of the deepest soul of the writer, and
after such changing and manifold discussions he
turns in his conclusion to the sentiment of his
friendly and warm beginning.' ! (5) ' The grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all'
(2 Co 13'*). The genitives here are subjective. It
is the love which God has to us. This is always
the use of St. Paul after dydrri, 'love' (Ro 5' 8*^,
2 Co 5" 13'* etc.). It is not communion with the
Holy Spirit as an object, but a communion belong-
ing to the Spirit, of which the Son is the founder
and centre, and of which the Spirit is the means
* For an able defence of the contrary view (cort), aee J. J.
Owen in BibliotAeea Sacra. 1S62, p. 707 ff.
t G. Miliigan, SL Paul's Ev. to the Thettalonians, 1908. o.
130. . "-^t-
J Deissmann, Lieht vom Often, 106 (Enjf. tr.. Light from the
Ancient EaM-, 1911, _p. 153).
§ G. G. Findlay, EGT, '1 Cor.' 1900, p. 953. See also the
excellent remarks of Robertson-Plumnier, 1 Cor. (ICC. 19111
p. 402. "
I Der ente Brief det PatUtu an die Korintker, Leipzig. 1906
p. 4&0.
and vital force. The verse prays for a holy
fellowship in the Divine life mediated hjr the
Spirit, and it is a fitting conclusion to an Epistle
agitated by strife. Tlus triple benediction is well
called by Bengel a ' striking testimony ' to the
Holy Trinity. ' It offers,' says J. H. Bernard, ' a
devotional parallel to the Baptismal Formula of Mt
28"; and the order of its clauses receives its ex-
flanation in the later words of St. Paul in Eph 2^.
t is the Grace of Christ which leads us towards
the Love of God, and the Jxyve of Grod when
realised through the Spirit's power, promotes the
love of man (1 Jn 4"), the holy fellowship fostered
by the indwelling Spirit.' * The passage is one of
the many evidences of how thoroughly part of the
consciousness of the first Church were those ideas
out of which grew the completely developed doc-
trine of the Trinity. That doctrine was thus not
a deposit of Greek speculation on Jewish ground,
but was the expre.$sion of the innermost life and
thought of Christians from the beginning. At
least it was of St. Paul, and in this respect he
never had to defend his views. His view of the
Son and Spirit as having their roots in the eternal
life of the Godhead was taken as a matter of course
by both Jewish and GentUe Christians. He never
had to support the words of 2 Co 13'* against the
charge of blasphemy. Their relegation of Christ
and the Spirit to a substantial equality with God
apparently offended no Christian sentiment.
J. Weiss rect^poizes this fact, and acknowledges that Ag^wtb
in the estimate of CSirist by the early Christians is hardly to be
traced. It started at the faU. He says : ' There is hiurdly a
toace of gndoal develoiMnent ; ahnost at once the scheme of
the Christology was completed ; already in the New Testament
the principal conceptions of the later dogma are eaaentianr
present, though to some extent only in germ ; and there one
detects already all the difficulties, which the later church had to
face. . . . This regarding of God and Christ side by side, which
exactly cmresponds to the enthronement of the two together,
is characteristic of primitive Christian piety. . . . The historian
is bound to say that Christianity from its earliest b^innings,
side by side with faith in God as Father, has also proved Ute
veneration of Christ to be to it a perfectly natnnl form of
religion- . . . The early Christians . . . beUered that they were
acting in complete accordance with Christ's mind, when they
adored him and sang hymns to him quasi Deo.' t
(6) 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you ' (Ro 16=*). (7) ' Grace be with you ' (Col 4").
Notice the brevity. Von Soden speaks of the
' Lapidarstn ' of the Epistle. (8) ' The grace of
our [some authorities, ' the '] Lord Jesus Christ be
with your spirit. Amen' [best authorities omit
' Amen '] (Philem **). (9) ' Peace be to the brethren,
and love with faith, from God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that
love our Lord .Jesus Christ in uncorruptness ' (Eph
6^ ^). St. Paul's benedictions are usually ad-
dressed directly to the reader, but here the third
person is used, as is appropriate in a circular
letter. Wieseler thinks that ' brethren ' refers to
the Jewish Christians and 'all' to the Gentiles,
but this idea is fanciful. • Peace ' here is not
simply a salutation of well-wishing, but has the
Christian connotation of that peace which comes
from reconciliation with God. Both peace and
love go with faith, which is always presupposed in
making the Christian. The ' love is not Divine
love but brotherly love, which shows itself where
faith is, and through which faith works (Gal 5*).
The primal cause and fountain is God the Father,
the mediate and secondary is Jesus. This is always
the order with St. Paul, and must be in Christi-
anity if it is a monotheistic religion. ' Grace ' : it
is the grace, besides which there is no other — the
loving favour of our God.:!: The ' incorruptness '
* EGT, '2 Cor.," 1903, p. 119.
t Christ : The Beginnings of Dogma, Eng. tr., 1911, pp. 12,
47, 48.
X See ezcnrsus on x^^ *ixi x^P""^ in J. A. Bobinaon,
Epkesiams, 1903, pp. 221-228.
148
BENKDICTIOX
BERCEA
{^(pdafHTla) does not at all mean ' sincerity ' as in
AV, but imperishableness (cf. Ko 2^, 1 Co 15<-- »«
etc, 2 Ti 1'"), and refers to the quality of their
love. They have taken hold already of that end-
less and unbroken life in which love has triumphed
over death and dissolution.* The true Christian's
love is like God's, eternal, and it is directed to-
wards, not simply God tiie Father (that is a matter
of course), but towards Jesus, who with the Father
is the object of his faith, hope and love, that is, of
his worship. (10) 'The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with your sj)irit ' (some MSS, but not
the best, 'with you all') (Ph 4**). The chrono-
lo<;ical order of the rest of the Epistles is not so
certain. We follow that of Zalin. (11) ' Peace be
unto you all that are in Clirist ' (1 P 5^*). ' Peace' :
the simple Hebrew salutation proper in St. Peter's
autograph. (12) 'Grace be with you' (1 Ti 6-*).
The same as in Col. ; some MSS read 'with thee.'
Tiie plural in itself is not sufficient to show that
the Kpistle was intended for the Church as a whole.
' The study of papyrus letters,' says J. H. Moulton, f
* will show that singular and plural alternated in
the same document with api)aiently no distinction
of meaning.' (13) 'The Lord be with thy spirit.
Grace be with you ' (2 Ti 4'^^). ' Lord ' here means
Christ, as generally in the Epistles. See Grimm-
Thayer with references. Close personal associa-
tion between Jesus and Timothy is prayed for.
(14) ' Grace be with you all ' (Tit 3"), (15) ' Grace
be with you all. Amen' (He IS^*). (16) 'Peace
unto thee' (3 Jn "). This is a Jewish greeting;
cf. Jn 6^ 19-". (17) ' The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ be with the saints' (Rev 22-''). On the true
leading see textual note in EGT smd the references
there given. Moti'att thinks this sentence was
used at the close of the reading in worship, and
from that custom slid into the text here. ' Apoca-
lypses were sometimes cast in epistolary' form,
used in worship, and circulated by means of public
reading.'^ It will be seen from the above that in
apostolic times there was no stereotyped form
of benediction, just as there was not either
then or later any stereotyped form of public wor-
ship.
We extend the list to a few benedictions in
extra-canonical Epistles in or near apostolic times.
(18) 'The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you and with all men in all places Avho have been
called by God and through Him, through whom be
glory,' etc. (Clement of Rome, Ep. to Corinthians,
65 [A.D. 97]). (19) 'The Lord of glory and of
every grace be with your spirit ' (Ep. of Barnabas,
21 [A.D. 75-130, date uncertain]). Ignatius gives
nothing like the apostolical benedictions, but the
simple : ' Fare ye well in God the Father and in
Jesus Christ our common hope' {ad Eph. 21),
'Fare ye well in godly concord' (Mag. 15), 'Fare
Je well unto the end in the patient waiting for
esus Christ' (Rom. 10), 'Fare ye well in Christ
Jesus our common hope' (Phil. 11), 'Fare ye well
in the grace of God ' (Smyr. 13), and ' Fare ye well
in the Lord ' [ad Pol. 8).
The Aaronitic benediction (Nu 6^^"*), though
always used in the synagogue, does not appear in
our ancient sources or in any Church liturgy (ex-
cept in the Spanish) until Luther introduced it in
his Mass (1526). It was also used in the German
Protestant Masses. For the use of benedictions in
later Church history, see the articles in PBE^ ii.
588 If. : DCA i. 193 tf.
Liter ATURK. — See the brief but excellent article in F.
Vigouroux, Diet, de la Bible, Paris, 1891-99, i. 1581-83 ; W. J.
* J. A. Uobinson, op. cit. 137-i;}8, gives a lonif discussion.
See sdso almost any scientittc commentary, like Meyer, Lange,
EUicott, AUord, etc.
t ExpositDT, 6th ser., vii. [190.'}] 107.
t See Moffatt, EGT, ' Kevelatlon,' 1910, p. 493 1.
Yeomans in Princeton lien, xxxiii. [1861] 286-321 ; J. H.
Bernard in Kxpotitor, 6th ser., v-iii. [1903] 372 ff.; and the works
mentioned above. J. ALFRED FAULKNER.
BENJAMIN.— See Tribes.
BEOR. — IJeor, the father of Balaam, is named in
2 P2" (AV, with some ancient authorities, Bosor,
which may be a corruption of Pethor [Grotius], or
may be due to the Greek sibilant taking the place
of the Heb. guttural [Vitringa]). Balaam by his
great wisdom became vain, so a fool (ben b''6r),
said Jerus. Targ. to Nu '22» ; cf. JE ii. 468 ; C.
Vitringa, Obsei-v. Sacrce, i. 936 f. W. F. COBB.
BERENICE, BERNICE (Ac 25i='«' 26«>).— Bere-
nice, eldest daughter of Herod Agrippal., was born
in A.D. 28, and early betrothed to Marcus, son of
Alexander who was alabarch at Alexandria. On
the death of Marcus, Berenice was given by her
father to his brother and her uncle, Herod, king of
Chalcis, in the Lebanon. Two sons were the issue
of this marriage. Herod of Chalcis died in A.D. 48.
Berenice then joined her brother, who was to be
known later as Herod Agrippa II., at Rome, The
pair obtained an infamous notoriety, and are
pilloried by Juvenal (Sat. vi. 156 tf.). After a con-
siderable interval, Berenice ' persuaded Polemon,
who Avas king of Cilicia, to be circumcised, and to
marry her ' (Jos. Ant. XX. vii. 3). This union Avas
soon terminated by the return of Berenice to
Agrippa. The tAvo are next heard of on the occa-
sion of their visit to Cajsarea to greet the ncAvly
arrived Procurator Festus. Of Berenice's part in
the intervieAv Avith the Apostle Paul Ave are told
only that she api)eared ' with much display.' Just
before the outbreak of the insurrectionary mo\'i-
ment in A.D. 66 she Avas at Jerusalem 'to perform
a A'OAv Avhich she had made to God ' (Jos. BJ II.
XV. 1), and availed herself of the opportunitj' to be-
seech the Procurator Florus to abate the cruelties
Avhich Avere goading the JeAvs to Avar. When hos-
tilities commenced, Agrippa and his sister took
throughout the side of the Romans. This brought
them into contact Avith Vespasian and Titus. Titu.s
became enamoured of Berenice. On his return to
Rome, he had her to live Avith him in his palace —
to the scandal of the Roman populace (Dio Cass.
Ixvi. 15). The intrigue Avas not continued after
the accession of Titus to the Imperial throne in
A.D. 79. ' Berenicen statim ab urbe dimisit invitus
invitam ' (Suet. Titus, vii.). From that time
Berenice is lost to view. A fragment of an inscrip-
tion in her honour at Athens gives no indication
of time or occasion. G. P. GoULD.
BERCEA.— Beroea (Bipcua, some MSS Bippoia) was
a city of Southern Macedonia, in the district of
Emathia (Ptol. iii. 12). It stood on the loAver
slope of Mt. Bermios (Strabo, vii. Frag. 28), and
commanded an extensive vieAV to north, east, and
south over the plain of the Axiosaudthe Haliacmon.
Its streets and gardens Avere abundantly Avatered
by rills from an alHuent of the latter river. Five
miles to the S.E. of the town the Haliacmon broke
through the Olympian range to enter the plain.
Beroea AA'as about 50 miles S.W. of Thcssalonica,
30 miles S. of Pella, and 20 miles W. of the Ther-
maic Gulf. Its name surA'ives in the modern
Vcrria or Kara-Verrin, Avhich is one of the most
l»leasant toAvns in Rumili (Leake, 'Travels in
Northern Greece, iii. '29011'.).
To this city St. Paul and Silas AvithdrcAv Avhen
their converts, solicitous for their safety, sent them
aAvay from Thessalonica (Ac 17'"). It Avas an out-
of-the-Avay tOAvn — oppidttm deviuni (Cic. in Pis.
xxxvi. [89])— and tiierefore a suitable place of re-
treat for the apostles, who continued to hope that
BEKYL
BISHOP, ELDER, PRESBYTER 149
the obstacles at Tliessalonica would soon be re-
moved and that tliey would be enabled to return —
a hope which wa-s not realized (1 Th 2'-). Their
city of refuge, however, proved a sphere of success-
ful'missionary activity. It was large and prosper-
ous enough to have attracted a colony of Jews,
whom the historian commends as more noble in
spirit {(i-yeveffTepoi) than those of Thessalonica,
comparatively free from jealousy, less fettered by
prejudice, more receptive of new truth. They
daily examined the Scriptures (tAs ypa<f>d$} — especi-
ally, no doubt, the passages brought under their
notice by the preachers, but not these alone — to
find if the strange things taught found confirmation
there, with the result that many of them believed
(Ac 17'-). Nor were the labours of the apostles
confined to the synagogue. It is stated that ' of the
Greeks and of those of honourable estate, men and
women in considerable numbers believed' (v.^*).
This is the true rendering of the Greek words {koI
Twv'EWrjpiSwv ywaiKdiv rQy evcxv/^^"'^ *•*' dydpQp ovk
6\iyoi) rather than that in the RV, 'also of the
Greek women of honourable estate, and of men,
not a few.*
St. Paul's residence in Bercea probably lasted
some months (W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul, 1895, p.
234). For the searching of the Scriptures daily (t6
Ka6' Tjfiipav), for the preaching of the gospel in the
city as well as in the synagogue, and the consequent
conversion not only of 'many' Jews but also of
•not a few' Gentiles, a considerable time was re-
quired. St. Paul would doubtless be slow to move
farther south, and thereby put a longer distance
between himself and Thessalonica, where his heart
was. At length, however, malicious .Jews came all
the way from that city to Bercea, and so stirred up
the baser passions of the crowds (ffaXevcvrei rovs
6x^ovs), that the Christians thought it advisable
to send St. Paul forth ' to go a-s far as to the
sea' (not wj but ?wj ^ttI ttjv ^dXco-o-ai' being the
true reading in v."). That he was the real object
of hatred is indicated by the fact that Silas and
Timothy could safely remain Ijehind (v.^*). Con-
trary to his usual practice, the historian does
not name the seajxtrt of Bercea, but it was prob-
ably from the town of Dium, the great bul-
wark of the maritime frontier of South Macedonia,
that St. Paul and his escort set sail for Athens
(v."). Sopater, who is mentioned in Ac 20* as
one of St. Paul's later associates, was a Beroean.
There is a tradition [Ap. Coiist. vii. 46) that
Onesimus was the first bishop of the Church of
Bercea.
LiTEBATURE.— W. Smith, DGRG i. [1856] 393 ; E. M. Cousi-
nery, Voyage dans la Macedoine, 1831, i. 57 ff. ; Conybeare-
Howson, Life ajtd EpUtles of St. Paul, new ed., 1S77, i. 399 ff. ;
T. Lewin, St. PauP, 1875, i. 235 ff. ; W. M. Leake. Trarelt in
Sortheni Greece, 1835, iiL 2905. J AMES StRAHAX.
BERYL.— Beryl {^-npvWos [Rev 2I2»], a word of
unknown etymology) is a mineral which differs
little from the emerald except in colour. It never
exhibits the deep rich green of that gem, being in
general pale green, and sometimes yellowish, bluish,
brownish, or colourless. Its finer varieties, which
are transparent, are called aquamarine. It usually
takes the form of long six-sided prisms, verticallj-
striated. It was much prized as a gem-stone by
the ancients, and very fine specimens of Greek and
Roman engraring in beryl are extant. Its great
abundance in modem times has depreciated its
value. In RVm of the OT, ' beiyl ' stands for
shoham, which Flinders Petrie (HDB iv. 620'')
identifies with green felspar.
James Strahah.
BIGAMY.— See Marriage.
BIRTHRIGHT.— See FiKST-BORX.
BISHOP, ELDER, PRESBYTER. — The origin
of the episcopate is, and is likely to remain, un-
known. All the available evidence has been care-
fully collected, sifted, and estimated, and it is
insufficient. Equally honest and equally capable
critics infer different theories of the episcopate
from it, and no solution of the problem can claim
demonstration. AVe may hold, and perhaps be
able to convince others, that one solution is more
probable than another, but we cannot prove that
It is the true one. All conclusions are tentative.
The problem is an old one, and as early as the
4th cent, there were two leading theories respect-
ing the origin of the episcopate — that of Theodore
of Mopsuestia and that of Jerome — but they are
theories and no more. These two writers drew
inferences from facts, or what they believed to be
facts ; they did not know more about the origin
than we do. And they both start from the same
fact, viz. that La the ]NT 'bishop' and 'presbyter'
(or 'elder') are synonyms; they are two names
for the same official, ^his is so generally recog-
nized that there is no need to repeat the evidence.
The two names are still synonymous in Clement
of Rome {Cor. 42, 44), and by implication in Poly-
carp {PhU. 1) and the Didarhe (15), wliich we may
date about a.d. 130-150. Ignatius is the earliest
writer known to us who clearly separates ' bishop '
from ' elder ' ; with him ' bishop ' means the mon-
archical ruler of a local church, distinct from, and
superior to, the ' presbyters ' or ' elders.'
Starting from the original identity of 'bishop*
and ' presbyter,' Themlore (on 1 Ti 3'"®) infers that
episcopacy existed from the first. The first bishops,
among whom were Timothy and Titus, were con-
secrated by apostles, governed whole provinces,
and were sometimes called 'apostles.' Theodore
erroneously supposed that ' laying on of the hands
of the presbytery' (1 Ti 4'*) meant consecration of
Timothy by some of the Twelve. He was conse-
crated by St. Paul with certain elders (2 Ti 1^).
'The presby terj-, ' which in Lk 22*® and Ac 22*
means the body of elders in the Sanhedrin, here
means a body of Christian elders. The details of
Theodore's theory need not detain us ; the central
point in it is the proposition that the apostles
instituted a distinct class of officials to be their
successors. But did they? The question admits
of no secure answer. It must be remembered that
we have no evidence that either Christ or the
apostles ever prescribed any particular form of
government for the society which they founded ;
and there is the improbability that men who be-
lieved that Christ would very soon return would
think it worth while to devise and prescribe a
particular form of government for the increasing
number of Christian communities. On the other
hand, it is probable that, as the apostles passed
away, and the Lord still did not appear, the com-
munities would be driven to devise some form of
government for themselves.
Jerome {Ep. 146, ad Ecanffelum) answers the
question in the negative. The apostles did not
institute distinct officials to be their successors.
Churches were governed by a council of presbyters.
But when presbyters began to form parties, and
each presbyter thought that those whom he bap-
tized belonged to him, it was decreed throughout
the world that one of them should be elected and
set over the others, and that on him should rest
the general supervision of the Church. On Tit 1^
he says that it is ' by custom rather than by the
Lord's arrangement' that bishops are a higher
order.
There is no need to assume that party spirit was
in all cases, or even in most, the chief reason for
setting one presbj'ter above the rest. The more
usual reasons would be the obvious advantage
150 BISHOP, ELDER, PRESBYTER
BISHOP, ELDER, PRESBYTER
of having one person to whom cloul)tful matters
might be referred, and the fact that in most
colleges of presbyters there was one who was
manifestly more capable than the others. When
once a particular presbyter had been either form-
ally elected, or allowed moie and more to take the
lead, his special functions would be likely to grow.
The dignity of bishops appears to have developed
rapidly. They led their congregations in public
Avorship, regulating liturgical forms and the dis-
tribution of the alms. They also regulated the
congregation's power of punishing and forgiving
offenders. They represented their congregations
in all relations, Godward and manward. Tliey
gradually absorbed the functions of the expiring
charismatic ministry, and were at once prophets
and teacliers, and they conducted the correspond-
ence with other local churclies. The frequent
appearance of questionable doctrines greatly aug-
mented the importance of bishops, who came to
be regarded as teaching with unique authority.
Montanism was a revolt against this official
episcopacy — an attempt to restore the charismatic
ministry of the prophets, and when it failed, the
triumph of episcopacy was complete. And it
deserved to fail, not merely because of its ex-
travagances, but because of its rebellion against
external forms. In one sense, forms are un-
essential ; the realities which the forms express
are the things which matter. But it is only by
continuity in the forms that the realities can be
preserved ; ' formlessness inspired by enthusiasm
melts away. . . . The elaboration of a close hier-
archical organization and the setting up of a fixed
dogmatic teaching were proved to be the necessary
means of self-preservation, if the Gospel itself was
not to be lost in the vortex of Gnosticism ' (Dob-
schiitz, Apostol. Age, Eng.tr., London, 1909, pp. 122,
141). The bishops were witnesses to the deposit
of faith, and as such decided as to the soundness
of doctrines.
Probably the first function that was assigned to
the bishop was that of being leader and guide in
public worship. But we know very little about
the beginnings of this worship. The influence of
tlie synagogue in determining the form was con-
siderable, and it is possible that certain heathen
mysteries exercised some influence, but the latter
point has been exaggerated. Clement's Epistle
shows that the trouble at Corinth was about
persons — whether certain presbyters had been
rightly deposed ; not about principles — whether
government by presbyters could be rightly main-
tained. Clement himself was not a bishop in the
later sense : lie was president of the college of
presbyters in Home. But such a president would
be likely to develop into a monarchical bishop.
Clement is the first Cliristian writer to take the
fateful first step of interpreting the nature of office
in the Church by reference to Jewish institutions,
for which, to a certain extent, the way is prepared
in 1 Co 9* and 1 Ti 5"* (Harnack, Constitution and
Law of the Church, London, 1910, p. 72). He draMs
a parallel between the Jewish priest and Levite
and the Christian priest and deacon, and bases an
argument from analogy on the resemblance (Cor.,
ch. 40). It is doubtful whether tlie mention of the
high priest has any reference to a monarchical
episcopate.
In James, the brother of the Lord, we seem to
have the first instance of a monarchical ruler in a
Christian community. But it is im])robable that
in connexion witli him the idea of one ruler for
the whole Cliurch arose, and still more imjirobable
tliat Mt 16'^ was written as a protest against any
such claim being made for one who was not one
of the Twelve. It was not in Jerusalem, but in
Asia Minor, that the monarchical episcopate as a
permanent Christian institution had its rise, owing
to causes which are unknown to us.
There are three possibilities with regard to the
origin of both bishops and elders, and what is true
of one need not be true of the other. Each may
lie (1) copied from Jewish synagogue officials, or
(2) copied from Gentile municipal oflicials, or (3)
due to spontaneous production. On the whole, it
is probable that elders or presbyters were adopted
from the synago^e, and tliat bishops arose spon-
taneously. But here we must carefully distinguish
between origin and subsequent development. It
is possible in both cases, and probable in the case
of bishops, that the development of the office Avas
influenced by secular municipal institutions.
In neither case does the Avord give us any definite
information. By 'elders' (irpeo-p&repot) may be
meant either (1) seniors in a^e, or (2) people to be
honoured for personal excellence, or (3) members
of a council. The term ' bishop ' {(irLa-Koiroi) denotes
a supervisor or inspector, but tells us nothing of
Avhat he supervises or inspects. It may be build-
ings, or business, or men. In the NT it means an
overseer of men in reference to their spiritual life,
and is closely connected Avith the iaea of shep-
herding ; ' the shepherd [iroifi-^u) and overseer
(eiriffKotros) of your souls' (1 P 2^); 'the flock
inol/MPiov) in the Avliich the Holy Ghost had made
you overseers {eTrlffKoiroi} to tend (Troifxaiveiv) the
Church (iKKXrjaia) of God ' (Ac 20^). Only once in
the NT is ' shepherd ' or ' pastor ' used of Christian
ministers (Eph 4") ; but it is used of Christ in He
13=», 1 P 225 5^; cf. Jn 10"-".
The term ' overseer ' or ' bishop ' (iiriffKovroi)
having been used of Christ as ' the Overseer of
souls,' it AA'ould be natural to use it of those of His
ministers Avho in a special Avay continued this Avork;
and it is more probable that the Christian use of the
title arose in this Avay than that it Avas adopted in
imitation of the secular iirlffKoiros in a city. As
the specially gifted persons knoAvn as 'apostles,
prophets, and teachers ' became less common, their
functions Avould be transferred to the permanent
local officials, especially to the highest of tlieni,
viz. the bishops (Didachc, 15'- '^). Neither bishops,
elders, nor deacons appear in the lists of ministers
and ministerial gifts in 1 Co 12'^-*', Ro I2«-*, Eph
4". But this does not prove that St. Paul did
not knoAv or care about such officials. Where
these officials existed, they Avere as yet only loccU
ministers, and there Avas no need to mention
them in speaking of gifts to the Church as a
Avhole.
Timothy and Titus AA-ere not monarchical bishops.
They Avere temporary delegates or rejuesentatives
of St. Paul at Ephesus or in Crete ; they Avere
forerunners of the monarchical bishops, not the
first exami)les of them. Nor can the 'angels' of
the Seven Churches (IJev 1-3) be regarded as the
bisho]ts of tiiose Churches. ' The inA-ariable prac-
tice ' of the Avriter of that lK)ok ' forbids such an
interpretation' (SAA-ete on Rev 1^). Excepting
James, and perhaps 'the Elder' in 3 Jn., there is
no instance of the monarchical episcopate in the
NT ; but it Avas established in Asia Minor before
A.D. 100, and had become Avide-spread in Christen-
dom by 150.
LiTERATURB— J. B. Ligrhtfoot, PhiKpfnans, Loiulon, 1891
ed., pp. 95-99, 181-269, Dissertatiom, do. 1892, i>p. 1.C--246
(which contains additional notes to the essay in Philippiant);
Oxford, 1900; A. Deissmann, Bible Studies, tr. Griivr. Kdin
burgh, 1901, pp. 154-157, '230; A. Harnack, ,Wis*/«'/i mid
Rxjmngion of ChriMianily, Eng. tr.2, Ixindon, lsxi», i. tt.'-lsU ;
P. Batiffol, L'^gline naistante^, Paris, 1909, pp. ll.'i-ir.^ (Engr.
tr., Primitive Catholieunn, London, 1911. pp. 97-16;i). See alao
works mentioned under Ciu'Rcn Oovers.mk>t.
Al.FHED PlU.MMER.
BITHYXIA
BLASPHEMY
151
BITHYNIA.— Bitbj-nia {Bidivia) was a fertile and
highly civilized country in the N. W. of Asia Minor,
bounded on the W. by the Propontis and the
Bosporus, on the N. by the Euxine, on the S. by
the range of Mysian Olympns, and on the E. by a
doubtful line, some distance to the right of the
river Sangarios (Strabo, XII. iv. 1 ; Pliny, v. 43).
One of the kings of Bithynia changed the history
of Asia Minor by inviting the marauding Galatians
to cross the Bosporus (278 B.C.). Nicomedes III.,
the last king, made the Romans his heirs (73 B.C.),
and after the expulsion of Mithridates of Pontus
(64 B.C.), Pompey formed the dual province of
Bithynia et Pontus, which was governed by a pro-
consul, residing at Xicomedeia. On the division
of the provinces by Augustus in 27 B.C. it remained
senatorial.
The presence of Jews in Bithynia is indicated by
Philo {Lefj. ad Gaium, 36). In his second missionary
journey, St. Paul, always drawn to the great centres
of Gneco-Roman civilization, attempted with Silas
to enter Bithynia {ixeipa^of ei's ttjj' 'Bidvpi<w ropev-
ffrjpou), intending probabljr to evangelize Xicaea and
Nicomedeia, but the Spirit of Jesus, who was lead-
ing them on westward, did not permit them (Ac
16^). The province which so nearly became an
apostolic mission-field had not, however, to wait
lon^ for the gospel. 1 P 1' aflbrds e\-idence of the
early introduction and rapid progress of Christian-
ity in the province of Bithynia. Details, however,
are wanting.
' For Bithrnia, like Cappadocia, we hare no primitive Christian
record : but it could iiardly remain long unaffected by the
neighbourhood of Christian communities to the South- West,
the South, and probably the East ; even if no friend or disciple
took up before long the purpose which St. Paul bad been con-
strained to abandon, when a Divine intimation drew him onward
into Europe' (F. J. A. Hort, First Ep. of St. Peter: I. l-II. 17,
189S, p. 17).
In A.D. 112 the younger Pliny was sent to govern
the province of Bithynia, which had become dis-
organized under senatorial administrarion. His
correspondence -with Trajan bears striking testi-
mony to the expansion of the Christian religion,
which seemed to him a superstitio prava immodica
(Epp. X. 96, 97). Not only in the cities but in the
rural villages the temples were almost deserted and
the sacrificial ritual interrupted. WhUe the letters
describe a state of things which was true of the
province as a whole, there are some indications
that Amisos in the Far East was the first city on
the Black Sea to which Christianity spread (Ramsay,
The Church in the Soman Empire, 1893, p. 224 f.).
LrrBRjiTCM.— W. Smith, DGRG i. [1S56] 404; Cari Ritter,
jrte»na«>n, i. [185S] 650 ff. ; E. G. Hardy, Plinii EpMulcB ad
Trajanum, IsiH : ^V. M. Ramsay, Eigt. Geog. of Atia Minor,
1890; Conybeare-Howson, Life and Epistle* of SL Paul, new
«*-• 1S77. J AMES 'STRAHA>»".
BITTERNESS (x«/cp«a). — ' Bitter ' means lit.
' biting ■ (A. S. bttan, ' to bite'), and TiKp6i, ' sharp '
(from the same root aspuTigo, 'pike,' 'peak'). t6
TTixpov, as that which has an acrid, pungent taste,
is opposed to to 7\i'icv (Ja 3"). In LXX riKpia is
oftt:-n used to translate viih, a bitter and poisonous
plant, which is always used figuratively. Moses
says that the man or woman, family or tribe, that
turns from Jahweh will be 'a root that beareth
gall and wormwood ' ( ptjVi &vw tpvoxxra. ev x°^V *«»'
■rucpia, Dt 29^*). There is an echo of this saying in
He 12", where any member of the Church who
introduces wrong doctrines or practices, and so
leads others astray, becomes a ' root of bitterness
springing up ' (ptfa xticpias &pu ipuovoa) ; and there
may be another echo of it in Ac 8** (RVm), where
Peter predicts that Simon Magus will 'become
gall (or a gall root) of bitterness ' (e/j x"^^' xjxptaj
opCi ae oirra) by his evil intiuence over others, if he
remains as he now is. But xo^'J" rucpias may be a
genitive of apposition and the Apostle may mean
that Simon is even now 'in Bitterkeit, Bosheit,
Feindseligkeit, wie in Galle' (H. J. Holtzmann,
Apostelgeschichte^, 1901, ad loc.). In Ro 3" bitter-
ness of speech is joined with cursing, and in Eph
4'^ TiKpia is an inward disposition (cf. irjXor riKpAf,
Ja 3") which all Christians are to put away in
order that they may be 'kind one to another,
tender-hearted.
BLACK.— See Colours.
James STBAHAJf.
BLASPHEHTOSXtur^/tlo, vb. pkaff^/jieu>, adj. and
noun p\d<r<i>7]fi(K ; perhaps derived from pXdvTetw,
•to injure,' and it^nv, 'speech'). — La ordinary
usage and in Eng. law this word denotes profane,
irreverent speaking against (Jod or sacred things ;
but the Greek word has a wider sense, including
all modes of reviling or calumniating either God
or man. In 2 Ti 3^ the RV has ' rauers ' instead
of ' blasphemers ' ; in Ac 13**" and 18*" it gives
'rail' as an alternative, and in Rev 2"" 'revile.'
' As we be slanderously reported ' {fiXatnprifiov/xeda,
Ro 3*) ; ' why am I evil spoken of ? ' {ri ^\a<r-
4>Tl/iovfMi; 1 Co 10*); 'to speak evil of no man'
(fiijSiva ^Xaa^ni/jieip, Tit 3*) ; ' these . . . raU at
dignities' (5(S$aj ^offtpvfiwffiy, Jude^; cf. 2 P 2")
are other examples of the use of the word with a
human reference. The two meanings of ^Xcur^/ua
are combined in Ac 6", where Stephen is acciised
of speaking blasphemous words (^/tara pkdurifnjfia)
against Moses and God (els MowiiF jcal Tia> ff(6p).
According to the Levitical law the punishTnent
for blaspheming the name of Jahweh was death by
stoning (Lv 24'*"^*) ; but as Roman subjects the
Jews had not power to put any man to death.
Though they attempted to observe the r^ular
forms in their trial of Stephen for blasphemy,
his death was not a judicial execution, but tne
illegal act of a solemn Sanhedrin changed by
fanatical hatred into a murderous mob.
After Jesus had come to be acknowledged as the
Messiah, the denial of His status and the insulting
of His name were regarded by His followers as
conscious or unconscious blasphemy. St. Panl
recalls ^vith shame and sorrow the time when, in
this sense of the term, he not only wa-s guilty of
habitual blasphemy (rd rporepor ivra. ^\dff(p7jfior,
1 Ti 1"), but strove to make others blaspheme
{■nfdyicai^oy ^Xoff^nnfUlr, Ac 26"). The fortitude of
those who resisted his efforts made a profound
impression on his mind, and probably did more
than anything else to pave the way for conversion.
Like Pliny afterwards in Bithynia (Epp. x. 97),
he doubtless found it was all but impossible to
make men and women ^»eak evU of their so-called
Messiah — * maledicere Christum ' — or submit to
any other test that would have indicated disloyalty
to Him : ' quorum nihil cogi posse dicuntur, qui
sunt re vera Christiani' (ib.). When, on the other
hand, St. Panl began to preach Jesus as His own
Messiah, the blasphemies of his countrymen
against that Name became his daily fare. The
Jews of Pisidian Antioch ' contradicted the things
which were spoken by Paul and blasphemed ' (Ac
13^) ; those of Corinth ' opposed themselves and
blasphemed' (18*); and the historian might have
multiplied instances without end.
Blasphemy was not exclusively a Jewish and
Christian conception. To the Greeks also it was a
high ofience j3\aatpriufb' els Beovi (Plato, .Bg>. 281 E).
The majesty of the gods and the sacfedness of
the temples were jealously guarded. St. Paul,
who reasoned against idolatry, never used oppro-
brious language about the religion of Greece or
Rome. It was better to tight for the good than to
rail at the bad. The town-clerk of Ephesus re-
minds his fellow-citizens, roused to fury at the bare
152
BLASTUS
BLINDNESS
suspicion of dislionour to Artemis, that St. Paul
ana his companions were no blasphemers of their
foddess (oCrf ^\a(r<pr]novi>Tei ri)v dtav vfxuiv, Ac 19*^).
'owards the cult of Ctesar, whicli was still kept
within some bounds, the Apostle always main-
tained the same correct attitude. But in the
Apocalypse, written in the reign of Domitian,
there is a startling change. That emperor, ' prob-
ably the wickedest man who ever lived' (Renan),
was the first to demand that Divine lumours should
be paid to himself in his lifetime. Not content,
like his predecessors, with the title Divus, he
caused himself to be styled in public documents
' Our Lord and God.' In Asia Minor the deification
of Caesar, the erection of temples in his honour,
and the establishment of communes for the pro-
motion of his worship became imperative, while the
offering of incense to his statue was made the
ordinary test of loyalty to the Empire. To the
prophet of Ephesus all this seemed rank blasphemy,
and he delivered his soul by denouncing it. lie
personified the Empire as the Beast whose seven
heads had names of blasphemy (Rev 13^), to whom
was given a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies (13'), who opened his mouth for
blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name
and His tabernacle (13*); as the scarlet-coloured
Beast who was covered all over with names of blas-
phemies (17^). That a creature called an emperor
should assume the attributes of the Creator, and
compel the homage of an infatuated world, was
nothing less than a Satanic triumph ; and whether
men knew it or not, they 'were worshipping the
dragon' {13*). Cf. art. Empkror- worship.
Literature.— In addition to artt. on 'Blasphemy' in HDB,
EBi, SDti, and ERE, with the literature there cited, see the
relevant Commentaries, esp. Sanday-Headlam, Romans^ (TCC,
1902) ; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John-, 1907 ; J.
Armitagre Robinson, Ephesiann, 1903. See also CE, s.v., and
Roman Catholic literature cited there.
James Strahan.
BLASTUS. — Blastus, a chamberlain of Herod
Agrippa I., is mentioned in Ac 12'* in connexion
with an embassy which the inhabitants of Tyre
and Sidon sent to Herod at Cajsarea in order to
obtain terms of peace. The ambassadors obtained
an audience of the prince through the inrtuence of
Blastus, who no doubt had been liberally bribed
for his services. The incident of the embassy is
not mentioned by Josephus nor is the name of
Blastus, and this omission has been regarded by
some {e.g. Krenkel) as throwing doubt on St.
Luke's nfirrative, while others regard the incident
as a proof of St. Luke's independence, or as an
intentional su])plement to the account of the
Jewish historian. W. F. Boyd.
BLESSEDNESS.— This word occurs three times
in the AV (Ro 4"- ", Gal 4"), but rightly disappears
in the RV,* for the (ir. word fiaKapifffios means not
blessedness itself, but a pronouncement that some
one is blessed. ' Blessedness ' is simply a convenient
generalization, expressing the meaning which
NT writers convey by the adjectives translated
'blesseii' or 'happy' { /jMKdpios, evXoyrjTos) and the
participle €v\oyri/j.^vos, ' blessed ' (practically an ad-
jective) ; cf. the verb euevXoyiofiai (Ac S^, Gal 3*)
and fiaKapl^b) (Lk I'"', Ja 5"). The various forms of
ei'>\oy^oiJLai refer, literally, to being ' well spoken
of,' and apparently always contain at least the
latent thought of praise being conferred or happi-
ness ascribed ; fiaKdpios, however, expresses simply
the i)ossession of a quality, and for the ascription
of this by others the verb /wiKaptfw is needed.
Blessedness being a personal posse.ssion, any kind
of action or utterance by others is of secondary
importance in regard to it. Hence the crucial
* In the two passages in Rom. the RV substitutes ' blessint;,'
in Gal. * {^ratulation.*
word is fiaKoipioi, not fvXoy^ofiai, etc. The RV has
in Jn 13", 1 P 3'* 4" alt«;red the AV tr. of fiaKapiOi
from ' happy ' to ' blessed ' ; it might well have
matle the same alteration in Ro 14^, 1 Co 1*".
Massie would banish ' happy ' from the NT except
in Ac 2&' {HDB, art. ' Happiness'). In the OT 'ifK,
' O the happiness (or blessedness) of,' has been even
more frequently translateil ' happy' when it might
have been rendered ' blessed ' (cr. Ps 89" with 144",
where the Hebrew is '"ic'n in both cases). Still,
' liappy ' is more suitable in the OT than in the
NT, for the rewards promised to the OT saints
are of a far more material and temporal order (see
I's P'* ; the epilogue even of Job 42'*'"" ; and
HDB, art. 'Blessedness'). For the NT it is signi-
ficant not only that naxapios, which occurs very
frequently, represented to the Greeks the higher
and even the Divine bliss, but also that the lower
and more ordinary word evSalfiwp, \\\\\\ its sugges-
tion of good luck, is entirely absent. I mi the use
of fiaKcipio! in the Gospels, see art. ' IJealitude' in
HDB and in DCG. This was the regular term in
NT times for ' departed' (to the world of blessed-
ness) ; cf. Germ, selig, and see Deissraann, Light
from the Ancient Ewit^, 1911, p. 166. On the whole,
it bears an exceedingly lofty meaning, though it is
less spiritual in Luke than in Matthew. In 24*"
Matthew need not be understood as offering a
coarsely material ' blessedness' ; the servant is ad-
vanced in the confidence of his master. There is
no need to question the inwardness of any blessed-
ness ofi'ered elsewhere in Matthew. In Lk 12"- ^
the spread table, and the flattering attentions re-
ceived thereat, are somewhat prominent ; but Jesus
is speaking metaphorically, and elsewhere literal,
materialistic views are rebuked (11*^- ^ and perhaps
24i5ir. ) 'Pqq much stress must not therefore be laid
on 6-"- -', although there the blessedness of being
' filled ' seems to refer to food rather than, as in
Matthew, to righteousness.
In the rest of the NT fiaKapios is less used than
in the Gospels. St. Paul has it twice only (Ro 4'- "),
and then in an OT quotation. In 1 Ti 1'^ and 6"
(never in the Gospels) it is applied to God, but in
this sense eiiXoynrds is usual. In regard to men, it
is applied to those who give (Ac 20^), who are for-
given (Ro 4^-'*), who endure temptation (Ja l'-*),
who act according to the perfect law of liberty
( Ja l''^), who die in the Lord (Rev 14"* ; see al.so
Rev l» 16" 19" 2(fi 22^- "). It stands for a good
which is above happiness, and dwells not least witii
those who are counted worthy to sacrifice happi-
ness for conscience' sake. It is based, partly, on a
character Avhich is its own ' better and abiding })os-
session ' (He 10*""). While it remains itself, it is
above all adequate earthly reward and beyond all
earthly overthrow. Above all, it is based in the
sniritual world ; to the ' pure in heart ' the highest
blessedness is to ' see God * (Mt 5" ; cf. 1 Jn 3-- *).
For various aspects of the idea of blessedness, as
expressed in the NT by quite other words, see art.
' Blessedness ' in HDB.
LiTKii .\rtRK.— Art. ' Blessedness ' in HDB,SDB, and DCG ; also
F. C. Kempson, The Future Ufe, 1907, p. 308 ; J. M. Hodgson,
Reli'ium—Tlie Quetit qf the Ideal, 1911, n. 106; T. G. Selby,
The Imperfect Angel, 1888, p. 2.5 ; T. Binney, KingTs »f'ei(7/i-
hntac. Chapel Sermons, 1869, p. 71 ; J. B. Ligrhtfoot, Sennons
in St. Paul's Cathedral, 1891, p. 178.
C. H. Watkins.
BLESSING.— See Bknediction.
BLINDNESS.— Only once does this term refer to
the ahsence of physical sight (Ac 13"), yet even
there moral blindness is symbolized (cf. also the
case of St. Paul, Ac 9«*'^- 20'', a temporary condition
due to suggestion, or to sudden .severe nervous
tension which soon gave place to normal sight).
All the other references to blindness (Ro 2'^ 2 Co
4*, 2 I' P, 1 Jn 2", Rev 3") are metaphysical and
BLOOD
BLOOD
153
indicate a moral condition. Apart from the general
titness of such a tigxire to signify a mor.al condition,
a special reason for its use hy St. Paul is found in
his experience before and after his conversion. — 1.
Blindness is alleged as a simple fact without ex-
planation (2 P 1», Rev 3").— 2. It is referred to the
character and influence of the world, from which
some of those who have joined themselves to the
Christian community have not yet emerged — they
still remain in the 'darkness in which they were
before (1 Jn 2^').— 3. The god of this world, or
Satan, who is supposed to have power over the
course of affairs in the present age, is assigned as
the cause of this condition (cf. Eph 6^ ; Ascension
of Isaiah, ed. Charles, 1900, pp. 11, 24, where
Beliar = the ruler of this world). — i. To GJod is
attributed in part the activity which results in
moral blindness (Ac 28-*, Ro 11*- ^% This concep-
tion belongs to the circle of Jewish religious ideas
— the prophetic doctrine of the absoluteness of God,
the Pharisaic teaching of Divine predestination.
Both of these lay in the background of St. Paul's
thought (cf. Is «»•!», Ps 69^, Ro Q*^-), jet other
elements also entered into and modified it. From
the point of view of the Di\-ine absoluteness, the
Apostle did not doubt that God had the unques-
tioned right to be the sole cause of blindness in one
or of sight in another — a prerogative which, how-
ever, He refrained from exercising. Hence a
somewhat different explanation was to be sought
for the blindness of Israel. That God had rejected
the Jews as a whole was for the Apostle abundantly i
evident. Yet this did not contradict God's election i
and promise. Israel's guilt had, indeed, for the
time being, annulled these ; stUl, this was only one
side of the reality. Grod's rejection of Israel was
neither without purpose nor was it irrevocable.
God's purpose was universal, embracing GentUes
as well as Jews, and if it appeared to pass from the
Jews to the Gentiles, this was not the whole truth,
nor was it final. For, firstly, some Jews had always
remained faithful to the election, and secondly,
the blindness of the remainder was only temporarj'
— untU the 'fullness of the Gentiles,' when all
Israel, beholding the salvation of the Gentiles,
should once more turn to God. The blindness is
marked by two features. It is conceived of as per-
taining not to indi>iduals, but to the community ;
and it is one stage in the unfolding of a vast
theodicy. The latter fact does not, however, re-
lieve the community of either responsibility or
^ilt. Whether all the community living in the
mterim, that is, previous to the removal of the
social blindness, will share in the recognition and
acceptance of the election, is not considered by the
Apostle. In the other passages of the AV the
Greek words which are translated ' blinded ' (Ro
11", 2 Co 3'*) and ' blindness ' (Ko ir-», Eph 4^) are
replaced in the RV by their proper equivalents
' hardened ' and ' hardness,' which express also in-
sensibility to the truth of the gospel.
LtTERATTRE.— Art. 'Blindncss' in DCG ; Sanday-Headlam,
Romaics (ICC. 19'>2) ; J. Armitage Robinson, Ephe»ian.^, 1903,
p. 264 ff. ; B. F. Westcott, Epkesiatig. llUHJ, p. t5« ; JThSt iii.
11901-0-2] 81. C. A. BeCKWITH.
BLOOD.— 1. Meaning of the term.— Among its
simplest designations, • blood ' represents the blood
which flows from wounds in the body (Ac 22*) ;
the extremity of human endurance of evil (He 12*).
The plirase ' flesh and blood ' signifies the lower
sensuous nature (1 Co 15*; cf. Mt 16'") ; any one
whatever (Gal 1'*) ; the substantial basis of human
life (He 2") ; and human power antagonistic to the
gospel (Eph 6^^). Thus ' blood ' may symbolize any
aspect of human life inferior to that of the ' spirit.'
2. Origin. — The meaning of the term is derived
from OT usage, as in St. Peter's reference to the
portents of the Day of the Lord, quoting Joel's
words, ' blood . . . the moon [shall be turned into]
blood ' (Ac 2>»- » ; cf. Jl 2»- "). The same usage
together with dependence on the story of the
plagues in Egypt appears in Rev. (6" 8'- '11* IG*- •*).
Blood thus represents the greatness, awfcdness,
and finality of the Divine judgment, by which
either a wicked condition is simply brought to an
end (cf. also Rev 19'*), or a temporary dispensation
gives place to the last age of human earthly exist-
ence in the fulfilment of God's purpose.
3. Usage. — (1) The word is related to Jewish
ordinances. Among the prohibitions put forth by
the council at Jerusalem was one enjoining absti-
nence from blood (Ac 15*-» 21» ; cf. Lv 3'"). The
reason for the edict was doubtless that assigned
for the earlier restriction, that ' the life of all flesh
is in the blood ' (Lv 17'''). (2) Blood further sym-
bolizes the life violently taken (Ac 1^ 22*, Ro 3'\
Rev 16*), for which the murderer is responsible
(Ac 5** Rev 17* 18^), and liable to the just judg-
ment of God (Rev 6'" 19*); perhaps, in poetic
justice, a punishment like the crime (cf. 14^). It
may also signify the unpitying violence with
which men treat their fellows ( Ro 3**). ( 3) In his
denunciation that blood shall be upon one's own
head, St. Paul meant that the Corinthians who
had refused belief in the gospel were both respon-
sible for their rejection and exposed to God's judg-
ment against them (Ac 18* ; cf. 5**, 2 S 1^*, Mt 27^).
In like manner one might be ' guilty of the . . .
blood of Christ' (1 Co 11^). (4) Blood represents
the life of men capable of redemption, for which
any herald of the gospel is responsible and of which
he may be found guilty if he fails in his duty as a
preacher of Christ (Ac 20"). (5) It signifies the
life given up for an atonement, both as presented
to God and as having reconciling \"irtue for men
(He 9' 10*- '«-« 13"^ *«•).
4. The term used in connexion with the work
of Christ.— Tlie most important uses of the word
centre in the work of Christ. In the Epistle to the
Romans the reference to blood involves its relation
on the one hand to the sacrificial-oflering, on the
other hand to the sin-oftering, wherein it appears
that the sacrificial is the sin-oflering. In other
letters of St. Paul the references to blood are in-
cidental and determined by the particular feature
of redemption in the mind of the Apostle at the
moment. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the mean-
ing of the word is derived from the analogy of the
OT Scriptures, which in a very inadequate manner
prefigured the offering which Christ made of Him-
self. Revelation is dominated by the OT usage
of the word and is in a large degree influenced by
prophetic language, although the common note of
redemption through the blood of Christ is heard
here also. As related to the work of Christ, then,
the apostolic teaching concerning blood involves
the following sjiecitic features : (a) It is connected
with sacrifices, as that of the Day of Atonement
(Ro 3**, He 9™-), by means of which the relation of
men to Gk)d, and indeed of God to men (cf. Ro 5'*),
broken by sin, is restored by the death of Christ.
According to the Epi»tle to the Hebrews, while
the animal sacrifices as sucli were irrational, des-
titute of personal consent, intermittent, incapable
of purifying, spiritual efficacy (He 10*), this lack
wa.-^ more than set off by the blood of Christ. (6)
As in the Old Dispensation all persons ministering
at the altar, utensils of service and worship, and
means of a})proach to God were cleansed with blood
as a medium of purification (cf., however, Lv 5'""-),
so the blood of Christ signifies that all that which
I pertains to salvation in the heavenly sanctuary
j into which both He and His followers enter has
! been for ever pnrifiwi in His blood (He 9***-). It is
I as if the author of the Hebrews conceived of sin as
154
BLOODY FLUX
BODY
having penetrated and deliled even tlie unseen
heavenly world, which therefore needed to be set
free from contamination and made holy in the same
way as things belonging to the earthly tabernacle.
(c) It is the sign and pledge of Christ's free sur-
render of Himself to His atoning death (He 9^-'",
Rev 1'), and symbolizes the experience through
wiiich Jesus must pass on His way to perfected
communion with God and the linal stage of His
mediatorial agency (He 10'» 13'S 1 JaS*-** ; cf. 1 Co
lo'-^, Kev 19'*). (d) The blood is also the means
for the ratification of the New Covenant (1 Co H'-**,
He 9i«-=» 102* 13^ ; cf. Mt 26-«, Ex 24''-% It could
not but be that a ceremony, the meaning of which
was so deeply embedded in the religious experience
of the race, and wiiich was so well fitted to symbol-
ize the solemn consecration to mutual obligations,
should find its significance completely expressed in
the blood of Christ through which God would
reunite Himself in even more spiritual bonds to the
lives of Christ's followers, (e) The blood is repre-
sented as the purchase price of deliverance from
sin (Ac 2028, Ep^ j?^ Col ii*, l P V\ Rev 5" ; cf. He
9'^^). The vivid imagery of this word receives no-
where a closer definition ; its force lies in its sug-
gestion of one aspect of the experience of the man
who passes from the consciousness of the bondage
of sin to the joyful freedom of forgiveness. (/)
Hence the word is associated with forgiveness of
sins. As a sacrificial oft'ering Christ was at the
same time a sin-ofiering (Ro 3^' 5", He 9'^), and as
such His offering has expiatory efficacy, (g) By
His blood as our High Priest He enters into the
Eresence of God on our behalf (He g^^'" 10'*), there
oth perfectly realizing fellowship with God for
Himself and carrying forward His mediatorial
work, {h) The blood has eflScacy in the actual
life of believers, disclosing its energy in their pro-
gressive personal sanctification (He 9" 10'^ 12^*,
1 P 1^ 1 Jn V, Rev P 7"), and in the power wiiich
it confers on them to overcome that which resists
the Christian aim from without (Rev 12"). (i)
Blood is also a symbol of the inner fellowship of
believers with one another and with God — the
reference is social (1 Co 10'®, He 13'-).
Looking back over this subject as a whole, it is
evident that the apostolic writers do not let their
attention rest on blood as such, but only on blood
as it is a vehicle and symbol of life. For the blood
represents the life, even if this is taken by violence.
Christ's blood freely given, with the sole aim of
recovering men in sin to fellowship with God and
to their Divine destination as children of God.
The efficacy of the life of Christ thus given is con-
tinuous from the unseen world and in the purpose
of (jod. Thus the blood which flowed once for all
is not of transitory worth, but is endowed with
the energy perpetually to create new redemptive
personal and social values — it is eternal.
Literature.— B. F. Westcott, The Epistles of St. John,
1883, ' Additional note on i. 71,' p. 34 ff., also The KpiMe to the
Hebrews, 1889, note 'On the Use of the term "Blood" in the
Epistle,' p. 293 f. ; W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, The Epistle
to the RomayisO (ICC, 1902), p. 91 ff.
C. A. BlX'KWITH.
BLOODY FLUX.— See Dysentery.
BOASTING.— This term is employed by AV
with considerable frequency to render the group
of words Kai'xac^at, (cai/x'jc's, Kavxv/Jia. They are
found about 40 times in LXX, and about 60 times
in the NT (exclusively in St. Paul's Epistles, except
He .3«, Ja P 4'«). The forms iyKavxdffOai (2 Th \*)
and KaraKavxacrOai (lio 11"*, Ja 3'*) are also found.
The group belongs to what Lightfoot (Com. on
Ph 3') calls ' the tumultuous eagerness of the
Apostle's earlier style ' ; the words appear most
frequently in 2 Cor., where i)ersonal feeling is
deeply stirred. Whereas in AV they are rendered
by ' boasting ' and ' glorying ' in about equal pro-
portions, in RV ' Ixiasting' has almost completely
disappeared, and 'glorying' is found instead. Tiie
only pla(!e where ' lx)abt' is now found is in Ja 3'
— ' the tongue also is a little member and boasteth
great things'; but here the verb is not /cafxarat
but aiixei, and the idea ' is jiroperly to stretch the
neck and liohl up the head in pride, and hence to
speak with proud confidence' (Hort, ad loc).
' Boastful' still appears twice in RV (Ro l*", 2 Ti
3^), taking the place of AV ' boasters,' and is the
equivalent of dXa^uv, the abstract noun aXa^oveia
being rendered in Ja 4'* ' vaunting' and in 1 Jn 2"
'vainglory,' the only two places where it occurs.
The dXafwi' (' boastful ') has evil associations in both
passages — in Ro 1^ with those who have been
given over to a reprobate mind, and in 2 Ti 3^ with
the ' proud,' blasphemers, and such like. Similarly
dXa^oveia is found in Patristic literature in lists of
vices and corrupt practices — in Didache (v.l) along
with 'self-will,' 'covetousness,' and others; in
1 Clem. XXXV. 5 bracketed with vTrep7i<f>avLa, 'pride,'
in such a list ; and in Ep. to Diognetus (iv. 6) in
conjunction with iroXv-n-payfj-oavvi), ' meddlesome-
ness.' Aristotle saw in the dXafwi', 'not merely
one making unseemly display of things which he
actually possesses, but vaunting himself in those
which he does not possess' (quoted in Trench,
Synonyms of NT^, Lond. 1876, p. 96). In no
such category could St. Paul be placed when he
speaks of himself, using /cavxaf^ai or its cognates,
as ' boasting' (2 Co 7" 8^* 9*). The RV, however,
has replaced the word by 'glorying,' except in
some cases where it uses 'rejoicing' (Ro 5'- ", but
in Ja 4'* 'rejoice' of AV has also given place to
' glory '). ' Glorying ' (or ' boasting ') ' in the law,'
or ' in works ' as a ground of acceptance with God,
or ' in men ' as watchwords of sects or parties, is
condemned by St. Paul (Ro 3^^, Eph 2», 1 Co 3^').
But the word expresses well the high level at
which he lived, exulting in Christ Jesus. He
gloried in the Cross (Gal 6"), in free giace (Ro 5"),
in an approving conscience (2 Co 1'-), in his inde-
pendence as an apostle (2 Co 11'*), in his converts
(2 Th 1^), and above all in Christ Jesus (Ro 15'^)
and in God (1 Co P'), in the spirit of the Psalmist
(44*), and of the Prophet (Jer 9^) who .said in the
name of God, ' Let not the wise man glory in his
wisdom . . . but let him that glorieth glory in
this, that he understandeth, and knoweth me,
that I am the Lord.' T. NiCOL.
BOAT.— See Ship.
BODY.— 1. The term.— In EV * body ' represents
3 different terms in the original. Once (Ac 19'-)
it renders xP^s, which properly denotes the skin or
the surface of the body. Thrice (Rev IP 9) ' dead
body ' is the equivalent of irrw/xa, which corre-
sponds to Lat. cadaver, Eng. ' carca,se.' In all
other cases ' body' stands for awna. in the Gr. text.
Occasionally ffGifia is used of a dead body, whether
of man (Ac 9*", Jude") or beast (He 13"), but
ordinarily it denotes the living body of animals
(Ja 3*) or of men (1 Co 6" etc.). When distin-
guished from ffipi (EV 'flesh'), which applies to
the material or substance of the living body (2 Co
12^), ffw/ia designates the body as an organic whole,
a union of related parts (1 Co I'i'-') ; but cuim and
ffap^ are sometimes used in connexions Avhich make
them practically synonymous (cf. 1 Co 5* with Col
2\ 2 Co 4'» with v."). In Rev 18'^ ffuixa-ra is
rendered by 'slaves' (marg. 'bodies'), the body
only of the slave being taken into account by
ancient law. From the literal meaning of o-w^o
as an organism made up of interrelated parts
comes its figurative employment to describe the
BODY
BODY
155
Christian Church as a social whole, the ' one body '
with many members (Ro 12*, I Co l2»=*-27 etc.).
Symbolically the bread of the Lord's Supper is
designated as the bodv of Christ (1 Co 10" 11^ "• »).
2. The doctrine. — Outside of the Pauline Epistles
tlie references to the body are few in number, and
do not furnish materials for separate doctrinal
treatment. It is almost wholly with St- Paul that
we have to do in considering the doctrinal appli-
cations of the word. HLs use of it is threefold —
a literal use in connexion with his doctrine of man,
a tigurative or mystical use in his doctrine of the
(.liurch, a symbolic use in his doctrine of the Lord's
Supper.
(1) The literal body. — The assumption is
frequently made that St. Paul's doctrine of man
was formed under Hellenistic influences, and that
he sets up a rigid dualism between body and soul,
matter and spirit (cf. Holtzmann, NT Theol. ii.
14 f.). It is true that he makes use of the contrasted
terms ' flesh ' and ' spirit,' ' body ' and 'soul,' which
had become general among the Jews tlirough famili-
arity with the LXX, and were thus indirectly due
to contact with the Greek world. But, notwith-
standing his use of these terms, St. Paul's doctrine
of man was timily rooted in the soil of OT teach-
ing, and anything like the Greek dualLstic anti-
thesis between body and soul was far from his
thoughts. For him, as for the OT writers, the
psycho-physical unity of the human personality
was the rundaniental feature in the conception
of man. The body, no less than the soul, was
essential to human nature in its completeness,
though the bodj-, as the part that links man to
Nature, held a lower place than the soul or spirit
by which he came into relation with God. These
two strands of thought — the essentiality of the
body to a complete human nature, and its subordi-
nation to the soul — run through all the Apostle's
anthropological teaching, and come into clear view
in his teaching on the subjects of sin, death,
sanctification, and the future life.
(a) The body and sin. — It is here that the argu-
ment for a positive dualism in the Pauline teaching
regarding the body finds its strongest support. It
must be admitted that St. Paul often speaks of the
body and its members not only as instruments of
sin, but as the seat of its power (e.g. Ro 6'*-^'
T'-'^). But it has been further alleged that he
saw in the body the very source and principle of
sin (Pfleiderer, Paulinismus, Leipzig, 189"3, p. 53 ff.).
The argument depends on the interpretation given
to the word ' flesh ' (<rd/>^) in those passages where
it is emploj-ed in an ethical sense in contrast with
'spirit' (TTP^x'^jLa). It is assumed by Pfleiderer and
others that (rdp^ in such cases simply denotes the
physical or sensuous part of man, in which the
Apostle finds a substance essentially antagonistic
to the life of the spirit, making sin inevitable.
But the objections to this %'iew seem insuperable.
In St. Paul's category of the ' works of the flesh '
(Gal .5"^) most of the sins he enumerates are
spiritual, not physical, in their character. When
he charges the Corinthians with being 'carnal'
(1 Co 3^), he is condemning, not sensuality, but
jealousy and strife. His doctrines of the sanctifi-
cation of the body (1 Co &^ '^) and of the absolute
sinlessness (2 Co 5*=^) of one bom of a woman (Gal 4*)
would have been impossible if he had regarded the
principle of r-in as lying in man's corporeal nature.
The antithesis of flesh and spirit, then, cannot be
interpreted as amounting to a dualistic opposition
between man's body and his soul. It is a contrast
rather between the earthly and the heavenly, the
natural and the supernatural, what is evolved from
below and what is bestowed from above. The
' carnal ' man, with his ' mind of the flesh ' at
enmity with God (Ro 8'), is the same as the
'natural' man who receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God (1 Co 2"), and so is to be distin-
guished from the * spiritual ' man in whom a super-
natural and Divine principle is already at work
(v.i»-; cf. 3»-»).
But while the Apostle does not find in the body
the very principle of sin, he does regard it as a
lurking - piace of evil and a constant source of
liability to fall (Ro 6' 7®- **). Hence his determina-
tion to bring the body into subjection (1 Co 9"),
and his sununons to others to mortify its deeds
(Ro8»; cf. Col3»).
{b) The body and death. — In his teaching about
death, St. Paul lends no support to the doctrine of
those Greek philosophers who saw in it a liberation
of the soul from bondage to the body as such (cf.
Plato, Phcedo, 64 tf.). The emphasis he lays on
the inner and spiritual side of personality enables
him, it is true, to conceive of existence, and even
a blessed existence, in the disembodied state (2 Co
5*). His sense, too, of the weakness of the flesh
and its subjection to the forces of evil leads him
to describe the present body as a tabernacle in
which we groan, oeing burdened. But in the same
passage he expresses his confidence that the house
not made with hands will take the place of the
present tabernacle, and that those who have here-
tofore been burdened will be so clothed upon, that
what is mortal shall be swallowed up of life (2 Co
5^"*). He longs not for deliverance from the body,
but for its complete redemption and transforma-
tion, so that it may be perfectly adapted to the
life of the spirit. In his view, death was not a
liberation of the soul from bondage, but an inter-
ruption, due to sin (Ro ff-^), of the natural solidarity
of the two component parts of human nature. But
as Christ by His Spirit dwelling in us can subdue
the power of sin, so also can He gain the victory
over death — the culminating proof of sin's power
(1 Co 15^). In Christ the promise is given of a
body not only raised from the grave, but redeemed
from the power of evil, and thus capable of being
transformed from a natural body into a spiritual
body (v.« ; cf. Ph 3^).
(c) The body and sanctification. — St. Paul's view
of the body as an essential part of the human
personality appears further in his doctrine of the
bodily holiness of a Christian man. In Corinth
the perverted notion had grown up that since the
body was not a part of the true personality, bodily
acts were morally indiflerent things (1 Co 6**^).
To this the Apostle opposes the doctrine that the
body of a Christian belongs to the Lord, that it is
a member of Christ Himself and a sanctuary of the
Holy Ghost — thus making the personal life which
unites us to Christ inseparable from those other
manifestations of the same personal life which find
expression in the bodily members. Yet this view
of the communion of the body in man's spiritual
life and its participation in the sanctifying powers
of the Divine Spirit did not blind him to the fact
that the body, as we know it, is weak and tainted,
ever ready to become the instrument of temptation
and an occasion of stumbling (Ro 6**, 1 Co 9^).
And so, side by side with the truth that the body
is a Divine sanctuary, he sets the demand that
sin should not be allowed to reign in our mortal
bodies, that we should obey it in the lusts thereof
(Ro 6^).
(d) The body and the f-uturt life. — Here, again,
the same two familiar lines of thought emerge.
On the one hand, we have an overwhelming sense
of the worth of the body for the human person-
ality ; on the other, a clear recognirion of its
present limitations and unfitness in its earthly
form to be a perfect spiritual instrument. The
proof of the first is seen in St. Paul's attitude to
the idea of a bodily resurrection. To him the
156
BODY
BOLDNESS
resurrection of Christ was a fact of tlie most ab-
solute certainty ( Ro 1*, 1 Co \5'*"-); and tliat fact
carried with it the assurance that the dead are
raised (v."*"^-). Had he thought of the body as
something essentially evil, liad he not been per-
suaded of its absolute worth, his hopes for the
future life must liave centred in a bare doctrine
of the immortality of the soul, and not, as they
actually did, in the resurrection of the body. But
while he clung passionately to the hope of the
resurrection, he did not believe in the resurrection
■of the present body of flesh and blood (1 Co 15***).
He looked for a body in which corruption haid
given place to incorruption (vv.*- *^) and humilia-
tion had been changed into glory (Ph 3-'). His
doctrine of the resurrection includes tlie assurance
that when the dead in Christ are raised (he has
little to say of the physical resurrection of others),
it will not be in the old bodies of their earthly
experience, but in new ones adapted to heavenly
conditions (1 Co 15'"''^-)j bodies that are no longer
psychical merely, i.e. moving on the plane of man's
natural experience in the world, but pneumatical
(v.**"'-), because redeemed from every taint of evil
and fitted to be the worthy and adequate organs
of a spiritual and heavenly life.
(2) The figurative or mystical body.— In
1 Co 12'2fl'- (cf. Ro 125), st^ Paul describes the re-
lations in which Christians stand to Christ and to
one another under the ligure of a body and its
members ; and towards the end of the chapter
(v.'-'') he says of the Corinthian Church quite
expressly, ' Now ye are a body of Christ (a-Qfia
XpiffToO), and members in particular.' In ancient
classical literature the figure was frequently ap-
plied to the body politic ; and the Apostle here
transfers it to the Church with the view of im-
pressing upon his readers the need for unity and
mutual helpfulness. As yet, however, the figure
is plastic, and the anarthrous ffQ/xa. suggests that
it is the Church of Corinth only which St. Paul has
inmiediately in view. This may be regai'ded, ac-
cordingly, as the preliminary sketch of tiiat
elaborated conception of the Church as Christ's
mystical body which is found in two later Epistles.
In Ephesians (l-^'- 4'''*) and Colossians (V^-'-i*) 'the
l)<)dy of Christ' {t6 <rQfxa toD Xpicxrov) has become a
lixed designation of the universal and ideal Church.
Moreover, this further distinction is to be observed,
tliat whereas in Rom. and 1 Cor. Christ is con-
ceived of as the whole body of which individual
Christians are members in particular, in Eph. and
Col. the Church has become the body of which
Christ as the head is ruler, saviour, and nourisher
{Eph 5-=^'-, Col 2i»). In its later form the figure
suggests not only the unity of the Church as the
mystical body of Christ, but its absolute depend-
ence upon Him who is the Head for its strength
and growth and very existence.
(3) The symbolic BODY.~The words, ' This is
my body,' applied by Jesus to the broken bread
of the Supper (Mt 26^', Mk W^, Lk 22J'»), 'are re-
peated by St. Paul in his narrative of the institu-
tion (1 Co U'"). And the Apostle not only repeats
the Lord's words in their historical connexion, but
himself describes the sacramental bread as being
Christ's l)ody. ' The bread which we break,' he
writes, * is it not a communion of the body of
Christ?' (1 Co 10'"). In like manner he says that
whosoever shall e.at the bread of the Lord un-
worthily shall be guilty of the body of the Lord
( 1 1*''), and that a participant of the Supper eats and
drinks judgment unto himself ' if he discern not
the body' (v.-""). There are wide ditlerences of
opinion among Christians as to the full significance
oi this identilication of the bread of the Lord's
8upper with the body of the Lord Himself. But
whatever further meanings may be seen in it, and
even under tl»cories of a Real Presence, which is
Kcmiething other and more than a purely spiritual
presence, the bread which Jesus broke at the Last
Supper was, in the first place, a symbol of His own
body of flesh and blood which was yielded to death
in a sacrifice of love.
LiTKRATCRE. — H. Cremer, Bibl.-Thcol. Lex.^, Edinburgh,
1880, s.v. ; relevant sections in J. Laidlaw, Bible Doct. uf Man,
do. 1879; F. Delitzsch, Bibl. Pgycholony, Eng. tr., do. 1867;
and the A'T* Theolu<jie» of Holtzmann [Tuhin^feTi, 1911], Weiss
[Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1882-83], and Beyschlag: [Eiig. tr., do.
1895]. See, further, W. P. Dickson, St. Paul's I'sc of the
Terms Flesh and Spirit, Glasgow, 1883 ; H. H. Wendt, Teach-
ing of Jesru, Enif. tr., Edinburgh, 1892, i. 1.56 ; H. W. Robin-
son, ' Heb. Psychology in relation to Pauline Anthropology,'
in Mansfield College Essays, London, 1909 ; F. Paget, spirit of
Discipline, do. 1891, p. 80fl. J. C. LaMBKHT.
BOLDNESS.—' Boldness' (with the allied expres-
sions 'bold,' 'boldly,' 'to be bold') has several
Greek equivalents in the aj)ostolic writings. — (a)
In the sense of daring, we find it used to render
roXfjLdu,' to dare,' 'to be bold' (2 Co 10^ 11", Ph
1"). The cognate adverb To\fnjpC!)% in the compar.
roXfirjporepov is used by St. Paul (Ro 15''). TJie
verb, in composition with the strengthening prep.
dir6, is used in Ro 10*", where d.iroTo\fw.y has the
force of 'to be very bold.' — (6) In the sense of
being of good courage it is emploj'ed to render
dappe^v in 2 Co 5«- •* V'^ (RV ; the AV having ' con-
fident,' ' confidence ' in these places). In 2 Co lO'- \
where the same verb is rendered ' to be bold ' in
AV, tlie RV prefers ' to be of good courage ' ; and
similarly ' we may boldly say ' of AV in He 13" is
renderetl in RV ' with good courage we say.' In
Ac 28^^* ddpffo^ occurs in the exjjression used regard-
ing St. Paul — ' he thanked God and took courage.'
dpdffos and dpaa&r-ns are used in the sense of ' over-
confidence,' 'insolence' in Patristic literature in
company with sucli words as irXeove^ia, ' covetous-
nes.s,' and ciKa^ovela, ' boastfulness ' (Didache iii. 9,
V. 1). — (c) In the sense of liberty and frankness of
speech it is employed to translate irappTjaia and the
derived verb irapprjcnd^effdai. In classical usage
irapprjffLa {wdi' and pTJffis) is the frank and outspoken
expression of opinion which was the cherished
privilege of Athenian citizenship. In NT usage it
denotes tlie glad and fearless confidence in drawing
near to God, and having communion with Him,
which is the dearest privilege of the Chri.^tian
heart (Eph 3>2, He 4", 1 Jn 2^). It is contrasted
with shrinking back from fear or shame (Ph 1*,
1 Jn 2-**). In reference to speech, it is plainness
and candour witiiout reserve or ambiguity, without
parable or metaphor, without hesitation or mis-
giving, in the utterance of it (Jn 7'Ml''' IG**- ^, Ac
4J9 234t; where Trappr]aid^ea-Oai is used). ' When it is
transfenred from words to actions, it apjiears
always to retain the idea of " confidence, boldness " '
(Lightfoot on Col 2i»).
Tiie chief usages of the word in the apostolic
writers may be given as follows :
(1) Fearlessness and frankness in the public
proclamation of the gospel. — Examples are St.
Peter on the day of Pentecost (Ac 2^*), St. Peter
and St. John before the Council (4'*), and in setting
forth Christ to the people (4"^- ''), St. Paul at Rome
preaching to all and sundry (28*^). In this sense
wappTjffid^fffdai is used of Saul at Daniiuscus and
Jerusalem (l*"'-), of St. Paul and Barnabas at
Antioch of Pisidia (13'**), of Apollos at Enhesus
els'*), of St. Paul himself at Thessalonica ( 1 Th 2» ;
cf. Eph 6»»'-).
(2) Confide^icc in prayer and cotnmioiion with
God through Christ. — This is the privilege which
St. Paul (Eph 3'*) commends to Ins readers when
he speaks of ' boldnes.-* and access in confidence '
which are theirs through their faith in Chri.st.
The same fearless confidence is dwelt xi\>on by the
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (4'« "lO"*).
BOND
BONDAGE
157
This joyous confidence in prajer is specialh-
notable in St. John's First Epistle (3-i 5"). It
conies of abiding in Christ (2'^), of the presence in
the heart of the love which casts out fear (4'"'-), of
a clear conscience and an obedient life (3'**"^).
(3) Candid speech towards Christian brethren
(2 Co :*, Philem », and possibly 2 Co 3'-, if Cluysos-
tom's interpretation be correct).
(4) Fearless bearing in the Church and before
the world acquired through the faithful discharge
o/rftt^y(l Ti3i», Phl«>).
(5) Fearless confidence at the appearance of Christ
and before His judgment seat (1 Jn 2^ 4*""^"). —
The Scriptural opposite is the shame of the man
without the wedding-garment who was speecliless
(Mt 22--). Clements words are a good illustration :
' The good workman takes with boldness the bread
which is the reward of labour, but the slothful and
the indolent dare not meet the eye of their em-
ployer' (1 Clem, xxxiv. 1). Ct. also Wis 5^:
•Then [in the judgment] shall the righteous man
stand in great boldness before the face of them
that atliicted him.'
LiTBR/.TURE. — D. Russell Scott, art. 'Boldness (Christian)'
in ERE ii. 7s5, with lit. there cited ; also J. H. Jowett, The
Transfigured Church, 1910, p. 181. T. NiCOL.
BOND (Col 2").— The point here lies in the word
xei.p6~/pa(pov. For ' bond ' in the sense of Soi/Xoj, see
1 Co 12''^ etc., and in that of ffvvSeafios (ligament in
surgeiy [very often]), see Col 2", etc. Col 2" is
the only instance in the XT of the word x^'po-
■ypa4>ov, though there are other compounds with x"P-
(X^'paiary^w, Ac 9* ; x^'P*7'^'"^J> Ac 13^^ ; x^'P*"""'-
rp-oi, Eph 2^^, and axu-poiroLrfroi, Col 2^^ ; xftp<"'0''fw,
Ac 14^). This synthetic compound means origin-
ally 'handwriting' or ' autograph,' and occurs in
this sense in Polybius (xxx. 8. 4), Dion. Hal. (v.
8), etc. Its technical use is for ' a note of hand,
a bond or obligation, as having the " sign manual "
of the debtor or contractor' (Lightfoot, Col.^, 1879,
in loc.) ; so To 5"* iSuKev aiTij to x^'-P^P^'t*^''- See
also Plut. {Mar. p. 829 A) and Artem. (Oneir.
iii. 40). Its position as a Kotvi) word is greatly
strengthened by the papyri, where it is very common
(Deissmann, Bible studies, Eng. tr., 1901, p. 247).
Some of these bonds in papyri texts are crossed
out with the Greek cross-letter X, thus cancelling
the note (cf. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient
East-, 191 1, p. 336 f. ). A number of these ' crossed-
out ' bonds are in the papyri lists at Berlin, Heidel-
berg, and elsewhere. This was the method of
oflScial as well as private cancellation (see the
Florentine Papyrus [a.D. 85], where the Governor
of Egypt ordered the bond to be 'crossed out'
[x^offdrfvai]). There is no evidence for the notion
that these bonds were cancelled by hanging on
nails (perforation). There are examples of in-
scribed leaden roUs being perforated and hung on
nails, but not for cancellation by the nails (Deiss-
mann, £iWe 5^ jtrfjc;?, p. 273 f.). St. Paul piles up
his metaphors, as he often does, by the use of
(^d\ei\pas ('blotting out'; cf. x^^fw. 'cross out'),
^pxfv iK ToO fUffov ('take out of the midst'; note
change to indicative and perfect for notion of per-
manent removal). Dibelius (Handbuch zum XT,
'Kolosser,' 1912, p. 81) cites Epictetus' use of atpe
l|«, oipe (K Tov iiiaov as synonymous. As to vpoffrj-
Xtawas TV (TTCLvpw (' nailing to the cross '), E. Haupt
(Meyer-Haupt, Kom. Kol., 1902, in loc.) points out
that ^\•ith St. Paul it is not the cancelling by nail-
ing, but the nailing to the cross that is dominant.
These three metaphors all accentuate the main
idea of the cancellation of the debt.
"WTiat the bond is in Col 2" scholars are not
agreed. Probably the general notion of law is
correct, since Gentiles as well as Jews seem to
be included, rather than the Mosaic Law or the
narrower notion of the purelj' ceremonial law.
The addition of roh Sdynaffiv, difficult as to sjTitax,
points to formulated commandment (Peake, EGT,
' Colossians,' 1903, in loc.) of some kind (cf. Eph
2^'), though 'the moral assent of the conscience'
(Lightfoot, in loc.) is surely involved also. No
stress is to be laid on the fact of the law being
written or not wTitten (the autograph idea in
Xftf)6ypa(f>ov) by the sinner, though, if tlie primary
reference be to the Jews, they might be said to
have signed the contract in _giving assent to the
law as represented in Dt 27^*" . The central idea
is that the bond of moral obligation which wa.s
against us (Kad' i]fiQv and 6 ijv virevairriov rj/uf) has
been removed by the death of Chiist on the Cross.
It has been cancelled (crossed out) and hung up
for all to see (nailed to the cross) as an obligation
from which we are now free. It is a bold picture
of grace versus works as the method of salvation.
Christ has paid the debt and destroyed the note
against us. Cf. St. Paul's otfer to pay Philemon
for the debt of Onesimus (Philem '*'•).
A. T. ROBEKTSOX.
BONDAGE.—' Bondage ' in the EV uniformly re-
presents oovXeia, which can equally Avell be rendered
'slaverj'.' Note the Vulg. servUus and Wyclifs
corresponding term, 'servage.'
1. So far as literal slavery is meant in the use of
this and kindred expressions, see art. Slavery.
2. 'Bondage' has an important figurative use in
the Epistles in relation to spiritual experience. It
denotes the state of sin. The place filled by slaverj-
in the social structure of that age made such a figuie
natural and forceful. St. Paul conspicuously em-
ploys this description of the sinful state in his dis-
cussion of human sin in Ro 5-7. It is evident that
he was far more deeply interested in man's spiritual
bondage and his deliverance than in slavery as an
institution open to challenge in the cause of
humanity. No slaverj- in his view was comparable
with that of a man * sold under sin,' whether lord or
slave. This became a commonplace in the thought
of the early Church. The writings of St. Augustine
and St. Chrysostom notablj' furnish many instances
of its vigorous enforcement. Similar sentiments,
it should be added, were held by Plotinus (3rd cent.)
and the Neo-Platonic School of Alexandria. (In
the NT note the description of man a^ enslaved to
sin, Ko 6'^ ; or to passions and pleasuies. Tit 3* ;
cf. 2^.)
The bondage of the will ( ' the will, deprived of
liberty, is led or dragged by necessity to evil'
[Cal\Tn, Inst. iii. 2]), a theologoumenon figuring so
largely in the Augustinian and the Reformed the-
olog}-, strains Pauline teaching and finds little or
no illustration in the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
3. The righteous life, on the other hand, is also
described as a bondage (Ro 6'*). This servitude,
which is that of the 8od\oi of God, or of Christ
(1 Co 7^^ etc.), is freedom in relation to that of sin
(as per se, cf. ' Whose service is perfect freedom,'
Book of Common Prayer), and vice versa. But St.
Paul surely uses a gentle ironj- in representing
sinners as ' free ' from the bondage of righteousness
(Ro 6-^).
i. The term is used of other forms of religious
life in contrast to the liberty of the Christian life.
Thus in the allegory, wrought out in Rabbinical
fashion, in Gal 4-'*-, Judaism spells bondage ; the
gospel, freedom. In v.^ and vv.**^" slavery inro to.
(TToixf^oL rov KOfffiov includes apparently reference
both to Jewish legalism and to GentUe devotion to
false gods. In this connexion must be noted Ro 8'^
(cf. Gal 4*-") with its striking contrast between the
servile temper of fear characterizing life under law,
so vividly depicted in Ro 7, and the filial spirit of
happy confidence pertaining to Christian experi-
ence. For another instance of the association of
158
BONDS
BOOK OF LIFE
bondage witli fear and the antithesis between the
lilial and the servile condition, see He 2^*'-.
5. In Ro 8'-' all creation is represented as being
in bondage — * servitude to decay ' — but hoping for
deliverance and for that freedom which character-
izes 'tlie glory of the children of God.' With this
contrast the reference in 2 P 2'* to ' the bondage of
corruption' as = moral degradation.
J. S. Clemens.
BONDS.— See Prison, Chain.
BOOK.— See Writing.
BOOK OF LIFE.— The actual phrase occurs in
six passages only of the NT : Ph 4^ Rev 3"* IS" 17^
2012.15 21=" (in 22'9 the evidence for the reading
' book of life' [AV] instead of 'tree of life' [RV]
is negligible). Of these passages the most import-
ant for the purpose of determining the meaning is
Rev 20^^ ^^ because there the book of life is dis-
tinguished from certain other books : ' and the
books were opened, and another book was opened
which is the book of life ; and the dead were
judged out of those things that were written in the
books, according to their works . . . and whoso-
ever was not found written in the book of life, was
cast into the lake of fire.' The natural implication
here is that the other books Avere records of works,
but that the book of life was simply a register of
the names of those destined for life — an interpre-
tation which fits all the above-noted passages.
An interesting exegetical point comes up in
connexion with Rev 13^. The words ' from the
foundation of the world ' may grammatically refer
either to ' written ' or to ' tlie Lamb which hath
been slain.' But in 17^ where the same phrase
occurs, the only natural way to take it is as
referring to 'written'; and this is practically
decisive for 13* also (so Swete, Apoc. of St. John ^
London, 1907, and RV). The phrase thus carries
a suggestion of predestination ; but this is not
thought of as absolute, since the idea of blotting
out a name from the book of life occurs quite freely.
With the above-noted passages there fall into
line a number of others where the same conception
is clearly implied : Lk 10-», Dn 12i, Ps 692*, Ex
^2^2. 33 The conception of a register found in all
these passages seems to be based on the analogy
of citizen-lists, registers of the theocratic com-
munity, such as are referred to in Is 4' : ' He that
is left in Zion shall be called holy, every one that
is written among the living in Jerusalem ' (cf. Neh
12-='- 23, Ezk n^). To be written in the heavenly
counterpart of such a list meant to be assured of
being a sharer in the blessings destined for the
true Israel. Other passages which associate them-
selves more or less closely with this conception are
1 S 252», Ps 87« 139i», Is 48i9, Jer 22^, He 1223.
The conception of a heavenly record of man's
actions, which we found clearly distinguished from
the above in Rev 20'=** ", appears equally distinct
in Dn 7^" as compared with 12i. See also Ps 56*,
Is 658, Mai 3'8.
Different again is the conception of the Book
with the Seven Seals in Rev 5, for that is thought
of as the book of destiny — the prophetic history of
the world.
All three conceptions appear in the Book of Enoch.
When the Head of Days 'seated Himself on the
throne of His glory, and the books of the living
were opened before Him ' {En. xlvii. 3), the context
makes it clear that the purpose of the opening of
the books is not a great assize, it is a vindication
of the, righteous that is at hand, and 'the living'
means, not all living, but the righteous. Charles
remarks that 'books of the holy ones* in En.
cviii. 3 has practically the same meaning. The
complementary conception ' the book of those that
sliall be destroyed ' appears in Jub. xxx. 22.* The
second conception, that of a record, appears in En.
Ixxxix. 70 tf., where the evil deeds of the shepherds
are recorded and read before the Lord ; cf. xc. 17,
20, xcviii. 7, 8, civ. 7 (a daily record). The idea
of a book of [fate or prophetic historj', is repre-
sented by the 'heavenly tablets,' Ixxxi. 1, '2, xciii.
1 ir. ; but this should be kept separate. See, further,
following article.
As regards the origin of the conception, if we
take the heavenly book in the wider sense of a
record of men's actions or a prophetic world
history, it is obviously one of those conceptions
for which it is not easy to establish a relation of
dependence between one religion and another,
since it is likely to arise independently in various
places. A. Jeremias {Bahylonischcs im NT, Leipzig,
1905, p. 69 tf., and art. ' Book of Life,' in EBE) has
pointed to the Bab. New Year's Festival, at ■which
it was conceived that an assembly of the gods
determined the events of the year, and especially
the duration of men's lives, which was written
down in a ' tablet of life.' For the narrower con-
ception of the book of life as set forth above, the
most interesting literary parallel is that cited by
Jeremias from the Akhmim fragments of the Coptic
Apoc. of SopJionicis (Zephaniah), tr, L. Stern, in
Zeitschr. fur dgypt. Sprache, xxiv. [1886]. There
the seer inquires about two angels whom he sees,
and is told by his angel guide : ' These are tlu;
angels of the Lord Almighty who inscribe all
the good works of the righteous in His scrolls,
sitting at the gate of heaven. They give these
scrolls to me, to take them to the Lord Almighty,
in order that He may write their name {sc. names
of the righteous) in the Book of the Living.' This
passage is not of any value as evidence for the
source of the conception, for the work shows in
many places dependence upon Rev., but it prob-
ably indicates correctly how the relation or the
book of life to the other books in Rev 20^- is to be
conceived. As Aiford there explains it, on internal
grounds, the other books are, so to speak, the
' vouchers ' for the book of life.
In the Ajjostolic Fathers the conception occurs
in 1 Clem. xlv. 8 : ' Those who remained faithful,
inherited glory and honour, were exalted and were
inscribed by God in His memorial for ever ' ;
Hernias, Vis. i. 3. 2 : ' Cease not to admonish thy
children, for I know that if they shall repent with
their whole hearts they shall be inscribed in the
books of life with the saints,' and Sim. ii. 9 : ' He
that does these things shall not be abandoned by
God, but shall be inscribed upon the books of the
living ' ; cf. Hand. viii. 6 : ' Refrain thyself from
all these things, that thou niayest live to God, and
be enrolled with those who exercise self-restraint
therein.'
Among homiletic expositions of the passage
Rev 20^2 one of the most impressive is that of St.
Augustine in de Civ. Dei, xx. 14. Taking the
book of life as a record of men's deeds, he observes
that it cannot be understood literally, since the
reading of such a record would be interminable.
'We must therefore understand it of a certain
Divine power by which it shall be brought about
that every one shall recall to memory all his own
works, whether good or evil, and shall mentally
survey them with a marvellous rapidity, so that
this knowledge will either accuse or excuse con-
science, and thus all and each shall be bimultane-
ously judged.'
LiTBRATDRE.— R. H. Charles, The Knok of llniH-h-, Oxford,
1912, note on xlvii. 3 ; H. Zinimem, KA n. Berlin, 19U3, p. 401ff. ;
A. Jeremias, art. ' Book of Life ' in EUE ; W. Bonsset, Com.
* It is interesting to note that the Old Latin (Donatist) text
in Jer I'l^* has ' recedentes a te scribantur in libro mortia ' (see
Burkitt, Old Latin and Itaia [TS iv. 3 (189C)). p. 87).
BOOK WITH THE SEVEN SEALS
BRETHREN
159
(Gottingen, lb96) on Kev 3^ ; B. Duhm, Com. (Gottingen, 1902)
on Is 4* ; A. Bertbolet, SUUung der Itraeliten u. der Juden
tu den Frtmden, Freiburg wid Leipzis, ISDC
W. MOXTGOMEKY.
BOOK WITH THE SEVEN SEALS.— There is
no more impressive piece of symbolism in the
Apocalypse than that connected with the seven-
sealed book (Rev 5). Much of the imagery of
Rev. strikes the modem Western mind as exotic
and unattractive ; it is only by a determined use
of the historical imagination that we can bring
ourselves to a sympathetic understanding of it.
But here the qualities which we look for in great
painting or in epic poetry are plainly to be seen.
And- this applies both to the imagery and to the
dominant thought. The unnamed Presence in the
glory of light on the central throne, the represen-
tatives of humanity and nature groupned around
and before Him, the concentration of interest in
the seven-sealed book held out upon [itrl, ace.) His
hand, the dramatic challenge, the dread pause
when there seems no answer, emphasized by the
grief of the Seer, the triumphant approach of the
Lion of the tribe of Jndah — each point in the pro-
gress of the drama seizes the reader's imaginarion
and increases the tension of his sympathies, till at
last they are afforded relief by the magnificent
burst of acclamation which follows.
And the thought, as has been said, is worthy
of its setting, for this sealed book is the book of
destiny, the prophetic history of the world as fore-
known in the purpose of God ; and the fact that
the Lion of the tribe of Judah alone prevails to
open the book is the symbolic expression of what
would be described in modem language as the
central significance of Christ in history. That
the Lion is also the Slain Lamb attaches this sig-
nificance especially to His sacrifice of Himself :
* For thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to
God by thy blood . . . and hast made us unto our
God, Icings and priests.' In a word, the purpose of
history is the founding of a redeemed humanity.
To touch on some of the details — the conception
of a book containing the future history ot the
world is found in Enoch, Ixxxi. 1,2:' And he said
unto me : O Enoch, observe the writing of the
heavenly tablets and read what is written thereon
. . . and I read the book of all the deeds of men,
and of aU the children of flesh that will be upon
the earth to the remotest generations ' ; and more
especially xciiL 2, 3 : ' Concerning the children of
righteousness ... I will speak to you . . . ac-
cording to that which I have learned from the
heavenly tables.' (Then follows a prophetic scheme
of the history of Israel divided into seven weeks. )
The seals obviously imply the secret nature of
the record (not here, directly, ratification), as in
Dn 12*. If the vision of ch. 5 stood alone, the
sevenfold sealing might simply emphasize this
idea, but the successive opening of the seals im-
plies that the leaves of the book or parchment-roll
are sealed down in successive portions, and the
idea of completeness in the seven is thus referred
to the history (cf. the seven weeks of Israel's
history in Enoch).
The visions connected with the opening of the
several seals are of less central interest, belonging
rather to the general furniture of apocalyptic.
The second to the sixth signify clearly war, famine,
pestilence, persecution, convulsions of nature. As
to the meaning of the first horseman, expositors
are not agreed, Swete takes the first two together
as representatives of war in its two aspects of
victory and carnage. At the seventh vision the
scheme, instead of moving directly to its com-
pletion, branches out into new ramifications.
LlTKRATCWE. — Scc Literature at end of preceding article.
W. MOXTGOMERY.
BOSOR.— See Beor.
BOTTOMLESS PIT.— See Abyss.
BOWL.— The word is used in the RV" instead of
' vial ' to translate <tn&\Tj, which occurs 12 times
in Revelation. The change was desirable, as the
former word, a modification of ' phial,' has come to
mean a small glass vessel or bottle, as in Milton's
' precious vialled liquors.' ^tdXij meant in classical
Greek (after Homer, to whom it was a cinerarj-
urn) a broad shallow bowl used in drinking or in
offering libations. Its saucer shape allowed its
contents to be poured out at once or suddenly. It
was often of finely- wrought gold or silver (Herod,
ii. 151 ; Pind. Nem. ix. 122), and it is a familiar
object in classical art. In the LXX <j>uxKrj denotes
a bronze bowl or basin (Pi|2) used in the sacri-
ficial ritual of Tabernacle or Temple (Ex 27*) — the
vessel in which the priest caught the warm blood
of the victim, to dash it upon the altar. These
uses of the word, with striking modifications, are
reflected in Revelation. (1) In a single passf^
(5*) it is employed with its classical connotation,
except that the offering which the vessel holds is
not the pagan libation of wine, but the Levitical
gift of incense. ' The ^Qm and the -rpfa^urepoi [re-
presenting perhaps all Nature and all saints] fell
do>vn before the Lamb, having . . . golden bowls
[(pidXaf xP''<'^*0 fiiU of incense.' The Vulg. has
' phialas aureas,' but the proper Lat. equivalent of
4Kd\ij was ' patera,' as in Virg. Geor. iL 192, ' pateris
libamus et auro.' The subjoined interpretation of
the bowls and their contents as ' the prayers of the
saints ' is probably an editorial gloss suggested by
Rev 8* (see LxcEXSE). (2) In every other passage
where the word occurs the (pidXij does not exhale a
cloud of fragrant incense, sent up with the adora-
tion of saints, but is filled with the hot, bitter,
poisonous wine of the wrath of God, which earth is
made to drink — a figure resembling the prophetic
' cup of reeling ' (Is 51"- ^), but even more appalling.
The seven angels who have the seven bowis are
'laden with the seven last plagues' (Rev 21').
Every emptied <pidXr) means au added judgment
falling on land or sea or air (16"-). Hence in
common speech the words 'vials' and 'wrath'
have become almost inseparably linked together.
James Str.\han.
BREAKING OF BREAD. — See Love-Feast,
Eucharist.
BREASTPLATE.— See Armour.
BRETHREN.— In the OT this term refers to : (1)
birth from the same parent or parents (very fre-
quently, e.g., in Gn 37-50) ; (2) meml)ership of the
same nation (e.g. Ex 2"), with special emphasis on
the bond thus established between the various
single tribes (e.g. Nu 18^ Dt 3*), even when one of
them is separated oft" (Dt 10* 18»-') ; (3) membership
of other groups lying between the family and the
nation, i.e. clans and single tribes (see Dt 18',
where the Levite's ' brethren ' are his fellow-
Levites) ; (4) metaphorical applications which are
too general and too various for exact delimitation.
The OT and NT alike use only one word for
' brethren ' (cnx and dSe\(poi respectively), and trust
to its flexibility to express every needed shade of
meaning. aS€\(p6s is of great frequency (about 40
times in Mt. and still oftener in Acts). In the
Gospels the literal use predominates ; in the Acts
and Epistles various metaphorical uses. The literal
use is especially clear in Mt 10^^ 12« 13^ 22®, but
Mt. tends more than anv other Gospel to a
metaphorical sense ; cf. 5- ^ **• " 12«-** 18" 23® 25*>
28^*, to which only Lk 8" 17* provide even a partial
parallel. The 'brother' intended is especially
160 BKETHREN OF THE LORD
BROTHERLY LOVE
one's fellow-Ciiristian, and Mt. in this way leads
over from the Gospels to the rest of the Nl , much
of which is, however, chronologically earlier.
d5f\</)6j in the purely family sense (see (1) above)
occurs in Ac 12*, Gal 1^*, 1 Co 9*, and perhaps 2 Co
818 i2»8 (A. Souter in ExpT xviii. [1906-07] 285).
In its second sense it occurs in Ro 9^ (cf. Ac 22'-'
23'- *• ", where St. Paul is addressing Jews). Usually,
however, ' the brethren ' (cf. ddeXtporrii, ' the brother-
hood ' [1 P 2'^ 5*]) means the Christian community
(e.g. Ac 1'"), and this is much more definitely
marked off from non-Christians than in Mt. (ct.
1 Co 5" 6' 7"; the whole spirit of Gal., especially
the privileged ' liousehold of the faith,' 6^" ; and
the alienation from ' the world' in Jn. and 1 Jn.).
d5eX0o9 was common at this time in the Greek
East as meaning ' member of a community ' (see
Deissmann, Bible Studies, Eng. tr., 1901, p. 82f.,
Light from the Ancient East'^, do., 1911, p. 107),
but it would be a mistake to minimize on that
account its fervent tone in the NT, or its import-
ance as suggesting a fulfilment of such words of
Jesus as Jn 13^' concerning mutual love. This
love is a command (Jn 13^^), a fundamental thing
taught directly by God (1 Th 4'), a test of living or
not living in God (1 Jn 3" 4i2). Denney in HDB
(art. ' Brotherly Love ') points out that it found
expression in two special ways — hospitality and
care for persecuted Christians. The word ' bre-
thren ' is continually used in exhortation and
appeal, sometimes strengthened by ayairrp-oL (' be-
loved'), as in 1 Co 15*"*; or Kai iwnrbdtjroi. ('and
longed for ') may further be added (Ph 4^). Again,
brethren are called 7rt(rTo's (' faithful ' or ' believing '),
as Col 12 4», or iiyios ('holy'), as Col 1^, He 3^.
Freqiiently 'brother' has a patlietic tone (1 Co
8", Philem '• ^^- -", 2 Th 3^', Ja 2^^). It is often a
humble or a humbling word (Gal 3^5 gi, Ph S^^, 1 Th
5-^, 2 Th 31). In Ac 9^^ 22}', 1 Co 16^2 (see Com-
mentaries) it breathes a line magnanimity. Gal
6'* is noteworthy in that this most fiery of St.
Paul's letters is the only one which has ' brothers '
as its closing note. C. H. Watkins.
BRETHREN OF THE LORD.— See James, Ep. of.
BRIDE, BRIDEGROOM.— See artt. Family and
Marriage.
BRIMSTONE.— Brimstone {ddov),* or sulphur,
is scientifically one of the most important of the
non-metallic elements, widely distributed in the
mineral world, sometimes pure, and sometimes
chemically combined with otner elements, forming
sulphates and sulphides. It is found in greatest
abundance in volcanic regions, and is extensively
employed in arts and manufactures. Most of what
is used in modern Europe is obtained from Sicily,
which finds therein one of the sources of its wealth.
The ancients used brimstone for ordinary fumi-
gations and especially for religious purifications.
'Bring hither Are, and hither sulphur bring
To purge the palace '
(Homer, Od. xxii. 481 1.).
In the Grseco-Roman period the hot sulphur springs
of Palestine, on both sides of the Dead Sea, at
Tiberias, and in the valley of the Yarmuk, were
used medicinally. At the direction of his physicians,
Herod the Great ' went beyond the river Jordan,
and bathed himself in the warm baths that were
at Callirrhoij, which, besides their other general
virtues, were also fit to drink ' (Jos. Ant. XVII. vi. 5).
But the biblical meaning, which is invariably
* 6tlov is a word of uncertain etj'mology. It may be the neut.
of Btioi and mean Divine incense, from the supposed purifying
and conta^fion-preventing virtue of burning sulphur ; but
Curtius allies it with 0voi and fumtis. Brimstone is the O.K.
* brenston ' and Scot. ' bruntstane.'
determined by Gn 19^^ reflects the ideas of a pre-
scientific age, in which the commercial value and
domestic utility of brimstone were unsuspected,
while electric currents and their sulphurous fumes
were regarded as indications of the wrath of
heaven. ' Fire and brimstone and a burning wind '
(Ps 11'), 'an overflowing shower, and great hail-
stones, fire, and brimstone' (Ezk 38-**), were not
the mere symbols, but the actual media of Divine
judgment. The association of lightning and
brimstone was Avide-spread and persistent, the
ozonic odour which accompanies electric discharges
being ascribed to the presence of sulphur. ' Ful-
mina, fulguraq^uoque,' says Pliny, ' sulf uris odorem
habent, ac lux ipsa eorum sulf urea est' (HN xxxv.
1. [15]). 'Sulfur aethereum' (Lucan, vii, 160) and
'sulfur sacrum' (Pers. ii. 25) are synonyms for
liglitning, and Shakespeare's 'stones of sulphur'
are thunderbolts.
The prophetic writer of Revelation naturally
retains the old picturesque language with its dread
suggestion. His armies of angelic horsemen have
breastplates of fire and of hyacinth and of brim-
stone— red and blue and yellow — and their breath
is lire and smoke and brimstone (9"). The worship-
pers of the Beast and his image are to be tormented
with fire and brimstone in the presence of the
angels and the Lamb (14"). And the destruction
of the wicked in the end of the age will be a
magnified repetition of the overthrow of the cities
of the Ghor — the godless multitude are to be cast
into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone,
which is the second death (2'8 ; cf. 19-'" 20'°).
James Strahan.
BROTHER.— See Family.
BROTHERHOOD.— See Brethren, Fellow-
ship.
BROTHERLY LOYE.— 1. Meaning of the words
and usage. — The word <pi\ade\(pia occurs in the NT
in Ro 12">, 1 Th 4^, He 13', 1 P P-, 2 P V. The
AV renders it in the first three passages ' brotherly
love,' in the fourth 'love of the brethren,' in the
last ' brotherly kindness ' (in order to mark a quali-
tative as well as a quantitative distinction between
<pi\aSe\<f)la and the following Aydin]). The RV has
in all passages ' love of the brethren,' which i;^ more
correct, since in the Greek word the second part
takes the place of an objective, not a subjective,
genitive. The adjective ^iXdJeX^oj is found in
1 P 3*. The original meaning of the word is the
literal one of love for brothers (and sisters) by
blood -relationship (cf. Xen. Mem. II. iii. 17, ' loving
one like a brother* ; Jos. Ant. IV. ii. 4, where the
word is used of Moses and Aaron ; Lucian, Dial.
Dcor. xxvi. 2, where it is used of Castor and Pollux).
In the NT it has only the metaphorical sense of
love towards the fellow-members of the Church — a
usage which already occurs in earlier Jewish wTit-
ings (cf. 2 Mac IS'*, the love of Israelite towards
Israelite). It should be noted that ' the brotiier-
liood '(IP 2") to which this love applies is nowhere
in the NT humanity as such. 'Brethren' is not
the correlate of tiie universal Fatherhood of God,
but of that specific paternal relation which God
sustains to believers (cf. Mt 23^*). The NT concep-
tion has its root in the redemptive experience of
Israel (Zee 11'*, Mai 2'") and of the Apostolic
Church. It obtains its significance for universal-
ism througli the missionary extension of this, not
through philosophical abstraction from all positive
differences as is the case with the Hellenic idea of
cosmopolitanism. Even where the duty of love for
all men is based on kinship by nature, this is traced
bac^k to creation in the image of God (Ja 3*). In
1 Th 3"* love towards the fellow-members of the
Church and towards all is explicitly distinguished,
BROTHERLY LOVE
BROTHERLY LOVE
161
but it is uncertain whether 'all' here means all
Christians or all men. In 2 P T ' love' appears as
something supplementary to ' brotherly love' ; the
context here requires the reference ot this ' love '
to man; the distinction between ^nXadeXipia and
d7<ixT7 most therefore lie in the range of extent ;
at the same time the difierence in the word used
suggests the deeper and more intimate character of
brotherly love (cf. tpiXely in Jn 5-^ 16-"). In Gal 6'*
a distinction is made between the working of good
toward ' all men ' and toward ' them that are of the
liousehold of the faith.'
2. The primacy of love in Christianity. — The dis-
tinctiveness of Christianity lies not so much in the
theoretical discovery or proclamation of the prin-
ciple of love, either as constitutive in the Divine
character or as reguhitive for human conduct, but
rather in the proiluction of forces and motives
which give to the principle a new concrete reality
in the life of men (cf. ilk 12», Lk 1(F, iJn 2^ 3*).
Still, even as a subject of teaching, love occupies a
prominent place in the apostolic writings. It ap-
j)ears not merely as one important factor among
others in the Christian life, but as its chief ?nd
most characteristic ingredient, greater even tLan
faith and hope (1 Co V6^). The Pastoral Epistles
utter a warning against the absorption of the re-
ligious interest by the false gnosis and its asceti-
cism or impure love to the detriment of true Chris-
tian love ( 1 Ti 1' 5«, 2 Ti -I---^ 3^-^ "). The primacy
of love also finds expression in such passages as
Ro I3*-i», Eph 1*, Ja 2«, Rev 2».
3. Love for God. — The love thus made prominent
is, before all else, love towards (lod. Ritschl's view,
that the NT writers, especially St. Paul, conceive
of love towards God as something difScnlt of attain-
ment, and therefore hesitate to speak of it, except
in the quotation which underlies Ro 8^, 1 Co 2* 8*,
.Ja V- 2^, is not borne out by the facts. Against it
speaks 2 Th 2*. Conceptions like ' living unto God '
(Ro 6»o- ", Gal 2'9), 'pleasing God' (Ro 8«, Gal l''«,
1 Th 4'), 'offering sacrifice to God ' (Ro 12' IS'^, Ph
4'^ He 13'5. 1 P 2*). ' serving God ' (Ro !» 7* 16»s,
1 Th P, 2 Ti 13, He 9^*), aU imply that the Chris-
tian's religious life is inspired by an aflection
directly terminating upon God (cf. also 1 Co 14-,
Rev 2^"- ^). It is unwarranted, where the concep-
tion of love occurs without further specification of
the object, to think exclusively of the fraternal
attection among Christians mutually. In many
cases the writers may have had in mind primarily
the love for God. The very fact that Christian
love must be exercised in imitation of Christ favours
this primary God-ward reference (Eph S""*). Nor is
it correct to say that the only mode of expressing
love to God lies in the service of men. 1 Jn 4^^ is
often quoted in proof of this, but the passage in
the context means no more than that the invisibility
of God exposes man in his feeling of love for Him to
the danger of self-deception, which can be guarded
against by testing oneself in regard to the actual
experience of love for the brethren. Hence in 5"'
the opposite principle is also affirmed, viz. that the
assurance of the genuineness of one's love for the
brethren is obtainable from the exercise of love
and obedience towards God. Only in so far as the
love of God assumes the form of concrete deeds
of helpfulness, it cannot serve God except in the
brethren.
4. Interdependence of the love for God and love
for the brethren.— The love for God and the love
for the brethren are not, according to the apostolic
teaching, two independent facts. In examining
their relation, it should be remembered that the
love for God and the love for Christ are to the NT
practically interchangeable conceptions, Christ no
less than God being the source and recipient of
religiotis devotion (Eph 3^'). This may be most
VOL. I. — II
strikingly illustrated by a comparison of the Gospel
and the h irst Epistle of John : in the latter, love is
derived from and attached to God precisely after
the same manner as in the Gospel it is derived from
and attached to Christ. The close union of love
for God (and Christ) and love for the brethren can
be traced both objectively and subjectively. 06-
jeetively it may be followed along these lines : the
Divine purpose and the redemptive process do not
contemplate the production of love for Grod in iso-
lated individuals, but in the Church as the organic
community of believers. It is through the conjoined
love for God and the brethren that the Church is
and works as an organism (1 Co 12, Eph 3"),
' rooted and grounded in love ' (Eph 3", cf . Col 3'*
' the bond of perfectness ') ; hence the same term,
Koij'w»'ta,'commvmion,'i3usedfor the fellowship with
God Mid Christ and the fellowship with the breth-
ren (1 Co 1«, 2 Co 6'* 8*, Ph 1' 3»», 1 Jn 1>- ••') ; the
act which produces love for Gkxi simultaneously
produces love for the brethren, and the same Spirit
which underlies and inspires the former likewise
underlies and inspires the latter (Ro IS**, 2 Co 6*,
Gal 5« Eph 1* 6^, Col 1«, 1 Th 3'-4», 1 Jn 3'*) ; the
inseparableness of the two also finds expression in
the figure of the family or household of God (Gal 6",
Eph 2"*, 1 Jn 1^ 2^ 5^ [where, however, ' him that is
begotten ' may refer to Christ and not to the fellow-
believer]). Subjectively the interdependence of love
for God and love for the brethren presents itself as
follows : through the recognition of the inclusive-
ness of the love of God the experience of the same
acts as a motive-power for the Christian to include
those whom God loves in his own love Ekewise;
the Christian also recognizes that he is not merely
the object of the Divine love, but also the instru-
ment of its manifestation to others ; he serves man
in the service of God (Ro 6", 1 Co 7^, 2 Co 8*, Ph
2'^, 2 Ti 4*) ; the love of God and Christ shown him
becomes to the believer an example of love to the
brethren (Ro U^, 1 Co 8", 2 Co S^ >, Eph 4» 5-, Ph
2**-, 1 Jn 4") ; the idea of a close union between
the two also underlies the formula ' faith energiz-
ing through love ' (Gal 5*). Here faith as the right
attitude towards God as Redeemer begets love for
Him, which in turn becomes the active principle of
service to others (cf. v.^'). Because the love for
others is thus founded on, and regulated by, the
love for God, it not only does not require but for-
bids fellowship with such as are in open opposition
to God and Christ (1 Jn 2» 5'«, 2 Jn '*, Rev 2^ «).
5. The origin of brotherly Ioyc. — Religious love
in general is a supernatural product. It originates
not spontaneously from a sinful soU, but in response
to the sovereign love of God. and that under the
influence of the Spirit (Ro S*-® 8®, 1 Co 8» [where
' is known of him ' = ' has become the object of his
love']. Gal 4' [where 'to be known by Gk)d' has
the same pregnant sense], 1 Jn 4''*' "). Love for
the brethren specifically is also a product of re-
generation (1 P 1--^; cf. 1"-'). Especially in St.
Paul, the origin of brotherly love is connected with
the supernatural experience of dying with Christ,
in which the sinful love of self is destroyed, and
love for God, Christ, and the brethren produced in
its place (Ro 6><«- 7* 8i-», 2 Co 5»^i«, Gal 2^- »).
Accordingly, love for the brethren appears among
other \-irtues and graces as a fruit of the Spirit, a
charisma (Ro If^, 1 Co 13, Gal 5** 6»-"). Although
this is not explicitly stated in Acts, there is no
doubt that St. Luke (if not the early disciples
themselves) derived the manifestation of love in
the Mother-church from the influence of the Spirit.
6. The essence of brotherly loYe.— A psycho-
logical definition of brotherly love is nowhere given
in the apostolic ^vritings, but certain notes and
characteristics are prominently brought out.
These are : {\) On the positive side. — (a) Personal
162
BROTHERLY LOVE
BUILDING
attachment and devotion. The fornml;e for this
are ' to give oneself,' ' to owe oneself,' ' to seek the
person' (2 Co 8* 12'*, Philem i"). There is among
the brethren an inner harmony of willing (Ac 4^-).
As such an inward thing true love goes beyond all
concrete acts of helpfulness : it means more even
than feeding the poor or giving one's body to be
burnt (1 Co 13') ; it involves an absolute identifica-
tion in life-experience, which goes to the extent of
bearing the burden of sorrow for the sins and
the weaknesses of others (Ko 15S 1 Co 2*, 2 Co 7^
Gal 6^*). — (b) An energetic assertion of the will to
love. Love does not consist in mere sentiment ; it
is subject to the imperative of duty. St. Paul
speaks of it as a matter of pursuit and zealous
endeavour (1 Co 14^) ; it involves strenuous labour
<1 Th P [where ' the labour of love' is not the
labour performed by love, but the labour ii^volved
in loving]). Hence also its voluntariness is emphas-
ized (2 Co 9'), and the continuance of its obligation
insisted upon (Ro 13*). — (c) Concrete helpfulness to
others. '1 he NT throughout preaches the necessity
for love to issue into practical furtherance of the
interests of others. This is emphatically true even
of St. Paul, notwithstanding his insistence on faitli
as the sole ground of salvation. The Apostle,
because governed by the principle of the glory of
God as subserved by the love of God, requires the
work as essential to the completeness of love.
' Good works ' is a standing formula in the Pastoral
Epistles (1 Ti 21" S^"- ^&», 2 Ti 2" 3", Tit P« 2'- "
31- 8) ; but it also appears in Ac 93«, Ro 13' 14«, 1 Co
620 10", 2 Co 9», Eph 2'", Col P", He \QP\ 1 P 2'2,
Rev 22- '»• 28- 2« 32- 8. 15 14^3 20'^ 22^2, Hence the
reference to the ' members' as organs of the service
of God (R<? 6" 121). Tiie test of love lies in its
helpfulness (Ro 14, 1 Co 8). Love 'edifies,' i.e.
builds up, the fellow-Christian (1 Co 8'). It contri-
butes, however, not exclusively, nor even primarily,
to the material or intellectual, but to the spiritual
benelit of others (1 Co 8^). The NT avoids the
errors both of the Jewish and of the Hellenic prac-
tice of ethics. In Judaism the external acts had
become too much detached from the personal spirit
of devotion. In Hellenism the interest was too
much turned inward and absorbed by a self-centred
cultivation of virtue as such. Because all conduct
is thus determined by the supreme principle of love
as helpfulness, all casuistry is excluded and ethical
jjroblems are all reduced to the one question : what
will benefit my brother ? This absence of all casu-
istic treatment of ethical questions is characteristic
of St. James as well as of St. Paul.
(2) On the negative side. — The negation of self.
Love for the brethren originates only through the
death of the sinful love of self. Those who die this
death no longer live to themselves (2 Co 5^', Gal 2'*
6", Ph 2*- 21) ; love is the opposite of all self-pleas-
ing and self-seeking (Ro \b^«-, 2 Co 2^-^ Gal l'»,
1 Th 2», Eph 6», Ph P«ff-, Col 322). It excludes
every selfish cult of individuality (Ro 12^7 ]4i« 152),
all vain-glorying and excessive self-consciousness
(Ro 327 123, 1 Co 129 321 47, Ph 23, 1 Th 2«), all envious
comparison of self with others (Ro 12^, Gal 4"), all
personal anger or resentment (2 Co 2' 122", Gal 5-'",
Eph 42«- " 6^ Ph 1", Col 3«, 1 Ti 2^) ; it is not,
however, inconsistent with wrath for the sake of
Christ and God (2 Co 2^ Gal 1^, 1 Th 4"-i«, Rev 2-
16. 19 gio. 16 1410)^ ^yjth a strong sense of the indepen-
<lence of men in the service of God (1 Co 9'- 1*, Gal 2*
51), with the right to glory in the distinction which
God's grace has conferred (1 Co 1*' 4*, 2 Co 1" 7"
10M1"12», Gal6'*, Ph2i8).
7. Forms of manifestation of brotherly love.—
As such the following are conspicuously monticmed.
(1) The external expression of the inward unity of
love in the form of common meals, the ayd-n-ai ( Ac
2<«, 1 Co ll"-3<, 2 P 2", Jude ^2). (O) The Koivo,Aa
of benevolence through the altruistic use of private
means (Ac 4*^ Ro 12-" 152«, 2 Co 82-5 9" 12'*- '», Gal
2'" 6'o, He e'o 13'«). This Koivuvla was not, however,
in the early Church a ' community of goods ' in the
modern sense (cf. Ac 4**- ^' with 5*). In the case of
enemies, benevolence becomes the only form in which
love can express itself (Ro 122", Gal 6'"). (3) The
missionary extension of the blessings of salvation to
others. The duty of missions is distinctly put on
the basis of love. Primarily this means love for
God and Christ (Ro P, 1 Co 9", 2 Co 412 5*) ; but
secondarily it signifies also love towards men (Ro 1* ;
cf. 13" and Eph 5*, 1 Jn P'*). It is characteristic
of apostolic missions that they are not related to
the individual but to the organism of the Church,
and conceived not as an unconscious influence, nor
as a secret propaganda (like the Jewish mission),
but as an open proclamation and a deliberate
pursuit. In the last analysis this is due to the
consciousness that the Church as an organism is
the instrument through which God and Christ
bring their love to bear upon the world.
LiTERATiTRE.— A. Hamack, The Mission and Expansion of
Chrigtianitp in the First Three Centuries, Eng. tr.-, 19i)8, i.
147-198 ; W. Liitgert, Die Liebeim Xeuen Testament, Leipzig,
1905 ; E. Sartorius, The Doctrine of Divine Love, Enjj. tr.,
1884 ; B. Wilberforce, Sanctijication hy the Truth, 1906,
p-180- Geerhardus Vo.s.
BUFFET.— The word 'bufTet' is used in AV as
the translation of KoXatplli'w (lit. ' to give one blows
with the lists, or slaps on the ear'), which means
'to treat with violence and contempt.' The verb
is found only in the NT and later ecclesiastical
writers, and is probably colloquial. In the ex-
hortation to slaves in 1 P 22^ it is used to describe
the rough usage to which such persons were sub-
jected by heathen masters as a punishment for
their offences. The fact that it is so used, is prob-
ably the reason wiiy it is preferred to other terms
of similar import in 1 Co 4" ('we are butleted'),
where it is vividly descriptive of the ill usage
which St. Paul constantly experienced in pursuit
of his apostolic mission, especially when contrasted
with the happier fortune of his Corinthian converts
(' ye reigned as kings '). 1 Co 92^ RV gives ' bufiet '
as the rendering also of iTrwTrtdfw (from vt6 and
wi/', ' to hit under the eye,' and then ' to beat black
and blue'), a word admirably fitted to express the
hardships and sufferings endured by St. Paul in
the course of his ministry, and patiently sub-
mitted to as a salutary means of spiritual disci-
pline. The fact that the Apostle speaks of him-
self as the a^ent in producing the discipline ('I
buffet my body') need not be taken as evidence
that ascetic practices, or bodily mortifications, are
intended. He regarded his body as an antagonist
to be subdued by the Milling acceptance of adverse
circumstances fitted to promote his personal sancti-
lication. W. S. MONTGOMERY.
BUILDING.— The usual NT word is oIko5oh^=
olKoddfiTja-Ls, a building in course of construction, as
distinguished from oiKoS6ny)iJ.a, a finished structure.
1. 1 Co 3*. — 'Ye are God's husbandry (RVm
' tilled land '), God's building.' Without pressing
the change of metaphor, it is, however, to be noted,
as indicating the intensity of the Apostle's thought,
how his mind grasps first one method of increase
and then another. The Kingdom grows like the
organic development in the vegetable world, where
outside substances are incorporated and assimilated
into the organism itself. Or it grows as a build-
ing from the foundation ; stone is laid upon stone,
according to a preconceived plan, till the whole
is complete. Under his metaphor St. Paul de-
scribes the Church as God's, and the leaders of the
Church as His instruments ('the saints build up
the fabric'). In this light the factions of Corinth
BUILDING
EUSmESS
163
are manifested. They have not jn'asped the
Divine idea of the Church, and therefore they
are rebuked : ' I could not sj)eak unto you as unto
spiritual but as unto carnal ' (3'). With a tender
smile of blame he calls them 'babes in Christ,'
who have not grown into the height and freedom
of their calling as God's fellow-workers (<nvepyol).
Kindled with his metaphor, the Apostle rises to
the thought of the gradusil upbuilding of the
Church (by transformation and accretion) through
the ages, by many builders, and with varied
material, but all on the once-laid foundation, to
the glory not of the builders, but of the hand that
guided and the heart that planned (cf. Longfellow's
poem The Builders, andO. W. Holmes, The Living
Temple and The Chambered AatttUus).
2. 2 Co y. — ' We know ... we have a building
(oixodofi-qv) from (iod, a house not made with hands,
€temal, in the heavens.' The punctuation in AV
is wrong, and the sense of RV would be more ex-
plicit if it read ' We have in the heavens a build-
ing from God, an house not made with hands,
■eternal ' (so Alford, de Wette, Meyer, and most
Modems). The house to which St. Paul looks
forward is not heaven itself, though it is in the
heavens, and comes from God as His gift. The
Ajwstle is here moving among the conceptions of
what he calls 'the spiritual body'(l Co IS''*^),
adumbrating in his paradox thoughts which are
really unspeakable. Cf. also Ph 3'^ ' the body of
our humiliation . . . the body of his glory.'
3. Eph 2^. — 'Each several building (irda^a olKoSofi-f])
fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple'
(RVm 'sanctuary'). AV has 'all the building,'
and the difference ought to be carefully noted in
point both of grammar and of thought. The
weight of the best MSS favours the omission of
the article, and Meyer translates accordingly
' every building.' Moule [Ephesians [in Cambridge
Bibleyor Schools, 1886]) and EUicott (Com. in loc.)
contend that the article is implicit ; the latter
calls its omission ' a grammatical laxity,' and the
former is of opinion that the law of the article is
in some respects less precise in the NT than in the
classics. This does not appear to be made out,
and it is safer to abide by the established usage
than to allow an ad sensum interpretation (which
really assumes the point in dispute). Westcott
{Ephesians, 1906) prefers to abide by the classical
use (cf. ExpT xviii. [1906-07] 2 for a note on the
similar expression in Eph 3"). xas without the
article = ' a various whole,' and this is the Apostle's
thought. ' The image is that of an extensive pile
of buildings, such as the ancient temples commonlj-
were, in process of construction at diflerent points
over a wide area' (FindJay, Ephesians {Expositor's
Bible, 1892], 146). Uniformity is not necessary
to unity. The true catholicity is found in Jesus
Christ Himself, the chief comer-stone, and not in
external uniformity. The reading adopted in RV
may be claimed as an incidental testimony to the
early date of the Epistle. In point of fact, in the
2nd cent, the desire for forni^ unity would have
rendered impossible the text ' each several build-
ing.' 'The Church swallowed up the churches'
(Findlay). But here in the Apostolic Age, with
the variety of circumstance, attainment, and social
aspect in the churches, the essential idea of unity
is nevertheless preserved, for ' each several build-
ing ' is destined to be 'fitly framed together.'
Each serves to make up the ideal temple of GJod,
which is being built for ever. Each is a true part
of that mystical body of Christ, the habitation of
God through the Spirit.
4. He y^^. — ' But Christ being come an high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and
more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands,
that is to say, not of this building ' ( AV) ; better
RV ' but Christ having come a high priest of the
good things that are come (RVm), through the
greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made
with hands, that is to say, not of this creation (ou
TouTiji TTji KTifffoK).' Thc tabemacle is immaterial
and spiritual as contrasted with the heaven and
the earth. F, Field (Notes on the Translation of
the XT [ = Otium Xorvieense, iii.], Cambridge, 1899,
p. 142 ; ;! Farrar, Hebrews [in Cambridge Bible for
Schools, 1883], p. 139 f.) would translate 'not of
ordinary construction.' ' Human skill had nothing
to do with its structure, for man's work finds its
expression in the visible order of earth, to which
this does not belong' (Westcott, Hebrews, 1889,
p, 258). For the diflerent meanings assigned to
' tabemacle ' and their bearing on the true
humanity of otir Lord, see Taberxacle.
5. RcY 21". — 'The building (eVSo/tTjffu) of the
wall thereof was jasper.' The word is passive and
denotes the structure, what was built in. Cf. ' I
will make thy battlements jasper ' (Is 54^ [LXX]).
Some clear stone is intended, and not our modem
jasper, which is generally red or brown.
W. M. Grant.
BUSINESS-— The word occurs in the AV in
Ac 6* (xpeia), Ro 12" (rrovSi^, ' diligence,' RV) 16»
(rpay^M, ' matter,' RV), and 1 Th 4" (rd tdia). The
last named passage, ' Study to be quiet, and to do
your own business,' implies that every Christian is
expected to have an occupation. Christianity in-
troduced a new ideal in this respect. Greek ethics
regarded only certain occupations as being fit for
those leading the highest life, and from these com-
mercial acti^^ty was excluded (Plat. Hep. 495 C).
Jewish teaching improved on this bv requiring
that every boy should learn a trade (Sdiiirer, HJP
II. i. 318), But even under this rule some trades
were condemned, e.g. those of tanner, butcher,
miner, goldsmith, and even the physician's calling
(F. Delitzsch, Jevcish Artisan Life in the Time of
Christ, 1902, p. 56). Fishermen, on the other
hand, were esteemed as being generally pious — an
interesting fact in the light of our Lord's choice of
some of them to be His apostles. The notion
that some trades were necessarily degraded was
abolished by Christianity, and St. Peter did not
hesitate *to lodge in the house of a tanner (Ac 9**).
In the conduct of their business Christians are
required to set an example to the world. They
are to be honest (1 Th 4^), to owe no man anything
(Ro 13*), to avoid covetousness which leads to dis-
lionesty (He 13*), and to refuse to go into partner-
ship with extortioners (1 Co 5"). Business disputes
between Christians are not to be carried before
heathen tribunals (1 Co 6*^). The actual giving
up of rights may sometimes be demanded by faith-
fulness to the gospel. It is evident that, at any
rate in Corinth, converts found it ditficult at first
in ordinary business dealings to rise to the new
standard. Somewhat later arose another danger,
which is stUl familiar, that men should use religion
in order to improve their business prospects ( 1 Ti
6'). This ine%'itably led to a low commercial
morality, such as that to which Hennas confesses
(Mand.'w..). Even as a Christian he had been for
some years accustomed to regard lying in business
transactions as quite permissible.
While the first Christians looked upon all honest
occupations as honourable, they refused to see any-
thing sacred in the vested interests of trades
which only exist by wronging others. At Philippi
St. Paul put an end to the exploitarion of the girl
with second sight (Ac 16**^), and at Ephesus showed
no tenderness for the profits of idolatrous silver-
smiths (19^-*'). It is evident that persecution was
often instigated by pagans whose btisiness had
been thus affected' by the new faith. St. Paul
experienced this in the two instances menuoned.
164 CiESAE, CiESAR'S HOUSEHOLD
CiESAR, CiESAR'S HOUSEHOLD
and Pliny's letter to Trajan testifies that there
was niucli feeling against Christians amongst those
-vvho sold fodder for the victims iised in heathen
sacrifices.
LiTKRATURK. — UeHidcs CoHiinentarieB on the texts uieiitioned,
see E. von Dobscbiitz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church,
Kiiff. tr., London and N.Y., 1904, passim; W. M. Ramsay,
The Church in the Roman Empire, London, 1893, p. l!)9f.
C. T. UlMO.NT.
c
CiESAR, CiESAR'S HOUSEHOLD.— In origin
the name ' Ctusar,' which has had such a wonder-
ful history, culminating in the German A'atscr and
the Russian Tsar, was simply a cognomen (or sur-
name), indicating one branch of the gens Julia, one
of the old patrician families of Rome, which was
said to have been descended from ^Eneas of Troy
and Venus, through their son lulus (Ascanius).
The earliest known member of the family is Sex.
lulius Ciesar, praetor in 208 B.C. ; the greatest is
of course C. lulius Csesar, the dictator (lived from
about 100 to 44 B.C.). The name was kept by all
the early Emperors except Vitellius (and even he
used it sometimes), in spite of the fact that after
Nero no Emperor had a drop of Caesarian blood in
his veins. The complete official names of the
Emperors who reigned during the hundred years
following the birth of Christ are Imperator Caesar
Augustus (see Augustus), Tiberius Caesar Augus-
tus (see Tiberius), Gains Caesar Germanicus
(nicknamed Caligula [q.v.]) (A.D. 37-41), Tiberius
Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (see Claud-
ius), Imperator Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus
Germanicus (see Nero), Imperator Servius Sul-
picius Galba Caesar Augustus (9 June 68-15 Jan.
69) (see Galea), Imperator Marcus Otho Ciesar
Augustus (15 Jan.-25 Apr. 69) (see Otho), Impera-
tor Aulus Vitellius Caesar or Aulus Vitellius
Imperator Germanicus (2 Jan. 69-20[?] Dec. 70)
(see Vitellius), Imperator Vespasianus Caesar
Augustus (69-79) (see Vespasian), Imperator Titus
Vespasianus Caesar Augustus (71-81) (see TiTUS),
Imperator Domitianus Caesar Augustus (81-96)
(see DoMiTlAN), Imperator Nerva Augustus Caesar
(96-98) (see Nerva), Imperator Cajsar Nerva
Traianus Augustus (97-117) (see Trajan). This
enumeration shows how fixed the name Caesar had
become as part of ^the Emperor's name, quite irre-
spective of relationship. It will also explain how
in all the places of tlie NT but two the name
' Caesar ' alone (with or without the article) is
familiarly used, as equivalent simply to ' the
Emperor.' In the Gospels the reference is to Tib-
erius (cf. Mk 12'*"" and parallels), in Acts and
Philippians (4^) to Nero. Where the historian
seeks to date an event, he is naturally more precise
(Caesar Augustus, Lk 2', Tiberius Caesar, Lk 3').
There are two aspects in which the Caesar
appears in the Gospels. In the section Mk 12'^""
it IS the question of giving tribute to Caesar that
comes up. The inhabitants of Juda?a, a Roman
Imperial province, governed by one of the Emperor's
agents, called a procurator, were by law bound to
pay tax to the Emperor. The term used, /c^vcros, is
the Latin word census, which means ' census ' in our
sense, but much more. The census paper was in
tlie Roman Empire also an income- and property-
tax return, on the basis of which the assessment
of tax was made by the Imperial officials. Hence
the word in the Gospels might almost be translated
'income-tax.' Luke alters his original to the
good Greek word <f>6pos (Lat. tributum, war-tax ; cf.
Lk 23"). The second aspect in which the Cajsar
appears in the Gospels is that of the Messiah's
rival to lordship over the chosen people. Jesus is
cliarged with ' saying that he is au anointed king '
(Lk 23' ; cf. Jn 19""", Ac 17'), for so we ought to
translate it. When Pilate asks Him if He is the
King of the Jews, He casts the word back to him,
' You say it, the word is yours' (Burkitt, Evan-
gelion da-Mepharreshe, 1904, ii. 58). Throughout
the Apostolic Age and later, the Christians con-
tinue to use of their King in the spiritual .sense
the very same epithets as the pagans use of the
Emperor. This fact must have accentuated the
hostility of the Empire to the Church.
In Ac 25 and following, the Caesar is appealed to
by St. Paul, after his unjust arrest at Jerusalem.
The right of appeal (provocatio) was one of the
]>ulwarks of the original republican constitution.
By it a citizen could appeal to his fellow-citizens
in assembly against any injustice on the part of a
magistrate. The plebeians were later also protected
by their special officials, the ti-ibuni plebis. By the
Imperial constitution the Emperor possessed tri-
bunicia potestas (see AUGUSTUS). Any aggrieved
citizen could thus api)eal to him, and the Emperor
could quash the verdict of a lower court, and sub-
stitute his own verdict. The Emperor had also
the ius gladii, the right of life and death, and this
he could delegate to subordinates. St. Paul's ex-
periences before purely Roman tribunals had been
on the whole so satisfactory that he decided to
risk appeal to the highest tribunal of all, knowing
how valuable for the success of his mission a fav-
ourable verdict would be. His appeal was received
by Festus, and he proceeded to Rome. Hartmann
(see below under Literature) does not consider that
St. Paul's appeal was an appeal in the proper sense
of the term, but it seems better to follow Ramsay,
especially as Luke's language is quite plain. In
the silence of historj^ scholars are divided as to
the result of the Apostles appeal. Some consider
that the conclusion of Acts (q.v. ) means that it was
unsuccessful, and that he was condemned and
beheaded. 'Those who accept the genuineness of
the Pastoral Epistles believe that he was acquitted
and released.
Caesar's household.— St. Paul, writing from
Rome to the Philippian Church in A.D. 60 or 61,
sends greetings from all the Christians in Rome,
but ' especially ' from ' them that are of Caesar's
household' (Ph 4-^). The date shows that the
' Caesar ' is Nero, and the word oMa, translated
' household,' is doubtless a translation of the Latin
familia. The worAfamilia is the later form of the
older famulia, derived horn famulus, a household-
slave, and in Latin carries with it the idea especi-
ally of the collection of slaves and freedmen in a
house. The relations between slaves and masters in
the Roman world were generallygood, the slave being
regarded more as an integral part of the family than
hired servants are in modem times. In the Imper-
ial palace at Rome they can hardly have numbered
fewer than 2000, and an idea of the variety of their
occupations can be got from a study of the list of
nouns joined to a, ab in J. C. Rolfe's art. in the
Archivfur lateinische Lcxikographie, vol. x. [1898]
p. 481 ir. or the Thesaurus Lmguce Latince, vol. i.
[1905] cols. 22 and 23. It is remarkable that the
list of names in Ro 16 coincides almost exactlj'
with names of members of the Imperial household
C^SAEEA
CADHTES
165
recovered in Konian inscriptions, as Lightfoot first
showed at length. The nnmber of examples has
since increased. No epigraphist could doabt that
oh. 16 is an integral part of the Epistle to the
Romans, and that most of the persons there named
were 'of Ca?sar's household.' Our knowledge of
the life of such persons is mainly derived from
Statins (e.g. i>iiiuB v. 1) and Martial.
For Caesar-worship, see Empekoe-Wobship and
RoMAX Empire.
LrreRiTURB.— Official names of Roman Emperors in R-
Cagnat, Court d'ipigraphie latin^, Paris, 1888, p. 177 S. ; on
the tributtcm see A. H. J. Greenidge, Roman Pvblie Life,
London, 1901, p. 429 ff. ; on Casar and the Meariah as rivals cf.
the am. ot P. Wendland in ZSTW r. [190*] Z3&-S63 and H.
A. A- Kennedy in Exporitor, 7th ser. viL [1909] 289-307 ; on
the appeal (proroeatio, appeUatio) see T. Mommsen, Bmn.
Str.i 'rr.-ht, 1699, 8er Abschnitt, p. 463 ff- GttommeUe Sehriften,
iii. [Uc:] 431-446, reprinted from ZSTW iL [1901] 81ff. ; art.
'Appellatio' bv Hartnuum in Paulv-WisBOwa: J. S. R^d in
Joumai of Roinan Studie*, L [1911-12] 68ff. ; W. M. Ramsay,
St. Paul the TratxUer, 1895, p. 311 ff. On Caaar's Household
see the excnrsos in Lightfooit, SpittU to the PMUppiang*, 1S7S,
p. 171. and E. Riggfenbacb, in Jfeue Jahrimeher fur tUut»ehe
Thedogie, L ri88SJ 498 ff.; best collection of inacriptious in
H. Dessau. Im4:r. Lot. Seieetcg, L [Beriin, 1892] ch. vL
A. SOUTER.
C^SAREA {Kaurdpeia or Kaurdpcux. 2«;3o<rr^,
named in honour of Augustus ; known also as
CcBsarea Pal(estineB, and in modem Arabic as el-
j^aimrit/eh : to be distinguished clearly from
CcEsarra Pkilippi). — Cjesarea was situated on
the Mediterranean coast, 32 miles N. of Joppa,
25 S. of Carmel, and 75 N.W. of Jerusalem. It
was once the chief port of Palestine. It was re-
built by Herod the Great on the site of 'Straton's
Tower' (Jos. Ant. XV. ix. 6). The citjr is closely
associated -svith the history of the Apostolic Church,
being especially notable as the place where the
Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Gentiles (Ac
10**). The name occurs in Acts onlj-. Philip the
deacon seems to have resided at Caesarea (8** 21*- **).
St. Paul was sent hence to Tarsus (9**). Cornelius,
a Roman centurion, influenced by a vision to
send to Joppa for St. Peter, here became the first
convert of the Gentiles (W- -* 11"). Here Herod
Agrippa I. died (12'*). Here St. Paul landed on
his way from Ephesus (18-), being later escorted
hither on his return from Jerusalem (23^ **), and
here he was imprisoned for two years, and tried
before Festus (25'- *-^^).
In apostolic times Coesarea was politically the
capital of the province of Judaea, and the residence
of the Roman procurators. Tacitus describes it
as 'the head of Judaea' {Hist. iL 78). Among its
inhabitants there were both Jews and Greeks.
The city was elaborately beautified with temples,
theatres, palaces, arches, and altars. It was es-
pecially famous for its harbour (Jos. Ant. XV.
ix. 6). Aqueducts supplied the inhabitants with
water from Carmel and the Crocodile River. In
the 3rd cent, a.d., it became the seat of a famous
school of theology, in which Origen taught ; also
of the bishopric of Syria, Eusebius being the most
celebrated of those occupying the office. Under
the Arabs it unfortunately lost its former prestige
and rapidly degenerated. At the time of the
Crusades it was rebuilt by Baldwin II. Saladin
took it in 1187. In 1251 it was re-fortified by St.
Louis. Finally, in 1265, it was completely de-
stroyed by the Sultan Bibars, since whose tune it
has remained in ruins.
Little is now left to mark the ancient city.
Porter, writing in 1865, says : ' I saw no man.
The Arab and the shepherd avoid the spot'
{Giant Cities, 235). Thomson also (Land and
Book, i. 72) speaks of it as ' absolutely forsaken.'
Since 1889, however, a few Bosnians have settled
among the ruins and carried on a small trade in
brick. Most of the stones of the ancient city were
used by Ibrahim Pasha in constructing the new-
fortifications at Acre. To the missionary, Caesarea
is one of the most interesting spots on earth, hav-
ing been the cradle of the Gentile Church.
LrrKRATURE.— Josephns, Ant. xtv. iv. 4, xvn. xi. 4, BJ i. xxL
5, n. ix. 1 ; G. A. Smith, UGHL 13Sff., art. 'Casarea' in
EBi, L 617 ; C. R- Conder. art. ' Csesarea ' in MDB, L 337, Tent
Work m Palestine, new ed., 18S7, pp. 107-110 ; Schiirer, HJF,
index, «.r. ; SWP iL [1882], sheet x. ; Baedeker. Palettvte
and Syriai, 1912, p. 237ff. ; A. Nenbaner. 6&)g. du Talmtid,
1868 ; G. Le Strange, PaUttine under the Moriemt, 1890, p.
474 : H. B. Tristram. Bible PUuet, 1897. p. 75 ; J. L. Porter.
The Giant Citiet of Baehan, 1873. p. 2330. ; W. M. Thomson.
The Land and the Book, 1881, L 60ff. ; W. Smith, DB?, art.
'Casarea.- GeORGE L. ROBENSOJf.
CAIAPHAS (Kcud^s). — Caiaphas, or Joseph
Caiaphas, was appointed high priest in A.D. 18 by
Valerius Gratos, and held office till A.D. 36, when
he was removed by Vit«llius (Jos. Ant. xvni. ii.
2, iv. 3). He was son-in-law of Annas (cf. art.
Axx.AS). Like most of the priests at this period,
Caiaphas was a Sadducee in religion. By his
masterly policy of conciliating his Roman masters
he was able to retain his office for an unusually
long period. His craft and subtle diplomacy as
well as his supreme disregard for justice and re-
ligion are revealed in the advice he gave to the
assembled Sanhedrin after Jesns had won the
people by the raising of Lazams — ' It is expedient
that one die for the people' (Jn ll*"). Caiaphas
saw clearly that if a popular movement in favour
of Jesus were aroused, his power and position
under Rome would be at an end, and he sought at
once to give ettect to his own advice. The trial of
Jesus in his presence was a travesty of all legal
procedure, railing to obtain evidence from wit-
nesses, he adjured the prisoner to declare whether
or not He was the Messiah ; and on Jesus declar-
ing He was, the pious hyjjocrite rent his clothes,
shocked at the blasphemy of the answer. Caiaphas
is a type of the wily ecclesiastical opportunist,
who places the success of himself and the institu-
tion he represents before aU claims of truth or
justice. Such a character is always ready to
persecute, and in the Apostolic Church Caiaphas
appears as a bitter persecutor of the apostles (Ac 4*).
He is probably the high priest referred to in Ac
517-21. 27 'J 1 91 ^}jQ imprisoned Peter and John,
presided at the trial of Stephen, caused the perse-
cution recorded in Ac 8, and gave Saul of Tarsns
letters to Damascus to apprehend the Christians
there.
LrrBRATURB.— Josephns, poMtm; Schfirer, GJV* iL [1907] 258,
271 ; an. 'Caiaphas' in HDB (BfOymont) and DCG (C A.
Scott); E. Nestle, 'The Name "Caiaphas,*" in ExpT x.
[189S-99] 185 ; W^. M. Clow, in the Day of the Crete, 1896. p.
9ff. ; J. B. Liglitfoot, Sermons in St. PauP* CaihetbtU, 1801.
p. 75 ; A. MacUren, Christ uithsHsart, 1886, p. 255.
W. F. BOTD.
CAM.— See Abel.
CAINITES. — According to the scanty informa-
tion we possess about the Cainites, they seem to
have formed one of the Gnostic sects which are
classed together under the somewhat inadequate
and perhaps misleading name ' Ophites,' though
the serpent, from which the name ' Ophite' is de-
rived, seems to have played no part in their system.
Our oldest source is to be found in Irenaeus, adv.
Hmr. i. 31. He tells us that the Cainites regarded
Cain as derived from the higher principle. They
claimed fellowship with Esau, Korah, the men of
Sodom, and all such jjeople, and regarded them-
selves as on that account persecuted by the Creator.
But they escaped injury from Him, for Sophia used
to carry away from them to herself that which
belonged to her. They regarded Judas the traitor
as having full cognizance of the truth. He
therefore, rather than the other disciples, was able
to accomplish the mysterj- of the betrayal, and so
bring about the dissoluuon of all things both
166
CAINITES
CALIGULA
celestial and terrestrial. The Cainites possessed a
fictitious work entitled ' Tiie Gospel of Judas,' and
Irenieus says that he had himself collected writ-
ings of theirs, wiiere they atlvocated that the work
of Hystera siiould be dissolved. By Hystera tliey
meant the Maker of Heaven and Earth. They
taught, as did Carpocratea, that salvation could
be attained only by passing through all experience.
Whenever any sin or vile action was performed by
them, they asserted that an angel was present
whom they invoked, claiming that they were ful-
fillin{^ his operation. Perfect knowledge consisted
in going without a tremor into such actions as it is
not lawful even to name. Epinlianius (Hcer. 38)
characteristically gives a much longer account, in
substantial harmony with what IrcniKUS says. He
appears to have had some source of information
independent of Irenseus. He speaks of Abel as de
rived from the weaker principle — a statement whicli
bears the marks of authenticity. He also says that
Judas forced the Arciions, or rulers, against their
will to slay Christ, and thus assisted us to the
salvation of the Cross. Pliiiaster, on the other
hand, assigns the action of Judas to his knowledge
that Christ intended to destroy the truth — a pur-
pose which he frustrated by the betrayal.
The account given by Irenseus is unduly curt and
the text not quite secure, but it is not difficult to
form a general estimate of the sect from it, especi-
ally witli the assistance of our other sources. Like
other Gnostics, tlie Cainites drew a distinction
between the Creator and the Supreme God. Pre-
sumably they identified the Creator with the God
of the Jews. They viewed Him and those whom
He favoured with undisguised hostility ; redemp-
tion had for its end the dissolution or His work.
They claimed kinship with those to whom He
showed antagonism in His book, the Old Testa-
ment, and shared themselves in the same hostility.
Nevertheless He was the weaker power, who could
do them no permanent harm, for Sophia, the
Heavenly Wisdom, drew back to herself those
elements in their nature which they had derived
from her. Presumably, then, they thought of a
division of mankind into two classes — the spiritual
and tlie material, the latter belonging to the realm
of the Creator and deriving their being from Him,
but doomed to dissolution, while the former class
contained the spiritual men, imprisoned, it is true,
in bodies of fiesh, but yet deriving their essential
being from the highest Power, opposed by the
Creator and His minions, but winning the victory
over them as Cain did over Abel. Unfortunately
we cannot be sure what view they took of redemp-
tion. There is no doubt that they applauded the
action of Judas in the betrayal, but our authorities
differ as to the motive which prompted him. The
view that Judas through his more perfect yvHiri.^
penetrated the wish of Jesus more successfully
than the others, and iiccom})lished it by bringing
Him to the Cross througli which He effected
redemption, is intrinsically the more probable.
So far as the moral character and conduct of the
Cainites is concerned, there is no doubt that
Irenieus intended to represent them as shrinking
from no vileness, but rather as deliberately practis-
ing it. Carpocrates, we are told, defended this
practice by a theory of transmigration. It was
necessary to pass through all experiences, and iience
the soul had to pass from l»ody to body till the
whole range of experience had been traversed. If,
however, this could all be crowded into a single
lifetime, then the transmigration became unneces-
sary. We have no ground to suppose that the
Cainites held such a view, but they seem to have
professed the belief that this fullness of experience
was essential to salvation. We have no substantial
justification for. doubting the truth of Irena-us'
account, though accusations of immorality urged
against heretics should alwaj's be received with
caution. G. li. S. Mead (Fragments of a Faith
Forfjutten, 1900, p. 22'J) thinks that originally they
were ascetics, while N. Lardner {History ofHeretinn,
bk. il. cli. xiv. [z= Works, 18'29, viii. 660]) questions
whether a sect guilty of such enormities ever ex-
isted. But there is no valid reason to deny the
generally accepted view that the Gnostic attitude
to matter did lead to quite opposite results. To
some it would seem a duty to crush the flesh V>e-
neath the spirit by the severest austerity, but the
premiss might lead to a liljertine as well as to an
ascetic conclusion : if the spirit alone was import-
ant, the flesh but contemptible and perishable,
what happened to the latter might seem a matter
of complete indiflerence, inasmuch as its degrada-
tion could not stain the white purity of the spirit.
The principle tliat the jeM'el is undimmed though
its casket lie in the mire, or that the Gnostic may
do what he will for he is saved by grace, probably
found quite faithful expression in the attitude of
such Gnostics as Carpocrates and the Cainites.
It is held by several scholars that some of the
Ophite sects date back into the pre-Christian era,
and, if this view is correct, Pfieiderer (Das Unhris-
tentinn?, Berlin, 1902, vol. ii, pp. 52-54, 82, 97 f. =
Primitive Christianity, London, 1910, vol. iii. pp.
72-74, 114, 136 f.) may be right in thinking that
the Cainites whom we know from Irenaius were
the successors of the people who were attacked by
Philo in his de Posteritute Caini. Whether the
reference in Jude" is to the Cainites must be
regarded as very doubtful (see JUDE).
Liter ATURK. — In addition to the Literature named in the
article, the iollowing may be consulted : H. L. Mansel, Gnostic
Heresies, London, 1875 ; A. Hilgenfeld, Die KetzenjeschichU
des l/rchrigtenthums, Leipzig, 1S84; A. Harnack, Gesekichte
der altchrixtlichen Litteratur, i. [Leipzig-, 1893] p. 163 ff., iL
[1897] p. 538 fif. The subject receives some discussion in
Church Histories and Histories of Doctrine. Of articles in
Dictionaries special mention may be made of that in JJCJi by
G. Salmon. ARTHUR S. PeAKE.
CALF.—' Calf ' (Ac 7«, He 9^2. is, Rev 4^) should
be rendered 'ox' or 'steer.' 1. The expiatory
virtue of sacrifices of blood formed part of the
Semitic belief from earliest times. In Lv 17" the
reason given is that the life or soul of the animal
is in the blood (cf. Gn 9-', Dt 12'-^), which gives
piacular efficacy to the sacrifice (see art. ' Sacrifice '
in the Bible Dictionaries). 2. The second of tiie
four living creatures in the Apocalypse had tiie
likeness of an ox, presumably as the symbol of
strength. It was certainly for this reason that
the bull was chosen as the symbol of Jahweh by
Aaron (Ac 7''^ and Jeroboam (B. Duhm, Thcoi.
der Propheten, Bonn, 1875, p. 47 ; A. Dillmann,
Exodus, Berlin, 1880, p. 337 ; J. Robertson, Early
Religion of Israel, Edinburj^h, 1892, pp. 215-220 ;
similarly Kuenen and Vatke). The four living
creatures remind us of certain of the signs of the
zodiac (bull, angel, lion, eagle), and possibly they
have some connexion with that source (so Moffatt
and Gunkel). Irenieus (IH. xi. 8) associates the
living creatures with the four evangelists, and
holds that the 'calf,' signifying the priestly and
sacrificial character of Jesus, is the symbol of St.
Luke. These traditions continued after his time,
but there was considerable variety in the applica-
tion of the symbols (see Zahn, Forschtingen , Lrlan-
gen, 1881-1903, ii. 257 11". ; Swete, Gospel according
to at. Mark'^, London, 190*2, p. xxxvill.).
F. W. WORSLEY.
CALIGULA.— Caligula ('little boots') was a pet
name given by the soldiers in his father's army to
the boy who was afterwards known officially as
(iaius Ca>sar Gerraanicus. In a similar way the
name ' Caracalla ' or ' Caracallus ' was applied popu-
larlj' to Imperator Cajsar Marcus Aurelius Antoni-
CALIGULA
CALL, CALLED, CALLING 167
nas (A.D. 198-217), and ' Elagabalus ' to Iniperator
Cjvsar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (A.D.
218-222). These sobriq^uets had no official currency,
but were useful as brief ways of referring to the
names of Emperors, whose ancestors by nature or
adoption had names so like their own, that con-
fusion was certain to occur in conversation or writ-
ing about them. Caligula, who was named at
birth Gains lulius Ciesar, was the third son of the
distinguished general Germanicus, and ACTippina
(the elder). As Germanicus was a son of I)nisus,
the adopted son of Augustus, and as Agrippinawas
a daughter of (Agrippa and) lulia, the daughter of
Augustus, Caligula was thus both by nature and
by adoption a great-grandson of the Emperor
Augustus. He is commonly said to have been bom
in the camp of his father (Tac. Ann. i. 41); but
Suetonius {Gains, 8) points out that the boy was
born before his father left for his province. The
date of his birth was 31 Aug. , A. D. 12. From a very
early time he displayed signs of the insanity which
was' to break out in the most signal manner when
he attained to manhood. His mania took three
forms — inordinate lust, inordinate vanity, and a
homicidal tendency. No doubt, as in the case of
other Emperors, we must allow for the influence of
evil-minded gossip on our historical records, but
there remains ample evidence to justify this state-
ment. He was proclaimed Emperor on the death
of his grand-uncle Tiberius on 18 March, A.D. 37.
He was ottered the honorary title of pater patrice
in the early days of 38, and died on 24 Jan. 41 at
the hands of an assassin, C. Cassius Chaerea, in one
of the vaults of the palace on the Palatine Hill.
He was thrice married, first to lunia Claudilla,
daughter of a patrician, M. Silanus.* She died in
childbirth, and he afterwards married Lollia Paul-
ina, daughter of M. LoUius, whom he had robbed
from her husband Memmius. He soon afterwards
divorced her. His third wife was Milonia Caesonia.
Caligula left no descendants.
Caligula's reign was as uneventful as it was short.
The machine of government had been left in such
perfect condition by Augustus and Tiberius that
the recklessness of a Caligula could not in such a
short time do serious harm. But one thing he
could and did do : he wasted the savings of his prede-
cessors. He succeeded to the Empire because he
was the personal heir of Tiberius, not because he
had been in any sense his partner in the Empire.
It was the theoi-y of the principate that it came to
an end on the death of each Emperor, and that
power returned to the Senate and people as in the
days of the Republic ; but in practice it was diffi-
cult, if not impossible, to pass over the Emperor's
heir, and Gains was thus proclaimed Emperor. His
reign began with a relaxation of many of the restric-
tions of Tiberius" rule, but his only aim throughout
was the pursuit of excitement and pleasure. There
is no need to detail the countless variety of his in-
sane actions. Towards the end of his principate
he revived the reign of terror, which was such a
feature of Tiberius' time.
Certain changes were made in the Eastern pro-
vinces in the reign of Gains. The territorj- of
Autiochus of Commagene, which had been made a
province by Tiberius, was restored to his son : it
ran along the northern side of the province of
Cllicia. Herod Agrippa received the tetrarchy of
his uncle PhUip, along with Abilene. Later he
obtained also Samaria, after Herod Antipas and
his wife Herodias had been expelled by the Emperor
at his instance. Thrace was also restored to a
member of the old dynasty which had ruled it. To
his kinsmen Polemo and Cotys, Gains gave Pontus
* So Suet. Gains, 12 ; but Bury, on what authority the present
writer does not know, names Orestilla, wife of Cn. Piso, as his
first wife(^ History of the Roman Empire, p. 221).
Polenioniacus and Lesser Armenia respectively.
The Arabian Sohcemus was made ruler over the
Ituneans. Ptolemaeus, King of Mauritania, was
executed, and steps were taken to convert his king-
dom into two provinces. The most useful thing
Gains did in the way of provincial government was
to put the legion which was in the province of Africa
under the command of an Im^Tia.t legatus. Hither-
to Africa had been the only senatorial province
with Roman troops in it. This legatus had also
ci^nl functions in the Xumidian part of Africa.
One aspect of Caligula's activity had a serious
effect on the Jews, and thus drew forth two of the
most interesting historical tractates of the Roman
Empire, Philo's Legatio ad Gaium and contra
Flaccum, The Emperor claimed to be worshipped
as a god. This claim was naturally rejected by
the Jews of Judaea and of Alexandria. The gover-
nor of Egypt, with ill-timed zeal, required them to
set up statues of Gains in their synagogues. The
riots which resulted caused many deaths. In the
year A.D. 40 the Jews of Alexandria sent an em-
bassy to the Emperor to get the governor's decree
rescinded. This embassy was vinsnccessful, and
but for the speedy death of the Emperor the con-
sequences of the proposed sacrilege would have
been most serious.
LiTEKATTRE. — The ancient authorities are Snetonins, Gains ;
Philo, contra Flaccum and Legatio ad Gaium ; Dio Cassius ;
etc. The relevant parts of Tacitus (Annais, bk. vii. ff.) are
lost. Modem books are J. B. Bury, A History of the Roman
Empire, London, 1893, pp. 168, 21-1 fi., etc. ; V. Dumy, A His-
tory of Rome, Eng. tr., do. 1SS4-86, iv. 370 £f. (splendidly illus-
trated) ; H. ScbiDler, Geseh. der rdm. Kaiserzeit, Gotha, 1883,
i. 301-314; A. von Domaszewski, GeseA. der rom. Kaiser,
Leipzig, 1909, iL 1-20. A- SOUTEB.
CALL, CALLED, CALLING.— These terms in
the NT are for the most part the rendering of
KoXe'iv in its various parts and derivatives (KeKXrifievot,
KXijToi, KXrjffii), or in one or other of its various com-
pounds. Among its meanings are invitation
(KaXeif, .eiadai [Mt Q'^ 22*, 1 Co 1(F, Rev 19^],
TTpoffKaXeiffdat [Ac 2^]) ; designation (icoXetJ', -eiadai
[Mt 1-1 5«, Ac 14^^ He 2^ W], eriKoXe'iy, -eurOai
[Mt 1(P, Lk 223, Ac 1» He IP*]); invocation
(iriKaXe'ureai [Ac 2^^ 1^, 1 Co l^, 2 Co 1«, 1 P 1»^) ;
summons (^trra/coXetv, -eiadai [Ac 7^* ICF^).
In the OT a call of God to His servants and
His people is part of His gracious dealing with
mankind. It was in response to a Divine call
that Abraham (Gn 12i-2), Moses (Ex 3^°), Bezaleel
(Ex 31-), David (Ps 78™), Isaiah (Is 6«- »), Jere-
miah (Jer I'*-'), Ezekiel (Ezk 2*) and other eminent
servants of God entered into covenant with Him
and fulfilled the tasks committed to them. Not
only was Israel thus called as the people of God,
but complaint is again and again made by the
Prophets that they refused to hearken and stopped
their ears that they should not hear (Is 6*, Zee
■jii-isj "jije Prophets, moreover, had visions of the
day when the Gentiles should be called into the
covenant and service of Jahweh (Is 55*- '). Of this
OT meaning examples in the NT are our Lord's
call of His apostles (Mt 4-^), the Spirit's call of
Barnabas and Saul (Ac 13-), the call of the High
Priest of the old dispensation (He 5*), where a
Divine call to special service is given and accepted.
In the Epistles, and particularly in St. Paul,
there is found the more definite meaning of the
word as the call of God to the blessings of salva-
tion. It is here intimately associated with the
eternal purpose of God in human redemption.
This is an advance upon what we find in the
Gospels. In the Gospels ' the called ' (w KXnroi) are
distinguished from 'the chosen' {ol iKXeicrol), the
former being those to whom the invitation to the
gospel feast is addressed, and the latter the more
select company who had heard and accepted it
(Mt 22"). In the Epistles 'the called' are 'the
168 CALL, CALLED, CALLING
CAPPADOCIA
chosen' (Ro 9''*, 2 Th 2^^^*, 1 P 2», where y^vos
^KXeKxSv ai'e those whom God ' called out of dark-
ness into his marvellous light'). The KXyp-ol are
the manifestation of the iKXtKroi ; ' of a KXijcm wliich
does not include the iKXayrj tlie Scripture knows
nothing' (K. Seeberg, in FRE^, art. ' Berufung').
With St. Paul and also with St. Peter, it is more
tlian an invitation, it is an invitation responded
to and accepted, and it is so because ' the called '
are already ' the chosen' (2 Th 2'»- ", Ro 8-«).
•The called' (ol kKijtoI) to whom St. Paul ad-
dresses the Epistle to the Romans, are ' called to
be Jesus Christ's ' (Ro 1®) and they are ' called to be
saints' (Ro 1''), the meaning of the word bein^
identical with our 'converted.' They are 'called
according to his purpose' (Ro 8^) — God's electing
purpose from all eternity : ' for whom he foreknew,
he also foreordained to be conformed to the image
of his Son, that he might be the first-born among
many brethren : and whom he foreordained, them
he also called : and whom he called, them he also
justitied : and whom he justified, them he also
glorified.' 'The called' in the thought of St.
J^aul are 'the elect' from all eternity, and their
' calling ' through the gospel and the means of
grace is the realization in time of God's purpose
with them from eternity : ' that he might make
known the riches of his glory upon vessels of
mercy which he afore prepared unto glory, even
us whom he also called not from the Jews only
but also from the Gentiles ' (Ro 9^^^). This thought
of St. Paul's is also St. John's. We find it in the
Revelation, where St. John pronounces the victori-
ous followers of the Lamb ' called and chosen and
faithful' (Rev 17^*, kXtjtoI Kal iKXeKrol Kai TiffToL) — a
description entirely in keeping with St. John's
recordTof the Avords of Christ : ' all that which the
Father giveth me shall come unto me ' ( Jn 6^- ''®),
and His promise concerning the sheep to whom He
gives eternal life and whom no man shall pluck
out of His Father's hand (Jn lO^^). 'The calling'
{ij kXtjctis) is ' not of works ' but of the sovereign
grace of God (Ro 9"), ' who saved us and called us
with a high calling (ayla KXri<Tei), not according to
our works, but according to His own purpose and
grace, which was given in Christ Jesus before
times eternal' (2 Ti 1"). The call which thus
comes from God is 'in Christ' (1 P 5^") and
' through the gospel ' (2 Th 2"), to ' the fellowship
of his Son ' (1 Co l^), to ' freedom ' (Gal 5^^), not ' for
uncleanness but in sanctification ' (1 Th 4''), to
'eternal life' (1 Ti 6^''), to holiness 'like as he
which hath called you is holy' (1 P l^''). It is,
therefore, well designated ' the high calling of God
{i] &VU) KXijffii ToO eeoG) in Christ Jesus' (Ph 3"), 'a
heavenly calling' (/cX^trts iirovpavio^, He 3'); and
those who are partakers of it are exhorted to make
their ' calling and election sure ' (2 P l^"). For the
goal, though predestined and prepared aforetime
(Ro 8^'- 9^^), is not attained without labour and
conflict ; as St. Paul exhorts Timothy : ' Fight the
good fight of faith, lay hold on the life eternal,
whereunto thou wast called, and didst witness the
good confession in the sight of many witnesses '
(1 Ti 6^^). That 'the calling' is to more than a
Christian profession is clear from the experiences
which St. Paul associates with it ; for, if he is ' a
called apostle' (Ro P), the particulars of his call,
which was his conversion, are given when he tells
how it pleased God to separate liim from his
mother's womb and to call him by His grace and
to reveal His Son in him (Gal P'- '"). ' Tlie calling '
carries with it a great hope — 'ye were called in
one liope of your calling' (Eph 4'*) — for they that
experience it do not only in this life partake of
justification, adoption, and sanctification, but know
that when Christ who is their life shall appear
they also shall appear with Him in glory (1 Th 2'*).
For this ' the called ' are kept (rrnqpijixivoit KXip-olt,
JudeM; and, many though the adversaries and
difficulties be, ' faithful is he that called you, who
will also do it' (1 Th 5^).
The call which St. Paul and the apostolic writers
generally have in view exercises upon tliose wlio
are the subjects of it a grace and a power which
are of the Holy Spirit, who, in the words of the
Westminster Divines, ' convincing us of our sin
and misery, enlightening our minds in the know-
ledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, doth per-
suade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ,
freely ottered to us in the Gospel' {Hhorter
Catechism, 31).
LiTERATURK.— Sanday-Headlam, ii<mMn« (ICC, 1902), 12 f.,
215 1. ; R. Seeberg, PiijKSii. [1897] art. ' Berufung * ; C. Hodge,
Systematic Theoloiiy, ii. [1872] 639-732; art. 'Oall' in HDB;
'Call, Caliiiiij' in Z^CC. T. NiCOL.
CALLIMACHUS.— See Quotations.
CANAAN (AV Chanaan, Ac 7" and 13").— In
the NT Palestine is referred to as 'the Land' or
' the Land of Israel ' (Mt 'I^). The old designation
' Canaan ' is used by St. Stephen, in making refer-
ence to the famine which sent Jacob's sons into
Egypt ; and by St. Paul at Antioch when referring
to the destroying of the Canaanites and the giving
of the Land of Promise to Israel.
J. W. Duncan.
CANDACE. — Candace (KavddK-n) is mentioned in
Ac 8" as 'queen of the Etliiopians,' i.e. of Meroe
(see ETHiopiAand Ethiopian Eunuch). It appears
from various ancient authorities that this was a
name always borne by the queen-mother of the
Ethiopians, and that in many cases she reigned
still as dowager : e.g. we read KavSdKrjv AiOiowfs
ird(Ta,v TT}v rod ^affiX^us firp-ipa. KaXovaiv (J. A. Cramer,
Catena in Acta Apostolorum, 1844, p. 143), an ex-
tract from an anonymous author who proceeds to
quote Bion (of Soli) thus : AldLoirfs roiis ^affiXiwv
iraripas oiiK iK<pa.ivov<nv, dXX' lis bvras vloiis ijXiov
irapadiddaaiv eKCLcrrov Si Trjv fjajripa KaXoOffi KavSdKTjv ;
cf. Athen. xiii. 566 and Pliny, HN vi. 29. The
name in its Egyptian form is said to occur on the
monuments, and a queen so named tried conclusions
with the Romans during the reign of Augustus
24-21 B.C. and obtained some measui'e of success.
The expression in Ac S'" that the evvovxos dwdirnii,
whom Philip baptized, 'was over all her treasure'
suggests that this monarch was powerful and
wealthy. C. L. Feltoe.
CANDLE, CANDLESTICK.— See Lamp, Lamp-
stand.
CANKER.— See Gangrene.
CAPPADOCIA {KavvaooKia). — Cappadocia was
an elevated table-land, with ill-defined and varying
boundaries, in the east centre of Asia Minor. It
was drained chiefly by the Halys and its tributaries,
and intersected by gieat mountains, the hitfliest of
which, Argjuus, is 13,000 feet above the sea.
'Persons who ascend it (but they are not many)
say that both the Euxine and the Sea of Issua may
be seen from it in clear Aveatlier ' (Strabo, XII. ii.
7). Cappadocia was traversed by the great road
of commerce from Ephesus to the Euphrates, by the
pilgrims' route from Constantinople to Jerusalem,
and by roads from the Cilician Gates to the cities
of the Euxine. It was an excellent country for
corn and pasturage, and it had some iini)ortant
centres of commerce. Jews had found their wav
into tiie country before the Maccaba'an period,
and in 139 B.C. tlie Roman Sinate sent a letter to
Ariarathes, King of Cappadocia, directing him 'not
to seek their hurt' (1 Mac IS'"- ^). Philo (Leg. ad
CAPTAIN OF THE TEMPLE
CARNAL
169
Gaium, 36) also refers to Jews in Cappadocia. On
the death of King Archelaus in A.D. 17, the country
was formed into a Roman province (Tacitus, Anji.
ii. 42). It Avas administered by a procurator until
the time of Vespasian, who joined it to Armenia
and placed it under a legatus.
Jews of Cappadocia were sojourning in Jerusalem
at the time of the lirst Christian Pentecost (Ac 2").
The elect of the Dispersion in the province of
Cappadocia are addressed in 1 P 1^. Pagan Cappa-
docia was devoted chiefly to the cult of Ma, and
the strength of its anti-Christian forces is indicated
in Strabo's description of two leading cities, Comana
and Morimene.
Ttf6 priest of ComanA 'presides orer the temple, and has
authority over the hierodoali belonging' to it, who, at the time
I was there, exceeded in number 6000 persons, including men
and women. A large tract of land adjoins the temple, the
revenue of which the priest enjoys. He is second in rank in
Cappadocia after the king, and in general the priests are de-
scended from the same family as the kings ' (xn. ii. 3). ' In
Morimene, among the Venasii, ia a temple of Jupiter, with
buildings capable of receiving nearly 3000 hierodouli. It has a
tract of sacred land attached to it. . . . The priest is appointed
for life like the priest of Ck)m*na, and is nest to him in rank '
(in. ii. 7).
Yet Christianity made rapid progress in Cappa-
docia, and its triumph in Csesarea, the capital, so
offended Julian the Apostate that he deprived the
city of its freedom. Some of the other cities of
Cappadocia — Nyssa, Nazianzus, Tyana, Samosata
— are celebrated in Church history.
LrrBRATTRE. — W. M. Ramsay, The Ckureh in the Soman
Empire, London, 1893, p. 445 ff. ; Th. Mommsen, Provineeg of
the Horn. Empire 2, Eng. tr., do. 1909, L323 f., 33-2 f., ii. 19, 41, 63 ;
E. Chantre, Mission en Cappadode, Paris, 1S9S ; G. Long:, in
DGRG, L 506ff. ; art. ' Cappadocia ' in HDB and EBi.
James Strahan*.
CAPTAIN OF THE TEMPLE (Ac i' 5*^^, 6
ffrparrr/bs rov lepoO). — This is St. Luke's name for
the commander of the Levitical guard who kept
order in the Temple precincts and guarded the
house. He was not a civil officer, but a priest ;
and his duty, besides keeping the peace, was to
make his rounds by night, visit all the gates, and
see that the sentries were awake. The office ap-
pears in Xeh IP', Jer 20', etc. In 2 Mac 3^ he is
called -rpocTarrjs rov iepov, and is said to be of the
tribe of Benjamin. If the reading is correct, this
would be an irregularity. In the time of Claudius
Ca?sar, one Ananus, the commander of the Temple,
was sent in bonds to Rome to answer for his actions
In a Jewish-Samaritan tumult (Jos. Ant. XX. vL 2).
For the name cf. also BJ VI. v. 3.
In the NT period, some of the high priests were
blamed for nepotism, because, among other things,
they made their sons ' captains of the Temple.'
In Ac 4' the captain intervened on the ground
that the peace of the Temple was likely to be
broken by the preaching of tlie apostles, who were
regarded as unauthorized speakers, and as such
were under the ban of Jer 29^ : * that there might
be an overseer in the house of the Lord for every
man who is insane and prophesies, and that thou
mightest put him in the stocks and in the block.*
In Ac 5**- "■* the captain of the Temple re-arrested
Peter and John, who had escaped from prison the
previous night. But clearly he was uncertain of
his position, and recognized that popular opinion
was on the side of the apostles. It was the policy
of the Sadducees to avoid disturbance, and to give
no excuse for the intersention of the Roman power.
Therefore the arrest was efl"ected courteously,
' without v-iolence, for they feared the people lest
they should be stoned.' W. M. Gr.\kt.
CAPTIYITY.— See Boxdage.
CARE, CAREFUL.— The English word 'care' is
used in two senses : (a) attention to something or
someone, not necessarily painful (Lat. cura) ; and
(6) anxiety, painful attention. This sense was due
to the A.S. caruy 'sorrow,' becoming confounded
with the Latin cura, 'attention' (see HDB, art.
' Care'). Tliis confusion was not unnatural, since
excessive attention, or conflicting attention (cf.
fxifH-Uva 'drawing in different directions,' or Eng.
' distraction '), readily becomes painful. The sense
of distress is not conveyed by the adjectival and
adverbial forms — careful and carefully, careless
and carelessly.
(rt) Instances of commendable human care are
to be found in concern for personal righteousness
(He 12'*, Tit 3*) ; zeal (a-KovS-n) for correcting a
wrong (2 Co 7") ; interest in the welfare of one's
fellows, especially those who are of the household
of faith (1 Co 12», 2 Co 7" 8'«, Ph 2r^ 4") ; anxiety
for the churches (2 Co 1 1®). (b) Care is condemned
when it has an unworthy object, e.g. forethought
(■rp6voia) for the flesh to fulfil its lusts (Ro 13") ;
the worship of mammon (1 Ti S^- ", He 13'); or
when it is purely selfish (Ph 2^). (c) Care which
distracts from the love and service of God becomes
an evil. Marriage was regarded as legitimate and
honourable in the early Church, but St. Paul saw in
the cares of married life a menace to spiritual zeal
and labour (1 Co 7*-'). A lawful temporal care was
recognized. He who made no provision (xporoct)
for those dependent upon him, and especially for
his own family, had denied the faith and was worse
than an unbeUever (1 Ti 5^ ; cf. 2 Th 3«-^^ Ro 12'-').
But how readily the cares of the world crushed
out the love of God ! (2 Ti 4'», He 13*, etc.). (d)
Hiunan care has its remedy in the spirit which
puts first of all the Kingdom of God and His
righteousness. The secret of St. Paul's indiflerence
to human loss (Ph 3"'-), and his contentment in
whatsoever condition of life he happened to be (4"),
lay in the fact that the ordinary human interests
of life had become utterly subordinate to the
interests of God (cf. 1 Co 7", ' Were you a slave
when (Jod called vou? Let not that weigh on
your mind'), (e) Again, 'the strain of toU, the
fret of care ' is relieved in the thought of God's
providence (Ph 4®, ' in nothing be anxious' ; 1 P 5',
'casting aU your anxiety upon God, because he
careth for you ' ; cf. He 13*). Providence does not
guarantee freedom from human pain, sorrow and
persecution (2 Co 4**- 11^^, etc.), but embraces
these and all things, in a wide scheme of goodness
(Ro 828-»-s7; cf. Mt 1038- » God cares for the
spaurrows that fall to the ground). Care is relieved
for the Christian, not so much by the hope of a
change of human circumstances, as by his changed
estimate of human values. Temporal things ' shall
vanish aU — the city of God remaineth' (2 Co 4**^).
See also art. Comfort.
LrrraLATCE*.— Art. ' Care ' in HDB and DCG ; R. W. Dale,
Laws of Christ Jor Common lAJe, London, 1899 ; T. C. Upham,
Life and Religious Opinions of Madame Guyon, New York,
1877 ; W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice,
1S94, p. 161 ; H. Black, Christ's Service of Love, 1907, p. 42.
H. BULCOCK.
CARNAL.— In two cases (Ro 8^ He 9»<») the
adj. ' carnal,' and in one (Eo 8®) the adv. ' car-
nally,' are used in AV to render the gen. of adf^
' flesh' ; in Ro 8«- ' RV substitutes ' of the flesh.'
The ' carnal mind ' or ' mind of the flesh ' (Ro
8*- ") denotes, according to St. Paul's frequent
usage, human nature as fallen, sinfully condi-
tioned, and hostile to the influences of the Holy
Spirit ; 'carnal ordinances' (He 9^') are material
ordinances as contrasted with those that are
spiritual.
On the other occasions when ' carnal ' is found
in the Epistles it represents the adjectives adpKwoi
and ffapKiKos, which, according to their strict mean-
ings, correspond respectively to the Lat. cameus
170
CARPUS
CASTLE
and camalis, and the Eng. 'fleshy' and 'fleshly.'
Belonging to the general class of proparoxytone
adjectives in -tvoj which are used to denote the
material of which a thing is made (cf. ^vXivos,
wooden, Xidivos, made of stone, etc.), cipKivos
Sroperly describes that which is composed of
esn. It is tlie more literal and grosser term,
while crapKiKdi has an abstract and ethical applica-
tion as denoting the ' fleshly ' or what pertains to
the flesh.
With regard to the use of the two words in the
Pauline Epp., a ditticulty arises owing to the way
in which they are interchanged in diflerent MSS.
In the view of some scholars, a-dpKivoi, which was
much the more familiar word of the two, has been
substituted in some cases for a-apKiKds, an adjective
almost wholly unknown outside of biblical Greek
(Winer, Gram, of NT Gi\, tr. Moulton, ed. 1882,
p. 122). Otliers, conversely, are of opinion that
o-apKiKd! as the more abstract term may have taken
the place of the grosser o-dpKivos, which might seem
to a copyist less appropriate to the Apostle's
moaning (Cremer, Lexicon, s.v.). There are cases,
however {e.g. Ro 7^^), where according to the best
readings ffdpKivos stands when (rapKiKds might have
been expected. According to some commentators
(Tholuclc, Alford), St. Paul used the two adjectives
indiscriminately. Meyer, on the other hand, who
lays stress on the ditt'erence of meaning between
the two words, thinks that the Apostle sometimes
of set purpose employed (xdpKivos as the stronger
expression in order to indicate more emphatically
the presence of the unspiritual element. He calls
the Corinthians a-dpKivoL (1 Co 3') because the flesh
appeared to constitute their very nature ; he says
of himself in Ro 7'^ ' I am carnal ' (trdp/ctj'os), to
show by this vivid expression the preponderance
in his own case of that unspiritual nature which
serves as the instrument of sin.
The use of ffdpKivo^ in such cases, however, is not
to be taken as lending any support to the view
that St. Paul recognized in the body the source
and principle of sin. The language he uses in
Gal 5^^-, 1 Co 3* suggests rather that his contrast
of 'carnal' and 'spiritual' (Ro 8^"'-) is equivalent
to the contrast he elsewhere makes of ' natural '
and ' spiritual ' (I Co 2'*^-). The ' carnal mind ' or
' mind of the flesh ' is the mind which is not sub-
ject to the law of God (Ro 8^) because it has not
received the Spirit of God (1 Co 2'2- "). See,
further, Flesh, Body.
LiTERATURK.— H. Cretner, Lex. of NT Greek^, Edinburgh,
J880, and R. C. Trench, St/nonyms of the iV'2'a, London, 1876,
s.vv. crapictKos, <rd.pKi.voi ; Comm. of Alford and Meyer on
pasHages referred to ; J. Laidlaw, liiMe Doct. of Man, new ed.,
Edinburgh, 1895, oh. vi. ; Sanday-Headlam, iComajis' {ICC,
1902), pp. 181, 412 ; H. B. Swete, The Uoly Spirit in the NT,
1909, pp. 190, 214. J, c. Lambert.
CARPUS (KapTFos). — Carpus was an inhabitant
of Troas in whose house St. Paul probably lodged
on his last journey to Rome. St. Paul writes
from his prison to Timothy, and asks him to bring
the cloak, books, and parchments which he had
left at Troas with Carpus (2 Ti 4'»). Possibly the
Apostle was arrested in Troas and compelled to
leave these articles behind. Nothing further is
known with any certainty regarding Carpus.
The name is Greek, but his nationality is un-
known. He is supposed by later tradition to have
been one of ' the Seventy,' and the Greek Church
honours his memory on May 26, the Roman and
Syrian Churches on October 13. Both Hippolytus
and Dorotheus include his name in their lists of
the Seventy, and report that he became bishop of
Berythus or Bercea in Thrace (Acta Sanctorum,
May 26, Oct. 13 ; Mcnologion, May 26 ; N. Nilles,
Kalendarium Manuale, Innsbruck, 1896, i. 165,
4G1). W. F. Boyd.
CASTAWAY.— This word has disappeared from
the RV (1 Co 9-''), and its place has been taken by
' rejected ' (d56Kt/ioi). The word is the negation
of SdKifiof, 'acceptable,' 'accepted after trial,' and
means ' unacceptable,' ' rejected after trial,' as in
the LXX Is 122 there is found ' your silver is re-
jected' {t6 dpyvpiov v/iQv d86Kifj.ov). St. Paul, how-
ever, somewhat extends the metaphor, for the
context shows that the ancient games, or, as he
is writing to Corinthians, the Isthmian games,
are in his mind. He contemplates the possibility
of rejection, after having been successful in the
contest, for not having contended in accordance
with the rules. It M-ould be distressing in the
extreme after all his exacting training and his
arduous struggle to be found by the umpire dis-
qualified for neglect of the conditions. To have
preached to others, and yet, through lack of Chris-
tian watchfulness, to have allowed the flesh to
re-assert the mastery and so to become a castaway,
to be rejected in the final scrutiny, is a possibility
which urges the Apostle himself to more arduous
exertions and lends earnestness to his appeal to
the Corinthians. For an apposite parallel see 2
Clement, vii. See also art. Assurance.
T. NicoL.
CASTLE. — The word irapep-^oX-fi, translated
'castle' six times in Acts, meant in the Mace-
donian dialect an encampment, and in the LXX it
is used for the camp of the Israelites in the desert
(Ex 29^'*, etc.). In the vivid narrative of St. Paul's
arrest in Jerusalem (Ac 21. 22) it probably denotes
the barracks of the Roman soldiers who were
stationed at the castle of Antonia, though the RV
as well as the AV identifies it with the castle itself.
The history of this fort goes back to the time
of Neheraiah, who speaks of procuring ' timber to
make beams for the castle (tiie Blrah) which ap-
pertains to the house' (2*; cf. 7^). Probably on
the same site John Hyrcanus, high priest from 135
to 105 B.C., built the Hasmona'an castle, which
Josephus calls 'Baris'(^n<. XV. xi. 4 ; BJl. xxi. 1).
' When Herod became king, he rebuilt that castle,
which was very conveniently situated, in a magnifi-
cent manner, and because he was a friend of An-
tonius, he called it by the name of Antonia' [Ant.
XVIII. iv. 3). Situated at the comer of the north
and west cloisters of the Temple, it commanded,
especially from its lofty S.E. tower, a view of the
whole sacred precincts, while two staircases (dxa-
^adfiol, Ac 21^'>, KaTa^dtretj, Jos. BJ V. v. 8) led down
from it to the cloisters ; and in the Roman period
the soldiers of the cohort {aveXpa.), which was always
stationed in the city, ' went several ways among
the cloisters, with tlieir arms, on the Jewish festi-
vals, in order to keep watch over the people ' (Jos.
loc. cit.).
The narrator of St. Paul's arrest was evidently
well acquainted with this locality, and he graphi-
cally reproduces the details of the scene. News of
a Temple riot — no uncommon occurrence — came up
{dvi^-q (pda-ii) to the commander of the cohort
IxiXlapxoi, ' military tribune ' RVm), who at once
took soldiers and ran down (Kar^Spafnv) to the fana-
tical crowd, probably just in time to prevent blood-
shed (Ac 2F'- ="2). As St. Paul was about to be
conducted up one of the staircases leading to the
barracks, he was swept ofl" liis feet by the rising
human tide, and had literally to be carried out of
danger by the soldiers ; but, recovering himself on
the upper steps, he asked and obtained permi.'^sion
to address the baffled and still racing crowd, who
turned a sea of angry faces upon him from below.
His beckoning hand and his Aramaic speech
secured a temporary silence, which enabled him
to tell his vast audience the story of his conversion,
but he could not get beyond the fatal word ' Gen-
tiles' (222>), and, leaving behind him a yelling mob,
CASTOR
CENCHRE^
171
he was marched into tlie barracks. Fort Antonia
was for some days his place ot continement. Hither
came his nephew with a message wliich saved him
from fallinj,' into the hands of fanatical conspirators
(23'"), and here Christ Himself seemed to stand by
him with words of good cheer (v."). From the
castle he was taken oy night to Antipatris, and
thence to Csesarea (23^^"^).
LiTERATrRE.— T. Lewin, Life and Epistles of St. Paxil?, 1S75,
li. 135 ff. ; Conybeare-Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul,
1850, ii. 311 ff. ; H. A. A. Kennedy, Sources of NT Greek, 1895,
p. 15 ; artt. ' Castle ' and ' Jerusaleoi ' in EBi, ' Castle ' in UDB.
James Strahan.
CASTOR.— See Dioscuri.
CATECHUMEN.— See Baptism.
CATHOLIC EPISTLES.— The title 'Catholic
Epistles,' as applied to a group of seven Epistles in
tlie NT, viz. those of James, Peter (two), John
(three), and Jude, is first met with in Eusebius (HE
II. xxiii. 2o[6M]and VI. xiv. 1), and, somewhat later,
in Cyril of Jerusalem {Catecheseis, iv. 36) and the
original 'Euthalius' (ed. Zaccagni, 1698, i. 405,
409). We can thus trace the title in the above
sense as far back as c. A.D. 310, and even then it
comes before us as a long-established and familiar
designation, the origin of which we may therefore
assign to the 3rd century. As regards its usage by
Eu.sebius, the context of the fir.st passage cited
(II. xxiii, 25) shows us that it cannot bear the
meaning of 'canonical' or 'apostolic,' since he
there employs it simply in the sense of Epistles not
addressed to a definite and relatively narrow circle
of readers. With this usage we may compare his
application of the term ' catholic ' to the Epistles of
Dionysius of Corinth in HE IV. xxiii. 1, where he
presumably makes use of an already current desig-
nation of that group of seven ( !) Epistles, which,
though directed to particular communities, might
nevertheless, so far as their character and contents
are concerned, have been addressed to any com-
munity in Christendom. The title 'Catholic Epistle,'
again, as applied to a particular letter, is used, c.
260, by Dionysius of Alexandria (ap. Eus. HE VII.
XXV. 7, 10) of 1 John — in contradistinction to the
other two Epistles of John, which are not addressed
to the Church at large; the term is used more
frequently by Origen of 1 John, Jude, and 1 Peter,
as also, in a single instance, of the Epistle of Bar-
nabas (c. Cels. i. 63). The letter of the Apostolic
Council in Jerusalem (Ac 15^"^) is referred to as
'catholic' by Clement of Alexandria {Strom. IV.
XV. 97) c. 205, and he applies the same attribute to
Jude in his Hypotyposeis (T. Zahn, Forschungen
zur Gesck. des NT Kanons, pt. iii. [1884] 83, Gesch.
des NT Kanons, i. [1888] 319 f.). The anti-Mon-
tanist Apollonius speaks ( 197) of a ' Catholic Epistle '
which the Montanist Themiso had composed in
imitation of the Apostle {ap. Eus. HE V. xviii. 5)
— probably St. John in his First Epistle.
We may therefore assume that, by the end of the
2nd century, the title 'catholic' was applied to
certain Epistles which, as contrasted above all with
the Epistles of Paul, were not explicitly addressed
to particular churches, and that it was likewise
used on similar grounds of 1 John as contrasted
with 2 and 3 John. From this point, again, a
further step was taken, probably in the first half
of the 3rd century, in applying the attribute
• catholic ' to all the non-Pauline Epistles in the
sacred collection, even although the term as hither-
to used was not appropriate to 2 and 3 John. These,
however, were by that time closely linked with
1 John. The usage of the term as equivalent to
' general ' or ' encyclical ' was still recognized by
Leontius of Byzantium (de Sectis, ii. 4) and (Ecume-
nius {Com. in Ep. Cath. Jacobi). The change by
which the attribute 'catholic' came to signify the
opposite of ' non-apostolic ' or ' uncanonical ' took
place in the West, and it was there also that this
group of seven Epistles in the NT came to be kno\vn
generally as the Canonical Epistles (cf. Council of
Damasus of 382 ; see C. H. Turner, JThSi i. [1899-
1900] 554, and E. v. Dobschiitz, Z)ccre<. Gelasianum,
1912, p. 28 ; Pseudo-Didymus, in Ep. Can. [in the
Latin version], and Cassiodoms, de Inatit. Div.
Lit., 8). It would thus appear that these terms
were resorted to as a mere makeshift, and that
they are of very little service to us either as regards
the history of the canon or from the literary point
of view.
LiTERATtrRE. — Historfes of the NT Canon, and Introductions
to the NT, esp. H. A. Schott, Isa(jogf. hist.-erit. in libros Som
Foederis, Jena, 1830, pp .371-5, and E. Reuss, Geseh. derheiligen
Sehriften A'euen Testaments^, Brunswick, 18C0, § 301 (Eng. tr.,
Edinburgh, 1884); E. T. Mayerhoff, ' Uber die Bedeutungdes
Namens enurroKaX KadoAiicai" in Uist.-krit. Einleitung in die
petrinischen Sehriften, Hamburg, 1835, pp. 31-42 ; A. Deiss-
mann, Bibelstudien,'ii&rhuTg, 1895, p. 243 f. (Eng. tr., Edinburgh,
1901, p. 50 ff.); the relevant excursuses of Jan van Gilse and
W. C. L. Ziegler (' Animadversiones in sensum nominis epist
eathol.') in J. Dahl, Commentatio exegetico-critica de avQevrin
ejmt. p«(r., Rostock, 1807. H. JORDAN.
CAUDA.— Cauda (Claada in AV ; KaOSa in B,
supported by Gaud us in Pliny, HN IV. xii. 61, and
Pomp. Mela, ii. 14 ; KXaCSa in K and most authori-
ties, supported by KXaOSoj in Ptolemy, III. xvii. 11)
was a small island 23 miles S. of Crete. From the
modem forms of the name — Gavdho in Greek, Gozzo
in Italian — Ramsay argues that preference should
be given to the ancient form which omits the letter
'1.' Favoured by a soft south wind, the ship in
Avhich St. Paul was sailing for Italy had rounded
Cape Lithinos (now Cape Matala), four or five miles
west from Fair Havens, and was making in a
W.N.W. direction across the Bay of Messara for
Port Phenice {q.v.), which there Avas the prospect
of reaching in a few hours, when she was suddenly
struck by a ' typhoon ' {ipefios Tv<f>wviK6s), or E.N.E.
squall (see EURAQUILO). sweeping down from
Mount Ida, and, not being able to face the gale
{a.vTo<p0a\/jidi'), she had to run l^efore it (^7rt56i^ey
eipepd/xeda) till she was fortunate enough to get
under the lee of Cauda, where the comparatively
smooth water en.abled the crew to bring her to
and prepare her to weather the storm (Ac 27'^'").
'The ship must have been laid to on the starboard
tack under the lee of Cauda, for it was only on
this tack that it was possible to avoid being driven
on the African coast' (Smith, Voyage and Ship-
icreck of St. Paul*, London, 1880, p. 97 fl'.).
LiTERATiTRB. — W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul, London, 1895, p.
326 ff.; A. Breusing, Vie yautik der Alten, Bremen, 1886, p.
169 ff. ; artt. ' Cauda ' in HDB and ' Clauda ' in EBi.
James Strahan.
CELIBACY,— See Marriage.
CENCHREiG. — Cenchreae (not ' Cenchrea,' as in
AV ; KcTx/jeat [Tischendorf], KevxpeaL [WH] ; now
the village of Kichries) was the eastern port of
Corinth, 7 miles from the city, on the Saronic Gulf,
opposite to Lechaeum on the Corinthian Gulf.
' Cenchreae,' .says Strabo, ' serves for the trade with
Asia, and Lechseum for that with Italy' (Vlil. vi.
22). From the town of Schcenus — 4 miles north of
CenchreiE — where the isthmus is less than 5 miles
wide, a tramway (5io\/cos) was laid to the other
side, upon wliich vessels of smaller tonnage were
conveyed bodily from sea to sea, avoiding a cir-
cuitous passage by the stormy headland of Malea.
In A.D. 67, Nero, impressed by an idea which had
previously commended itself to greater minds —
notably to that of Julius Caisar — made an abortive
attempt to cut a canal across the Isthmus, a piece
of engineering which was not accomplished till
the end of the 19th century (1S81-1893). Between
172
CENSER
CERINTHUS
Cenchreoe and Schccnus was a famous sanctuary,
in which stood ' the temple of Isthmian Xoptune,
shaded above witli a <jrove of pine-trees, where the
Corinthians celebrated the Isthmian games' (Strabo,
loc. cit. ). From the pines were cut those garlands
for the brows of the victors in the stadium, which
St. Paul contrasts with inunortal crowns (1 Co
g24-27) ^^ Cenchrea;, St. Paul, on the eve of his
sailing for Syria to attend the Passover, had his
head shorn on account of a vow (Ac 18^"). During
his prolonged residence in Corinth, Cenchrere had
become the seat of a church, of which Phoebe was
a Si6.Kovoi — if not a deaconess in the full technical
meaning of later times, at any rate in a more de-
finite sense than is implied by 'servant' (lio 16').
She was a irpoarAai^ — succourer, patroness, guardian
— of many way faring Christians who passed through
that bustling seaport (16-). It has generally been
assumed that this Cenchrean lady, whom St. Paul
so warmly commends, was the bearer of the lloman
Epistle to its destination (lienan, St. Paul, 1869,
p. 219), but there is strong reason to believe that
Ko 16 is a letter meant for Ephesus (see Romans).
LITERAT0RB. — Convbeare-Howson, Life and Epistles of St.
Paid, 1856, ii. 224 ; T. Lewin, Life and Epistles of St. Paul^,
1875, i. 299 £f. ; J. G. Frazer, Paxisanias, 1898, iii. 6ff. ; E. B.
Redlich, St. Paul and his Companions, 1913, index, s.v.
James Strahan.
CENSER. — 1. The writer of Hebrews mentions
the ' golden Ovfiiar-qpiov ' lirst among the pieces of
furniture which belonged to the Holy of Holies
(9^). He had in view Ex 30'"i", which is generally
regarded as one of the latest strata of P. His
words raise a question as to the meaning of the
word Ov/xiar-fipiop, and another as to the position of
the article so named, both of which questions have
been the subject of much controversy. (1) AV
and RV, following the Vulgate — 'aureum habens
thuribulum' — render Ov/jnarifipiov by 'censer'; but
RVm and American RV, like Clement Alex.,
Calvin, and most modern scholars, translate it as
'altar of incense.' Etymologically the Avord — a
neut. adj. — may mean anything employed in the
burning of incense, whether a censer in which, or
an altar upon which, the act is performed. When
ev/uar-fipiov occurs in the LXX— '2 Ch 26'8, Ezk 8",
4 Mac 7^^ — it no doubt means 'censer,' being a
translation of nnapp, while tiie altar of incense is t6
dvaioLffrfipiov 0vnidiJ.aTos (or -ruv) in Ex 30'* ", Lv 4',
1 Ch 7^*, etc. But it is also certain that Bvjj.iar-^pioi'
became the usual Hellenistic name for the altar of
incense, and Philo (Quis rer. div. hcer. 46, Vit.
Mo.i. iii. 7), Josephus (Ant. ill. vi. 8, viii. 2, 3, BJ
V. V. 5), and the versions of Symmachus and Theo-
dotion use the word with this meaning in Ex 30'.
Unless the writer of Hebrews follows the same
usage, he entirely ignores the altar of incense in
his description of the furniture of the tabernacle,
which is scarcely credible. (2) Prima facie, the
author of Hebrews has fallen into error in naming
this altar among the furnishings of the most holy
place. He may be supposed to have been misled
(a) by the ambiguous instructions regarding it
given in Ex 30* : ' thou shall put it before the veil
that is by the ark of the testimony, before the
mercy-seat that is over the testimony' ; (6) by its
designation as dyiov tQv ayluv in Ex 30'" ; and (c)
especially by the fact that in Ex '25^"** 26^^, only tlie
candlestick and the table are mentioned as standing
in the holy place. Such a mistake on the part of the
writer, whose acquaintance with the ritual practice
of Judaism was second-hand, would not prove him
the Monstrum von Unwissenheit that Delitzsch
suggests. Still, it is not certain that he was really
WTong. He does not say tiiat the Holy of Holies
contained the Ovfuarripiov (contrast ^i* 5 in He 9^),
but that it had {(xowa) such an altar. Evidently
he was thinking, not of the local position of the
altar, but of its intimate relatif)n to the ministry
of the inner sanctuary on the Day of Atonement.
2. In Rev 8*-", Xi/Saxwrds, which is strictly ' frank-
incense,' the gum exuding from the Xi/Savos, is used
instead of XifiavuTls (or -rph) for ' censer,' corre-
sponding to the irvpetou (TripLov) or OvLffKr} (' lire pan ')
of the LXX. In the prophetic symbolism this
censer holds (1) tiie lire which burns the incense
that is added to the prayers of the saints, and (2)
the lire, or hot ashes, of God's vengeance, which are
cast upon a hostile and impenitent world. See
Incense.
Literature. — Grimm-Thayer, s.v. BvniatT^piov ; Schiirer,
HJP II. i. 295 ; T. Zahn, Introd. to NT, En^f. tr., 1909, ii. 303;
H. B. Swete, Apocalypse of iSt. Juhifi, 1907, p. 108 ; ExpT i.
[1889-90] 74, ii. [1890-91] 18 ; see also art. 'Censer' in HDD
and Literature there cited. JaMES STKAUAN.
CENTURION.— See Army.
CEPHAS.— See Peter.
CERINTHUS.— Probably Cerinthus was educated
in Egypt (Hippol., vii. 7, 33 ; x. 21 [ed. Duncker]) ;
certainly he taught in proconsular Asia contempor-
aneously with John, the writer of the Gospel and
Epistles, i.e. in the last quarter of the 1st cent. A.D.
(Polycarp, quoted in Iren., adv. liter . III. iii. 4).
Cerinthus is one of the earliest of the Gnostics.
The world, he taught, was made not by the
Supreme God, but by a Power inferior to, and
ignorant of, Him. He denied the virgin birth of
Jesus, who was, however, pre-eminent for right-
eousness, prudence, and wisdom. He separated
Jesus and Christ. Christ descended on Jesus after
baptism and left Him before the crucifixion.
Jesus suffered and rose again, but Christ, a pure
spirit, was impassiVjle (Iren., adv. Hcer. I. xxvi. 1 ;
cf. III. xi. 1 ; Hippol., vii. 33, x. 21 ; Pseudo-
TertuUian, adv. omn. Hcer. x.).
It is not incredible that Cerinthus judaized to
the extent of teaching the obligation of circum-
cision and the Sabbath (Epiph., Hcer. chs. i. and ii.,
and Philaster). Though Judaizing and Gnosticism
afterwards became inconsistent with each other,
at Cerinthus' stage such a limited alliance is not
unthinkable. It is, however, his christology that
is most important, and it is an interesting query — ■
Is it this that is attacked in 1 John? Beyond
doubt St. John has an actual heresy in view ; he
gives no mere general warning against errors that
may arise. The crucial passage is 1 Jn 4-* *•,
which, literally translated from the critical texts,
reads : ' Hereby know ye the spirit of God ; every
spirit which confesses Jesus Christ come in the
flesh is of God, and every spirit which confesses
not Jesus is not of God.' The use of ' Jesus ' alone
in V.** makes it almost certain that v.* should be
taken to mean ' confesses Jesus as Christ come in
the flesh.' Thus it is not Docetism that is opposed,
but a separation sucii as Cerinthus made between
Jesus and Christ. Further, according to Socrates
(HE vii. 32), ' confesses not ' in v.* was substituted
for an original ' dissolves ' or ' disrupts ' (Xi/et, so
Vulg. solvit). If we accept this, the ca.se may be
said to be proved. It is exactly the christology of
Cerinthus that is attacked, bo in 1 Jn 2^, the
denial that Jesus is Christ can scarcely l)e the old
Jewish denial, but a refusal like that of Cerinthus
to identify Jesus with Christ. Again, in 1 Jn 5*
' blood ' probably refers either to the birth or to
the deatn of Christ, both of which Cerinthus
denied. Quite possibly other errors are in St.
John's mind as well as Cerinthianism. Docetism, no
doubt, was a real danger, and passages like 1 Jn !"•
seem to have it in view. But it is probable in the
highest degree that it is mainly Cerinthus who is
to St. John the enemy of the truth.
CERTAINTY
CHASTISOIENT
173
I
The errors dealt with in 1 John had antinomian
consequences. According to Gains of Rome
(quoted by Euseb., HE iii. 28), Cerinthus taught
the coming of a millennium of sensual delights.
Too much credence, however, is not to be attached
to such statements. In early days, as always,
heretics were readily and rashly painted as moral
delinquents, and, as noted above, John may have
others besides Cerinthus in view.
Other views have been attributed to Cerinthus,
but the evidence is so scanty, confused, and con-
tradictory, that it is not worth while to state them.
LmtEATrRE. — J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians and PhiUmoii^,
London, 1S79 ; H. L. Mansel, The Gnostic Hereties, do. 1S75 ;
A. Hagenfeld, EftzergesehiehU, Leipzig 1884, p. 411 ff.;
D. R. A. Lipsias, Zxtr QuelUnkritik d. £piphanios, Vienna,
1S65, p. 32i f. ; R. Law, The TeMs of Life, Edinburgh, 1909,
chs. ii. and xiii. ; art. 'Cerinthus,' by A. S. Peake, in ERE
iii. 31S. W. D. NiVEX.
CERTAINTY.— See Assxjkance.
CHAIN, BONDS.— The word aXwts is used of the
coupling-chain or manacle by which the prisoner
was attached to his guard, as distinguished from
xebt), the foot-fetters. It differs apparently from
5ea;uoi in conveying the idea of attachment rather
than continement. Among the Romans, it was
customary to attach the prisoner by a light chain
to the soldier responsible for his safe custody.
One end of the chain was fastened to the right
wrist of the captive, and the other to the left
wrist of his custodian, whose right hand was thus
free. It is to this method of continement that
St. Paul alludes, when speaking of his ' chain ' (Ac
28=», Eph 6^^, 2 Ti V% Sometimes, for greater
security, the prisoner was bound to two soldiers,
one on each side of him, in which case, of course,
the use of two chains would be necessary. This
more rigorous method of confinement is the sort
to which St. Peter was subjected during his im-
prisonment (Ac 12^), and also St. Paul during the
early days of his captivity at Jerusalem (Ac 21®).
Later on, at Caesarea and Rome, the latter
Apostle, although still kept in strict military
custody, was permitted to enjoy a considerable
measure of freedom (Ac 24^ f&*"-). More fre-
quently, the less precise and graphic terms Sedfioi
and dea/jA, 'bonds' or 'imprisonment' are used to
describe the condition of persons in captivity. St.
Paul, speaking of himself as a prisoner, makes
repeated allusions to his 'bonds' (Ph i^- is- 1*- is^
Col 4», 2 Ti 29, Philem i"- 1^). The neuter and mascu-
line forms are used with distinct shades of mean-
ing, Sea-fii referring to the fetters by which the
person was bound (Ac 16^ ['bands'] 20^, 26-®),
deffuoi to the state of captivity into which the
person had been thrown. W. S. MoXTGOMEEY.
CHALCEDONY (xoX/cijati^).— Chalcedony is the
precious stone with which the third foundation of
the wall of the New Jerusalem is garnbhed (Rev
2P*). The ancient meaning of the word is un-
certain. In modem mineralogy the chalcedony is
' a micro-crystalline form of quartz ... a trans-
lucent substance of rather waxy lustre, presenting
great variety of colours, though usually white,
grey, yellow or brown' (EBr^^ v. 803). But the
chalcedony of Pliny (HN xxxvii. 72-73) was a
green stone — an inferior kind of emerald — from
the copper-mines of Chalcedon in Bithynia, whence
its name. Flinders Petrie (HDB iv. 621*) suggests
that it was ' diopta.se' or silicate of copper.
James Steahan.
CHAMBERLAIN. — The only person clearly desig-
nated as such in the NT is Blastus, 6 eirl tov koitwvo^
Tov paffiKeuM {sc. Herod Agrippa I.), whom the
TjTJans and Sidonians persuaded to befriend them
against the king's displeasure at Caesarea, and to
obtain peace for them 'because their country
was nourished by the kind's country' (Ac 12=*).
The office he held would ooviously mvolve great
intimacy and intiuence with the Jdng. Erastus,
who is called ' the chamberlain of the city ' in Ro
16^ (AV ; RV 'treasurer'), held a different office
(see Stew.\rd). The eunuch of Ac S*"'- also held
a diflerent office ; he ' was over all ' the queen's
' treasure ' (see Ethiopian Eunuch).
C. L. Feltoe.
CHAN AAN.— See Caxaax.
CHARISMATA.— See Gifts.
CHARITY.— See Alms, Love.
CHARITY, FEAST OF.— See Love-Feast.
CHASTISEMENT.— The subject of chastisement
and chastening is frequently mentioned in the OT
and the NT. The NT terms are raideika and xaidela,
which correspond to ".;; and nps of the OT. In
classical usage these words refer to the whole of
the education of the rah, including the training
of the body. Sometimes they are used of the re-
sults of the whole process. They do not contain,
however, the idea of chastisement. In the OT,
Apocrypha, and NT this idea of correction, dis-
cipline, chastening, is added to that of the general
cultivation of mind and morals : the education is
'per molestias' (Augustine, Enarr. in Pss., 119*) ;
see Lk 23i«, He 12'- '• «, Rev S'^ ; cf. Lv 26'«, Ps 6',
Is 53«, Sir 4"^ 226, 2 Mac 6'- (see Westcott on He 127 ;
Trench, NT Syn.\ 1876, p. 23 ; MUIigan, Greek
Papyri, 1910, p. 94). In Ac 7^ there is found the
only NT instance of the verb in its general Greek
sense. In 2 Ti 3'® the noun is used for disciplinary
instruction, the correction of mistakes and curbing
of passions, that virtue may be increased. Pilate
uses the verb in speaking of the terrible scourging
of Jesus (Lk 23i«- ^ ; cf. Dt 22''*), but it is a very
mild term for the ieaxhH flagellatio.
Chastisement, as part of the moral discipline of
character, is the positive duty of a father (Eph 6"*).
In this passage, ' chastening ' is substituted by RV
for AV ' nurture,' which is too weak a word, but
' discipline ' might be better still. The same ides
of parental correction of the faults of children is
found in He 12^, where the fathers are described
as raiSevrai (cf. Plato, Dialogues, tr. Jowett, 1892,
index, *.r. 'education'). In this fatherly fashion
God Himself chastens His children for their ulti-
mate good (He 12*-"; cf. Pr S^"-, Rev S'*). The
evils with which God visits men are rods of chas-
tisement (1 Co 11^2, 2 Co 6»; cf. Pr 19i« 29", Wis
34ff. iiiuff.^ 2 Mac 616 10*). Such treatment is not a
sign of antipathy or rejection, but an evidence of
true love. God does not leave His wayward
children to their fate, but strives to bring them to
becoming reverence and reformation. Sometimes
the chastisement is of such a terrible character
that the one who suffers is said to be 'delivered
unto Satan ' (1 Co 5^ 1 Ti 1* ; cf. Job 2«, Ps 109*",
Ac 26**). But even in these cases the ultimate
object is the recovery of the sinner, 'that the
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus '
and ' that they might be taught not to blaspheme.'
The 'thorn in the flesh' afflicted St. Paul so
grievously that he called it ' a messenger of Satan '
(2 Co 12"ff- ; cf. Lk 13i«, Jub. x. 2), but it saved him
from being ' exalted overmuch ' and became a
means of such abundant grace that he was led
positively to glory in his weakness. This same
grace of God, which brings salvation to all who
receive it, does not always appear in gentle in-
struction, but sometimes takes the form of stern
chastisement ; in a word, whatever means is neces-
sary for the perfect redemption of the soul, that
174
CHEEKFULNESS
CHILDREN OF GOD
means will giace employ (see Tit 2'"^- )• To those
who submit to this process of chastening, the re-
wards are immense and enduring. Compared with
them the 'atliiction' is 'light,' and the pain of the
present moment is transformed into ' an eternal
weight of glory ' (2 Co 4'«-i»).
As to the relation between iraidtla and vovOeffla,
'chastening and admonition' of Eph (i*, T. K.
Abbott (£joA. and Col. [ICC, 1897] 178) maintains
that iraiSeia is, as in classical writers, the more
general, vovdeaia the more specific term, for instruc-
tion and admonition. On the other hand, Grotius,
followed by Ellicott, Alford, and many others,
declares : ' TratSeia hie sigiiilicare videtur institu-
tioriem per poenas ; vovBeaia autem est ea institutio
quae fit verbis. ' The Vulg. translates ' in disciplina
et correptione.' The probability is that the former
word refers to training by ' act and discipline,' the
latter to training by ' word.' See also Admonition
and Discipline.
LiTERATUiiE.— H. A. A. Kennedy, Sources of NT Greek, 1895,
p. 101 ; R. C. Trench, NT SynonymsS, 1876, p. 107 i. ; H. B.
Swete, The Apocalypse of St. Johrfi, 1907, p. 63 ; the Coin-
mentaries on Ephesians, esp. J. Armitagre Robinson, 1903 ;
ExpT xiv. [1902-03] 272 ; see also artt. ' Chastening ' and
* Nurture • in Z/Z>i>'. H. CaRISS J. SiDNELL.
CHEERFULNESS (O.E. chere, 'face,' 'look';
L. Lat. cava, 'the face'). — The abundance of ex-
pressions of buoyant gladness in a weak and perse-
cuted community, as was the Christian Church of
the lirst century, is striking. Whereas we might
expect depression and sighing, we find everywhere
singing at midnight in the prison houses (Ac 5*'
16'*, Ito 8=«-37, 1 P 16.8^ etc.). Although St. Paul
is described as once saying that his service has
been with tears (Ac 20'*- ^'), and in his letter to
Corinth confesses that he writes with many tears
and with deep sutiering and depression of spirit
(2 Co 2^), such utterances stand isolated among a
multitude of phrases suggestive of rejoicing and
exultation. The Apostle's references to depressing
eircumstances of life are usually to indicate his
triumph over them (Ph 3^- «, 2 Co 4^'- 6-* ll^"* 12").
Is there affliction ? That may be joyfully regarded
as filling up what was lacking in the sufferings of
Christ (Col 1^*), as building up character (Ro 5^ ;
cf. He 12", Ja P), as winning an eternal weight of
glory (2 Co 4"). Even martyrdom for faith is a
thought inspiring joyfulness (Ph 2'^- ^*). Are there
those who preach Christ out of envy and con-
tentiousness ? No matter, Christ is being preached
(Ph 1'=*"'"). St. Paul's very imjjrisonment is having
happy results — the Imperial guards have thereby
heard of Christ, and other brethren have been in-
spired by St. Paul's sacrifice to bolder service
(Ph 1'^""). There is much in human life to give
gladness — meetings with friends (Ph 2-^- '^, 2 Ti I'',
2 Jn '-), even the very remembrance of them (Ph 1^),
the sharing of the joys of others (Ko 12'*, 1 Co \2-^),
the success of one's work (Ph 21"), the faithfulness
of converts (1 Th 2'*-^), their repentance after
error (2 Co 7»), their thoughtful liberality (Ph 4i").
One may rejoice in a good conscience (2 Co P-'), in
the joy set before tliose running the good race
(He 12^), in the inspirations and consolations of
Christian faith (Ro S^ " 15'», 2 Co P-* 5«f-, Ph l^*,
1 P P), Not only is there cause for joy in the
argued inferences from Christian beliefs — in the
direct experience of the Holy Spirit there is joy
and peace which the world cannot give (Ro 14'^,
Gal 5-'^, 1 Th 1* ; cf. the characteristic features of
mysticism in W. James, The Varieties of Ecligiotis
Experience, London, 1902, lects. 16 and 17).
Christian cheerfulness is not based on a denial of
the reality of the dark things of life, but on the
proportioninj? of them by the larger elements of
joyful Christian faith and experience. A shallow,
worldly cheerfulness must not be confused with
the joy of the Christian in God. Human good
cheer is only for a season (1 Co 7**) ; there is a
laughter which should be turned to grief, and
gladness to shame (Ja 4"). Exhortations to re-
loice arc found in 1 Th 5^", Ro 5=* (cf. Col 1") 12>2,
Ph 3' 4* Cxafpere expresses the predominant mood
of the Epistle, a mood wonderfully characteristic
of Paul's closing years ' [H. A. A. Kennedy, £GT,
' Philippians,' 1903, p. 466]). H. BuLCOCK.
CHERUBIM (xfpou)3f/t).— Among the symbolic
ornaments of the Tabernacle the writer of Hebrews
mentions ' the cherubim of glory overshading the
mercy-seat ' (9"). In Solomon's Temple there were
two colossal cherubim whose out-spread wings lilled
the most holy place (1 K 6'-^'''"*), but in the ideal
description of the Tabernacle two much smaller
figures are represented as standing on the ark of
the covenant itself (which was only about four
feet long), facing each other and overshadowing
the place of God's presence. The cherubim were
' das beliebteste Ornamentstiick der Hebriier ' (Ben-
zinger, Heb. Arch., Freiburg, 1894, p. 268). It is
signilicant that while precise directions are given
regarding their material, position, and attitude,
nothing is said of their shape except that they
were winged. Their enigmatic form made them
fitting symbols of the mj'sterious nature of the
Godiiead. Originally, no doubt, they were far
from being merely allegorical. They had lived
long in the popular imagination before they came
to be used as religious emblems. They were
mythical ligures probably suggested by the phen-
omenon of the storm-cloud, in which God seemed
to descend from heaven to earth, the thunder
being the rushing of their wings and the light-
ning their flashing swords (cf. Ps 18'"- ^^). While
Lenormant (Les Origines, 1880-84, i. 112 f.) and
Friedrich Delitzsch ( Wo lag das Paradies ?, 1881 , p.
150 f.) connect them with the winged bulls which
guarded the entrance to Assyrian palaces, others
associate them with the Syrian giitiins (probably
of Hittite origin) which were supposed to draw
the chariot of the sun-<;od (Cheyne, EBi i. 745).
Behind the cherubim of Ezekiel (10"-) which are
the original of the ' living creatures ' of Rev 4*"*,
there may be the signs of the zodiac (Gunkel).
When the later Hebrews wished to represent
the presence of Jahweh among them in the Temple
at Jerusalem, they adopted the cherubim a.s the
awful symbols alike of His nearness and of His
una])proachableness. It is imjaobable that these
works of art had a purely human appearance.
Schultz {Or ThRoL, Eng. tr., 1892, ii. 236) inclines
to the view that they were ' composite ligures,
with the feet of oxen, the wings of eagles, the
manes of lions, and the body and face of men.'
A. Jereniias {The OT in the Light of the Anc. East,
1911, ii. 126), following Klostermann, thinks it iK)s-
sible that ' the conception is that of four cheruoim
(two cherubim, each with a double face).' As the
symbols were blazoned on the doors, walls, and
curtains of the Temple, their general appearance
must originally have l)een quite well known, but
time once more threw a veil of mystery over them,
and Josephus declares that ' no one can tell or guess
what the cherubim were like' {Ant. vill. iii. 3).
LiTERATiiiE.— I. Benzinger, Beb. Arch.^, 1907, index, t.v.
' Kerube ' ; A. Furtwangler, in Koscher, Lex. i. 2, col. 174211.,
art. ' Uryps ' ; art. ' Cherub ' in BBi and ' Cherubim ' in HDB.
James Strahan.
CHIEF PRIEST.— See Priest.
CHILD, CHILDREN.— See Family.
CHILDREN OF GOD, SONS OF GOD — Amongst
the many ways current in antiquity of expressing
the relationship existing between God and man
CHILDREN OF GOD
CHILDREX OF GOD
175
(Creator, King, Lord, Husband, Father), two were
derived from Imman relationships of the family life
—God is the Husband or Bridegroom of His people,
or He is their Father. With the former we are not
now concerned. The latter plavs a large part in
the teaching of the NT. It will be convenient to
examine thts teaching under four heads : (1) the
doctrine of St. Paul, (2) that of the Johannine
writings, (3) that of 1 Peter, (4) that of the remain-
ing books.
1. St. Paul. — It is natural that we should find in
this writer, who was the champion and protagonist
of the movement for the extension of Christianity
to the Gentiles, the most unrestricted expression in
the NT of the sonship of mankind as related to God.
In Ac 17** he bases an argument upon the phrase
of the poet Clean thes 'for we are his offspring.'
If Eph 3" ' the Father from whom every family
in heaven and earth is named ' should more rightly
be translated ' of whom all fatherhood in heaven
and earth is named,' * we have here the thought
that Fatherhood is an element in the very being of
God, and that all other forms of paternity are
derived from Him. The words of Eph 4® 'one
God and Father of all ' will then be naturally
interpreted of this universal Fatherhood of Gkxi.
It is, however, natural enough that in a Christian
writer this conception of the universal Fatherhood
of God should tind little emphasis, and that it
should be of infrequent occurrence, for the concep-
tion of sonship was wanted to express a closer and
more vital relationship than that between God and
unredeemed humanity. St. Paul, therefore, gener-
ally uses it to denote the relationship between Gk)d
and the disciples of Christ, whether Jews or Gentiles.
Writing in the stress of the Jewish controversy, he
finds it necessary to vindicate the claims of the
Gentile Christians to the name ' children or sons
of God.' Gentile Christians are ' children of pro-
mise ' (Gal 4®). It is they who as ' children of
promise' are Abraham's seed (Ro 9*). And this
sonship had been foretold by Hosea (Ro 9^). To
express the proccvs by which the Christian be-
comes a son of God, St. Paul takes from current
Greek and Roman terminology the metaphor of
' adoption ' : t so in Ro 8^' ' ye received the spirit of
adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father ' ; so again
in Gal 4*^ ' God sent forth his Son . . . that we
might receive the adoption of sons . . . and be-
cause ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his
Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' The
metaphor occurs twice besides in connexion with
the genesis of the idea of adoption in the mind of
(}od, and with its complete realization in the
future. In Eph 1' St. Paul speaks of God as
'ha\nng foreordained us unto adoption as sons
through Jesus Christ unto himself.' In Ro 8^ he
speaks of Christians who have the first-fruits of
the Spirit, who therefore have already received in
some measure the spirit of adoption, as ' wait-
ing for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our
body.' He seems to mean that only at the resur-
rection, when the body rises incorruptible, will the
process of adoption be really completed, and made
manifest. Adoption to sonship, then, according
to St. Paul, presupposes the revelation of the Son
of God : ' Grod sent forth his Son that we might
receive the adoption of sons' (Gal 4®). It was
effected by the imparting to the dLsciple of the
Spirit of the incarnate Son, or, in other words, of
the Spirit of God. ' God sent forth the Spirit of
his Son into our hearts' (v.*) ; 'As many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons' of God'
(Ro 8*^). This involves real likeness to the Son of
God : ' He foreordained them to be conformed to the
* See J. Armitage Robinson, Ephetians, 1903, p. 83 f-
f See W. M. Rainsar, Biitorieai Commentary on the Gaiatians,
image of his Son, that be might be the first-born
amongst manj' brethren' (v.*). Cf. such pass-
ages as 2 Co 3^* 'we aU . . . are being changed
into the same image,' At the unveiling or apoi-a-
lypse of Christ there will also be an unveiling, or
manifestation, of the sons of God (Ro 8"), in which
in some sense the whole created universe will share
(v."). Lastly, adoption involves fellowship with
the Son of God (I Co 1") and joint participation
with Him in present suffering, and in future glory
(RoS**^).
2. Johannine writings. — In this literatnre the
terms • the Father,' ' the Son ' are most character-
istically used to express the relationship between
God and the Word of God incarnate in Jesus
Christ. Whether God is spoken of as the Father
of all men is doubtful. The same question arises
here as in the Synoptic Gospels. There Christ
speaks repeatedly to His disciples of God as ' your
Father' : in Mt., commonly, e.g. S"**-*; in Mk.,
twice, 1I»- » ; in Lk., thrice, 6»« 12»- «. They are
to address Him in prayer as 'our Father' (Mt 6')
or ' Father' (Lk 11-). They are so to imitate Him
that they may be His sons (Mt 5*^, Lk 6"). In the
Fourth Gospel we find for 'your Father' the
simple ' the Father.' Of course we may read
into these phrases the idea of the universal Father-
hood of God ; and the general tenour of Christ's
teaching, interpreted in the light of history, makes
it certain that He meant to imply this. But we
must remember that He was speaking to Jews,
who had long been accustomed to think of God's
Fatherhood as a term specially applicable to the
pious Jew, or to the Jewish nation. His hearers
would not, therefore, nec-essarily have read a
universalistic sense into His words, and He no-
where explicitly speaks of God as Father of all
men outside His own disciples (members of the
Jewish nation). The nearest approximation to
this would be His use of ' the Father' in speaking
to the Samaritan woman (4^-^). For the term
' Father' as applied to God in the OT and in the
later Jewish pre-Christian literature, where it Ls
generally used to denote the relationship between
God and the individual pious Jew, see W. Bousset,
Bel. des Jud., Berlin. 19<j3, p. 355 ff. ; G. Dalman,
The Words of Jesus, Eng. tr. , Edinburgh, 1902, p.
184 ffl The phrase, * the children of God who were
scattered abroad ' ( Jn 1 1*-), probably refers to the
members of the Gentile churches of the writers
own period. These became ' children of (jod ' when
they became Christians. In connexion with son-
ship as used of the relarion between God and the
disciple of Christ the most characteristic feature
of the Johannine writings is the use of the
metaphor of re-birth. In Jn 1^- it is said that
those who receive the incarnate Word, or who be-
lieve on HLs name, are given authority to become
children of God. (It is just possible that we have
here an allusion to the Pauline conception of son-
si -ip by adoption.) Then follows a description of
the process by which this position of * children ' was
reached. They were begotten, not along the lines
of physical birth, but 'of God.' There is a very
interesting variant reading (Western) which makes
these words descriprive not of the spiritual birth
of the Christian disciple, but of the birth in a
supernatural manner ('not of a husband') of the
Word, who thus became flesh. And even if that
be not the original reading, it would seem that the
writer in choosing terms in which to describe the
spiritual birth of the disciple has selected terms
which presuppose acquaintance with the tradition
of the birth from a \"irgin. The disciple, like the
Lord Himself, was bom, not by physical genera-
tion, nor of fleshly passion, nor at the impulse of a
human husband, but of God. In 3' the necessity
of thus bein^ bom from above, or anew, is once
176
CHILDREN OF GOD
CHIOS
more empliasized. In 3' the birth is described as
a begetting of the S])irit which takes place at bap-
tism {'of water,' unless these words are an early
gloss). In the First Epistle the idea recurs. The
communication of the Divine life from God in
this spiritual birth is connected, as in St. I'aul,
with 'faitli.' ' Every one who believes that Jesus
is the Christ is begotten of God,' 1 Jn 5' (of. Gal
3* ' sons through faith '). But ' love,' and ' doing
righteousness' are also the external signs of
spiritual birth (of. 4'' ' Every one that loveth is
born of God,' and 2^ ' Every one that doeth
righteousness is begotten of Him '). And just as
in St. Paul adoption to sonshii) involved an increas-
ing conformity to the likeness of the Son of God,
so in St. John the birth from God involves the
idea of freedom from sin. ' Every one that is
begotten of God does not commit sin' (3" ; cf. 5'*).
It carries with it also the certainty of victory over
'the world.' 'Whatsoever is begotten of God
overcometh the world ' (S'*). Just as it is character-
istic of St. Paul, with his metaphor of adoption,
to speak of Christians as ' sons,' so it naturally
follows from St. John's preference for the idea of
re-birth to speak of them as ' children. ' And lastly,
just as St. Paul seems to look forward to the resur-
rection as the moment when adoption to sonship
shall be consummated, so St. John looks forward
to the manifestation of Christ as the moment when
likeness to Him, which is involved in sonship,
will be perfected (cf. 1 Jn 3^ ' Beloved, now are we
the children of God, and it is not yet made mani-
fest what we shall be. But we know that if he [or
it] shall be manifested we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is').
3. 1 Peter. — Here, too, we find the conception
that Christians have passed through a process of
re-birth. The word used is not the simple 'to
beget,' as in Jn 3^- ^ but a compound ' to beget
again,' which is found also in ' Western ' author-
ities of Jn 3*. Thus when St. Peter speaks of
God who ' begat us again,' he describes the life of
Christians as a new life into which they had
entered, and at the same time emphasizes this life
as having originated by a Divine act of God. In
l'^ he speaks of Christians as ' being begotten
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,
through the word of God.' The seed here seems
to describe the Divine nature (cf. 1 Jn 3^), and
the ' word ' apparently means the message of the
Gospel of the incarnate ' Word.' It is in harmony
with this conception of the re-birth of Christians
tliat St. Peter speaks of them as invoking ' a
Father' (1").
i. The idea of sonship finds little expression in
the remaining books of the NT. In He 12*- ''• »
affliction is regarded as a proof that God deals
with the sufferers as with sons. This is merely
metaphorical. More to our point is He 2^"'- ' It
became him, through whom are all things, and all
things through him, in bringing many sons to
glory, to make the leader of their salvation perfect
through sufferings. For he that sanctitieth and
they that are sanctified are all of one.' Some
would see in the 'sons' a reference to the uni-
versal Fatherhood of God, but more probably it
is Christians who are meant, who have become
'sons' by uniting themselves M'ith the one Son.
Consequently He and they are all sons of one
common Father. The use of ' sons ' is in this case
parallel to that of ' children ' in Jn IP-. The con-
ception of sonship does not occur in James, 2 or 3
John, 2 Peter, or in Jude, for the phrase ' God
the Father ' in 2 P I", 2 Jn", and Jude^ seems to
have reference ratlier to the relationship between
God and Christ than to that between God and
men. In the Apocalypse it occurs only in 2V,
where it is to be the privilege of those who in-
herit the new Jerusalem that they will be sons of
God.
If we now try to summarize tlie teaching of the
Apostolic Age as expressed in the writings of the
NT on the conception of sonship of God, the follow-
ing appear to be tlie main lines of tliought : (1)
There is a recognition of the universal Fatherhood
of God, to be seen in the teaching of Christ wlien
once it was detached from a literal Jewish inter-
pretation (cf. especially the Parable of tlie Prodigal
Son, and the use of tne term ' the Father' in the
conversation with the woman of Samaria). It
appears, too, in St. Paul's words to the non-Chris-
tian Atlienians. Whether the inference that God
is the Father of all men, from P^ph 3^*, is a neces-
sary one may be more doubtful. The correlative
to this thought of tlie Fatherhood of God should
logically be that of the universal sonship of men.
But this receives very scanty expression in the NT
(cf. again the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Ac 17*",
and perhaps He 2'"). (2) In a unique sense Jesus
Christ is the Son of God. (3) The Christian disciple
by virtue of his union with Christ becomes a son,
or child, of God. In the language of St. Paul he
is adopted to be a son. In the language of St.
John and St. Peter he is born or begotten again.
The condition of such sonship is faith. It is char-
acterized by guidance by the Spirit, and it mani-
fests itself in love and in righteousness. Consist-
ing in the gift of new life from God (incorruptible
seed, or the Spirit), it implies growth, i.e. a pro-
gressive assimilation to Christ Himself. The con-
summation of this process will be a final adoption
at the resurrection (St. Paul), or likeness to Christ
at His manifestation (St. Jolm).
LiTBRATORE. — For Sonship of God by new birth, in antiquity,
see A. Dietericli, Bine MUhrasliturgie, Leipzig, 1903jp. 157 ff. ;
for Adoption, see W. M. Ramsay, Uist. Conn, on GalatianH,
London, 1899, p. 337 ff. and art. ' Adoption ' in ERB. For Son-
ship of God in the NT, see the Theologies of the NT, e.g. G. B.
Stevens, Edinbur^'h, 1899, pp. 69 ff., 591 f. For Sonship in St.
John, see B. F. Westcott, Epistles of St. John, London, 1883,
p. 120 f. ; O. Pfleiderer, Primitive Christianiti/, Eng. tr., i.
[1906J 365 ff., iv. [1911] 227 ff. W. C. ALLEN.
CHILIARCH.— See Army.
CHILIASM.— See Parousia, Eschatology.
CHIOS (i] Xlos ; now 'Scio'). — The name was
given to a beautiful island in the ^Egean Sea,
separated from the mainland of Asia Minor by a
picturesque cliannel, 6 miles wide, which is studded
with islets. Its capital was also called Chios. In
the 5th cent. B.C. its inhabitants were said to be
the wealthiest in Greece. It produced 'the best
of the Grecian wines ' (Strabo, XIV. i. 35). Under
the Roman Empire it was a free city of the
province of Asia, till the time of Vespasian, who
included it in the Insularum Provincia.
St. Paul passed Chios in his last recorded JEsaan.
voyage (Ac 20^"). Sailing in the morning from
Mitylene in Lesbos, his sliip, after a run of 50
miles, cast anchor at night near the Asian coast,
opposite Chios (&vTtKpvs Xiov) and under the head-
land of Mimas. Next day she struck across the
open sea (irape^dXo/j.ei') for Samos. Chios was one
or the seven claimants to the honour of being
the birth-place of Homer, and its pretensions
received stronger support from tradition than
those of any of its rivals. 'The blind old bard
of Chios' rocky isle' was familiar with the course
pursued by St. Paul, for he represents Nestor as
standing m his ship at the Lesbian Bay and
doubting —
' It to the right to urge the pilot's toil . . .
Or the straight course to rocky Chios plough.
And anchor under Mimas' shaggy brow '
(Od. iii. 16S-172).
CHLOE
CHKIST, CHRISTOLOGY 177
Josephus describes a voyage of Herod the Great
in the opposite direction. ' When he had sailed
by Rhodes and Cos, he touched at Lesbos, as think-
ing he should have overtaken Agrippa tliere ; but
he was taken short here by a north wind, which
hindered his ship from going to the shore, so he
remained many days at Chios. . . . And when
the high winds were laid he sailed to Mitylene,
and thence to Byzantium' (Ant. XVI. ii. 2).
iJTBRATtRB- — Conybeaxe-Howson, SL Patti, new ed.,
London, IS77, ii. 2«>2<. : W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul, do. 1895, p.
2S>2 (. ; T. Bent, in Eng. HuL Revieui, it. [1889] pp. 467-480 ;
Mnrrays Guide to Atia Minor. JAMES StRAHAX.
CHLOE.— St. Paul was told of the factions in
Corinth irro tQv XXotjj, ' by them of Chloe ' (1 Co 1").
It is not said that she was a Christian, nor is it clear
whether she lived in Corinth or in Ephesus. Pro-
bably she was an Ephesian Christian lady, whose
' people ' {i.e. her Christian slaves, or companions,
or even children) had brought back disquieting
news after visiting Corinth. Her name is an
epithet of a goddess and was often given to slaves ;
hence it has been conjectured that she was a
freedwoman of property.
LrrERATrEii.— Artt. in HDB on 'Chloe' and on 'I. Cor-
inthians," p. 4s7»; Comin. on 1 Cor. by Findlay {EGT, 19(>4X pp.
735, 763, and by Godet (1SS9), L 21, 64. C v. Weizs4cker
discusses the siVaation in Corinth, and takes a different view
about Chloe : see his Apogtolie Age, L*, London, lii»7, pp. 305,
318, 325, 335. J. E. KOBEKTS.
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY.— In studying 'Chris-
tology' the object is to ascertain what were the
opinions, conWctions, or dogmas regarding the
Person of Christ which were held by particular
authorities or by the Christian Church as a whole
at any particular time. In the period now under
review ' dogmas ' do not enter into considera-
tion, seeing that the Apostolic Age does not
furnish any instance of common opinion enforced
by authority, which is what ' dogma ' consists in.
On the other hand, the limits of our period are
set not by the ' Age of the Apostles ' strictly
understood, but by the documents which form our
NT, even though some of them may be held to
proceed from a generation subsequent to that of
the apostles.
It has been usual to divide the subject into
pre-Pauline and Pauline (with post-Pauline) Chris-
tology ; and the division only does justice to the
great place occupied by St. Paul in the interpreta-
tion of Christian experience and the correlation of
Christian thought. But the classification is open
to a two-fold objection. In the first place, it tends
unduly to depreciate the importance, indeed the
normative value, of Christian experience and re-
flexion anterior to St. Paul ; and, in the second
place, by grouping the other forms of Chiistology
as ' post-Pauline ' or ' sub- Pauline,' it assumes or
alleges a relation of dependence between them and
the Christology of the Apostle ; whereas the fact
of this relation and the measure of it are parts of
the whole problem, and call for careful investiga-
tion. It is preferable, therefore, to consider first
primitive Christology, and then sub- primitive Chris-
tology, without assuming tmy continuous line of
development.
I. The Christology of the primitive com-
MUX ITT. — 1, Sources.— The material for the study
of this period is far from copious, and its value
has been much disputed. Yet its importance is so
great that it demands careful examination. The
possible sources may be classified under three heads :
(1) the Acts of the Apostles, especially the earlier
half ; (2) certain statements and allusions in St.
Paul's Epistles as to views held in common by him-
self and the primitive Christian community ; and
(3) certain elements in the Synoptic Gk)spels, in
VOL. I. — 12
which, it has been suggested, we find reflected the
Christological idea of a later generation. We shall
take these in the reverse order.
(1) The Synoptic Gospels. — Here it is not proposed
to make any use of what some claim to recognize
as ' secondary ' material in the Synoptic Gospels.
Firstly, even if the presence of such material be
admitted as a po^bility, there is the greatest un-
certainty as to its amount and its distribution.
While there has undoubtedly been a tendency in
some critical writers to exaggerate the influence of
later theology on the Synoptic record, it is also
quite possible that the criteria to which they appeal
may need to be revised. Neither the absolute nor
the relative dates of the NT documents have been
ascertained with sufficient certainty, nor yet has
the inner history of the period been realized mth
sufficient precision, to make the disciimination of
such material anything but very precarious. But,
secondly, even if there were much more certainty
than there is as to the Synoptic material which is
reaUy secondary in character, it would be of little
use for our purpose, seeing that the criterion by
which it is distinguished is precisely its harmony
with the views of a later period ; and on that ac-
count it cannot be expected to yield any new and
posirive information as to the opinion held in the
period to which ex hypothesi it belongs.
(2) The EpisUes of St. Pa«i.— These provide at
least valuable confiiiuation of what may be other-
wise ascertained as to the opinion held by the
primitive community, partly through direct state-
ment by the Apostle as to what was the gospel he
had ' received,' and partly through inference which
may be made from his own views, as to that out
of which they had developed. But beyond this we
cannot go. The Epistle of James, even if its date
be early, would add nothing to our knowledge of
the primitive Christology. The First Epistle of
Peter, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apoca-
lypse all represent a stage in some degree in
advance of the common basis from which they
started ; and the Jobannine Gospel and Epistles
embody the results of still longer experience and
deeper analysis.
(3) The Acts of the Apostles. — There remains, as
the chief source of material for constructing the
pre-Pauline Christology, the Book of Acts, more
especially the first eleven chapters. Not many
years ago it would have been difficult to justify at
the bar of scholarly opinion the use of this docu-
ment as a trustworthy source. No book was so
seriously discredited as a historical source by the
representatives of the 'Tiibingen theory.' Now,
however, that the governing historical principle of
that theory has been shown to be untenable, and
the conclusions based u^n it have been either aban-
doned or seriously modified, the way has been opened
for a reconsideration of the Acts as to both its date
and its historical value. In the opinion of most
competent scholars, the authorship may now be
restored to St. Luke and the date placed w-ithin
the first century, some assigning it to the nineties,
some to the eighties. Quite recently a strong case
has been made out by Hamack for the stiU older
view that it was written in the sixties before the
death of St. Paul.
But what is more important for our purpose than
the possible revision of the date is the abandon-
ment of the charge of history-making for party (or
eirenical) purposes, and the recognition that St.
Luke was not simply an echo of St. Paul (see
Jiilicher, Introd. to AT, Eng. tr., 1904, p. 437 ; J.
Motfatt, LNT, 1911, p. 301). In particular there is
an increasing disposirion to acknowledge that in
the speeches of the earlier chapters we have the
thought of the primitive community preserved and
repr(^uced with singular fidelity. The admission
178 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
of Schmiedel in his ait. on the Acts {EBi i. 48) is
significant :
' A representation of Jesus bo simple, and in such exact agrree-
inent with the impression left by the most genuine passages of
the first three gospels, is nowhere else to be found in the whole
NT. It is hardly possible not to believe that this Christology of
the speeches of Peter must have come from a primitive source."
In the Acts of the Apostles most of tlie material
is contained in tlic five speeches of Peter and tlie
speech of Stephen, tliose of Peter being («) on the
day of Pentecost (•_'""•) ; (b) in Solomon's portico
(Si'^'ff-) ; (c) the first before the Sanhedrin (48*-) ; (d)
the second before the Sanhedrin (5^"^) ; and (e) the
short speech at Joppa (lO^*^-). When we proceed
to collect and classify the relevant statements in
this part of the Acts, we find that they point to
the following conclu.sions. (i.) The Christians of
the early days identified Jesus with the Messiah,
(ii.) They appealed for confirmation of this convic-
tion to the fact that God had ' raised him from the
dead'; and also that He had been 'exalted' by,
and to, the right hand of God, the Resurrection
and Exaltation marking a decisive moment in the
Messiahship. (iii. ) At the same time they referred
back behind the Resurrection to facts and charac-
teristics of His earthly ministry, (iv.) In spite of
the dignity and authority to which they believed
Him raised, they consistently referred to Him in
terms of humanity, as to one who had been, while
upon earth, a man among men. (v. ) They promptly
began to attach to Him certain OT titles and types,
some of which had already been recognized as
Messianic, others po.ssibly not ; e.g. ' Son of Man,'
' Servant of God,' ' Leader of Salvation,' • Saviour,'
' Judge,' and ' Lord.' (vi. ) They connected the death
of Jesus, on the one hand, very definitely with the
determined purpose of God ; and, on the other,
with the blotting out of sin. And for these reasons
this Jesus was the subject of the ' good news' (5*^),
the object of faith (9*^ 11"), and the cause of faith
in men (3^®).
(i. ) The first point hardly requires to be illustrated.
Not only the speeches but the narrative as a whole
bear witness to the fact that the ' disciples,' to use
St. Luke's word, identified Jesus who had died but
risen again with the Messiah of Jewish expectation.
This was indeed the one point which at the outset
distinguished them from the other Jews in Jeru-
salem. Other grounds of distinction, ultimately
leading to separation, were doubtless latent in their
minds — recollections of the Master's teaching, of
His attitude to the Law and the ritual of the
Temple. But in the meantime ' the disciples ' are
found haunting the Temple and observing the for-
mal hours of prayer ; St. Peter proudly claims that
no unclean or forbidden food has passed his lips
(10"), and, thirty years later, St. James can assure
St. Paul that all the thousands of Jewish Christians
in Jerusalem are ' zealous of the law ' (2120), But
with an enthusiasm which no scorn could quench,
a determination -which neither threats nor imprison-
ment could weaken, they proclaimed to high and
low their conviction that the Jesus they had known
was the Messiah. It is one of the water-marks of
the primitive character of St. Luke's narrative that
lie everywhere shows his consciousness that this is
the meaning of x/'"''''<5s. He never emi^loys it as a
proper name. His name for our Saviour is either
' Jesus ' or ' the Lord ' ; and xp'o^''6s when it stands
alone always means 'Messiah.' This is specially
significant in passages where ' Christ ' and ' Jesus '
occur together, in apposition ; e.g. 3-", ' that he may
send the Messiah who has been before appointed —
Jesus' ; 5^- 17* 18' 18-*, 'shewing by the scriptures
that Jesus was the Messiah.' The completeness
with which this fact is attested must not ulind us,
however, to two uncertainties, which immediately
arise. The first may be stated thus : What did
the disciples understand by the Messiali v Wli.it
character, rOle, or function did tliey a>si-ii to Him '.'
And the second thus: At wlmt ijoiin did ilujy
understand Him to have eiiirn .1 on lii^s .Me.->iuli-
ship? They identified Je.sus with the Messiah of
Jewish expectation; but did tiiiit mean that He
had been (and was still, and \\as to return as)
Messiah, or that the Messiahsiiip was a dignity
conferred on 11 im after death and at the Resurrec-
tion? The answer to these questions follows on
the examination of the other elements in the primi-
tive conviction.
(ii.) That conviction rested upon, and appealed
to, the Resurrection us the concuisive proof of the
Messiahship of J esus. llm the Resurrection was
uniformly connected with tiie Exaltation to tlx!
right hand of God, or with its equivalent — the ]i,ir
ticipation of Jesus in the Divine 'glory.' In eacJi
of St. Peter's recorded speeches tlie-i' two factors
are significantly combined (2^-- ."i 7 ' lO*'-*^).
The Resurrection is thus reganled as the exter-
nally visible side of a great transaction which has
its true significance in the Exaltation of Jesus to
Messianic rank and honour in heaven ; it was a
public declaration of His station ; the man whom
they had seen crucified now occupied the place of
dignity and authority which prophecy and apoca-
lyptic had assigned to the Messiah. God had now
' made him both Lord and Christ ' (2^). The word
'Lord' {KvpLos), like 'Christ,' is probably used as
an official title ; but in any case the phrase wit-
nesses to the belief that the Resurrection and
Exaltation had marked a decisive moment in the
Messiahship of Jesus.
(iii.) At the same time, St. Peter is careful to
emphasize on more than one occasion the ministry
Avhich had preceded the Crucifixion and Resurrec-
tion. He marks the limits of that ministry (l-^- -^)
in accordance with those set by the Gospels. In
his first speech (2-'-''^) he describes its character —
' Jesus the Nazarajan (cf. 3« 4^" 6'* 22^ 24» and 26"),
a man approved of God unto you by mighty works
and signs and wonders, which God did by him in
the midst of you, even as ye yourselves know.*
And specially in the address preceding the baptism
of Cornelius (lO^"'-), St. Peter, having begun with
words which make echoes of Messianic passages in
Isaiah (52' ; cf. Nah P*), proceeds to remind his
hearers of something already familiar to them — the
ministry of 'Jesus the one from Nazareth,' which
began from Galilee after the baptism proclaimed
by John. Him God had anointed with the Holy
Spirit, and He had gone about doing deeds of kind-
ness and healing all who were tyrannized by the
devil. Of all that He had done also in Juda;a and
Jerusalem (as Avell as of the Resurrection) St.
Peter and his comrades were appointed to bear
witness. The only epithets applied to Jesus
which might throw light on the impression He had
made are ' holy ' and ' righteous ' (S'* 4^ [cf. 4*"] 7'^
[cf. 22"]). The ascription of tlie characteristic
' righteous ' is probably due to a reminiscence of a
description already traditional for the Messiaii (cf.
En. 38^ 46* 53"), and the collocation of ' holy ' and
' servant ' may have a similar origin ; but in 3",
where both epithets are applied to the historical
Jesus, the contrast drawn in the following para-
graph with the 'murderer' for wlioni the Jews
had asked suggests that the words at the same
time connote the consciousness that they fitly
describe the character of Jesus.
(iv.) This Jesus, whether He be referred to in
the days of His flesh or in His present Exaltation
at the right hand of God, is consistently repre-
sented in terms of humanity. It cannot be said
that any special stress is laid on His human
nature. " The time had not yet come when it was
necessary to emphasize His true manhood over
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY 179
against Docetic or Gnostic tendencies. If some
slight emphasis is to be detected, it is dne rather
to wonder that One to whom so much honour is
assigned, through whom so much is expected, was
One with whom the disciples had been on familiar
terms. This is suggested bv the frequency with
which the simple name ' Jesus ' is used (three
times as often as the title 'Christ'), by the re-
iterated designation ' Jesus the Nazaraean,' and
by the emphatic demonstration which occurs more
than once — ' This Jesus did God raise up ' (2*^ ; cf.
2*). It is 'Jesus' whom Stephen sees standing
at the right hand of God (7**), and 'Jesus' who
speaks to Saul from heaven. It was in the fact
that St. Peter and St. John had been companions
of 'Jesus' that the members of the Sanhedrin
found some explanation of their boldness and
powers of speech (4^). It was in the name of
' Jesus ' that they taught (4^), and in the same
name that they wrought miracles. The miracles
of Jesus Himself were not ascribed to His in-
dei>endent initiative ; they were wonders which
'God did by him' (2""); and the explanation of
His power which is given elsewhere (KF*) is that
God had anointed Him with the Holy Ghost, and
that God 'was with him' (lO**). For God had
' raised him up ' in the sense in which He ' raised
up' prophets of old, and 'sent him to bless' His
people m turning away every one of them from
their iniquities (3-*). hi all this we see the tokens
of a very early form of Christology ; one, moreover,
which would be very difficult to account for either
as the invention or as the recollection of a later
generation.
(v.) But this is not a complete account of
the Christological phenomena of these chapters.
There are numerous indications that from the
very outset the minds of some at least of the
disciples were at work on the material pro\aded
for them by (a) their recollection of what Jesus
had been, said, and done ; (6) the facts of His
Crucifixion and Resurrection ; and (c) the promises
and predictions of the OT, together possibly with
some of the language of the apocalypses. 'The re-
sult of this reflexion is seen in the ascription to
Jesus as Messiah of certain important titles and
functions which indicate more precisely the relation
in which He stands towards God or the function
He discharges towards men. In his speech on the
day of Pentecost St. Peter was ready with a quota-
tion from Ps 16, and an exegetical interpretation
of it which was sufficiently in accord with con-
temporary methods of exegesis to commend it to
his hearers. Not long after, we find him making
the definite general statement that God had ful-
filled the things which He foreshowed ' by the
mouth of all his prophets that his Christ should
sufler ' (3'8 ; cf. also 3-^ 10«). We are justified,
therefore, in looking to the writings of the prophets
for the sources of phrases and ideas now connected
with Jesus as the risen Messiah.
(a) The Servant of God. — That is undoubtedly
the source of the strildng description, rdir ralda avroD
(sc. Oeov), which occurs twice in St. Peter's second
speech (3'^ ^) and twice (rbv dyiov -raidi aov) in the
firayer of thanksgiving (4^- *'). The rendering
aniUiar to English ears through the AV trans-
lates iral8a by ' Son ' in the first two passages, by
* child ' in the last two. But according to the
view now generally held it is the alternative
meaning of vah which is here intended, viz. ' ser-
vant ' ; and we have in the phrase a deliberate
echo of the language of Deutero-Isaiah concern-
ing the ' Servant of the Lord.' Such a usage, in
the first place, is a further indication of the primi-
tive character of St. Luke's material. It is found
elsewhere only in Clement, the Didache, and the
Martyrdom of Polycarp. It is an early Messianic
title for our Lord which is not repeated in the
later books of the NT (see further A. Harnack,
Date of Acts and Synoptic Gospels, £ng. tr., 1911,
p. 106 ; History of Dogma, Eng. tr., L [1894] 185,
note 4).
Further, the application of this title to Jesus is
very significant, whether it is traced to inde-
pendent retlexion on the part of the apostles, or
whether it be due to appreciation on their part
of the same factor in the consciousness and in the
utterances of Jesus. Its efl'ect was to link on to
the traditional conception of the Messiah a series
of ideas of quite a different character, including
linmility, submission, vicarious suffering and death.
The importance of this identification is illustrated
by the exposition of Is 53' given by Philip to the
Ethiopian eunuch (8" * beginning from this scrip-
ture he preached unto him Jesiis ') ; and the same
interpretation probably underlies St. Paul's state-
ment, ' Christ . . . died for our sins according to
the scriptures.'
(/3) Prinze and Saviour. — The same OT context
is probably the source of another striking desig-
nation, apxvyov KoX (rorrTjfM. 'Him did Grod exalt
unto his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour '
(5^* ; cf. 3^* ' ye slew the Prince of life ' ; and He
2'* 'the author (prince, or captain) of their sal-
vation ' ; also 12"- ' author and finisher ' [Westcott,
' leader and consummator ']). The variety in the
renderings reflects an ambiguity in the word dffxv
yoi. It describes one who both inaugurates and
controls ; and the ipxTY^ ^* f<*^s *t once inaugu-
rates and controls the Messianic experience of sal-
vation here described as fw^. There is thus a
close parallelism between the two phrases ' Prince
of life ' and ' Prince and Saviour ' ; and when they
are taken together, and weighed with the context
in which the first is found, their connexion with
the language of Isaiah becomes plain, e.g. Is 60"
eyw K(//xos 6 truj^ur ae, and ob* ISoii fiapripioy iw fdrttrip
ISuKa awrdi', ipxovra Kal vpoarAaaovra rcii iOveaiv. The
' sufferings of the Christ ' had been foretold ' by the
mouth of all the prophets ' ; and the same pro-
phecies, to the study of which the apostles had
been led by His death, supplied forms for the ex-
pression of their faith in Him.
(7) Son of Man. — This title for Jesus occurs once
only — in the account of the martyrdom of Stephen
(7**). Stephen ' looked up stedfastly to heaven and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the
right hand of God ; and he said, Behold, I see the
heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at
the right hand of God.' Two things are clear:
the name ' Jesus ' and the title ' Son of Man ' are
already felt to be interchangeable, and the title
belongs to Jesus as the Messiah. There is no
other instance of the phrase in the NT outside the
Gospels, Rev 1" being no exception. It provides,
as Bartlett says {ad loc. ), ' a water-mark of the
originality of this utterance,' and even the most
cautious critics admit that this speech of Stephen
reached St. Luke from a very early source. These
two facts — the early date to which the phrase
must be assigned and its uniqueness outside the
Gospels — point to its being a reminiscence of what
is attested by the Gospels — our Lord's custom of
describing Himself by this title, and describing
Himself with a veiled allusion to His Messiahship.
But even if the primitive community was itself re-
sponsible for this identification, and did not take
it over from our Lord Himself, that would not
diminish the significance of the phrase for the
primitive Christology. ' This identification of the
historical Jesus with the " Son of Man " of Daniel
and Enoch is very significant, because directly it
is accomplished, the further thought can no longer
be resisted, that Jesus of Nazareth is not simply a
man, who in the future is to be exalted to heavenly
180 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
glory, but an original heavenly being, who came
down to accomplish this work of his on earth' (J.
Weiss, Christ, Eng. tr., 1911, p. 59 f.). The com-
munity, for which this was a just and intelligible
•lescription of Jesus, was preparing and prepared
for any interpretation of His being which is con-
tained in tlie NT.
(5) Tiie plirase Son of God is also used, but only
once— in 9=**. St. Paul ' preached Jesus, that he is
the Son of God.' But the title is used in its
Messianic and official sense, founded on Ps 2'' (cf.
Mt 16'^ Jn 1*®) ; and the sentence implies no more
than the closing words of v.*- 'proving that this is
the Clirist.' A later generation failed to recognize
this, and the consequence is seen in the TR of 9-",
where 'Christ' has been substituted for 'Jesus' —
a useful illustration of the way in which the copy-
ists felt the lack of the word ' Christ ' as a name,
and therefore introduced or substituted it (some
nine times in all in Acts).
(e) The Lord. — "KpicrTb^, vais Oeov, dpxvj^^ ''"^J
(rwrrjplas, dpxvy^^ k"-^ awrijp, vl6i rod avdpilnrov — these
are elements out of which a rich Christology might
rapidly develop. And there is still one to add,
which is probably the most pregnant of all — the
title 6 Kiptos. The Synoptic Gospels witness to the
habit of addressing the Master, or speaking of
Him, as 6 Kipios ; and there it is simply an expres-
sion of profound respect. As such the word was
also in common use among the Hellenists of the
Empire, applied alike to gods and to Emperors.
St. Paul shows himself conscious of this when he
says (1 Co 8') that there are in fact many 'gods
and lords so-called.' But when he asserts the
claim of Jesus to the title in a unique sense, he is
only doing what the infant Church had done before
him. ' Indubitably therefore let the whole house
of Israel know that God has made him Lord and
Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucilied ' (Ac 2*"). ' He
is Lord of all' (10^). This became in fact the
chosen and prevailing appellation of Jesus Christ,
especially among the Gentile Christians, where the
historical significance of ' Christ ' was unfamiliar.
But how far the usage was from originating in
Gentile circles we learn from its familiarity there
in the Aramaic form of ' Maran atha,' i.e. ' Our
Lord comes' or 'Our Lord, come.' That St. Paul
could count on this being understood by the
Christians at Corinth betokens antecedent and
wide-spread usage of the formula in Palestinian
circles.
The special and unique significance of the title
as now applied to Christ arises out of its use in
the LXX as the usual eupiiemistic equivalent of
' Jahweh.' For those familiar with the OT in the
Greek version, 6 Kiipios was a synonym for God ;
the outstanding fact in connexion with the
Christolojnr of the Acts and Epistles is that the
same word has become the common, the preponder-
ating designation of Jesus Christ. And the con-
notation which is involved in its application to
Him is the same. This follows from the trans-
ference to Christ not merely of the title but also
of phrases from the OT, the original reference of
which was to Jahweh. When the believers on
Christ are described as ol iviKoKoiiievoi. rb 6voixa.
rovTo, ' those who call upon this name,'sc. the name
of Jesus our Lord {9-^ ; cf. 9^* 2^^ 22'« and Ro 10'*,
1 Co P), language is approjiriated to Christ which
in the OT had been used to describe the worshipper
of the true God (cf. Gn 4''« 12«, 2 K 5"). Stephen
dies ' calling upon (the Lord) and saying, Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit ' ; and Peter postulates
universal dominion of the same Person — ' He is
Lordof air(103«).
'There cannot be the least doubt,' says J. Weiss {Christ, p.
46 f.), 'that the name has now a rpii'.(7iou« significance. To make
clear the religious import of the use o( the name *' Lord " by the I
early Christians, one would have to cite the whole of the NT.
For in the expression " Our Ix)rd Jesus Christ " the whole
primitive Christian religion is contained in jrerm. Dutiful
obeisance, reverence, and sacred fear lest he should be oflTended,
the feeling of complete dependence in all things, thankfulness
and love and trust— In short, everything that a man can feel
towards God, conies in this name to utterance. . . . That which
is expected from God, the Lord can also impart.'
Corresponding with these significant titles there
are certain functions ascribed to the risen Christ,
Avliich throw valuable light on the conception of
Him which prevailed in the primitive community.
He is represented (a) as One whom it is natural to
approach in prayer, (b) as One who can forgive and
save, and (c) as One who is destined to be the Judge
of quick and dead.
(a) The practice of addressing prayer to Christ
is established in the case of St. Paul (see below),
and his references to the practice give no ground
for the supposition that it was a novelty which
originated with him. Rather do they suggest a
practice which was already familiar, and requiring
no defence, and so serve to confirm the evidence of
the Acts to the eflect that from the beginning the
disciples addressed the Risep Lord in prayer. It is
in this sense that the Christians in Damascus are
described by Ananias as ' those who call upon thy
name' (9''*), with this signiljcance that the dying
Stephen cries, ' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,' and
' Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, and it is
at least possible that the same idea underlies St.
Peter's quotation from Joel (Ac 2^*), for the speech
to which it is prefixed leads up to the conclusion
that Jesus has been made Lord and Christ (see
Zahn, Die Anbetung Jesv!^, 1910).
(6) The words of Stephen are addressed to One
who has the power to forgive ; and the title of
'Saviour' is no empty form. That 'salvation,'
which, whatever be the precise contents of the
term, always stands for the highest good, can be
obtained through Him, and through no other. In
4^*^ ('there is no other name,' etc.) St. Peter is pro-
bably contemplating Jews only, and salvation as
conceived by them, i.e. as the Messianic deliver-
ance of the future. This Jesus, who is the Christ,
is to return, after ' seasons of refreshing from the
presence of the Lord ' at ' the time of the restoration
of all things' (3-^). That return will prove the cul-
minating and final fulfilment of predictions made
by Moses and the prophets who followed him, con-
cerning both the glories and the judgment of the
Messianic times.
For, (c) when He comes, Christ will fulfil the
function for which He has bean destined by God ;
He will act as Judge of ciuick and dead (10**).
These last are the only references in the early
chapters of Acts to the Parousia of Christ and its
attendant circumstances. We have to observe
therefore the sobriety and the reticence of the ex-
pectation, especially when compared Avith the exu-
berance of earlier and contemporary writing on
the subject. There is no reference to the restora-
tion of the Kingdom to Israel, or to the humiliation
and destruction of Israel's foes — features of the
future which were part of the common form of
Messianic expectation. In fact, the tone of these
speeches is strangelj' different from what we should
have expected from a Jew speaking under the con-
viction that the Messiah had been manifested in
Jesus, and would shortly return to fulfil the Divine
programme. We miss even the e-schatological
scenery connected with the Return, with Mhich
the apocalyptic sections of tlie Synoptic Gospels
have made us familiar, and also that emphasis on
the imminence of the Return wliich api)ears in the
early Epistles of St. Paul. And yet, in the an-
nouncement that Christ comes to judge the quick
and the dead, St. Peter a-scribes to Him a function
which sets Him on the plane of God (see Scheel in
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY 181
RGG i. 1743, foot). The exalted Jesus, despite
the clearness with which He is defined as a man,
is yet One to whom men pray, One who exercises
the Divine functions of forgiving, saving, and
judging. And ' what is honoured in worship stands
wholly and without qualification on the side of
God ' (Buusset, Kyrios Christos, p. 185).
(vi.) Further light is shed upon the conception
of Christ held by the primitive community by the
significance assigned to His death. It is true that
the references to this subject are unexpectedly few,
brief, and general. The early chapters of Acts
present a very exact reproduction of the natural
situation in which the death of Jesus was a fact
known to all, one which called for explanation,
and, in the absence of explanation, was without re-
ligious value ; but one for which an explanation
was emerging under the guidance partly of the OT,
partly of reminiscences of the Master's teaching,
and partly of the spiritual experience of the
disciples. The following points are to be noted.
(a) The death of Jesus was very definitely referred
to ' the determined counsel and foreknowledge of
God' (2"^). Herod and Pontius Pilate with the
Gentiles and the Jews as a people had only carried
out what had been ordained to happen by the hand
and will of God (4^*). In this there is nothing that
goes beyond the Jewish doctrine of the Divine fore-
knowledge ; but the statement of it involved a prob-
lem which was calling for solution. To what end
had God ordained the death of the Messiah ?
(^) This death, though the fact had hitherto
been ignored, had actually been predicted by the
prophets of the OT. ' Those things which God
before showed by the mouth of all the prophets
that his Christ should suffer, did he thus fulfil '
(3i«; cf. 10*, 1 P li», Lk 24?^«- *^-). The repeated
emphasis on ' all the prophets ' (cf. 3^) is not to be
explained as due merely to hyperbole. It arises
from, and illustrates, the conviction that Christ
was the goal and the fulfilment of the whole pro-
phetic anticipation of redemption ; though St.
Peter might have found difficulty in quoting many
prophetic words directly bearing on the death of
Christ, the conviction he expresses is that that
death must now be recognized as an essential
element in the working out of the redemptive
purpose.
(7) The disciples commemorated the death of
Jesus by a frequently repeated eucharistic meal in
which they ' showed forth the Lord's death.' That
this practice began so promptly after the birth of
the community (2^) is a fact which must be due
to recollection of the Last Supper, and so involves
conscious remembrance of the significance which
the Master had attached to the breaking of the
bread, at least according to the shortest form in
which the words are reported : ' This is ray body
which is on your behalf (1 Co ll-^*). Behind that
would lie recollections of other things He had said
bearing upon His death which had been vague and
cryptic at the time.
In these factors — the correlation of the death of
Jesus with the whole redeeming purpose of God,
the foreshadowing by prophecy of the vicarious
value attaching to tiie death of the innocent
servant of God, and the remembered attitude of
Jesus towards His own death — we have the condi-
tions for a rapid evolution of a doctrine of recon-
ciliation through the Cross. The doctrine itself is
not here ; but distinct approximation to it can be
traced in the collocation of Jesus as sutiering
Messiah with an appeal for 'repentance unto re-
mission of sins' {3^*- '^). In 2^ when the people
have heard the declaration that God has made
Jesus Lord and Christ, and ask. What are we to
do ? the answer is ' Repent, and be baptized, every
one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ unto re-
mission of your sins.' There is a superficial
similarity to the summons issued by John the
Baptist, but a fundamental distinction in that the
ground of the apostolic appeal is the fact of Christ,
a fact as yet unanalyzed ; and the baptism is to be
' in the name of Jesus Christ,' i.e. it involves and
symbolizes the confession of Jesus as the Christ,
and heart-felt submission to His Personality. In
5'* {'Him did God exalt to be a Prince and a
Saviour, for to give repentance and remission of
sins '), if, as is probable, ' God 'is to be understood
as the subject of the infinitive clause (cf. 11* and
Ro 2*), the Exaltation and indirectly the death
have remission of sins in part for their object and
result.
More cannot be said. The nature of the con-
nexion between the death of Jesus and the Divine
plan remains obscure. To explain it was the work
of a longer Christian experience, a deeper compre-
hension of sin, and a nigher conception of the
ethical demands of God. But when the explana-
tion came, it was an unfolding of the primitive
conviction that there was a profound connexion
between the death of Jesus and the removal of sin.
On this point, as on others, investigation of the
primitive consciousness entirely confirms, as it is
confirmed by, St. Paul's statement of the gospel as
it had been communicated to him, that ' Christ
. . . died for our sins according to the scriptures '
(1 Co 15^).
(5) The summary of the ' gospel ' here given by
St. Paul, while it is notably lacking in certain
elements which are commonly supposed to be
essential to Paulinism, corresponds very closely
with the impression concerning the missionary
preaching which is made by the later chapters of
Acts. It is of course maintained by many scholars,
and by some regarded as axiomatic, that the simi-
larity between the speeches of St. Peter and those
of St. Paul is due to the fact that they were all
the work of one man, neither St. Peter nor St.
Paul, but either an unknown writer in the second
cent, or St. Luke working up old material at the end
of the first. The alleged similarity calls for care-
ful examination. The result will probably be the
recognition that it arises from an inward harmony
between the two apostles as to the essentials of
their message, and especially as to their concep-
tion of Christ, combined with a diversity of tone
and emphasis which is specially marked when the
speeches of St. Paul are compared with one another,
and extends to his speeches as a whole when com-
pared with St. Peter s. And whatever explanation
be given of the composition of the speeches of St.
Paul, the primitive character of the Christology
they present remains a fact, and one which is more
easily accounted for if they reproduce the essentials
of the Apostle's mission preaching, than if we have
to suppose St. Luke, with the knowledge of St.
Paul's later preaching which he must have pos-
sessed, deliberately excluding what was character-
istically Pauline. The discrepancy between the
Christology reflected in St. Paul's speeches in Acts
and that of his Epistles may actually be reflective
of the true facts of the case.
In regard to their Christology the speeches of St.
Paul witness to practically the same elements as
those of St. Peter, and to no other, or at most to
one. Just as in the speech of Stephen, and (less
conspicuously but not less really) in the speeches
of St. Peter, so in the speech of St. Paul at Pisi-
dian Antioch, Jesus of Nazareth is set forth as the
goal of Israel's history and the crowning fulfilment
of Jewish prophecy. The good news of the gospel
which its messengers proclaim is the promise to
the fathers now fulfilled (Ac IS** ; cf. 26«, Ro \b%
From Thessalonica we have a specimen of St.
Paul's missionary preaching, according to which
182 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
for three Snl)bath days or 'weeks' (RVm) he
reasoned with the Jews ' from the scriptures,' to
tlie eHect that the Clirist ' was bound to sutler,'
and the same api)eal to Scripture is repeated in
Ac 26** 28*3 ; cf. 13". The object of the appeal is
to show both that this is the Messiah, and that His
death is part of the redemptive process. He refers
to Clirist in the same striking way as 6 SiKaios (22" ;
cf. 7*'*), and describes Him as the One appointed by
God to judge the world (IV^). St. Paul further
presents Christ as an object of faith (22'* ; cf. 9**
11", and possibly 3'^), and claims that the consist-
ent burden of his preaching has been ' repentance
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ ' (20-' ; cf. 262"). In 13»» he declares ' through
this man is proclaimed unto you remission of sins.'
If in the following verse (' and from all the things
from which ye could not be justified by the law of
Moses, by him is justified every one that believeth ')
St. Paul seems to cross the line into ' Paulinism,'
he does not go very far. * Justified ' has tlie same
significance here as it has in the Parable of
tiie IMiarisee and Publican (Lk 18'*) ; and iv To&rt^
BiKaioOrai involves the same conception as the words
of St. Peter in 15" Sia rrjs x'^P"""' '^^^ Kvpiov 'lri(rov
■wiffTevo/Mev crwdrjvai, or in 4'- oiiK ^ctlv iv SiKKip ovdevl
il awTTjpla. There is one phrase, however, in which
St. Paul, as reported in the Acts, states in dogmatic
form a conviction to which we find no verbal paral-
lel in tlie speeches of St. Peter. In 20^ he refers
to TTji* iKKkTjffLav rov deov ijv irepieiron)ffaTO 8ia tov
a'ifiaros toO iSLov, (The probability is strong that
vlov has been accidentally omitted from the text
at a very early stage ; otherwise l8Lov must be con-
strued as a substantive = d7a7r7;Toi;.) Here we have
undoubtedly a seed-thought of much that we recog-
nize as specifically Pauline. But it is still in the
form of a seed. Ps 74* in the LXX runs fiv/icrdriTi
TTJs crwayuyiji <tov ^s iKT-f)<r(i3 air a.pxv^ I i'f^vrpdiaw
pd^Sov T^s K\r]povo/j.iai crou. St. Paul, echoing the
thought rather than quoting the words, takes the
two words iKri)(T<j} and iXvrpibffu, combines them,
then breaks up the compound into two new
elements — purchase and price ; and, guided further
by such phrases as ' I have given Egypt for thy
X&rpov ' (Is 43*), ' He smote all the first-born of
Egypt ' (Ps 78"), he sets the fact that ' Christ died
for our sins ' in this pregnant form : that the new
holy community like the old one has been redeemed
at the cost of blood, the blood of God's own beloved
Son.
2. Primitive conception of Christ. — (1) Jesus as
the Messiah. — We have now examined the material
available for answering the question with which
we started — What significance did the primitive
community attach to the Messiahship of Jesus,
and what led them to recognize Him as Messiah
and as a Messiah with this significance ? It would
not further our inquiry to enter on an examination
of antecedent or contemporary Jewish conceptions
of the Messiah and the functions He was to dis-
charge. These conceptions were at once so various
and so fluid, and the extent to which any one of
them prevailed at any particular time is so difficult
to estimate, that even when we know all there is
to know on the subject, we iiave only a bewildering
variety of possibilities. We must and can find
what we want within the NT. We begin by
marking the two extremes between which the con-
ception of the Messiah moved. The one is pre-
sented quite clearly at the openinfj of Acts, before
the experience of Pentecost. The disciples put
the question to the Risen Christ : ' Lord, dost thou
at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ?' (1®) —
a question reflecting the same conception as the
words of the disciples on the way to Enimaus
(Lk 24*'), viz. that of a Messiah whose function was
primarily and mainly the political enfrancliisement
of the nation. The other extreme is found in such
a saying as ' Christ also sutl'ered for sins once . . .
that he might bring us unto God ' (1 P 3'*), or in
2 Co 5'" ' God was in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself.'
The way to test any conception of the Messiah
is to observe from what He is expected to deliver
— from the tyranny of the earthly oppressor or
from the tyranny of moral and spiritual evil.
Now, when we apply this test to the conception
which lies Ijehinu the language of the primitive
community, we find that, while it has very definitely
moved away from the political, it has not yet
reached a developed consciousness of the ethical
deliverance. We find the reiterated and triumph-
ant assertion that Jesus is the Messiah, but no
trace subsequent to Pentecost of any idea that He
is to restore the kingdom to Israel. On the other
hand, the record of the early days furnishes no
clear exposition of the cliaracter of the deliverance
He brings. We learn that in no otiier than Christ
is crwrripia ; but the nature of the ffurrjpia remains
undefined. Tiiis is true in spite of allusions to
' remission of sins ' in connexion with this mani-
festation of His death . According to contein porary
Jewish thought, ' remission ' or ' blotting out ' of
sin was a condition antecedent to, not part of, the
Messianic salvation. There is, therefore, some-
thing really new in the presentation of the Chris-
tian Messiah as instrumental in the remission of
sins. It was to antedate His traditional activity.
' Unto you first,' says St. Peter (3-'*'), ' God, having
raised up his Servant, sent him to bless you, in
turning away every one of you from your iniqui-
ties.' Tliat had been a function of Jesus in the
days of His flesh ; and the saying indirectly testi-
fies to one of the felt consequences of His fellow-
ship. But now, says St. Peter, 'repent ye, and
be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ unto the remission of your .sins ; and ye shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost' (2^). So in
1Q43 ('Through his name every one that believeth
on him shall receive remission of sins ') the declara-
tion is followed, and so confirmed, by the be-stowal
of the Holy Ghost. This gift of the Holy Spirit
is recognized as the first-fruits of the Messiiinic
salvation and a pledge of its ultimate completion.
The condition of receiving it is the remission of
sins ; and that follows on ' believing on him,' or,
what is synonymous, ' repenting and being bap-
tized in the name of Jesus Christ,' which again
signifies the solemn confession of belief in Jesus as
the Christ. Christ is not described as the One who
bestows forgiveness (though the prayer of Stephen
shows the near emergence of the idea) or as One
for whose sake forgiveness is bestowed ; but He
is set in such relation to forgiveness that all is
ready for the next step. When His disciples begin
to have a deeper conception of sin, and to emphasize
the idea of salvation as deliverance from it, a pro-
founder explanation of the Messiah's relation to
sin and its removal will be demanded. Meanwhile,
the conception of His function is plainly transi-
tional, cut loose from the Judaic but only approxi-
mating to the Pauline.
The burden of the testimony borne by the primi-
tive community was to the effect that Jesus is the
Christ ; He is also to return as the Christ ; had He
been the Christ while yet on earth ? No conclusion
to the contrary can be drawn from Ac 2", seeing
that there is no indication of the point of time at
which the ' making ' took place ; and even though
it appears most natural to connect it with the
Resurrection (cf. Ro 1*), the 'making' probably
implies tlie further recognition and promulgation
of a status rather than the bestowal of it. On the
other hand, there are not wanting indications
which seem to carry back the Messianic status
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY 183
into the eartlily ininistn,-. He had been 'raised
np' bv God (3=*; cf. 7'* 13**) as it had been pre-
dicted by Moses that God wonld raise up ' a
prophet ' (3*^). He had been sent by God as one
olessin^ His people, and by God ' anointed with
the Holy Ghost and with power' (10*). Tliis last
expression probably means ' appointed as Messiah,'
the occasion referred to being the Baptism of
Jesus. ' Since Is 1 1- the conception of the Messiah
in Jewish theologj- had been indissolubly linked
with that of the Spirit. The Messiah is the bearer
of the Spirit * (Briickner, in BGG iL 1208), so that
the anointing with the Spirit is equivalent to in-
stallation as Messiah.
(2). The Besurrection and the Measiahahip. — To
what was the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah
due ? It is sometimes easUy assumed that it was
produced by the Resurrection. But taken by it-
self the Resurrection was not sufficient to create
belief that Jesus was the Messiah. It is not as
if there had been any antecedent expectation that
the Messiah would rise from the dead ; such an
expectation was indeed excluded by the absence of
any idea that death was an element in the Messiah's
ex{ierience. There is no reason to suppose that
when St. Peter appealed to the verses in Ps 16, he
was guided in the interpretation he gave of v.^**
by any tradition concerning the Messiah. Nor was
there in the fact of resurrection itself any demon-
stration that such a rank belonged to the subject
of it. It had been reported concerning John the
Baptist that he was risen from the dead (Mk 6^^),
but the only inference drawn was that * therefore
do these powers work in him.'
The Resurrection did not create faith in Jesus as
Messiah ; it revived it. He had died as One who
claimed to be, and by some was believed to be, the
Christ. ' We trusted that it had been he which
shotild have redeemed Israel ' (Lk 24-^) ; and the
effect of the Resurrection was to vindicate this
claim made by Jesus and for Him on behalf of His
followers.
The form and contents of that belief began to
undergo a rapid change, as we have seen ; but
beyond this, the disciples are found taking up a
religious attitude to the Risen Master which is not
accounted for by their belief that He was the
Messiah. They behold Him as set by the right
hand of God ; and the vision is the ideal expression
of the devotion, allegiance, and hope which move
in their hearts towards Christ. To what again is
this profoundly significant attitude due — for which
there is no sufficient explanation in traditional
ideas of the Messiah ? The explanation may be
sought in two directions.
(3) The historic Jesus. — The attitude is due,
firstly, to the impression made on the disciples by
the historic Jesus. He had never attempted to
demonstrate the claim which He made. But they
had tacitly admitted its validity. He had claimed
to stand in a universal and at the same time unique
relation to men ; He had postulated that their atti-
tude to Himself was the determining factor in
life both present and future. He had demanded
for Himself and for His cause an allegiance which
outweighed the claims of any other relationship.
And He made known to them in Himself such a
character, such a personality, that these claims,
stupendous as they were, seemed reasonable, and
were, indeed, admitted and acted upon — 'Lord, we
have left all and followed thee.' And the very
failure on the part of these same men to grasp the
inmost signihcance of HLs message and His life
enhances their witness to the moral pressure they
experienced, leading them to submit even where
they imperfectly understood. When St. Peter
made what is called the great confession, 'Thou
art the Christ,' he was doubtless seeking to crys-
tallize the total impression into a categorical form.
But the form itself was not adequate. To acknow-
ledge Jesus as the Messiah was to assign to Him
the highest rank and dignity within the intellect-
ual range of the apostles. But the motives which
led to the confession, the attitude and personal
relation which lay behind it, found only incomplete
expression in the recognition of Him as the Messiah.
Jesus had done what no one had ever conceived
of the Messiah doing. He had touched the inner
springs of their life. He had deepened indefiinitely
their apprehension of essential things, the joy of
life as lived by those who have a Father in God,
the sorrow that springs from the fact of human
alienation from that Father. According to the
measure of their capacity He revealed to them the
Father, and it was oy leading them to know Him-
self. And so, for those who attached themselves
to Him, Jesus became Messiah and more. And as
the con\-iction that He was Messiah was revived by
the Resurrection from the death-blow which it re-
ceived through the Crucifixion, so the experience
of ' the more ' was also latent in the c-onsciousness
of the disciples, waiting to be quickened by a
corresponding event, and developed by a future
experience.
(4) Pentecost. — That event which corresponded
to the Resurrection, and displays itself as the
second moving cause of the attitude to Christ
which we find taken up by the infant Church, was
the experience of Pentecost, described as the out-
g)uring of the Holy Spirit. Fundamental as the
esurrection was, it did not stand alone as a basal
fact on which the faith and life of the young Church
were built ; nor is it possible to explain what fol-
lowed in the development of life or thought from
the Resurrection by itself. That was succeeded
after a short interval by Pentecost and the indue-
ment with spiritual power of those who believed in
•lesus as the glorified Messiah. To the fact of the
Resurrection was added the experience of a Spirit-
filled life ; and quite apart from any questions as
to the form in which this experience manifested
itself, it is to this highly intensified and concen-
trated perception of God's activity in the lives and
wills of those who submit themselves to Him in
Jesus Christ, working on the complex of facts il-
luminated by the Resurrection, that the unfolding
of systematic Christian thinking is due. As to the
narrative of Pentecost itself, it was only natural,
in view of the character of the phenomena, that
tradition should seize on the externally marvellous
and enhance it, to the obscuring of the really sig-
nificant. And in particular the tradition as it
reached St. Luke was so shaped either before him
or by him that the central feature in the account
(2*""), the declaration by men of many different
nationalities, 'we do hear them speaking in our
tongues the mighty works of God,' differs from
every other item of evidence as to the meaning of
the glossolalia or ' speaking with tongues.' That
this phenomenon, the speaking with ' new ' or
strange tongues, was a familiar one in the first gen-
eration of Christians, we know from St. Paul's
Epistles ; that the first manifestation of it is what
St. Luke is describing we may be sure ; but inas-
much as a marked characteristic of glossolalia in
all other contexts is incomprehensibility snA the
necessity for interpretation, we may take it that
on the first occasion also the phenomenon was that
of ecstatic speech, not comprehended by the hearers
except in the sense that, being infected by the like
enthusiasm, they felt themselves in mental com-
munication with the speakers, though they did not
rmderstand their words. The essential thing is that
something occurred of a public and striking descrip-
tion which not only called for explanation, but
justified St. Peter in seeing in the experience
184 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
shared by him and so many others the fulfilment
of Christ s words about ' the promise of the Father '
(1*; cf. Lk 24'«», Gal 3").
The fulfilment of this promise became the second
moment in the development of a deeper and richer
Christology. On the one hand, it involved, and so
revealed, a relation between God and ' His Christ '
of a difierent quality from what had hitherto been
recognized. That relation had been conceived as
something due to positive choice, as external,
official ; and the Spirit was bestowed on Jesus as
part of His Messianic equipment. The Christian
experience of Christ sets up a process at the end of
which we find St. Paul boldly identifying Christ
and the Spirit, and the writer of the Fourth Gospel
interpreting the parting words of Jesus in terms of
that identification. And the efi'ect of this identi-
fication on the Christology is to provide an explana-
tion of the attitude of believers to the Risen Lord
in their recognizing Him as united to God in a re-
lation which was not official but inherent, not
mediated in time but eternal and unchangeable.
And once more the stage in this process which we
find reflected in the Acts is the intermediate one.
The glorified Messiah is no longer the subject of
the Spirit's influence (as in the SjTioptic Gospels),
nor is He as yet identified with it ; but he is the
instrument and channel of the Spirit's bestowal.
That bestowal is conditioned by faith in Him (2^),
by obedience to Him (5^^). On the other hand, the
bestowal of the Spirit, which was afterwards recog-
nized and described as 'the Spirit of unity and
brotherly love,' involved and revealed a new re-
lationship between all those who received the gift
from Christ. That is the real meaning of Pentecost
so far as it has been identified with the birth of the
Church. We are told of the 3000 souls that were
added to the infant community that they were
steadfastly adhering to the teaching of the apostles,
and to the fellowship (Koivuvla), the breaking of
bread, and the prayer {2*^). We have here a new
word for a new thing, the new consciousness of
sacred union connecting the believers, knitting
them together in what St. Paul afterwards called
the Body of Christ. Hort (Christian Ecclesia, 1897,
p. 44) understands by Koivuvla here * conduct ex-
pressive of and resulting from the strong sense of
fellowship with the other members of the brother-
hood.' Pentecost had for its most striking result
the creation of the sense of brotherhood within a
body of men and women whose common bond was
not only a common allegiance to Christ, but com-
mon participation in His Spirit. No doubt the
extreme form which the principle at first assumed
— community of goods — proved unworkable, and
was of temporary duration ; but underlying it we
see a whole series of new ethical ideals in opera-
tion— mutual service, mutual self-sacrifice, the
merging of the individual in the corporate whole,
' love of the brethren' as a governing motive of the
new life.
And with the consciousness of a new binding
fellowship created by Christ, there came a new
conscience. The new relations involved new re-
sponsibilities, the possibility of new oftences, new
sins. The earliest case of sin which is recorded
within the new community was in fact sin against
the community itself and the principle of brother-
hood ; and it was recognized and dealt with as sin
against the Holy Ghost.
These ethical consequences of the bestowal of
the Spirit which was traced to the action of the
Risen Christ had far-reaching results not only in
the life but in the thought of the Church, l^ar-
ticipation in the Spirit was the privilege, as it
was the mark, of every true Christian. The act
of believing on Jesus, the surrender to Him which
found symbolic expression in baptism, was followed
by a great religious experience, the eflfect of which
was manifold. Incorporated in a community which
had died to earthly ambition, whether personal or
national, and which was permeated with a holy
enthusiasm towards Him who was felt to be the
source of its life, and with genuine love to ' all the
brethren,' the individual became conscious of a new
'life,' ethical and religious; and he saw in Jesus
the Christ, the Founder and Pioneer of that life.
Conscious that it was as moved by the proclama-
tion of that Messiah crucified but risen tliat he,
repenting and turning to God, had found peace of
conscience, deliverance from fear of the wrath, he
hailed in Christ a aur-np, and connected Him with
the great experience of &<p€<ns rdv afjMpTiQv. The
connexions and inijilications of these experiences
and convictions were still undeveloped. But the
motive power and the material for the development
were there. The influence of the Spirit realized
from day to day alike in the individual and in the
corporate life, and in the inter-action of the two,
meant that not only were the disciples secure of
salvation in the future ; they had it now. The
Kingdom was theirs in both senses. It belonged
to them as an inheritance ; it was already in their
possession. They were on the way to St. Paul's
great discovery, ' The kingdom of heaven consists
in . . . righteousness, and peace, and joy in the
Holy Ghost' (Ro 141^). And to Him, to whom
they traced the bestowal of the best they had ever
been led to hope for from God, and also the revela-
tion and bestowal of gifts such as ' had not entered
into the heart of man to conceive,' they lifted their
hearts as hitherto they had done only to God
Himself.
II. The Christology of the sub-primitive
COitSf UNITY. — The records, scanty though they
are, thus provide sufficient evidence to show that
most, if not all, of the chief elements in later
Christology were already present, at least in germ,
within the consciousness of the primitive com-
munity. From the year A.D. 50 or thereabouts
we are able to trace the development of these
elements in Epistles from various hands. But the
lines of development are not continuous. Although
there are doubtless lines of cross-connexion, e.g.
between St. Paul and St. Peter, between St. Paul
and the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is more in ac-
cordance with the historical situation to regard
them as radiating from the common centre of
primitive thought. Arranging these lines in the
order of James, the Apocalypse, Peter, Paul,
Hebrews, John, we find an increasing measure,
not of divergence from the primitive type, but of
originality and penetration m the analysis of the
convictions which were common to them all. Some
at least of these lines appear to be focused again
in the Fourth Gospel, along with some which turn
back independently to the original base.
A broad comparison between these various types
of Christian thought which may be described as
sub-primitive shows that the characteristic which
distinguishes the Pauline from all the other types
is not primarily a distinction in respect of doctrine
in general or of Christology in particular. It is a
distinction in the aspects of religious experience
which are respectively emphasized. In neither
case is the emphasis an exclusive one ; that is to
say, it must not be taken as excluding the aspect
which is not emphasized. But, while for St.
Paul the dominating interest in Christological
reflexion lies in the explanation of, and preparation
for, the ethical union between believers and their
Lord, for St. Peter and the others Christological
reflexion runs on more concrete lines, developing
the thought of Christ as external to men, as
Preacher of Righteousness, as Example, as Priest,
as Authority. Ultimately the distinction depends
CHKIST, CHEISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY 185
upon the place assigned by St. Paul to the Tvev/M
and to the category of ryevfiariKSs. This subtle
but indubitable difference of atmosphere has to be
steadily borne in mind. To it may be due not a
few apparent divergences of expression, while on
the other hand apparent correspondences of lan-
guage may represent real distinction of thought.
1. The Epistle of James. — It is hardly possible
to speak of the Christology of an Epistle in which
the word Xp«<rros occurs only twice (1^ 2^). But it
is to be noted that in both places the writer gives
the full title tov Kvpiov iinwv 'Irtaov 'KpurroD, that in
1^ he presents himself as in the same sense 8oD\os
of God and of Christ, and that in 2^ he adds to the
titlQ the striking appellation t^s Sdfi/s (so Mayor,
adloc., following Bengel). To this there may be
a parallel in 2 P H" (cf: also Col 1=", Ro 9^, Jn 1") ;
and in view of the prevailingly Judaic tone of the
Epistle there may be an allusion to Christ as the
Shekinah (cf. 1 S 4=^, Ps 78^). In 2^ {^\a<T<fn}novffii>
t6 KoXdv 6vofia t6 ^xtJcXTj^^r i<f vfidi) there is probably
a reference to the name of Christ as used in bap-
tism (cf. Ac 2^), and in 5", whether tov Kvpiov
should stand in the text or not, a reference to the
same name as the secret of prevailing prayer. If
we add 5^, ' The Parousia of the Lord is at hand,'
and couple with it the phrase in the following
verse, ' Behold, the Judge is at the door,' we have
probably exhausted the references to Christ. But
the fact that the writer in the same context and
frequently elsewhere puts Kvpios=Q€6s must be
allowed due weight, and similarly it is to be noted
how in 5* the ' Second Coming is equated ^vith
the old object of expectation, the Kingdom of
God.
The Christology which is suggested rather than
defined in the Epistle is lacking in several of the
details which appear even in that of the primitive
community, most notably perhaps in all reference
to the Holy Spirit ; but it is wholly consistent
with it, and the inadequacy of its expression is
probably due rather to the character of the docu-
ment than to any defect in the writer's views as
compared with those, e.g., of St. Peter.
2. The Apocalypse of John. — It is best to con-
sider the Apocalypse of John at this point, be-
cause its Christology also represents the Chris-
tology of the primitive community, not developed
by intellectual analysis, or even through the
interpretation of Christian experience, but ex-
panded through the emotional magnification of the
heavenly Christ. In no book in the NT do devo-
tion to, and adoration of, Christ, and recognition
of His participation in the glory and authority of
the Father, find such copious, such exalted, ex-
pression. Yet the forms m which this expression
IS cast are for the most part not original. On a
much larger scale than by the primitive community,
so far as our records show, tlie OT has been laid
under contribution ; so also has the literature of
the Interval. Attributes and functions, descrip-
tions and imagery which had played their part in
setting forth the majesty and the Almighty power
of God, are gathered from all available sources and
attached to the Person of the heavenly Christ.
Characteristic of the whole book is the repre-
sentation of Christ in the opening vision (1^*),
where He appears as the * one like unto a son of
man ' of the Danielle vision, but the details of His
appearance are some of those which in that earlier
scene are attributed to the ' Ancient of Days.'
Divine titles are ascribed to Him. as ' Lord of
lords, and King of kings' (17" 19^°), and Divine
functions, in the searching of heart and reins (2® ;
cf. Ps 7*), and a share both in the throne of God
(22' 'the throne of God and of the Lamb') and in
the worship paid to God, even the worship paid by
angels (5"). He holds the keys of Hades and of
death (1'*), which according to Jewish tradition
was one of the prerogatives of the Almighty. It
is before His wrath that men are to tremble in the
Day of Judgment (6'®- '"), and He is to come again
in power and glory to judge the world and to save
His people (1^ 14^*^- 22*'). The throne on which
He has taken His place is His Father's throne (3*^),
and to Him He stands in a relation of unique son-
ship (1®), while at the same time it is from His
Father that He receives His power (2^), and He
is made to speak of Him as ' my God ' (3- *^).
This antithetical emphasis upon the Divine honour
and dignity assigned lo Christ and the ideas of
humility, submission, and suffering which are also
connected with Him are vividly brought out by
the fact that it is under the title of 'the Lamb'
that many of the highest prerogatives are assigned
to Him. This is indeed the most characteristic
appellation in the book, and occurs some 28 times.
He is ' the Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world' (13^), and even now appears as one 'that
has been slain ' (5*- ^^) ; but it is also as Lamb that
He receives the worship of Heaven (5"- "), that He
takes His place by the side of God, and opens the
seals of the Book of Destiny. It is ' in the blood
of the Lamb ' that the saints have ' washed their
robes and made them clean' (7^* 22"), or, by
another figure, it is with His blood that He has
purchased unto Grod {dyopd^eip ; cf. Gal 3'^) ' men of
every tribe' and nation (5^; cf. 14'-*). On the
other hand, the name ' which no one knoweth but
he himself,' 'Word of Grod' {6 \6yos toC deov, 19^),
is not further applied or expanded, and, though it
may mark a line of connexion between the Apoca-
lypse and the Fourth Gospel, it cannot be said to
throw any clear light on the Christology of this
book.
There is a class of passages which appears to
claim for Christ a life co-eternal with that of God.
' I am the first and the last and the living One ' — 6
fujj' (!"• 1^) ; 'I am the Alpha and Omega, the first
and the last, the beginning and the end ' (22^ ; cf.
21*) ; Avith which must be compared Is 44®, where
Jahweh says, ' I am the first and the last, and
beside me there is no God,' and Rev 1*, where
the same majestic self -description is ascribed to the
Almighty. Such language may well seem to impl}'
the pre-existence of Christ ; yet the predicate in
that form is probably to be regarded rather as a
necessary inference from the language of the
writer, who carries the equating of Christ with
God to the furthest point short of making Them
eternally equal. Christ is still ' the beginning of
the creation of God ' [i] dpxv '"^ (crurewj toD deov, 3"),
by which is probably to be understood (cf. Col P"
apxh, irputTOTOKOi tQv veKpCiv • also Col 1**) that He
Himself was part of the m'fftj.
The Apocalypse of John as a whole leaves the
impression of a conception of Christ so exalted, so
majestical in the history of mankind, that it could
not be carried further without either impinging
on the writer's monotheism or demanding the em-
ployment of metaphysical categories which were
beyond his range of thought. It has been main-
tained by some {e.g. Bousset) that in the descrip-
tion of Christ as Alpha and Omega the writer
goes beyond St. Paul, and actually represents the
furthest point in the development of Christology
within the NT. B. Weiss says that ' the fact that
the Messiah is an originally divine Being {gottliches
JF&seK) is taken for granted' {Bib. Theol. of^ T, Eng.
tr., 1882-83, vol. ii. p. 172). But it may be doubted
whether this outgoing of St. Paul by the Apocalypse
is not more apparent than real. 'The impression is
due partly to the continuous occupation of the
authors mind with the same theme. Christ is the
Hero of every scene in the drama of the end. There
is none of that wide sweep of interest in things
186 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
both human and Divine which marks the letters of
St. Paul. It is due also in part to the natural ten-
dency of the modern reader to accept as evidence
of a theory or conception of Christ's Person what
for the author was only concrete imaj^ery gathered
from many sources to set forth ana enhance the
<:;\oTy of his Lord. It may indeed be doubted whether
he held any proposition regarding Christ which was
not inclucled in the convictions of the primitive
community. All that he has to say was involved
in the tacit assertion that Christ is an object of
worship and a hearer of prayer. And with all the
Divine honours and attributes which he lavishes on
tlie Glorified Messiah he never loses sight of His
identity with the man Jesus. After the title ' the
Lamb ' he uses with most frequency tlie simple
name ' Jesus ' (nine times). The phenomenon was
so noticeable that in several passages inferior MSS
have inserted the word ' Clirist,' which copyists
felt to be missing. It was ' for the testimony of
Jesus ' that John was in Patmos (I* ; cf. 121^ 191") ;
it was with the blood of ' the martyrs {or witnesses)
of Jesus ' that Rome was intoxicated ; and in 22'"
the heavenly Christ speaks of Himself by this
human name — ' I Jesus have sent my messenger,'
Avhile the response to the message with which the
book closes addresses the Risen Christ in the same
form, reminiscent of ' the days of his flesh ' — ' Even
so, come, Lord Jesus.' The Apocalypse, therefore,
is no exception to the rule that, so far from being
accompanied by a loosening of the tie between
Christ and the historical Jesus, the increasing em-
phasis on His Divine significance for the world goes
along with the same or even clearer assertion of
the oneness of Jesus and the Christ. The Christ
they worshipped was the Jesus whom they had
known.
3. The Christology of St. Paul.— The material for
Christology which was already present in the con-
sciousness of the primitive community, or within
its grasp, received its fullest and richest develop-
ment at the hands of St. Paul. The task of the
student is to do equal justice to what he received
from, and shared with, those who were before him
in Christ, and to those elements which were original
with him. This will supply the right answer to a
question whicii has become a living issue for modern
Christology — Is the Pauline Christology a legiti-
mate and necessary development of the relevant
material provided oy the contents of the Gospels
and the experience of the Church, or does it repre-
sent a new departure, a conception of Christ so
distinct from, and disparate to, what had gone be-
fore, that it must be lield to rest not on the revela-
tion of Jesus, but on the speculation of the Apostle ?
There has been for some time a tendency in one
school of NT criticism to exaggerate beyond all
reason the distinction between Christianity accord-
ing to the Gospels and Christianity according to
St. Paul, and to do so by minimizing or eliminat-
ing what is ' Pauline ' in the Gospels and by over-
emphasizing the ' Pauline ' elements in St. Paul.
Whatever is distinctive in St. Paul — his 'Calvin-
ism,' his ' sacramentarianism,' his 'mysticism,' his
' eschatology ' — is apt to be isolated and exaggerated,
with the result, if not the intention, of dillerentiat-
ing him more emphatically from his Master. It
needs to be borne in mina tliat we are working
here in a highly charged electric field, where men
of all schools of thought are in danger of being
swayed even unconsciously l)y a general jnirinj/i-
cium.
In examining the evidence as to St. Paul's con-
ception of Ciirist, certain general considerations
have to be kept in view. It is now commonly
agreed that it is a mistake to regard St. Paul as
one who was constructing or had constructed a
system of dogmatic theology. We are probably
nearer the truth if we think of him as a man
supremely interested in the ^iractical conduct of
life, whose mind was speculative in the sense that
he was not content to register phenomena, but
must seek for their relations and their causes, and
that he constantly referred details to their correla-
tive principles. That he was moved to this by
the impulse of a practical demand rather than
of an intellectual necessity is plainly suggested by
what we can gather concerning his ' missionary
preaching.' Tlie Epi-stles to the Thessalonians
rurnish evidence as to its comparatively elementary
character up till A.D. 52. And it is within the
last ten years of his life that we are to place those
Epistles in which his distinctive theological ideas
are developed and exposed, Avithin six of these last
ten years that we place the great group of Epistles
in which they find their classical and all but final
expression. Everything points to the fact that the
specifically Pauline combinations or inferences were
due to the stimulus of specific situations or to the
demands created by definite opposition. St. Paul's
mind ' is logical enough when his spiritual experience
demands it, but a large part of his afiirmations
regarding the religious life and destiny of men is
thrown off', as occasion prompts, in vague hints, in
outbursts of intense spiritual emotion, in pictures
set within the framework of his inherited training,
in arguments devised to meet the needs of a par-
ticular church or a particular group of converts'
(H. A. A. Kennedy, St. PauVs Conceptions of the
Last Things, 1904, p. 22). It is impossible to separ-
ate the practical and ethical from the doctrinal, in
the interests of the Apostle ; and only imperfect
success can attend any attempt to study Pauline con-
ceptions by isolating their intellectual expression.
(1) Sources for Paulinism.— For our informa-
tion regarding the thought and teaching of tiie
Apostle we are almost wholly dependent on his own
letters. From the Acts we learn the details of his
conversion, the course and method of his missionary
activity, but concerning his teaching only what
may be gathered Avith caution from his speeches
reported there. The Letters are conveniently
divided into four groups.
(a) The Epistles to the Thessalonians, written
from Corinth some twenty years after his conver-
sion, in which we have an echo and some record of
that mission-preaching wiiicli had been the task of
St. Paul's life since that event. (6) The Epistle to
the Galatians may possibly be earlier still, though
by most authorities it is grouped with those to the
Romans and the Corinthians, written some five
years later, in which we find the Apostle at the
height of his intellectual energy, stimulated to the
discovery and enunciation alike of the relations
and of the foundations of those truths which had
formed the centre of his gospel, (c) A third group,
commonly known as the Epistles of the Imprison-
ment— those to the ' Ephesians,' the Colossians,
and the Philippians — belongs probably to A.D. 62-
63, and shows the Apostle responding to hostile
stimulus of a diflerent kind, and carrying yet
further certain of the lines of thought laid down in
earlier Epistles, (d) There is a fourth group of
Epistles, that known as the ' Pastorals,' addressed
to Timothy and Titus, written, if they were written
by St. Paul, after he had been released from his
imprisonment. The much-disputed question of
their authenticity is hardly material to our present
purpose, seeing that the l*astoraIs have little addi-
tional to contribute to Pauline Christology. When
Christ is referred to as the ' one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus ' (1 Ti 2*), He
is presented under an aspect which does not appear
in St. Paul, though it does in the Epistle to the
Hebrews; but in general the Christology of the
Pastorals is important rather as a criterion of
CHRIST, CHEISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHEISTOLOGY 187
tijeir aurhorship than as adding material for the
Pauline Christology.
The convictions of St. Paul regarding Christ
began at the same point as tliose ot the primitive
community. Through a like experience of Je^ns
as Living, Risen, and Glorified, he was seized by
the conviction that He was the Messiah. In his
ca.se, however, tlie personal recollection of what
Jesus had been and tauglit, of the Messianic claim
made bj- Him and for Him, was replaced by the
testimony of those disciples who h&d already be-
lieved on Him, and had sealed their belief by stead-
fastness under persecution. That doubtless gave the
content of St. Paul's belief; what created it was
the vision of Christ as risen : ' la-st of all he was
seen "of me also ' ( 1 Co 15*). To St. Paul also, as
to the earlier disciples, came the gift of the Spirit
(Ac 9^"). And ' straightway in the synagomies he
proclaimed Jesns, that he is the Son of God ' (9**),
».e. tliat He is the Messiah, the phrase having still
its Messianic significance (cf. Jn 1^*), and finding its
equivalent in v.^ ' proving that this is the Christ.'
It was in the Scriptures of the OT that he too
sought for the proof (Ac 18^), as also for proof of
the further affirmation that it behoved the Christ
to surter (17*). Like Peter and like Stephen, but
by a ditierent series of steps, he traces the history
of Israel doAvn to the manifestation of Jesus ( 13'"*-).
He preached to Jews and Greeks alike ' that they
should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy
of repentance ' (26®) ; moreover, he also connected
the promise of forgiveness with the revelation of
Christ (13^), and recognized in Jesus One whom
God had ' appointed to judge the world in righteous-
ness' (17"). And to this Exalted Christ St. Paul
also in the Acts gives the pregnant title Kvpios.
This is specially significant in his speech to the
Elders at Miletus, in which there is a note of
personal attachment and devotion to the One he
there describes (20^*- *i- **- S"- ssj which is not struck
elsewhere in the Acts, common as the title itself
is throughout. This prepares us for the evidence
of the Thessalonian Epistles, and for the subse-
quent development of the implication of the name.
There is thus scattered up and down the later
chapters of Acts evidence as to the character of St.
Paul's preacliing, which suggests that it included
the same elements as are found in that of the Jeru-
salem Church ; and there is so far no reason to
suppose that it contained any elements peculiar to
himself, with the one important exception that he
claimed for the Gentile as Gentile, and not as Gen-
tile become Jew, the full privileges of Christian
salvation. And again this corresponds with what
may be gathered from the Thessalonian Epistles.
(2) CHEISTOLOGY OF EPISTLES TO THE THESSAL-
ONIAN'S. — These Epistles are too commonly studied
almost exclusively for the light they throw on
Pauline eschatology ; but it is to be observed that
the directly eschatological passage occupies only one-
seventh of the First Letter, while before it is reached
the letter has passed what looks like an intended
close (1 Th 3""^), and in the earlier portion the re-
ferences to the JParousia are brief and wanting in
elaboration. Nor are the proportion and emphasis
ven^ diflerent in the Second Epistle.
The really striking feature of these Epistles is
the equal emphasis on Christ the Lord and God
the Father as severally and jointly the source of
all Christian experience, and the ground of all
Christian hope. In the opening verse of each
Epistle, Christ and the Father are combined as the
sphere in which the Church at Thessalonica has
it« being. In 1 Th 3^^ the words ' our God and
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ ' appear as the
subject of a verb in the singular number, express-
ing a prayer that the Apostle may be guided on
his way (cf. 2 Th 2'^). It is from Christ no less
than from God that the Apostle claims to have
received his commission (1 Th 2*), and it is ' through
the Lord Jesus ' that he utters his precepts (1 Th
41 [cf. 5>^], 2 Th 3«- "). And though Chnst is not
in these Epistles directly referred to as Judge, it
is implied that in the work of Judgment the Son
will also have a part (1 Th 3'' 4« 5*, 2 Th 1' 28).
It will be already plain that 6 Kvpun is the con-
stantly recurring description of Christ ; but, more
than that, it is used only of Him. For the phrase
consecrated by OT usa^e, ' the Lord God,' St. Paul
has in fact sutetituted 'God the Father and the
Lord.' The usage of various names for Christ in
these Epistles has been examined bv G. Milligan
{St. PauFs Epp. to Thess., 1908, p. *135) with the
following results. The human name 'Jesus' by
itself is fotind only twice (1 Th 1>« 4'*). The name
' Christ ' standing alone is also comparatively rare,
occurring four times ('apostles of Christ,' 'gospel
of Christ,' 'dead in Christ,' 'patience in Christ').
The combination ' Christ Jesus ' denoting the
Saviour alike in His official and in His personal
cliaracter, the use of which in the NT is confined to
St. Paul, occurs twice. On the other hand, K6pioi
occurs twenty-two times in all, eight times with,
and fotirteen times without, the article. The fact
that nearly two-thirds of these instances are anar-
throus shows how completely the word was al-
ready accepted as a proper name, and appropriated
to Christ.
It is consistent with the significance we have
assigned to this use of Ki-ptot that the phrase ^
rifiepa toS Kvpiov, which in the OT means ' the Day
of Jahweh,' is employed here without hesitation
and without explanation to describe the day of
Christ's return in judgment (1 Th 5* ; cf. 2 Th 2*).
Of like significance are the parallel use and the
interchange of 'God' and 'Lord,' e.g. 1 Th 5**
' the God of peace himself,' and 2 Th 3^^ ' the
Lord of peace himself ' ; 1 Th 1* ' brethren beloved
of God,' and 2 Th 2i» ' brethren beloved of the
Lord.' These phenomena are the more remark-
able inasmuch as they occur in Epistles which
otherwise are distinguished for an unusually per-
sistent expression of what may be called 'God-
consciousness.' It is not so much a doctrine con-
cerning God that forces itself on the attention, as
a habit of referring evervthing to ' God.' It is
God who has called the Ttessalonians (I Th 2"),
the gospel of God that they have received (2'), to
(Jod that they have turned from idols (1'), faith
toward God that they show (V). It is God whose
love they experience (1*), whose rule is their
supreme authority (4* 3^), who gives them the
Holy Spirit (4*), who is to sanctify them wholly
(5^), who is to bring again the dead (4^*). All
these references (and they are not exhaustive) are
in the First Epistle ; and further illustration of
the same characteristic is furnished by the Second.
It is, therefore, in letters which at the same
time testify so continuously and so emphatically
to the unchallenged monotheism of the Apostle
that we find equally striking evidence that even
at this stage he assigned to Christ rank, dignity,
authority, and sovereign importance for religion,
such as are surpassed in none of his later writings.
And yet it cannot be said that in any essential
partictdar these Epistles carry tis beyond the
Christology of the pre- Pauline Church. The fact
is that all, or nearly all, that St. Paul ever taught
concerning the Person of Christ is involved in His
'Lordship.'
•The confession of Christ's Lordship is the confearion of His
Divinity. There is no doubt that to Flaal and the mass of
believers the Man Christ Jesus, Risen and Exalted, . . . was
the object of worship. In Him they saw God manifested in a
human form. In His influence upon them they perceived the
influence of the Spirit of God. Of His Divine power they had
the most convincing evidence in the consciooaiess of the new
188 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
life, with the moral strength it imparted, which He had
quiclcened within them. . . . The ease and naturalness with
which Paul passes from the thought of God to that of Christ
shows that he knew of no other God save the God who was one
with Christ and Christ with Him, that in turning in faith and
prayer to Christ he was conscious he was drawing near to God
in the truest way, and that in calling on God be was calling on
Christ, in whom alone God was accessible to men ' (D. Somer-
ville, St. Paul's Conception of Christ, 1897, p. 146 and 144 n.).
This is possibly to anticipate the results of the
examination of the other Epistles, but only in
details. The central fact of Pauline Christology
is already evident in the Epistles to the Thessa-
lonians, viz. that while betraying no sign that his
monotheism is in danger, or that his way of inter-
Ereting it is either singular or calling,' for defence,
e gives to the Exalted Man, Christ Jesus, the
value and many of the attributes of God.
A Messiah who is Messiah and more, One whose
function it is to save from the wrath that is im-
pending, but One to be in relation with whom is
to have found already the basis of new life in an
ethical sense, the condition of a new relation to
God, and One who therefore draws to Himself
faith, obedience, worship — that is in briefest form
St. Paul's conception of Christ as set forth in
these Epistles. In subsequent letters St. Paul
analyzes the relation of Christ to God and of
Christ to mankind, which this conception involves ;
but nothing can justify the suggestion that this
central conception was built up, as it were, out of
the elements into which it could subsequently be
resolved. It was one which reached St. Paul
whole and complete at the crisis of his conversion.
That there was some preparation, psychological
and even intellectual, for that transforming ex-
perience is quite possible, though St. Paul himself
would probably have denied it. But that it can
be accounted for merely as the result of any sub-
jective process is a suggestion quite irreconcilable
with the evidence. We have the concurrent testi-
mony of St. Paul himself (Gal V^^- ; cf. 2 Co 4«)
tliat at the moment of his conversion he was
atlame with persecuting zeal against those who
believed in Jesus as Messiah, and of Acts (8" 9^^-),
that the martyrdom of Steplien was followed by
an outburst of calculated fury against the Chris-
tian heretics. And the revelation of the Risen
Christ resulted in something more than the mere
reversal of Saul's opinion regarding Jesus, and the
confession that He was indeed the Messiah ; it re-
sulted in a conversion of the whole man so com-
plete that the change of opinion which was its in-
tellectual expression was of secondary importance.
There was an ethical change which demands for
its explanation a religious as well as an intellectual
revolution ; and the explanation is that from the
time of his conversion St. Paul found in Jesus not
only Xpiards but KOpioi.
Tlie proof of this ethical change lies in his sub-
sequent life and in all his Epistles. It is seen
alilce in the ideals which he inculcates and in
the degree in which he himself approximates to
these ideals. And he asserts the closest causal
connexion between the qualities of this new life,
life of this quality, and Christ, so that the ethical
experience of liimself and his fellow-believers has
contributed largely to his Christology. Already
in 1 Thess. (P) we find the triad of Christian
virtues — faith, love, and hope — recognized as being
the natural fruit of being ' in Christ ' ; and Christ
as the active source of ' increase ' in that love
wherewith they have been 'taught of God' to love
one another (1 Th 3^^ 4»), In 1 Tlx 5 we have the
picture of a Christian community wherein this
' love ' was to be operative in curbing the unruly,
in comforting those of little spirit, in supporting
the weak, in showing longsuflering towards all ;
where men were to abstain from every form of
evil, and to hold fast rb Ka\6v. These and other
etliical ideals for the common life receive their
sanction in tlie conviction that, im Christians,
men belong ' not to the night ' but ' to the day '
(5'- "), i.e. in a certain sense they are already living
in the light of the world to come. And within
tliis series of precepts lies one which more than
anything else reveals the power over human nature
which St. Paul a-ssigns to faith in Christ. 'At all
times be joyful ; pray without ceasing ; in every
circumstance give thanks. For this is what God
makes known to you in Jesus Christ as his will.'
A trust in God which would enable men to accept
everything which came to them as part of a
Father's will, and so enable them in every circum-
stance to be thankful, to be free fi'om care — how-
ever this reached St. Paul as part of the new ideal,
it testifies to an ethical harmony tetween liim and
Jesus. St. Paul's explanation of it would be, ' It
pleased God to reveal His Son in me ' ; and again
the ethical experience must be taken into account
in the development of his Christology.
(3) The developed Christology of St. Paul.
— This may conveniently be studied under three
aspects, according as it bears upon the conception
of Christ : (a) as He now is, in glory ; (6) as He
was upon earth ; (c) as He had been before coming
to earth.
A. The glorified Christ. — St. Paul's faith was in
a living Christ, a Being who was continuously
active in and on behalf of those who had been re-
deemed to God through Him, whether they were
regarded as individuals or as a corporate whole.
Accordingly, it is only natural that his thought
dwells preponderatingly on various aspects and
activities of Cluist as He is now, in ' glory ' and
in the Church ; but along with this there goes al-
ways the recollection, whether tacit or expressed,
of what had preceded the glory, viz. the death,
and the manifestation in earthly life.
The four Ei)istles of the second group (Gal.
Rom., 1 and 2 Cor.) in the first place give greater
definiteness to the ' Lordship ' of Christ as the
central fact to be grasped and acknowledged by
men. The necessary but sufficient condition for
being reckoned a Christian was the sincere ac-
knowledgment of the religious relation to Christ
involved in confessing Him as 'Lord.' 'Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved *
had been St. Paul's word to the jailer of Plnlippi ;
and in Ro lO**^- the same principle is laid down
and expanded. The 'word,' which in the mouth
of Moses (Dt 3(fi*) stood for the Mosaic Law, is
now represented by the gospel, the word of faith
proclaimed by the apostles. And as accepted and
openly acknowledged by those who believe that
God raised Jesus from the dead, it takes this form,
' Jesus is Lord ' ; and this acknowledgment is the
external condition of salvation. In the same con-
text St. Paul shows why this is so all-important.
He appeals to two passages of the OT, in each of
which the original reference is to Jahweh ('who-
soever believeth on him shall not be ashamed,'
from Is 28'*, and ' whosoever shall call UT)on the
name of the Lord shall be saved,' from Jl 2^"-) ; but
he predicates them of the Lord Jesus. Nothing
could show more simply or more completely the
place which the Risen Jesus had taken in the
religious consciousness of the Church. The hon>-
age, the prayer, the dependence which were due
to God were due to Him ; and the protection, the
security, the salvation which were to be looked
for from God might be claimed at His hand. In
like manner, according to 1 Co 12* (' no one is able
to say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit '),
this acknowledgment is traced to the Spirit's in-
spiration and is ottered as a test whereby the in-
spiration of a speaker may be ascertained. And
CHEIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
189
in Ph 2^ " in all probability it is this name of
' Lord ' which the Apostle describes as the ' name
above every name, the bestowal of which upon
Jesus at His Exaltation involved His right to the
homage of all created beings. St. Paul here ex-
f)resses his consciousness of the wonder of what
le believes to be the fact — that God has bestowed
on Jesus His own glorious name, that whereby
He had so long been known and addressed by the
Jews, who shrank from pronouncing ' Jahweh ' (cf.
Ac 2* ; and W. Lueken ad loc. in Schriften des
NT, ii. [1908] 379).
(a) Son of God. — If St. Paul thus connects onr
Lord's entry on the title and dignity of Kvpioi with
His Resurrection and Exaltation, does he do the
same' in reference to His status as Son of God ?
The governing passage is in Ro 1* toO bpiadivToi viov
Otov iv dvvdfifi Kara rvtvfw. ayiuavvrj^ i^ avauTTOLffeus
rexpQv — 'declared {or installed) Son of God with
power according to the spirit of holiness in virtue
of resurrection from the dead.' The emphasis is
probably on the words ' with power.' As yev6,uf»os
{K <rripfiaTo% Aa^iS, Jesus had been XptoTos Kara aipica
and vlb% Oeov in the Messianic sense, and was
crucified tf aadeveia^ (2 Co 13*). But after and in
consequence of the Resurrection, He has entered
on the status of Son of God in an exalted form, set
free from 'the likeness of (weak and) sinful tiesh,'
He has been promulgated as ' in power.' This open
acknowledgment of His true character was ' in ac-
cordance with his spirit of holiness.'
"The Resurrection was to Paul the disclosure of the nature of
Christ. It was not only the crowning sta-^e in the development
of the Life that had been Uved on earth, its natural consiumua-
lion, but as such it was also the revelation of the inner nature
of Christ and of the forces of His personal life that were con-
cealed, as well as hindered in their proper exercise on others,
as long as Be was in the flesh ' (Somerrille, op. cit. p. 17 ; see,
further, below).
In three other passages St. Paul refers to Christ
as ' the Son of God ' (Gal 2-*, 2 Co 1«, Eph 4"). In
others again he speaks of Christ as ' the Son ' (1 Co
15^) or 'his Son ' (Ro 1»- » o^", 1 Co l^. Gal 4*).
Some of these passages may stUl refer to the
Messianic Sonship ; but others more probably
belong to another class, of which Ro 8'- ^'- (rbv
iavTov vibv -refitf/as — tov iSiou viov ovk itptUraTo) and
Col P^ (tox) viov Trji dydrijs avrov) furnish the clearest
examples. In these passages the conception of
Christ's Sonship has passed over into a conception
other and deeper than the official Messianic one ;
and it seems to involve a 'community of nature
between the Father and the Son' (Sanday-Headlam,
ad loc.), and a relationship independent of any
historical experience. At this point, therefore, St.
Paul does advance beyond any position which is
attested for the primitive community. It is useless
as well as needless to raise any question as to
whether he conceived the relation metaphysically
or otherwise. St. Paul is content to recognize it
as intimate, personal, unique. ' It is clear that in
the scale of being the son is the one who in origin
and nature is nearest to Grod' (J. Weiss, Christ,
p. 66).
This deeper conception of the Sonship is borne
out by the frequent and spontaneous use of the
name' 'Father' for God. The full name for God
in the Church of the NT is ' the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ' (e.g. Ro 15«. 2 Co 11'',
Eph P 3l^ Col P, 1 P 1»). And as such He is
described absolutely as 6 -rarrip, and known experi-
mentally by those who have in their hearts the
Spirit 'whereby we cry Abba, Father' (Ro 8^').
All this circle of ideas testifies to the recognition
of a Sonship not only in the sense in which it was
equivalent to Messiahship, but in the sense of a
relationship which is intrinsic and unique.
It is quite unnecessary to go far afield to find
the source from which St. Paul derived this con-
ception of Christ's Sonship. It is attested by the
Synoptic Gospels as an element in the seu-con-
sciousness of Jesus. There is nothing to suggest
that it was a discovery or a conclusion due to St.
Paul. As J. Weiss says :
' Paul shows no trace of uneasineas nor gives any hint of a
tradition as to how the relation of sonship arose or what its
actual significance was. When in Col l'^ he speaks of Christ as
the firet-bom of all creatures, we must not by any means con-
clude that Paul bad in mind a begetting or birth, or any special
creative act. But neitJier is there in a single syllable any sug-
gestion of an emanation in the sense of the later Gnosticism, or
an election. It is significant that Paul does not feel the least
need to account for the existence of this Son of God by any
story of creation or birth, i.e. by what the Science of Eeligfion
calls " Myth " ■ {Chritt, p. 6» t).
This means that neither intellectual construction
nor speculation gave rise to the conception. It
came from Jesus. And as the Resurrection put
the seal of Divine authentication on His Messianic
consciousness, so did it put the seal of Divine ac-
knowledgment upon that filial consciousness which
had been the deepest thing in His personality.
Conversely, of course, this prompt and spon-
taneous recognition of the filial relationship
between Jesus and God provides confirmation of
the gospel record so far as it reflects this element
in His consciousness. On the broad foundation of
the Lordship of Christ and the Sonship of Christ —
the one a fact of religious experience, the other a
factor in the consciousness of Jesus — St. Paul builds
his specific Christology. And he postulates for
Christ three ditlerent relationships : he sets Him
in a relationship amounting to identity with the
Spirit of (iod ; he presents Him as Head of a new-
race of men, the second Adam ; and he claims for
Him a creative relation to the world of intelligent
being.
(;3) The Lord the Spirit. — The evidence for this
identification is partly direct and partly indirect.
In 2 Co 3'" the Apostle makes the categorical state-
ment, ' The Lord is the Spirit,' and the same idea
is probably echoed in the following verse, ' even as
from the Lord the Spirit' (the genitive wTei'puiTos be-
ing probably in apposition to Kvpiov — so Schmiedel,
Lietzmann). But the same idea also underlies the
Apostle's habit of using -rvevfw. [GeoCj, rvevna Xpurrov
and Xpurrdi as practically interchangeable. Christ
is ' a life-giving Spirit' (1 Co 15'*'), but the Spirit
also gives life (2 Co 3« ; cf. Gal 5=»). And in Ro
8». !•. u g(; Paul passes indifferently from the
one to the other, referring to the Divine Spirit in
one verse the effect which in the next he refers to
Christ. For him ' Christ ' and ' the Spirit of him
that raised up Jesus ' are practically synonymous.
The basis for the identification which St. Paul
asserts is not any idea of metaphysical unity, but
an observed harmony of ethical and spiritual in-
fluence. St. Paul had no doctrine of tne Trinity.
The Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, was for him
(apart from the identification with the Risen Christ)
the energy of the Divine nature, universal in its
operation, influencing the will and the intelligence
of men, the source of the sevenfold gifts described
in Is 11-, and specially the creator of ' life' in the
new sense in which it was a prerogative of the
Messianic age, and practically sj-nonynious with
' salvation.' The identification or this Spirit with
the Risen Christ followed on the combination of
the experience of Easter with that of Pentecost.
Together they formed the source and the basis of
new life for the believers. This was for them the
meaning of salvation, and the proof that they were
being saved. The subjective certainty was given
in new moral power to follow new ideals. Both
the power and the ideals were traced to the Spirit
(Gal 5-) ; but they came to each individual after
and in consequence of his faith in Christ as Risen
Lord. So this life-giving energj- of God which by
the primitive community had been explained as
190 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
' shed abroad ' by the Exalted Christ, is by St. Paul
identified with Him. What would further con-
tribute to this conclusion would be the necessity
of attributing to Clirist existence in a super-
physical or 'spiritual' form, and the further
necessity of accounting for the universality of His
presence, Avith each and with all of the believers
everywhere.
There is a further indication here of the way in
which the conception of salvation as the highest
good belonging to the life to come was giving place
to the conception of it as a present experience.
With all its antecedent conditions — e.g. justification
( = acquittal), cleansing, redemption from the do-
minion of evil — and with all its expected contents
— peace with God, tranquil confidence, hope and
joy — salvation was within men's grasp. Men who
liad received the Spirit had received it as airapxn
or appa^wv, at once the first-fruits and the guarantee
of eternal life ; they knew that they had received
the Spirit because tlie fruits of the Spirit were jiro-
duced in them and among them (cf. 1 Jn 3'*) ; and
that these were fruits of the Spirit of Christ, or
the Spirit that was Christ, they knew, because
they corresponded with what they knew of His
character and teaching.
The recognition of this element in St. Paul's
Christologv has certain conseauences. — (i. ) It
throws li^ht on the use so freely made by the
Apostle of the phrase iv Xpiarip. (li.) It leads to a
change in the way of conceiving the Spirit which
has recently been described as ' die Christificierung
des Geistes.' The Spirit being recognized as enter-
ing into personal relations with man, of the same
character as those of Christ with man, there is
formed a conception of the Spirit which can only
be described in terms of personality, (iii. ) If as
Ki^ptos Christ exercises the authority of God, and
as TTvev/xa at once enspheres men (cf. Ac 17^) and
dwells in them, producing the fruits of the Spirit,
the true grounds are provided for regarding Him
as Divine.
' It is . . . because He works in us with an energy of love and
holiness that is identified with the Spirit of God, and commands
our obedience with an absoluteness that is identical with the
authority of God, that we are to recognise Christ as truly Divine
and to acknowledge the presence in Him of pmvers of Godhead
that constitute Him the object of our faith and worship'
(Somerville, op. clt. p. 112).
(7) The Second Adam. — Another line of advance
was opened for the Apostle partly through the
universal ism of his gospel, leading him to find in
Adam, the head and founder of nurnanity which
fell, a type of Christ as founder and head of the
humanity which He had redeemed. Redeemed
humanity was indeed a Kaivri Kriffi^ (2 Co 5^'', Gal
6'^ ; cf. Col 3", where the parallel with the ci-eation-
narrative in Genesis is distinctly suggested). The
new creature is a citizen of a new world (Ph 3-"),
belongs no longer to the kingdom of darkness but
to the kingdom of God's Son (Col 1^^), and lives
under a new covenant, or basis of relationship,
between God and man (2 Co 3"). In all these
jiarticulars he is seen to be a member of a new
race ; and Adam, tlie founder of the original race,
was Tviroi Tov fifKXovToi (Ro 5'*): i.e. Christ as
6 /M^Wu;/ bore the same relation to the new race as
Adam to the old.
In two passages St. Paul makes use of this
analogy, in both cases assuming its validity, not
proving it. According to the first, Adam is typical
of Christ in the way in which his fall involves con-
sequences affecting the relation to God of his whole
posterity. That is to say, in Christ, as Second
Adam and Representative Man, humanity makes a
new beginning ; it recovers its pristine relation to
God, the Divine likeness in wliich it was first
created. And as Adam by his disobedience had
entailed on all who followed the heritage of sin
and death, so Christ by His perfect fulfilment of
the Divine will liad secured for ' all ' participation
in righteousness and life (Ro 5'-'^').
In the second passage (1 Co 15«-^^) St. Paul
applies the same relation and contrast between
Adam and Christ to support his statement that
tliere is not only 'a natural ( = psychical) bo<ly*
but also a ' spiritual ' ( = pneumatic) one. It is
quite in accordance with his method of using
Scripture that the verse of Genesis which he quotes
has no reference to aCj/ia; and yet we can .see its
relevancy. 'E7^j'eTo 6 [irpurros] &vdpii)iro% [A5d/x] e/s
\}/vxhv ^Cxrav, where the bracketed words are added
to the text of the LXX and emphasize the diiection
of the Apostle's thought ; Adam, the first man, was
made a psychic person, or a ' natural man.' Then
he proceeds (witliout indicating what is the ca^e,
viz. that he is no longer quoting) : ' the last Adam
(was made) a spirit, a life-giving soul.' He states,
in fact, the same view of Christ as that just con-
sidered— 'the Lord is the Spirit' — but leaves un-
expressed the inference he would have men draw,
viz. that as Adam and all who derive from him
had a ' psychic body,' so Christ and all who owe
'life' to iiim have a 'pneumatic body.'
It is only then (if at all) that St. Paul recalls the
famous interpretation put by Philo upon the double
narrative of the creation of man (Gn 1^ and 2')—
SiTTo. dvOpdnruf y^vrj- 6 fiiv yap iariv ovpdvtoi ipOpuiros,
6 di yrjivos. 6 p-^v ovv ovpdvios are /car (Udva QeoO 7£7o-
vtDj (pdapTTJs Kal ffvvdXws yedj8ovs ovcrLas dniroxo!, 6 8i
yrfCvos iK ffiropdSos DXiji ^v xovv KiKKrjKfv ivdyi)
(Lcgum, allegor. [ed. Mangey, vol. i. p. 49] ; cf.
de Opif. Mundi [vol. i. p. 32]). Not a few modem
writers are disposed to find the root of St. Paul's
' higher Christology ' in this doctrine of Philo con-
cerning ' the heavenly man. ' But this is probably a
mistaken view. Along with obviously close corre-
spondence in phrasing the passage shows funda-
mental divergence from the Philonic conception.
Pfieiderer and B. Weiss agree that the pa.ssage
contains no reference to Philo's doctrine of the ideal
man. J. Weiss (Christ, p. 74), after positing that
there is 'no evidence of literary dependence, i.e.
borrowing from any work of Philo's,' makes a
careful comparison of the two concejjtions, and
concludes that Philo's doctrine shows no trace of
what is most characteristic in St. Paul.
' The Alexandrine does not attribute the least eschatological
significance to the heavenly man. He shows no trace of the
belief that he who came into being in the image of God, at the
end of all things shall appear as Messiah. But with Paul it is
just this which is the essential thing. His doctrine of the
heavenly and earthly man, or of the first and last Adam, or of
Adam and Christ, is most pointedly apocalvptic in character '
(*. p. 77 f.).
If there is any allusion to Philo's view, it is
referred to only to be contradicted : ' the pneu-
matic was not first, but the psychic ; then came
the pneumatic' At this point (v.^) the Apostle's
mind reverts to his original subject — the constitution
respectively of the psychic and of the pneumatic
man. The first man was sprung from earth,
earthy in his constitution ; the second man was,
is, or shall be from heaven, and is the heavenly
man. And the same law wliereby members of
Adam's race reproduce his earthy, psychic constitu-
tion secures that those who derive their life from
the heavenly man shall receive a pneumatic frame
or constitution. But the frame or ffw/to is now
described as eUuv, the image or concrete expression
of personality which produces an impression on
the beholder. The ' image of the heavenly ' in v.*»
is the same as the 'image of his glory,' or 'his
glorious likeness ' of Ph 3", into which the Lord is
to change the ' body of our humiliation.' And the
' image of his glory,' the ' image of the heavenly
man ' alike describe the pneumatic <rw/ua, frame or
form, which the Risen Christ had taken to Himself.
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
191
When we examine these verses, freed from the
obligation of reading into them PhUo's theory of
creation, the OT tignre which is suggested by 6
ivovpavioi is not the supposed Urmensch of Gn 1,
nor yet a Pauline complement of the earthly Adam
of Gn 2, but the figure in Dn 7", ISov fiera tQv
veipfKuv ToC ovpdrov ilii vlbi dydpurov ipx6(ievoi. It is
true that there is not elsewhere in St. Paul's
writings any certain allusion to the 'Son of Man' ;
but this may well be due to the incomprehensibility
of the phrase in Gentile ears. And there is no
reason to suppose that St. Paul was either ignorant
of, or indifferent to, the Messianic significance of
the Danielle figure. The view which these verses
Eostulate is therefore this : that the Messiah, the
eavenly man of Daniel, is at the same time the
head of the new race, the second Adam, and is
known to be such because He has been made a
' life-giving Spirit ' ; those who believe on Him are
by Him made alive.
At what point did this take place, in the opinion
of St. Paul ? Was it at the ' creation,' or at His
coming to earth, or at His Exaltation ? Probably
the fiKt of these possibilities is the one which
corresponds with the first impression the words
make ; the description is in both cases that of the
original condition of the first and the second Adam
respectively. And that is the interpretation in-
sisted upon by those who find the source of St.
Paul's Christology in the conception of a pre-
existent ideal man. On the other hand, it is at
least not necessary to look for the source of both
parts of the statement in the Genesis-narrative.
It is quite in accordance with St. Paul's manner of
liandling Scripture that he should add to a direct
quotation a proposition which rests on quite other
ground (cf. Ko 3^, Gal 2^% Nor, in the second
place, is it necessary that the verb eyevero (granting
that it is to be supplied in the second clause of v.**)
should refer in both cases to the same point of
time, or to synonymous moments in the experience
of the first and second Adam. All that is necessary
is that in both cases the experience must be one
capable of being described by the word iyevero, and
the illuminating parallel is that in Ac 2*> : ' Grod
made him Lord and Christ.'
Once more, the whole passage must be viewed
and interpreted in its bearing on the solution of
the question, With what body do they come ?
What is really contrasted with the aQfui ^vxikov
which clothed the •'px/xv^ ^Ctxray of the first Adam
is the aw^ia rvevfuiTiKoy through which the rvev/xa
^bxrroiovv of the Second Adam is manifested. And
as the <Tu:fm rvevfuiTiKov is the glorified body of the
Risen Lord, so it was at His Eesurrection that He
' was made a life-giving Spirit.' It would not
follow that St. Paul did not regard Him as having
been wevfui or even irvei'fj.a ^wotolovv in some sense
anterior to the Eesurrection, any more than it is
necessary to put a similar interpretation on Ac 2^.
As ' the first- bom from the dead,' He was also ' the
first-born among many brethren,' inasmuch as they
were destined in advance to be conformed to His
' image,' i.e. to the form of His existence in glory
(Ro 8^; see Denney, ad loc.). He was the
Second Adam because He was at once the Source,
the Type, and the Head of the new race ; and as
surely as filiation from the first Adam had shown
itself in the physico-psycMc constitution, so surely
woxild vital relation to Christ show itself in the
bearing of a spiritual-heavenly body, the habita-
tion not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
It appears, therefore, that in 1 Co 15** St. Paul
has nothing to tell about the pre-existent Christ ;
and the same is probably the case in regard to the
other factors in St. Paul's description of Christ —
the recognition of Him as elKCiv rod deoC and the
declaration that in Him dwells ' the whole fulness
of the Godhead.* In both passages (2 Co 4* and
Col 1") where he refers to Christ as ' the image of
God,' the context suggests that the idea is more
than that of simple likeness, reflexion, or even
representation. Christ as eUiliy rod deov is and has
all that Adam had in consequence of being made ev
eUbvL deov without suffering any of the subsequent
diminution or cancelling of powers or privileges
which in Adam's case followed upon transgression.
This phrase, therefore, like ' the Second Adam,'
sets Him forth as the archetypal man. But the
phrase has had a history since its origin in Hebrew
literature, and St. Paul may have had that also
in mind. It appears in a modified form in W'is.
(7^*) in a description of the Divine Wisdom personi-
fied : araOyatrfia yap i<m tpurrbi aXSiov . . . Kcd etVwr
7-^5 iya06rrjTos airov. From an Egyptian inscrip-
tion of 196 B.C. Wendland quotes the description
of an apotheosized prince as eixopot ^d;<7r]i toD deov
(Hellen.-rom. Kultur, 19<37, p. 75). But there is
no need to go beyond the passage in Wis., which
indeed seems also to have influenced the language
of 2 Co 4^ and He 1', and possibly Col V\ The
eUdiv evidently connotes light, glory, radiant efi'ul-
gence ; and when St. Paul applies the description
to Christ, he means that the otherwise invisible
God is manifested and revealed through Him
(cf. Jn 14-1 ifupavLaa efiai-rop). Its true significance
is in fact explained by 2 Co 4® : * Seeing it is God
. . . who shined in our hearts, to give the light of
the knowledge of tlie glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ.' St. Paul neither denies nor asserts
that Christ had been ' the image of God ' from the
beginning ; but what he does say on the subject
is properly referred to Christ as Exalted.
(5) The fullness of the Godhead. — It pleased God
that 'in him the whole fulness of the Godhead
should make its abode ' (Col V^ ; cf. f? iv airrtp
Karoixel rav to rX'^pufui riji diJTrjros ffc^fiariKQi, Kai fori
if airifi rerXrjfXjjfifyoi). It has now" been made clear
that as the foregoing description has its roots in the
Hebrew record of creation, so this one is not unre-
lated to contemporary theosophic speculation. St.
Paul makes this assertion regarding Christ in re-
sponse to a challenge, which had been delivered,
tacitly at least, by the false teachers at Colossje
against thesole and sufficient supremacy of the Lord.
On the lips of those whom he was controverting,
as well as on his own, the phrase stood for the
totality of the Divine powers or agencies. But for
the false teachers the totality was distributed
among a plurality, a countless host, of mediators —
' thrones, dominions, principalities, powers,' rd (ttoi-
Xeia Tov Koafioa St. Paul had found in Christ
another view of the universe, according to which
all this imagined hierarchy of intermediaries be-
came irrelevant. Thus it is probable that in both
sentences in which the phrase occurs a strong
emphasis should be placed on the words iv airrcf.
Not in that cloud of unknown spiritual forces but in
Christ resides that whole fullness of which they
speak ; and it resides ffufiaTucHis, i.e. not 'in bodily
form,' but ' in completeness and abiding reality '
(so Klopper, Dibelius).
' The term, in its origin, or as used by the theoeoi^usts of
Coloesae, may be metaphysical or not ; in the moath of the
apostle it expresses a reli^oas truth, a truth of i^ection baaed
on religious exi)erience, the truth learnt in communion with
the Kisen Lord, that in Him there is a full endowment of life by
the Spirit of God that answers to all the religious needs ot
human nature ' (Somerville, op. dt. p. 158).
It is to be noted in connexion with each of these
later aspects of Christ recognized by St. Paul, that
it is held or revealed by Him in order to be im-
parted or conveyed to men. If He is the Son and
the Image of the Invisible (Jod, it is in order that
men who believe on Him may become sons of the
same Father and conformed to the same Image.
If the fullness of God has taken up its abode in
192 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
Him, that has had for a result ' ye have been ful-
filled in him,' and tlien we find the Apostle in
Eph 3" praying that the brethren may by the in-
dwelling of Christ be ' fulfilled ' till tliey attain to
the pleroma of God. At the same time, this
participation of believers in the highest attributes
of Christ is (i.) mediated through llim, is theirs
only through their organic union with Him ; and
(ii. ) only partial and fragmentary at any time in
the individual believer. No inclividual believer,
however closely he may resemble his Master, can
ever reproduce all tliat Christ is. It is the body
of believers, believers as a body, who are destined
to attain ' to the perfect man, to the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ ' (Eph 4'»). All
the attributes of the heavenly Christ have refer-
ence to, and are applied to, the salvation of man ;
but they are conveyed by Him ; apart from Him
they are not within the reach of men.
B. The historical Jesus. — St. Paul traced the
origin of his faith, and ascribed the life he now
lived, to the Risen and Exalted Christ, Lord and
Spirit. But it is not true to say that he was
either ignorant of, or indifferent to, the manifes-
tation of Jesus 'in the days of his flesh.' The
references which he makes to the ' historical
Jesus' may be few in number, but they are em-
phatic ana essential to his total conception of
Christ's Person and Work. In the first place, he
admits and relies on the authority of Jesus as the
rule of life. In Ac 2(P he is heard definitely re-
calling ' the words of the Lord Jesus,' as in 1
Co ipsff. he quotes as authoritative the terms in
which Jesus instituted the Last Supper. The dis-
cussion on marriage and divorce in 1 Co 7 illus-
trates his attitude. On the one hand, in regard to
the marriage of ' virgins,' he says frankly that he
* has no commandment of the Lord,' just as in
reference to married life he has disclaimed any
Divine authority (1 Co 7®) ; but in regard to divorce
he takes a very different tone, because for that
question he has the authority of the historical
Jesus, whose deliverance on the subject he quotes.
In like manner he claims to ' follow Christ,' mean-
ing the historical Jesus, as the supreme example
(1 Co IP), and urges his converts to do the like
(Ph 2*ff-, 1 Th 2'4, Eph 5^).
It is on the human manifestation of Christ that
St. Paul's whole gospel is based — ' Christ died for
our sins ' ; and it was as Jesus of Nazareth that
He died ; it was ' in the flesh ' that He ' condemned
sin,' ' in the body of the flesh ' that God ' reconciled
men to himself (Col 1^). And the fact of His
humanity is absolute^ essential to the Apostle's
theory of salvation. It provides the identification
of the Redeemer with the race He would redeem,
in all human experience save the consciousness of
having sinned. It is wholly a mistake to represent
the emphasis which St. Paul puts upon the Risen
Christ as excluding interest in, or knowledge of,
the historical Jesus ; ' the heavenly man ' had no
meaning for him except for His being the same as
' the man Christ Jesus.'
And he leaves no room for doubt that the Christ
of faith was one with the Jesus of the Gospels.
He was ' born of a woman ' (Gal 4* ; cf. Job 14').
The phrase neither includes nor yet does it ex-
clude a supernatural factor in the birth of Jesus ;
it asserts His true participation in our common
humanity. He was ' born under law ' (Gal 4*).
Whether significance is to be attached to the ab-
sence of the article (Lightfoot) or not (Lietzmann),
the context shows that it is His identification witli
the Jewish race that St. Paul is empiiasizing. He
is represented as a lineal descendant of David
(Ro 1^), and an argument is founded upon His
descent from Abraham (Gal 3**). This descent had
special significance, inasmuch as by becoming ' a
minister of circumcision ' (or ' of the circumcision ' ;
cf. 2 Co 3') He confirmed the promises made to
the forefathers of Israel (Ro IS" ; cf, 2 Co 1»).
So that it is one of the distinguishing privileges of
Israel that the Messiah belongs to them ' as far as*
the flesh is concerned ' (Ro 9*). In 2 Co 5", where
St. Paul repudiates, for the period subsequent to
his conversion, any knowledge of ' Christ after the
flesh,' he postulates at least the hypothetical possi-
bility of nis having known Him so, and probably
refers to a claim which others founded upon then-
personal acquaintance witii the historical Jesus.
There remain two passages of special importance
for the light they shed on the Apostle's view of
the constitution of our Lord's human personality.
The first is in Ro 8' — 6 dtbs t6v iavroO 1l6v iritixf/a^
iv 6/Ji,oubfj.aTi aapKbs a/juipriai kt\. The allusion to a
pre-existent state from which God ' .sent His own
Son ' (see below) is followed by the carefully chosen
phrase ' in the likeness of sin's flesh ' (cf. Ph 2^
' was made in the likeness of men '). It is jpos-
sible, but it would be mistaken, to read these
words as though tiieir purpose was to assert that
Christ was ' like ' but only ' like ' to men. What
the phrase does convey is tiiat the likeness is true
and complete as far as it can be, sin being excepted.
By the introduction of ofioiwfia St. Paul ' wishes to
indicate not that Christ was not really man, or
that His flesh was not really Avhat in us is o-Apf
a/j.aprlas, but that what for ordinary men is their
natural condition is for this Person only an assumed
condition ' (Denney, ad loc. ). The rendering of AV
(also RV) ' of sinful flesh ' gives a -wrong impression
and creates unnecessary ditticulty. ' Of sin's flesh '
refers to the physical constitution of man not as
originally or inherently sinful — which was never
St. Paul s view — but as it had come to be, histori-
cally and experimentally, an appanage of sin.
Christ entered into humanity as it was conditioned
by sin, tyrannized and enslaved by it— sin being
regarded as an almost personal conqueror and
tyrant.
But He who, according to Ro 8*, was thus made
'in the likeness of sin's flesh,' according to the
second passage (Ro l^*) manifested, in contradis-
tinction to all others who appeared in human form,
' a spirit of holiness' ; and it was in harmony with
that ethical uniqueness that a unique glory was
assigned to Him, inasmuch as His death was
followed by a Resurrection whereby He was de-
clared (or installed) by God as ' Son of God with
power.' Thenceforward His Messiahship was in-
dubitable ; it was demonstrated by the ' power '
which was wielded by the Risen Lord. This pas-
sage, like the former one, starts with a possible
allusion to the pre-existent Sonship (rov Tlov aCrroO),
and at least suggests a state of liumiliation as
antecedent to the state of glory and power. There
is at the same time no suggestion of a time at
which Jesus became possessed of the 'spirit of
holiness,' such as meets us in the Synoptic Gospels.
Rather is tlie spirit referred to &s ' the principle of
personality in Jesus.' It is the ' spirit of holiness '
which binds the earthly existence alike to what
went before and to what came after (cf. Peine,
Theol. des NT, 1910, p. 260). And the same
thought may underlie tne phrase in Ro 8' : ' the
law ( = principle) of the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death.' 6 vb/ioi here means ' authority ' (so Sanday-
Headlam), or in modern speech, the ' governing
principle.' Sin and death are contrasted as govern-
ing principles with the living (and life-giving)
spirit that was in Christ Jesus — the same ' spirit of
holiness.'
The passage in Philippians (28-") which is chiefly
valued for the light it throws on St. Paul's view
of the pre-existent Christ has importance also for
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHEISTOLOGY 193
his view of the historical Jesus. He ' was found,'
ffx^Mi^' <i's dv^/Kinroi, i.e. in outward appearance, in
all that presented itself to the senses, ' as a man ' ;
and that because He was ' made in the likeness of
men ' {if ofioiufian ardpJrrur). But the description
of the human manifestation opens with the phrase
fiop«pr}p Sov\ov Xa^tay, by which the Apostle indicates
something which, while going deeper than the
<rxvfia or the 6fioi(i>fw,, yet does not touch the essen-
tial personality. Christ, that is to say, entered
upon a real, but not a permanent, servitude. In
what sense? It will not suffice to say, with
Lightfoot (a«? loc.), 'For ipepcirroi the stronger
word dovXos is substituted. He who is Master
of all becomes the slave of all.' For this gives
insufficient distinctness to the two clauses, and in-
adequate force to the former one. It is more prob-
able that the two clauses, /iofxfnji' dovXov \a3wv and
ir 6fioiuinaTi dfdpdrrup yevdfievos are parallel in re-
verse order to the two clauses in Gal 4^, yeyonevow
iK yvvaiKOi and yevo/xeyor inrb yo/jLoy ; and the fK)wer
to which St. Paul declares that Jesus submitted
Himself as SovXo^ is the Law and the whole dis-
pensation of which it was the symbol. He volun-
tarily placed Himself under its yoke, made Him-
self 'a debtor to keep the whole law.' It was in
virtue of this submission that He could tindergo
its curse, be 'made a curse for us,' and redeem us
(Jews) from 'the curse of the law.' This subjec-
tion to the Law was thus a special case of Christ's
submission to the disabilities of ' the flesh,' through
which He could be ' made sin ' for us {2 Co 5^).
The ffip^ which He assumed was truly human
flesh ; it was, for such it had come to be histori-
cally, ' sin's flesh ' — flesh that was in the grasp of
sin. He 'knew no sin' (2 Co o^), and yet in
His case the adp^ was the medium of sin's assault
upon Him. It brought Him into relation, a re-
lation always hostile, Avith the whole series of
forces which were opposed to God, the forces which
were in control of ' this present world,' the ' princi-
paliries and powers' (Col 2^), the 'world' rulers
of this darkness (Eph 6^). And it was in, by
means of, this adp^ that He ' condemned sin,' that
He ' triumphed ' over the hostile powers, stripping
them off' from Himself along with the vip^, when
on the Cross He died from under the control of
' the spiritual forces of the world ' (Col £'*•■*),
Thus the historical man, Jesus of Nazareth,
was a fact of cardinal importance for St. Paul, not
only as an authority supreme in the realm of con-
duct, but as embodying the conditions by which
alone redemption could be accomplished.
C. The pre-existent Christ. — The material for
ascertaining St. Paul's conception of Christ is now
nearly complete. By far the larger part of it
refers to the 'post-existent' Christ, the Lord in
glorj-. Another element, smaller in extent, but
not for that reason unimportant, has to do with
the historic Jesus. There remains a third element
consisting of allusions to Christ as having been
exist«nt and active before He appeared on earth.
That element is certainly present both in the mind
and in the language of S't. Paul. The difficult and
delicate task is to weigh its importance, and to
account for its presence in his thinking.
The evidence is unevenly distributed. In the
four ' chief ' Epistles we liave a number of allu-
sions ; in each of two of the 'captivity' Epistles,
PhUippians and Colossians, we find an explicit
statement. The allusions in the earlier Epistles
are, if anything, more important than the state-
ments in the later ones ; for they suggest that St.
Paul was dealing with a conception regarding
Christ which was already familiar, which, so far
from requiring to be proved, was \sidely accepted
as a necessary inference from other facts. Further,
the references are ' so incidental as to suggest the
VOL. I. — i^
inference that, while intimately related to his own
deepest convictions about Christ, this doctrine
formed no part of his formal teaching, untU, at
least, the necessity for it arose in the special cir-
cumstances of the Church at Colosse' (Somerville,
(^. cit. p. 185 ; cf. Beyschlag, NT Theol., Eng. tr.,
1895, ii 78). The language of Gal 4* ('God sent
forth his Son') and Ro 8' ('God, sending his Son
in the likeness of sin's flesh') implies this previous
existence for the Son, an existence under different
conditions, with which subjection to the Law and
participation of flesh are contrasted. Consistently
\vith this suggestion the Apostle in 2 Co 8* alludes
to the fact that ' he who was rich, for our sakes
became poor,' a phrase which links up with the
statement in Philippians, inasmuch as it traces
the impoverishment to the action of Christ Him-
self. In 1 Co 8* there is a suggestion of the idea
which is developed in Colossians, where St. Paul
speaks of 'one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are
all things and we bv him ' ; and in 1 Co 15*'" **,
though it is in His txaltation that He is recog-
nized as the 'Second Adam,' yet as contrasted
^vith the first Adam, who belongs to earth, He is
represented as belonging to heaven, and being
'the heavenly one.' Indirectly, the language of
1 Co 10* involves the same idea (' They drank of
that spiritual rock that followed them" and that
rock was Christ ') ; but the immediate significance
of the saying is that the Apostle puts 'Christ'
where Jewish legend had put ' Jahweh.'
We come now to the two passages in which St.
Paul appears to make details allusion to the pre-
existent Christ. The first is in Ph 2*"". The
first point to notice is the context. Not only is
the example of Christ appealed to as a ground and
norm for Christian humiUty, and the duty of each
one 'looking not on his own things but on the
things of others,' but the conclusion also of the
whole passage is relevant, inasmuch as it displays
the Exaltation of Christ as a supreme illustration
of God's recognition of this spirit of self-effacement :
8i6 Kal 6 debs airrby vrepi^uHrey. To illustrate the
true character of Christian humility St. Paul re-
fers to the action of Christ, which took place be-
fore His appearance upon earth. And again the
description is calculated to remind rather than to
inform ; it is penned for them who already know
(Dibelitis, cui loc.). Christ had been originally
(inrdpx<^) iy ffopffti 0€ov. What sense are we to
attach to this phrase? Lightfoot {Philippian^,
1878, p. 127 fl". ), after an exhaustive examination of
the use of the words fiop<pTi and (rxjifut in philo-
sophic literature, comes to the conclusion that
nop<prif ' must apply to the attributes of the God-
head,' that it implies not the external accidents
but the essential attributes, so that the possession
of fiopip^ involves participation in the oiaia also.
' Thus in the passage aoder consideration the /aopM is am-
trasted with the <nr>>f^ ^ that which is intrinsic and essential
with that which is accidental and outward. And the three
clauses imply resi)ectively the true di>-ine nature of our Lord
Oiop<^ 0covX the true human nature (uop4rh iovXov\ and the
externals of tiuman nature (trxnfia-n w$ ayOpmnt).'
With the interpretation of fiopifrfi goes the expla-
nation of (Xyai tffa 0e<^, ' equality with Gtod,' as some-
thing which was already Christ's possession but
which He refused to regard as a prize to be ten-
aciously held (oi'x dprayftby rfyilaaTo) ; but so far
from this. He divested Himself (iiciywaey iavr&y)
not of His Divine nature, for this was impossible,
but of the glories, the prerogatives of Deity.
This He did by taking upon Him the form of a
servant.
This interpretation is open to several objections.
— (i.) In effect it reads into St. Paul's language
the conclusions of a later Christology, inasmuch
as the meaning which it gives to fioptftri (as involv-
ing essential participation in the o&rla or substance)
194 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
must be carried through in both clauses, and we
net consequently a personality which has taken
the substance of humanity without laying asiile
that of Deity, (ii.) It gives a forced meaning to
oovXov, and at the same time an inadequate one ;
for if the word means no more tlian ' man,' we
have an inexplicable tautology — three, or at least
two, clauses in succession which make no advance
in the thouglit. (iii.) It gives an unsatisfactory
rendering to apiraytids, which is rather ' a thing to
be clutched at' than 'a thing to be held.'
For these and other reasons the other interpre-
tation is to be preferred, according to which St.
Paul is using the terms iiop<prij, axvf^t etc., in a
popular sense rather than as philosophic terms,
and iJ.op<pifi means ' form,' which is separable from
essence, though more truly characteristic than
<rxvfJLa. ; in the case of Christ the /J-op<pr] deov stands
for 'the glory which he had with the Father.'
Having this glorious form as a Spirit-Being, the
Image of God, He might have grasped at the yet
higher prize to be ' equal unto God.' But (here
comes in the parallel with what is expected of
Christians) He refused to look on His own things,
and for the sake of others (men) emptied Himself
of the heavenly spiritual form, tooK the form of
one who was subject to inferior powers, including
f)ossibly the Law, and humbled Himself to the
ast stage of humiliation, the death on the Cross.
And therefore (here comes in the parallel with
what the self-effacing Christian may expect) God
has highly exalted Him, has conferred upon Him
the very equali^ which He refused to grasp, be-
stowing upon Him the name that is above every
name, that ' every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord.'
The Christological passage in Philippians
assumes the pre-existence of Christ ; the second
passage, in Colossians (P'"^^), states it {airrSs iarw
irpb w6.vTuv), and founds on it a doctrine of the re-
lation between Christ and all created beings. He
is ' the firstborn of every creature ' ( AV, not RV),
antecedent to them all. It is not necessary to ex-
tend the scope of St. Paul's language here so as
to include what we call ' Nature,' inanimate crea-
tion. The meaning of ' all things ' is not wider
than 'every creature,' and, so far as 'the unseen'
among the 'all things' are concerned, they are
here described as living intelligences — ' thrones,
principalities, powers, dominions,' i.e. angelic
powers in 'the heavenlies.' It is only such living
intelligences that are capable of being 'recon-
ciled to him' (v.**). And it is of them that St.
Paul says that they all, whether on earth or in
heaven, whether seen or unseen, were created
' in ' Christ, ' through ' Christ, and ' unto ' Christ,
that ' in Him ' they have still the basis of their
existence (rA vAvTa iv aim^ avu^aTTjKev). They
were created ' in Christ ' (not ' by ') as the sphere
within which the Divine will operates for salva-
tion ; ' through Him ' as the agent for the effecting
of the same purpose ; and ' unto Him ' as the end
or goal of their history, which provides the norm
of their experience.
What we have here is in fact the half-defined
working of the idea which found definite expres-
sion in the Logos-Christology of the Fourth
Gospel. Here, if anywhere, St. Paul betrays the
influence of speculations which are best known to
us through the works of Philo. The words eUibv,
irpttiTOTOKos, ffvv4(rrr]Ktv, are all employed by Philo
for the exposition of the relation of the Logos to
the origin and maintenance of created things.
How tiiis conception and the nomenclature
reached St. Paul, it is impossible to say. There
was enough in the OT doctrine of Wisdom as co-
operative with God in the work of creation to
furnish a foundation for the conception. Details
and the terms he emi)loy.s may have reached him
through the cosmological speculations (if tlie false
teachers. They interposed between God and His
world, as agents of creation and intermediaries of
Divine working, the hierarchy of unseen spirit-
forces. St. Paul may have been dealing a olow
to right and to left when he said in effect, to one
school of thought, ' your Logos is our Christ,' to
another, 'your spirit- forces were called into l)eing
by Him and have their very existence conditioned
by Him.'
It remains to call attention to two general facts
of a character apparently opposite to those we
have been considering, (a) St. Paul never gives to
Christ the name or description of 'God.' Two
passages have been ap])ealed to as proving that
lie does : (i. ) 2 Th V^ Kara tt^v x^-P'-" '''<''' ^^°" ijixQiv Kal
Kvplov 'IriffoO XpiffTov, ' according to the grace of
our God and (the) Lord Jesus Christ.' It seems
natural at first sight to take this phrase as
describing one Person, Jesus Christ, as both God
and Lord. But according to the practically
unanimous opinion of modern commentators (B.
Weiss, Dibelius, ad loc. in Handbuch zum NT,
1911), the phrase must be treated as a double one
referring to God and Christ (so AV and RV).
(ii.) Ro 9' i^ ix)v 6 XpiffTos rb Kara adpKa, 6 wv iirl
irdvTuv 6e6s evXoyijTos eis roi/s alwvas. Both AV and
RV render ' Christ . . . who is over all, (iod
blessed for ever.' WH in the margin of their Gr.
text put a colon after adpKa, Hort remarking that
this alone ' seems adequate to account for the
whole of the language employed, more especially
when it is considered in relation to the context.*
Westcott adds that ' the juxtaposition of 6 X/jkttos
Kard, ffdpKo, and 6 Cjv ktX. seems to make a change
of subject improbable,' indicating his opinion that
it is Christ Avho is described as ' God over all ' ;
Sanday-Headlam also, after a full discussion of
the passage, take the doxology as ascribed to
Christ ; so also B. Weiss, but in the sense that
not Godhead but Divine Exaltation is postulated
for Him.
Not so the later commentators, who for the most
part find here a doxology addressed to God, ' God
who is over all be blessed for evermore.' Evidence
of a grammatical or linguistic character is evenly
balanced in favour of the two renderings ; but in
favour of the latter there is the strong general reason
that on the other interpretation we should liave a
phrase which would inevitably infringe St. Paul's
monotheism and challenge the monotheism of his
leaders. And, reviewing the whole of his utter-
ances regarding Christ, the total impression is that
of a monotheistic conviction consistently resisting
the impulse to do this very thing — to call Jesus
God. On the other hand, nothing, not even the
Cross, could have offered a greater stumbling-block
to the people whom St. Paul was seeking to in-
fluence than the proclamation of a second God.
And the entire absence from the NT of any indica-
tion of opposition to such teaching, or of necessity
to explain teaching which would be so distasteful,
points conclusively in the same direction.
(j8) This conclusion is borne out by the second
general consideration, viz. the frequent and em-
phatic references in St. Paul to the subordination of
the Son. In 1 Co 3*"* we have the striking climax,
' AH things are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ
is God's' ; cf. 1 Co 11' ' the head of every man is
Christ ; the head of tlie woman is the man ; and the
head of Christ is God.' The very name of 'Son'
implies a measure of subordination, and even the
supreme Exaltation of the Son when every tongue
shall ' confess that Jesus Christ is Lord ' (Ph 2'') is
' to the glory of Grod the Fatiier.' The same idea
underlies the representation of Christ as the organ
of God's revelation, of creation, of reconciliation.
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGi'
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGV
195
And it is brought out with almost startling force
in 1 Co 15^ ' When all things shall have been sub-
jected unto him, then shall the Son also himself be
subjected to hira that did subject all things unto
him, that God may be all in all.'
Whether St. Paul was ever conscious of the prob-
lem which his Christology thus presents, it is im-
possible to say. He held with equal conviction and
emphasis two propositions which seem contradic-
tory : ' There is one God and Father of all, who
is above all and through all, and in you all,' and
• Christ is GJod for me ' ; and perhaps they find
their synthesis in that saying which is at once the
simplest and the profonndest account of the whole
matter : ' Grod was in Christ reconciling the world
untoliimseht ' (2 Co 5^*).
4. The First Epistle of Peter.— This Epistle opens
with a phrase ( ' the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ,' P ; cf . 2 Co 1', Eph 1^) which puts its
Christology on the same plane with what was
central in the Christology of St. Paul, but at the
same time common to the primitive community
(see Hort's notes ad loc.). But its predominantly
practical character does not offer the opportunity
tor developing the Christological conception in de-
tail. There is no reference to Christ as Son of God
(except indirectly in the phrase quoted above), as
Son of Man, or as Spirit. The word ' Christ ' is
frequently used as a proper name, sometimes in
combination with • Jesus," sometimes by itself. The
starting-point of Christian ' hope' and of Christian
experience is the Kesurrection of Christ (1*) ; but
that experience is described in terms of re-birth,
recalling the language of the Fourth Gospel (cf.
1 P 1»-^ with Jn 35 1^^ ^). The goal of Christian
hope is ' the revelation of Jesus Christ * (1 P 1'- "
4'* ; cf. 1* 5^). In the interval the supreme religi-
ous duty of Christians is to • sanctify in their hearts
Christ as Lord ' (3" RV). St. Peter is here quoting
(and adapting) the language of Is 8^ ^' in the LXX
version, which concludes with Kiptor airrbf ayiiffare.
Whatever be the precise way in which his words
should be rendered, the signihcant thing is that he
substitutes the word X/xarbr for the airrov by which
the prophet meant Jahweh. He demands for Christ
the same reverence, submission, and dependence as
the prophet claimed for Gtod, and he makes the
rendering of these the central thing in religion- In
2* we find a similar application to Christ of the
language of Ps 34*.
Christ ' is at the right hand of God, having gone
into heaven (cf. Ac 3^), angels and authorities and
powers being made subject unto him ' (3^). For
* God has raised him from the dead, and given him
glory ' ( I^ ; cf . Ac 3" idit^aaer row vaiSa avroO and
Is 52"^ LXX o Tcuj fwv So^atrd-fjfferat <rif>6Spa). This
glorified Christ is the 'chief shepherd' (5*), the
' shepherd and overseer of your souls ' (2^), by a
figure which, thouirh familiar in the OT (e.g. Ps 23,
Zee IS', Is 40'^) and also in the Gospels {e.g. Mt 9»,
Jn 10) and in the Epistle to the Hebrews (13*), is
never applied to Christ by St. Paul. It is possible
that St. Peter also represents Him as ' ready to
judge the quick and the dead ' (4*), though in 1" it
13 God who is the Judge.
The Epistle is distinguished from all other docu-
ments of the XT in that it appears to assign to
Christ a redeeming activity in the interval between
the Crucifixion and the Kesurrection. ' Being put
to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit, in
which also he went and preached to the spirits in
prison ' (3^*- ^) ; cf . 4* ' the gospel was preached to
the dead also.' The idea of our Lord's descent
into Sheol and temporary abode there underlies the
interpretation put by St. Peter upon Ps 16" in Ac
2» and is possibly reflected in Eph 4* (cf. Lk 23*^).
But the exposition which is given to it in the Epistle
is probably due to the influence of speculation, traces
of which are found in apocalyptic writings, concern-
ing the ultimate fate of fallen spirits in the under
world. The Book 0/ Enoch in particular, acquaint-
ance with which is traceable elsewhere in thisEpistle
(cf . I'' with Ell. 1\ deals with this subject in several
passages (60*- ^ 64 69^, ed. Charles) and hints at an
opportunity of repentance allowed to sinners of the
antediluvian period between the first judgment of
the Deluge and the final one. En. 69*, referring
apparently, after a long interpolation, to the fallen
angels of ch. 64, says, ' There was great joy among
them, and they blessed and glorified because the
name of the Son of Man was revealed unto them.'
The reference to Noah in both contexts makes it
highly probable that the Enoch literature is the
source of the special idea behind the passages in
1 Peter. Christ was understood to have preached
' to the Spirits in prison ' in fulfilment of the ex-
pectation that the name of the Son of Man would
be revealed to them.
Concerning the historic Christ the Epistle de-
clares, quoting Is 53^, that ' he did no sin, neither
was gnue found in his mouth ' (2^) ; it refers to
Him as 'a lamb without spot and blameless' (1^),
as ' rejected of men ' but ' chosen of Gk)d ' (2*), as
the ' righteous ' who died * for the unrighteous' (3^*).
Special emphasis is laid upon EUs patient endurance
of suffering as an example to be followed by all
Christians (2^ 4^ ^) ; and of these sufferings the
writer claims to be a ' witness,' possibly meaning
an eye-witness (5^ ndprvs rur toC 'Kpurrmi ra^/uirur).
In fact, the Epistle testifies to the thorough work-
ing out of that analogy between the suffering
servant in Isaiah and the crucified Messiah, the
pr^nant use of which has been noted in St. Peter's
speeches in Acts.
'The Cbiist<dogical l^are whidi bdoi«s to the Petrine
speccdMB ot Acts and the Rrat ^Hatle d Peter ditHnetiweljf,
beine tnccable daewhere only in » few primitiTe litorginl
mwwgea. ... is the Isaian figure cl the suffering Servant of
Tahweh' CB. W. Bacon. JeautSkeScnt^Gcd, 1911. p. 100)i
Those who find in this Epistle the doctrine of the
pre-existent Christ relv on two passages — 1" and 1**.
In the first of these tlie prophets are said to have
searched • what time, or what manner of time,
the Spirit of Christ which was in them {rb er airois
rrev/ia XpuTTod) did signify ' ; and it is inferred that
the writer ascribes their inspiration to the Spirit
of the (pre-existent) Christ. But both in this clause
and in the following one ' Christ ' probably stands
for ' Messiah ' ; and the meaning is, ' what time . . .
the Messiah-spirit in them did signify when it tes-
tified beforehand the sufferings leading up to {or
destined for) Messiah.* This is the view of Hort
{First Ep. of Peter, 1898, p. 53), who adduces as par-
allels Is 61\ Ps 105'*, 2 S 231 LXX, and remarks :
* It must be remembered that the sharp distinctkm wfakb we
are aocastomed to 'make betweoi the pnphetoatbe one rids
and the Mfiwiah at whom be speakaon the othw does noi emt
in the OT itseU. The pn^het, the peoide to whom he bdongs
and to whom he nptelnt. and the dinilf seen Head and Kin|; o<
the people, aO pass inaetHibly one Into the othertiB the laaginge
of prophecy: thqr all are partakers a< the Divine anotntinir, and
the Mwgtiahahip which is confemd by it.'
In the second passage (1**) Christ is described as
'foreknown before the foundation of the world,
but manifested at the end of the times ' {vpoeyptta-
fidpoir fuv rpo cara^oX^ cdtr/tov), from which it is
argued that both the implication of the word
' manifested ' and its correlation with ' foreknown '
strongly favour the idea of personal pre-existence.
But this argument probably lays an unjustifiable
stress on the etymology of rpoeyrtKr/Uvop, and over-
looks the significance suggested by its usage. The
meaning ' to have prescience of* does not well suit
either this passage or Ro 8** (oflj rpciyru koI rpoiopurew)
or Ro 1 1- (oi'ic ardicaTO o debt ri» 'habw avroO 6p rpoeywa).
So Hort points out {ad loc.), and adds : "a com-
parison of these passages suggests that in them
196
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
irpoyiyviiffKu means virtually pre-recognition, desig-
nation to a function or position ' (cf. Jer P, Is 49').
The idea of the designation of the Messiah in the
counsel of God before all worlds is expressed more
or less distinctly in other language in Eph !•• '",
Col 1**, and does not necessarily imply pre-existence
for the Messiah. The same idea is illustrated in
this Epistle in P, according to which the recipients
of the letter are ' saints according to the foreknow-
ledge of God ' (/card vpoyvuxriv deov). It is probable
therefore that the Epistle does not contain any re-
ference to the pre-existent Christ.
As a whole it displays this perplexing combina-
tion— the presence of linguistic echoes of Pauline
phraseology, and the absence of everything that is
specifically Pauline in thought. We look in vain
for any reference to justification or reconciliation,
to the mystical participation in Christ's death and
resurrection or the union between Christ and the
believer, to Christ as the Son of God or as ' sent
into the world from a pre-existent state.' There
are lines of connexion with the Epistle to the
Hebrews, e.g. the superiority of Christ to angels
(3^; cf. Bacon, op. cit. p. 91), the conception of
faith approximating to hope, the reference to
'sprinkling* (1*), and the description of Christ as
• Shepherd ' (2^). But the Epistle, especially in its
Christology, stands distinctly nearer to the common
primitive basis than to Paulinism in its present form.
'The writer is !by no means a Paulinist. His attitude is
rather that of the common practical consciousness pervading
the churches — a consciousness which was prior to Paul, and in
which Paulinism, for the most part, operated merely as a
ferment. The proper appreciation of this central popular
Christianity in the apostolic age is vital to the proper focus for
viewing the earlj' Christian literature ' (Moffatt, LNT, 1911, p.
330 f.).
5. The Epistle to the Hebrews.— This Epistle
contributes a very original development of the
primitive conception of Christ in closest connexion
with a special view of the character of His redeem-
ing work. The address of the Epistle ' to Hebrews '
is probably as misleading as its traditional ascrip-
tion to St. Paul as its author was mistaken. And
it is a great gain to NT theology that it is now
examined apart from any of the former pre-sup-
positions as to either authorship or address. The
phenomena of the Epistle ' converge on the conclu-
sion that Paul had nothing to do with it ; the
style and religious characteristics put his direct
authorship out of the question, and even the medi-
ating hypotheses which associate Apollos or Philip
or Luke with him are shattered upon the non-
Pauline cast of speculation which determines the
theology ' (Moffatt, LNT, p. 428). Compared with
the letters of St. Paul it runs far more on the lines
of a rhetorical address, and may have been intended
in the first place for a (juite small and homo-
geneous community of Christians, not specially dis-
tinguished by either Jewish or Gentile origin and
proclivities. In its fundamental purpose it is 'a
word of exhortation' (13-^), and its key-note is
struck in 2'"*, especially 2^, ' how shall we escape
if we neglect so great salvation ? ' The Christian
salvation is seen to be ' so great,' because after an
exhaustive comparison between it and the salvation
offered under the OT covenant, it is seen to be
superior at every point, and this most conspicu-
ously in the Person of Him through whom it has
been mediated (9" ; cf. 1"^ 12").
"What is most characteristic in the Christology
of Hebrews is that each of the two normative
elements in the primitive conception of Clirist — the
reality of His hviman nature and experiences, and
the glorious efficacy of His Divine Sonship — is
reiterated and developed with a new emphasis and
with new detail. This is specially true of the
Divine Sonship, which, even more than the High-
Priesthood, expresses for the writer tlie highest
claim for Christ. This is the subject into which
lie bursts without any preface, in the opening
sentences of his letter. God, the same who spoke
to the fathers by the prophets, has spoken to us by
' the Son,' whom He has ' made the lieir of all
things,' ' by whom also he made the worlds.' The
description which follows, of the Son as ' the efful-
gence of his glory, the expression of his essence,'
makes clear at once that the Sonship is conceived in
the absolute sense, and this is the case throughout
(1* 2' 5*- * 7^), probably even where the full phrase (6
vLb% Tov deov) is employed (4'* 6* 7" 10^). As Son He
is already KpeiTruv yevdfifvo^ tQv 6.yyO<uv (\*), and
as Son, who through the Kesurrection has become
irpuTdroKos, i.e. Kepresentative and Head of the
whole family of God, He is to be again brought
into the world (1*), when His eternal glory and
sovereignty will be yet more conspicuously dis-
played, ft would not be safe to infer, however,
that the author intended all the language of the
OT passages whicli he proceeds to quote to apply
literally and specifically to Christ ; and in particu-
lar the quotation from Ps 45 (' Thy throne, O God,
is for ever and ever,' 1* RV ; see marg.) is of such
uncertain interpretation, lx)thin the LXX and here,
that it cannot be claimed as proof that the writer
addressed Clirist as 0€6s (see Westcott, ad loc).
Nevertheless, the successive clauses of the opening
paragraph point to One who belongs to the eternal
order, and holds at once a unique and a universal
relation to all created things. The timeless char-
acter of the Son's existence is indirectly brought
out by the analogy of Melchizedek, who ' having
neither beginning nor end of days,' is therein ' made
like unto the Son of God ' (7»).
In all this there is both likeness and unlikeness
to the Christology of St. Paul — likeness in the con-
ception of Sonship as involving radiant revelation
(ex. elKuv roD deov) of Christ as connected with the
creation and sustaining of all created being (1 Co 8*,
Col 1'*) ; unlikeness, if not in substance, yet in the
greater sweep and definiteness of the conception
and in tlie probable extension of meaning here
given to ra iravra. While in both cases the passage
in Wis. (7'^^) has unmistakably left its mark on
the language, in the case of Heb. we must probably
allow also for the influence of Philo's elaboration
of the same nexus of ideas.
But there is a deeper distinction in the use of
the Sonship-conception as between St. Paul and
Hebrews. There is nothing in the latter corre-
sponding to the note of tenderness and intimate
aflection which St. Paul seems to have recognized
in the relationship (e.g. Ro 88- *i. Col l'^). The
' Sonship ' in Hebrews shows not so much a change
of quality from the official Messianic conception
as an extension of it into a timeless past. And
this is confirmed by the absence from the Epistle
of any reference to God as the Father whether of
Christ or of men in Christ. St. Paul's pregnant
phrase, ' the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ,' makes no appearance ; nor do we find ' our
Lord Jesus Christ ' at all, but in its stead the very
rare 6 /ci/ptoj i)tiQ)v (7'* 13'''° ; otherwise only in 1 Ti 1",
2 Ti 18, 2 P 3i»).
This ' Son ' has now entered into ' heaven itself '
(92* ; cf. 4" 122», 1 P 3", Ac 3^1, 1 Th 1"), and taken
His seat ' at the right hand of the majesty on
high ' (P ; cf. 81 lO''* 12^). But He has entered not
only as the glorified Mes.siah, the Lord, who exer-
cises kingly rule, but also as the great High Priest,
in whom the high priests (and priests) of the old
dispensation, with the whole system of sacrifices
and purifications which they represent, find their
antitype and consummation.
( 1 ) Tfie High-Priesthood. — .Tust as in the Synoptic
Gospels the Messiahship, so here the High-Priest-
hood, is a function of the Sonsiiip. It is presented
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
197
in two aspects : lirst, as typified in the Levitical
High-Priesthood ; and second, as typified in the
Priest-King Melchizedek. The title Itpevs (d/>x'«-
ptvs), which in this Epistle alone of the books of the
NT is applied to Christ, appears quite abruptly at
2" and again at 3^ but its contents are developed
from 4" onwards. Christ corresponds with the
type, the Levntical High-Priesthood, in that He too
isable 'to bear gently with the ignorant and errant'
(5' ; cf . 4'*), in that tie too holds the office by Divine
appointment {5*-*), and in that He provides an
effective offering and purification for sins (7^^ ; cf.
1^ 2"). But to this Priesthood He is superior in
that He requires not to make any offering for His
own sins (7-') ; and by a single offering, the offering
of His body once for all (lO'"), He ' has perfected
for ever them that are sanctified' (10^*). But,
argues the writer, it would be a mistake to
stop short at the analogy of the Levitical priest-
hood, when there is another equally applicable,
and itself belonging to a higher category. ' Leav-
ing the story of the beginning of the Christ (the
first stage), let us be borne on to His culmination
(6^) ; though it be a long story we have to tell,
and one difficult of interpretation ' (5"). The cul-
mination of the Priesthood of Christ followed on
His Exaltation, when He became a ' priest for ever
after the order of Melchizedek ' {6^ ; cf. o*^^ 7^).
That is to say, the writer agrees with St. Paul in
ascribing a great accession of power and dignity
to Christ consequent upon the [Resurrection and]
Exaltation, but he applies to Christ as Priest the
enhancement of significance which St. Paul applies
to Him as * Son of God ' (Ro 1*).
This Priesthood after a new ' order,' correspond-
ing to the ' better covenant ' of which Christ was
the Mediator and the Pledge (7" 9^^ 12-^), tran-
scended every other form of priesthood in that
(o) it was ' after the power of an endless life ' (V^) ;
{b) it was confirmed by an oath of God (7"^ ^) ;
(c) the type to which it conformed included kingly
as well as priestly functions and prerogatives, and
moreover could he shown by a historical illustra-
tion to be superior to the Levitical priesthood
(7^' ^'') ; and (rf) it was unchallengeable, unique,
absolute (7^ dirapd^aTos ; see Westcott ad loc).
Such a High Priest, 'holy, harmless, undefiled'
in personal character, ' separated from sinners '
and ' higher than the heavens ' in regard to the
conditions of His existence, is One who answers to
human need (7^). There 'he ever liveth to make
intercession' (7^; cf. 7" 9^^); through Him men
offer ' the sacrifice of praise to God ' (13^^) ; and for
them He secures access to ' the holy place ' (4^^ ; cf.
1019-22) These priestly functions He continues to
exercise ; but
'the modem conception of Christ pleading in heaven His
Passion, " offering,' His bloo<i," on behalf of men has no founda-
tion in the Epistle. His srlorified humanity is the eternal
pledge of the absolute efficacy of His accomplished work. He
pleads, as older writers truly expressed the thought, by His
Presence on the Father's Throne ' (Westcott, Hebrewg, 1889, p.
230).
(2) The historical Jesus. — This conception of the
eternal representation of humanity in the presence
of God as an essential part of Christ's redeeming
function is related to the emphasis on the reality
of His human nature, which runs through the
Epistle, concurrent with the emphasis on His
Divine glory and dignity. The human name
'Jesus' appears with marked frequency and em-
phasis, nine times in all, and in nearly every case
is placed emj)hatically at the end of a clause.
Though there is no reference to the birth of Jesus,
and only one to His Resurrection (13-*), stress is
laid upon His death as a death of suffering (2^-io),
and the scene in Gethsemane as well as the locality
of the Cnicifixion are indicated with unexampled
detail (o'*- 12^). In character He is described as
' holy, harmless, undefiled ' (7*), and ' faithful to
him that appointed him ' (3*). He Himself was
' made for a season lower than the angels ' (2*), and
is specifically described as a sharer in 'the blood
and flesh or men ' (2'^), seeing that ' it behoved
him to be made like unto his brethren' (2"). In
particular, the likeness in experience extended to
temptation, and the temptation was such as arose
from His likeness to men, though there was no sin
either as its cause or as its result (2>* 4"). Tlie
writer does not shrink from ascribing to His human
nature progress and also weakness and shrinking
from death : 'in the days of his flesh . . . though
he was Son yet learned he obedience through the
things which he suffered ' ; ' he offered prayers and
supplications to him that was able to save him from
death with strong crj-ing and tears ' (5"'"'}.
The author does not, however, even in this
[)assage (*cai reXeioj^eij) teach that Christ was de-
ivered from moral infirmity, and so made morally
perfect. A study of the word TeXeiowu and its cog-
nates, as used in the Epistle, shows that it connotes
'complete development,' arriving at the destined
end, consummation. 'To "make perfect" does
not mean to endow with all excellent qualities,
but to bring to the end, that is, the appropriate or
appointed end, the end corresponding to the idea '
(A. B. Davidson, ad loc). Here the idea is ade-
quacy to be the Author of Salvation (2^* 5'), or
Sanctifier (2"), or High Priest (7^ ; cf. 6^). It is
in this sense that Christ was ' made perfect,' and
that 'through suffering'; and in this sense that
He is the Author [or Pioneer] and Perfecter of
faith (12*).
6. The Johannine literature. — It is now commonly
understood that the Fourth Gospel contains tMo
elements, combined in proportions Mhich are still
uncertain — history and its religious interpretation.
And these so interpenetrate one another that not
only is it difficult to separate them, but the form
given to the history is in a lesser or greater degree
afl'ected by the interpretation. What we are con-
cerned with here is the conception of Christ Avhich
gave rise to the interpretation, and left its mark
on the historical material. At least the first of
the Johannine Epistles, proceeding from the same
source, adds its witness to the same conception.
The Christology of the Johannine literature is
remarkable, in the first place, for the combination
and reprotluction of practically all the elements
which had emerged in the earlier documents of the
NT. Christ is presented as Messiah (Son of God,
Son of Man), Son, Priest, Judge, and Creator, and
also as adequately replaced by the Spirit. The
combination is the more remarkable when justice
is done to the large measure of independence among
the documents in which these aspects of Christ are
severally emphasized. The various lines which
radiate from the common centre of primitive con-
ceptions are brought together again in the Johan-
nine Christology. Only the title Kuptos practically
disappears (except in 20^) from the Gospel and the
Epistles alike, a fact in which Bousset (op. cit. p.
187) sees the efiect of the same deep mysticism
which claims for the disciples the position of friends.
But though these elements are present in the
same form, their connotation is modified in com-
parison with the earlier writings. Each of them
has undergone a subtle change, partly in conse-
quence of their being subsumed under one general
conception, and partly because of the character of
that over-ruling principle, which is commonly but
inadequately described as the 'Logos-idea.' One
general rule applies to, and partly explains, these
subtle changes. The Johannine conception of
Christ differs from those that had gone before in
that it is static, not dynamic. All that Christ has
since become to the Church or been discovered to
198 CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
CHRIST, CHRISTOLOGY
be, He must liave been from the beginning. That
eternal and intrinsic relation to God towards the
expression of which other writers had been moving,
has now become the central and governing idea, in
the light of which all His other relations, all His
functions, are beheld and set. And there is no need,
because tliere is no room, for the recognition of
crises in His experience, such as the Bajitisni and
the Transfiguration, or ' being declared the Son of
God M'ith power,' or being ' made a priest for ever '
at the Exaltation. The only change allowed for is
a change of form, at the beginning from the Logos
to the Logos made flesh, and again at the end from
the human manifestation to the spiritual condition
of being.
The writer distinctly states the purpose he had
in view when composing his Gospel (20^') : ' these
[signs] are written that ye may believe that Jesus
is the Messiah, the Son of God ; and that believing
ye may have life in liis name.' But the two titles
nave interchanged their relative importance. In
the Synoptic Gospels Jesus is ' Son of God ' because
He is Messiah, in accordance with the interpreta-
tion of Ps 2''. Here He is Messiah because He is
Son of God. And the Sonship is uniformly con-
ceived as a relation, intrinsic, unique, and eternal,
involving and resting upon essential unity with the
Father (P KP U^" etc.).
' The idea of Sonship, which in Paul is carefully subordinated
to a strict monotheism, is accepted in its full extent. In the
generation succeeding: Paul the name " Son of God " had gradu-
ally assumed the more definite meaning which the Greek
language and forms of thought attached to it. The Fourth
Evangelist employs it deliberately in the sense which it would
convey to the ordinary Greek mind. Jesus as the Son was
Himself of the same nature as the Father. All the divine
powers and attributes de>olved on Him in virtue of His inherent
birthright as Son of God ' (E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, 1906,
p. 194).
As Son, Christ is now in heaven, whither He has
ascended (3'*) ; He is ' in the bosom of the Father '
(P*). But He is also witli and in the Church on
earth. He has returned, in a very real sense,
though not 'with the clouds of heaven.' And the
story of His life on earth is written from the point
of view of those who know Him to be, and to have
been all along, the Son of God from heaven (3"- ^^
etc.). He has been recognized as Divine, and
Divine in such a sense that even in His human
manifestation He retained attributes of Godhead.
Omniscience is not obscurely claimed for Him (l**^
228 417. 89) . a^jj(j jjig miracles are not so much works
of mercy as signs {a-rjfiela) of supernatural power.
The miracles are specially represented as attest-
ing His claim to be Messiah (ICF). And that claim
is made for Him (!*'• **) from the very outset of His
Ministry, and by Himself (4^ 10^^), in the plainest
terms ; while belief that He is the Messiah is re-
presented as the condition of salvation {8^ ; cf.
10"). From the beginning al.so He exercises His
Messianic authority {e.g. in the cleansing of the
Temple, 2'^"^'), and ' reveals his [divine] glory' (2^^).
The Baptist points to the descent of the Spirit ' as
a dove from heaven' (p-s*) as the proof of His
Mes.siahship, not as the occasion of its inauguration.
The title ' Son of Man ' also reappears in the
Fourth Gospel (12 times), and still as the self-
designation of Jesus. It retains what is probably
the most significant feature of its use in the
Synoptic Gospels, viz. the suggestion of contrast ;
but wliereas in the Synoptic Gospels the contrast
may be either between the real glory of the Messiah
ana the lowliness of His appearance or between the
real lowliness of Jesus and the glorj- of liis future,
here it is uniformly the latter (1" 'Hereafter ye
shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascend-
ing and descending on the Son of man ' ; 12^ IS**'
' Now is the Son of man glorified '). This is still
the case in tlie three instances which refer to the
lifting ui) of Christ (3" S** 12"-), where the 'lifting
up' involves not the Crucifixion alone but the
Crucifixion as the preliminary to power and glory.
Viewed as one factor in the Johannine conception of
Christ, the title lays stress on tlie weakness, humil-
ity, and obscurity of His earthly manifestation.
But the Messiahship itself is looked at through
the experience of intervening years. The trans-
mutation of eschatology has already been accom-
plished. The Kingdom of God is such that it can
be seen, and entered, only by those who have been
' bom again,' tho.se who are ' spirit ' (3'- '). It
follows that the function of tiie Messiah in relation
to that Kingdom is differently conceived. It is to
declare the Father (1'*), to give that knowledge of
God which itself ' is life eternal ' (17*).
To Christ is assigned here also the function of
Judge ; but it is no longer that of index futtirus.
His presence in the world acts alreafly as a Kpi<rts
(317-16 5ij2 93a) , even when He waives the function,
it is because the words He has spoken have judg-
ment-force (12^'')- It is to save tlie world that He
has come, the Life, the Light, the Truth, or, in one
chosen name, the Word of God.
This ' Logos-conception ' is neither the dominat-
ing conception which has given shape to the con-
tents of the Gospel, nor is it an after-thought.
The Evangelist comes to that conception with his
belief in Christ as the Divine Son of God alreadj-
complete, with the various aspects of His nature
and function already correlated and harmonized
under that idea ; and adopts as a means of relating
his central conception to contemporary Hellenistic
thought the description of Logos for the Son of
God.
' The Johannine Logos shows nothing of the fluctuating am-
biguity which forms the characteristic quality of the Philonic.
He is Personality through and through, and (what for Philo is
an impossible thought) has entered on the closest union with
the <rap^, the anti-Divine principle ' (Bauer, ' ad Jn 1',' in Hand-
buch zum NT, 1912, p. 7 ; cf. also Bousset, Kyrioa Chrittot,
1913, p. 187 note).
It would be the direct converse of that method,
to begin with the conception of the Logos as
current in Hellenistic speculation, and, having
analyzed its contents, proceed to fit into harmony
with its several elements the records of the life
of Jesus which were relevant to his purpose. He
introduces the Logos as a term already familiar to
his readers ; he reminds them of the nature, the
prerogatives, the activity of the Logos, His sharing
in the nature of God, His timeless being. His part
in the ANork of creation ; and then says in etlect,
' This Logos is our Christ ; He became flesh ; and
we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten
of the Father.' And throughout the subsequent
relation of His acts and words, that glory is allowed
to shine.
But not to the obliteration of His humanity, or
to the obscuring of His dependence upon (lod.
The glory was visible to those who believed on
Him ; but they were fully persuaded of the reality
of His human nature too (1 Jn P"^). To others He
appeared as a man (4^ 5^- 7" 9" 10^), with a human
father and mother (6**). They relied on the evi-
dence of their senses when they accused Mini of
blasphemy, ' because thou being a man iiiakest
thyself God' (10^). The Evangelist, does not
shrink from reporting the words of Philip when he
described Him as 'Jesus the son of Joseph' (1**),
or those of the Baptist referring to Him as dvdpuiro^
(3") ; he even reports Jesus as referring to Himself
in the same terms — vvv 8i ^-rrre'iri fie diroKrelvai ivdpv-
TTov 8s rijv iX-qdeiav ii/juy \e\d\rjKa (8*).
His humanity is emphasized with a detail un-
known in the Synoptic Gospels— He could l)e
wearied (4«), thirsty (19=«), troubled in spirit (13"').
He Himself .says, ' Now is my soul troubled ' (12=^),
and prays that He may be saved ' from this hour'
(cf. He 5^). He formed ties of intimat<' personal
CHRISTIAX
CHRISTIAX
199
friendship and atiection (11*), and at the tomb of
Lazanis He • wept ' (11^). Tiie attempt to explain
such iostances of emphasis on the human nature
of Jesus as due to the ' schematism ' of the writer
is an attempt to get rid of the problem left by
the Johannine Christology by evading one of the
factors, and it is wrecked on the simplicity and
naturalness of each of the instances. A schema-
tism which so successfully concealed the iimer
meaning of the language would defeat its own
object.
Nor is it possible to explain away the repeated
witness to the sense of. dependence upon God ac-
knowledged by Jesus, and the derivation of His
power from Him. The Father who is ' greater
than all things' (1(P) is 'greater than' the Son
(14*). From the Father the Son derives the things
which He speaks to the world (8» ; cf. S» 12» 15"),
and also the power to do His 'works.' He 'can
do nothing of himself ' (5" ; cf. 5* 8**). He submits
Himself continuously to the Father's commands
(15^*; ct. 8*t. and finds His spiritual nourishment
in obedience (4**). It is in this document where
the human nature of the Son and His dependence
on the Father are asserted with the strongest
emphasis that His Divinity Is for the first time
expressly acknowledged (1^ 20*). If John thus
leaves an unsolved problem for posterity to attack
it is better to recognize that it is so.
' How it was possible that this essential divine poaaeaaion.
the exclosiye oidowinent of a heavenly, sinritnal being, could
be manifested in a being of flesh, is not a subject on which he
seenis to have pondeml — it is to him simply a marvel for
reverent contemplation ! One thing only is <^ear, that with
equal energy- be defends both positions: tmly become flesh,
and yet in complete possession of those qualities which con-
stitate the nature of the Deity ' (J. Weiss, op. eit. p. 151).
LiTERATXrBX. — In addition to the aathorities dted above, see
W. Lock, ' Christfdoey of the Earlier Chapters of the Acts,' in
Expositor, 4th ser., iv. [1891] 17S ; W. Sanday, ChrUMogiet
Anciont and Modern^ Oxlotd, 1910 ; G. H. Box, 'The Christian
Messiah in the Light 0t Judaism,' in JThSt xiiL [1912] 321 ;
B. W. Bacon, Jegu» ths Son of God, London, 19U ; J. Gran-
bery. Outline of AT Ckristoloffr, Chicago, 1909 ; A. E. Garvie,
Stuaie* of Paul and ?iis Ooipel, UoaAon, 1911 ; A. Oeiss-
nuum, 5t. Paul, Ene tr., London, 1912; M. Briickner, Die
BnttUhung der ■paxdiniteken Ckristoloffie, Strassbuig, 1903;
W. Olschewski, Die Wurzeln der paulinitehen Ckrittologie,
Konigsberg, 1909 : S. Monteil, La CkritUtloffie de Saint-Paul,
Paris, 1906 ; A. Jdlicher, Paulu* und Jesu*, TnlMngen, 1907 :
J. Weiss, Jfsiti I'm Glauben de* UrehritUntumt, do. 1910, and
•Christologie cles Lrchristen turns,' in RGG L [1909] 1712 ff. ;
A. S. Pe^e, 'The Person of Christ in the Revelation of St.
John,' in Mansfield College Ettayt, London, 1909, p. 88 ; F.
Loofs, What is tie Truth about Jesus Chrialt, Eng. tr., Edin-
bmxh, 1913 ; H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Peraon
of Jesus Chrift, Edinburgh, 1912 ; W. Bonsset, Kyrios Ckristot,
G««M>g«>. 1913. C. Andersox Scott.
CHRISTIAN (Xpurri<w<}j). — We might expect
that, in the case of so renoT\-ned a name as ' Chris-
tian,' the occasion and circumstances of its origin
would have been recorded with all possible detail,
but such is not the case. Its first appearance is
noticed in the most simple, matter-of-fact way
without further explanation. ' The disciples were
called Christians first in Antioch ' (Ac U^J. Then,
as far as the NT is concerned, the name almost
disap[)ears ; it is mentioned only twice again (Ac
26^, 1 P 4^*). In the former passage Agrippa
says : ' Thou wouldest fain make me a Christian ' ;
in the latter. Peters words, ' If a man sutler as a
Christian,' are spoken from a persecutor's stand-
ix>int. Even in Agrippa's day the designation
was understood (<r. A.D. 44), and, when 1 Peter
was written (.\.D. 64-67), it must have been in
common use. In the other Epistles the name does
not occur. There the terms used are such as
'disciples,' 'believers,' 'the faithfiil,' 'brethren,'
•saints.' The only two points definitely indicated
in Ac 1 1* are the time and place, and both these
are in every way appropriate.
The missionary work of the Church was about
to begin from Antioch as its starting-point.
There a considerable church had been formed by
the united labours of Bamabaa and Saul. Driven
from Jerusalem by persecution, disciples had gone
to Cyprus and preached to the Jews there.
Thence some came over to Antioch and preached
to ' Greeks also ' ("EXXi/raj ; another reading has
'E\Xi}vurrds, 'Grecian Jews'), with the result that
' a great number believed.' Barnabas came from
Jerusalem on an errand of inquiry, and under hv*
ministry 'much people was added to the Lord.'
Barnabas then fetched Saul from Tarsus ; both
laboured in Antioch 'a whole year' and taught
'much people' {6x^0" ucari^). fiere was the first
considerable chtirch on Gentile soil ; a common
name was necessary and was forthcoming — provi-
dentially, we cannot doubt, but how is not so clear.
The citry of Antioch {q.v.), the capital of Syria,
a splendid centre of Greek life and culture, became
after the Fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70) a second home
of the Church and the mother-church of Gentile
Christianity. Although it does not figure promi-
nently in the NT, in subsequent history it plays
a great part as a rival of Alexandria, Rome, and
Constantinople. Chrysostom, the prince of early
Christian preachers, won his first fame there.
This Antioch school of theology represented a
type of interpretation more akin to modem thought
than any other in those days. Ignatius, martyr
and writer of the famous letters, was bishop of
Antioch. Chrysostom writes : ' As Peter was tiie
first among the apostles to preach the Christ, so
was this city the first to be crowned with the
name of Christian as a diadem of wondrous beauty.'
As to the mode in which the name ' Christian '
originated, there is great difference of opinion.
"We seem compelled to accept one of three explana-
tions. (1) All agree that the name did not origin-
ate with the Jews. On their lips it would have
been a tacit acknowledgment of the Messiahship
of Jesus. 'While the first disciples were Jews, the
Jewish element soon became a diminishing quantity
in the Church. Their name for believers in Christ
was Nazarenes. Their attitude, as we see in the
Acts, was increasingly one of estrangement and
hostility.
(2) The suggestion has been made that the
designation originated with Christians themselves.
Eusebius (4th cent.), usually well-informed and
trustworthy, supports this view. An argument in
its faTour is its eminent appropriateness. Nothing
could better signalize the central position of Jesus
in Christianity. St. Paul's attitude on this ques-
tion represents the Church of all ages. Systems
like Muhammadanism and Buddhism, once estab-
lished, are independent of their founders. Not so
Christianity : ' Christianity is Christ.' His person,
life, and work are the key-stone of the arch, the
alpha and omega of the gospel. Yet, if this
opinion were correct, we should expect some in-
timation to this effect in Ac 11*. Still more, the
name is not found in the NT outside the three
passages mentioned, and, as far as records go, for
I some time afterwards. In writers of the 2nd cent,
it is of common occurrence — in pagan writers, the
Apologists, the author of the Dictaehe, and so on.
Speaking of the Neronian persecution, Tacitus
(A.D. 116) says: ' They whom the populace (tm/yi«)
called Christians {Christianas).' Suetonius (A,D.
120) and Pliny (A.D. 112) use the same designation.
P. "W. Schmiedel {EBi s.v.) says that Christian
writers did not use it because they did not need
it. ' Saints,' ' brethren,' etc., served their purpose.
I ' It follows that, notwithstanding its absence from
their writings, the name of Christian may very
well have originated at a comparatively early
time.' As we have seen, Ac 26^ and 1 P 4»* imply
that the term was in use. As to scanty references,
many early Christian writings have perished.
200
CHRISTIAN
CHRISTIAN LIFE
(3) The opinion most in favour is that the
term originated in Gentile circles outside the
Church. The people of Antioch with their quick
wit had a reputation for the invention of party
names. A title so apt, almost obvious, once sug-
gested, would persist with a vitality of its own.
Coming from outside, it was not at once accepted
by believers, but slowly grew in favour. This ex-
planation on the whole presents the fewest diffi-
culties and fits the circumstances of the case. We
need not accept the view that the title was used
at first derisively. There is nothing of this char-
acter in the title itself, although Conybeare-
Howson and others think that it was so meant.
A. Carr in an essay in his Horce Biblicce takes
this view. He thinks that St. Paul's preaching of
the Kingdom, carrying with it the idea of Chris-
tians as an army, would suggest comparison with
the followers of great military leaders (Pompeians,
Herodians), greatly to the discredit of Christ and
Christians. This meaning is not expressed in the
term itself, but, if it were a fact, would arise out
of the memory of the Crucifixion. Antiochene in-
genuity could certainly have discovered a better
expression for such an idea. At a much later
date the Emperor Julian saw nothing discreditable
in the name, for he forbade its use and replaced it
with Galilfean. (The incidental character of the
origin of a great name is not without analogy. In
v.*^ of the same chapter we have the first mention
incidentally of ' presbyters ' — the office out of
which the countless forms of church polity have
grown. So again with regard to deacons in Ac 6*. )
It has been argued that the term 'X.pi(XTiav6% im-
plies a Western and Latin origin. But the term-
ination -a.v6% was in wide use among Greeks every-
where (HDB i. 384).
The use of this name was the first step in the
differentiation of Christians from Jews in the
public eye. Previously the two classes had been
confounaed ; and the confusion Avas advantageous
to Christians in many respects, as the Jews were a
privileged nation before the Roman law. As the
Church grew in numbers the confusion ceased, and
the new name emphasized the distinction.
As the name Xpiard^ was often confused with
Xpr/cT^s ('good,' 'useful'), so Xpicriauds was often
misspelt Xprjcmavdi. This was intelligible enough
in pagan writers. Suetonius says that Claudius
expelled the Jews from Rome because they were
always raising tumult under the instigation of
Chrestus. Christian writers are not disinclined to
turn the mistake to account. Tertullian (Apol. 3)
does this intentionally, saying to pagans : 'When
you wrongly say Clirestians [Chrestianos] (for your
Knowledge of the name is limping), it is composed
of suavity and benignity ' [de suavitate et benigni-
tate]. Clem. iVlex. {Strom, ii. 4) also writes :
' They who believe in Christ both are and are
called good {xpv'^'rol) ' ; Justin {Apol. i. 4) : ' You
ought lather to punish those who accuse (us) be-
cause of our name. For we are accused of being
Christians ; but it is unjust for that which is good
(t6 ■xj>r](jTbv) to be hated ' ; Lactantius {Div. Inst.
iv. 7) : ' Ignorant of our aflairs, they call Christ
Chrest (Christum Chrestum) and Christians Chres-
tlnns (Christianos Chrestianos).'
We can imagine nothing more fitting than that
Christians should bear their Master's name (Christ)
in their own (Christian). There was more than
accident in such an origin. The name betokens
the vital union between Christ and Ijelievers, of
which the Epistles make so much ('they that are
Christ's'). An early Liturgy says: ' \Ve thank
thee that the name of thy Christ is named upon
us, and so we are made one with thee.' What a
( "hristian is called he is. He has the mind of Christ.
He thinks and feels, loves and acts, as Christ does.
His name is an index to his heart. ' We are called
children of God, and such we are.' ' A Christian is
one who has Christ in his heart, mouth and work '
(k Lapide). Passages like Mt 19^ 24" found a
literal fulfilment in the Church : see Mk 9*', ' Be-
cause ye are Christ's,' and margin, the name stand-
ing for the person ; Ac 4>'-', ' Neither is there any
other name under heaven, that is given among
men, wherein we must be saved.' To believe on
the name is to believe on Christ (Jn 1").
Literature. —Comra. of Meyer, Rackham, Alford, Words-
worth on Ac 112«; artt. in HDD, Elii, DCG, and Kitto's Cyclo-
pcedia, s.v. ; Conybeare-Howson, Life and EpistUs or St.
PauP, 1877, i. 146 f.; A. Carr, Uorce Bibliete, 1904; P. H.
Chase, The Credihility of the Book of Acts, 1902.
J. S. Banks.
CHRISTIAN LIFE.— The type of moral and re-
ligious life which was lived by the Christians of
the Apostolic Age had already been so far fixed as
to be described in the phrase Karh. xpt^Tiavifffibp ^rju
by Ignatius {Magn. x. 1) towards the close of that
period ; and the Didache (xii. 4), possibly at an
earlier date, used the title Xpio-rtacdj, showing that
the name which Antioch invented (Ac 11"* ; cf. 26*
and 1 P 4'*) was now accepted as specifying a
person whose life was distinctive alike in ideal and
practice. If we take the year A.D. 1(X) as mark-
ing the extreme limit of the Apostolic Age, our
authorities for determining the characteristics of
Christian practice and of the Christian life in its
inner and outer aspects are but meagre, consisting
of the NT writings, the Didache, 1 Clement, the
Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistles of Ignatius, some
fragments of Papias and Hegesippus preserved by
Eusebius, and a few contemporary references in
pagan writers like Tacitus and Suetonius. There
is a difficulty in usin^ and classifying the informa-
tion of these authorities, inasmuch as the chron-
ology of the NT writings is a subject of inquiry
and even of controversy ; while the traditional
origin and authorship of writings like the Epistle
to the Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles, of
the Johannine writings and several others, are dis-
puted by competent critics (see art. Dates). Some
scholars {e.g. Gwatkin) regard the Didache as one
of the earliest works of Christian literature ; while
others, like von Dobschiitz, place it beyond the
limits of the Apostolic Age. Nevertheless, in spite
of the various opinions on questions of chronology
and authorship, it is possible to arrive at some
definite conclusions on universally accepted pre-
misses, and to form a clear, if in details an incom-
ftlete, conception of the practice of the Christian
ife exhibited by Christian communities from the
death of Christ to the close of the 1st century.
One general principle may be laid down by way
of preface. The earliest witnesses of Christianity
are more concerned with Christ than with a system
of Christian morals. It is not primarily a new
code of ethics which they unfold ; it is a new
Personality. Not the teaching, but the Teacher
is their theme. The suinmum honum had been
realized in the life of Jesus. The Sermon on the
Mount, indeed, entered into the apostolic con-
sciousness, as we see from the precepts of Ro 12 ;
but the Law-giver, as on the occasion of its utter-
ance, is more than His precepts (Mt 7"*^). The
devotion to a living historical Person, the Son of
God and Redeemer of the world, who was capable
of communicating His Spirit to all mankind — this
is the note of the earliest preaching of the gospel.*
The apostles preacii 'Christ and him crucified.'
' They seem to think that if they can only fill men
• Incidentally we may rejrard this feature as one of the
reasons why Christianity in the Uoinan world vanquished all
competitors— Isis or .Vttis or Mithra or the redeemer-ffod of
Oriental niystcry-reliKions. The Kedeenier-Ood of Christianity
was a historical personality.
christia:^ life
CHRISTIAN LIFE
201
I
with true thankfulness for the gift of life in Christ,
morality will take care of itself (Gwatkin, Early
Church'Hist. i. 55). What results did sucli a pre-
sentation of truth produce on the age to which it
was given? This question can be answered only
by a study of moral conditions within the Christian
Cliurch. We must go for our enlightenment, not
to any general studies of Christian ethics, but to
the extant authorities of the age, which treat of
the Christian life in : (1) the Jewish-Christian
period ; (2) the Pauline period ; and (3) the post-
Pauline period. In the evolution of the Christian
communities, there is a direct connexion between
ethical conditions and the oflBcial or institutional
organization of the churches, which grew naturally
out "of these conditions ; but it will be necessary to
narrow our survey to religious and moral aspects,
and to disregard in detail problems of a historical
and institutional character, e.g. Baptism, Lord's
Supper, ritual and worship in general, bishops and
elders, the relation of St. Paul to the Jerusalem
Council, and the like (see artt. Church, Baptism,
Eucharist, Bishop, etc.).
1. Jewish Christianity. — The followers of Christ
at the time of His death w^ere distinguished from
the majority of their fellow- Jews by their convic-
tion that Jesus was the Messiah. They were thus
to their contemporaries a Messianic sect within
the pale of Judaism, conforming to the rites and
moral cotle of their religion. Their Master, while
condemning the defects of representative leaders
of religion, like the Pharisees, had never rejected
the observances of the Jew;ish religion — true to the
spirit of His mission, which was rather to fulfil
than to destroy. Weizsacker seems to go too far
when he suggests (Apostol. Age, ii. 341) that there
is disharmony between the evidence of the Synop-
tics and the Acts, on the ground that the latter
shows the primitive Church more bound up with
Judaism than Jesus Himself was, and the Pharisees
actual patrons of the apostolic community. The
fact is that both Jesus and the early Church ac-
cepted the outward symbols of Judaism, e.g. the
Temple and national festivals, while in spirit they
had already advanced beyond the national faith
(cf. Ac 2*).
The primitive Christians of Jerusalem, while
folloAving the rules of the Jewish religion for
everyday life (Ac 15), and for worship and devo-
tional observances (3^), come before us in the earlj-
chapters of the Acts as a distinctive community,
given to prayer (1"). Prayer was at once the
source and seal of that unity or spirit of brother-
hood which was to find further expression in a
common social life characterized by d7a\Xta<ns Kai
a.(j>€\&Ti)^ KapSLas, and in a community of goods
(2**-*). The latter feature represented merely the
socialism of self-sacrifice, its real motive being not
a desire for social innovation, but the support of
the poor ; and it may have been suggested by
Essene models (see COMMUNITY OF Goods). The
Christians lived a happy family life ; the members
were ' brethren ' ; new converts were received into
the fellowship by baptism (2^^) ; the practice of
charity produced noble examples of generosity like
that of Barnabas (4^), and incidentally provoked
unworthy ambition, of which the deceit of Ananias
and Sapphira (ch. 5) was a dark and memorable
result. Women such as Mary, the mother of John
Mark, and Sapphira held an independent position
in the community, and slowly the influence and
aims of the brotherhood broadened out. They
were known as 'disciples,' men 'of the Way' (Ac
9- 24"), and 'saints.' The appointment of the
seven Hellenists (Ac 7) which quelled the internal
diflerences between the Hebrews or pure Jews and
the Hellenists, their Greek-speaking brethren of
the Dispersion, indicates not only the large-hearted
charity of the Christian apostles, but their gradual
alienation from the narrowness of Judaic legalism.
This spirit of alienation came to a head in the
extreme views of St. Stephen, the leader of the
Hellenists, who paid the penalty of his undisguised
anti-Judaism in martyrdom. It is easy to see that
the ideas of St. Stephen anticipated the essential
principles of Pauline Christianity, and further,
that tney were in advance of minds like that of
St. Peter, who still maintained a loyal observance
of Jewish law and felt scruples about entering
a Gentile house (Ac 10) and joining St. Paul,
Barnabas, and other Gentile Christians (Gal 2").
Thus, while the Hellenists were scattered abroad,
being found in Samaria and as far north as Antioch,
the Petrine section remained at Jerusalem to find
a new head in St. James, who in a.d. 51 is associ-
ated with St. Peter and St. John and in 58 is sole
leader of the Church. The Apostolic Decree (Ac
15), which was intended to solve the diflferences of
Jewish and Gentile Christianity, was a compromise
which show^s at once the strength and the weakness
of the Jewish-Christian position : its strength lay
in its jealousy for pure morality — Gentile Chris-
tians are to abstain from meat oftered to idols,
blood, things strangled, and fornication ; its weak-
ness lay in its ceremonialism and in its distrust of
the GentUe per se. The later factors of Jewish
Christianity represented by the Johannine litera-
ture and such writings as the Epistle of James
are treated below.
Palestinian Christianity, in spite of its reverence
for Jewish law, did not escape persecution. The
Christian Jews fled to Pel la before A.D. TO, and re-
fused to join the Bar Cochba rebellion, and finally
became a sect beyond the Jordan, known as
Ebionites or Nazarenes. The saint of Palestinian
Christianity is undoubtedly James, the Lord's
brother, already referred to (see the glowing ac-
count of him by Hegesippus, preserved in Euseb.
HE ii. 23) ; he was ' the Just,' a Nazirite in prac-
tice, but consecrated to God, a typical priest of
righteousness to the Jewish-Christian mind. The
martyrdom of St. Stephen and that of St. James
in their several ways indicate the undying influence
of Christ's example and teaching. It is probable
that in this community the oral teaching of our
Lord had a wider vogue than in Pauline circles.
His sayings were circulated and known in the
sphere of His earthly ministry, and produced a new
type of personality and conduct (see Dobschiitz,
Christian Life in the Primitive Church, 156 f.).
We may sum up the features of Christian life in
its earliest environment as a moral ideal, coloured
and modified by loyalty to the tenets of Judaism ;
but issuing, under belief in the Me.ssianic Jesus
and by the power of His Spirit, in brotherliness,
sympathy, love of enemies, heroic confession of
faith, and purity of life.
2. Pauline Christianity. — The conversion of St.
Paul was a new departure in the Christian witness,
and opened a new epoch for Christianity. His own
Christianity was not in essence so much a negation
of or a revolt from Judaism as a fresh inspiration,
the result of a moral crisis in his inner life. One of
the results of the crisis, it is true, was to reveal to
him what he calls to aSiivarov tov vofiov (Ro 8^), and to
bring about his rejection of the Jewish ideal of sal-
vation ; but his conception of Christianity was based
on the positive conviction rooted in experience that
newness of life consisted in a personal union with
Christ. Faith in Christ transfigured a man's person-
ality, and thereby gave him a new ethic, together
with the power to carry it into practice. The
Pauline morality is the oftspring of the Apostles
doctrine of salvation by faith. ' He who was united
to Christ could not help practising the Christian
virtues' (Gardner, Belig ions Experience of St. Paul,
202
CHRISTIAX LIFE
CHRISTIAN LIFK
159). His insistence on ethics reveals his abhor-
rence of antinomianism, even when that abhorrence
is not as expressly stated as it is in Ro 6" and Gal
5'*'-. The difference between Pauline morality and
the morality of the J udaizers who were found all
over the Greek-speaking world, lay in the fact that
Gentile Christianity fornaed an independent ethic,
while the ethic of the Jewish Christian ' merely
looked like an addition to the commandments, an
ennobling and purifying of the rule of the pious,
law-abiding Jew' (see Weizsacker, ii. 346). This
distinction arose naturally from the exalted view
which St. Paul held as to the Person of Christ ;
wherever the Deity of our Lord is proclaimed, as
in the Fourth Gospel and 1 John, 1 Peter, and the
Ignatian Epistles, we find, as McGitfert notes (see
art. ' Apostolic Age ' in ERE), that the Pauline
idea of moral transformation by the indwelling of
the Divine becomes prominent. On the other hand,
elsewhere in the NT and in Clement's First En. to
Corinthians, where the Jewish type of theology
prevails, salvation is placed in the future as the
reward of the faithful. For the message of the
Pauline Epistles and the ethical life and problems
of the Christian communities as portrayed therein
the reader is referred to artt. on the individual
Epistles, but a general summary of the evidence of
his writings may be added here.
We may often infer from St. Paul's warnings the
general perils to whicii the Christians Avere liable.
We see that the Christian standard is not attained
at once (Ph 3^-) ; there are express references to
flagrant examples of moral failure necessitating a
ban of excommunication ; and the ' saints ' are good
men and women still in the making ; hence the
hortative form so largely adopted by this Apostle.
Tnie to his essential convictions, the Apostle as-
signs to the direct action of the Spirit the trans-
forming of human character. He appeals not to
Scripture or law, but to the Christian consciousness.
Christ is the fulfilment and end of the Law (Ko 10^)
and the founder of a new law of love (Gal 6^, 1 Co
9-'), in that His Spirit is a new vital power. With
the truth of the Incarnation several of his greatest
precepts are allied (2 Co 8», Ph 2», Gal 2-'^, Col 3'^
Ro 15'), and there is often a direct connexion be-
tween his ethics and his theological and christo-
logical doctrine. His distinction between ' flesh '
and ' spirit ' colours all his thought regarding per-
sonal morality. His insistence on sexual chastity
(in 1 Cor. he reveals his preference for celibacy, and
his sympathy with the ascetic ideal, while he de-
nounces its excesses), and his warnings against sins
of the flesh are everywhere prominent. The body
is a temi)le of the Holy Ghost (1 Co G'"). His
memorable indictment of pagan vice in Ro 1-^^- is
pointed by the actual life of Corinth, the city from
which he wrote the Epistle, and there is hardly an
Epistle in whicli reference is not made to sexual
vice (cf. Col S'^^-). The famous • hymn of love '
(I Co 13) places love at the head of his ethical
system, and is indirectly an indictment against all
forms of self-seeking elsewhere specified : e.f/. covet-
ousness (Col 3"), the spirit of faction and the love of
pre-eminence (Ph 1''- "), and dishonesty (1 Th 4^).
In Ro 12"- we have the moral life set forth as a
XoyiKi) Xarptla, and its motive the fulfilment of God's
will. The duty of prayer fulness* is frequently pro-
claimed (Ro 121^ 1 Co 7», Ph 48, Col 4^). The spirit
of revenge is condemned, the love of one's enemy
( Ph 1 '") and returning of good for evil are expressly in-
culcated. Ordinary (;onversation is to be wholesome
and yet pleasing (Col 4''). The gentler virtues which
found no place in pagan ethics, such as sincerity,
humility, reasonableness (Ph 4'), patience, meek-
ness, brotherly love, kindness ((jial 5~), are united
* See, for models of prayer in the Apostolic Age, Didache, 10,
and 1 Clem, ."sg-fll.
with love and temperance or self-control ; while
joy, neace, and thankfulness (cf. Ph 4", tix^p^oria)
are the resultant graces of Christian conduct.
The domestic and social virtues are frequently
urged on the Christian convert — love of husband for
wire, of wife for husband, of children for parents,
of slave for master, of master for slave (cf. Ro 3*\
Col S"*'**). In aU social relations St. Paul is con-
scious of the need of Christian tactfulness and dis-
cretion (Col S-'' and Ph P). ' To walk worthily of
the gospel of Christ ' (Ph I'") is his comprehensive
formula for Christian conduct. The Christian's re-
lation to the heathen outsiders and to his less strict
or ' weak ' brother, and to heathen practices and use
of heathen tribunals, is set forth in 1 Cor. , which is
a manual of social Christianity. He did not attack
the slave-system or proclaim a .social revolution : he
sought to Christianize the relationship of master and
slave by Christianizing both master and slave (see
art. Philemon). In 1 Thess. he warns men against
the moral perils of ' an overstrained Parousia-
expectation ; in 2 Thess. he proclaims the dignity
and duty of labour.
Finally, there is the duty of the ' strong ' to heli>
the weak (Gal 6'), the care for and liberality toward.-*
the poor (see 1 Co 16), and, above all, obedience to
civicand Imperial authorities (Ro 13'"'"). In dealing
with social and civil responsibilities, the ethics of
Pauline Christianity are opposed to revolt or agita-
tion. The sunctification of the individual and the
community is their aim and object. For his views
with regard to the subordination of women (1 Co 7),
St. Paul has frequently been criticized, but on the
whole they made for domestic purity and the
strengthening of the marriage tie, m an age when
the matrimonial relationship was losing its binding
and sacred sanctions. His cfoctrine of the solidarity
of society — a sin against <a brother is a sin against
Christ (1 Co S"*) — and of the equality of all men in
Christ (Gal Z^, Col 3") prepared the way for the up-
lifting of the masses, and identified Christianity
with the spirit of brotherhood, even though the re-
ferences to love of tiie brethren are more frequent
than to love of mankind as a whole (see art.
Fellowship). In fact, Christianity, as we find it
set forth by St. Paul and exemplified however
imperfectly by the Pauline churches, already
exhibits the new ethical passion and power
which were eventually to win the Empire and
the world.
3. Post-Pauline Christianity. — For tiiis period
our chief authorities are the later writings of the
NT. These include, in addition to the Pastoral
Epistles and the Epistle to the Ephesians (now
widely regarded as sub-Pauline), the Epistle to the
Hebrews, 1 Peter, the Johannine writings, Revi'la-
tion, James, and Jude. We have also the Ignatian
Epistles, 1 Clement, and the recently discovered Ocks
of Solomon {q.v.), to which Harnack assigns the date
of r. A.D. 100. The interest of the Odes is doctrinal
and ceremonial rather than ethical, although it
appears that they were a.ssociateii with the teach-
iiiff of the catechumens. 1 Peter, Revelation, and
Hebrews Inilong to the time of the persecution
under Domitian, in which Christians and Jews
alike suffered. The Pastorals apparently have re-
ference to the eiulier or Neronian persecution (A.D.
64), in which a large number or the Christians
perished because they were convenient scapegoats
(Tac. A?iv. XV. 44) for Nero's unreasoning anger.
Both Ephesians and the Pastorals give us the
Pauline type of morality, Ephesians Iwing influ-
enced by and modelled on Colossians. In fact,
the influence of St. Paul is maJiifest not only in
those Epistles traditionally assigned to him, but
generally in the later literature, which is really the
offspring of a Jewish-Christian type of thoiight,
e.g. 1 Peter, Hebrews, and the Johannine writings.
CHRISTLO" LIFE
CHURCH
203
For the special characteristics of this post-Pauline
literature, see aitt. on the several books.
In 1 Peter. Hebrews, and the Epistle of the
Roman Church to the Church of Corinth (1 Clem.)
we find ourselves in touch with the Church at
Rome. In Hebrews the Christians addressed had
already pas-setl through the Neronian persecution
and become a ' gazing-stock ' (ICF) to the world.
The didactic purpose was to show the preparatory
character of trie Jewish religion ; but throughout
we find the hortatory element prominent : it was
a \&yos iropa/c\iJ<rews (13^'). The peril was shrinking
from confession of Christ, a failure of va^fni<ria
( 10^'), their lack of Christian knowledge (6^) ; on
the .other hand, good works are praised (6^") —
brotherly love, hospitality, care for the sick and
imprisoned ; the great need is xums, not intellec-
tual belief, but the moral assurance of a future
reward — 'a better country.' 1 Peter similarly
lays stress on the consolatory power of eXxiy — the
'living hope' of a future life — in the midst of
sufferings. 1 Clem, shows that the Church at
Rome had not lost its stability, nor forgotten the
duty of intercession especially for captive fellow-
members. On the other hand, at Corinth since
the 40 years when St. Paul wrote, there is little
change ; there are the defects of licentiousness
and rebellion against authority. Throughout the
Epistle we are conscious of St. Paul's influence ;
ch. 49, e.g., is an imitation of the ' hjmn of love.'
1 Peter, while sent from Rome, is addressed to the
Churches of Asia Minor.
Possibly Ephesians belongs to the same period.
While emphasizing knowledge (1®"" 3"), it gives
the premier position to love, which surpasses
knowledge and is its object (3^^). In 1 Peter the
favourite word is ayaOoiroita. In Ephesians the old
sins of paganism recur — uncleanness, lascivious-
ness, lusts ; in 1 Peter malice, guile, hypocrisies,
envies, and evil-speaking. The life of paganism
is dyvoia, darkness, death : Christianity brings
knowledge (Eph 4^', 1 P 1"), light (Eph 5«, 1 P 2»),
and life (Eph 2^-) or effective power (l*' 3-*"). In-
cidentally we note the emergence of new faults —
drunkenness (Eph 5'*), the habit of the dXXorptextff-
KOTos, or meddling in other people's concerns (1 P
4'*), and extravagance of ornamentation in women
(3*). Botli 1 Peter and Ephesians show an advance
on St. Paul in their appeal to the OT, which Jew-
ish Christianity made the Bible of the GJentile
world. The Pastoral Epistles exhibit the begin-
nings of Gnosticism (q.v.) and the influence of the
false teaching prevalent in Asia Minor (cf. Jude,
which warns especially against a far-reaching
licentiousness), the discrediting of prophecy and
the conception of ewej3eia. The Epistle of James,
with which may perhaps be associated the Didache
(although the date of the latter is uncertain), gives
us the stronj^' ethical ideal of Palestinian Chris-
tianity ; its insistence on works does not imply
retention of the Jewish code ; the ' law of liberty '
is a new law given by Christ, or ' the yoke of the
Lord ' (Did.). Revelation is also Jewish-Christian
in its standpoint, and presents some valuable
cameos of church life in Asia Minor in the letter
to the Seven Churches (see art. Apocalypse). It
treats the Christian life on the broad basis of
history, and recognizes the heroism of both Jewish
and Gentile Cliristians in the world-confiict ; the
proofs of Christianity are to be seen in ' the heroic
virtues of martyrdom and virginity.' The Igna-
tian Epistles, which also glority martyrdom, are
remarkably silent regarding the gross sins of
paganism. They deal with the contrast between
Christian and non-Christian, the peril of nominal
Christianity, and the duties of confession and
Churcli unity ; they reflect the growing Church-
consciousness which anticipates the later Catholi-
cism. The Fourth Gospel and the Johannine
Epistles clearly express the equal recognition
of Jewish and Gentile Christians. The author,
though a Jew, is ' denationalized ' in his stand -
Joint, which yet is to be distinguished from St.
'aul's in its generally mystical and idealistic
nature. The spirit of his ethic is ' contemplative
and exclusive' (Weizsacker, ii. 397). Faith in
Jesus as the Son of God is the condition of ' eternal
life ' and the sonship of God ; while the Person
of Christ involved a universal redemption. The
truth of the new birth is Pauline ; while the view
of sin as ivoftia shows the Jewish veneration for
the old Law ; even ' the new commandment ' is an
old commandment (1 Jn 2^) rightly viewed. The
Christian life is characterized in a series of splendid
generalizations — love, truth, light, with the anti-
theses of death and hatred, sin, the world, and
darkness. The ideal is the overcoming of the
world, the spirit of which is independence of God.
The distinction between deadly and venial sins,
the recognition of false forms of faith, the presence
of official ambition which resents all ecclesiastical
development (in Diotrephes [3 Jn]), are features
which point to a later and more regulated stage of
Christian life than we find in the Pauline letters,
with their advocacy of the unfettered action of
the Spirit.
To sum up, the Christian life, as exhibited in
the literature of the Apostolic Age and viewed in
the many phases and fluctuations which were due
to its environment, the immaturity of its professors,
the development of speculative thought, the errors
of undue asceticism and moral laxity, presents on
the whole a fixed and established type biised on
ethical and religious principles, which were des-
tined to live and to transform the world because
they owed their origin to faith in the historical
Son of God, who had opened the Kingdom of
Heaven to sill believers.
LiTERATURK.— A. C. McGiffcrt, Apottolic Age, Edinburgh,
1897, and art. ' Apostolic Age ' in ERE ; E. von Dobscfaiitz,
Christian Life in the Primitive Church, Eng. tr., London, 1904 ;
C. von Weizsacker, The Apogtoiie Age, Eng. tr., ii. [do. 1896] ;
A. Hamack, Minion and Expansion of Chrigtianitp'^ Eag.
tr., do. 1906 ; H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History, do.
1909 ; J. Moffatt, LST, Edinburgh, 1911 ; P. Gardner, The
Religious Experience of St. Paul, I^ndon, 1911.
R. Martix Pope.
CHRONOLOGY.— See Dates.
CHRTSOLITE {xpvffoXtdo^, Rev 21^).— In modem
usage the name ' chrysolite ' is applied to a trans-
parent variety of olivine, used as a gem-stone and
often called 'peridot.' The ancients ai>plied the
word to various yellowish gems. The LXX gives it
as the equivalent of b'TI?, which Flinders Petrie
(HDB iv. 620'') is inclined to identify with yellow
jasper. The later Greeks gave the name chryso-
lite to the topaz, which was unknown in earlier
times. James Stbahax.
CHRYSOPRASE (xpvfforpaffm, from xpwSs, ' gold,'
and rpitrov, ' a leek '). — This stone is the tenth
foundation of the wall of the New Jerusalem (Rev
2r-*). The name is now applied to an apple-green
variety of chalcedony or hornstone, prized in jewel-
lery and sometimes used for mural decorations.
But this chalcedony was probably unknown to the
ancients, and the xP'^'^^oicpaffos of the Greeks was
'not improbably our chrysoberyl ' (EBr^^ vi. 321).
The word is not found in either of the LXX lists of
precious stones (Ex 28"'^, Ezk 28^^) with which the
writer of Rev. was familiar. James Strahak.
CHURCH.— The history of the Church in the
Apostolic Age may be treated under the follow-
ing heads : (1) Sources, (2) Importance, (3) Name,
(4) Origin, (5) Growth, (6) Conflict between Jewish
204
CHURCH
CHURCH
and Gentile elements, (7) Character, (8) Relation
to the State and other systems.
1. Sources. — Our sources of information are not
nearly so full as we might wish, but some of them
are excellent ; and, although we are obliged to
leave several important questions open, yet criti-
cism enables us to secure solid and sure results.
Our earliest sources are the Epistles of St. Paul,
and the large majority of those which bear his
name are now firmly established as his. Doubts
still exist with regard to the Pastoral Epistles, but
it is generally admitted that they contain portions
which are by the Apostle, and at any rate they are
evidence as to a period closely connected witn his
age. Hebrews, whoever wrote it, is evidence re-
specting a similar period. With the possible ex-
ception of 2 Peter, all the other Epistles and the
Apocalypse are sources. More full of information
than the Pauline Epistles, though later in date, is
the Book of Acts, now firmly established as the
work of St. Luke, the companion of St. Paul.
Those who fully admit this difier considerably in
their estimate of the value of Acts as a historical
document, but the trend of criticism is in the direc-
tion of a high estimate rather than of a low one.
Microscopic investigation and a number of recent
discoveries show how accurate a writer St. Luke
generally is. We have to lament tantalizing
omissions much more often than to suspect serious
inaccuracies. The Gospels give some helj); for
what they record explains many features in the
Epistles and Acts.
Outside the NT, but within the 1st cent., we
have the Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corin-
thians and the Epistle of Barnabas, one represent-
ing Gentile and the other Jewish Christianity.
Within the first three decades of the 2nd cent., we
have the writings of three men whose lives over-
lapped those of some of the Apostles — Ignatius,
Polycarp, and Papias ; and to the same period
probably belongs tne Didache or Teaching of the
Twelve. Something of considerable value may
also be obtained from two writers near the middle
of the 2nd cent. — Hermas and Justin Martyr ; and
even so late as the last quarter of the cent. Ave
can find apostolic traditions of great value in the
writings of Irenseus. From outside the Christian
Church we have good material, especially respect-
ing the great crisis of the destruction of Jerusalem
by Titus, from the Jewish writer, Josephus ; and
also some important statements from the heathen
writers, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny, who were
contemporary Avith Clement, Ignatius, and Poly-
carp.
2. Importance. — The importance of the history
of the Apostolic Church is very great, but it is
sometimes misunderstood. The sources mentioned
above tell us something about the beliefs, organiza-
tion, and ritual of the first Christians ; and they
are all very simple. It is sometimes supposed that
if Ave take these simple elements and close our
eyes to later developments, we get the essence of
Christianity, free from unessential forms, and
that this constitutes the importance of the primi-
tive Church. It is the model to Avhich all Cnurch
reformers ought to look, Avith a vicAv to restoring
its simplicity. Tavo considerations show that this
estimate is erroneous. Essence Avithout form is
unattainable. Tlie Apostolic Church had forms
Avhich Avere the outcome of the conditions in Avhich
the Church existed. Some of those conditions
changed very quickly, and the forms changed also.
The restoration of the simplicity of the primitive
forms Avill have little value or vitality unless Ave
also restore the primitive conditions, and that is im-
possible. Secondly, the sources do not tell us the
Avhole truth. On some important points Ave can
obtain nothing better than degrees of probability
l>ecause the evidence is so inadequate ; on other
points there is no evidence, and Ave have to fall
back on pure conjecture. If it had been intended
tliat all subsequent ages should take the Apostolic
Church as a model, then Ave might reasonably
expect that a complete description of it would
have been preserved. A sketch Avhich has to be
gathered piecemeal from different sources, and
Avhich, Avhen put together, is incomplete both in
outline and in contents, cannot be made an authori-
tative example. ' Cliristianity is not an archaeo-
logical puzzle ' (J. H. Ropes, Apostolic Age, London,
1906, p. 20).
Nevertheless, the importance of this age is real
and great, (a) The spiritual essence of Christianity
may be said to consist in the inner relation of each
soul to God, to His Christ, and to His Spirit, and
in the inner and outer relations of all believers to
one another. In the first age of the Church this
essence existed in such simple vigour that it gave
reality and life to forms Avhich had not yet had
time to become mistaken for essentials. About
the simplicity of these beginnings there is no
doubt ; it is an established fact ; but that does not
prove that this primitive simplicity is a binding
authority for all ages, (b) This age produced the
NT — the group of writings Avhich has had greater
intiuence for good than any Avhich the Avorld has
ever knoAvn : a group of Avritings Avhich reflects
the ideas and habits of that age and must be inter-
preted by a knoAvledge of those ideas and habits,
(c) This age exhibits the first effects Avhich the
gospel produced upon Jew and Gentile — tAvo very
different soils, which might bear very different
fruits, (d) It is the first stage in the complex
development of the Church and the churches ; and
in order to understand that development, Ave must
study its beginnings.
3. Name. — The name ' Church' is in itself strong
evidence of the connexion betAveen the Old Cove-
nant and the NeAV. In the OT, two different A\ords
are used to denote gatherings of the chosen people
or their representatives — 'edhah (RV 'congrega-
tion') and qdhal (RV 'assembly'). In the LXX,
avvayoyy-i] is the usual translation of 'edMh, Avhile
qdhdl is commonly rendered 4KK\riala. Both qdhal
and iKK\7]ala by their derivation indicate calling or
summoning to a place of meeting ; but ' there is
no foundation for the Avidely spread notion that
iKKXrjffla means a people or a number of individual
men called out of the Avorld or mankind ' (F. J. A.
Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, London, 1897, p. 5).
QdMl or iKKKriaia. is the more sacred term ; it
denotes the people in relation to JahAveh, especi-
ally in public Avorship. Perhaps for this very
reason the less sacred term avvayurff) Avas more
commonly used by the Jcavs in our Lord's time, and
probably influenced the first believers in adopting
iKKkriala. for Christian use. (rvvayuiyfj quickly Avent
out of use for a Christian assembly (Ja 2*), except
in sects which Avere more JeAvish than Christian.
Owing to the groAving hostility of the Jews, it
came to indicate opposition to the Church (RevS* 3').
iKKK-qala, therefore, at once suggests the neAv people
of God, the new Israel.
We do not knoAv avIio so happily adopted the
word for Christian use. It is not impossible that
Christ Himself may have used it, for He sometimes
spoke Greek. He used it or its equivalent in a
Christian sense (Mt 16'8) ; but Mt 18", though
capable of bein|; transferred to Christians, must at
the time Avhen it Avas spoken have meant a JeAvish
assembly. St. Paul probably found the Avord al-
ready in use, and outside the Gospels it is very
frequent in the NT. We find three uses of the
term : the general body of believers (Ac 5" 9=" 12' ) ;
the believers in a certain place (1 Th 1', 2 Th 1') ;
an assembly for public worship (1 Co 11" 14"-").
CHURCH
CHUBCH
205
It had already become a technical term with
strongly religions associations, which were partly
borrowed from a Jewisli ideal, but had been so
enriched and transfigured as to indicate a body
that was entirely new. The Jewish idea of a
chosen people in relation to God received a fuller
meaning, and to this was added the idea of a chosen
people in relation to the Incamat* and Risen Son of
God and to the Spirit of God. ^ritXTjo-ia is nowhere
used of heathen religious assemblies.
4. Origin. — Whether or no the Christian com-
munity owes its name of ' Church ' (^K/cXT^r/a) to
Christ', beyond reasonable doubt it owes its origin
to Him. It is a strange misreading of plain facts
to elevate St. Paul into the founder of the Christian
Church. The theory that in Christianity, as in
some other religions, there was a gradual deifica-
tion of the founder, continues to be advocated, but
it will not bear serious investigation. If St. Paul
originated Christianity, who originated St. Paul?
Wfiit was it that turned Saul the persecutor of the
Church into Paul the apostle of Jesus Christ? It
was the indelible conviction that Jesus was the
Messiah, and that He had risen from the dead and
conversed with him on the road to Damascus, that
converted and ever afterwards controlled St. Paul.
The conviction that the Messiah had been crucified,
and had risen, and was now the Lord in heaven,
was reached very quickly and surely by large num-
bers, who had good opportunities of ascertaining
the truth and staked everything on the result.
This conviction was based upon the experiences of
those who were qtiite certain that the Risen Christ
had appeared to them and conversed with them.
Those appearances were realities, however we may
explain them ; they are among those things which
prove themselves by their otherwise inexplicable
results ; and the convictions which they produced
remain undestroyed and indestructible. It was
upon them that the Apostolic Church was built.
From the Risen Christ it had received the amazing
commission to go forth and conquer the world ;
about that there was no doubt among those who
joyously undertook this stupendous work. The
apostles must have knowna whether Christ intended
them to form a Church ; and their view of His
intention is shown by the fact that, immediately
after His withdrawal from their sight, they set to
work to construct one. If the new religion was
to conquer the world, it must be both individualistic
and so<ial ; it must provide for communion between
each soul and God, and also for communion between
its adherents. In other words, there must be a
Chturch. Christ showed how this was to be done.
He was not content with being an itinerant teacher,
preaching to casual audiences. He selected a few
disciples and trained them to be His helpers and
His successors. It is manifest that He intended
them to found a society ; for although He gave
few rules for its organization, yet He Instituted
two rites, one for admission to It and one for its
preservation (W. Hobhouse, The Church and the
World [Bampton Lectures, London, 1910], p. 17 ff.).
* An isolated Christian ' Is a contradiction, for every
Christian is a member of Christ's Body. In refer-
ence to the world Christians are ' samts ' (iyioi) ;
in reference to one another they are ' brethren ' ; In
reference to Christ they are 'members.' In the
original constitution of the human body God placed
diflerently endowed members, and He has done the
same In the original constitution of the Church
(1 Co l-Z^). Both are in origin Divine, the product
of the creative action of Father, Son, and Spirit.
5. Growth.— The gro^-th of the Apostolic Church
■was very rapid. The first missionary eflbrts of the
original believers were confined to Jerusalem and
its immediate neighbourhood, and the converts
were Palestinian or Hellenistic Jews who were
livin^or sojourning in or near the capital. At first
the Hellenists were in a minority, but this soon
ceased to be the case. Persecution caused flight
from Jerusalem, and then missionary effort was
extended to Jews of the Dispersion and to Crentiies.
At Antioch in Syria the momentous change was
made to a mixed congregation containing both Jews
and Christians. Then what had seemed even to
the Jews themselves to be a mere Jewish sect
became a universal Church (Ac 11^"). As soon as
it was seen that Judaism, in spite of all its OT
glories, would never become a universal religion,
missions to the heathen became a necessity. The
first missionaries to the Gentiles, the men who took
this momentous step of bringing the gospel to
pagans, are for the most part unknown to us.
Who won the first Gentile converts at Antioch?
Who first took Christianity to Rome? Whoever
they were, there had been a long and complex
preparation for their work, which goes a consider-
able way towards explaining its success. This
indeed was to be hoped for in accordance w-ith
Christ's command (Mt 28'«, Lk 24") and St. Peters
Pentecostal promise *to all that are afar off' (Ac
2^) ; but we can see some of the details which
helped fulfilment.
The only thing which adequately explains the
great expjuision of Christianity in the 1st cent, is
the fact of its Divine origin ; but there were a num-
ber of causes which favoured its spread and more
than counteracted the active opposition and other
difficulties with which It had to contend.
(a) The dispersion of the Jews in civilized coun-
tries secured a knowledge of monotheism and a
sound moral code.
(ft) Roman law had become almost co-extensive
with the civilized world. Tribal and national ideas,
often irrational and debasing, had given place to
principles of natural right and justice. Roman
law, liie the Mosaic Law, was a rcuSayuyAt to lead
men to Christ.
(c) The splendid organization of the Roman
Empire gave great facilities for travel and corre-
spondence.
(rf) The dissolution of nationalities by Roman
conquests prepared men's minds for a religion
which was not national but universal ; and It Is
not impossible, in spite of the horror which the
writer of the Apocalypse exhibits towards the wor-
ship of the Emperor, that that worship, which was
nominally universal, sometimes prepared people for
a worship of the Power to which they owed exist-
ence, and not merely fitful security and peace.
(e) The Macedonian conquest had made men
familiar with a type of civilization which seemed
to be adaptable to the whole world, and had sup-
plied a language which was stUl more adaptable.
Greek was everywhere spoken In large towns, and
in them converts were most likely to be found.
Through the LXX, Greek was a Je^vish as well as
a pagan Instrument of thought, and had become
very flexible and simple, capable of expressing new
ideas, and yet easily intelligible to plain men.
Greek was the language of culture and of commerce
even In Rome. It was also the sacred language of
the world-wide worship of Isis. Hardly at any
other period has the ci\"ilized world had a nearer
approach to a universal language. The retention
of a Greek liturgy in the Church of Rome for two
centuries was due partly to the fact that the first
I missionaries taught in Greek and that the Greek
i Bible was used ; partly to the desire to preserve
the unity of the Church throughout the Empire.
Its abanionment by the Roman Church prepared
the way for the estrangement between East and
West.
{/) There was a wide-spread sense of moral cor-
ruption and spiritual need. 'A great religious
206
CHURCH
CHURCH
longing swept over tlie length and breadth of the
empire. The scepticiism of the age of enlighten-
ment had become bankrupt' (E. v. Dobschiitz,
Apustol. Age, Eng. tr., London, 1909, p. 39). The
{(revalent religions and philosophies had stimulated
ongings which they could not satisfy. Specula-
tions about conscience, sin, and judgment to come,
about the efficacy of sacrifices, and the possibility
of forgiveness and of life after death, had prepared
men for what Christianity had to offer. Even
if the gospel had not been given, some religi-
ous change would have come. The gospel often
awakened spiritual aspirations ; more often it
found them awake and satisiied them. It satisfied
them because it possessed the characteristics of a
universal religion — incomparable sublimity of doc-
trine, inexhaustible adaptability, and an origin
that was recognizable as Divine. The Jew might
be won by the conviction that the law was trans-
figured in the gospel and that prophecy was fulfilled
in Christ and His Church. St. Peter began his
Pentecostal address to the assembled Jews by point-
ing out that the outpouring of the Spirit was a
fullilment of Jewish prophecy (Jl 2^"^^) and an
inauguration of ' the last days,' Avhich were to pre-
cede the coming of the Messiah in glory. But to
the Gentile these considerations were not impres-
sive. The great pagan world had to be won by the
actual contents of Christianity, which were seen to
be better than those of any religion that the world
had thus far known. They were not only new,
but ' with authority ' ; and they stood the test of
experience by bearing the wear and tear of life.
Christianity was at once a mirror and a ' mystery ' :
it I'eflected life so clearly and it suggested some-
thing much higher. It was a marvel of simplicity
and richness. It was so plain that it could be told
in a few words which might change the whole life.
It was so varied and subtle that it could tax all the
intellectual powers and excite the strongest feel-
ings.
When the proconsul Saturninus said to the Scillitan Martyrs,
' We also are religious people, and our religion is simple,' one of
the Christians replied, ' If you will grant uie a quiet hearing, 1
wll tell you the mystery of simplicity ' (Acts of the Scillitan
Martyrs [TS i. 2, 1891, p. 112] ; cf. 1 Co 27).
The number of Christians at the close of the 1st
cent, is very uncertain. We read of a good many
centres throughout the Empire ; but we know little
about the size of each of these local churches. In
some the numbers were probably small. In Pales-
tine they were numerous (Ac 21-'*').
(g) The zeal and ability of the first missionaries
were very great. We know the names of compara-
tively few of them, but we know some of the results
of their work. The extension of the Church in the
2nd cent, is proof of the good work done in the 1st.
In accordance with Christ's directions (Mk 6'' ; cf.
Lk 10^), these missionaries commonly worked in
pairs (H. Latham, Pastor Pastorum, Cambridge,
1890, p. 296 f.). St. Paul as a general rule had one
companion, and probably seldom more ; and his
ability in planning missions is conspicuous. He
selected Roman colonies, where, as a Roman citizen,
he would have rights, and where he would be likely
to find Jews, and men of other religions, trading
under the protection of Rome. A synagogue was
at first the usual starting-point for a Christian
mission. But very soon the Jews became too hos-
tile ; so far from listening to the preachers, they
stirred up the heathen against them (T. R. Glover,
The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman
Empire, London, 1909, ch. vi.).
It is impossible to say which of the forces which
characterized Christianity contributed most to its
success : its preaching of the life, death, and resur-
rection of Christ, its lofty monotheism, its hope of
immortality, its doctrine of the forgiveness of sins.
its practical benevolence, its inward cohesion and
unity. Each of these told, and we may be sure
that their combined ellect was great.
6. Conflict between Jewish and Gentile ele-
ments.— It is remarkable how soon this conflict iii
the Apostolic Church began. Not long after Chris-
tianity was born, it was severed from the nation
which gave it birth, and, since the final destruction
of Jerusalem, it has only in rare cases found a secure
hold on Jewish soil. But it is not a just statement
of the case to say that the Gentile Church fir.st
stripped Judaism of everything, the Scriptures in-
cluded, and then left it by the wayside half dead ;
or that the daughter first robbed her mother, and
then repudiated her. That is an inversion of the
truth ; it was the mother who drove out the daugh-
ter and then persistently blackened her character.
As to the Scriptures, there has been no robbery,
for both have possessed them. But the daughter
has put them to far better account and has in-
creased their value tenfold. Christianity did not
come forward at first as a new religion aiming at oust-
ing the Jews. Its Founder was the Jewish Messiah,
the fulfilment of OT prophecies. It Mas the Jews
who forced the opposition. The relation of Juda-
ism to Christianity was, almost from the first, a
hostile one. And, as it was the energetic Jew of
Tarsus who led the first persecution of the Chris-
tians, so it was the Apostle of the Gentiles who
caused the final separation of the Church from the
Synagogue. In the Fourth Gospel, * the Jews ' are
the opponents of the Christ. In the Apocalypse,
they are ' the synagogue of Satan ' (2'' 3" ; cf . Did-
ache, 8). Barnabas goes stiU further : the Jews
have never been in covenant with God (iv. 6-9, xiv.
1); the Jews are the sinners (xii. 10). Judaism is
obsolete : the Christian Church has taken its place
and succeeded to all its privileges. Hence the
lofty enthusiasm of the first Christians, whose
language often assumes a rhythmic strain when the
Church is spoken of (Eph 4S Col P**, 1 Ti S^', He
\2^-\ 1 P 29, Mt 16'»). It was through the Christian
Church that God filled the world with His Spirit ;
to it belonged the glorious future and the final
triumph ; for by it the religion of an exclusive
nation had been transformed into a religion for the
whole world.
It was inevitable that the Jews should resent
such claims on the part of Christians, and espe-
cially of Gentile Christians ; and the resentment
became furious hostility when they saw the rapid-
ity with which Christians made converts as com-
Eared with their own slowness in making proselytes
ere and there. Until the Maccabaean princes
used force, not many had been made. Since then,
religious aspirations had combined wth interested
motives to bring adherents to Judaism, and it
was from these more serious proselytes that the
Christian missionaries obtained much help. Under
their roof both Jews and Gentiles could meet to
hear the word of God (Ac 18^). Christianity could
offer to a dissatisfied and earnest pagan all that
Judaism could otter and a great deal more. Such
inquirers after truth now ceased to seek admission
to the Synagogue and joined the Church, and the
downfall of Jerusalem accelerated this change.
The Jewish war of a.d. 66-70 was regarded oy
the Christians as a judgment for the murder of
the Messiah, and also for the more recent murder
in 62 of the Messiah's brother, James the Just.
That catastrophe destroyed both the centre of Jew-
ish worship and also the Jews themselves as a
nation. The loss of the Temple was to some extent
mitigated by the system of synagogues, which had
long been established. But that destruction, both
in its immediate eflect and in its far-reaching con-
sequences, marks a crisis which has few parallels in
history. Christianity felt both. The destruction
CHURCH
CHURCH
20;
of Jerusalem left the Gentile Churches, and espe-
cially the Church of Rome, %%ithout a rival, for the
Jewish Church of Jerusalem sank into obscurity, I
and never recovered ; nor did any other community ,
of Jewish Christians take its place. When a
Christian community arose once more in the re-
storeil J erusalem, it was a Gentile Church. Jewish
Christianity was far on the road towards extinction.
The Judaizing Christians persisted in regarding
Judaism as the Divinely appointed universal re-
ligion, of which Christianity was only a special off-
shoot endow^ed with new 'powers. The Pauline
view involved the hateful admission that the OT
disi)ensation was relative and transitory. The
JudaLzerseould not see that Christianity, although
founded on the OT and realizing an OT ideal which
had been seen but not reached by the prophets,
was now independent of Judaism. Judaizing was
a passing malatiy in the life of the Church, and
had little influence on ecclesiastical development.
The Judaizing Christians either gave up their Juda-
ism or ceased to be Christian.
The Tiibingen theory that the leading fact in the
Apostolic Church was a struggle between St. Paul
and the Twelve has been illuminating, but closer
study of the evidence has shown that it is unten-
able. There were some differences, but there was
no hostility, between St. Paul and the Twelve.
The hostility was between St. Paul and the Juda-
izers, who claimed to represent the Twelve. It is
possible that some of these Judaizing teachers had
seen Christ during His ministry, and therefore said
that they had a better right to the title of ' apostle '
than he had. In the mis-called ' Apostolic Council '
at Jerusalem, which was really a conference of
apostles, elder brethren, and the whole Church of
Jerusalem (Ac 15*- ^ *^ ^), there was no conflict be-
tween the Twelve and St. Paul. St. Paul's rebuke
to St. Peter at Antioch (Gal 2""") is no evidence of
a ditterence of principle between them. St. Peter
is blamed, not for having erroneous convictions,
but for being unfaithful to true ones. He and St.
Paul were entirelj- agreed that there was no need
to make Gentile converts conform to the Mosaic
Law ; but St. Peter had been willing to make un-
worthy concessions to the prejudices of Jewish con-
verts who were fresh from headquarters, by ceasing
to eat with GrentUe converts. He had perhaps
argued that, as it was impossible to please both
parties, it was better, for tne moment, to keep on
good terms with people from Jerusalem. He tem-
porized in order to please the Judaizers.
' But what it amounted to was that multitudes of baptized
Gentile Christians, hitherto treated on terms of }5erfect equality,
were now to be practically exhibited as unfit company for the
circumcised Apostles of the Lord who died for them. ." . . Such
conduct, though in form it was not an expulsion of the G«ntile
converts, but only a self-withdrawal from their company, was
in effect a summons to them to become Jews if they wished to
remain in the fullest sense Christians. St. Paul does not tell us
how the dispute ended : but he continued on excellent terms
with the Jerusalem Apostles' (F. J. A. Hort, Jvdaittie Chris-
tianity, Cambridge, 1894, pp. 78. 79).
The leading facts in the history of the Apostolic
Church are — the freedom won for Gentile converts,
the consequent expansion of Christianity and Chris-
tendom, and the transfer of the Christian centre
from Palestine to Europe. When the Apostolic Age
began, the Church was overwhelmingly Jewish ;
before it ended, the Church was overwhelmingly
Gentile. Owing mainly to the influence of St.
Paul — 'a Hebrew of Hebrews ' — whose Jewish birth
and training moulded his thoughts and language,
but never induced him to sacrifice the freedom of
the gospel to the bondage of the law, the break
mth Judaism became absolute, and, as GtentUe
converts increased, the restrictions of Judaism were
almost forgotten. The Judaizing Christians, especi-
ally after the second destruction of Jerusalem tmder
Hadrian, drew further and further away from the
Church, and ceased to influence its development.
7. Character. — The character of the Apostolic
Church is not one that can be sketched in a few
strokes. Simple as it was in form, it had varied
and delicate cnaracteristics. By its foundation in
Jerusalem, which even the heathen regarded as no
mean city, Christianity became, what it continued
to be in tne main for some centuries, a city-religion,
a religion nearly all the adherents of which lived
in large centres of population. It was in such
centres that the first missionaries worked. For
eighteen years or more (Gal 1^^ 2^) Jerusalem con-
tinued to be the headquarters of at least some of
the Twelve ; but even before the conversion of St.
Paul there were Christians at Samaria (Ac 8'*),
Damascus (9"), and Antioch (11^), which soon
eclipsed Jerusalem as the Christian metropolis.
It has been pointed out already that the Church
is necessarily social in character ; and it resembles
other societies, especially those which have a poli-
tical or moral aim, in requiring self-denying loyalty
from its members. But it difl'ers from other societies
in claiming to be universal. The morality which
it inculcates is not for any one nation or class, but
for the whole of mankind. In the very small amount
of legislation which Christ promulgated, He made
it quite clear that in the Kingdom social interests
are to prevail rather than private interests ; and also
that all men have a right to enter the society and
ought to be invited to join it. The Church, there-
fore, is a commonwealth open to all the world. Every
human being may find a place in it ; and all those
who belong to it will find that they have entered a
vast family, in which all the members are brethren
and have the obligations of brethren to promote
one another's well-being both of body and soul.
This form of a free brotherhood was essential to a
universal religion ; and the proof of its superiority
to other brotherhoods lay in its being suitable to
all sorts and conditions of men. It prescribed con-
duct which can be recognized as binding on all ;
and, far more fully than any other system, it sup-
plied to all what the soul of each individual craved.
The name ' disciples ' did not last long as a name
for all Christians ; the name ' brethren ' took its
place. St. Paul does not speak of Christians as
' disciples ' ; that word came to be restricted to
those who had been the personal disciples of Christ.
He speaks of them as ' brethren,' a term in harmony
with the Christians' ' enthusiasm of humanity,' an
enthusiasm which set no Ijounds to its affection,
but gave to every individual, however degraded,
full recognition. The mere fact of being a l^ptized
believer gave an absolute claim to lo>'ing considera-
tion from all the rest. This brotherhood of Chris-
tians was easily recognized by the heathen.
Lucian (Death of Pereftinut ProteuM) says : ' It was imposed
upon them by their original lawgiver that they are aU brothers
from the moment that they are conrerted. ... An adroit, un-
scrupulous fellow, who has seen the world, has only to get
among these simple souls, and his fortune is soon made.' By
pretending to be a ' brother ' he can get anything out of them.
There is a stronger bond than that of belonging
to one and the same society, commonwealth, and
brotherhood. Seeing that the brotherhood implies
that the Father of the family is God, there would
seem to be nothing stronger than that. And yet
there is : Christians are members of one Body, the
Body of Christ, which is inspired by one Spirit.
Just as no one did so much as St. Paul to free the
new society from its cramping and stifling connexion
with Judaism, so no one did so much as he to develop
the idea of a free Christian Church, and of the re-
lation of the Spirit to it. The local eKKXrjffia of be-
lievers is a temple in which God dwells by His
Spirit ; it is Christ's Body, of which all become
members by being baptized in one Spirit. No difler-
208
CHUKCH
CHURCH
ences of rank or of spiritual endowments can de-
stroy this fundamental unity, any more than the
unity of a building or of the human body is destroyed
by the complexity of its structure. In Ephesians,
the Apostle looks forward to an iKKXtjcria, not local,
but including all Christians that anywhere exist.
The same Spirit dwells in each soul and makes the
multitude of the faithful, irrespective of locality
or condition, to be one (see Swete, The Holy Spirit
in the NT, London. 1909, p. 308). From the ideal
point of view, there is only one Church, which is
imperfectly, but effectively, represented and real-
ized in the numerous organizations in Christen-
dom. Not that Christendom is the whole of which
they are the constituent parts — that is a way of
looking at it which is not found in the Apostolic
Church, and it may easily be misleading. The
more accurate view is to regard each member of a
Christian organization as a member of the universal
Church. The Church consists of duly qualified in-
dividuals ; the intermediate groups may be con-
venient or inevitable, but they are not essential.
Separate organizations, or local churches, came
into existence because bodies of Christians arose at
different places and increased. These bodies were
independent, no one local church being in subjec-
tion to another. The congregations at Ephesus,
Thessalonica, Philippi, Corinth, etc., were independ-
ent of one another and of the earlier churches of
Antioch and Jerusalem. Their chief bond of union
was that of the gospel and of membership in Christ.
Besides this, the churches just named had the tie
of being the product of one and the same founder ;
and, as children of the same spiritual father, they
were in a special sense ' brethren.' St. Paul appeals
to this fact and to their relationship to other
churches. But, although he teaches that a church
in need has claims upon the liberality of other
churches, he nowhere gives one church authority
over others. Nevertheless, even in apostolic times,
congregations in the same district appear to have
been regarded as connected groups, and it is pos-
sible that the congregation in the provincial capital
had some sort of initiative in virtue of the import-
ance of the city where they dwelt. Thus, we nave
'the churches of Galatia^(l Co 16', Gal 1'), 'the
churches of Asia' (1 Co 16'®), 'the churches of
Judtea ' (Gal 1^2), ' the seven churches of Asia ' (Rev
1^). In this way there arose between the local city
church and the universal Church an organization
which may be called the provincial Church (A.
Harnack, Constitution ana Law of the Church,
Eng. tr., London, 1910, p. 160).
Besides these close ties of relationship and mem-
bership, the first Christians were held together by
unity of creed. It is true that primitive Christian-
ity was an enthusiasm rather than a creed ; but
there was a creed. It may be summed up in two
strong convictions, one negative and the other
positive. The negative one united the Christians
with the Jews ; the positive one was the chief cause
of separation between the two. Both Jew and
Christian declared with equal emphasis that the
gods of the heathen were no-gods (Dt 32'^, 1 Co 10-") :
they were Shedim, nullities. But the Divine
nature of the Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen Son of
God was what the Christian affirmed as confidently
and constantly as the Jew denied it. Here no com-
promise was possible. Tlie Divinity of the Cruci-
fied, which is such a difficulty to modem thought,
appears to have caused little difficulty to the first
Christians. It has been suggested that familiarity
with polytheistic ideas helped them to believe in
the Divinity of the Son. Possibly ; but, on the
otiier hand, their rejection of polytheism M'as ab-
solute, and they died rather than make concessions.
Heatiien philosopliers, who saw that polytheism
was irrational, had a colourless theism which could
make compromises with poi)ular misbeliefs. Think-
ers like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and
Plutarch could talk indiflerently of God and gods,
of the Divine Being and the deities ; but for the
early Christians that was impossible. They were
not theologians, and they had only the rudiments
of a creed ; but they were quite clear about the
necessity of worshipping God and His Christ, and
about the folly and wickedness of worsliipping men
or idols. Hence, with all their simplicity or doc-
trine they had deep convictions which formed a
strong bond of union. The heathen mysteries had
something of the same kind.
P. Gardner has pointed out three common characteristics, all
of which bring them into line with Christianity : rites o( purifica-
tion, rites of communion with some deity, and means of secur-
ing happiness in the other world. He holds that the Christian
mystery of which St. Paul speaks is ' the existence of a spiritual
bond holding together a society in union with a spiritual lord
with whom the society had communion, and from whom they
received in the present life safety from sin and defilement, and
in the world to come life everlasting ' {The IleligUnu Experience
of St. Paul, London, 1911, p. 79).
8. Relation to the State and other systems. —
The question of the relation of the Churtli to the
State was only beginning to arise towards the end
of the apostolic period. The Church was develop-
ing its organization for its own purposes, witiiout
thinking of producing a power which might rival
and oppose the State. The State had not yet be-
come aware of any Christian organization, and it
dealt with Christians as eccentrics, who sometimes
became a public nuisance. The Jews were toler-
ated, less because they were not offensive to the
Roman Government than because itwas inexpedient
to persecute them ; and so long as Christians were
regarded as a Jewish sect, they shared the immun-
ity of the Jews and were generally unmolested.
When the difference between Jews and Christians
became manifest — and the Jews often pointed it
out — Christians were persecuted whenever the
temper of the magistrates or of the mob made it
expedient to persecute. The State was intolerant
on principle ; it allowed no other corporation either
inside or outside itself. While it freely permitted
a variety of cults, it insisted on every citizen tak-
ing part in the State religion, especially in the
worship of the Emperor. It was here that the
Church came into complete and deadly collision
with the Roman Empire, as the Apocalypse again
and again shows. Nero was not fond of being
styled a god ; it seemed to imply that he was about
to be translated from earth by death, and he pre-
ferred popularity during this life to worship after
it was over. Domitian had no such feeling. He
was not popular, and could not make himself so ;
but he could make his subjects worship him ; and
in the provinces, especially in the province of Asia,
where Emperors were not often seen, but where
the benefits of good government were felt, subjects
were very willing to render Divine honours to the
f>ower that blessed them. Domitian began the
ormal letters which his procurators had to issue
for him with the words : ' Our Lord and God orders
this to be done' (Suet. Do7n. 13). Festivals for the
worship of the Emperor were often held by the
magistrates at places in which there were Chris-
tians, e.g. at Ephesus, Sardis, Smyrna, and Phila-
delphia ; and to refuse to take part in them was
rebellion against the Government and blasphemy
against the Augustus. Some magistrates were
friendly, like the Asiarchs towards St. Paul (Ac
19^^), but the possibilities of persecution for refus-
ing to worship the Emperor or the local deities were
so great that we may suspect that many attacks on
Christians took place about which history records
nothing (Swete, Apocalypse, London, 1907, Introd.
ch. vii. ; J. B. Ligntfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt. i.
vol. i. [1890] p. 104).
CHURCH
CHURCH GOVER^':ME^'T
209
Even if this danger had not existed, the mere
fact that the Church was a self-governing body,
within the State — imperium in imptrio — bat not of
it, was enongh to bring it into collision with the
(.J«>vemment. The attitude of the Church was as
loyal as was possible. The apostles respected the
civil power, even when represented by a Nero, as a
Divinely appointed instrument for the preservation
of order ; but they could not allow it to interfere with
their duty to Him who had ordained both the civil
power and the Church. The Church was no leveller
or democrat in the modem sense of those terms.
Rulers are to be respected by subjects, masters by
slaves, husbands by wives, and parents by children.
St. Paul does not teach the fallacy that all men
are eqiial ; he teaches that in spiritual things all
souls have equal value. As regards the things of
this Life, all men are brethren, and in this he went
far beyond Stoicism ; even now, perhaps, we have
not yet grasped the ftill significance of his teach-
ing. To both the Government and the go^omed
the Christians were an enigma. They aeeoMtd to
regard suHering as a dreadful thing, for they were
always striving to relieve it ; and yet to disr^ard
it entirely, for they were always willing to endure
it. In an age in which there were no charitable in-
stitutions, tne whole congregation was a free insti-
tution for dispensing practical help ; and yet, when
their cult was in question, they scorned pain and
misery. Thev fought against involuntary poverty
as an evil, anS yet declajred that volimtary poverty
was a blessing. And there was another paradox —
Christianity was at once the most comprehensive
and the most exclusive of all religions. All were
incited to enter, because the yoke was so easy ;
and all were warned to count the cost, because the
responsibilities were so great. Converts were told
that they must begin by taking up the cross and
that they must abjure the world. In practice, the
severance between the Church and the world was
not insisted upon { 1 Co 6**) : it was a difierence of
thought and life rather than of social intercourse.
Many Christians mixed freely with heathens, and
many heathens came sometimes to Christian ser-
vices, without any thought of seeking baptism.
Some heathens thought that the Way was good,
but that there were other ways which were equaUy
good. The mixture of Church and world b^an
very early.
Among rival religious systems, none was more
dangerous to the success of Christianity than
Blithra-worship. Except in the form of ' Mysteries,'
the old Greek religion had not much power ; its
gods and goddesses were openly ridiculed. But
Mithraism was full of life ; it could excite not only
powerful emotions but moral aspirations as well.
It inculcated courage and purity, and it taught the
doctrine of rewards and penalties here and here-
after. Mithra would come one day from heaven,
and there would be a general resurrection, after
which the wicked world would be destroyed bv fire
and the good would receive immortality, ^me
Church teachers regarded it as a gross caricature
of Christianity. As a missionary religion, it had
the advantage of being able to make terms with
paganism ; its adherents had no objection to idol-
atrous rites, and therefore never came into collision
with the Government. It probably gained thou-
sands who mi^ht otherwise have accepted the
gospel. The elastic simplicity and freedom of
primitive Christianity exposed the Apostolic
Church to perils of another kind. The troubles
of Gnosticism, Manichaeism, and Montanism grew
out of the contact of Christianity with Greek and
Oriental systems of religion and philosophy, whose
ideas found entrance into Christianity and were
I sometimes an enrichment and sometimes a cor-
ruption of it. The balance was on the side of gain.
VOL. I. — 14
The go^>el continued to supply the plain man with
a simple rule of life, and it began to snpply
the philoscmher with inexhaustible material for
thought. This is a permanent cause of success.
il9«. Oxford.
LmaATTKB.— In additioB to tlM ^
•ee W. W. SUri^. Tk» CkmrO^ te
I8B7: P. Sch»S, AmmufU Ouitlim
Bl; A. Hamack, Somnm tf Vk» j^tHtht.
Loadoii, liaK; C ▼. Wciaidkar. 'fktAmm
do. laW; A. C McGJgBrt, TW^ji ■*■«<■ Agt, BdnrtiMi
W. M. Raosay. Tk« Cterafc «» tkt ltmmKmmir^7\_ _
UOO^ SL Pmnlike IVnMilw*. do. IMB; UtUn UtkeSntk
Cftwcte^ doL IMM, Pfietaras ^ tte ^pMtoiie Ctardk, doL mO;
C Bwr. n« Origmt if OkritHmmitg, dot ]M»: H. If.
Gwa^m, Bmrtf Ctarc* JBiM.. do. 1MB: L. DwdieaM, BmHf
HitL ^tkeCkrittimm Cftweft, b(. tr.. do. IflOV-UU.
AlaFKKD PlUMXKR.
CHURCH QOTEBHMBVT.— Christ left a small
body of disciples under the direction of the apostles,
with a charge to convert the world ; but He gave
nothing which can be called either a constitnti<m
or a code, and He explained the commandments
as giving principles, not rules. About the develop-
ment of a constitution we know little ; but the
Pastoral Epistles and 3 John, which must be
{daeed early, whoever wrote them, show that the
I»oeess b^an soon and continued rapidly, when
it became clear that Christ's return might be long
delayed. The process and its rapidity probaUy
differed somewhat in different centres. At first
the camps scattered about the eastern half of the
Mediterranean had each its own tentative r^ula-
tions. When the camps became a ndtvo» of
fortifications, spreading westward and inward and
communicating with one another, the r^ulations
became more settled and uniform. Thus the
Christian organization developed until it became
an object of suspicion and dread to the Roman
Goyemment, which at last it vanquished. Then
the Christian cnganixatifm did for the Empire
what the Roman organization with all its states-
manship and military discipline had failed to do :
it ga'^e it cohesion and unity.
The first line of distinction is between the
apostles and the other believers ; and this line is
continued as a distinction between rulers of any
kind and those who are ruled — the Seven, elders,
deacons, etc., on the one side, and the laity on the
other. The great commi^ion was given by the
risen Christ to the whole Church and not to any
select body in it. Yet this primary fact does not
qnite justify the phrase, 'the priesthood of the
laity.' What the NT gives us is the priesthood
of the whole Church ^vithout distincticm between
clergy and laity (1 P 2*- », Rev 1« y^ 30»), and no
individual can exercise it without the authority
of the Church. All Christians are priests alike;
but, inasmuch as it is by the Spirit that the
whole Church is consecrated to the priesthood, so
the special ministers need a special consecration
by the Spirit. The NT speaks clearly of special
functions which are confined to a select minority
and are not shared by the rest. It was by the
Spirit that the 'charismatic' ministries worked.
This is manifestly true of the apostles and the
Christian prophets. It might or might not be
true of those whom St. Paul or his deputy (Ac, 14",
Tit 1*) dHMe for their capacity for governing.
These derived their authority from the Spirit (Ac
20*), but they did not necessarily possess the
gift of prophecy or even of teaching. But officials
chosen to do spiritual work in a spiritual com-
munity needed spiritual gifts of some kind ; and
what these men received in ordination was a
spirit of power and love and discipline (2 "R V)
(see Westcott, Ephesians, 1906, p. 169; Swete,
TheHotif Spirit in the NT, 1909, pp. 103, 317, 320).
We are accustomed to think of the first Chris-
tians as having no government, other than that of
' Peter with the Eleven ' (Ac 2"). Hamack (Coiui.
210 CHURCH GOVERNMENT
CHURCH GOVERNMENT
and Law of the. Church, p. 20 f.) has pointed out
that they had a number of authorities, to be loyal
to all of which was sometimes perplexing. They
had inherited from Judaism the ordinances of the
Jewish Church. To administer these there was
the Sanhedrin. There were the known commands
of Christ, which included the authority of the
whole community to forgive and to punish
offenders. There were the occasional promptings
of tlie Spirit (Ac G"- ^^ 8=» lO^" ll'^"- =» 16^). There
were also the brethren of the Lord, who had some
kind of authority. Perplexity might arise as to
reconciling Jewish ordinances with the commands
of Christ, and there might be difi'erences between
the Twelve and the Lord's brethren. We know
that there was collision between the Divine com-
mands and the decrees of the Sanhedrin, and that
of course it was the latter that were disobeyed
(4^' 52». 32) Nevertheless, none of these provided
a constitution, and the common view that the
germs of one are to be looked for in the Twelve is
not far from the truth.
The Twelve left the selection of the Seven,
which was a first step towards development, to
the whole body of Christians, most of whom were
PaJestinian Jews. These showed their liberality
by electing men, all of whom bear Greek names
and Avere presumably, but not certainly, Greek-
speaking Jews, who would be more acceptable to
the murmuring Hellenists. One of the Seven was
only a proselyte, and we have here a very early
illustration oi the expansive power of the Church.
St. Luke's silence about elders in this connexion is
the more remarkable, because distribution of the
means of life was one of their functions (Ac IP").
The common identification of the Seven with the
deacons is q^uestionable. Probably they were
temporary officials, scattered by the persecution
which was fatal to Stephen, and never re-estab-
lished. See Deacon.
The apostles' plan of leaving the choice of the
Seven to the community was perhaps followed by
St. Paul in his earlier work. In Romans he men-
tions no body of commissioned clergy. We cannot
be sure from this that the Churcli in Rome was
not yet organized : possibly there was no need to
mention officials. In 1 and 2 Cor. there is no
trace of a sacerdotal class ; and it is possible that
there and elsewhere the Apostle was trying the
experiment of a Christian democracy without any
hierarchy. Corinth had its charismatic ministry,
and this seems to have sufficed for a time. The
charismatic ministry came to an end very quickly
there and elsewhere. There is little trace of it
later than the Didache (a.d. 100-150). While it
lasted, it supplied teachers, not rulers. The in-
fant Gentile churches seem to have governed
themselves under the direction of the Apostle who
founded tliem. The Apostle does not address his
letters to any official at Thessalonica, Corinth, or
Rome. He leaves it to the congregation to punish
and pardon offenders, to manage the collection of
money, and to decide who shall take charge of the
fund. These Gentile churches have gifted persons
who take the lead in public worship, 'apostles,
prophets, and teachers' (1 Co 12^, Eph 4^^ ; cf. Ro
12^"*), but they form no part of tne permanent
■organization of the local church. They do not
govern, nor are they tied to one community ; they
jnay go from one local church to another. They
are not classes of officials each with special duties ;
they are inilividual believers with special gifts,
witn whicli they edify congregations. They are
ministers of the word, proclaiming and explaining
the gospel, and their business is to convert and in-
struct rather than to rule. They are ' spiritual '
men (wevfuniKoi), endowed by the Spirit (wevfj^a.)
with powers (xap/V/xaTa) which are not common to
all Christians ; and their authority depends not
upon election or appointment by otliers, but upon
these personal endowments, exercised with the con-
sent oi the congregation.
Yet it is scarcely credible that the infant Gen-
tile churches remained very long without rulers
of any kind. Congregations which consisted
chiefly of Jewish Christians had ' elders ' analogous
to 'elders' among the Jews; and in the Gentile
communities something similar would grow up,
with or without the suggestion of the Apostle who
founded the church. The converts who were
senior, whether by standing or age, and jiersons
of social position or secular experience, would
naturally ue looked upon as leaders ; e.g. ' the
elder brethren,' which is the true reading in Ac
15^. There are similar leaders at Ephesus. St.
Luke calls them ' the elders of the Church,' but
he does not report that St. Paul in his address to
them does so (Ac 20"'**). Except in the Pastorals,
St. Paul does not mention ' elders.' In tl»e earliest
of his letters (1 Th 5") he exhorts his Gentile
converts ' to esteem exceeding highly them that
labour among you and guide (irpditrTOinivoin) you
in the Lord and admonish you.' F. J. A. Hort
(Christian Ecclesia, 1897, p. 126) points out that
although irpMffTajjJvovs cannot be the technical
title of an office, standing as it does between
labouring and admonishing, yet the persons meant
seem to be office-bearers in the Church. The
words which follow, 'Admonish the disorderly,
etc.,' appear to be addressed to these guardians.
But here again these guides, like the ' apostles,
prophets, and teachers,' seem to owe their appoint-
ment to personal qualities. The dili'erence is that
they guide and admonish rather than teach. But
no strict line would be dra^vn between leading and
teaching. The same man would often have a
gift for Doth, and would be specially influential in
consequence. When official appointments began
to be made, persons with this double qualification
would be chosen, and they became ' presbyters '
or ' elders ' in the technical sense.
There seems to be a transition stage between
the purely charismatic and the official ministry
in Ac 13^**, about A.D. 47. There is a fast and a
solemn service conducted by prophets and teachers
at Antioch. During the service, the Spirit (through
one of the prophets) says : ' Since you desire to
know (StJ), separate for me Barnabas and Saul,'
who were present. There is another fast and ser-
vice, and then the two are separated by the laying
on of the hands of the other prophets and teachers.
This ordination was for mission work, but ordina-
tion for the work of ruling congregations was pro-
bably similar. In I Ti 4" Timothy is reminded
of the gift {x<ipi.ff/ia) which was given him by pro-
phecy, with the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery. ' By prophecy ' probably refers to
utterances of prophets which marked him out for
ordination (V^) as a helper of St. Paul ; and the
presbyters of the local church joined with St. Paul
in ordaining him. Here for the first time 'presby-
tery ' is used of a body of Christian elders. In Lk
22«« and Ac 22* it is used of the Sanhedrin. ' In
none of these instances of the laying on of hands
is there any trace of a belief in the magical virtue
of the act. It is simply the familiar and expres-
sive sign of benediction inherited by tlie Apostles
from the Synagogue and adapted to the service of
the Church ' (Swete, The Holy Spirit in the- NT,
p. 384). The laying on of hands was used in bless-
ing ; and the person who blesses does not transmit
any good gift which he possesses himself : he in-
vokes what he htis no power to bestow, but what
he hopes that God will bestow. When this sym-
bolical action was used by a minister in connexion
with an appointment to the ministry, the idea of
CILICIA
CIECUMCISIOX
211
transmission naturally arose. But the action is a
symbol, not an iustninient of consecration. The
^ft which Timothy received at his ordination was
just such as was required for ruling infant churches :
it was ' a spirit of power, and love, and discipline '
(2 Ti !*• '). Cf. art. Ordixatiox.
Permanent local officials were required in the
first instance for the regulation of public worship.
St. Paul gives the earliest directions respecting
this, and what he lays down for the Corinthians is
based on principles which can be applied every-
where. He gives no directions as to special minis-
ters, but he recognizes them where they exist (Ph
V). He and Baxnabas appointed elders in every
chxirch (Ac 14^). It is here that the influence of
the synagogue is so marked. ' Elders ' are bor-
rowed from it. The ritual which Jewish and
Christian elders regulate is similar — praise, read-
ing of Scripture, exposition, and prayer. The dis-
cipline exercised by both is similar; they deal
with much the same kind of ofiences, and the chief
penalty in both cases is excommunication. ^Vben
Christians were told not to take their disputes in-
to Roman civil courts ( 1 Co 6), that involved the
growth of Christian civil law, which the permanent
officials had to administer ; and here the Influence
of Roman legislation came in to develop what was
derived from Christ's teaching and that of the OT.
The development of Church organization and
the complete separation of the clergy from the
laity were the work of the post-apostolic age. The
remark that 'no soldier on service entangleth
lumself in the afl'airs of this life ' (2 Ti 2*) contri-
buted to this separation, for it was interpreted to
mean that the clergy must abjure seculax occupa-
tions. Already in apostolic times the clergy had
three distinct rights : honour and obedience (1 Th
o^) ; maintenance (1 Co 9*-^^) ; and freedom from
frivolous accusations (1 Ti 5^). Before the end
of the 2nd cent, most of the elements of the later
development were already fotmd in the Church.
Certainty is not attainable, and there is nothing
approaching to it in favour of the theory that
Christ gave a scheme of Church government to
the apostles, and that they delivered it to the
Church. There is little evidence to support either
of these propositions. The far more probable
theory is that Church government was a gradual
growth initiated and guided by the Spirit, to meet
the growing needs of a rapidly increasing com-
munity. This theory is supported by a good deal
of evidence, and it is in harmony with what we
know of God's methods in other departments of
human life.
LiTE&ATURK. — See works mentioned onder Aposilb and
BisBop ; C. Gore, Th» Church and the Mmittrjf, London, 1888 ;
R. C. Moberly. MinitUrial Priathood, do. 18S7 ; J. Words-
worth, Serapion'tPraj/er-Book, do. 1899, n» Mwtiknftf Grace,
do. 1901 ; T. M. Lindsay, The Church and the Miniitry in the
Early Centurie*, do. 1902 ; A. W. F. BhaA. Studies in ApoatoL
Christianity, do. 1909 ; A. Hamack, Conttitviian and Law of
the Church, Eng. tr., do. 1910 ; Robertson-Plummer. 1 Cor-
inthians, Edinburgh, 1911, pp. xl-xlvi, 27S-2S4 ; C. H. Tomer,
Studies in Early Church History, Oxford, 1912, Essays i. and ii.
Alfeed Plummee.
CILICIA (KtXt«io). — CUicia was a country in the
S.E. of Asia Minor, bounded on the west by Pam-
phylia, on the north by Lycaonia and Cappadocia,
and on the east by the Amanus range. It was
drained by four rivers, the Calycadnus, the Cydnus,
the Serus, and the Pyramus, which descend from
Taurus to the Cyprian Sea. It fell into two well-
marked di\-isions. Cilicia Tracheia ( Aspera), a rug-
ged mountainous region with a narrow seaboard,
was the immemorial haimt of brigands and pirates,
whose subjugation was a difficult task for the
Roman Republic and Empire ; Cilicia Pedeia (Cam-
pestris), the wide and fertile plain lying between
the Taurus and Amanus chains and the sea, was
civilized and Hellenized. Its rulers in the Hellen-
istic period were partly the Egyptians, whose royal
house gave its name to different townships, and
partly the Seleucids, after whom the most consider-
able town of West Cilicia was named Seleucia on
the Calycadnus.
In the NT 'Cilicia' invariably means Cilicia
Pedeia. Though this country formed a part of the
peninsula of Asia Minor, its political, social, and
religious affinities were rather with Syria than
mth the lands to the north and west, khe reason
was geographicaL It was comparatively easy to
cross the Amanus range, either by the Syrian Gates
(Beiian Pass) to Antioch and Syria, or by the
Amanan Gates (Baghche Pass) to North Syna and
the Euphrates. Hence it was natural that, at the
redistribution of the provinces by Augustus in 27
B.C., Cilicia Pedeia, wnich had been Roman terri-
tory since 103 B. c. , should be merged in the great
Imperial province of Syria- Cilicia -Phcenice. It
was equally natural that St. Paul, who boasted of
being ' a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia' (Ac 21*
22?), shotUd regard ' the regions of Syria and Cilicia '
as forming a imity {Gal 1*^). The writer of Acts
does the same (15^*'), and the anthor of 1 Peter,
who enumerates in his superscription the Roman
provinces of Asia Minor, omits Cilicia, which lay
beyond the barrier of Taurus and belonged to a
different order of things.
The presence of Jews in Cilicia probably dated
from the time of the early Seleucids, who settled
many Jewish families in their Hellenistic cities,
giving them equal rights with Macedonians and
Greeks. St. Paul enjoyed the citizenship of Tarsus
not as an individual, but as a unit in a Jewish
colony which had been incorporated in the State.
Jews of Cilicia are mentioned by Philo in his Leg.
ad Gaium (§ 36). Among the Jews of Jerusalem
who rose against Stephen there was a synagogue of
Cilicians (Ac 6^). After hb conversion St. Paul
spent seven years in his CUician homeland, engaged
in a preparatory missionary work of wMch there
are no recorded detaUs. Probably he was founding
the churches to which allusion is made in Ac 15*** **.
He began his second missionary journey by pass-
ing through Cilicia to confirm these churches, after
which he must have crossed the CUician Gates to
Lycaonia ( 16^) ; and probably he took the same road
on his third journey (18^). Syria and Cilicia were
the first centres of Gentile Christianity, from which
the light radiated over Asia !Minor into Europe.
LrrERATURK.— C. Hitter, KUinatien, 1859, iL 56ff. ; J. R. S.
Sterrett, The Wolfe ExpedUion to Asia Minor, 1883 ; W. Bf.
Ranisay, HisL Geog. of Asia Minor, 1890, p. 361 ff. ; Smith's
Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Geog.,L 11856} CIT', see also art. ' CSlicia '
in HDB and Litetatore ttore cited.
Jakes Stbahax.
CINNAMON (Kuvdfutwoif from je^sh — Cinnamon is
mentioned in Rev 18" among the merchandise of
' Babylon,' i.e. of Imperial Rome. The name prob-
ably came with the thing from the remote east ;
Rodiger (Gesenius, The*. Add., 1829, p. Ill) com-
pares it with the Malay kainamanis. It was known
to the Hebrews (Ex 3(F, Pr 7", Ca 4") ; and Hero-
dotus (iii. Ill) speaks of ' those roUs of bark (roOra
TO. Kop^a) which we, learning from the Phoenicians,
call cinnamon.' The finest cinnamon of commerce
is now obtained from Ceylon ; it is the fragrant
and aromatic inner rind of the stem and boughs of a
tree which grows to a height of 30 ft. Oil of cinna-
mon, which is used in the composition of incense,
is got from the boiled fruit of the tree. But the
cinnamon of the ancients was probably the cassia
lignea of S. China, James SxEAHASr.
CIRCUMCISION. — The origin of circumcision
and its practice by the Jews and other peoples
may be studied in HDB and EEE. This article
is concerned with the difficulties caused in the
212
CIRCUMCISION
CITIZENSHIP
Apostolic Churcli by the desire of the Judaizing
party toenforce the rite upon the Gentile ChrlHtians.
The crisis thus brought about la described in Ac 15
and Gal 2i-'«>.
As tlie work of the Church extended, tlje problem
of the reception of Gentile converts i)resented itself
for sohition. Should such converts be compelled
to be circumcised and keep the Mosaic Law or not ?
The answer to tliis question led to great diflerence
of opinion and threatened to cause serious division
in the Church. It must be remembered that the
first Christians were Jews, born and brought up in
the Law and taught to observe it. To them such
rites as circumcision were almost second nature.
To abrogate the Law of Moses was to thenj incon-
ceivable. The idea of the passing away of the Law
had not yet penetrated their understanding. The
headquarters of those who held these opinions were
at Jerusalem, where the Temple services and the
whole atmosphere served to strengthen them in
this belief. The very name of the |)arty — 'They
that were of the circumcision' (Ac 11-) — snows how
closely they were attached to the observance of
this rite. On the other hand, we can trace the
gradual growth in the Church of the opposite view :
the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch (q.v.) by
Philij) ; the admission of Cornelius and his friends
by St. Peter ; tlie mission of certain evangelists to
the Gentiles at Antioch ; and finally the work of St.
Paul and St. Barnabas, who turned to the Gentiles
and freely admitted them into the fellowship of the
Church.
It was obvious that the question must be settled.
The Judaizing party were quite definite in their
teaching. ' Certain men which came down from
Judfea taught the brethren and said. Except ye
be circumciseil after the manner of Moses, ye can-
not be saved ' (Ac 15'). This was a position which
it was impossible for St. Paul and St. Barnabas to
admit. It was destructive of their work and of
the catholicity of the Church. No wonder that
' there was no small dissension and disputation.'
An appeal was made to the niotlier church at Jeru-
salem ; and, among others, St. Paul and St. Barna-
bas went up. St. Paxil's own statement is, ' I went
up by revelation ' (Gal 2*). He also tells us that
Titus, an uncircumcised Gentile, accompanied him.
They were well received by the church at Jerusalem,
but certain of the Pharisees, who were believers,
laid it down ' that it was necessary to circumcise
them ' (Ac 15'), and thus the issue was joined.
The question was so important that it could not
be settled at once. There must be an interval for
consideration. How this interval was spent we
are told in Gal 2. The Judaizing party found that
an uncircumcised Gentile — Titus — nad been brought
into their midst, and they immediately demanded
his circumcision. With this demand St. Paul was
not inclined to comply. The principle for which
he was contending was at stake. On the other
hand, circumcision to him was nothing, and there
was the question whether he should yield as a
matter of charity. The course which he took has
always been a matter of undecided controversy, but
the opinion of the majority of .authorities is that
Titus was not circumcised.*
After this episode St. Paul had an opportunity of
discussing his gospel privately with those of repute,
viz. James, Cephas, and John. They were evi-
dently moved by the account of his work among
the Gentiles, and recognized the hand of God in it,
and they were influenced by the fervour and spirit
of the Apostle. They gave to him and St. Barnabas
'the rignt hand of fellowship.' They recognized
that their sphere was among the Gentiles, as that
* For the contrary view see R. B. Rackhain on Ac 15 {Oxford
Coin., 1901); and on the vexed chronoUjgical and other ques-
tions c(. artt. Acts of tub Apostlks and Galatiass, Epibtlk to.
of the other apostles was among the Jews. The
result of the conference was a compromise : Gentiles
were not to be circumcised, but they were to abstain
from certain practices which were offensive to their
Jewish brethren.
The teaching of St. Paul on circumcision may be
further illustrated from his Epistles. In Uo 2'">-*
he shows that circumcision was an outward sign of
being one of the chosen people, but that it was of
no value unless accompanied by obedience, of which
it was the symbol. The uncircumcised keeper of
the Law was better than the circumcised breaker
of it. The true Jew is he who is circumcised in
heart, i.t. he who keeps God's Law and walks in
His ways. In ch. 4 he discusses the case of Abraham,
and asks whether the Divine blessing was conferred
upon him because he was the head of the chosen
race and the first person of that race who was cir-
cumcised. He shows that the promise came before
circumcision, and therefore not in consequence of
it. Circumcision followed as the token or sign of
the promise, so that he might be the father of all
believers whether they were circumcised or uncir-
cumcised.
In the Epistle to the Philippians, St. Paul utters
grave warnings against those who insist on circum-
cision. He speaks of the rite, when thus insisted
on, not as circumcision but as ' concision ' (Karoro/cti;,
Ph 3-).* The circumcision which the Judaizers
wished to enforce was to Christians a mere mutila-
tion such as was practised by the idolatrous heathen.
The verb KaraT^fiveiv is used in the LXX of incisions
forbidden by the Mosaic Law : e.g. KarerefjivovTo
Kara rbv edur/ibv airrQiv (1 K 18^; cf. Lv 2P). In
contrast to this. Christians have the true circum-
cision (Ph 3*), not of the flesh but of the heart,
purified in Christ from all sin and wickedness.
This contrast between circumcision of the flesh and
of the spirit occurs in other passages of the Pauline
Epistles, e.g. Col 2>S Eph 2''. No doubt the
Apostle had certain OT passages in mind which
use circumcision as a metaphor for purity, e.g. Lv
26", Dt W\ Ezk 44^.
Literature. — Artt. on ' Circumcision ' in HDB, ERE, DCG,
and JE, with Literature there cited ; tlie relevant Commentaries,
esp. Sanday-Headlam, Romans^ (ICC, 1902); also E. v.
Dobschiitz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, Eng. tr.,
1904 : K. Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, 1911 ; E. B.
Redlich, St. Paul and hig CoinvanioTui, 1913 ; H. Weinel, St.
Paul, Eng:. tr., 1906 ; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, i.i
[1897], ii. [1895]. MOKLEY STEVENSON.
CITIZENSHIP (xroXire/a, ciuitm). — The conceji-
tion of citizenship among the ancient Greeks and
llomans was deeper than among ourselves. We
can think of human existence and life apart from
citizenship, but to the ancient member of a x6Xis
or citiitas citizenship was life and life was citizen-
ship. This explains why St. Paul could use xoXt-
TeieaBai practically in the sense of ' to live' (Ac 23',
Ph 127; cf_ 320 fl-oXirei/Ma). The life of a city is a
development out of the more primitive life of the
village-community {kiL/j.7}, uicius). A irdXtj in fact
consists of a number of KQifiai, each of which con-
sists of a number of families (oIkos, domtis). The
unity was generally based on blood-relationship.
The regular ir6\ts in the Greek world was on the
model of the constitution of Athens. This consti-
tution had a council {^ovX-/;, senatus) or advisory
body, and a popular assembly {SrjfjLoi, inKXijffLa, Ac
1932. 39. 41)^ fQj. membership of both of which free
citizens were eligible. For citizenship the require-
ment was free birth within the community, the
father being a citizen. It could l)e conferred on
foreigners by a decree of the people. Each com-
• The paronomasia of KaraTOfnj and n-eptro/uuj used by St. Paul
here is one of several instances in which he employs that figure
of speech : e.g. liTfiiv epyo^ofit't^wt oAXo irtpitpyaionimvt (2
Th 3").
CITIZENSHIP
CLAUDIA
213
niunity contained also those who were not full
citizens, but had certain privileges, viz. resident
aliens (ndroiKM ; of. the scriptural rdpoiKoi, iraperi-
dijfioi, Eph 2'», 1 P 2", etc.). There was also a
third class, {^<x, strangers with no privileges at
all, and a fourth class, the slaves, who were mere
chattels. In such a constitution each citizen had
to be enrolled in a particular tribe (<pv\ri, tribus).
St. Paul refers witii pride to his citizenship of
Tarsus in Cilicia, his native city (Ac 21'*). As a
citizen of Tarsus he must have belonged to a par-
ticular tribe, and it has been plausibly conjectured
by W. >I. Ramsay that the ' kinsmen ' of St. Paul
referred to in Ro 16 were his fellow-tribesmen of
Tarsus.
One kind of citizenship in the Apostolic Age
swamped every other, and that was citizenship of
Rome. This fact is well illustrated by a much
earlier document — Cicero's speech, pro Balbo (56
B.C.). In it the principle is affirmed that ' no one
could be a citizen of Rome and of other cities at
the same time, while foreigners who were not
Roman citizens could be on the burgess-rolls of
any number of cities ' (ed. J. S. Reid, 1878, p. 18).
The spread of the Roman citizenship kept pace
with the growth of the Empire. At first only in- [
habitants of Rome could be Roman citizens, but
the citizenship was gradually extended as a result :
of Rome's conquests. It could lie conferred both ;
on communities and on individuals. Moreover, it
was of two kinds or grades. In addition to the
full citizenship, a limited citizenship existed till
about 200 B.C. — ciuUas sine suffragio, impl3ring
that the persons who possessed it had all the privi-
leges of a Roman citizen except the power to vote
in the assemblies and to hold office. The constant
conferment of this limited cinitas added greatly
to the Roman army and territory, and was not in-
tended for the subjects' good. By the end of the
iind cent. B.C. there were many country towns of
Italy (municipia) which possessed citizen rights,
and, as the result of the Social War and the Lex
lulia (90 B.C.), the Lex Plautia Papiria (89 B.C.),
a senatorial edict of 86 B.C., and a law of Julius
Caesar (49 B.C.), all peoples in Italy south of the
Alps obtained the Roman citizenship. Such com-
munities were created also outside Italj' by Julius
Caesar, Claudius, Vespasian, and others, until in .\.D.
212, under Caracalla, every free inhabitant of the
Roman Empire obtained the full Roman franchise.
The inhabitants of colonUe required no grant of
citizensliip because they were of necessity Roman
citizens from the first ; a colonia wa.s in origin
simply a bit of Rome set down in a foreign cormtry,
to keep a subject people in check. It had complete
self-government (see art. COLONY). The smaller
/ora and conciliftbula had in Republican times
incomplete self-government. The municipia, re-
ferred to al)ove as incorporated bodily in the
Roman State, had complete self-government, differ-
ing thus from the prafecturce, which were also
communities of Roman citizens but without com-
plete self-government.
The partial citizenship known as Laiinitas or
iiw Lata deserves mention. It conferred com-
mercium (the right to trade with Rome, and to
acquire profjerty by Roman methods, etc.), but
not conubium (the right of intenuarriage with
Romans). It was thus a kind of intermediate
condition between citizenship and peregrinity, and
such rights were not infrequently conferred on
communities as a kind of step towards the full
citizenship. The name is explained by the origin
of the practice. It began in Rome's early days as
the result of her relations with other towns in the
Latin League, and in 172 B.C. was first extended
beyond Latiura. Magistrates in such towns be-
came ipso facto full Roman citizens.
The conferment of citizenship on individuals has
a special interest for students of the Apostolic
Age. During the whole of the Republican period
the extension of the body of burgesses was the
right of t\\Q comitia tributa. This assembly con-
ferred the citizenship from time to time on indi-
vidual stran^rs (peregrini) as well as on communi-
ties. Commissioners for carrying out colonization
or divisions of ager ptMieru could confer it on a
very limited number of persons, and C. Marius re-
ceived such a power. About the time of the civil
wars, Roman commanders conferred the citizenship
on individual foreigners who had aided tlie Roman
military operations. This must often have been
done without the authority of any statute, but no
one was ever disfranchised in consequence. Pom-
pey, however, obtained the right, by the Lex
Gdlia Cornelia of 72 B.C., to confer the citizenship
on individuals after consulting with his body of
advisers. It was probably either from him or
from Julius Caesar that the father or grandfather
of St. Paul obtained the Roman citizenship. Tar-
sus as a community had not received the Roman
franchise, nor was it a colonia. The possession of
this honour (Ac 16" 22"-®'-) shows that his family
was one of distinction and wealth. Members of
such provincial communities who possessed the
Roman citizenship constituted the aristocracy of
these communities. During the Empire the bur-
gesses could be added to by the Emperor only, and
every citizen had the right to a trial at Rome. Of
this right St. Paul took advantage (Ac 25'").
LrrKRATTRE. — Os Grkek cmzKXsmp : P. Gardner and F.
B. Jevons, A Manual of Greek Antiquities, London, 1895, bk.
vi. ; G. Gilbert, Handlmeh der grxeehUehtn Staatsaltertkumier,
L2 [Leipzig, 1893], iL {ISSSJCEog. tr. of v<ri. \.*=Tkt Constitu-
tionad Antiquitiet of Sparta and Athens, London, 1^5); K.
F. Hermann, Ltkrbueh der grieehigehen Antiquitaten, L*
[Freibur-o' i. B., 1889-1892], IL [1895].— Os Ron ax crriZKSsmp:
J. Muirhead, Historical Introduction to the Private Law of
Rome, Edinbtu^, 1886 (new ed. by H. Goudy, ls99) ; J. S.
Reid, ' On Some Qaestions of Roman Public Law,' in Journal
of Hainan Stvdiet, L [1911] 6t^99 ; J. E. Sandys, A Companion
to Latin Studies^, Cambridjte, 1913, \i. 1 (J. S. ReidX vi. 7, 8
(B. W. Henderson) and Literature cited tbere ; Th. Monunsen,
Humixchet Staatsreehf^ , Leipzig;, lsA7.— Os St. Paul's Ronas
cmzexiiuip : W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Trareller and ths
Koman Citizen, London, 1S95, pp. 30 f., 225.
A. SOUTEB.
CLIUDA.— See Caud.a.
CLAUDIA (KXai'Sui).— Claudia wajs a Christian
lady of Rome who was on friendly terms with the
Apostle Paul at the date of his second imprison-
ment, and who, along with Eubidus, Pudens, and
Linus {qq.v.), sends a greeting to Timothy (2 Ti
4*'). This is all we know with any certainty re-
garding her. The name suggests that she belonged
to the Imperial household, and various conjectures
have been made as to her identity, though there
is very little in the nature of certain data. Prob-
ably she was a slave, but it is not impossible that
she was a member of the gens Claudia. In the
Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 46) she is regarded
as the mother of Linus (Atj-os 6 KXoi>5tas). An in-
scription found on the road between Rome and
Ostia (CIL vi. 15066) to the memory of the infant
child of Claudius Pudens and Claudia Quinctilla
has given rise to the c-onjectnre that this was the
Claudia of St. Paul and that she was the wife of
the Pudens of 2 Ti 4"^. Another ingenious but
most improbable theory identifies Claudia with
Claudia Rufina, the wife of Aldus Pudens, the
friend of Martial (Epigr. iv. 13, xi. 34), and thus
makes her a woman of British race. This Claudia
of Martial has again been identified with an
imaginary Claudia suggested by a fragmentaiy
inscription found at Chichester in 1722 which seems
to record the erection of a temple b^- a certain
I'udens with the approval of Claudius Cogidubnus,
who is supposed to be a British king mentioned in
214
CLAUDIUS
CLAUDIUS
Tacitus (Agricola, xiv.) and the father of the
Claudia who had adopted the name [cognomen)
Kufina from Poinponia the wife of Aulus Plautius,
the Roman governor of Britain (A.D. 43-52).
E. H. Plumptre in Ellicott's NT Covimentary (ii.
186) confidently asserts the identity of the Claudia
of St. Paul with the friend of Martial and the
daughter of Cogidubnus. All such identification
is, however, extremely precarious. The theory
that Claudia is the daughter of the British prince
Caractacus who had been brought to Rome with
his wife and children is a product of the inventive
imagination. Lightfoot (Apostolic Fathers, I. i.
76-79) discusses the whole question of identifica-
tion, and decides that, apart from the want of
evidence, the position of the names of Pudens and
Claudia in the text 2 Ti 4'''i disposes of the possi-
bility of their being husband and wife — a diffi-
culty which Plumptre evades by the supposition
that they were married after the Epistle was
Avritten. The low moral character of Martial's
friend Pudens can hardly be explained away sutH-
ciently to make him a likely companion of St. Paul
(cf. Merivale, St. Paul at Jiome, 149).
LrrERATiRB.— E. H. Plumptre, in Ellicott's NT Com., 1884,
vol. ii. p. Ife5 : ' Excursus on the later years of St. Paul's life ' ;
J. B. Ligrhtfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 1890, 1, i. 76-79 ; C. Meri-
vale, St. Paul at Rome, 1877, p. 149; T. Lewin, Life and
Epistles of St. PauP, 1875, ii. 397 ; artt. in HDB and EDi ;
Conybeare-Howson, Life and Epistles of St. Paul, new ed.,
1877, u. 582, 594. W. F. BOYD.
CLAUDIUS.— Claudius, or, to give him his full
Imperial style, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus
Germanicus (to which the lionorary titles Britan-
mcM5 and Sarmaticus [see Papyr. Brit. Mus, 1178
= G. Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri,
1910, no. 40Jare sometimes added), the son of Nero
Claudius Drusus (38-9 B.C.), stepson of Augustus,
and Antonia Minor (the younger daughter of the
triumvir Mark Antony and Octavia, sister of
Augustus), was born on 1 Aug. 10 B.C. at Lugu-
dunum (Lyons). His father died the year after.
The boy inherited both physical and mental weak-
ness, and was in consequence neglected. There
was no room in Roman life for weaklings ; exposure
of newly bom children was frequent, and until
Christianity came there was little care for the
physically or mentally defective. Claudius was
left to the society of his social inferiors, and coarse
tastes were developed in him. The one bright
side in his life was nis devotion to scientific, espe-
cially historical, studies. Augustus saw some good
in him, but kept him from the public gaze. At
the succession of Tiberius in A.D. 14 he began to
take some slight part in public life, but most of
liis time was spent on country estates. Gains,
grandnephew of Tiberius and nephew of Claudius,
succeeded to the purple in A.D, 37, and raised his
uncle to the consulship at once. Soon after, how-
ever, the feeling's or the maddest of all the
Emperors changed, and Claudius was once more in
a position of disgTace. Claudius had married
Plautia Urgulanilla (before A.D. 20), who bore him
a son and a daughter, but was afterwards divorced
for adultery. His marriiige with M\ia. Psetina,
by whom he had a daughter, had the same end.
The notorious Valeria Messalina was his third
wife, and bv her a daughter was bom about the
year 40, ana a son called Britannicus in 41, It is
said that Claudius, after the murder of his nephew,
was dragged from a remote part of the palace,
where he was cowering in terror, and made Emperor
almost unawares (25 Jan. 41) by the army. He
now changed his name from liberius Claudius
Nero Drusus Germanicus to that given above.
His reign of thirteen years was very much more
successful than might have been anticipated.
Some of the more important events of his reign
may be enumerated in the order of their occur-
rence.
In A.D. 41 certain reforms were made in the repfulation of the
com supply, etc., which had suffered in Gaius' reign. Many of
these reforms were doubtless due to the Emperor's freednien,
Narcissus, the ab epistulia, M. Antonius Pallas, the a rationibus,
etc., who exercised a tremendous influence during his reign
and acquired colossal fortunes in his service. In this year suc-
cesses were gained in Mauretania and also against the Catti
and Ohauci in Germany ; the eagle of Varus, captured in a.d. 9,
was now recovered. Privileges were granted to the Jews of
Alexandria ; Agrippa (q.v.) had his kingdom extended by the
addition of Judcea and Samaria, and was thus ruler of aU the
territory that had once been Herod's (a.d. 42). To facilitate
the supply of com to Rome, the building of a harbour at Ostia,
the mouth of the Tiber, was decided on. War in Mauretania
continued, and the district was made into two provinces,
Mauretania Tiiiiritana and Mauretania Csesariensis, which were
each put under the command of an Imperial procurator. Pre-
tenders to the Imperial throne were crushed (a, d. 42). Lycia,
owing to disturbances, was made an Imperial province, under
a legatus pro proetore. Britain was invaded for the first time
since Julius Ctesar (55 B.C.). A. Plautius landed with a strong
army and fought agfainst the Trin^uantes in the south of the
island. Claudius followed in person, defeated the enemy on the
Thames, captured their chief city Camulodunum (Colchester),
and returned to the continent after a sixteen days' stay. The
southern half of Ent;land was made into a province, and A.
Plautius was appointed the first govemor (43). King Agrippa
of Judaja died, and his kingdom was again made a Uoman pro-
vince and put under a procurator. In this and next j'ear (44-45)
the pacification of Britain was continued. In a.d. 4(J King
Bhoemetalces ii. of Thrace having been murdered, his territory
was made into a Roman province and put under a procurator.
This was also the year of the great famine in Palestine (Ac 11** ;
Ramsay, St. Paul, pp. 49, 08, Expositor, 6th ser. xii. [1905]
299). In 47 the censorship was revived after a long period of
disuse, the Emperor taking the office, and endeavouring to im-
prove public morality. The eight-hundredth anniversary of
Rome was celebrated with great 6clat. New aqueducts and
roads were built, and three letters were added to the alphabet
These last were to represent sounds as yet imperfectly repre-
sented, but they did not survive Claudius' reign. A number of
edicts were issued by the Emperor. A. Plautius was recalled
from Britain, given an ovation, and succeeded by P. Ostorius
Scapula, who had to repel an attack immediately on arrival.
Cn. Domitius Corbulo gained victories in Germania Inferior.
A census taken in the year 48 revealed a total of 5,984,072
Roman citizens (other reports vary, the largest number given
being 6,941,000). Messalina was married according to legal
form to C. Silius in October ; immediately afterwards they and
all their accomplices were put to death. Claudius married as
his fourth wife his own niece, Agrippina, daughter of Germani-
cus. Her son, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the future Emperor
Nero, had the way thus paved for his accession. On the death
of Herod, king ofChalcis, or soon after, his kingdom was given
to Agrippa II., son of Claudius' old friend. In the year 49, we
see Agrippina at once occupying a position of authority in the
State equal to if not greater tlian that of her husband. She
betrothed her son to Octavia, Claudius' daughter, and put him
under the tuition of the great philosopher L. Annasus Seneca.
The ItursDan country and perhaps also Abilene were added to
the Province Syria. Scapula was successful in Britain. In
A.D. 50 the young Domitius was adopted by Claudius, as future
colleag^ue to his own son Britannicus. Other events are the war
in Germany ; the great success of Scapula — the wife, daughter,
and brothers of Caratacus falling into the hands of the con-
queror ; Claudius' edict expelling the Jews from Rome (Ac IS-),
on account of their dissensions. The result of this edict was
that for the four years 50-54 the Church of Rome was bereft of
its Jewish members. The year 51 saw the danger of famine
and the Emperor's relief measures. In 52 astrologers were
banished from Italy. Laws were passed as to children born of
unions between free and slaves. Quarrels arose between Jews
and Samaritans. Felix received the government of the whole of
Judaea, Samaria, Galilee, and Persea. Scapula warred against
the Silures and died ; he was succeeded by A. Didius Gallus,
who drove the Silures out of Roman territory. In 63 Nero ad-
vanced, and Britannicus kept in the background. Agrippa n.
received, in place of his district Chalcis, the former tetrarchy
of Trachonitis, Batansea, Gaulanitis, and Abilene as his kingdom.
In 64 Claudius was poisoned at the instance of Agrippina on
18 October.
Claudius was deified after his death. A skit preserved among
the works of Seneca, and called 'Tlie PumpkinifioAtion of
Claudius,' is among the most amusing relics of Latin literature.
This bald enumeration will show that much was
done during the reign of Claudius. It is true that
at all times he was too much under the dominion
of evil women, and that he never thoroughly cast
oil' the brutish habits contracted in his youth, but
yet his reign was the most important for the
Roman Empire in the period between tlie reigns
of Augustus and of Trajan. The Empire was ex-
tended in various directions ; much social legisla-
tion was carried out ; and great public works, sucli
CLAUDIUS LYSIAS
CLEilEXT
215
as roads, aquedacts, harbours, were accomplished.
The Emperor, like most of lus class, was a hard
worker, or countenanced the hard work of his
f reedmen. The position of importance occupied by
these men is in fact a leading characteristic of
the reign, and was most obnoxious to the old
aristocracy, which may be said to have thus re-
ceived its death-blow. The power of the Senate
was greatly circumscribed. Claudius was, inter
alia, something of an autiior. It was in fact the
rule rather than the exception that Romans of high
birth sliould, among their other accomplishments,
be wielders of the pen. He began to write a
history, but abandoned it unfinished. A second
historical work was published, and some fragments
of it have survived. He also «Tote eight books of
autobiography, and worked at Etrurian and Cartha-
ginian history. The greater part of a speech he
delivered in the Senate has been preserved on a
bronze tablet at Lyons. His style is not without
merits.
LiTEEATTRE. — Much Valuable materixU has been found in the
article by Groag: and Gaheis in Pauly-Wissowa, iii. cols. 277S-
2s39 : of. also A. ▼. Domaszewski, Gttch. der rom. KaUer,
ii. [Leipzig, 1909] pp. 21-46. On the chronologj' of events in the
Claudian period referred to in the XT see W. M. Ramsay,
5t. Paul the Traveller «nd the Soman Citizen, London, 1S95,
pp. 18 ff., 6Sf., Wat CkriMbomat BeOOehem f, do. 1S9S, p.i223f.,
Expoiitiyr, 6th aeries, lii. [1906] 299 ; the latest general treat-
ment of Panline chronology by the erudite French scholar,
M. Goguel, in ' Essai sur la chronologie paulinienne ' {RHR
Ixv. [1912] -285-339). A. SOUTER.
CLAUDIUS LYSIAS.— See Lysias.
CLAY.— See Potter and Predestination.
CLEAK, UNCLEAN, COMMON.- ' Common ' {koi-
pos, communis) is an honourable word in classical
Greek = ' shared by the people.' In Hellenistic
Greek, it has sometimes this same meaning (Ac "2"
4^, Tit 1*, Jude '), but sometimes a less honourable
one ( = Lat. vulgaris). This depreciation arose out
of the transcendence of religion to the Eastern mind.
What was ' shared by the people ' had become pro-
faned for the god (cf. the English word ' worldly,'
meaning first secular, then unspiritual). We see the
process with icMvbt in He KP® — ' counted the blood
of the covenant a common [i.e. secular] thing.' In
Rev21^wegoastep further, and ' anything common '
means the worldly, the unspiritual (cf. Jos. Ant.
XH. ii. 14, xni. i' 1). Elsewhere 'common' cor-
responds to positive, active uncleanness (Ac lO^*- "
11«, Ro 14", 1 Mac l*^-«2, Jos. Ant. XI. viiL 7;
the verb is found in Ac 21«, He ^).
The distinction, ' clean' (catfapdj) and 'unclean'
(oKadafyrm), refers in the OT and primitive religions
to definite departments of life, such as food, sanita-
tion, contact with the dead, andmarriage (Lv 11-15).
In the OT it is mainly a common-sense distinction,
made, however, from religious motives, and be-
coming part of the ritual of the Hebrews. It was
thus a practical diflerentiation between them and
surrounding peoples. It arose out of a good idea,
but when separated from this idea grew into a
proud national badge. Such national and religious
customs, so long held, seem stronger than they are.
One push of a new movement will often destroy,
almost in a moment, the habits of centuries. W e
find this process to-day in the East. In the NT
it may be seen in the case of Simon Peter ; he
combined Christian beliefs and Jewish distinctions
without at first being willing to perceive their
variance. His vision (Ac 10) woke him, and,
though he relapsed for an instant (Gal 2*), the
work was done ; and when that generation passed
away, the religious nature of these distinctions
had gone from Christianity ; cleanliness, instead
of being godliness, was next to godliness. These
details of conduct were left to the reason and the
conscience. The transition stage, where some
cling to the old laws and others obey the new
spirit, with its problems of faith and charity, is
treated in Ro 14.
There is another ground for this ceremonial dis-
tinction of ' clean ' and ' unclean,' i.e. contact with
idolatry, which in the OT makes unclean (Dt 7*).
St. Paul allows (I Co 8) that an idol is nothing
and cannot aflect meats ofl'ered to it. But idolatry
is something — its atmosphere, its offerings, its
gatherings into temples. It becomes the embodi-
ment of demons (1 Co 10**); there is a 'table' of
demons, an agreement with hell, and no man can
with impunity associate with even the outward
forms which this a^greement takes, or frequent
the places where it is most generally made. The
Apostle treats marriage (q.v.) in a similar way.
He would place restrictions on the marriage of
believers with unbelievers. It is as if a Christian
were participating in idolatry (1 Co lO^*-* 2 Co 6
^*""), or trying to mingle the communion of God
with the communion of devils. If, however, they
are already married, the principle of faith triumphs
over all forms. The believing partner sanctifies
the unbelieving one, and their children are holy
(1 Co 7'^). St. Paul recognizes the value of forms
for the human spirit, but he subordinates them to
the conscience. Many of the old tabus on food,
marriage, travel, the &ibbath, were rooted in fact.
They were based on laws of health, decency, human
nature : but they were not deeper than that.
They were not regions principles to be obeyed
without thought and absolutely guaranteeing
purity.
Men are always tending to revert to forms, and
there was yet another movement in later NT
times, which felt after this old distinction. It
adopted that of matter and spirit, in which spirit
is clean, matter unclean. It had ordinances Hke
• Touch not, taste not, handle not' (Col 2"-^), it tried
to refine in all manner of ways, it forbade men to
eat meat and to marry (1 Ti 4*). St. Paul answers
in Tit 1^ : All the external refinements in the world
will not avaU to give purity ; purity of heart, the
will to be pure, alone secures it in body and spirit.
lXBajauttx.—HDB, art. 'Unclean'; W. R. Smith, AS>,
1894, AdcBtional Note B ; F. J. A. Hort, JudaitUc Chrittiaitttf,
1884, cfas. 6, T : J. B. Ligbtfoot, Colo$siant and PhOemoifi,
1879, pp. 83 ff., 40a-414 ; R. C Trench, ST Syntm^nufi, VSn,
p-308. Sherwin Smith.
CLEANTHES.— See QUOTATIONS.
CLEMENT.— Mention is made of Clement in
Ph 4* as one of St. Paul's fellow- workers. If >i£t4
Ktti ^\-qnevTos is connected with cvWati^drov, Cle-
ment was urged to help in the work of reconciling
Euodia and Syntyche. But it is better to connect
the phrase \s-ith (rinHfikqaap, so including Clement
among those with whom these women and St.
Paul ' laboured in the gospel ' ; i.e. he had been
conspicuous in Christian work in Philippi. But
the reference does not suggest that he was in
Philippi when St. Paul wrote ; it is too oblique for
that. Would he not have been asked to use his
good offices to ettect a reconcUiation ? Two things
are possible : (a) he may be dead, though his
memory is fragrant (the reference to other ' fellow-
workers whose names are in the book of life' is
not inconsistent with this suggestion) ; (b) he may
be with St. Paul, one of the band who gathered
about him in his imprisonment and through whom
the Apostle carried on his work. In that case
Clement was in Rome, and one of the arguments
against identifying him with Clement, bishop of
Rome, who wrote the Letter to the Church of
Corinth, would disappear. The difficulty of date
is, however, serious, though not insuperable. If
216 CLEMENT OF ROME, EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME, EPISTLE OF
Clement were a promising convert from Philippi,
who after serving there with marked success be-
came a pupil and companion of St. Paul, he could
not very well have been less than 35 or 40 years of
age when Phil, was written from liome about A.D.
60. If this Clement is to be identified with Clemens
Romanus, he must have lived to extreme old age.
The identification, first made by Origen, cannot be
proved ; it is even precarious ; but Kennedy goes
too far when he calls it * absurd ' (EGT, ' Philip-
pians,' ad loc).
The name is a common one.
LiTBRATiiRK. — J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians*, 1878 (esp. note
on p. 168 ff.); H. A. A. Kennedy, FAiT, 'Philippians,' 1903;
art. on 'Clement' in UDB; E. B. Redlicb, St. Paul and his
Companions, 1913, p. 223. J. E. IlOBERTS.
CLEMENT OF ROME, EPISTLE OF.— 1. Occa-
sion.— The Epistle of Clement itself supplies com-
plete information as to the circumstances under
which it was written. Dis-sension had arisen with-
in the Christian community at Corinth, and the
Church was torn asunder. The original ground of
contention is not mentioned, but the course of the
strife is clearly indicated. A small but powerful
party of malcontents (i. 1, xlvii. 6) had usea their in-
fluence to secure the deposition of certain presbyters,
men duly appointed according to apostolic regula-
tions, who were, moreover, of blameless reputation
and unfailing zeal in the performance of their duties
(xliv. 3). A fierce controversy was raging, and the
Corinthian Church, hitherto renowned for its vir-
tues, especially such as are the outcome of brotherly
love (i. 2-ii.), had become a stumbling-block in-
stead of an example to the world (xlvii. 7). Once
before, the Church of Corinth had shown the same
spirit of faction (I Co !'"•"). History was now
repeating itself, but the latter case was much worse
than the former. Then, the contending ])arties had
at least claimed to be following the lead of apostolic
men, but now the main body of the Church was
following ' one or two ' contumacious persons in re-
bellion against their lawful rulers (xlvii.).
The news of this state of things was brought to
Rome. How it came it is impossible to say. Ill
news travels apace, and Rome is within easy reach
of Corinth. It seems clear that no direct appeal
was made to Rome by either contesting party. Yet
in the ordinary course of things the Roman Church
would soon hear of the Corinthian trouble, for com-
munication seems to have been fairly frequent be-
tween the principal Christian communities in the
early days (note the stress laid on the duty of hos-
pitality, i. X. xi. xii. XXXV. ). At any rate the Chris-
tians at Rome heard of the Corinthian dissension
while it was still at its height (xlvi. 9). ^yhen the
tidings first came, tliey themselves were suftering
under the stress of external persecution (i. 1, vii. 1),
but as soon as the storm had abated, a letter was
written in the name of the Church at Rome to the
Church at Corinth, expressing the sorrow which
the Corinthian feud had caused to the Christians
at Rome, and admonishing the Corinthians to re-
member the primary duty of <pi\ade\(pla and bring
their strife to an end. 'I^hat Epistle has survived
to the present day. It is known as *the First
Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.'
2. Date and authorship.— (I )Z)a^c. — The terminus
a quo for tlie dating of the Epistle is fixed by its
reference to the martyrdom of St. Peter and St.
Paul (v. 4, 6), and its use of the Epistle to the
Hebrews (xxxvi. xliii.). Even if we accept the
earliest possible dates for the death of the apostles
and for the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of
Clement cannot have been written before a. D. 70.
The terminus ad q^ucm is also fixed by the fact
that Clement's Epistle was indubitably used by
Polycarp in his Epistle to the Philipi)ians (Light-
foot, Clem. Rom. [Ajiostol. Fathers, pt. i., 1890] vol.
i. p. 149 fr.). If Lightfoot be correct— as seems
most probable — in <lating Polycarp's letter c. A.D.
110 (.S'^ Ign. and St. Puli/c.^ [Apostol. Fathers, pt.
ii., 1889], vol. i. p. 42811;), the date of Clement's
Epistle must fall between the years A.D. 70 and
A.D. 110.
Fortunately it is possible to reduce these limits
very considerably. The Epistle contains distinct
allusions to two serious persecutions alreatly suflered
by the Church at Rome. During the former of
these, we are told, ' women suffered cruel and un-
holy insults as Danaids and Uircae,' and 'a vast
multitude of the elect ' endured ' many indignities
and tortures ' before ' they reached the goal in the
race of faith and received a noble reward ' (vi. 1, 2).
When the Epistle was written this persecution was
a matter of past history, but its victims are still
spoken of as ' those champions who lived very near
to our own time ' and ' the noble examples which
belong to our generation' (toi>j iyyicrra ytvofituovs
d^Xijrds. . . Trjiy€i'edsr]iJi.CL)VTi,y€i'va7avTrodeiyfiO-Ta,v.l).
The second persecution was still in progress when
the news of the Corinthian schism was brought to
Rome. The Epistle opens with an apologj' for the
delay in writing which has been caused by ' the
sudden and repeated calamities and reverses which
have befallen us ' (rds al<pvi5Lovs kolI iiraWifKom yevo-
nivas i)fjuv <TVfj.<f)opa9 Kal irepiimJoffeit, i. 1). The
writer's words suggest that the method of attack
adopted in the later persecution was diflerent from
that of the earlier one. That the two are not to
be identified is made plain in vii. 1, Avhere a clear
distinction is drawn between the martyrs of an
earlier date and ' us ' who ' are in the same lists,'
whom ' the same contest awaits.'
Now it is a well-established fact that during the
Ist cent. A.D. the Roman Church suflered two, and
only two, serious persecutions. The first was that
of Nero (c. A.D. 64), in the course of which, accord-
ing to an ancient tradition, St. Paul lost his life.
The second was that of Domitian. Nero's persecu-
tion was a savage onslaught on all Christians indis-
criminately ; that of Domitian took the form of
sharp intermittent attacks aimed at individuals.
In fact, the difference between the two was precisely
the difference between the two persecutions men-
tioned in the Epistle of Clement. It seems, there-
fore, a safe conclusion that the references of the
Epistle are to the persecutions of Nero and Domi-
tian, and that the Epistle was written either just
before or just after the termination of the latter of
the two. I.e. c. A.D. 95-96. This date suits admir-
ably the other indications of time contained in the
Epistle, all of which point towards the close of the
1st cent. A.D. An earlier date is precluded by
the following facts : (a) the Church of Corinth is
already called apxa-la- (xlvii. 6) ; (b) presbyters are
mentioned who liave succeeded successors of the
apostles (xliv. 3) ; (c) the language used of the
Roman envoys ' who have walked among us from
youth unto old age unblameably ' (Ixiii. 3) seems
to imply that a generation has almost passed since
the Church of Rome was founded. On the other
hand, the Epistle cannot have been written later
than the end of the century, because (a) St. Peter
and St. Paul are included amongst the ' examples
of our own generation ' (v. 1) ; (6) ivlffKovoi and vpeff-
§uT(po% are still regarded as interchangeable terms
(xliv. 4, 5), whereas very early in the 2nd cent,
tliey were used to denote distinct offices (Ign. Epp.,
l)assim). Finally, external evidence of an early and
reliable kind (a) connects the Epistle with the epis-
copate of Clement, third bishop of Rome, and (b)
places his episcopate in the last decade of the 1st
rent. A.D. (Hegesippus, ap. Eus. HE iv. 22 : Dion.
Cor. ap. Ens. HE iv. 23 ; Iren. adv. H<er. III. iii.
3). In view of this accumulation of evidence, it is
CLEMEXT OF EOME, EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME, EPISTLE OF 217
impossible to doubt that the Epistle of Clement
was written about A.D. 95-96.
{2) Authorship. — The Epistle itself claims to be
the letter not or an individual but of a community.
The author's name is nowhere mentioned. Nor in-
deed do we find in the statements of Hegesippus,
Dionysius of Corinth, and Irenaeus, the three ear-
liest writers who connect the Epistle with the name
of Clement, any definite assertion that Clement was
the author. Eusebius, to whom we owe our know-
ledge of Hegesippus, does indeed declare that that
writer ' makes some remarks concerning the Epistle
of Clement to the Corinthians' {HE iv. 22), but
the title here given to the letter is due to the his-
torian and not to Hegesippus, whose own words
have unfortunately not been preserved. Dionj-sius
of Corinth, c. A.D. 170 {ap. Eus. HE iv. 23), speaks
of TTjv vporepar ijfuy Sia KXi^fievroi ■ypa<tttiaav (sc. i-rur-
ToX^v), but his statement is ambiguous. 5ta KX^
fuvTOi might mean that Clement was the author,
the amanuensis, or even the bearer of the Epistle.
Similarly the language of Irenaeus (c. A.D. 180) is
indefinite as to the actual authorship of the letter :
(tI TovTov ovv Tov KXi^fierroi . . . iriffreiXey i} er'Pw/iT)
fKKXriffia iKOPUTdnjp ypaifnjv Tails Kopipdioii {adv. H(Br.
in. iii. 3). Yet it must be admitted that there is
nothing in the language of any of these three
writers to exclude the possibility of believing that
they regarded Clement as the author of the Epistle.
The absence of more explicit statement on the sub-
ject is probably due to the fact that they looked
upon the letter as the utterance of the whole Roman
Church rather than of one man. The Epistle is
first definitely ascribed to Clement of Rome in the
writings of his namesake of Alexandria (c. A.D.
200), who, though his usage is not quite uniform,
on at least four occasions speaks of Clement as
the author (Strom, i. 7, iv. 17-19, v. 12, vi. 8).
All later writers are unanimous in accepting this
opinion (Lightfoot, Clem. Bom., vol. L p. 160 ff.).
It is unreasonable to doubt that they are justified
in doing so. That Clement was head of the Roman
community at the time of the Corinthian schism is
as well attested as any fact of early Church history,
and as such he would be the natural mouthpiece
of the Church of Rome in its communications with
a sister community. At any rate, this function is
attributed to him by the writer of 'Hermas'
{vifiypei. ovv KXi^/xi/j ets tos i^tij ToXetj, (Keivt^ yap i-ririr-
parrai, Vis. II. iv. 3), and ' Hennas' may have been
written as early as A. D. 110-125 (V. H. Stanton,
The Gospels as Historical Documents, pt. i. pp. 34-
41). Again, however worthless as historical docu-
ments the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies
may be, they at least bear witness to the fact that,
by the middle of the 2nd cent. A. D., Clement was
regarded as an author. It is difficult to understand
what could have given rise to that opinion except
the belief that he was the author of the Epistle
to the Corinthians. Certainly at that date no
other writing of importance were attributed to
him. But the real value of the Epistle depends
not so much on its authorship as on its date,
which is sufficiently indicated by purely internal
evidence.
3- Contents. — Introdtuiory. — (o) Opening salutation from
• the Church of God which sojounieth in Rome to the Church
of God which sojoumeth in Corinth.' (6) AfKilojry for apparent
lack of interest in the Corinthian trouble. The Romans' previ-
ous silence due to the ' sudden and repeated calamities ' which
have befallen them.
(1) The Corinthian trouble — it* cause and the remedy. — Xow
at last we have an opportunity of speaking our mind about ' the
detestable and unholy sedition which a few headstrong and self-
willed persons have kindled ' till the once honoured name of
the Church of Corinth is now greatly reviled (i. 1). For indeed
the Church of Corinth has hitherto been a model of Christian
virtues, especially of sobriety in all things, of self-sacrifice and
moderation (i. 2-ii.). But, like Israel ol old, you have been
spoiled by your good progress. Excellence has given way to
jealousy and envy (iii.). Envy and ill-will al%rays result in
sofiering. So mach we may learn from the stories of Cain, of
Jacob, of Moees, Aaron and Miriam, of Dathan and Abiram,
and of Da\id (i*^-)- Or think of tboae who suffered martvrdom
' nearest our own time '—of Peter and Paul and the multitude
of others (v. vi.). These examples ou{;ht to warn as who have
to face the same expression of the worid's envy to be free from
envy ourselves. If we have not kept ouiaelres free from it, then
let us use the 'grace of repentance' which Christ's death won
for man (ni.), even as the men of old repented at the preaching
of Noah and of Jonah (vii. 5 ff.).
The Holy Spirit Himself, through the prophets, calls men to
repentance (viiL). Let us be obedient to His call, foUowinj: the
example of Enoch and Noah (ix.). Obedience to God brooyht
hlecsings upon Abraham (x.) ; faith and care for others saved
Lot from the fate of Sodom (xL), and Rahab from the fate of
Jericho (xli.). 'Arrogance and conceit and foUv and anger'
must be laid aside. The promises of the Scriptures and of the
Lord Jesus are for the humble-minded (xiu. xiv.X who are
genuinely so (xt.). What an example of humility was set by
Christ Himself (xvL) and by the saints of old — Elijah, Elisha,
Ezekiel, Abraham, Job, Moses (xvii.X and David (xriiL) ! Self-
seeking and discord are contrary to the will of the Creator (xix.) ;
the harmony of the natural world proves His own long-suffering
and love of settled order (xx. ). Let us therefore act as befits the
servants of such a Master, for He reads the nccrets of all hearts.
Lee us reverence rulers, honour elders, and train onr families tc
do the same (xxi.) ; for Christ, through the Holy Spirit, and the
Father both commend the single-hearted and «>naemn such as
are double-minded (xxiL xxiii.). The Lord will come quickly
(xxiiL).
(2) The retttrreetion of the body. Fa ith and worka the mean*
by whiek the eUet obtain thi* and the other bletting* of God. —
Let us hare no doubt abont the resurrectioa <rf the dnd. Life
out of death is the ver>- law of Xatore. Day grows out of
night, the plant from the death of the seed (xxiv.), the phcenix
from its parent's ashes (xxv.). In the Scriptures God has pro-
mised a resurrection. His promise and His jiower are aJike
sufficient, for He is almighty and cannot lie. Therefore let our
souls be bound to Him with this hope (xxri.-xxviiL).
We must approach Him in holiness of soul, for we are His
' elect,' His ' special portion ' (xxix.) ; as such we must put away
all lust, strife, contention, and pride. ' Boldness and arrogance
and daring are for them that are accursed of God ; but forbear-
ance and humility and gentleness are with them that are
blessed of God ' (xxx.). "This, then, is how the blessing of God
is obtained. We see it in the case of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
(xxxi.). They were blessed 'not through themselves, in their
own works or righteous doing,' but because they accepted the will
of God, i.e. through faith. So we are justified by faith (xxxii.).
Yet we must never be slack in works. Does not the Creator
rejoice to work unceasingly? We must follow His example, for
we are made in His image (xxxiii-X Vfe must imitate the
diligence of the angels, if we would win the promises of God
(sxxiv.). How blesied and marvellous are the gifts which God
prepares for them that patiently await Him ! If we would enjoy
them, we must first hate done with all bitterness and suife,
vainglory and inboepitality, which are hateful to Him (xxxr.X
Jesus Christ, ' the Guardian and Helper of oor weakness,' will
aid us in oor efforts, and He is mightier than any angel (xxxvL).
(3) Diaofline i* indiepentable in a corporate tociety : provi-
sion mtade for tkit in the Motaie Lair and in the Divinely ap-
pointed ounttfry of the Church.— V>'e are Christ's soldiers
(g Tpart mriitifOcu, xxxrii. 1): soldiers must be under discipline,
each in his own rank. Look at the soldiers in the Roman army ;
think of the limbs in a human body ; ' all the members conspire
and unite in subjection, that the whole body may be saved'
(xxxTiLJL So the members of the Christian body murt perform
each his own function for the common weal (xxxviii.). Only
' senseless and stupid and foolish and ignorant men ' seek power
and exaltation, forgetting the utter nothingness of man, and
the condemnation of the Scriptures for such as themselves
(xxxix.).
Regard for order and decen<gr is Divinely taught in the
Mosaic Law, which expressly prescribes how, when, and by
whom each of its rites shall be performed, every man having
his own appointed place, whether high priest, priest, Levite, or
layman (xl.). So we, who are under the Christian Law, must
be content to perform the function which is appointed for us
(xli.).
The Christian ministry is a Divinely appointed order. Je«us
CJhrist was sent forth from God, and Himself sent forth the
apostles. They, in turn, when they had preached in town and
country, appointed such of their converts as were approved by
the Spirit, to be ' bishops and deacons tmto them that should
believe' (xliL). In this they followed the example of Moses,
who appointed a succession of priests, and to prevent all future
dispute, confirmed the appointment of Aaron's line by tlie
miracle of the budding rod (xliii.). The apostles, too, were
Divinely warned that strife would arise over the bishop's office.
They therefore provided for a regular succession of the ministry
froiii generation to generation (div. 1, 2).
(4) The Corinthians hare disobeyed not only a ipeeifie ordin-
ance of God, but ai*o the fundamental Christian law of torn.
3lay they gpeedUy repent.— You have sinned grievously in
thrusting from their office men who were duly appointed
according to the apostles' directions, and have faithfully dis-
charged the duties of a bishop (xliv. 3-6X It is monstrous that
God's officers should be persecuted by those who profess to be
God's servants. Read your Bible, and you will learn that when
righteous men have suffered persecution— *.jr. Daniel and the
three Holy Children— they have suffered at the hands of the
218 CLEMENT OF ROME, EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME, EPISTLE OF
ungodly (xlv.). Surely you ouprhC to be found on the side of the
riKliteous rather than of the pcrtiecutors. We worship one Owl.
We are one body in Chriiit, we have one spirit of (Trace. How
can you bear such strife if you remember that wu are niembeni
one of another? Remember what Jesus our Ix>rd said concern-
itit; those who cause offence as you have done (xlvi.). St. Paul
rebuked you for the same fault, but thing^s are worse now.
Then at least }'ou professed to follow apostles or apostolic men,
but now * the steadfast and ancient Church of the Corinthians,
for the sake of one or two persons, maketh sedition against its
presbyters' (xlvii.). Let us have done with such tem\n, and in
penitence pray Qod to restore our former harmony (xlviii.).
Love is all-powerful : love, His own attribute, is acceptable to
God : seek love, and you shall be saved (xlix. 1). Love is the
only fH'ound on which we can hope for Ood's foi^veness. Let
us therefore — and especially those who have caused strife— con-
fess our offences and not harden our hearts as Pharaoh did, lest
like Pharaoh we perish (li.).
God asks nothmt; of man but contrition, prayer, and praise
Gii.}. Remember how Moses fasted and prayed forty days on
the mountain, offerin); his life for the life of his people (liu-)-
Let those of you who are the occasion of strife, copy his self-
effacement Qiv.), and follow the examples of those noble
heathens — rulers and citizens, even women — who over and over
again in the course of history have been willing to give up all
for the good of their nation (Iv.).
Let us intercede for one another. Let us be ready to give
and to receive admonition. In Ood's hands, chastisement is an
instrument of mercy (Ivi.). You especially, who first stirred
up the strife, be first to repent — ' submit yourselves unto the
presbyters, and receive chastisement unto repentance.' The
Scriptures contain many threats against the stubborn and im-
penitent (Ivii.). Let us by obedience escape them, for they
who obey God's will shall be saved (Iviii.). 'But if certain
persons should be disobedient unto the words spoken by Him
through us . . . they will entangle themselves in no slijiflit
transgression and danger ; bat we shall be guiltless of this sin '
(lix.).
(5) Prayer for all mankind : final admonition and benedic-
tion.— We pray that God will keep His elect intact. We pray
for inward light, for all who need, for the Gentiles' conversion,
for pardon and cleansing, for peace and concord, for deliver-
ance from those who hate us wrongfully, for the grace of
obedience to temporal authority, for earthly rulers, that they
may govern in accordance with Ood's will in peace and gentle-
ness. We offer our praises to the Almighty Father ' through
the lliv'li Priest and Guardian of our souls, Jesus Christ' (lix.-
Ixi.).
We iiave said enough about the Christian life ; about faith,
repentance, love, temperance, sobriety, patience, righteousness,
truth, longsuflfering. We have spoken gladly, knowing that we
spoke to men who have studied the oracles of God (Ixii.).
Follow the example of the Fathers ; submit yourselves to author-
ity. You will give us great joy if you cease from strife. With
the letter we have sent faithful and prudent men who shall be
witnesses between us (Ixiii.).
May God endue with all virtues those who call on His name
through Jesus Christ our Hi;:h Priest and Guardian (Ixiv.).
We commend Claudius Ephcbus, and Valerius Bito, who, with
Fortunatus also, are the bearers of this letter. Send them
back speedily with good news.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and all men.
i. Teaching.— The object of the Epistle was
strictly practical. It is therefore unreasonable to
expect to find in it precise delinitions of Christian
doctrine. Yet, in enforcing his practical lesson,
the writer alludes to the main articles of the faith
as he had learned it, and these incidental allusions
are historically the more valuable, because they
represent not the belief of one man but the tra-
dition of a community.
The tradition, which lies behind the Epistle, is
above all things catholic, in its recognition of the
many-sidedness of Christian truth. It embraces
almost every type of apostolic teaching which is
•expressed in the Epistles of the NT — the type of
St. .James no less than of St. Paul, of St. Peter
as well as of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The one
cilement which is lacking is the mysticism of St.
•lohn, probably because the Johannine writings
were not yet in existence (Lightfoot, Clem. Bom.
vol. i. p. 95 tf.).
At the same time it must be admitted that the
Epistle betrays a certain failure to grasp the full
meaning of the more profound doctrines of the
NT. This is especially evident in its treatment of
the Pauline idea of justification by faith. To St.
Paul faith is the mainspring of the Christian life,
the source of all Christian virtues. To the writer
of the Epistle, faith is nothing more than one
amongst many virtues. He is conscious of no in-
congruity in placing ' faith ' and ' ho.spitality ' side
by side as erpial conditions of salvation (.xii. 1 ; cf.
Lightfoot, Clrvi. Horn. vol. i. p. 397).
(1) Doctrine of God. — The terms in which the
Epistle speaks of God are unmistakably borrowed
from the langua^^e of the OT and the Jewish
synagogue. God is ' the Almighty,' ' the all-seeing
Master (Iv. 6), 'the Creator and Master of the
universe' (xxxiii. 2), 'the Father of the ages, tlie
All-holy One' (xxxv. 3) ; 'the Father and Maker
of the whole M-orld' (xix. 2; cf. Ix. and Ixii.);
•the King of the ages' (Ixi. 2); 'He that em-
braceth the whole universe ' (xxviii. 4). His un-
ceasing activity in the natural world displays
both His beneficence and His love of harmony (xx.
xxxii.). Amongst men He is made known as ' the
Creator and Overseer . . . the Benefactor of all
spirits and the God of all flesh ' (lix. 3). To the
elect He is revealed as a ' gentle and compassion-
ate Father' (xxix. 1), 'the champion and protector
of them that in a pure conscience serve His excel-
lent Name' (xlv. 7).
So much might have been said by a conscientious
Jew ; but in two passages at least, the language
of the Epistle passes beyond the mere monotlieism
of Judaism : ' Have we not one God and one
Christ and one Spirit of grace that was shed upon
us?' (xlvi. 6) ; 'as God liveth and the Lord Jesus
Christ liveth, and the Holy Spirit, who are the
faith and the hope of the elect . . .' (Iviii. 2).
The simple and natural way in which the Son and
the Holy Spirit are here linked M-ith the Father as
equal objects of Christian faith and hope is quite
inexplicable unless the writer was convinced of
their essential Divinity and essential equality
with the Father.
(2) Christology. — A clear allusion to the pre-
existence of Christ is contained in the statement
that He speaks through the Holy Spirit in the OT
Scriptures (xxii, 1). A similar reference is prob-
ably to be found in the words ' Jesus Christ was
sent forth from God ' (xlii. 1). He is never actually
called God,* but His Divinity is implied when He
is described as ' the sceptre of the majesty of God '
(xvi. 2), Avho showed us ' as in a mirror ' the very
' face ' of God (xxxvi. 2).
But most frequently the Epistle speaks of Christ
in His relation to mankind. He came to earth ' to
instruct, to sanctify, to honour us' (lix. 3), to be
our pattern of lowliness (xvi.). Yet He was no
mere example to men. He shed His blood for our
salvation (vii. 4, xii. 7, xxi. 6), and ' gave His
flesh for our flesh and His life for our lives ' (xlix. 6).
By His death He 'won for the whole world the
grace of repentance' (vii. 3). God raised Him
from the dead, and we shall one day share His
resurrection (xxiv. 1). Meanwhile He is 'the
Hi"h Priest of our ofterings, the Guardian and
Helper of our weakness ' (xxxvi. 1 ; cf. Ixi. 3, Ixiv.).
' Through Him we taste the immortal knowledge '
(xxxvi. 2), 'the full knowledge of the glory of
God's Name ' (lix. 2). Througli Him we have our
access to the Father (xx. 11, Ixi. 3, Ixiv.).
(3) The Holy Spirit.— In times past the Holy
Spirit inspired the message of the prophets (viii. 1,
xlv. 1). In the present He is a living power poured
out upon the Church (xlvi. 6). His indwelling
Mas tlie source of the manifold virtues whicli had
formerly distinguished the Clmroh of Corinth (ii.
3). The writer of the Epistle claims that his own
words were written ' through the Holj' Spirit ' (rot j
v<t> ijuQv yeypafifi^voi^ Sid. rov aylovtrvevfMaros, Ixill. 2).
(4) Justification by faith and toorks. — Salvation
• The one possible exception is the passage ii. 1 which ends
Koi tA wa&riiux.Ta ovTOv i)V irpb o^aAM*»' Vfiiiv. The question
turns on a doubtful reading. As the antecedent of outoC Cod. A
reads toO fleoO. If this be correct, the statement made above
is not quit* true. But the weight of MS authority (C and all
three versions) is In favour of the reading roii XpccrroO.
CLOIEST OF BOME^ EPISTLE OF CLEMESSTt OF BOME; EPISTLE OF 219
ly^tte
«f Cln*Cvn. ^
amL 7, c««.|u Ota aMnr^ pnt. tihe
( (niHii]}^ Jht *ivb ais
Mfc W INriB' CSSS. 31.
I* fzszLSI.
«^ kvriK 1MB caBol Hmtm^ ffis j;k. tte
Fatkn^ inD m CkaSA
m rmtj m
- tte fthi^llj Cwl
bKBfMBtfce ~
-11. Ye*
_ _ fB i B IHL
lib «■«■ as tte Cheaiar
Hb Ik 111 fa I at aitiivjilf. Ym Hut wm^ tts
•faeEi|iriiec»«BiintaBlfte ~
jM^wtLfc. T(dtkecaMailrfidbtt»ii»
~ ;rf JMth— it ■■■ ■■iliiiilaiiilyaLPkJL
1^ He juwiiimfMB ^li«*n<.— Hk tmtfc of
IS
€aiv|sfiL4^^;
fsfir.
«— » —i mfimMtwfm to —a tf tiai
].^a. luttMheMlMntkeaMeB
'Vt "^'"'" '~H"Li irii
far a MhMB af tibe vie«r ttjhat I
aaBalkcLJ.BL]laHn
«f ttaCW
iiwHliailiiil faa» tte data iiiiiri lly ttfce gT
taNnB& tts cmI «f ite 9taA cnIL fa ainhr aaa-
220 CLEMENT OF KOME, EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF BOME, EPISTLE OF
by U and A, while often supporting; A, it is leaa constantly
opposed to B tban is the NT ; and (c) it displays an occasional
tendency to agree with Theodotion and even with Aquila against
the LXX • (Swete, Introd. to the OT in Greelfi, 1902, p. 410).
To the student of the growth of the NT Canon,
Clement's Epistle has both a positive and a negative
value. Negatively, it shows that as yet the NT
writings were not definitely counted amongst the
Scriptures. Sayings of our Lord are indeed quoted
as of equal weight with the writings of the OT,
and in a form which resembles passages in the
Synoptic Gospels (xiii. 2, xlvi. 8), but their authority
is that of the speaker, not of the written word.
(On the form of Clement's quotations see Sanday,
Inspiration^, 1896, p. 299 fi. ; Stanton, op. cit. pt. i.
p. 5<r.)
Positively, the Epistle provides clear evidence
that by the end of the Ist cent, many of the apos-
tolic writings were known and studied in the Church
of Rome. For it contains an express reference to
St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (xlvii.
1 If.), indubitable traces of the influence of Romans
(xxxiii.-xxxvi. xlvii. 1.) and Hebrews (xxxvi. xliii.;
cf. xvii. 1 ), and possible reminiscences of the phrase-
ology of Acts (ii. 1), the Pastoral Epistles (ii. 7, Ixi.
2), 1 Peter and James (xxx. 2, xlix. 5).
An apocryphal Avork is quoted in xxiii. 3 with
the formula ^ ypa-<Pv aiht]. The same quotation
occurs in an amplified form in the so-called Second
Epistle of Clement (xi.). Possibly, as Lightfoot
suggests {Clem. Rom. vol. ii. p. 80), it may have
been taken from the lost pseudepigraphic book of
Eldad and Medad, which was certainly known to
the primitive Roman Church;(8ee Hermas, Vis. ii. 3).
Whatever the source may have been, it is the only
book quoted by Clement which is outside the Canon
of the Greek Bible.
Fourthly, the Epistle of Clement contains his-
torical alhisions which are of great interest. Not
only does it provide contemporary evidence for the
persecutions of Nero and Domitian, both of which
occurred during the writer's lifetime, but it also
adds fresh detail to our knowledge of the life-story
of St. Paul. For the statement that the Apostle
' taught righteousness to the whole world and
' reached the furthest bounds of the west ' (iwl rb
Tipfjio. TTjs Si/trews i\duv, v. 7), occurring in an Epistle
written from Rome, seems most naturally to mean
that before his death St. Paul fulfilled his intention,
expressed in Ro 15^, of making a missionary
journey to Spain. An allusion is made to the
same journey by an anonymous writer two genera-
tions later (Muratorian Fragm. ap. Westcott, Hist,
of NT Canon\ 1881, p. 521 tf.).
Finally, the long prayer with which the Epistle
concludes (lix.-lxiv.) is full of interest to the litur-
giologist. Lightfoot has pointed out the strong
Jewish colouring which it has in common with the
rest of the Epistle, and especially its marked
affinity with the 'eighteen benedictions' of the
synagogue service (Clem. Bom. vol. i. p. 393 fl".).
furthermore, as the same writer observes, 'it is
impossible not to be struck with the resemblances
in this passage to portions of the earliest known
liturgies. Not only is there a general coincidence
in the objects of tne several petitions, but it has
also individual phrases, and in one instance [lix. 4]
a whole cluster of petitions, in common with one
or other of these ' (oo. cit. p. 384f.). Yet it would
be straining the evidence too far to conclude that
Clement is quoting an actual form of prayer already
in use in the Roman Church. The utmost that
can be said is that the pas.sage in question is ' an
excellent example of the style of solemn prayer in
which the ecclesiastical leaders of that time were
accustomed to express themselves at meetings for
worship ' (Duchesne, Chriitian Worship, Eng. tr.
from 3rd Fr. ed., 1903, p. 50).
6. MS8 and versions. — Two early Greek MSS and
three ancient versions of the Epistle are known.
(1) MSS.— (a) Cod. yl.— The oldest Greek MS
which contains the Epistle is the famous 5th cent,
uncial, generally known as Codex Alexandrinus.
Cod. A originally included the whole of the Old
and New Testaments. The Epistle of Clement
stands at the end of the NT, immediately after
the close of the Ai)ocalypse and before the spurious
'Second Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians.'
One whole leaf of Clement's Epistle is missing
(i.e. from Ivii. 7 to the end of Ixiii.), and the
edges of the remaining leaves are considerably
mutilated. Many editions of the Epistles of
Clement based on the text of Cod. A have
appeared since the ' editio princeps ' of Patrick
Young, published in 1633. It is still the chief
authority for the text.
{b) Cod. C. — Thesecond Greek MS, which, amongst
other patristic writings, contains the Epistles of
Clement, was made known to the world in 1875,
when Bryennios, then Metropolitan of Serrse,
published the first complete text of 1 and 2 Clement.
This MS, which bears the date A.D. 1056, was found
at Constantinople, in the library of the Patriarch
of Jerusalem. Its chief value is that it enables ua
to fill in the gaps in Cod. A, but on the whole its
text is distinctly inferior to that of the earlier MS.
(2)Versions. — (a)Syriac. — Almostsimultaneously
with the discovery of Bryennios, the first ancient
version of Clement's Epistle came to light. A
MS of the Harklean (Syriac) Version of the NT,
then acquired by Cambridge University, was found
to include Clement's Epistles, placed after the
Catholic and before the Pauline Epistles. The
date of the MS is a.d. 1170. As an authority for
the text of Clement it is superior to Cod. C, but
inferior to Cod. A. An edition of this Syriac text
of 1 and 2 Clem, was published in 1899.
{b) Latin. — Much more remarkable, in view of
the lack of any real acquaintance with Clement's
Epistle on the part of the early Latin Church, was
the discovery by G. Morin in 1894 of an ancient
Latin version. The MS which contains it was
written in the 11th cent., but the available evidence
clearly shows that the translation is at least as old
as the 4th cent., and perhaps as old as the 2nd.
The Greek text which it represents is independent
of that of all the other authorities, and probably
ranks second only to that of Cod. A. Tne Latin
text was published by Morin in 1894. (For an
estimate of its value see R. Knopf, TU xx. 1
[1901] ; also CQR xxxix. [1894] 190-195, and JThSt
ii. [1900] 154).
(c) Coptic. — More recently still a Coptic version
of Clement has been discovered in a papyrus book
ascribed to the end of the 4th century. The text
was published by Carl Schmidt in 1908 [TU xxxii.
1). The most interesting feature of this version is
its omission of the name of Clement from the title,
which runs ' Epistle of the Romans to the Cor-
inthians.' Owing to the loss of five leaves from
the middle of the book, the text is defective from
xxxiv. 6 to xlii. 2. The underlying Greek text,
though good, is inferior to that of Cod. A or of
the Latin version (C. H. Turner, Studies in Early
Church Hist. p. 257).
LiTBRATURB. — Editions of the Epistle of Clement : O. v. Geb-
hardt and A. Hamack (1876) ; F. X. Funk (1878-81) ; J. B.
Lightfoot (Apostol. Fathers, pt. i., 18SK)) ; R. Knopf (1901).
Artt. on Clement of Rome : ' Clemens Roniaiius ' by G. Salmon,
in DCS i. [1877]; 'Clement I.,' bv John Chapman, in CR
iv. [1908]; 'Clemens von Kom,' by G. Uhlhom, in PRR^ iv.
[1898] and 'Clement of Rome' in SchafT-Herzog, iii. [J909J.
General works : A. Hau^ack, liesehichte der altehrUtl. LUt. i.
[1893], ChronoU)gie,\i. [1891); C. H. Turner, SfudiV* in Earl^i
Church History, 1912 ; V. H. Stanton, The GosptU a.« Uis-
torioal Documents, pt i. [1903]. Versions : Svriac, ed. Bensley
(1899) ; Latin, ed. Morin (1894) ; Coptic, ed. Schmidt (190s).
F. S. Mak.sh.
CLOKE
CLOTHES
221
CLOKE * {<pai\6nts, etc). — The most important
passage in which this word figures is 2 Ti 4",
where the cloke, left behind at Troas with Carpus,
is mentioneti together with the books, especially
the parchments. This grouping has led to the
cloke being identified with a bag or case for books
(since the time of Chrysostom). In HDB it is
stated that the cloke 'may have been a light
mantle like a cashmere dust-cloak, in which the
books and parchments were wrapped.' In DCG it
is taken as ' a heavy woollen garment, generally
red or dark yellow in colour, worn as a protection
against cold and rain, at first especiaUy bv
travellers and by artisans and slaves. . . .' It
appears to have been of one piece, circular or ellip-
soid in shape, with a hole in the middle for the in-
sertion of the head, and with no sleeves. Accord-
ing to Seyftert'sZ>»cili<^nary of Classical Antiquities,
s.p. ' Pseuula,' it was buttoned or stitched up in
front, in the direction of its length — a description
which would lead to some modification of the idea
of there being a simple opening for the head. An
interesting addition to the last-named account is
the mention of the cucullus or hood, to sen'e as a
head-covering. Most accotmts agree in describing
it as a travelling-cloke, for rich and poor, and for
both sexes. It belongs to the category of vesti-
menta clansa. It was worn in Rome (see Suet.
Nero, 48), and was also in common use throughout
the East, being well known to Greeks, Jews, and
Syrians. The Jewish and Syriac forms of the
word have caused it to be confused Avith the
pallium (iftATiov) or mantle.
The Latin pcenula (= <^iyb\rji, <f>€v6\rii) is in-
teresting in view of the transposition of v and X, as
found in </)atX6ci;s, ^\6»^s of the NT, which are said
to be erroneous forms. There seems to be great
diversity of opinion among lexicographers on the
point. For the relation of the cloke to the chasuble
and other matters connected mth ecclesiastical vest-
ments, see Z>C6^, a. i'. 'Cloke.' In this connexion R.
Sinker, Essays and Studies, Cambridge, 1900, pp. 87-
97, and W. Lowrie, Christian Art and ArcJueology,
New York, 1901, p. 396 ff., should also be consulted.
The phrase ' before winter' (2 Ti 4*') is a for-
tuitous sequence, and is not to be brought into
relation to v.^^. As to this and further specula-
tions regarding the history of St. Paul's cloke, see
F. W. Farrar, Life and Wark of St. Faul, hondou,
1897, p. 682, where a noteworthy parallel is cited.
Cf. also A. Plummer, The Pastoral Epistles {Ex-
positor's Bible), 1888, p. 411 ff.
The word ' cloke ' appears in an extended mean-
ing : (1) ^i' rfxxpdffei -rXeore^lai, ' a cloke of covetotis-
ness' (1 Th 2*); and (2) iriKoKvfxna rip KaKiai, '&
cloke of wickedness (or malice)' (1 P 2'*). These
passages call for no remark.
W. CRmCKSHAXK.
CLOTHES, t — Many words of general meaning
relating to clothing are used in the Acts, Epistles,
and especially in the Apocalypse. In a number
of instances these are metaphorical, particularly
in the case of verbs, e.g. ' putting on,' ' putting
off,' ' encircled,' etc. (2 Co 5»- *, Eph 4^^ 6", Col
3*- ^'*). The clothing of the angels and visionary
figures is indeterminate, except as to aspect and
colour, e.g. white, sliining, pure, purple, scarlet,
sprinkled (or dipped). Even with regard to luxury
in dress, kingly or otherwise, there is little or no
mention of particular garments (cf. Ac 12^^, 1 Ti
2*, 1 P 3^). In a passage quoted from the OT (He
1"- ^-) another indefinite term {rtpi^oXcuov ; cf. 1
Co 11") is employed. Little is said to indicate
the condition of poverty (except Ja 2^) ; ' naked,'
* This spelliiuF, instead of the modem 'cloak,' ia retained bv
theRV.
t This art. includes such tenna as 'dress,' 'garment,' * robe,'
' vesture' (the last not in RV).
' nakedness,' occur mostly in connexion with per-
secutions, which were also marked by the wearing
of sheepskins and goatsldns (He 11*0— this, how-
ever, m pre-Christian times. The restricted
meaning ot ' naked ' is probably found in Ac 19**
(cf. 7**). The minimum in respect of clothes is
hinted at in the ffKfritrnara of 1 Ti 6* (where some
have found ' shelter ' implied as well), and enjoined
in the (^i*) /carturroXs KOfffdifi of 1 Ti 2*, where a con-
trast is made between modest apparel and the
other extreme, which is also vividly pictured in
one of the parties entering the synagogue, and
having favour shown by the rulers (Ja 2*- *). The
moth-eaten garments (5*) of the rich also tell an
evident story.
1. Under-garments. — The x*'''^> or under-gar-
ment, is expressly mentioned in few places. We
find that Dorcas made coats (xtrwai) and gar-
ments (ihAtia), the two chief categories of dress (Ac
9**). In Jude ^ the garment (xirww) spotted by the
flesh may be tmderstood literally, the x""^^ being
brought into immediate contact with the body.
But it would not warrant the conclusion that
there was no other nnder-garment known or worn
at this time. The x""*^' ™*y also be inferred from
Ac 12*, where the girdle is evidently implied (see
Girdle). Sackcloth is mentioned only in the
imagery of Rev. (6*- 11'). See Coat.
2. Outer co¥epuig (of coverings) .—(/uiruM' (t/idria,
pi.), while no doubt genericalJy employed, is also
the specific word for the outer garment, equivalent
to Heb. ^^^7 and Latin pallium (see Mt 5*,
•cloke'). (TToXiJ, 'robe,' appears only in Rev.
(sing, and pi.), and the compound KaraffroX^ iji 1
Ti 2*. ro&^prj (accus. of -rod^prfi), in Rev 1", a
garment reaching to the feet, appears to combine
the notions of dignity and priestly sanctity. The
outer garment (mostly in pC) figures in the Acts in
connexion with certain activities, viz. the stoning
of Stephen (7*) ; preparation for going forth (12*) ;
rending, as a token of grief (14") ; rending, as an
act of violence (16-) ; shaking out, to indicate
being done with (18*); throwing off, as a sign of
rage (22**). For outer coverings see further Cloke,
Maxtle.
3. Head-dress. — No distinctive head-covering for
men is mentioned, but in view of the treatment of
the head by shearing and shaving some protec-
tion must have been worn (Ac 18'^ 21-^), and may
be deduced from 1 Co 11^ The difficult paragraph
(w.*"**) need be regarded here only in so far as it
evidences a practice of veiling of women (not in-
deed of the face), indoors and out-of-doors, as a
sign of authority (RV), which authority is either
another's, and this is the usual interpretation, or
hCT own (see W. M. Ramsay, Luke the Physician,
London, 1908, p. 175). St. Paul makes use of the
faoe-veil (cf. Ex 34***) for spiritual purposes in 2
Co 3^"". The crown (ffr^^^os), frequently men-
tioned in St. Paul's Epistles and in Kev., is either
part of gala-attire (cf. <rrift.fia.Ta, Ac 14''), or dis-
tinctive of saints and aUegori(^ figures seen in
vision. Such word-pictures may, however, have
had a basis of fact in the fi^llets, chaplets, and
other head-gear of the Greeks and Romans. For
the influence of Asia Minor on the dress of Rev.
(e.g. 7**-) see A. Deissmann, Bibelstudien, Marburg,
1895, p. 285 ff. (Eng. tr., Bible Studies, Edinburgh,
1901, pp. 368-370).
4. Footwear.— See art. Shoe, Sandal.
5. Handkerchief, Apron. — See separate articles
under these titles.
6. Articles of military vear are treated under
Armouk.
7. Clothes relating to marriage and buriaL —
Rev 21' contains the only mention of the ' bride
adorned,' and detaUs are equally lacking as to
burial customs. Ac 5*, referring to Ananias {(rw4-
222
CLOUD
CNIDUS
areikav airr6v, ' they wrapped him round '), does not
convey much.
8. Ornaments. — The single reference to 'bag-
gage' (Ac 2P'*) is significant of the absence of
superfluous articles of wear in the equipment of
St. Paul and his companions in travel. But many
of those who remained at home were not so in-
diHerent to luxury. To the indications already
given may be added the mention of a mirror (1 Co
13'-, 2 Co 3'*, Ja 1-^), in actual practice doubtless
as much for ornament as for use. Plaiting the
hair (1 Ti 2^ 1 P 3') is open to censure, and
anointing likewise seems to have been carried to
excess in these times (ointment. Rev 18'^). The
XpvffoSaKTiiXios of Ja 2^^ paves the way for the wider
domain of female ornamentation, as given in the
^old, pearls, costly raiment of 1 Ti 2^ and the
jewels of gold and putting on of apparel of 1 P 3^
This culminates in the royal apparel of Ac 12^'
(cf. Jos. Ant. XIX. viii. 2), and the great pomp of
Agrippa and Bernice (Ac 25^). The city-life of
the age certainly aliorded scope for the practice of
the luxurious and extravagant in dress, as can be
gathered from the indictment of Rev 18 (cf. 17^* *),
in which is to be found a storehouse of materials
falling under this head. The purple (cf. Ac 16^*)
and scarlet, the line linen and silk (or rather, mix-
ture containing silk), are the last word in luxury
of materials, and to them must be added em-
broidery (Rev 19'" [?]) and inworking of gold and
silver, precious stones and pearls. The \lvov or
\ldov of Rev 15", and the line linen, bright and
pure (19^), white and pure (19'^), etc., have tran-
scendent value.
9. Washing of clothes.— (oi)/c) ^/idXvvav (Rev 3*),
ftrXwoj' (T^* ; cf. 22"), i\eiKavav (7''*), although used
allegorically, are indicative of processes connected
with the fulling and washing of clothes. The
kindred process of dyeing xmderlies the imagery
of 19'^ (if ^€^a/j,fj.^voi> be read). See also ' purple
and scarlet ' above, § 8.
Literature.— Art. 'Dress 'in II DB (G. M. Mackie), SDB
(A. R. S. Kennedy), EBi (I. Abrahams and S. A. Cook),
DCGCE. W. G. Masterman);art. 'Costunie,'J£(W. Nowack);
8ee further I. Benzinger, Ueb. Archnologie 2, Tubingen, 1907,
pp. 73-87, and especially S. Krauss, Talmud. Archdologie, vol.
1. [Leipzig, 1910] pp. 127-207 (preceded by a very important
list of dictionary articles and books); G. M. Mackie, Bible
ilannem and Customs, 1898. \V. CeUICKSHANK.
CLO U D ( ve<t>i\ri, vi^os). — Ruskin says that we never
make the clouds a subject of thought, otherwise
we should witness ' scene after scene, picture after
picture, glory after glory ' {Frondes Agrestes, 1875,
p. 36 f.). The Apostolic Church was not blind to
the beauty of the ' brave, o'erhanging firmament,'
which was far from seeming to her a mere * con-
gregation of vapours.' But in her the aesthetic
sense was subordinated to the religious. Her
thoughts were to a large extent shaped by those of
the ^reat Hebrew writers, who conceived of God as
making the cloud His chariot (Ps 104*), spreading
it for a covering (105^ 19^), descending in it (Ex 34'),
speaking out of it (Nu ll^^, Dt 5--), leading His
people in it (Ex 13'^>, Ps 78"). She brooded over
Daniel's vision of the Son of Man coming with the
clouds of heaven. She heard that when the three
disciples were on the Holy Mount a bright cloud
overshadowed them, that they feared as they
entered into the cloud, and that a voice spake out
of the cloud (Mt 17*, Mk 9^ Lk 9«- »). Thus for
the early Church the cloud sometimes served a
higher purpose than that of watering the thirsty
earth — it was regarded as the vesture of Deity, of
angels, or of saints.
1. When Christ had spoken His last words to
His disciples, * he was taken up, and a cloud re-
ceived him out of their sight ' (Ac 1"). His body
■lid not suddenly vanish, as in other post-Resurrec-
tion manifestations ; nor was His Ascension ac-
complished in a blaze of glory. He was in human
form when He parted from His Church and entered
within the veil. The Church still thinks of Him,
and prays to Him, as He was when the cloud en-
veloped Him.
2. St. Paul regards the cloud which indicated
God's presence among the Israelites as having a
sacramental virtue to them (1 Co lO^**). When
they were under it, and when they passed through
the sea, they were initiated into the service of
Moses, as the Christian is initiated by baptism
into the service of Christ. ' They were neither
wet with the cloud nor with the sea, much less
were they immersed in either . . . nor b the term
baptism found in the writings of Moses. But Paul
uses this term with great propriety, because (1) the
cloud and the sea are in their own nature water,
(2) the cloud and the sea took the fathers out of
sight and restored them again to view, as the water
does to those who are baptized. . . .The sacra-
ments of the OT were more than two, if we take
into account these extraordinary ones' (Bengel's
Gnomon, in loco).
3. At one time St. Paul expected that he and
other believers, still alive at the Parousia, would
be caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air
(1 Th 4-'). The absence of the art. indicates that
these are no common clouds, but ' eigne Vehikel '
(Schmiedel, Hand-Kom. in loc). Whether St. Paul
thinks of Christ descending to meet the saints on
their way to heaven, or simply of their ascending
to join Him in the air — i.e. in heaven — is not made
quite clear ; but probably the former idea is what
is meant. The essential fact is contained in the
words which follow : ' So shall we ever be with the
Lord.' At a later time St. Paul welcomed the
thought of joining Christ in another waj- — ' janua
mortis, janua vita3 ' (1 Co 15", 2 Co b\ Ph l^i-^).
4. In the Apocalypse a gigantic angel comes
down out of heaven, arrayed with a cloud (Rev 10').
Christ Himself comes with clouds (1^), as in the
Danielle vision. He is enthroned upon a white
cloud (14"- 1»- 18).
In He 12^ the innumerable witnesses for Christ
in past ages are compared to a cloud (vi<p^%) en-
circling believers who are now running their race.
The example (perhaps not without the superadded
thought of the real presence) of the multitude who
have finished the course and won the prize is an
inspiration to the present-day runner.
In Jude 1^ hypocrites, uttering swelling words of
vanity, are likened to mists and clouds which
promise abundant showers for the thirsty earth
but never give them. James Strahan.
CNIDUS (Kj'tSoj). — Cnidus was a city of Caria,
at the S.W. angle of Asia Minor, between the
islands of Cos and Rhodes. It lay at the end of
a long peninsula — Triopium — which juts into the
^gean Sea and forms the southern shore of the
Sinus Ceramicus. Strabo (XIV. ii. 15) accurately
describes it : ' Cnidus has two harbours, one of
which is a close harbour, tit for receiving triremes,
and a naval station for twenty ships. In front of the
city is an island, seven stadia in circuit ; it rises
high, in the form of a theatre, and is joined by a
mole to the mainland, making Cnidus in a manner
two cities, for a great part of the inhabitants live
on the island, which shelters both the harbours.'
In the lapse of time the mole has become a sandy
isthmus. The situation of the city in the highway
of the seas gave it much commercial importance.
It was a free city of the Roman Empire. Jews were
settled there in the Maccabajan period (1 Mac 15**).
St. Paul's ship of Alexandria sailed from Myra
' slowly ' and ' with difficulty,' probably on account
of adverse winds rather than of calms, taking
COALS
COLLECTION
223
'many days' to come.' over against Cnidus.' The
distance between the two ports was 130 miles,
which with a fair wind could have been run in one
day. After passing the point which divides the
southern from the western coast, the ship was in a
worse position than before, having no longer the
advantage of a weather shore, and being exposed
to the full force of the X. W. winds — called Etesian
— which prevail in the /Egean towards the end of
summer. Instead of taking a straight course to
the north of Crete — the wind not permitting this
(jxT) irpoaewyros iifiai tov iy^/xov) — she had to nm
under the lee of the island. Some interpret St.
Luke's words as meaning that the crew made a
vain attempt to reach Cnidus, ' the wind not
allowing ' them ; but there was apparently no
reason why they sliould not have entered the
southern harbour, which was well sheltered from
N.W. winds.
LiTKRATCRB.— C. T. Newton and R. P. Pullan, But. o/Dis-
eooeriet at Haiieamasstts, Cnidus and Branchidce, 1863; T.
Lewin, St. Paul, 1875. ii. 190 ; Conybeare-Howson, St. Paul,
1856, iL 390ff. ; W. Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Horn. Geog. i.
[iS56]63Sff. "James Strahax.
COALS {ivOpaKcs, prumce). — The coal of the Bible
is charcoal. The knowledge of the process of pre-
paring charcoal from timter dates from a remote
period. True coal is not found in Syria except in
one part of Lebanon, where it was mined for a
short time about 1SS4 (C. R. Conder, Tent Work
in Pal., London, 1878, ii. 326). Pieces of charcoal
in process of combustion were called ' coals of fire '
(dvdpaKes Trvp6i=ai< "hui), and glowing coals heaped
upon the head became a figure for the burning
sense of shame which an enemy feels when he
receives a return of good for the evU he has
done (Ro 12* i! Pr 25-^- -). Another view (held
by Chrysostom, Theodoret, Grotius, etc. ), that the
'coals of fire' are Divine judgments which will
fall on the sinner's head if he hardens his heart
against persevering love, is impossible. Benevo-
lence tainted by such a thought is scarcely better
than malevolence. Jerome says rightly : ' " Car-
bones ignis congregabis super caput eius," non in
maledictum et condemnationem, ut plerique ex-
istimant, sed in correctionem et poenitudinem '
{contra Pelagianos, i. 30; cf. Meyer, Romans, u.
[1874] 272). James Stbahan.
COAT (x'Tiiv, Lat. tunica, both words probably
related to the Eastern n^ ; Assyr. Kitinne, ' linen '),
or 'tunic' (Jn 19^ RVm).— The word was used to
designate the under-garment of all classes and both
sexes, over which the cloak (n^pir, ludrtov, pallium)
was worn. On entering the upper-room in Joppa
where the bod j- of Dorcas lay, Peter was sutTounded
by widows sho\\-ing the xtT'WJ'or Arai ludna which her
hands had made (Ac 9^). Tunics naturally varied
in material and shape according to the position,
means, and taste of the wearer. Wool and flax
were the native products of Sjrria; fine linen
(bi/ssu-s) was largely imported from Egypt; the
silk of the East was unkuoA\-n till the beginning of
our era, and its use was deemed an evidence of
extreme luxurj- (Rev 18"; 'silk' in Ezk IG^o is
probably a mistake). The JeA\-ish prisoners in
Sennacherib's marble reliefs, who are evidently
carved from life, have tunics fitting fairly close to
the body and reaching nearly to the ankles. This
was the garment worn by free townsmen ; that of
f>easants and slaves was no doubt shorter and
ooser. The coat of white linen with long skirts
and sleeves (Gn 37^) was a mark of honour, wealth,
and leisure. In later times even the poorer classes
adopted a somewhat more elaborate toilet. Jose-
phus mentions a slave in the time of Herod the
Great who was found to have an incriminating
I letter of his masters concealed in his inner tunic,
or true shirt (Ant. xvii. v. 7). The x'^'w" was
! made of two pieces of cloth sewn together at the
sides, or of one piece which required a single seam ;
or it was entirely seamless {i^f>a<(>os, unsewed), being
'woven froni the top throughout' (Jn 19^), a pro-
cess for which a special loom was needed.
The x'Twi' of the Greeks was of two sorts. The
Ionian was a linen tunic with sleeves, reaching to
the feet (reptubiiz [Od. xix. 242]) ; the Dorian was
a square woollen tunic with short sleeves or mere
armholes. Among the Romans a tunic with long
sleeves was thought very effeminate ; * et tunicae
manicas habent ' are words uttered in scorn ( Virg.
.^n. ix, 616). The proverb ' Tunica proprior
pallio est ' was like the English ' Near is my shirt,
but nearer is my skin.' Cf. also art. Clothes.
James Strahan.
COHORT.— See Army.
COLLECTION.— -At a very early stage in the
history of the Christian Church the consciousness
of its members expressed itself in volrmtary efforts
to ameliorate the condition of the poor and desti-
tute (Ac 4^ 6^). That this somewhat naive attempt
proved a failure was, perhaps, inevitable. Its ap-
parently early abandonment leads to the conclusion
that its promoters soon realized that a permanent
settlement of social evils could never be arrived at
by practical communism. Indeed, it is conceivable
that, instead of curing the ills of poverty, wide-
spread and deep-seated as it was in Jerusalem, it
aggravated and perpetuated them. As we shall
see, other and more powerful causes were at work ;
but, even if we minimize the historical value of the
early chapters of Acts, enough remains to prove
that this earliest and most self-sacrificing attempt
of Christian men to realize their obligation to their
poor brethren contributed to, rather than allayed,
the evil it sought to destroy. See art. Commhstitv
OF Goods.
The next instance of a systematic collection of
money for the purpose of relieving distress in
Judaea and Jerusalem is found in the liistory of
the Church of Antioch (Ac ll^^ff-). A threatened
famine roused the sympathy of the Antiochene
Christians, whose activity in the matter reveals
their knowledge that the conditions of life amongst
many of tlieir Jewish brethren were those of chronic
poverty and distress. The agents (diA x"P<5s) em-
ployed on this occasion for bringing relief (eis Bia-
KOflav) were Barnabas and Saul. It was probably
the example thus set that gave St. Paul the idea of
his great and prolonged ettbrt. Other causes were
doubtless at work in the mind of the Apostle. As
time went on, and misunderstandings grew up be-
tween Jewish and Gentile Christians, some attempt
to bring them together was necessary if permanent
disruption was to be avoided. In his letter to the
Galatian Church he mentions an injunction laid on
him and Barnabas by the ' pillar ' apostles, ' that
we should remember the poor ' (Gal 2'"). It is also
of interest to note that public subventions from the
Imperial exchequer to cities or provinces in distress
formed part of a settled policy of the Emperors,
while private benefactions by wealthy citizens in
cases of real or fancied need were almost universal
(see S. Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus
Aurelius, 1904, bk. ii. ch. ii.). The Jews of the
Dispersion, moreover, recognized their obligation
to their poor brethren of Jerusalem by organized
help from time to time (cf. Robertson-Plummer,
1 Corinthians [ICC, 1911] 382); and doubtless as
Christian teaching spread and was accepted by the
people, and converts became gradually separated
from the rest of the community, they would lose
their share of these gifts. Another cause for a
poverty so acute and wide-spread may well have
224
COLLECTION
COLLECTION
been the general belief in the nearness of the Pa-
rousia which threatened the ordinary daily business
of Christian men (2 Tli 3'» ; cf. 1 Th 4").
In his references to tlie carefully planned collec-
tion from the ditterent churches St. Paul uses seven
different words. All these occur in his letters to
the Corinthians and Romans, and are as follows :
\oyla. (1 Co 16'), xap« {16», 2 Co 8*), Koivuvla (Ko
IS-"*, 2 Co 8*, etc.), a5poTi)s (8=*), ev\oyla. (9»), Xeiroup-
yla (9"), SlolkovIo. (S'' 9'- "'• ; cf. Ac ll-'»). In the re-
port of his defence before Felix two other words
occur in the same connexion (eXtrmodiivaL and trpoa-
(popal [Ac 24"]). The word \oyia occurs nowhere
else in the NT, and is of obscure origin. By some
it is supposed to be used here for the first time in
Greek literature, .and probably to have been coined
by St. Paul for his purpose (T. C. Edwards, Com.
onl Cm:"^, 1885, p. 462). A variation (\07eia), how-
ever, is found in the papyrus documents from the
3rd cent, onwards and in the compound words df 5po-
\orfla, TrapaXoyela (A. Dei.ssmann, liible Stiidies, Eng.
tr., 1901, pp. 142f.,219f.). It is also found associated
with tlie Pauline word XeirovpyLa (F. G. Kenyon,
Greek Papyri in the British Museum, 1893, i. 46),
and is frequently employed ' in papyri, ostraca,
and inscriptions from Egypt and elsewhere,' when
the writer is speaking of ' religious collections for a
god, a temple, etc' (see Deissmann, Light from the
Ancient East, Eng. tr.S 1911, p. 104 ff. ). The Codex
Vaticanus (B) has the form Xo7e^a, but as this MS
shows a tendency to orthographical changes in this
direction its evidence must be discounted (see West-
cott, Introd. to NT in Greek, 1882, p. 306). It also
appears in a compound form in Jewish literature
(/car avSpoKoryetov, 2 Mac 12^^) where the question of
the collection of money-supplies is alluded to.
That St. Paul attached very great importance to
the success of his collection for the poor Christians
of Judaea is evident from the care with which he
organized the scheme, and the perseverance he dis-
played in carrying it out. From the tone of his
reference to this work which he began in Galatia
(1 Co 16') we .are able to infer not only that he
exercised his apostolic authority but that he gave
detailed directions to the churches there in accord-
ance with arrangements (Si^ra^a) personally thought
out by himself. The instructions sent by letter to
the Corinthians are no doubt a brief epitome of
those delivered to the Galatian Christians (oiJtws Kal
vfxels iroiT)(Ta.re), and include details as to the care-
ful and systematic ear-m.arking by each Christian
believer of his personal subscription ' on every first
day of the weelc' (/card iJ.iav o-a^/Sdrou). They were
to appoint and approve by letters of credit (cf., how-
ever, Robertson-Plummer's interpretation of the
pa.ssage, making the Apostle the writer of the com-
mendatory letters [5t' eiriaroKuv tovtovs iri/x^j/u, ktX.
16']) delegates who should carry their gift to Jeru-
salem (rrjv x'^P^" i'M^v). The laborious nature of
the undertaking may be realized from St. Paul's
own references to the centres of activity. Galatia,
Asia, Achaia, and Macedonia constituted the fields
of his labours, and it is not improbable that his
definite allusion to the collection in his Epistle to
the Romans was intended as a hint to them to join
with the other churches in ' ministering to the
saints' {SiaKovwv roils aytois, Ro 15^; see Bengel,
Gnomon of NIP, 1873, on Ro \5,^ ; cf. 12'3).
It is not too much to say that the Apostle did
not regard his work in these four great provinces
as completed until the fruit of his prolonged labours
had been reaped (cf. <r(ppayiffdnevo?, Ro 15^). So
long as this zealously undertaken {iffirovdcuxa, Gal 2'")
task remained unfinished he felt himself hindered
from extending his missionary operations {rovro
oZ'v iiriTeKiaas). For a long time lie was eagerly
determined to visit Rome (see Ro l'^ 15^-), tut at
tiie time of writing to that church he explains that
he is prevented from doing so by an obligation to
visit Jerusalem. On this journey he was accom-
fanied by envoys or messengers (dirbcToKoL, 2 Co 8^)
rom the churches contributing (Ac 20*), and so
keen was his desire to bring the undertaking to a
successful issue that no consideration of the dangers
involved could turn him from his purpose (see Ac
203. iKf.) The result of this visit shows that the
risks foreseen and spoken of beforehand (see Ac
2inMr. 24"*, etc.) were neither imaginary nor ex-
aggerated.
In order to appreciate rightly the necessity for
this work of good-will (evUKt^aav, Ro 15*"-), it will
be useful to recall the wretched condition of the
poor in Jerusalem at this time (all the Jewish
Christians were not amongst the poor [see tU toOs
TTTwxovs tQv ayluv, Ro 15'-*]). The plundering and
bloodshed accompanying the successive administra-
tions of the procurators Ventidius Cumanus and
Felix brought about a state of anarchy, chronic re-
bellion, and famine (Jos. Ant. XX. viii. 5, etc.,i?J^II.
xii. 1, II. xiii. 2, etc., Tacitus.^nn. xii. 54 ; cf. Ja2*-' ;
W. Fairweather, 'The Background of the Gospels,
1908, p. 199 f. ; Schurer, HJP I. ii. [1890] p. 172 f.).
The Zealots, wliose fanatical policy kept the country
seething with the wildest revolution, were rei)laced
by the Sicarii or Assassins (cf. Ac 21**). Murder-
ous bands infested the provinces, and the streets of
Jerusalem witnessed innumerable deeds of cruelty
and bloodshed. Those suspected of the least friend-
liness witli the Romans were unhesitatingly robbed
and assassinated ; and although Felix endeavoured
to stem the wild religious and political torrent by
wholesale crucifixion, the disorders increased. The
procurators Festus, Albinus, and Florus, who suc-
ceeded Felix, were not less unfortunate in tlieir ex-
perience (Jos. Ant. XX. viii. ix. xi.), and the inter-
necine struggles of the Jewish factions ended in the
advent of Titus and the final destruction of Jeru-
salem. Famine, bitter and chronic, was the in-
evitable outcome of these conditions, and none
suffered so severely as the humble disciples of the
despised Nazarene.
The relief-fund, the earliest attempt to organize
and perpetuate Christian fellowship, was not only
a failure in itself, but must soon have disappeared
in these social upheavals. An appeal to outside
sources became necessary, and one result of the
compromise effected at his meeting with the
' pillar' apostles in Jerusalem was the initiation by
St. Paul of his scheme of systematic collection (see
Gal 2'"). There can scarcely be a doubt that the
halting decision of the apostles of the circumcision,
while it left the cardinal point of difference much
where it had been, quickened St. Paul's anxiety
to adopt a plan which should emphasize the spirit
of toleration and good-will then established (Gal
2**). Having returned to Antioch, he was com-
pelled to renew in a more pronounced form the
controversy which had been partially settled at
the .Jerusalem Conference. After some little time
ilxeTd di Tivas vfi^pai, Ac 15*) he proceeded in com-
l)any with Silas to revisit by the shortest route —
' the Cilician Gate' — the older churches of Galatia.
The purpose of this visit was not only to strengthen
and establish (iiriaT-ripi^uv, Ac 15*') spiritually these
communities, but also to set on foot the collection
for the poor among the Christians of Jerusalem
(cf. Gal 6'"). In spite of the discouraging defec-
tion of the Galatian Christians, the Apostle feels
himself justified in keeping this purpose before
them, recalling its origin, and reminding them of
its spiritual value (cf. Gal 6«"'-). It was probably
early in A.D. 57 that he visited the Galatian
churches for this purpose, and from this time until
he presents the fruit of his toil during the feast
of Pentecost in A.D. 58 he never loses sight of the
importance and justice of the collection, not alone
COLLECTIOX
COLONY
as it affected those who were to receive it, but
also as it attected the givers (see Ro 15^ 2 Co 9*
S**- "). It is instructive, too, to note how he
stimulates each community by mentioning the
others in terms of generous praise (cf. 2 Co 8^"* 9'"*,
Ro IS**-). It is a good example of the Apostle's
method, and recalls the accusation of wiliness
(TttfoO/yyoi 56\ifi, 2 Co 12'*) brought against him by
the Corinthian Christians.
The character of the dispute which raged so
long and so fiercely between St. Paul and the
church in Corinth was to a large extent developed
and moulded by the niggardliness {^iw 5i d^iop ^
Tov Kd/ii rofxvtffdcu [1 Co 16*; cf. 9'"-, 2 Co 1I«-
12"]) and suspicious meanness of its members.
Their response to the appeal of Titus, who was
the original deputed organizer of the Corinthian
collection, was prompt and \*'illing (rd diXew) ; and
yet, in spite of the fact that they had so early (rpo-
fvrip^aucrdf dxi Tipvai, 2 Co 8'*) given their assent to
his wishes, they seem to have repented soon of
their promised support and to have accused St.
Paul of having hurried them deceitfully into an
unwelcome undertaking (e7w ov nare^prjca, 2 Co
12"). The disingenuous nature of their charges
appears again and again in his vigorous self-de-
fence (see his words, ^St/oJcra/xcF, i<f>6flpafiep, cxXeo-
vfKTriffaufv, 2 Co r*). Of one fact he constantly
reminds them — he never accepted the smallest help
towards his own support during his two visits to
Corinth (cf. Ac 18», 1 Co 9^^ «• ^, 2 Co 1V«-) ; and
if, as seems very probable, his Second Epistle to
the Corinthians is represented by the last four
chapters of our Canonical Second Epistle (see J.
H. Kennedy, The Second and Third Epistles to
the Corinthians, 1900), we find that the Apostle's
indignation was so keen that he expressly deter-
mined, before he wrote the more conciliatory
Third Epistle (2 Co 1-9), never to accept monetary
aid at their hands (2 Co IP- '- 12i-»). It is satis-
factory to note that this intense and proud in-
dependence was met by a complete reconciliation ;
and the success of his mission was such that he
was moved to exclamations of thankfulness and
praise (2 Co 9^*). Perhaps an even more signifi-
cant proof of his feeling in this respect is to be
discovereti in the tone of friendliness with which
he mentions his Corinthian friends in the docu-
ment written immediately afterwards (Ro 16'*- ^).
At the time of writing the Epistle to the Romans
he was the guest of Gaius in Corinth, and the un-
pleasant character of his relations with the Cor-
inthian Church had undergone a complete change.
What measure of success attended the Apostle's
prolonged and anxious efforts it is difficult to esti-
mate. If we are to judge by his silence and the
solemn warning in his Epistle to the Galatians
(6^), the scheme would appear to have been only
a partial success or even to have fallen through.
Again, if we are allowed to draw an inference
from the list of delegates who accompanied him
(Ac 20^), it would seem that the amount of the
Corinthian collection was so small that there was
little or no need for a representative. As early as
the latter part of A.D. 57 the Macedonian churches
had appointed their delegates (2 Co 8^' ; see HDB
iii. 712*). On the other hand, as the Apostle in-
tended to spend the winter months in Corinth, the
selection would naturally await his arrival ; and
more especially would this delay occur as the
bitter quarrel had only just been amicably settled.
From the scanty evidence available it would not
be safe to dogmatize. It may be that his reference
to the example of the Galatian collection (see the
emphatic im««. 1 Co 16') points to a work already
successful. Again, as the time of his journey to
Jerusalem drew near, confidence in a not unworthy
response by the Corinthian Church seems to have
VOL. I. — 15
been restored (see his Tapfyr/via, Ka&xvcu, 2 Co 7'' ;
repurffeOere, 8^; wpodv/iia, 8"; rifp oth> lrde(|(v t^
Aydxris vfiwr, 8** ; cf. 9** ''• ^ "). It is not im-
probable that the triumphant joyoosness (^ Kapila.
r)fiwp re-rMrvrrcn, 2 Co 6") of his late appeal to
them was due to their having chosen himself as
their ambas-sador or representative to convey their
'gracious' gift {irepeyKtir tt}i> x^P** vf^ tls 'lepov-
aoMifi, 1 Co 16^) to its destination. His satisfac-
tion that all discontent and suspicion were at an
end is expressed by his sending before him to Cor-
inth along with Titus two well-known and tried
brethren (o5 6 firavos ip n^ eiar/^ekup, 8r eSotu/id-
ffufiev ir xoXXoIs, 2 Co 8'*- **), to complete the collec-
tion and to have everything in readiness against
his arrival in company probably with some Mace-
donian representatives (2 Co 9* ; cf. Ac 20*). It is
pleasant to learn that the unsavoury bickerings
in Corinth were forgotten when, during that
winter's sojourn there, St. Paul penned his
stately and calm Epistle to Rome. In that docu-
ment he refers only to the good-will and the
pleasure with which the Corinthians adopted and
carried out the purpose of his pacificatory labours
{t^p Kopvov TovTov, Ro 15"). Thc depth of the
Apostle's sympathy for the sufferings of his feUow-
countrymen may be gauged by the reasons on
which he bases his claims on their behalf. The
spiritual debt which the (Jentiles owed to the Jews
{6<p€i\trau elffip airruip, Ro 15^ ; cf. Gal 6^ 1 Co 9*')
demanded an answering ser\-ice (\eiTovpyijaai) in
ministering to their temporal needs (see the con-
trast involved in the words rpevfiarucoU . . .
ffapKiKois, Ro 15"). Another reason which he
adduces arises out of the duty which wealth uni-
versally owes to poverty (mark again the contrast,
replffev/ia . . . vareprifia, 2 Co 8'*), in order that, as
equal opportunities in things spiritual is the norm
of Christian life, there may also be equality (8x&«
yepjp-ai iadnii, 2 Co 8") in the satisfaction of worldly
necessities. The repeated use of the word Koipuvia
in this connexion by St. Paul justifies us in assum-
ing that he deliberately set himself the task of
conciliating the jealousy of the Jewish Christians
by establishing a bond of fellowship and com-
munion between them and the Gentile converts
(2 Co 8* 9" ; cf. Ro 12").
All this is the more remarkable as at this period
the sinister machinations of the Jews in both Cor-
inth and Jerusalem were active and unremitting
(Ac 20* ; cf. Ro 15*'). Instead of sailing direct,
he made the return journey through Macedonia,
where he celebrated the Passover (Ac 20®), and
only arrived in Jerusalem in time for the feast of
Pent«cost, when he finally discharged the task he
had set himself to carry out (cf. Ac 24").
LrrE&ATTRK. — Id addition to the works mentioned throoglKmt
the art. , see Conybeare-Howson. The Life and Ejristie* qf SL
Paul, new ed., 1886; G. G. Findlay, art. 'Paul the Apostle'
in HDB iiL 686ff. ; A. Hamack, ilUtion and Stpatuum of
ChristianUp, Zag. tt.', 1906 ; A. Hansrath, A HitL of ST
Time»: The Time oj iht ApokU*, Enz. tr., 1885, vols. iiL and
iv. ; W. M. Ramsay, 5t. Paul Uu TraveOer and the Roman
Citizen, 1895, also art. 'Ckwinth' in HDB i. 479 ff. ; F. Ken-
dall, '13ie Paoline Ck>Uection for the Saints' iu Expositor, 4tb
8er. viiL [1893] 321 ff. ; J. Armitag^e Robinson, art. ' Com-
munion ■ in HDB L 460ff. ; Sanday-Headlam, Ranuaufi {ICC,
1902) ; C. V. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, &ig. tr., L» [189T1, iL
[1895]. J. R, Wnxis.
COLONY.— The careful reader of Ac 16", the
only place in the NT where the term ' colony '
(KoXb»'(a, a mere transliteration of the Latin
original) occurs, sees at once that a Roman colony
must have been very different from what we under-
stand by the word ' colony.' Colonia (from eolonus,
' settler,' ' htisbandman,' from colere, ' to culti-
vate') was a word applied by the Romans to a body
(usually 300) of their citizen-soldiers (in earlier
days the two terms were convertible), transferred
226
COLOSSI
COLOSSI
from the city of Home itself to some outlying part
of Italy or (later) to some other land. Tnese men
remained Roman citizens after transference, and
were collectively, in fact, a portion of Rome itself
planted amidst a community not itself possessed
of Roman citizenship. The object of the earliest
colonies was the holding in subjection to Rome of
the particular country in which they were planted.
It was not usually a fresh city that was thus
founded. The rule was that a community was
already resident there, and the body of Roman
soldiers Avas stationed there, thus making the
place into a garrison city. The colonice were con-
nected by military roads, beginning at Rome, and
troops could be marchetl along those roads to relieve
the colonice in the shortest possible time, supposing
a rising {tumultus) should occur, too powerful to be
quelled by the local garrison. (A good example is
tlie case of the Lombardy Plain and the cam-
paigns of Marius.) A Roman colony, then, means
a garrison city, and implies the presence of Roman
soldier-citizens.
This was the Roman colonia in origin and pur-
[>ose. We find, however, that, after danger from
the enemy had ceased, colonice continued to be
planted during the Empire in peaceful districts.
This new style of colonia continued to mean a body
of Roman citizens, but the military aspect was
lost sight of. It was an honour for a provincial
city to be made into a colonia, because this was a
proof that it was of special importance, specially
dear to the Emperor, and worthy to be the residence
of Roman citizens, who were the aristocracy of
the provincial towns in which they lived.* (It was
not till A.D. 212, the time of Caracalla, that all
the subjects of the Roman Empire received the
Roman citizenship.)
A number of towns mentioned in the NT were
colonice at the time the events narrated there took
place: Corinth (since 44-43 B.C.), Puteoli (since
194 B.C.), Philippi (42 B.C.), Pisidian Antioch
(before 27 B.C.), Syracuse (21 B.C.), Troas (between
27 and 12 B.C.), Lystra (after 12 B.c.),t Ptolemais
(before A.D. 47). All these places are mentioned
by the writer of Acts, and yet to one only does he
attach the epithet ' colony,' namely Philippi. The
whole manner in which he refers to tnis place
shows personal pride in it, and it is hard to refrain
from believing that he had a si)ecial connexion
with it.
The comparatively large proportion of places
holding the dignity of colony, which were visited
by St. Paul, illustrates very forcibly the plan of
his evangelization. He aimed at planting the
gospel in the leading centres, knowing that it
would spread best from these.
Literature. — Kornemann, art. ' Colonise ' in Pauly-Wissowa.
(Korneraann's statement that there is no up-to-date comprehen-
sive work on colonice outside Italy appears to be still true.)
On Philippi as colonia see W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the
Traveller, London, 1895, p. 206 ff. ; Iconium not a colonia till
Hadrian, see W. M. Ramsay, Historical Commentary on St.
Paul's Epistle to the Galatiana, do. 1S09, pp. 123, 218 f., and
later works. A. SOUTER.
COLOSSI {KoKoatral in the opening of the Epistle,
P ; in the title, whicii is not original, there is about
equal authority for KoXoo-ffaeis and KoXcuro-aets ; in the
subscription the authority for KoXao-o-aets predomin-
ates).— The name was given to an ancient Phrygian
<;ity on the S. bank of the Lycus (Churuk Su), an
atHuent of the Mzeander. It was situated at the
lower end of a narrow glen about 10 miles long.
Herodotus says that at Colossse ' the river Lycus,
falling into a chasm of the earth, disappears ; then,
reappearing at a distance of about Eve stadia, it
• The British colonice were Colchester, Oloucester, York, and
Lincoln,
t Not Iconium till the time of Hadrian.
discharges itself into the Maeander' (vii, 30). No
such chasm, however, exists at Colossae, and the
historian has apparently misrepcrted what he heard
of the underground pa.s.sage of the river at its source,
as accurately described by Strabo (XIL viii. 16).
Colossa3 was one of three sister cities which re-
ceived the gospel about the same time (Col 4"),
Laodicea lying about 10 miles farther down the
Lycus valley, and facing Hierapolis, which was
picturesquely seated on a plateau 6 miles to the
north. Behind Colossteand Laodicea rose the mighty
snow-capped range of C^admus (Baba Dagh, ' Father
of mountains '), over 8000 ft. above sea-level. Com-
manding the approaches to a pass in this range,
and traversed by the great trade-route between
Ephesus and the Euphrates, Colossa; was at one
time a place of much importance. Hero<lotu8 (op.
ciY.) calls it ' a great city of Phrygia,' and Xenoplion
describes it as ir6\iv olKov/x^vrjv tiiSalfiova Kal ficydXrjv
(Anab. I. ii. 6). But as Laodicea and Hierapolis
grew in importance, Colossae waned, and in the
beginning of the first century Strabo reckons it as
no more than a iroXuT/jLa (xii. viii. 13). Pliny, in-
deed, names it among the oppida celeberriiiia of
Phrygia (HN v. 41), but he is merely alluding to
its illustrious past. It was visited, however, by
streams of travellers passing east and west, who
made it conversant with the freshest thought
of the time. Its permanent population consisted
mostly of Phrygian natives and Greek colonists.
Jews had also been attracted to the busy trade-
centres of the Lycus valley, a fact which accounts
for the Jewish complexion of some of the errors re-
futed in the Colossian Epistle. Antiochus the Great
(223-187 B. c. ) transplanted 2000 Jewish families from
Babylonia and Mesopotamia to Lydia and Phrygia
(Jos. Ant. XII. iii. 4). The freedom and prosperity
which they enjoyed probably induced many others
to follow them, and there is a bitter saying in the
Babylonian Talmud that the wine and baths of
Phrygia separated the ten tribes from their brethren
(Shab. 147 , quoted by A. Neubauer, Giogr. du
Talmud, Paris, 1868, p. 315). Cicero [pro Flacc. 28)
speaks of the rnultitudo JudcBorum who inhabited
the district in his time.
The Church of Colossse was not directly founded
by St. Paul. There is no indication that he ever
f reached in any of the cities of the Lycus valley,
n his second journey he was debarred from speak-
ing in Asia (Ac 16®), the province to which Colossa;
politically belonged, and in his third tour ' he went
through the Galatic region and Phrygia [or Galatic
and Phrygian region] in order, conhrming the dis-
ciples,' and 'having passed through the upper
country {to, dvonepiKo. /Ji^pri) he came to Ephesus'
(Ac 18^ 19^). It is not impossible that — as Renan
avLggests {Saint Paul, Paris, 1869, pp. 331 f., 356 f.) —
he followed the usual route of commerce down the
Lycus valley, going straight to his destination
without pausing to do any work by the way. But
it is more in harmony with St. Luke's carefully
chosen words, as well as with the language of Col.,
to suppose that he took the shorter hill-road by
Seiblia and the Cayster valley, a road practicable
for foot passen<;ers but not for wheeled traffic (W.
M. Ramsay, T/ie Church in the Rom. Emp. p. 94).
During his three years' residence in Ephesus, ' all
they that dwelt in Asia heard the M'ord of the Lord,
both Jews and Greeks ' (Ac 19'" ; cf. 19^), and it was
probably at this time that the churches of the
Lycus were founded. The truth proclaimed in the
virtual capital of the province — the primacy of
Sardis was now only nominal — was soon carried to
the remotest towns and villages. Epaphras and
Philemon, citizens of Colossal, were probably con-
verted in Ephesus, and the former was speedily
sent, as St. Paul's delegate or representative (\nrip
VfiQy, instead of vfiuv, is the true reading in Col V),
COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE 227
to evanjjelize his native valley. Five or six years
afterwards, St. Paul, a prisoner in Rome, wrote to
the Col(jssian Christians, of whose faith and love
he had heard (Col !*• *) from Epaphras and perhaps
from Onesimus, but who had never seen his face
{2*). He felt as great a solicitude for them as
if they had been his o\vn spiritual children. In-
directly they were indebted to him for their know-
ledge of the gospel (cf. following article).
One of the non-Christian beliefs and practices
which quickly threatened to submerge the Colossian
Church was the cult of angels, or elemental spirits,
who were supposed to intervene between a pure,
absolute, unapproachable Gk)d and a world of evil.
This idea proved almost ineradicable. One of the
canons (the 35th) of the Council of Laodicea (held
probably about A.D. 363) ran thus : ' It is not right
for Christians to abandon the Church of Gkni and go
aAvay and invoke angels [iyy^Xovs dvofid^ear). . . .
If, therefore, any one is found devoting himself to
this secret idolatry, let him be anathema.' About
a century later, Theodoret, commenting on Col 2'^,
says : ' This disease (toOto rb rddoi) remained long
in Phrygia and Pisidia . . . and even to the present
time oratories {evtrrfifHa) of the holy Michael may be
seen among them and their neighbours.' The By-
zantine historian Nicetas Choniates — Chonae, on a
spur of Cadmus, took the place of decaying Colossae
— mentions tov apxayyeKiKoi' vaov as standing, fieyedei
fi^ioTov Kal KdWfi KaWioTOP, in or near the ancient
city ; and the fantastic legend of ' the Miracle of
Chonae' (Ramsay, The Church in the Rom. Emp, p.
465 f.) reflects a popular l>elief in the mediation of
Michael to save the inhabitants from an inundation.
LiTKRATURB. — W. M. Ramsay, The, Cities and Bishopries o/
Phryiia, London, 1895-97, voL L, The Church in the Roman
Empire, do. 1S93, ch. six. JaMES StRAHAX.
COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE.— 1. Introdac-
tion. — St. Paul himself had never preached in the
Lycus valley. On his third missionary journey he
took another route (Ac 19^, and that he did not
visit that district during has two years' stay at
Ephesus is sufficiently proved by the allusions in
his letter to the Church at Colossae (Col I*-'-* 2^).
Colossae was at this time a small town of declining
importance, overshadowed by its great neighbours,
Laodicea and Hierapolis, some 10 miles down-
stream. In all three towns churches had been
founded by the labours of Epaphras (1^ 4^ "), him-
self a native of Colossae (4^), who had met St.
Paul, probably at Ephesus, and had become a dis-
ciple. The date of the foundation of these churches
may be assigned with some confidence to about the
years A.D. 55 and 56 (adopting C. H. Turner's dat-
ing ; cf. art. ' Chronology in HDB), and Epaphras
may well have been acting as the direct agent of
St. Paul (cf . the better reading ' on our behalf ' in
1^). This would account in some degree for the
authoritative attitude which St. Paul takes in his
letter.
Though Colossae itself was but a small town, its
Church may well have been the most important
of those in the Lycus valley. It was evidently
closely connected with the Church at Laodicea (2^
4^*), and it is even possible that the work in the
latter place was in charge of Archippus, the son of
Philemon of Colossae (4", Philem *). In each
place the work seems to have centred in the house
of one of its most prominent members ; cf. the
house of Aquila and PriscUla at Rome. Ro 16' (if,
indeed, Ro 16 was not addressed to Ephesus), that
of Philemon (Philem-) in Colossae, that of Nym-
phas, or Nympha, In Laodicea (Col 4^'). A well-
attested reading suggests that the latter, a woman's
name, may be correct in spite of the improbability
of this Doric form being used. If this is so, Nym-
pha, Uke Piiscilla, takes her place with the women
who plaj'ed an honoured part in the life of the
early Church.
Colossae lay in Phrygian territory, and its popu-
lation was doubtless largely Phrygian, with a ven-
eer of Greek civilization. i*hilemon's wife, Apphia
(Philem-), bore a Phrygian name. The Jewish
trader had doubtless reached Colossae, but there
is no sign of any permanent settlement of Jews
there such as was made by the Seleucid kings
at Laodicea or Tarsus. That the Church there
was entirely or at least predominantly Gentile is
shown clearly enough by the Epistle (!="• " 2" ; cf.
St. Paul's anxiety in 4" to show how few among
his helpers are or Jewish race — ' who alone of the
circumcision are my fellow- workers . . .'). And the
Jews of Laodicea, together with any who may have
dwelt at Colossae, were doubtless, like most of the
Jews of the Diaspora, largely affected both by
local tendencies of thought and by the wider in-
fluences which centred in Alexandria.
The Church of Colossa; had been in existence
only a few years when Epaphras rejoined St.
Paul, then in prison for the faith (1^ 4i»- ^% He
brought w ith him good news of the infant Church
(1* 2*). But yet there were grave reasons for
anxiety. Both at Colossae and at Laodicea (4^*) a
new and dangerous form of teaching was abroad.
Who the teachers were we do not know. The
heresy may even have been due to some one influen-
tial leader (cf. Zahn's comment on 2**^, where the
participles are in the singular \_Introd. to ST, i.
479]). But whether the teachers were one or more,
it is at least clear that it was not with a recurrence
of the Galatian trouble that St. Paul had now to
deal. The stress of this new ' philosophy ' lay not
so much upon the Law as upon theosophical tenets
and ascetic practices, which were supposed to con-
stitute a higher Christianity (2"- '• *).
For the present this teaching had not made much
headway in the Church at Colossae. But St. Paul
saw the need of striking while there was yet time.
And he had other reasons for sending one of his
agents to Asia at this time. There was Onesimus,
the converted slave of Philemon, reaidy at St.
Paul's bidding to return to his master. There was
also the desirability of sending a pastoral letter
to the Churches of Asia. Tychicus was at hand,
ready to convey both the circular letter, now
kno^vn as the Epistle to the Ephesians, and the
short note to Philemon about Onesimus. By his
hand, therefore, St. Paul writes to the brethren at
Colossae.
There has been much discussion whether a fourth
letter, to Laodicea, accompanied the other three,
based on the command to the Colossians that they
should read the Epistle ' from Laodicea.' The old
hypothesis of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Calvin
that this was a letter written from the Laodicean
Church to St. Paul is rendered impossible by the
context. It remains therefore to decide whether
this is some lost letter by the Apostle or whether
it can be identified with any of his existing letters.
The suggestions of John of Damascus, who iden-
tifies it ^vith 1 Tim. , and of Schneckenburger, who
identifies it with Heb., can safely be passed over.
In 1S44 Wieseler suggested that Philemon really
lived at Laodicea, and that the lost letter is our
Epistle to Philemon. This would certainly make
it easier to account for the apparent connexion of
Aichippus with Laodicea, but otherwise the theorj'
has little point and has not met with any accept-
ance. A more probable hypothesis is to oe found
in the identification of this letter with Ephesians.
If this was a circular letter, intended for aU the
Asiatic churches, it would naturally come to
Colossae as a letter brought by Tychicus from
Laodicea (see art. Ephesians). If this identifica-
tion IB rejected the letter to the Laodiceans is lost
228 COLOSSI ANS, EPISTLE TO THE
COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
beyond recall. It is interesting that more than one
attempt was made to supply this gap in the Paul-
ine Canon during tlie early days ot the Church.
In several MSS the words ' written from Laodicea'
•were added at the end of 1 Timothy. More
curious still, an Epistle was made up out of a col-
lection of Pauline phrases, possibly as early as the
2nd cent, (so Zahn) but probably later, and was
fiven the title ad Laodlcenses. Jerome (Vir.
llustr. V.) mentions this work, ' legunt quidam et
ad Laodicenses, sed ab omnibus exploditur,' and, de-
spite his condemnation, it was widely read through-
out the Middle Ages. Traces of this Epistle have
been found only in the West, and it has commonly
been regarded as a Western forgery. Lightfoot,
however, argues that it shows traces of being from
a Greek original, desi)ite the fact that all known
MSS are in Latin. The early date of the docu-
ment also points in the same direction. (This Ep.
ad Laod. is discussed at length by Lightfoot in an
appendix to his Colosdans, p. 274 tf. ; cf. also West-
cott. Canon of NT^, 1881, Appendix E; A. Souter,
Text and Canon of NT, 1913, p. 193.)
a. Contents.— St. Paul, associating Timothy with himself in
his opening greeting: (l'-2), passes on in his customary manner
to a Ihaiiksgivine: for the good news which he has heard from
Epaphrus. In this thanksgiving he alludes especially to the
true gospel which had heen preached to his readers by Epaph-
ras, and reminds them that it is this gospel and no other that
has borne fruit in all the world (l»-8). This is followed by a
prayer which widens out, as in Eph., into a statement of doc-
trine with regard to the Person of Christ (19-23). This doctrinal
Bection is expanded with a special view to the heresies which it
is St. Paul's purpose to combat. In oi)position to the ' philo-
sophy ' which was being preached, he prays that the Colossians
may be filled with ' all spiritual wisdom and understanding ' (19).
In opposition to the theosophy which recognized and trembled
before ' the principalities and the powers," he thanks God that
they have been delivered from 'the power of darkness' and
made members of ' the kingdom of the Son of His love ' (l^^).
In opposition to the position accorded to angelic beings, he
breaks into a psean in honour of the Son (a) as sole Redeemer
(11^) ; (6) as the visible Representative of the invisible God (li*) ;
(c) as prior to and supreme over all creation, including these
very angelic powers ; as the present stay, and ultimate consum-
mation, of creation (115-17) ; (d) as the supreme Head of the
Church in virtue of His Resurrection (1"*) ; (e) as One in whom
abide completely all the perfections of the Godhead (li9) ; (/) as
One whose death has made atonement not only for human
sin but also for all the disorder that exists in heavenly places,
so that not only are the angels unable to ' make peace,' but
they themselves need the mediation of the Son (120-23). gt.
Paul then passes on to emphasize his own position as a minister
of this, the one true gospel, a gospel which does not merely
save a few elect, but which is valid for every man who wiU
receive it (l2^-2a).
Ch. 2 is devoted to warnings against the false teaching which
had been reported by Epaphras. It opens with a renewal of
the prayer of !». St. Paul again reiterates that in Christ alone,
and not in any human plausibility, can the hidden treasures of
knowledge and wisdom be found (2i-5). He warns his readers
agaitist esoteric cults which have dealings with the angel
world, instead of with Christ, the supreme Head of all (2^i").
He reminds them that as Christians they need no special and
mysterious ceremonies, but only faith in Christ, who has can-
celled all ceremonial obligations through the power of the
Cross, thereby depriving hostile spiritual powers of their
weapon against mankind (211-1*). The Colossians are therefore
not to be misled into thinking that there is some higher way of
leading the Christian life, consisting in special ordinances or a
higher asceticism, even if commended by a show of esoteric
knowledge (216-23).
In ch. 3, St. Paul passes, by way of contrast, to the practical
implications of life in Christ. For Christians there is indeed a
true asceticism, but it consists in a putting to death of the
' old man,' and a putting on of the ' new man,' not merely in a
mortifying of the flesh, for that, for the Christian, is already
accomplished in the renewal of the spirit 'after the image of
him that created him ' (3i-ii). The rule for the Christian must
therefore be not the rule of ascetic ordinances but the warm
and living rule of love, of Christ dwelling in the heart (312-17).
A short passage follows in which brief words of counsel are
addressed to wives, husbands, children, fathers, servants,
masters (3'**-4l), and one or two general e.vhorcations lead up to
the salutations with which the letter closes (-JS-IS).
3. Date and place of composition. — It has been
customary to regard the four ' Epistles of the Cap-
tivity ' as all written from Rome during the two
years (a.d. 59-61) alluded to in Ac 28**. There is
no good reason for giving up this view in the case
of Colossians. Phil, at least must be from Rome.
If, with Bleek and Lightfoot {Philippians*, 1878,
p. 30), we place Col. later than Phil., on the ground
of the closer affinity of the latter witli Rom. both
in style and doctrine, the Roman origin of Col.
woulu be unquestionable. It is not possible, how-
ever, in a writer like St. Paul, to postulate so orderly
an advance in these respects. His doctrine at least
must have been thought out long before he wrote
Romans. And, on the other hand, the allusions in
Ph V- '^- '*• -"■-' 2'^^ point to a date near the very close
of the Roman imprisonment. We must thus date
Col, earlier (Ph l'^'"" seems to reflect Col 43- *). But
this leaves open the possibility that it was written
not from Rome but during the two years spent at
Cajsarea. This view has been held by quite a
number of scholars, e.g. Meyer, Sabatier, Weiss,
and Haupt. So also recently E. L. Hicks, Inter-
preter, 1910. But the arguments on the other side,
as set out e.g. by Peake ('Col.' in EG'T, p. 491),
seem conclusive. Haupt's argument that a con-
siderable interval of time must lie between the
statements of doctrine found in Phil, and Col. has
no weight. Weiss points out that St. Paul gives
a ditlerent account of his plans in Phil., w here he is
hoping to visit Macedonia, from that in Philem.,
where Colossai is his goal. But the two statements
are not incompatible in letters both written from
Rome. The one plan might easily involve the
other. And, further, there are serious objection.'j
to the Ca;sarea hypothesis. It is impossible to
think that St. Paul at Cffisarea was aheady plan-
ning a visit to Colossse. It was upon Rome that
his eyes were lixed, and at least towards the end of
his days at Csesarea he knew that he would be sent
thither. But most decisive of all is the little com-
S anion note to Philemon. It must have been at
iome, the natural refuge of the runaway slave,
that St. Paul came across Onesimus, and from
Rome that he sent him back to his master with
Tychicus. Finally, it would be most remarkable,
in a letter written from Csesarea, that there should
be no salutation from Philip.
In view of the fact that Col. and Philem. were
probably sent together, it has caused comment that
there is some variation in the salutations. Not only
is the order of the names different — a point of little
significance — but in Col. Aristarchus, in Philem.
Epaphras, is given the place of honour as 'my
fellow-prisoner.' The reason for this is obscure.
Fritzsche's suggestion that St. Paul's friends took
turns in sharing his captivity is only a suggestion.
As Peake points out, the divergence is a proof of
the authenticity of both Epistles, since no imitator
would have made so unnecessary and self-condem-
natory an alteration.
4. External evidence for authenticity.— This is
quite as strong as could reasonably be expected.
At the end of the 2nd cent. Col. was known to
Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria.
It is mentioned by name in the Muratorian Canon.
Its acceptance by Marcion carries the knowledge
of it at Rome to before 150. This renders the
description by Justin of Christ as ' first-bom of all
creation ' [Dial. 84, 85, 100) an almost certain echo
of V^, especially as the parallel phrase in Philo is
not vpwT&roKos but irpc^dyovos. Earlier references
are all rather uncertain, especially in Barnabas and
Clement of Rome. It is, however, probable that
Ignatius quotes Col 2" in Smyrn. i. 2, and P" in
Trail. V. '2. Lightfoot also points out Ignatius'
use of at'ivSovkoi as a term for deacons ; ex. 1" 4''.
This evidence is insufficient in itself to prova
authenticity, and throws us back upon a discussion
of the many problems which the Epistle itself
present.-.
5. The Colossian heresy. — The teaching attacked
by St. Paul is described in 2*- "-'", verses which in
addition to their brevity present many problems
COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
COLOSSIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE 229
both of translation and of text. Theories as to its
character have been varied and numerous. The
principal facts that can be gleaned are as follows :
(1) The teaching was Christian; cf. 2^*, which,
however, suggests that it did not give Christ His
due position.
(2) It was, at least in part, Judaistic. This
would not necessarily be proved by the reference
to 'the bond written in ordinances' in 2", though
it is on the whole probable that the Mosaic Law
is intended. But the specific allusions in 2^*, 'in
meat or in drink or in respect of a feast day, or a
new moon, or a sabbath day,' are ob^aously Jewish.
It is true that the Law says nothing about 'drink,'
but the Iat«r Rabbinism certainly included such
regulations, as is shown by He 9^*. And this very
Babbinism is clearly alluded to in 2*, ' the tradition
of men.' The references to circumcision (2" 3^*)
show that the false teachers assigned some value
to it. Yet this Judaism cannot have been very
like that attacked in Gal., as the whole tone of the
letter shows. It was less definite, and mingled
with other elements of a peculiar type.
(3) It claimed to be a ' philosophy (2^), which St.
Paul calls a * vain deceit.' It seems to have been
regarded as the revelation of a secret ' wisdom and
knowledge ' (2*- '). Here, just as much as in 1 Co
1, we are certainly mo\Tng in Greek, or at least
HeUenistic, regions of thought. Philo could speak
of a 'Jewish philosophy.' And the Judaism of
Colossje, like that of Alexandria, was at least given
a Hellenic colour. As Hort has shown (Juda-
istic Christianity, p. 119 ff,), the term 'philosophy'
might easily have been used of esoteric lore about
angels, or even, though this usage is a later one,
of an ascetic ethical cult, features Avhich both
appear at Colossae.
(4) Some sort of worship of angels seems to have
been practised, and possibly, if the reading is
correct, emphasis was laid upon visions communi-
cated bv them (2^*). St. Paul charges the teachers
with reliance upon the spirits that control the ele-
ments of the universe rather than upon Christ (2*).
That this is the true meaning of ot-wx*"' in this
passage, as well as in Gal 4**', is shown by the
exegesis, which implies in each case personal agents.
And the emphasis laid by St. Paul upon the
superiority of Christ to ' thrones or dominions or
pnncipalities or powers' (P*; cf. 1"-" 2'*) confirms
this view. That there was angelolatrj* of some
sort is certain, though the language in which it is
described cannot be pressed too closely, since St.
Paul may be using the language of his own angel-
ology to "describe the view of his opponents. In the
4th cent, the Council of Laodicea tound it necessary
to condemn angel- worship. In the 5th cent. Theodo-
ret says that the archangel Michael was worshipped
in the district, and this worship continued for
several centuries (see Zahn, op. cit. p. 476 f. ; cf.
Lightfoot, Col. p. 68).
(5) Whatever 2^ precisely means, it shows that
stress was laid upon asceticism, for which special
rules were given (2^*- ^ ^). This was the natural
outcome of a ' philosophy ' in which the spirits that
ruled material things were the objects of fear and
reverence. The angels who were the objects of the
Colossian cult were powers who if not propitiated
might be hostile to man, who must therefore guard
himself by mortifying his material body. This is
the point of St. Paul's counter-statement of the
true Christian asceticism {3'*-).
It has been made clear by the work of recent
scholars that there is notliing in all this which
need point to a date later than A.D. 60. The
Tubingen school, from Baur to Hilgenfeld, thought
that Col. reflected the great Gnostic systems of the
2nd century. The powers, etc., were the Valen-
tinian aeons, forming the Pleroma, to which they
saw an allusion in 1'*. Asceticism, again, was a
typical Gnostic feature, as was the emphasis on a
secret wisdom or Gnosis (cf. 2*) confined to an inner
circle of initiates or xAeiot (cf. 1", where St. Paul
declares that every man is to be made rAetos by the
gospel). The Judaistic references were explained
on this theory to be due to some sort of Gnostic
Ebionism, on the lines of the pseudo-Clementines.
That there were Gnostic tendencies at Colossae need
not be denied. The emphasis on knowledge is
enough to prove that. But there is no hall-mark
of any particular 2nd-cent. system. The word
rXi^pw/ia in 1^ loses most of its point if it is used in
the later technical sense (on the word see Lightfoot,
Col. p. 323; J. A. Eobinson, Eph., 1903, p. 255;
Peake on Col 1^), It is far more probable that
the later Gnostics derived their usage from that
of St. Paul.
More recently the theory has been held in a
modified form, recognizing a genuine Pauline
Epistle, directed against a Jewish-Christian theo-
sophy, but regarding it as having been expanded
by a2iid-cent. writer (so Pfleiderer, Primitive Chris-
tianity, Eng. tr., 1906-11, who saw allusions to
Gnostic Ebionism though he did not attempt to
reconstruct the original Epistle ; Holtzmann and
Soltau, who depend, however, rather on literary
criticism ; see below). The argtiments for this also
fail if the known tendencies of the 1st cent, are
sufficient to cover the facts. And there is no hint
in the Epistle of any such division in the object
of St. Paul's attack.
More plausible is the attempt to find in Col. an
attack on the 1st cent. Gnosticism of Cerinthus (so,
e.g., R. Scott). Here we find both the emphasis on
Judaism, though the Jewish angels have taken the
position later occupied by the Gnostic aeons, and
the reduced Christology in which the Christ is
supposed to have descended upon the man Jesus at
His baptism. This has clear affinities with the
Colossian heresy ; but, as Lightfoot has shown {Col.
p. 108 ft ), it is difficult to think that the teaching
at Colossae had as yet taken so definite a form.
St. Paul would surely have made a more definite
and incisive reply. And, further, the angelic
powers could still lie regarded as objects of worsiiip.
They are not yet either ignorant of or hostile to
the Supreme God. And the emphasis on the
identity of Jesus with the Christ (2*), while it
would have point against Cerinthus, is hardly an
attack upon him. It is thus more natural to see
in this heresy that tendency of thought which led
up to Cerinthus than the direct outcome of his
teaching.
It has been suggested, especially by Lightfoot
and Klopper, that there was some connexion with
the Jewish ascetic sect known as Essenes. But
(a) before A.D. 70 there is no trace of Essenism
except on the shores of the Dead Sea. The some-
what similar Tlierapeut*, in Egypt, are only
known from Philo, de Vit. contempt., a much-
disputed treatise. Lightfoot tries to find parallels
in Acts for the use of magic (cf. Ac 19" with Jos.
BJ II. 8. 6 ad fin.) and in the fourth book of the
Sibylline Oracles, probably written in Asia c. A.D.
80. Neither parallel amounts to much. (6) The
Essenes jealously guarded the names of the angels
(Jos. BJ n. viii. 7). This is a poor parallel for the
Colossian cult, which more probably arose through
a syncretistic admixture with Phrj-gian ideas, (c)
The evidence that the Essenes forbade flesh and
wine is disputable (see Zahn, op. cit. p. 376), though
I thev certainly had extremely rigid ceremonial
I rules as to food. Of the specific Essene prohibition
, of marriage there is no trace at Colossae. (rf) There
is no sign in Col. of the alleged Essene sun-worship,
[ of their communal life, their ablutions, their very
1 severe probation and initiation, (c) The allusions
230 COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
to 'sabbaths' and circumcision in Col. are merely
Judaistic. There is no hint of the very strict Sab-
batarian rules of the Essenes. It is true that
Lightfoot and Klopper, especially the latter, argue
merely for Essenistic tenaencies at Colossa;. liut
even iliis can hardly be said to be proved. The
real value of the suggestion is that it shows that
within Judaism itself it was possible for strange
esoteric cults to appear. (For the Essenes see esp,
Jos. BJn. viii. ; Lightfoot, Col. pp. 82ft:, 115ft. ;
Zahn, op. cit. p. 376 f.)
We are thus driven to the conclusion that the
Colossian heresy found its stimulus in contemporary
Judaism, doubtless with syncretistic Phrygian
features. Hort {Judaistic Christianity, 116 ft'.) has
shown that there is nothing in the language which
need imply any other source. The one surprising
point is the worship of angels. But even if this is
not derived from some local Phrj'gian cult, it was
(juite a natural application of contemporary Juda-
ism. In the later Jewish view all God's activity
in Nature was mediated by angels, and, though
angel-worship among the Jews is not known at this
date, it certainly sprang up within a short time,
being alluded to in tne Hvangelinm Petri, by Celsus,
and several times in the Talmud. No objection to
the authenticity of the Epistle need therefore be
maintained upon tliis ground .
6. The theology of the Epistle. — It has been ob-
jected to Col. that it is un-Pauline in its Christo-
logy. It is true that there is a speculative advance
with regard to the Person of Christ. St. Paul is
now oppo.sing a speculative 'philosophy,' and, as
has been shown in dealing with the contents of the
letter, he is forced to draw out the speculative
implications of his own position. And in the
advance made there is nothing to cause surprise.
That Christ is prior to, and the principle of, all
creation (P»-") is the thought implicit in 1 Co 8«
and in the whole doctrine of the Man from Heaven
(15") regarded as pre-existent. That Christ is re-
garded also as the goal of creation (Col 1'^) is only
in form an advance upon 1 Co 15^*, for it is only
when the consummation in Christ is reached that
He is to surrender all things to the Father ; and
even so, in virtue of His unity with the Father,
they remain His own (cf. Ph 2^- '«). In Col.
St. Paul is especially emphasizing the indwelling
in Christ of the whole Godhead (1^ 2% And,
indeed, in 1^ the most natural rendering implies
exactly the doctrine of 1 Co lo'-^, Ro ll^*. In any
case, even if there is a real advance here, it is one
that St. Paul might easily have made, and which
was the natural answer to teachers who were
assigning cosmic significance to angelic beings.
This raises the question of St. Paul's angel-
ologj'. Here again objection has been taken to
Colossians. There is certainly little direct refer-
ence to angels in the other Pauline Epistles. But
yet such references do occur, and, so far as they go,
they tend to confirm the view that St. Paul might
naturally have taken up the position adopted here.
Further, the Rabbinism of the period was full of
speculations about the angels, and there is no
reason why St. Paul should have abandoned such
speculations upon his conversion. They must have
been taken up into his Christianity, even though,
in preaching to Gentiles, it was seldom necessary
to dwell upon them. The principal features found
in Col. are these :
(1) The universe is animated by elemental spirits
(2*). This conception appears also in Gal 4*- *,
and is in line with that of Ps 104*, a passage which
has been taken over in He V, though with a
change of thought characteristic of later Judaism.
Both the Book of Jubilees and Enoch speak of the
spirits of such things as fire, mist, hail, the sea
(cf. Rev 14'8 16").
(2) There are diflerent ranks of anjjels (1" 2'»- " ;
cf. Ro 8**, 1 Co 15'-^, where substantially the same
language is used). This conception perhaps starts
from Dt 4", where the nations are allotted to ' the
host of heaven.' In Daniel each nation, including
Israel, has its angelic 'prince.' It was a natural
development that led to the conception of orders
of angelic powers in heaven itself (cf. Jin. Ixi. 10).
In the later Rabbinism ten orders were enumerated
(cf . also the angels of the churches in Rev. ).
(3) In 2^*- " there is perhaps an allusion to the
ministry of angels in the giving of the Law. This
characteristic idea of tlie RaJ)bis was derived from
Dt 33=* (LXX). It is alluded to in Ac 7", He 2*,
Jos. Ant. XV. v. 3.
(4) The angels, even the angel or angels of the
Law, may be morally imperfect, and need recon-
ciliation through the Cross (I*' 2>*). This is typi-
cally Pauline (cf. Ro 8^, 1 Co 2«-8 6^ 11»» 15^*, Gal 1»).
It does not seem to be a very early Jewish concep-
tion, unless it appears in Gn 6''*. Such ministers
of evil as the destroying angel of Ex 12 are non-
moral. But in the later writings angels are
frequently charged with weakness of difterent
kinds ; cL Ps 82'- \ Job 4^^ IS'*. It was only at a
late date that the distinction between absolutely
good and absolutely bad angels arose. It was not
the characteristic view of St. Paul's day, and there
is no reason why we should expect to find it in his
writings. There thus seems to be nothing particu-
larly un-Pauline in the angelology of Colossians.
(On this subject see esp. O. Everling, Die paulin-
ische Angelologie und Ddmonologie, 1888 ; A. S.
Peake, Introd. to ' Col.' in EOT; M. Dibelius, Die
Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus, 1909.)
7. Relation to Ephesians. — It is at once obvious
that there is a close literary connexion between
Colossians and Ephesians. The structure of the
two Epistles is largely the same, though naturally
the special warnings of Col. find no parallel in Eph.,
and a second thanksgiving and prayer in Eph 2-3^
3'*"^^ has no parallel in Colossians. The exhorta-
tions at the end show close agreement in detail.
And, most significant of all, there is a remarkable
series of verbal parallels, running through verse
after verse of the two Epistles. Only two alterna-
tives are possible. Either both letters are by one
writer, or one has been deliberately modelled on
the other.
It has commonly been asserted that Eph. is based
on Col., and in that case no presumption against
Col. arises. Holtzmann, however, showed that
the literary criticism did not work out so simply.
Sometimes one Epistle, sometimes the other, seems
to be prior. Accordingly, he regarded Eph. as
based upon a shorter Col. , which was subsequently
expanded from Eph. in view of Gnosticism. But
the tests by which he proposed to recover the
original Col. do not work out well. The division
of the heresy into two parts is not at all easy.
And the literary criteria are altogether too minute.
A similar and even more elaborate theorj"^ has teen
worked out by Soltau. Von Soden, however, in
examining Holtzmann's view, only admitted 1^*"^
210. iii. J8b jj^g later insertions, and has subsequently
reduced even this amount, rejecting onlj' the
Christological passage in ch. 1. The majority of
scholars now accept the whole Epistle as Pauline.
As to the relations with Eph., it seems to the
present writer that suflicient stress has not been
laid upon the curious interweaving of the phrase-
ology of the two Epistles. Even Holtzmann's
hypothesis does not do justice to the way in which
Shrase after phrase is used in connexion with
iflerent trains of thought. The author of Epii.
did not com- Col. at all as the two later Synoptists
copied St. Mark. He simply used its language, and
to a most extraordinary extent. He is writing for
COLOURS
COLOURS
231
a different purpose, and applies to that purpose
phraseology used with quite different implications
in Colossians. ThusEph2"-"is full of the language
of Col 2'^-**, and yet the points of the passages are
quite dill'erent. Is it possible that such a pheno-
menon could have arisen at all except in the work
of a single writer writing a second letter while the
language of tlie lirst was still fresh in his mind ?
8. Style and language. — It has been objected
that these are un-Pauline, but this holds only if
tlie four great Epistles are taken as the final norm
as to what St. Paul might have written. Of the
46 words not used elsewhere by St. Paul the
majority are connected either with the heresy or
with its refutation. Further, 11 Pauline words
occur which are used by no other NT writer. It
should be noted that St. Paul was now at Rome,
in the midst of new associations, which would
naturally affect his vocabulary. The suggestion
has been matle that Timothy, who is associated
with St. Paul in the salutation, may have had a
large share in the actual composition of the letter.
This suggestion might also help to account for
the change in style from the earlier Epistles. The
movement of thought is less abrupt, and the
sentences are often longer and more involved.
Particles, even those of which St. Paul is most
fond, such as &pa, 5l6, 5i6ti, are replaced to a great
extent by participial constructions. This, however,
may well be due to the lack of urgency. The
danger was not so great as it had been in Galatia
or in Corinth.
In the second chapter the difficulty of translating
is very great, and it is possible that in some cases
the text has suffered from corruption lying further
back than all our existing MSS ; 2^* and 2^ are the
most notable examples (in 2'* C. Taylor's d^pa Kevefi-
^revuv has been favoured by Westcott and Hort
and Zahn, and is commonly accepted). The trans-
lation of 2^' presents almost as many difficulties.
LiTERATrRE. — EDITIONS. — Col. has been edited bv H. J. Holtz-
mann (1S72), A. Klopper (1SS2), H. von Soden (1891), and
Haupt (in Meyer's Com. ^, 1899). J. B. Lightfoot's Co?os«ia/i«
(1st ed., 1875) is the standard Eng. work. Of recent Eng. Com-
mentaries the most valuable are those bv A. S. Peake (EGT,
1903), T. K. Abbott (ICC, 1697), and G. G. Findlay (Pulpit
Commentary, 1886). General.— F. J. A. Hort, Judaistie
Chriitianit!/, 1894 ; W. Sanday, art. in Smith's Diet, of the
Bxble-2, 1893; T. Zahn, Einleitung in das ST, 1897 (Eng. tr.,
Introd. to ST, 1909) ; H. von Soden, artt. in JPTh, 1885-87 ;
J. MofiFatt, LXT\ 1912. L. W. GkENSTED.
COLOURS.— Among the writers of the NT the
sense of colour is strongest in the author of the
Revelation, who partly reproduces the colour-
symbolism of earlier authors, priestly, prophetic,
and apocalyptic, and partly is original. Colour
distinctions were perhaps not so tine in ancient as
in modem times ; at any rate the colour vocabu-
lary was more limited. The associations of colour
vaiy greatly in different ages and peoples.
1. White (Xeu/cds, connected with lux ; Xa/iirpo's,
•bright' in RV, fr. \d/tirw 'to shine'), the colour
of light, is the symbol of purity, innocence, holi-
ness ; it is the primary liturgical colour. The
head and hair of the Son of Man are white as wool
or snow (Rev 1'*). Angels are arrayed in white
(15« ; cf. Ac V% The elders (Rev 4*);^ the martyrs
(6'M, the great multitude (7*) are clothed in white
raiment : but their robes were not always white ;
they have washed them and made them white
[iXfVKavav) in the blood of the Lamb (7'^). Such
raiment one of the Seven Churches is counselled to
buy (3^*). A hypocrite has not the white robe ;
he is only like a whitewashed wall (roTxe kskovm-
fieve, Ac 23^ ; cf. Mt 23"-^). White is the colour of
victory ; the first rider on a white horse (Rev 6^)
represents a conquering secular power, probably
Parthia ; the second is the Faithful and True
(19'^), whose triumphant followers are clad in white
uniform (19^*). The Son of Man is seen enthroned
on a white cloud (14**); and the great throne of
Got! — unlike the sapphire throne in Ezk 1* — is
white.
2. Red, the first of the three primary colours of
science, is in Greek irvppoi, from irOp, ' fire.' ' Light
and tire, when regarded ethically in Holy Scripture,
are contrasts : light, the image of beneticent love ;
and fire, of destroying anger ' (Delitzsch, Iris, Eng.
tr., 1889, p. 73). The swordsman upon the red
horse (Rev 6*) represents war and bloodshed ; the
great red dragon (12*) the same, probably with the
added idea of fire.
3. Black (mAos) indicates the absence of light :
a white object is one which retiects nearly all the
light of all colours ; a black object absorbs nearly
all. Ethically considered, the withdrawal of light
is weird and appalling. The revelation at Sinai
was made in ' blackness {yv6<pos, gloom) and mist
and tempest' (He 12'*). Black is the colour of
famine ; the third of the four riders in the Apoca-
lypse, who brings dearth, goes forth on a black
horse (Rev 6'). A great earthquake makes the
sun black as sackcloth of hair (6^* ; cf. Jl 2^ *' ; Ass.
Mos. X. 4f. ; Virg. Georg. i. 463 f.). For men
whose lives belie their profession there is reserved
the blackness of darkness (6 f<5^y tov aicorous, 2 P
2" II Jude^* ; cf. Homer, II. xxi. 56).
4. Purple {■rop(f>vpa, purpura) now denotes a
shade varying between crimson and violet, but to
the ancients it was a red-purple dye, which might
even be mistaken for scarlet (cf. Jn 19^ with Mt
27^). It was obtained from a shellfish {purpura,
murex) found near Tyre and on the shores of Tar-
en tum and Laconia. The throat of each mollusc
yielded one drop of the precious fluid. The manu-
facture and sale of the dye was the monopoly of
the Phoenicians. Pliny says of Tyre that, while
she once ' thirsted so eagerly for the conquest of
the whole earth . . . all her fame is now con-
fined to the production of the murex and the
purple' {HX v. 17). Cloth of purple was the
emblem of royalty and nobility — purpura regum
(Virg. Georg. ii. 495). The soldiers arrayed Christ
with it in derision (Mt 15*"- ^). It was among the
costly merchandise of Imperial Rome (Rev 18^).
The Maccabees noted that the sober-minded
Romans of the Republic did not wear it (1 Mac
8'*), but Pliny remarks on ' the frantic passion for
purple ' in his time (HN ix. 60). The prophet of
the Revelation knows that the great citj" is arrayed
in it (Rev 18'''). The apocalj-ptic harlot clothes
herself with it (17*). Tlie finest kind of purple
was ' the Tynan dibapha (double-dyed), which
could not be bought for even 1000 denarii per
pound ' (Pliny, ix. 63). Lydia (Ac 16"- ^*- **) was a
seller of purple (irop^i/pon-wXts), but it is now generally
believed that the Thyatiran dye, which she was
engaged in selling, was the modern turkey red,
which is extracted from the madder root {rubia).
5. Scarlet (kokklvo^) was obtained from the
female of the Jcermes insect (Arab, kirmiz, whence
the synonymous ' crimson '), which, when impreg-
nated, attaches itself to the holm-oak, and was
long supposed to be a red berry or seed — a mistake
found in Pliny {RN xvi. 8). The insect {Coccus
ilicis) is of the same famUy as the cochineal of
Mexico, which yields a finer dye that has super-
seded the ancient scarlet. Wool dyed scarlet was
used in the Jewish ritual of sacrifice (He 9'").
Scarlet fabrics were among the merchandise of
Rome (Rev 18'-) — 'rubro cocco tincta vestis ' (Hor.
Sat. II. vi. 102 f.). The glaring colour was the
symbol of luxury and splendour. The great city
was attired in it (Rev 18"*). The woman arrayed
in purple and scarlet, and sitting on a scarlet-
coloured beast, is an image of flaunting licentious-
ness (17*-^).
232
COMFORT
COMFORT
6. Pale is one of the translations of x^w/wj, an
indefinite hue, applied as an epithet to objects
so diflerent as fresh green grass (Mk 6**) and
yellow sand (Soph. Aj, 1064). Botli meanings
were common from Homer downwards. The pale
horse in Kev 6** has the livid hue of death.
7. Hyacinthine {vaKlvdivoi) is one of the three
colours of the breastplates of the fiendish horse-
men in Rev 9^'. vdKivdoi is the LXX tr. of n^rn, a
dye obtained from another shelHish on the Tyrian
coast. It was blue-purple as distinguished from
red-purple; the Oxj. Jleb. Lex. gives 'violet.'
The cuirasses were also red like fire (wplvovs) and
yellow as brimstone {6eid)8eis).
The brilliant hues of the foundations, walls,
gates, and streets of the New Jerusalem, and those
of the robes of the inhabitants, suggest that ' the
beauty of colour . . . will contribute its part to
the blessedness of vision in the future world '
(Delitzsch, Iris, 61). James Strahan.
COMFORT. — The word irap6.K\T)(ns is generally
translated in RV ' comfort' ; ' exhortation ' is used
in Ac Vi^\ Ro 12*, 2 Co 8'^ 1 Th 2^, 1 Ti 4.^^, He 12^
13'*''; 'encouragement,' He 6^*; 'consolation' or
' exhortation,' Ac 4^**' 15^^ These translations
indicate that the NT use of Trap6.K\i)(n.s is more
nearly equivalent to the root meaning of * comfort '
(L. Lat. confortare, 'to strengthen') than to the
narrowed present sense of ' consolation.' (The use
of irapdK\r]<Tii as ' request ' occurs in 2 Co 8''' ;
irapa/xvdia is rendered ' consolation ' in 1 Co 14^ ;
irapafi.'udiov, translated 'consolation,' rather indi-
cates persuasive address in Ph 2^ ; the verb is used
in 1 Tn 2'' ; irap-nyopla =' comfort' in Col 4^'.)
It is one of the great functions of religion to
transform the human pain, sorrow, and discourage-
ment of life. The man of faith cannot escape the
inevitable sorrows of the common human lot, but
he can modify their values by his religious faith
and hope. When faith does not remove mountains,
it can give strength to climb them. The ' thorn in
the flesh ' may remain, but the Divine grace proves
' sufficient ' (2 Co 12*' ®). God is recognized as the
real source of all comfort (2 Co 1* ; cf. Ro 15', 2 Co
7', 2 Th 2>«). He operates through the 'comfort
of the Scriptures' (Ro 15*, He 1^; cf. the name
'consolation' [nehemfta] given by the Jews to
the Prophetic literature), through the faithfulness,
love, and prosperity of the churches (2 Co 7®* '' etc.),
and the sustaming comradeship of friends (Col 4",
Philem '). Ac 9^*^ supplies the phrase ' the comfort
of the Holy Ghost,' although the translation is un-
certain (see R. J. Knowling, EGT, ' Acts,' 1900, p.
244) ; but the idea is present in Jn 14-17, the section
which commences with the note of comfort given
in view not only of the coming bereavement, but
of the difficulties of Christian life and work.
The tenn 'comforter' in these chapters appears to be an
inaccurate and inadequate translation of napa.K\r]ro';. irapoKaXiio
has a double sense: (1) 'call in as a helper," (2) 'comfort.'
The passive form requires the former meaning— the Paraclete is
the one called in to help, advise, defend. 'Comforter' would
be TrapaKArJTiop as in Job 162 (see HDB, art. 'Paraclete'). But
the fact of having a Pararlete is itself a comfort and encourage-
ment. The recognition and experience of the Divine in human
souls inspires and sustains. The description of the Paraclete
in these chapters of St. John's Gospel, as possessing mainlj-
an intellectual function, makes the narrow identification with
the ecstatic Pentecostal spirit of Acts improbable. The term
rather indicates the growmg inward Logos, developed by the
demands put upon the disciples after the death of Jesus ('If I
go not away the Paraclete will not come unto you,' Jn 167 ; cf.
the thought in Emerson's essay on 'Compensation' — 'The
angels go out that the archangels inay come in ').
(a) One of the most obvious needs of the Church
in NT times was that of comfort under circum-
stances of persecution for Christ's sake (1 Th 3*
etc. ). The grounds of such comfort might be found
in the thought that Jesus, the Captain and Per-
fecter of their faith, had similarly suflered (He 12*,
1 Th 2'*), and that they who shared His sullerings
would share His glory (2 Co 410, Ph 3"*) ; in the
recognition that in their case it was nobility of
spirit which provoked the world's persecution (1 P
4""-, 2 Ti 3'2, Ac 5« ; cf. Jn 15""-) ; that affiictions
were the signs of God's sonship (He 12*"*) ; and tliat
the worthy bearing of them resulted in ripened
character (v."), demonstrated the strength of God
in human weakness (2 Co 12'"), qualiiied one to
minister to others (2 Co 1*), and worked an eternal
weight of glory in comparison with which the pass-
ing affliction was light (2 Co 4" ; cf. Rev 7'=*-" etc.).
The 'promise' which sustained the ancient heroes
of faith amid much affliction was still an inspiration
(He 11). (b) The Christian worker might be dis-
couraged by his own limitations and the disappoint-
ing results of his labour ; his comfort must be that,
despite diversity of ministration, ' all service ranks
the same with God' (1 Co 12), and that his service
in the Lord would not be in vain (Gal 6^, 1 Co 15** ;
cf. Rev 14'*). (c) The common burden of life was
lightened for the Cliristian believer in the con-
sciousness of the Divine love. Apart from what
Jesus had actually done to comfort and encourage
mankind. His very Coming was a symbol of the
eternal goodness, love, and care of God. Would
not the Father, who had not spared His own Son,
with Him freely give His children all things? (Ro
%^'^). Again, the present ' age ' with its pain and
sorrow was not destined to continue for ever. The
whole creation was moving towards a Divine event ;
to those in sympathy with goodness, all things
were working together for good (Ro 8). The world
was God's ('there is one God, the Father, of whom
are all things ' [1 Co 8*]), who finally would again
be all in all (1 Co 15''*"'^). {d) Bereavement and
the fear of death were relieved by the strong
Christian faith in the Resurrection (1 Co 15, etc.).
The First Thessalonian Epistle sought to give
comfort to those whose friends had ' fallen asleep '
by the fact and manner of the Parousia (1 Th 4'2"^»).
A deeper element of faith was realized in the
consciousness that behind the world, visible and
temporal, was a world, unseen and eternal, and if
the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved,
we have a building of God eternal in the heavens
(2 Co 4^" 5^). Whether the Christians lived or dietl,
they belonged to the Lord (Ro 14^). Uncertain a.s
to what the future state would be (1 Jn 3-), they
could nevertheless be sure of the Divine Fatherhood
and care. ' Neither life nor death, things present
nor things to come,' could separate the children of
God from His love (Ro 8*^; cf. the closing verses
of Whittier's The Eternal Goodness). The fourth
voice from heaven (Rev 14^^) proclaims the blessed-
ness of those who die in the Lord.
The duty of mutual comfort is enjoined in 1 Th
418 ('"Wherefore comfort one another with these
words ' ; cf. 5"). Among a list of Christian duties
in 5'* is that of 'comforting the faint-hearted'
(irapa/jivdeiffde Toiis 6\iyo\l/vxovs). irapdKXTjcris is de-
scribed as part of a Christian minister's equip-
ment (1 Ti 4i», Tit P, 1 Th 3"), and that the term is
not confined to mere exhortation is suggested by
2 Co 1*. The detailed results of ' prophesying ' are
given in 1 Co 14" as ' edification and comfort and
consolation' (RV). The penitent offender in the
Corinthian Church must not only be forgiven, but
comforted, lest by any means such a one should be
swallowed up by his overmuch sorrow (2 Co 2" ; cf.
1 Jn2'-2).
LiTERATURK.— Artt. ' Comfort ' in HDB ; ' Comfort, "Consola-
tion,'and 'Care' in DCG; the relevant Commentaries, esp. J.
B. Lightfoot, Pliflippians-i, 1S7S, p. 107, and G. Milluran,
Thcssaloniatis, l90S,v. 17; A. Nairne, The KpisUe of Prie$thoud,
1913, p. 432 ; H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the JST, 1909,
pp. i)6f.. 22«f., 372 f. ; H. Black, Christ's Service of Love, 1907,
p. 62 : S. A. Tipple, Days of OUi, 1911, p. 107 ; W. P. DuBose,
The Reason of Life, 1911, p. 183. H. BULCOCK,
COMING
COMMANDMENT
233
COMING.— See Parousia.
COMMANDMENT. — In so far as primitive Chris-
tianity, in contrast to the OT, appeals to the con-
science as the supreme tribunal of moral judgment
(1 Co 8^-, Ro 14»- 1*-^ ; cf. 2"), and calls upon
Christians themselves to determine what is the
will of God (Ro 122, Eph 5'»-", 1 Jn 2»; cf. Jer
31**), it may be said to proclaim the ethical
autonomy of the individual Christian. This, of
course, involves the assumption that the Christian
apprehends the character of God as revealed in
Jesus Christ ; and accordingly the ethical maxim
of primitive Christianity is that the believer should
have the mind of Christ (Ph 2**^-) and should follow
Him (1 Co IP, 1 P -I-^-, 1 Jn 2« etc).
But, on the other hand, the apostles, including
St. Paul, make reference to a tradition of authori-
tative Divine commandments, and indeed they
themselves lay down a number of precepts designed
to serve as guides for the moral judgment of
Christians (ivToXcU, d&ynara, xopayyeXtat, xo/wSarets,
etc.). We note the following categories.
1. Commandments of the Mosaic Law. — We
have in the first place those commandments of the
Mosaic Law, or of the OT, which are regarded as
of Divine authority not only by the Jewish-Chris-
tian apostles, but also bv St. Paul ; cf. Ja 2®"",
Ro 7*-!^ 13*, Gal 5", Eph 6^. Of the laws of Moses,
the Decalogue, as we might expect, is assigned a
position of peculiar importance ; it forms the
tundamental law of the Old Dispensation (2 Co 3' :
' tables of stone '), and is therefore always cited
when the leading commandments are under con-
sideration (Ro 13®, Ja 2"). It is worthy of remark,
however, that here both St. Paul and St. James
take into account only the commandments of the
second table, asserting that the whole Law is
summed up in the command to love one s neighbour
(Gal 5", Ro 13«f-), 'the royal law' (Ja28), though
it is true that in Eph 6^ St. Paul quotes a command-
ment from the first table ('Honour thy father,'
etc.).* The sequence of the laws quoted in Ro 13®
and Ja 2'^ agrees with that of the LXX version of
Ex 20^* in putting adultery before murder. So far
as the Decalogue shares the statutory character of
the Law as a whole, it also, according to St. Paul,
is involved in the abrogation of ' the law of com-
mandments' (Eph 2"), as is evident from what is
said regarding the law of the Sabbath, the obli^i-
torycharacter of which, according to Ro 14', Gal 4^-,
Col 2'*", is in principle surrendered. Hence Luther^s
interpretation of this commandment is the right
one ; though, in view of 1 Co 7", St. Paul probably
maintained that it should remain binding upon
Jewish Christians (see art. Law).
Further, St. Paul (as also the other apostles)
cites not only the Decalogue, but the rest of the
Torah as well, in support of hLs own ethical pre-
cepts (1 Co 9® 14**, 1 Ti 5^ ; cf. Ja 2" ; in all these
passages, however, the reference is to command-
ments which justijfy themselves to the Christian
consciousness). He avails himself of the principle
laid down in 1 Co 10", Ro 15S Col 2", i.e. he
applies the OT commandments to the Messianic
era in an allegorical or typological sense ; thus
1 Co 9® (maintenance of Christian teachers) = Dt 25*,
1 Co 9^ = Xu 18^ 1 Co 5''- = Ex IQ?«- (the putting
away of leaven). He likewise reinforces his own
admonitions by sayings from the Psalms and the
Prophets, as, e.g., 2 Co 99=Ps 1129, j Cq ia=Jer
92=", Ro 1218= Dt 32« ; cf. Ja 4« = Pr 3« He 3^-" =
Ps 95'"^^. Finally, St. Paul and the rest frequently
* Just as, e,g., in Mt 19^ and Is this commandment is ap-
pended to those of the second table (nos. 6, 7, and 8). It is
impossible to decide whether the Jewish, the Eastern and Re-
formed, or the Roman Catholic and Lutheran arrangement of
the commandments is followed here.
give their pi-ecepts in the form of OT exhortations ;
cf., e.g., Ro 12»=Pr 25=^'-, 1 P2'^ = Pr24-i, 1 P3i««-
= P8 M^'-, He 12«^ = Pr 3"'-.
2. Commandments of God and Jesos. — (1) The
commandments of God frequently referred to in
the Epistles of John and in Rev. (1 Jn S*' 4» 5*^,
2 Jn«, Rev 12" 14^ ; cf . the Pauline usage, 1 Co T'*)
should doubtless be regarded as the OT command-
ments in the NT acceptation (i.e. as applied by
Jesos) ; cf. 1 Jn 2"-, where the commandment to
love one's brother is spoken of as at once old and
new, and 1 Jn 4^, where brotherly love in Christ's
sense is combined with love to God (cf. Mt 22F'"
and parallels).
(2) Apart from this the apostolic Epistles refer
but seldom to the commandments of Jesus. In
James, 1 Peter, Hebrews, and Revelation we meet
^vith no utterance of the earthly Jesus, while 1 and
2 John allude to His commandments oiily in general
terms (1 Jn 2«- S"^ [brotherly love] ; cf. 2 Jn »). Nor
will it surprise us to find that the Pauline Epistles
likewise contain but few references to the com-
mandments of the Lord. Apart from Ac 2CP
(which, it is true, implies a more extensive use of
the Lord's words in the oral teaching of St. Paul ;
cf. the pi. X<57wi'), we find such references only in
1 Co 7" 9^* (11=^**), Gal 6», 1 Ti 6^ The first of
these passages refers to the prohibition of divorce ;
the second to the apostles' right to live by preach-
ing the gospel (cf. 1 Ti 5**) ; Gal 6* to ' the law of
Christ,' i.e. mutual service; and 1 Ti 6* to the
words of Jesus in general (cf. 4*). But the explicit
distinction which St. Paul diuws between what
the Lord did and did not command shows that he
had an accurate knowledge of the Lord's words —
just as he also distingaishes between his own pre-
cepts and the Lord's commandments. To trace
this distinction to the difference between a greater
and a less degree of certainty in the inward revela-
tion (Baur) is the sheerest caprice ; cf. the historic
tense in 1 Co 9^*. That St. Paul in general based
his moral teachings on the authority of Jesus Him-
self appears from 1 Th 4', where he reminds his
readers of the charges he delivered to - them
'through the Lord Jesus'; cf. 1 Co 4^', where, as
the context shows, his 'ways which are in Christ'
are the ethical precepts for which Christ was his
authority. In using here the somewhat vague ex-
pression ' in Christ,' he simply indicates that his
precepts are not mere repetitions of the words of
Jesus, but that they are ' Christian ' in the wider
sense — like, let us say, the ' Teachings of the Lord
through the Twelve Apostles' in the DidacAe.
The commandments of Jesus are fr^uently cited
also by the Apostolic Fathers ; cf. 1 Clem. xiiL 3 ;
2 Clem. iiL 4, iv. 5ff., xvii. 3. 6; Ign. Eph. ix. 2;
cf. Magn. xiii. 1 (Sbyfiara toO Kvpiov Koi tQt aroard-
\uv) ; Did. xi. 3 {Sdr'/fta rod einyyeXiov).
3. Commandments of the apostles. — From the
commandments of Jesus appealed to by the apostles
it is an easy transition to those of the apostles
themselves (cf. 2 P 3*) ; it should be noted, how-
ever, that the term ivroXal is restricted to the
commandments of God and Jesus, while the apos-
I tolic ' commandments ' are denoted by other terms :
Soytiara (Ac 16*), xopayyeXwu (1 Th 4- ; cf. 2 Th 3^%
rafxiSoffus (1 Co 11-, 2 Th 2^ 3«), and the like. But
! although St. Paul, in 1 Co 7, distinguishes between
his own ' judgment ' (v.^ yrupn]) and the command-
ment of the Lord, he nevertheless demands obe-
dience to the former, inasmuch as he is possessed
of the Spirit of God (1 Co 7*>; cf. Ac 15«), and,
I accordingly, he can even assert that what he writes
i is ' the commandment of the Lord' (1 Co 14*^). It
is true that he sometimes appeals, as in 1 Co 1(P,
i to the personal judgment of his readers, but it is
clear, from 11^^ and 14*^*-, that he attached no de-
I cisive importance to such judgment. In any case.
234
COMMENDATION
COMMUNION
all opposition must give way before the consensus
of apostolic usage (11'* 14^), and St. Paul always
assumes that such a consensus really exists ; cf.
Ro 6^' Tvvoz SiSaxhi ('fixed form of moral teach-
inw'), 16" (where 'the teaching '= moral teaching).
This common ethical tradition would include,
above all, the so-called Apostolic Decree (Ac lo'""-
16'*). It must certainly nave comprised the in-
junctions regarding things sacrificed to idols, and
fornication, an echo of which is still heard in Rev
220. 24 ((.f y 24 j;hg phrase ' cast upon you none other
burden ' with Ac 15'-^), and which tiie Apostle, not
only according to Ac 16^, but also in 1 Co 6'^"*" and
lQu-33^ expressly urges upon Gentile Christians.
Cf. further artt. Law and Moses.
We must also take account of the lists of vices and
virtues given in various forms by the apostles :
Gal 5i9-='i, 1 Co 5»o 6«'-, 2 Co 122<>'-, Ro l^s-^i 13»3,
Col 3'-8, Eph 4=» 5«-, 1 Ti l"'-, 2 Ti 3'^-», Rev 218 22">
(vices); Gal 6^, Col SJ^-i', Eph ^'^■^■'-5\ 2 P p-^
(virtues). Similar lists are found in Did. ii. 1-v. 2,
Barn. 18-20, Polycarp, ii. 2-iv. 3. Though such
tables were in their origin dependent upon Jewish
and Greek models (e.g. Wis l'^"- U^^"-; cf. Mt 15'9 ;
Diog. Laert. vii. 110-114) — as St. Paul indeed in-
directly recognizes in Ro P-, Ph 4^ (cf. the Stoic
phrase tA /it; KaO-fiKovra, Ro 1'-^) — they nevertheless
reveal, especially as regards the virtues, their dis-
tinctively Christian character.
Along ■with the lists of vices and virtues should
be mentioned also the so-called 'house-tables,' i.e.
the groups of precepts for the various domestic re-
lationships— husbands and wives, parents and chil-
dren, masters and slaves (e.g. Eph 5^-'-6®, Col 3'*-4\
1 P 2"'-3^). These, as will be seen, make their
first appearance in the later Epistles, but they may
well have attained an oral form at an earlier date.
Finally, the Pastoral Epistles, in addition to the
family precepts, give several series of directions
for the various orders of Christians — bishops,
deacons, Avidows, etc., thus furnishing in fact a
kind of Church organization, the social duties of
the various relationships being made more or less
subordinate to the ecclesiastical point of view (cf.
1 Ti 2>-62, Tit l«-32).
The reduction of Christian morality to concrete
details was a matter of historic necessity. Just as
the spirit of Christianity was not, even at the out-
set, possessed by all believers in the same degree,
but was found pre-eminently in the apostles and
prophets, so it was not present so fully in the later
period as in the earlier. Hence, when the apostles
were nearing their end, they felt it necessaiy, for
the sake of the succeeding generation, to commit
to writing the more detailed ethical teaching which
no doubt they had to some extent already brought
into an oral form. Cf. further art. Law.
LiTRRATURE.— The NT Theologies of B. Weiss, P. Peine, and
H. Weinel ; G. B. Stevens, The Pauline Theology, 1892 ; C. v.
Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, Eng. tr., i.'- [1897] 154 ; A. Seeberg,
Der Katechismus der Urehristenheit, 1903, p. Iff.; O. Moe,
Paulas und die evangelische Gesekichte, 1912, p. 56 ff. ; A. B.
Bruce, St. PauFs Conception of Christianity, 1894, p. 293 ff. ;
E. V. Dobschiitz, Christian Life in the Primitive Church, Eng.
tr., 1904, p. 399ff. OLAF MOE.
COMMENDATION (from Lat. com- and mando,
'commit to'). — 'Commend' is used in AV and
RV as a translation of (a) irapaTiOrin.i, in the sense
of entriisting (cf. ' Father, into thy hands I com-
mend my spirit,' Lk 23«) in Ac 14^3 and 20»2, in
reference to the solemn committing of the heads
of the churches to God. The same verb is trans-
lated ' commit ' (to God) in 1 P 4'® (' Let them that
suffer . . . commit their souls ... to a faithful
creator ') ; cf. Lk 12^8^ 1 Ti 1'8 e^o, 2 Ti V^ ]* 2\
(b) irapioTTTjixi is translated ' commend ' in 1 Co
88 ('Meat conmiendeth us not to God') in the
sense of presenting to God ; ' non exhibebit nos
Deo' (Mever); 'will not bring us into God's pre-
sence' (Weymouth).
(c) 'Commend' is used to translate <rwi«rTTj}i.i (1)
in Ro 3', in the sense of demonstration, setting in
clearer light (' but if our unrighteousness com-
mendeth the righteousness of God, what shall we
say?') ; (2) in Ro 5*, in the sense of making proof
of {'God commendeth his own love towards us, in
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us ') ;
(3) in the sense of introduction in Ro 16' (' I com-
mend unto you Phoebe our sister '). ' ffwiffrrj/u is
the technical word for this kind of recommenda-
tion, which was equivalent to a certificate of
church membership ' (Denney, EGT, ' Romans,'
1900, p. 717). Greek teachers used to give ttrtcr-
ToXal avarariKal (Diog. Laert. viii. 87). The
Ephesian Christians wrote such a letter for ApoUos
to the Church at Corinth (Ac 18'-"). St. Paul in
2 Co 8'8''" gives an introduction for Titus and his
companions to the Corinthian Church. In 2 Co 3'
St. Paul finely points out that no such introduc-
tion is necessary in his own case, either for or
from his readers. They themselves are a letter of
commendation in a double sense — they are ever
written in his heart ; no need for others to com-
mend them to his interest and care ; again, as his
converts, they are his letter of credential to them-
selves and to all the world. (4) The verb, retlex-
ively used to convey the idea of self-praise, occurs
in 2 Co 3' 5'^ 10'^- '8 (where the pronoun coming
before the verb occupies the prominent position) ;
(5) but in 4^^ 6* 7" (where the pronoun follows the
verb) the reference is to legitimate demonstration
of one's faith and work ; e.g. zeal for purity is
such a commendation (7"). An apostle's true
credentials are unwearied labour, self-sacrifice,
character, and loftiness of spirit (6^).
H. BULCOCK.
COMMERCE.— See TRADE.
COMMON.— See Clean.
COMMUNION.— The Greek word Koivwvla. has a
wider scope (see Fellowship) than the English
word ' communion,' which the EV uses particularly
in regard to the Lord's Supper (1 Co 10'"). St.
Paul's expression is somewhat ambiguous. In
what way may the cup and the bread be said to be
a communion ? They may either be a symbol for
communion or may constitute a communion by
sacramental influence. What does the blood of
Christ mean ? Is it the blood which was shed at
His death, or does it signify the death itself or its
efi'ects ? Or does St. Paul perhaps think of the
blood as some transfigured heavenly substance?
And what does the body of Christ mean ? Is it the
material body, which Jesus wore on earth, and
which hung on the cross, or the immaterial body
of the heavenly Lord ? Or, again, is it the spiritual
body, whose head is Christ, i.e. the Church ? And
lastly, what does communion of the blood and of
the body mean? Is it communion with, i.e. par-
taking of, the blood and the body, or is it a com-
munion whose symbol and medium are the blood and
the body? In former times all attempts at inter-
pretation distinguished sharply between tiiose
various meanings; nowadays there is a tendencj
towards accepting the ditlcrent views as being
present at the same time in the author's mind and
in the mind of his first readers, not as entirely
separate ideas, but all together in fluctuating transi-
tion. Grammar and vocabulary are not decisive
in such a case. We have to start from the general
view of communion which early Christianity held.
In this the particular meaning of communion in
regard to the Lord's Supper will be included.
There can be no doubt but that early Christianity
had a double conception of fellowship : all mem-
COMMUNION
CO^IMUNITY or GOODS
235
bers of the Cbxirch were in close fellowship one
with the other, and at the same time each and all
of them were in fellowship with the heavenly
Lord. Tlie former conception was the more pro-
minent ; but the latter no doubt was the basis of
faith. Now in the Lord's Supper we find both
these ideas present. St. Patil complains of the
divisions at Corinth (1 Co 11'*): the members of
the Church do not share their meal in a brotherly
way, nor do they wait for one another (».e. prob-
ably for the slaves who could not be present
early). Here we have the purely social and moral
idea. But St. Paul, in speaking of 'the Lord's
Supper' (11^), indicates another point of view,
which maj* be called the religious and sacramental
conception : the Lord's Supper is not only a supper
held at the Lord's command, or a supper held in
honour of the Lord (cf. 11^ ^), but it is also a
supper in communion Avith the Lord, where the
Lord is present, participating as the Host. In this
way the Lord's Supper is not only the expression
of an existing communion with Him, but it realizes
this communion every time it is held. Now the
question is : Is it the common supper which con-
stitutes the communion, or are we to think of the
particular elements, bread and wine, as producing
the communion ? We shall tiy to find an answer
by noting some analogies from the comparative
history of religions.
W. "Robertson Smith started the theory that the
origin of all sacrifice lies in the idea of a sacra-
mental communion between the members of a tribe
and the tribal deity, which is realized by the
common eating of the flesh of the sacrifice and the
drinking of its blood. The theory as a complete
explanation is inadequate, but we may admit sacra-
mental communion in this sense as one of the
diti'erent views underlying the practice of sacrifice.
In ancient Israel the so-called peace-oflering may be
taken as illustrating this ^iew. In later Judaism,
however, this rite held but asmall place, and Rabbi-
nical transcendentalism would not allow any thought
of sacramental communion with (Jod the Most
High. To adduce analogies taken from primitive
culture is of no value. According to Dieterich,
primitive man had the idea that, by partaking of
the flesh of any sacrificial animal offered to a god,
he was partaking of the god himself, and thus
entering into sacramental communion with him.
This theory has not been proved, and in any case
it is beside the point here. We find better analo-
gies in the Hellenism of the Apostolic Age, where
we may distinguish two sets of parallels. (« ) In the
Mysteries certain sacred foods and drinks were
used to bring man into communion with the god ;
(b) on the other hand, many clubs held an annual
or monthly supper, which generally took place in
a temple, and was at any rate accompanied by
religious ceremonies which were to constitute a
communion between the members and the god or
hero ( very often the founder of the club) in whose
honour the supper was given. So we have two
conceptions of communion : one mystical, individ-
ual, magical ; the other moral, social, spiritual.
In the former, particular food is supposed to bring
the partaker into communion with the god physic-
ally (or rather hyper-physically), to transfer the
essence and virtues of the god into the man and so
to make him god (deify him) ; in the latter, it is
the community of the meal which unites all par-
takers to one another and to the hero in the same
sense as marriage or friendship unites distinct per-
sonalities.
The e\-idence of these parallels brings the early
Christian conception of the Lord's Supper into
close affinity with the communion of the club
suppers, which had their analogy in suppers held
in the Jewish synagogues of the Hellenistic Dis-
persion. The Mysteries did not influence Christian
thought before the 2nd century. St. Paul, it is
true, starts the idea of an unto mystica between
the individual Christian and Christ (Gal 2*") ; this
idea is prevalent in his doctrine of baptism (Ro 6'',
Col 2") ; but his predominant line of thought is
the other view, which regards the two personalities
as apart from each other, and may be described as
the idea of ' fellowship.' The same may be said
about St. John's Wew, in spite of all mystical
appearances.
Now, when we turn to 1 Co 10^® again, we see
clearly that it is not the bread and the wine that
constitute sacramental communion by themselves ;
nor is communion the partaking of Christ's material
body and blood. Bread and wine in relation to body
and blood were given by tradition, but, as far as
performing a sacramental communion is concerned,
they represent only the common meal, which brings
men into communion with the Lord, who through
His death entered upon a heavenly existence.
From this conception of the transfigured body it is
easy to pass to the other one of a spiritual body
whose members are the partakers (yS').
This interpretation is further supported by the
comparison, made by St. Paul him-self, of Jewish
and Grentile sacrifices. When he saj's that the
Jews by eating the sacrifices have communion with
the altar, he means spiritual communion with God
whose representative is the altar (note that the
phrase ' communion with God ' is avoided — a true
mark of Rabbinism) ; and when he says that to
partake of a supper connected with a heathen sacri-
fice brings men into communion with demons, he
does not accept the popular idea that the food itself
was quasi-infected by demonic influence (he declares
formally that to eat such flesh xmconsciously does
not harm a Christian) ; but he says : ' ye cannot
drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils :
ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of
the table of devils,' because partaking of the table
constitutes a spiritual and moral conmiunion which
is exclusive in its effect. See Eucharist.
Lms&ATTRE. — W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage
in Early Arabia, new ed., 1903, RS*, 1894 ; A. Dieterich, Bine
Mithrastiturffie, 1903 ; E. Reaterskiold, Die Ent^Uthung der
Speitesaeramente {Reiigiontwi*»en»du^/Uiehe Bibliothek, 1912) ;
ll. R. Famell, ' Beii^ons and Social Aspects of the Colt of
Ancestonand Heroes,' in HJ vii. [1909]415-t35. Formemorial
Boppen, see inscriptions collected bv H. Lietzmann, Handlmeh
zum ST, iii. [1907 J lOOfif. ; E. Lucias, Die An/dnge des Heili-
genkult*, 1904. For Jewish suppers in srnagogues, see E.
Schfirer, GJV*i^ [1909] 143 ; O. Schmitz,'Z>i< Opferamehau-
ung destpdterenJudentvms, 1910 ; W. HeitmuUer, TaMfe und
Abendmahl bei Paulus, 1903; E. v. Dobschiitz, 'Sacrament
und Symbol im Urchristentum," in SK, 19C6, pp. 1-40; F.
Dibelius, Das Abendmahl, 1911. Ct the Commentaries on
1 Cor. by L. 1. Rtickert {loS6), C. F. G. Heinrici (ISSO), T. C.
Edwards (218&5X P. W. Scbmiedel (1S91), H. Lietzmann
(1907X P. Bachmann (1905, 31910), J. Weiss (in Meyer®, 1910).
E. VOX DOBSCHiJTZ.
COMMUNITY OF GOODS.— There are two pass-
ages in the Acts of the Apostles which seem to
suggest that there was established in the Church
in Jerusalem a system of community of goods.
'And all that believed were together and had all
things common ; and they sold their possessions
and goods, and parted them to all, according as
any man had need ' (Ac 2*^). ' And the multitude
of them that believed were of one heart and soul :
and not one of them said that aught of the things
which he possessed was his own, but they had all
things common. . . . For neither was there among
them any that lacked : for as many as were possess-
, ors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the
S prices of the things that were sold, and laid them
at the apostles' feet : and distribution was made
' unto each, according as any one had need ' (4**- **•").
I The Didacke (iv. 8) contains a phrase which must be
E' ut beside this : ' Thou shalt not turn away from
im that is in need, but shalt share all things with
236 COMMUNITY OF GOODS
CONDEMNATION
thy brother, and shalt not say that they are thine
own ; for if ye are sharers in that which is immortal,
how much more in those things which are mortal.'
The so-called Epistle of Barnabas contains almost
exactly the same phrase (xix. 8), and it is most
jjrobable that in these works it came from some
common source. We confine ourselves in this art.
to the 1st cent., but a statement of Justin Martyr
must be cited. He says in the First Apoloqxj that
the Christians brought what they possessed into a
common stock, and shared with every one in need
(xiv.).
At first sight it would seem as if the passages
in Acts indicated the existence in the Christian
community of a definite system of communism,
and there are some things in the Gospels which
might seem to point in the same direction. The
blessedness of poverty, the subtle dangers of
riches, are taught in many passages. The rich
young man is told to sell all that he has and give
to the poor, and our Lord observes upon tlie in-
cident tliat it is hard for them tliat have riches to
enter into the Kingdom of God (Mk 10'^-^ |!). In
Lk 6^- '•'* our Lord is reported as saying, ' Blessed
are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. . . .
But woe unto you that are rich, for ye have re-
ceived your consolation.' It is possible that we must
allow for the influence of difl'erent tendencies in the
Gospel narratives ; for instance, in St. Matthew's
Gospel, this benediction upon the poor is given a
strictly spiritual turn (Mt 5^). Again the E^pistle
of St. James seems to indicate that the Christian
communities are composed of poor people, while
the rich are their enemies. ' Hearken, my beloved
brethren ; didnot God choose them that are poor as to
the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the king-
dom which he promised to them that love him ? . . .
Do not the rich oppress you, and themselves drag
you before the juagment-seats ? ' (Ja 2"-).
When, however, we examine the passages in the
Acts more carefully, it seems to be clear that the
evidence does not warrant us in concluding that
there was any definite system of community of
goods, even in the Church in Jerusalem. It is i>lain
from the story of Ananias and Sapphira that there
was no compulsion about the sale of goods and
lands for the common fund. St. Peter is reported
as saying to Ananias : ' Whiles it remained, did
it not remain thine own ? and after it was sold, was
it not in thy power ? ' (Ac S'*). When we turn from
the Acts to the Pauline Epistles we find no trace
of any system of community of goods. St. Paul
constantly exhorts his converts to liberality to the
poor, especially to those in Jerusalem (1 Co 16^'-,
2 Co 8. 9, Ro 15^, 1 Ti 6'8), and the nature of his
exhortation seems to imply that the individual
Christian retained his own possessions. The same
thing is implied in the Epistle to the Hebrews (13'®),
and seems t(» be the most natural interpretation of
the phrase in 1 John (3").
It cannot be said that the references in the NT
justify us in asserting that a system of community
of goods was part of the normal constitution of the
primitive Christian communities ; but it is not im-
possible that the conception that this was the most
perfect form of the religious life may have come
into Christianity from such contemporary forms of
Judaism as that of the Essenes, among whom the
community of goods was apparently practised. But
on the whole it would seem that the NT passages
are sufficiently explained by the very high sense of
the claim of brotherhood among Christian people.
The discussion of the full significance of this Mould
take us into the later history of the Church, and
would therefore l)e out of place here. But so much
may l)e said, that the NT principles are wholly in-
coTisistent with the view that tne Christian man
has any absolute right of property as against his
fellow-man. There can be no doubt that a great
Father like St. Gregory the Great rightly interprets
the spirit of the NT when he says that when we
give what they need to those who are in want, we
give them that which is their own ; we are not
giving away what is ours, we are rather discharg-
ing an obligation of justice than performing a work
of mercy {Lib. Meg. Pastor, pt. iii. ch. xxi.),
LiTERATTTRB. — E. Trocltsch, Die Sozialiehren der ehristliehen
Kirehen und Gntppen, 1912 : R. W. and A. J. Carlyle, A His-
tor]/ of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, vol. i. ('The '2nd
cent, to the 9th,' by A. J. Carlyle), 1903 ; E. B. Redlich, St.
Paul and his Companions, 1913, p. 7 ; O. Cone, Rich and Pour
in the ^T, 1902, p. 143 ff. ; E. Schurer, GJ ra ii. [1898] r.04 ff.
A. J. Caulylk.
COMPASSION.— See Pity.
CONCISION.— See Circumcision.
CONCUPISCENCE.— See Lust.
CONDEMNATION.— Not only from the Gospels,
but from the rest of the RV as well, the word
' damnation ' disappears, ' condemnation ' taking
its place in Ro 3* and 1 Ti 6'^ 'destruction' in
2 P 2», and 'judgment' in Ro 13^ and 1 Co 11=».
The reason is that the process of defeneration,
which had begun before the translation of the
AV, linked up the term with conceptions of finality
and eternity, originally alien to it, and thus made
it no longer representative of apostolical thought.
With the exception of 2 P 2*, the same Greek root
occurs in all instances, and the context in the
various passages is mainly responsible for the ditt'er-
ent shades of meaning. In the case of the verb, an
exception must also be made of Gal 2", where
the idea is that the act of Peter needed no verdict
from outside, but carried its own condemnation,
as in Ro 2' 14=» and Tit 3".
Little difficulty attaches to the use of the term
in the sense of ' destruction ' in the ca.se of Sodom
(2 P 2®), to the reference to the ark as a visible
sign of the destruction about to come upon the
unbelieving (He 11'), or to the denunciation by
James (5") of men who unjustly ascribe blame to
others and exact penalty for the imagined fault.
The wanton are rightly condemned for the rejec-
tion of the faith whose value they had learnt by
experience (1 Ti 5'^). Sound speech, on the other
hand, cannot be condemned (Tit 2®). The man
who fails to judge and discipline himself is re-
minded of his duty by Divine chastening ; and if
that fail, he shares in the final judgment with the
lost (1 Co 11"'- ; cf. Mk 9*''«-). In Ro 5'«- '« con-
demnation is the consequence of an original act of
evil, and suggests the antithesis of a single act of
righteousness, the etiects of which overflow to the
potential justification of all men ; and the freedom
from condemnation continues beyond the initial
stage of forgiveness and ripens into all the assured
experiences of union with Christ (Ro 8').
In several passages the term is involved in a
context which to some extent obscures the mean-
ing. The justification of evil as a means to good
is indignantly dealt with in Ro 3^ ; with the
authors of the slander that he shared that view
the apostle refuses to argue, but he leaves them
with the just condemnation of God impending.
That God ' condemned sin in the flesh ' (Ro 8*) has
been taken to mean that the sinlessness of Christ
was by contrast a condemnation of the sin of man,
or that the incarnation is a token that human
nature is essentially sinless ; but the previous
phrases connect the thought with the death rather
than with the birth of Christ. For Him as man
death meant the crown of sinlessness, the closure
of tlie last avenue tlirough which temptation could
approach Him ; and in virtue of union with Christ,
the believer who is dead with Him is free from
COXFESSIOX
CONTESSIOX
237
sin, though not immune from temptation. In 2
Co 3* ' condemnation ' is antitlietical to ' righteous-
ness,'and synonymous with 'death' in v.^. The
argument appears to be that sin is so horrible that
the law wliich reveals it is glorious ; a fortiori
the covenant that sweeps it out exceeds in glory.
'This condemnation' of Jude* ought granmiatic-
ally to be retrospective, but NT usage allows a
prospective use with an explanatory phrase in
apposition. The meaning is that ungodliness of
the kind described is self-condemned, as has been
set forth in various ways in Scripture (cf. Jn 3'*,
2 P 21-3) as well as in Enoch, i. 9 (cf. Jude^*"!*).
' The condemnation of the devil ' (1 Ti 3*) is a com-
jiarison of his fall with that of any vainglorious
member of the hierarchy. Both being God's minis-
ters to the people, the similarity is one of circum-
stance, not necessarily of degree.
R. W. Moss.
CONFESSION.— 1. Confession of Christ.— The
duty of confessing Christ before men was very
plainly taught by the Lord. He promised (Mt 10^)
that He would Himself acknowledge a faithful
disciple before His Father and the holy angels.
He had challenged by a leading question the con-
fession of St. Peter : ' Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God ' (Mt 16^'), which He commended.
In the Acts we find the same root ideas carried
into practice. St. Peter and the other apostles
openly confessed Jesus as the Christ (Ac 2^"-).
The references to baptism into the name of the
Lord most probably refer to the confession of faith
in Him which was made by aJl candidates for bap-
tism. Probably the little creed put into the mouth
of the Ethiopian eunuch (Ac 8*^ 'I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God') is an interpolation,
and represents the creed of some Church in Asia
Minor, since it wsis known to Irenseus.
The Epistles bear the same witness: 'No one
can say that Jesus is the Lord, save in the Holy
Ghost ^(1 Co 123). . If thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy
heart that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved' (Ro 10®). St. Paul here im-
plies that the Lord Jesus is one with the Lord
Jahweh on whom the prophet Joel bade men call
when he predicted ' this word of faith.' Our diffi-
culties begin when we try to piece together any
sort of longer confession which might be regarded
as the archetype of the later creeds. It is so diffi-
cult to keep an open mind and refrain from read-
ing too much into the evidence.
The Epistle to the Hebrews confirms the testi-
mony of the earlier Pauline Epistles. He 3^ reads,
' consider the Apostle and High Priest of our con-
fession, even Jesus.' In Westcotts words {Ep. to
Hebrews, 1889, ad loc.) : 'In Christ our "confes-
sion," the faith M-hich we hold and openly acknow-
ledge, finds its authoritative promulgation and its
priestly application.' In 4^^ the idea is expressed
of clinging to faith in one who is truly human and
truly Divine. In 10^ this confidence is described as
the confession of our hope, by which it is shaped.
There is an interesting parallel in Clement, ad Cor.,
eh. 36, who calls Christ ' the High Priest of our
offerings.'
The Johannine Epistles correspond to the Pauline.
In 1 Jn 2** confession is contrasted with denial as
entailing the privilege of having the Father. The
true inspiration of the Spirit is shown in confession
of 'Jesus Christ come in the flesh' (4^-) uniting
the Divine and the human in one person. ' The
recognition of the revelation of God b the sign of
the presence of God ' (^Yestcott, Epp. of St. John,
1883, p. 146) : ' Whosoever shall confess that Jesus
IS the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in
God ' (4»).
There is an interesting parallel with Johannine
teaching in Polycarp's Epistle, ch. 7, where he
urges confession of Jesus Christ come in the flesh,
echoing 1 Jn 4^ Polycarp's teacher, Ignatius of
Antioch, has much more to say on the lines of the
developed teaching about the person of Christ in
opposition to Docetic heresy. Thus he writes to
the Ephesians (ch. 7) : ' There is one only physician,
of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate,
God in man, true Life in death. Son of Mary and
Son of God, first passible and then impassible,
Jesus Christ our Lord.' This is a good illustration
of the way in which the simple primitive creed
was analyzed to meet new phases ot thought which
were felt to impoverish its fuU meaning. But
there is great risk in the attempts which have
been made to extract a full parallel with a later
baptismal creed, such as the Old Roman, from
passages like the following. Ignatius writes to
the Trallians (ch. 9): 'Be ye deaf therefore, when
any man speaketh to you apart from Jesus Christ,
who was of the race of David, who was the Son of
Mary, who was truly bom and ate and drank, was
truly persecuted under Pontius P*ilate, was truly
crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven,
and those on earth, and those tinder the earth ;
who moreover was tndy raised from the dead. His
Father ha>-ing raised Him, who in the like fashion
will so raise us also who believe on Him — His
Father, I say, wUl raise us — in Christ Jesus, apart
from whom we have not true life.' It is reasonable
to argue from this and similar passages {ad Eph.
18, ad Smym. 1 ) that for purposes of catechetical
instruction Christian teachers would soon prepare
a precise statement of the great facts of the Lord's
life and death and resurrection. But there is no
evidence that it had as yet been fitted into the
setting of the Trinitarian baptismal formula.
Ignatius expresses his faith in the Trinity — ' in
the Son, and in the Father, and in the Spirit' (cui
Magn. 13 ; cf. 2 Co 13'*)— clearly enough. But he
does not bring it into connexion with his confession
of Christ.
From a study of Ignatius we may work back-
wards to the problem of the confession of faith in
the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul. We are not
concerned here to defend their authenticity, but
only to ask whether it is possible to extract from
them, as Zahn attempts to do, an Apostolic Creed
of Antioch. St. Paul reminds Timothy of the
confession which he made before many witnesses,
we may suppose at his baptism (1 "fi 6'^). He
calls it the beautiful confession to which Christ
Jesus has borne witness before Pontius Pilate, and
charges Timothy ' before God, who quickeneth all
things, to keep the commandment undefiled, irre-
proachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus
Christ.' The reference is to the Lord's avowal
that He was a King (Jn 18^). The word 'confes-
sion ' seems to draw attention to the fact that He
confessed rather than to any form of words. In
the Martyrdom of Ignatius, ch. 1, it is referred to
the martyrdom of one who witnesses by blood-
shedding — that is to say, in deed, not in word.
' A form of sound words ' was indeed needed by
Timothy as a teacher, and he is exhorted to teach
as he had been taught (2 Ti 1*^), ' in faith and love
which is in Christ Jesus.' 'Remember Jesus
Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David,
according to my gospel ' (2^). We can safely say
that that gospel included teaching about God
who quickeneth all things, reference to Pontius
Pilate, tothe resurrection, and to the return to judg-
ment ; but the inference is most precarious by
which Zahn puts them all into the creed with con-
fession of the Holv Spirit, who is named in 2 Ti 1",
but not with emphatic correlation of His Person to
the Persons of the Father and the Son (cf. 1 Ti 6").
The thought is rather tbat of 1 Co 12», quoted
238
CONFESSION
CONFESSION
above, where St. Paul teaches that it is under the
influence of the Spirit that any man confesses Jesus
as the Lord.
It is very unsafe in the face of these reflexions
to restore an Apostolic Creed of the NT as several
writers have attempted to do. A. Seeber<^ of
Dorpat (Der Katechistnus der Urchristetifieit, 1903)
suggests the following as a reconstruction of St.
Paul's creed : ' The living God wlio created all
things sent his Son, Jesus Christ, born of the seed
of David, who died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, and was buried, who was raised the
third day according to the Scri[»tures and appeared
to Cephas and the Twelve, who sat at the right
hand of God in the heavens, all rules and authori-
ties and powers being made subject unto him, and
is coming on the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory.' This is much less like the earliest
Forms of developed creed both in East and West
than Harnack's more famous reconstruction of
* our oldest creed,' which he was careful to explain
' is not a creed that was ever used or ever likely to
be used ' : 'I believe in (one) God Almighty, in
Christ Jesus, His Son, our Lord, who was born of
a Virgin, under Pontius Pilate suflered (crucified),
and rose again (from the dead), sat on the rij^ht
hand of God, whence He is coming (in glory) to judge
living and dead, and in the Holy Ghost.' *
It is important, however, to remember that the
fact of confession is of greater importance than
any form in which it is made. Of that there is
no doubt. It comes out incidentally in a passage
about idol meats, where St. Paul implies that it is
not the eating of flesh in itself, but with the open
confession, ' I am a Christian,' that makes the
difierence (Ro 14"). Again, it is not generally
understood that one form of the interfering with
other men's matters spoken of by St. Peter ( 1 P 4'"- )
might be the pressing forward with open confession
of Christianity during another man's trial. Such
unwholesome fanaticism under the cloak of zeal
began early. On the other hand, the definite
teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews takes a sad
tone when the writer thinks of recent acts of
apostasy. If, as von Dobschiitz thinks, the Epistles
to Timothy represent the transition to Catholicism,
the exhortations to fearless confession may be ex-
plained by opposition to a Gnosticism that fought
shy of confession (2 Ti 1* 2^). In this case, the
apostle who was not ashamed of his bonds might
certainly appear to his successors a pattern putting
them to shame {V '2P^- 4^^-)- But we need not
wait for 2nd cent. Gnosticism to suggest motives
for cowardice. The temptation is rife in every
generation. In Revelation the condition of the
churches varies widely, but it is only the Church of
Philadelphia which sets the pattern of joyous con-
fession coupled with active missionary zeal (3^^- ).
Such joy is also expressed in Clem, ad Cor. 5, 6,
some words of which may fitly conclude this part
of our subject :
' Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles. There was
Peter, who by reason of unrijrhteous jealousy endured not one
nor two but many labours, and thus having borne his testimony
went to his appointed place of glory. By reason of jealousy
and strife Paul oy his example pointed out the prize of patient
endurance. . , . Unto these men of holy lives was gathered a
vast multitude of the elect, who through many indignities and
tortures, being the victims of jealousy, get a brave example
among ourselves.'
Literature.— A. Hamack, Hist, of Dogma, Eng. tr., 1894-99 ;
F. Kattenbusch, Das apostul. St/mhol, Leipzig, 1804-1900 ; H.
B. Swete, The ApostUs' Creed, 1894 ; C. H. Turner, Ilixt. and
Use of Creeds, 1906 ; A. E. Burn, An IiUrod. to the Creeds,
1809.
2. Confession of sin.— In the Apostolic Age this
had its root in ancient Jewish practice. The cere-
monial of the Day of Atonement, the confessions
in the Books of Ezra and Daniel, the Penitential
* A. Hahn, Bibliothek der Syvibole^, Breslau, 1897, p. 390.
Psalms must be remembered when we reflect on
the confessions made publicly by disciples of John
the Baptist. The language of penitence lay in the
OT readjr for use when John's fervent appeal stirred
the consciences of men into self-accusation. Among
these men were reckoned some of the chief apostles
of Christ.
(1) Confession to God. — The repentance demanded
from all candidates for Christian baptism (Ac 2^)
must have included confession of sins as a necessary
element, in private if not in public. The teaching
of 1 Jn 1' expressly makes it a condition of forgive-
ness. St. Paul's teaching on repentance leaves no
doubt that he also regarded it as a primary duty.
For him conscience was supreme arbiter, ISo
troubled conscience can find relief save in full
acknowledgment of fault.
(2) Confession before men. — This brings ua to a
more difficult problem. In 1 Jn P confession of
sins is connected with the Divine blessing, and the
word implies open acknowledgment in the face of
men. But nothing is said as to the mode, though
it is implied that it will be definite and specific,
not in mere general terms. St. Paul is represented
as receiving many confessions publicly at Ephesus
(Ac 19'"), when many ' came, confessing, and de-
claring their deeds,' and there was a bonfire of
books of magic. The case of discipline at Corinth,
when St. Paul was constrained to condemn a
brother so sternly for incest, led to public con-
fession not only by him but also by those who had
been implicated in shielding him (2 Co 7^*). St.
James records, it would seem, the practice of the
Church in Jerusalem in relation to visits of the
elders of the Church to sick persons whom they
anointed with prayer : ' Confess therefore your sins
one to another, and pray one for another, that ye
may be healed ' (Ja 5'*). The word a/juiprias refers
to sins against God, though it may include sins
against neighbours. Much has been made of
Cardinal Cajetan's opinion tliat this does not relate
to sacramental confession {Epp. S. Pauli, Paris,
1532, f. ccxii). But however limited be the mean-
ing put on the words, e.g. by Mayor (Epistle of
James^, 1910, p. 175), who supposes reference
' merely to such mutual confidences as would give
a right direction to the prayers ottered,' the practice
in the sickroom corresponds to the common practice
of the Church in the next generation.
Both Clement and Hernias witness to the custom
of public confession. Clement writes to the Corin-
thians (57) : * Ye therefore that laid the founda-
tion of the sedition, submit yourselves unto the
presbyters and receive chastisement unto repent-
ance, bending the knees of your heart.' We must
interpret these words in the light of others, e.g. ch.
51 : ' For it is good for a man to make confession
of his trespasses rather than to harden his lieart '
(cf. ch. 54). Hermas, the prophet, tells us bluntly
in the Shepherd of the confessions of untruthfulness
and dishonesty whicli he was constrained to make
publicly (Mand. iii. 3). He was constrained also
to confess neglect of his home, double-mindedness,
and doubts. It is no ideal picture which he draws
of his own conduct or of the life of his fellow-
Christians. But, as von Dobschiitz says, these
confessions reveal ' the magnificent moral earnest-
ness of the man, and not of him only, but of the
Christianity of his time' {Christian Life in the
Primitive Church, p. 315). The Epistle of Bamabcis
is evidence for the preciseness with which the
Church in Alexandria at the end of the 1st cent,
interpreted the Moral Law. Tlie writer teaches
definitely: 'Thou shalt confess thy sins' (ch. 19),
and also speaks of the spiritual counsel which one
is to give to another : ' Be good lawy;ivers one to
another; continue faitliful counsellors to your-
selves ; take away from you all hypocrisy ' (ch. 21).
CONFLDENXE
COIS^SCIENCE
239
Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the PhiladelphianB
(en. 8), regards the bishop with his council as in
charge of the discipline of the Church : ' Now the
Lord forgiveth all men when they repent, if repent-
ing they return to the unity of God and to the
council of the bishop.'
These hints about the public penitential system
of the primitive Church do not carry us very far,
but they certainly prepare us for the famous de-
scription given by Terttillian, which applies no
doubt to the practice at the beginning, as at the
end, of the 2nd century.
' This confession is a disciplinary act of great hamiliation and
prostration of the man ; it regulates the dress, the food ; it
enjoins sackcloth and ashes ; it deSles the body with dust, and
subdues the spirit with anguish ; it bids a man alter his life,
and sorrow for ■past sin ; it restricts meat and drink to the
greatest simplicity possible ; it nourishes prayer by fasting ; it
mculcates groans and tears and invocations of the Lord God
day>nd night, and teaches the penitent to cast himself at the
feet of the presbyters, and to fall on his knees before the beloved
of God, and to b^ of all the brethren to intercede on bis behalf '
(d« Paen. ch. 9).
Lotrattrb. — E. von Dobschutz, Christian Life in the
Primitive Church, Eng. tr., 1904 ; N. Marshall, The Penitential
Diseipiine of the Ftimitive Church, new ed., 1S44.
A. E. Burn.
CONFIDENCE.— The term 'confidence' ('confi-
dent,' 'confidently') is in the RV of the NT al-
most wholly confined to the Pauline Epistles, the
only exception being He 3'*. In AV it renders
rapprjffia of 1 Jn 2"* and 5", but is replaced in RV
by 'boldness' (q.v.). The verb dappeiv of 2 Co 5®"-
in AV is rendered by ' to be confident ' ; in RV
' to be of good courage ' is substituted. In RV of
1 Ti 1^ and Tit 3* 5ui3eSaiovffBan is now rendered
' confidently affirm.' In both AV and RV ' con-
fidence ' is three times employed to render the diffi-
cult and many-sided word irrorraau (2 Co 9* 11"
He 3").
The words, however, that most concern us here
are -re-roidivai, 'to be confident,' and rerolOifris,
'confidence,' the latter being in the NT an ex-
clusively Pauline word and found only once in the
LXX (2 K 18^^). They both belong to the language
of deep personal feeling, and it is not surprising
that they appear more frequently in 2 Cor. and
Phil, than in all the other Epistles put together.
The confidence cherished by St. Paul is a state of
mind springing out of faith and rising to the firm
persuasion that God's purposes with himself, with
his converts, and with all that pertains to the
kingdom of Christ are right and cannot fail of
accomplishment. In this 'confidence' he enjoys
his boldness in Christ and access through Christ
to G<xi (Eph 3^*). He is ' confident of this very
thing, that he which began a good work in you
will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ' (Ph
V). His 'confidence' as regards himself (Ph 2**,
AV and RV ' trust '), and as regards his converts
and their compliance with his counsels, is in God
(Gal 5»», 2 Th 3*, Philem*i). It comes from union
with Christ, and has God for its ultimate goal (2
Co 3^). Clement in 1 Corinthians (xxvi. 1) speaks
of those who have served God religiously 'in the
confidence of an honest faith.' He mentions, too,
many wonderful gifts of God — 'life in immortaJ-
ity, splendour in righteousness, truth in boldness,
faith in confidence, and temperance in sanctifica-
tion ' (xxxv. 2).
Whilst there is such a confidence, there is also
a confidence which is misplaced — confidence in
ourselves (Ro 2'*, 2 Co 1»), in the flesh (Ph S^'-),
the confidence of which Hermas says (Sim. ix. 22.
3) that ' vain confidence is a great demon.'
T. NicoL.
CONFIRMATION. — (a) The word 'confirm' in
the NT sometimes represents o-n/ptfw or exum/pifw,
used of the strengthening of Christians, of love,
faith, etc., in Ac 14^' 15^- « ; cf. 18» (RV ' stablish,'
AV ' strengthen '). <m;pjf« is usually (about 12
times) translated ' stablish ' or ' establish ' (in Lk
16-* it is used of the ' fixing' of a gulf). — (6) ' Con
firm ' and ' confirmation ' are used to translate
^e^aiocj and /Se^aiwcris in Ro lo», 1 Co 1*- *, He 2»6",
Ph 1', 'Mk' 16^, with the same meaning. The
same Gr. verb is rendered ' stablish ' or ' establish '
in 2 Co 1", Col 27, He 13».— (c) ' Confirm ' is also
the word used for Kvpow or -rpoKvpbu in connexion
with a covenant or will (Gal 3^ ", which may re-
fer to what we should call ' registration * ; see W.
M. Ramsay, Hist. Com. on Galatians, 1899, p.
354) ; in 2 Co 28 it is used of love.— (rf) In Tit 3"
Siafie^ai6<a is translated 'affirm.' In He 6" fu<n-
revw is rendered in AV ' confirm,' in RV and AVm
' interpose,' in RVm ' mediate.'
For the rite of confirmation, see Baptism, §§ 6, 8.
A. J. Maclean.
CONGREGATION.— In Tindales Version (1534)
and in Cranmer's ( 1539) ' congregation ' was usied in-
stead of ' church ' to translate both iKKXifaia and avra-
•y&ryij. But Wyclif had used ' church,' and the
Greneva Version, followed by AV, reverted to it.
RV, with one exception, has 'church' exclusively
in the text, though in several places ' congregation '
appears in the margin. The exception is He 2^,
where in the quotation from Ps 22^ ' congregation '
is in the text and ' church ' in the margin. F. J. A.
Hort {The Christian Ecclesia, London, 1897) chose
' Ecclesia ' as a word free from the disturbing as-
sociations of ' church ' and ' congregation,' though
the latter has not only historical standing (as above)
but also the advantage of suggesting some of these
elements of meaning which are least forcibly
brought out by the word ' church ' according to our
present use (cf. £xpT viii. [1896-97] 386). So far,
however, as there is any substantive difference
between the two words as found in the English
Bible, the ' congregation ' of RVm points to an
actual church assembled in one place.
In the NT iKKX-qaUt naturally designates the
Christian Church. The associations of o-waTory^
were against its Chrbtian use, though it is retained
in Ja 2- to describe an assembly of Jewish-Chris-
tians ; but this is explained by the destination of
the letter — ' to the twelve trilies which are of the
Dispersion.'
In St. Paul's address to the elders of Miletus
(Ac 20") we see the old Jewish ffi-yayuyri in the
process of passing into the more distinctively Chris-
tian eKic\jf(ria. He quotes Ps 74* ' Remember thy
congregation which thou didst purchase of eld ' ;
but for the LXX tri/j-aYory^ he puts ecKXijffto. Thus
in the Apostle's hands this passage becomes ' one
of the channels through which the word " ecclesia"
came to denote Grod's people of the future ' (ExpT
viii. 387). Cf. also art. Assembly ; and, for the
Heb. and Gr. terms in the OT, art. • Congregation '
in HDB. W. M. Gkakt.
CONSCIENCE (avpei^ts).—!. The word and its
history. — Both the Lat. conseientia, from which
'conscience' is derived, and the Gr. ffweiBijcns, of
which it is the invariable rendering in the NT, have
originally the more general meaning of ' conscious-
ness ' — the knowledge of any mental state. Down
to the 17th cent., as the AV itself bears witness,
' conscience ' too was sometimes used, in this wider
sense. In 1 Co 8^ ' conscience of the idol,' and in
He lO* 'conscience of sins,' would now be better
rendered 'consciousness.' Some exegetes would
prefer ' consciousness ' to ' conscience ' in 1 P 2^
' conscience toward (or of) God. ' With these excep-
tions, ' conscience ' in the NT denotes not conscious-
ness generally, but the moral faculty in particular
— that power by which we apprehend moral truth
and recognize it as having the authority of moral
law. The history of the words ' conscience,' con-
240
CONSCIENCE
conscif:nce
scientia, avpelS-nffis, shows that it is entirely fanciful
to suppose on etymological grounds that the prefixes
con and aw point to the subject's joint knowledge
along with God Himself. Tlie joint knowledge de-
noted is knowledge with oneself, a self-knowledge
or self-consciousness in which the inner ' I ' comes
forward as a witness. This does not, of course,
exclude the further view that, as man is made in
the inaage of God, and as his individual personality
is rooted in that of the absolute moral Ruler, the
testimony of conscience actually is the voice of
God bearing witness in the soul to the reality and
authority of moral truth.
It is a significant fact that the word • conscience '
is nowhere found in the OT text, though in Ec 10'-"
both AV and RV give it in the margin as an alter-
native for ' thought,' to represent the Heb. v'j/'?,
which LXX here renders by <Tvvel5ri<7i%. In ancient
Israel it was an external law, not an inward law-
giver, that held the seat of authority ; and though
the prophets addressed their appeals to the moral
sense or their hearers (cf. Mic (j*), they furnished
no doctrine of conscience. Nor does the word occur
either in the Synoptics or the Fourth Gospel ; for
the clause of Jn 8* where it is found does not belong
to the correct text (see RV). Jesus in His teaching
constantly addresses Himself to the conscience, and
clearly refers to it when He speaks of ' the light
that is in thee' (Mt 6-^ Lk 11**), but His mission
was to illumine and quicken the moral faculty by
the revelation He brought, not to analyze it, or
define it, or lay down a doctrine on the subject.
In the Acts and Epistles, however, the effects of
the revelation in Christ become apparent. We
have the word ' conscience ' 31 times in AV and 30
times in RV — the latter reading awrjOeig. for <rvv€i-
Srjffei in 1 Co 8'. Heb. has it 5 times and 1 Pet.
thrice ; with these exceptions it is a Pauline word.
There are anticipations of the NT use of it in the
Apocrypha (Wis 17", Sir 14^, 2 Mac 6"), and sug-
gestions for St. Paul's treatment of it in contem-
porary Greek teaching, and especially in the moral
philosophy of the Stoics. But it was Christian
faith that raised it out of the region of ethical ab-
straction and set it on a throne of living power.
2. The NT doctrine. — (1) The nature of con-
science.— According to its etymology, conscience is
a strictly cognitive power — the power of appre-
hending moral truth ; and writers of the intui-
tional school frequently restrict the use of the
term to this one meaning (cf. Calderwood, Hand-
book of Moral Philosophy, p. 78). Popularly,
however, conscience has a much wider connotation,
including moral judgments and moral feelings as
well as immediate intuitions of right and wrong ;
and it is evident that in the NT the word is
employed in this larger sense so as to include the
whole of the moral nature. When conscience is said
to ' bear witness ' (Ro 2^* 9^ or to give ' testimonjjr '
(2 Co 1'-), it is the clear and direct shining of the
inner light that is referred to. When it is described
as ' weak ' or over-scrupulous (1 Co 8^- ^°' ^^), and is
contrasted by implication with a conscience that
is strong and walks at liberty, the reference is
to those diversities of opinion on moral subjects
which are due to variations of judgment in the
application of mutually acknowledged first prin-
ciples. When it is spoken of on the one hand as
'good' (1 Ti l«-'9, He 13^ 1 P S^s-^ijor 'void of
offence toward God and men ' ( Ac 24^*), and on the
other as ' defiled' (1 Co 8"), ' wounded ' (v.^^*), ' evil '
(He 10-'-), 'seared (or branded) with a hot iron'
(1 Ti 4^^), the writers are thinking of those pleasant
or painful moral feelings which follow upon obedi-
ence or disobedience to moral law, or of that dead-
ness to all feeling which falls upon those who have
persistently shut their ears te the inward voice and
turned the light that is in them into darkness.
Tlie fundamental passage for the Pauline doc-
trine is Ro 2'*- ". Tlie Apostle here seems to lay
down as unquestionable, (a) that there is a Divine
law written by Nature on the heart of every man,
whether Jew or Gentile ; (6) that conscience is the
moral faculty which bears witness to that law ;
(c) that in the light of that witness there is an
exercise of the thoughts or reasonings (XoyiafjLo^), in
other words, of the moral judgment ; (d) tliat, a.s
the result of this judgment before the inward bar,
men are subject to the feelings of moral self-
approval or self-reproach. Covering in this pas-
sage the whole ground of the moral nature of man,
St. Paul appears to distinguish conscience as the
witness-bearing faculty from the moral judgments
and moral feelings that accompany its testimony.
But elsewhere, as has been already shown, he fre-
quently speaks of conscience in tnat larger sense
wiiicli makes it correspond not only with the
immediate apprehension of moral truth, but with
the judgments based upon the truth thus revealed,
and the sentiments of satisfaction or dissatisfaction
to which these judgments give rise.
(2) The authority of conscience. — However men
differ in their theories as to the nature and origin
of the moral faculty, there is general agreement
as to the authority of the moral law which it en-
joins. Few will be found to challenge Butler's
famous assertion of the supremacy of conscience :
' Had it strength as it has right, had it power as
it has manifest authority, it would absolutely
govern the world' (Serin, ii.). And while ad-
herents of the sensational school of ethics may
dispute Kant's right to describe the Imperative of
morality as 'categorical' in its nature (Metaphysic
of Ethics, p. 31), even they will not seek to qualify
his apostrophe to duty (p. 120) or the exalted lan-
guage in which he describes the solemn majesty
of the Moral Law (p. 108). For the NT authors
conscience is supreme, and it is supreme because
in its very nature it is an organ through which
God speaks to reveal His will. In the case of the
natural man it testifies to a Divine law which is
written on the heart (Ro 2^*) ; in the case of the
Christian man this law of Nature is reinforced by
a vital union with Jesus Christ (Gal 2^) and by
tlie assenting witness of the Holy Spirit (Ro 9*).
The claim of right which Butler makes on behalf
of conscience is transformed for St. Paul into a
law of power. The pure and loyal Christian con-
science has might as it has right ; it not only legis-
lates but governs. What the law could not do in
that it was weak through the flesh, is actuallj'
fulfilled in those who take Christ to be the com-
panion of their conscience and who walk not after
the flesh but after the spirit.
In Acts we have many examples of the way in
which conscience, in Butler's words, ' magisterially
exerts itself ' in the case alike of bad men and of
good. The suicide of Judas (1'* ; cf. Mt 27^'^-)j the
heart-pricks of the men of Jerusalem under St.
Peter's preaching (2*^), the claim of St. Peter and
St. John that tliey must obey God rather than
men (4^* 5^), Saul's experience that it was hard to
kick against the pricks (9^), Felix trembling as St.
Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and
judgment to come (24^) — all these are examples
of the authority of conscience. And what in Acts
we see practically exemplified is laid down in the
Epistles as a matter of rule and doctrine. St.
Paul enjoins submission to the civil authority (Ro
W-), but vindicates its right to govern on the
ground of the higher authority of conscience (v.*).
The writer of Heb. rei)resents the sin-convicting
conscience as a sovereign power which impelled
men to lay their gifts and sacrifices on the altar,
but was never satisfied until Jesus Christ ' through
the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish
COIS^SCIENCE
CONSCIEXCE
241
unto God' (He 9»- " 10^-). St. Peter teaches
that, in a matter of conscience before God, men
must be willing to ' endure griefs, sutiering wrong-
fully' (1 P 2'*). Nor is it only the personal con-
science whose dignity and supremacy must be ac-
knowledged ; a like reverence is to be shown for
the conscience of others. St. Paul sought to com-
mend himself to every man's conscience in the
sight of God (2 Co 4» ; cf. 5")- He taught that
the exercise of Christian liberty must be limited \
bj- regard for another's conscience (1 Co 10®), and
that even when that conscience is weak, it must
not be wounded or bewildered or defiled {S^- ^'^ ^)
lest the other's sense of moral responsibility should
thereby be impaired.
The source of this magisterial authority of con-
science is represented by the XT writers as lying
altogether in the Divine will, of which conscience
is the instrument. For St. Paul conscience is not
an individualized reflexion of social opinion, nor
a subtle compound of feelings evolved in the
course of the long struggle for existence, nor yet a
mysterious faculty that claims to regulate the life
of man by virtue of some right inherent in its own
nature. Its authority is that of a judge, who sits
on the bench as the representative of a law that
is higher than himself. Its function is to bear
witness to the law of God (Ro 2"* 9^, 2 Co l^*) ; its
commendation is a conunendation in His sight (2
Co 4"-) ; its accusation is an anticipation of the day
when He shall judge the secrets of men (Eo 2*^ "I.
Similarly for St. Peter a matter of conscience is
a question of ' conscience toward God '(IP 2").
Some commentators would render ffweidrjffis deov
in this verse by ' consciousness of God ' ; and the
very ambiguity of the expression may suggest
that in the Ajwstle's view conscience is rejilly a
God-consciousness in the sphere of morality, as
faith is a God-consciousness in the sphere of religion.
(3) Varieties of conscience. — What has just been
said as to the absolute and universal authority of
conscience may seem difficult to reconcile with
the distinctions made by the NT writers between
consciences of very varied types. There are con-
sciences that are weak and timid, and others that
are strong and free (1 Co 8'^-)- A conscience may
be ' void of offence ' (Ac 24^*), or it may be defiled
and wounded (I Co 8"- ^, Tit 1^^). It may be good
(1 Ti 1*- 1», He 13^^ 1 P 316-21), or it may be evil
(He 1(F). It may be pure (1 Ti 3^, 2 Ti 'P), or in
need of cleansing (He 9^*). It may possess that
clear moral sense which discerns intuitively both
good and evil (He 5"), or it may be 'seared with
a hot iron ' (1 Ti 4*) and condemned to that judicial
blindness to which nothing is pure (Tit 1"). The
explanation of the difficulties raised by such lan-
guage lies in the fact already noted that 'con-
science ' in the XT is used to denote not the power
of moral vision onlj-, but the moral judgment and
the moral feelings. As the organ which discerns
the Moral Law, conscience has the authority of
that law itself ; its voice is the voice of God. It
leaves us in no doubt as to the reality of moral
distinctions ; it assures us that right is right and
wTong is wrong, and that ' to him that knoweth
to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin' (Ja
4'"). But for the application to particular cases of
the general law of auty thus revealed, men must
depend upon their moral judgments ; and moral
judgments are liable to error just as other judg-
ments are. It was a want of 'knowledge' that
led some in the Corinthian Church to shrink from
eating meat that had been offered to an idol (1 Co
8^), and a consequent mistake of judgment when
they came to the conclusion that such eating
was wrong. Their consciences were weak because
their moral judgments were weak. And as the
result of their weakness in the decision of moral
VOL. I. — 16
questions, their moral feelings were misdirected,
and so tlieir consciences were stained and wounded
by acts in which a man of more enlightened con-
science saw no harm. Similarly, when a conscience
is said to be ' good ' or ' pure ' or ' void of offence,'
the reference is to the sense of peace and moral
harmony with Grod and man which comes to one
who has loyally obeyed the dictates of the Moral
Law ; while an uncleansed or evil conscience is one
on which there rests the burden and pain of sin
tliat is unatoned for and unforgiven. A ' seared '
or ' branded ' conscience, again, may point to the
case of those in whom abuse of the moral nature
has led to a per\-ersion of the moral judgment and
a deadening of the moral sentiments. Compare
what St. Paul says of those whose understanding
is darkened, whose hearts are hardened, and who
are now 'past feeling' (Eph 4**).
(4) The education of conscience. — Someinttutional-
ists have held that conscience, being an infallible
oracle, is incapable of education ; and Kant's famous
utterance, ' An erring conscience is a chimera ' (op.
cit. p. 206), has of ten oeen quoted in this connexion.
But it is only in a theoretical and ideal sense that
the truth of the saying can be admitted — only when
the word of conscience is taken to be nothuig less
and nothing more than the voice of God, and
its light to be in very reality His ' revealing and
appe^ng look ' ( J. Martineau, Seat of Authority
in Eeligion^, London, 1891, p. 71). In the NT,
however, as in general usage, ' conscience ' is not
restricted to the intuitive discernment of the
difference between right and wrong, but is applied
to the whole moral nature of man ; and when
understood in this way there can be no question
that it shares in the general weakness of human
nature, and that it is both capable of education
and constantly in need of an educative discipline.
The distinction made by the NT ^vriters between
a good and an evil conscience implies the need of
education ; their moral precepts imply its possi-
bility. St. Patd says that he ' exercised himself '
to have a conscience void of offence toward God
and men (Ac 24^*) ; the author of Heb. speaks of
those who 'by reason of use have their senses
exercised to discern both good and evil ' (5**).
In various aspects the necessity for this exercise
or training of the moral faculty comes before us.
Even as a power of intuition or vision by which
the Moral Law is discerned, conscience is capable
of improvement. Ignorance darkens it (Eph 4'*),
sin defiles it (Tit 1") ; and only an eye that is
purged and enlightened can see clearly. ' My
conscience is nott so,' said Queen Mary to Knox.
'Conscience, Madam,' he replied, 'requyres know-
ledge ; and I fear that rycht knowledge ye have
none' (Knox, Works, ed. Laing, Edinburgh, 1864,
ii. 283). But conscience is also a faculty of moral
judgment, and in moral matters, as in other
matters, human judgments go astray. The * weak '
conscience is the natural accompaniment of the
weak and narrow mind (1 Co 8") ; a selfish and im-
pure heart usually compounds with its conscience
for the sins to which it is inclined, and a conscience
that accepts hush-money is apt to grow dumb
until contact with another conscience stronger and
purer than itself makes it vocal once more (Ac 24^).
Moral sentiments, again, gather around a false
judgment as readily as around a true. Christ's
apostles were kiUed by men who thought that
they were thereby doing God service (Jn 16^), and
St. Paul himself once believed it to be his duty
' to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus
of Nazareth ' (Ac 26®). In such cases persecution
to the death carried no self-reproach with it, but a
sense of moral complacency.
Granting, then, that conscience needs to be edu-
cated, how, according to the NT, is the work to
242 CONSECRATE, CONSECRATION
CONSECRATE, CONSECRATION
be done ? Three ways are especially suggested —
the ways of knowledge, obedience, and love ; in
other words, the way of the mind, the way of the
will, and the way of the heart, (a) Knox said to
Queen Mary that conscience requires knotoledge ;
and that is what St. Paul also taught (1 Co 8').
Before the man of God can be ' furnished completely
unto every good work ' he has need of ' instruction
in righteousness ' (2 Ti 3>*- "). Education of this
kind can be obtained from many masters, but the
best teachers of all are Scriptures inspired of God
{ib. ). St. Paul's own Epistles are full of instruction
as rega'ils both the broad principles of Christian
ethics and their application under varying circum-
stances to all the details of personal, family, and
social life. And in the teaching of Christ Himself,
above all in that Sermon on the Mount whose
echoes are heard so frequently in the Epistle of
James, enlightenment comes to the human con-
science through the revelation of the fundamental
laws of the Divine Kingdom.
(ft) Conscience is educated, in the next place, by
obedience to the Divine law when that law is recog-
nized. It is the use of knowledge already possessed
that exercises the senses to keener moral discern-
ment (He 5") ; it is the man who is willing to do
God's will who comes to know the Divine voice when-
ever he hears it ( Jn 7"). The ethics of the NT are
not the ingenious elaboration of a beautiful but ab-
stract moral scheme ; they are practical through
and through. Christians are called upon to acknow-
ledge not the right of conscience only, but its might ;
they are commanded everywhere to bring their dis-
positions, desires, passions, and habits into captivity
to its obedience. To follow Clirist is to have the
light of life ( Jn 8'^) ; while to hate one's brother is
to walk in darkness with blinded eyes, and so to
lose the knowledge of the way (1 Jn 2^^ ; cf. Jn 12^').
Obedience, in short, is the organ of spiritual know-
ledge (cf. F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 2nd ser., new
ed., London, 1875, no. viii.). A good conscience
goes with a pure heart (1 Ti 1"). But sin so perverts
and blinds the inward eye that the very light that
is in us is darkness (Mt 6^).
(c) But something more is required before the
education of conscience is complete. Knowledge
is much, and the will to obedience is more, but
what if the power of love be wanting ? In that
case the conscience will not be void of oft'ence to-
ward God and men. According to the NT writers
the conscience must be set free by being delivered
from the sense of guilt through the atoning power
of Christ's sacrifice (He 9" 10'") ; it must learn
its close dependence upon the mystery of faith
(1 Ti 39 ; cf. 119) ; it must be taught that love out
of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith un-
feigned are ' the end of the charge ' and the fulfill-
ing of the law (P). To be perfectly educated, in
short, a conscience must experience the constrain-
ing and transforming power of the love of Christ,
in whom men are new creatures, so that old things
are passed away and all things are become new (2 Co
gi4. r?) Thus, m tiie view of the NT writers, ethics
passes into religion, and the Christian conscience
IS the conscience of one who lives the life of faith
and love, and who can say with St. Paul, ' I live, and
yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me ' (Gal 2^*).
LmsRATtniE.— J. Butler, Analogy and Sermons, London, 1862,
Sermons ii. iii.; I. Kant, Metaphysic of Ethicg, Eng. tr., 1869,
p. 245 fl. ; T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford, 1883,
p. 342 ff. ; H. Calderwood, llandbook of Moral Philosophy,
London, 1872, pt. i. ; H. Martensen, Christian Ethics, Edin-
burgh, 1881-82, i. 856ff. ; Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics,
do. 1892, index s.v. ; HDB, art. 'Conscience'; PRE^, art.
'Qewissen' ; B.Weias,i^r2'A«o/.,Eng.tr.,Edinbuiierh, 1882-83,
i 476, ii. 40, 211. J. C. LAMBERT.
CONSECRATE, CONSECRATION. — The word
' consecrate ' occurs twice in the AV of Hebrews
(7-* 10-'"). In the first passage it is the translation
of TtTeKeiwuivov ; in the second of iveKalviatv. In
neither case is the translation quite suitable.
1. He 7*; vlbv eh Tbv aluiva TereKeiwfiivov. Full
consideration of reXetiw would encroach on the art.
Perfect (q.v.) ; but there are certain special points
connected with this passage that may usefully l)e
noted, rekeiovv tAs x^^P°-^ ^^ frequently used in tlie
LXX, but only in the Pentateuch (Ex <2!SP-^-^^
[Lv 4"] 8*3 leK Nu 3»), to translate the obscure
Hebrew phrase mille' ydd='till the hand,' i.e.
'consecrate' (a priest). Elsewhere in the Penta-
teuch and Historical Books (once in Ezekiel [43"])
parts of irXrjpdw, ^fjiirlirXrjfii, wlirK-qfii are employed.
reXeiowrty is used alone (Ex 29'^ ■*• -'^- ="• ^, Lv 7" 8=«-
28. 28. 31. ss 933) for the Heb. mUliVhn ( = ' consecra-
tion' [RV]). In Lv 21" TereKeiufiivos is used with-
out the rest of the phrase = * consecrated,' although
many MSS supply tSs x"P"s airrov. These last
uses would at least point to the conclusion that
7-e\«6w and reXeiwo-is tended to become semi-techni-
cal terms for the consecration of the priest, having
originally been used to translate the verb in the
Heb. phrase, which is quite obscure. Most prob-
ably its original sense is suggested in the corre-
sponding Assyr. Jcdtii, 7nW/t2 = ' hand over to one
(or make one responsible for) a person or thing or
office ' (cf. F. Delitzsch, Assyr. Handworterbuch,
1896, p. 409^ : ' Rammanirari, whom Asur has en-
dowed with a dominion incomparable ' ; and HDB
iv. 71»).
It follows, then, that He 7^ and the other
passages where TeXeibu occurs (see art. PERFECT)
indicate that the writer is making use of a technical
expression and, in harmony with his system of
thought, hellenizing it (cf. Moffatt, LNT, 1911, p.
427). There can be little doubt that in Hebrews
Te\«(5w is used in the Aristotelian sense of bringing
to the WXoy or final end. Jesus, as High Priest,
is ' perfected ' for evermore, as distinct from the
reXefwo-ij of the Aaronic priesthood. There can be
no idea of a moral development in character.
Jesus is ' perfected [and there is also the further
idea of exaltation to office] for evermore' in the
sense that He is endowed with an experience of
human suffering in life and in death (He 4'*); so
A. B. Davidson, Hcbreivs {Handbooks for Bible
Classes), pp. 145 f., 207 f. ; von Soden, Hcbrderbrie.p
(Handkommentar zum NT, Tiibingen, 1 899), p. 28 n. ;
but cf. A. B. Bruce, Hebrews, 1899, \\ 283 If. ; M.
Dods, EGT, 'Hebrews,' 1910, pp. 265, 319, who
argue for the sense of moral perfecting.
2. He 10*: tt)v etaoSov . . . fiv iveKaiviaev rifuv
oddv Trp6cr<f>arov Kal ^Cxrav dtd, toO KaTairtTaa ijja.TO%.
iyKaivltoi is used also in He 9". In AV of lO-" the
word is 'consecrated,' and in 9^* 'dedicated.' In
RV in both cases ' dedicated ' is used. In the LXX
iyKaivL(;u} is used to translate two Heb. words,
hanakh ('initiate,' 'consecrate,' Dt 20«, 1 K 8«)
and hiddesh ('renew,' 'make anew,' 1 S IV*, 2 Ch
158, Ps SOI''). iyKaivl^u in He lO^" might seem to
combine both meanings, implying that .some kind
of way existed before (cf. Sir 33 [36]«). In He 9»«,
also, the word means simply 'inaugurate,' unless
the pre-existence of a covenant is supposed (cf . 9** ^)
before the ceremony of vv.^^-si^ That the sense of
' renewal,' however, is strongly emphasized is seen
also in the use of nrpoa^arov ('fresh,' 'hitherto un-
trodden'), ^daav implies 'a way that really lea<ls
and carries all who enter it into the heavenly rest,'
as opposed to 'a lifeless pavement trodden by the
high priest, and by him alone' (Delitzsch, Hebrews,
Eng. tr., ii. [1870] 171). It also implies a way that
would never become old, worn, or obsolt^te. fip
must be taken as referring to etffoSos. Jesus has,
by bursting the veil of His flesli in death, 'inaugu-
rated' a new entrance into tlie Presence of God (cf.
Mk 15**). The flesh of Jesus is regarded as symbolic
CONSOLATION
CONSPIRACY, PLOT
243
of the ' veil ' or ' curtain " which was removed as the
sacrificial blood was carried into the Holy of Holies.
^Kiuwl^u) ' includes the motive of leading into life '
(von Soden, Hebraerbrief^, p. 64). Probably the
literal idea of elffodot ( = ' entrance to a house ') is
also symbolically present (cf. Neh 31 [LXX]). The
' house ' in this case is the Church, the new Temple
(cf. ■rapfntaiai') in 10^*, and its use in 3* and 4" is
opposed to the attitude of the Bfpd-wujw (3*). The
feast of tjKaiviOi ( Jn 10^') was instituted by Judas
Maccabaeus (164 B.C.) in memory of the cleansing
of the Temple from the pollution of Antiochus
Epiphanes (1 Mac 4*).
LiTBRATURX. — In addition to the references in the course of
the article, see R. W. Dale, The JeicUh Temple aTid the
Christian Church, 1902, pp. 144 ft., 231fiC ; F. Paget, The
Spirit 0/ IHseipline, 1903, p. 191 ff. ; J. B. Mozley, I nivrrtiti/
Sermont, 1900, p. 244fl. ; artt. ».r. in DCO (Tasker), HDB
(HastingrsX and £ £Jf (Feltoe). R. H. StKACHA>«.
CONSOLATION.— See COMFOET.
CONSPIBACT, PLOT.— The Gr. word translated
'conspiracy' {ffwuficxria) occurs only once in the
XT (Ac 23'^), but the thing for which it stands is
much more frequent. In the OT the correspond-
ing word (■2'g) is fairly common, as also is the
cognate verb t?3 ' to make a conspiracy,' lit. ' to
bind-' ffvpup-ocia means, literally, the mutual tak-
ing of an oath, and its etymological equivalent in
Latin is coniuratio. Of this we have no strict
equivalent in English, for 'conjure' means some-
thing quite difierent ; ' conspiracy ' is the working
equivalent.
(1) The cruvw^Mxria of Ac 23^ was entered into by
' more than forty' Jews -with the object of kUling
St. Paul. To this end they tried to induce the
' chief captain ' to bring him once more before the
Sanhedrin — which had already entered upon his
trial — that they might 'judge of his case more
exactly.' Along the route the conspirators were
to be lying in wait, and St. Paul would not reach
the council-chamber alive. The scheme was frus-
trated by the vigilance and the intervention of
'Paul's sister's son' (v.^*'-). The 'chief captain'
at once decided to send his prisoner to Caesarea
under guard, and by night. This narrative is of
special importance here for two reasons : (a) v.^
states that the conspiracy was the sole reason why
St. Paul was sent to the governor Felix at Csesarea ;
and the consequences of that step extend to the
end of the Acts. With this turning-point in the
life of St. Paul, however, two other crises should
be compared : (a) the earlier one described in Ac
22^-22 (cf. Eph 3» ; from Ac 22^' onwards there
might be said to be one chain of events leading to
the prison house at Rome) ; (;3) the later one de-
scribed in Ac 2oi*-i* 26** (the appeal to Caesar). (6)
In 23** the ' conspiracy ' is spoken of as a ' plot ' {i.e.
ffwufjuxria is practically identified with €Tt/3oi/Xi)),
and thus the NT passages which speak of an ext-
povkv (all referring to St. Paul) are brought within
the scope of this article.
(2) The most important of these passa^'es is
Ac 20^^ where the Apostle speaks of the trials and
temptations {-reipaa/xoi) which befell him by the
plots {iiriSovXal) of the Jews at Ephesus. They
seem to have been many and grievous (cf. the
'tears,' v.">); notorious ('Ye yourselves know,'
v.^); and probably additional to the opposition
mentioned in Ac 19^ ('speaking evil of the Way
before the multitude '), and the troublesome com-
petition of the ' strolling Jews, exorcists,' in 19'^ ;
certainly additional to the stirring up of disturbance
by the ' combine ' of Gentile idol -makers (19^- ). If
so, the fact that these many and grievous plots are
not mentioned in ch. 19 shows how many there
may have been elsewhere, which are likewise un-
mentioned. Others do find mention in 9^-* 20*,
where the Gr. is again ert^oi/Xi}. Another instance
occurs in 25*, where ' lay wait ' (KV)=^i'<3pa» xoteu',
with which compare M8pa (ambush) in 23'* and
ipfSptvetv in 23*^.
(3) It is still necessary to mention at least three
other conspiracies : (a) the trial of Stephen (Ac 6-7)
turns on a plot which reveals numerous and close
resemblances to the case of Jesus. In fair debate
his opponents are silenced (6'") ; then false wit-
nesses are ' suborned ' (w."-J^) ; the people also
are ' stirred up' (v.") ; and one of the accusations
relates to threats directed against the ' holy place '
(VV.13-"; cf. Mk 14»). This plot is the more
important because Saul is declared to hare been
present at Stephen's martyrdom, to have agreed
with it, and to have kept the clothes of those who
threw the stones (Ac 7** 8' 22*) ; and he was very
likely one of the worshippers at the CUician syna-
gogue in Jerusalem, mentioned in 6*. This martyr-
dom was probably one of the chief factors in
impressing Saul, against his will, with some vague,
and for a time unrecognized, feeling for the possible
Divinity of the Church and faith of Jesus (note
glO. 15 >JS9-S6.S»-eO\
(b) In Gal 2* St. Paul speaks of an important
conspiracy, but the grammatical constructions in
the immediate context are very uncertain, and
these difficulties are increased by the variant read-
ing in 2*, where some excellent scholars, including
Zahn, J. Weiss, and K. Lake, omit the words of
negation {oU oi-di), thus arriving at the statement
' we yielded for an hour on account of the pseudo-
brethren.' Those who accept this are divided as to
the nature of the concession referred to. Weiss
{>vith Spitta) believes that St. Paul 'yielded' by
circumcising Titus; Zahn, that he yielded by
going up to Jerusalem for consultation at all, but
did not circtmicise Titxis. If the invasion of the
pseudo-brethren be connected vrith 'we did not
yield,' it will simply have defeated itself by stiffen-
ing St. Paul's resolution in the contrary direction ;
but with whatever it be connected, while the nega-
tive in v.* is retained, it cannot be supposed to have
accomplished much.
The scene of this uninvited visit was probably
Antioch (see Ac 15'), possibly Galatia (see Gal 2*
' continue with you ') ; almost certainly not the
Council at Jerusalem, to which the ' spjing out ' is
not appropriate. It is quite possible that St. Paul
speaks somewhat too severely, for he writes the
Epistle to the Galatians at a time of acute ' dis-
sension ' (cf . Ac 15^). But, if the plot was as repre-
hensible as he says, it would accotmt for much of
the bitterness of the Epistle, for in this he is fighting
much the same battle over again, and has to deal
with a similar, and almost equally perilous, inva-
sion of his churches.
(c) In Gal 2'"*^ St. Paul refers to a conspiracy
against the 'truth of the gospel' at Antioch, in
which Peter, the 'rest of the Jews' there, and
' even Barnabas,' are all implicated. Its object,
according to St. Paul, was to rebut the claim of
the GentUes to equality by refusing to eat with
them. The vigour of his language is noteworthy :
' to the face,' ' condemned ' (v.") ; so also ' fearing '
(v. 12) ; ' dissembled,' ' dissimulation ' (v.^*) ; ' not up-
rightly,' ' (not) according to truth,' ' before them
all ' (v. "). The Apostle appears to draw a conscious
and pointed contrast between his own conduct and
that of his opponents at Antioch, especially St.
Peter ; and certainly his portrayal ot the scene
forms in eflect a telling reply to — almost a turning
of the tables on — any insinuations current in
Galatia as to his own weakness and dissimulation
(see, e.g., l^'^ and, more generally, Ro 3*, 2 Co 4'
llia-15 1216^ I fij 2»).
LiT£&ATC~EE. — The relevant Commentaries, esp. Zaiai, Ram-
say, Lightfoot, etc., on Galatians ; F. Spitta, Die Apottel-
244
CONSTRAINT
CONTENTMENT
gesehichte, Halle, 1891 ; J. Weiss, SK, 1893, p. 480fl., and 1895,
p. 262 ff. ; C. V. Weizsacker, Apostolic Aye, i.'-i [1897] 175-21«,
262-275 ; T. Zahn, Introd. to jVr, 1909, i. 152-202 ; Douglass
Round, The Date, of St. Paul's Epistle, to the Galatians. I'JOO ;
W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Jtoman
Citueti. 1895. C. H. Watkins.
CONSTRAINT.— Neglecting irapa^ii^onai, used in
Ac 28"' (of. Lk 24^) simply of the pressure of hospit-
able invitation, we have two terms in the NT ex-
pressing the notion of ' constraint ' — dvaY/cdfeiv and
1. Ava-yKi^eiv is to constrain to some course of con-
duct as a matter of necessity (avdYK?;). In Gal 6'^ the
Judaizers appear as an example of the sinister exer-
cise of constraint, rushing the bewildered Galatian
converts into circumcision exemplo suo et importuni-
tate (Bengel, ad loc). Again, St. Paul himself
speaks of his experience of constraint arising from
a solemn sense of duty ( 1 Co 9^*). In neither case is
the di'dyKrj an arbitrary, irresistible fate that drives
men to act thus and thus. Otherwise the Galatians
could not have been blamed by St. Paul for listen-
ing to l)is opponents, nor could he have said of him-
self, 'Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.'
In 1 P 5- pastors are exhorted to do their duty
' not of constraint ' {fxr] dvayKaa-T&s) ; but this is not
in conflict with St. Paul's position in I Co 9'*.
Service can only be satisfactory when along with
the fundamental sense of duty there is a willing
response to its demand.
In Jude' the kindred phrase 0^1x7^771' ^<rxov = onr
simple ' I could not help ' {sc. writing).
2. ffvv^xfiv appears in 2 Co 5'^, and being predi-
cated of ' the love: of Christ,' cannot have here any
suggestion of irksome pressure as in some other in-
stances of its use. 'The love of Christ (/rips us,'
says the Apostle, adding explicitly that his over-
mastering sense of that love arose from his view of
the Lord's death. J. S. CLEMENS.
CONTENTMENT.— The idea of ' contentment ' is
more prominent in Scripture than appears on the
surface. The Avord, indeed, is seldom used, St. Paul
being the only NT writer who treats the subject
explicitly. But whether the word is there or not,
the thing is there. Seeing that the virtue is one of
the constituent elements of earthly life and happi-
ness, it would be strange if it were absent from the
ethics of Scripture. No amount of worldly fortune
or success, without a contented mind, brings happi-
ness, while contentment makes straitened means
enough. We are not surprised that the subject
enters into all ethical .schemes and has been a
favourite text of essayists in all lands and ages.
1. The Stoic idea. — Contentment, reaching even
to the point of self-denial, was a distinctive feature
in the Stoic system of ethics, which prevailed so
widely among the educated classes of the Roman
Empire in the first Christian centuries. There were
many points both of resemblance and of difference
between its teaching and the teaching of Christi-
anityon this subject. Seneca,oneof Nero's ministers,
a Stoic of Stoics, was a contemporary of St. Paul ;
and they have so much in common that some
Avxiters think that one borrowed from the other,
or that both were indebted to a common source.
Lightfoot discusses the point in his essay ' St. Paul
and Seneca' {Philippians*, 1878, p. 270 fF.), and
comes to a negative conclusion. Still more famous
Stoics are Epictetus, a Greek slave of Rome, and
the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the saint of ancient
paganism.* ' The sentences of Seneca are stimulat-
ing to the intellect ; the sentences of Epictetus are
fortifying to the character ; the sentences of M.
• We have ample means of knowincr these writers in various
essays and translations : the essays of Matthew Arnold, F. W. H.
Myers, F. W. Farrar ; translations by Gcorpe Long, G. H. Ken-
dall, A. Stewart, Elizabeth Carter, and G. Stanhop>e.
Aurelius find their way to the soul' (Arnold).
Myers remarks tliat in these three writers the
system grows more practical. ' We hear less of
its logic, its cosmogony, its portrait of the ideal
Sage. It insists on wliat may be termed tiie
catholic verities of all philosophers, on the sole im-
portance of virtue, the spiritual oneness of the uni-
verse, the brotherhood of men.' The weakness of
Stoicism and of Stoic ethics was that its religion
was a minus quantity, just as the strength of Chris-
tianity is in the religious spirit of its etliics. With-
out arguing that ethics is impossible without re-
ligion, we may say that it is immeasurably richer
and nobler with religion. The Stoic writers indeed
often speak of God ; but whether they mean more
by the name than the order of Nature or universal
law and reason is open to debate. They have no
explicit doctrine of God. To imitate or obey God
and to follow Nature seem to be the same thing.
Lightfoot speaks of the system both as ' material
pantheism' and 'pantheistic materialism.' W. L.
Davidson in his 6toic Creed (1907) holds that the
creed makes Fate superior to God ; in other words.
Fate is the supreme law of the universe. With
these abatements the great Stoics plead for virtue
most impressively. Their picture of the good man
battling with the forces of evil is very noble.
Scarcely anything has been said by later moralists
respecting virtue and righteousness generally, and
contentment in particular, which is not in substance
anticipated by the Stoics. Joseph Butler's power-
ful arguments for virtue from its natural effects and
tendencies, from man's self-interest in the highest
sense, from the instincts of human nature rightly
understood, are quite in the Stoic, and indeed in
the Christian, vein. The Stoic idea of contentment
with life as it comes or is fixed for us by unchange-
able law is often pushed to the extreme of apathy,
insensibility, impassiveness {d-rrddeia). This is not
to endure pain, but to deaden the sense of pain.
Here Stoicism betrays its Eastern origin, and joins
hands with Hindu and Buddhist asceticism.
Christian moralists have rightly appealed to Stoic
teaching as a preparation for Christian ethics. Two
notable English writers on contentment are Sander-
son in two sermons, and Barrow in five sermons,
on Ph 4", the former sententious and pointed, the
latter manly and copious in thought and expression.
Both are greatly strengthened by abundant quota-
tion from the three great Stoics, as well as from
Horace, Cicero, Chrysostom, and others. Still, their
main source of material and proof is Scripture. In
this mode of treatment they are examples of the
Anglican and Puritan literature of their age. While
Scripture is the supreme court of appeal, the abun-
dant references to ancient writers show the har-
mony of Christian thought with general belief, and
seem to imply some kind of Divine revelation or
guidance in the pre-Christian world.
2. St. Paul's teaching. — In two passages St.
Paul expressly teaches the lesson of contentment,
both by word and by his own examnle : ' I have
learned, in whatsoever state I am, tnerein to be
content. I know how to be abased, and I know
how to abound ; in everything and in all things I
have learned the secret both to be filled and to be
hungry, both to abound and to be in Mant' (Ph
4^^'-) ; ' Godliness with contentment is great gain '
(1 Ti 6* and context). In the second passage St.
Paul, in opposition to those who tuni godliness
into material gain, emphasizes the true gain of
godly contentment in guarding against the moral
dangers of avarice (vv.»- ^''). His Stoic contempo-
raries would have joined is his counsels : ' For we
brought nothing into the world, for neither can
we carry anything out ; but having food and cover-
ing we shall be therewith content ' — food and cover-
ing, a modest sutticiencj-. ' The love of money is
CONTEXTME^'T
COISTRIBUTIOX
245
a root of all kinds of evil ' — of lying, dishonesty,
overreaching, oppression. In the first passage he
is guarding himself against the suspicion of a mer-
cenary spirit. He has never sought for himself
the contributions which he has received from the
churches, thus making gain of godliness. ' I have
learned ' {Ifiador) : contentment, like all other
virtues, is not a growth of nature, but a plant of
"race's planting and nurture. Seneca said ' Nature
does not give virtue ; to become good is an art.'
Contentment is a lesson learnt in the school of ex-
perience at the feet of a Divine teacher. St. Paul
has learned to reduce his desires to his means, ' in
whatever state I am {ev oTj elfu), be it high or low,
rich or poor, base or honourable, easy or painful,
prosperous or troublous ; all that God sends is wel-
come.' 'To be content' — airripKTis, 'sufficient in
oneself,' 'independent'; avrdpKfia, 'sufficiency in
oneself,' 1 Ti 6^ ; see Lk 3^*, 2 Co 12^, He 13'. ' I
have learned the secret' — a striking phrase repre-
senting a single word in the text, fUftAitfitu (jivito),
' I have been initiated,' a reference to the ancient
religious mysteries. ' I have learned the secret of
contentment in all circumstances' — is there not
here a playful turn in comparing the art of sub-
mission to all that happens to us with instruction
in esoteric mysteries?* Of course the self-suffi-
ciency or independence spoken of is not original
or absolute, but derived and conditioned. ' I can
do all things in him that strengtheneth me' (Ph
4'*) — 'True contentedness of mind is a point of
high and holy learning, whereunto no man can at-
tain unless it be taught him from above' (Sander-
son). 'I have learned' — learning is gradual, ad-
vancing from the alphabet to perfect knowledge.
Moral progress is not by leaps and bounds, but step
by step, invisible to subject and spectator as the
growth of tree and flower. It is ' forgetting the
things which are behind and stretching forward
to the things which are before,' from the great to
the greater, from the high to the higher.
3. Difference between OX and NT doctrine. —
The reason of the whole difference between the
Christian bearing in the problems of life and that
of the Stoic and natural moralist lies in the Chris-
tian conception of God, more especially in God's
providential reign over and care for the world and
the individual. Faith in that truth determines
the Christian attitude, especially in times of adver-
sity and suffering. As to the doctrine, the differ-
ence between OT and NT is one only of degree —
a great diflerence we admit — but even the early
revelation of this truth is glorious. After making
every allowance for development in the OT records,
we must admit that their presentation of God's re-
lation to the world and to man — personal, living,
intimate, loving, like that of human father and
son — was quite unique at the time. The lives of
patriarchs, leaders, prophets, as well as the nation-
al historj-, show us Providence at work. We have
there, as in the NT, righteousness as the rule of
Divine dealing and final destiny. We see righteous-
ness also as the supreme endeavour of human life.
What infinite pathos of Divine love, compassion,
tenderness, patience, faithfulness, slowness to
anger, readiness to forgive, speaks in Psalm and
Prophecy (Ps 23. 32. 36. 63. 73. 103, Is 40. 43. 53.
54. 55. 60. 61, Jer 31, Ezk 34. 36. 37. etc.). The
Book of Job casts a flood of light on the Divine
mission of affliction. The meaning of the provi-
dential discipline of life emphasi;^ in He 1^-
is taken from the OT. The contrast between the
OT portrayal of God as a moral Ruler and of His
government as administering Moral Law and the
glorification of might in contemporary kingdoms
and even in later Rome, is striking in the highest
* llbere are similar turns in Ro l^n ' in dUigeiice not sloth-
ful'; 1 Th 411 ' be ambitious to be quiet.'
degree. The confirmation of all this in the facta
of experience in Butler's treatise (pt. i. ch. 3) is
unanswerable. The case of the good sutferine
misfortune and the evil prospering is, in the final
issue of the whole, exceptional (see Job, Ps 73).
The NT fulfilment is the crown of a great pre-
paration. It is all summeil up in the idea of God
as Father of the individual, which pervades the
entire NT teaching from first to last. ' Your
Father, my Father, are words ever on the lips of
the supreme Teacher and Revealer. ' When ye
pray, say. Our Father.' 'How much more shall
your Father which is in heaven give good things
to them that ask him ? ' ' Your heavenly Father
knoweth that ye have need ' of food and clothes.
The Divine Fatherhood is the strongest foundation
of prayer. We know how much St. Paul and St.
John make of the correlative relation of believers
as children of God, St. Paul speaking of them as
both ' sons ' and ' children,' St. John using only the
title 'children' (Ro 8"- ^\ 1 Jn 3'). For the chil-
dren nothing is too good for God to promise and
give. ' It is your Father's good pleasure to give
you the kingdom ' (Lk 12°). The whole section
Mt e^*"** is a perfect antidote to anxiety and fear.
' To them that love Gk)d all things work together
for good ' (Ro 8^) corresponds to OT sayings like
Ps ^410 103^. Human faith, called forth and jus-
tified by such promises, never rose so high in the
sphere of natural reason as in Ro S'*'**. It is in
passages like Jn 13-17 that the tenderness of Grod's
love for His earthly children finds the highest ex-
pression. These selections from a wide field may
suffice to set forth the grounds of Christian sub-
mission to all that Gk)d sends or permits, gives or
withholds, of earthly good.
Contentment seems a weak word to describe the
Christian attitude to the Divine appeal. It has
all the Divine character and revelation in word
and act behind it. Even the adverse and painful
is seen to have Divine purpose in it. We ' rejoice
in tribulation ' and ' manifold trials ' (Ro 5^, Ja 1-},
not for their own sake but for the fruit they bear.
Trials and difficulties nurse strength and courage.
The greatest sufferers have been the greatest
heroes. Patient endurance is the highest evidence
of strength. The strongest souls are often found
in sick chambers. ' God's peace stands sentry,
keeps guard over them ' (Ph 4") — an echo again of
an OT benediction, ' Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he
trusteth in thee' (Is 26'). This age-long, world-
wide extent of personal experience guarantees the
truth and reality of what lies behind Chrisrian
resignation and trust. We may repeat the vow
of Epictetus to Gkxl, with deeper meaning :
' For the rest use me to what thou pleasest. I do consent
unto thee and am indifferent. I refuse nothing which seemeth
good to thee. Lead me whither tboa wQt ; put on me what
garment thou pleasest. Wilt thou hare me to be a governor
or a private man, to stay at home or to be banished away, to
be poor or to be rich ': I will, in respect to all these things,
apolc^ise for thee with men ' (quoted in Barrow, Works, iiL X).
LinEATtiu. — Somons on Ph 4U will be fooDd in I. Barrow,
Worka, m. 0831] 1-106 ; R. Sanderson, Works, i. [ISW] 112-
172; R. Sibbes, Work^, v. [1863] 177-193; Commentaiies on
Philippians, esp. C. J. EllicottmSfiSX M. R. Vincent (/CC,
I 1897), H. A. A. Kennedy (EGT, 19C3) ; see also J. Gntbiie.
I Divine Discontent. 1913 ; H. W. Smith, Tks Life Worth Liv-
I inn, 1912, p. 7 ; Lord Avebnzy, Peat» and Hajfpiness, 1909,
p. 99 ff.; J. I. Vance, Royal Manhood^ UM, p. 165 ff. ; D.
Watson, In Life's School, IflOS, p. 145ff. J. S. BANKS.
CONTINENCE.— See Absxisexce.
CONTRIBUTION.— The significance of the word
KOivuria, twice translated ' contriburion ' in the RV,
is understood best from its employment and the
employment of its cognates in various connexions
in the*NT. The root- idea is that of personal rela-
tionship. The fellowship or communion which it
246
CONTERSATIOX
CONVERSION
denotes, while it is essentially inward and spiritual,
is at the same time a living and active union based
on mutual co-ojjeration between persons or porsoni-
iied subjects (cf. 1 Jn P- "•, Ac 2«, 2 Co 6" 13'*,
1 Co P, etc. ; for crvyKoiuuyeii' and ffvyKOtvuvdi see
Ph 4", Eph 5", Rev 18*). From this it came to
express the acts by which this vital fellowship is
manifested through the agency of the Holy Spirit,
or by acts of brotherly kindness between members
of the scattered Christian communities (cf. Ph 2\
He 13'« ; see B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the NT^,
1893, i. 188). In the Didache we find the same
conception of brotherly love emphasized as the
visible expression of a personal spiritual communion
((TvyKOLvwvqaeii Sk irdvTa t<^ d8e\<pt^ vov . . . el yd,p iv
Ttp aOavdrcf) koivuvoI i<rTe, irba(^ fiaWov iv toU Ovryrois,
iv. 8). Here the meaning has not yet reached the
degenerate stage at which it arrived in patristic
(Jreek theology, where it is almost equivalent to
e\er]fjLoaiji>7j (see Cremer, Bibl.-Thcol. Lexicon of NT
Greek, Eng. tr.*, 1895, p. 363). We are thus able
to apprehend the supreme importance which St.
Paul attached to the contributions of the Gentile
Churches to the poor among the Christians of Judaea
(Ro 15*', 2 Co 9'^, etc. ; see also art. Collection),
His conception of the undertaking is not merely
that Gentile and Jew should be participators in
the common blessings of plenty, to a siiare in which
each Christian lias a claim. If that were all, we
should look for the word fxerix^Lv (cf. 1 Co 10",
He 2", etc. ), which has both a narrower and a more
external connotation than Koivuvdv (see Westcott,
Epistle to the Hebrew^, 1903, pp. 74, 336 ; Robert-
son-Plummer, 1 Corinthians [ICC, 1911], pp. 212,
215,217 ; cf., however, EUicott's Commentary, 1887,
on 1 Co W%
The giver and the receiver are both involved in
Koivuvla, and in the acts of giving and receiving
they throw into objective reality their complete
personal union in the Body of Christ. To achieve
this end no sacrifice was too great (Xetrou/ry^o-oi,
Ro 15^), for a debt inestimable was resting on
those who, from outside, had been received into
the spiritual fellowship of Jesus Christ ((J^efXerat).
By discharging their obligation in this respect, the
Gentiles not only witnessed to the profound spirit-
ual principle of communion in the Christian society,
but also used an instrument whereby the union,
thus expressed, would be realized on the other
.side. Arising out of the movement initiated by
St. Paul we find that contributing to the needs of
the saints (Koivuvovvres, Ro 12'*) is enjoined as a
general duty of Christians (cf. koivuviko^s, 1 Ti 6^*,
where the thought involves the formation of the
habit and character of generosity with a view to
' the life whicli really is life ' [see the translation
in Moffat's Historical New Testament"^, 1901, p.
576]). J. R. Willis.
CONYERSATION.— This is the AV rendering of
the Gr. dfacrpoipri in Gal l'», Eph 4*2, 1 Ti 4", Ja 3'^
I p 115-18 212 31. i. 18^ 2 P 2^ 3" ; of woXlrevfia in Ph 3-»
(TToKireveffde, Ph 1*^), and of rpbiro^ in He 13'. The
English word is founded on the Vulg. conversaiio
(converso7-) and signifies 'manner of life' (= RV
rendering ; for examples of this use of ' conversa-
tion,' see Murray's OED s.v.). iroXirevfia and
iro\ireve<rOai definitely associate the conception of
life with relationship to a 7r6\ts. They are character-
istically Greek expressions ; for ' conduct to a
Greek was mainly a question of relation to the
State ' (J. A. Robinson on Eph 2-). On the other
hand, dvourrp^tpea-Oai (with its noun dva(TTpo<p-^) is in
the NT practically synonymous with words express-
ing a manner or ' walk of life, such as irepiTrareiv
(a favoui'ite Pauline and Johannine word) and
TropeCieffOai (which is found in Luke and Acts and
elsewhere in the NT, but not in Pauline and Johan-
nine writings) ; cf. also (rroix"", Gal 5^ 6'°, Ph 3"
(see HDB, art. ' Conversation,' for disou.ssion of the
distinction between vepiiraTtlv and dvaarp^cfxa-dai. as
drawn by E. Hatch in his Essays in Biblical Greek,
1889, p. 9). 'Conversation,' tlierefore, is an ex-
cellent rendering of dpajTpo<pT/i if it be understood
in the general sense of ' conduct ' or regulation of
life, the signification which it bore in Englisli
before being limited by common usage to inter-
course in speech.
We find dvaaTp4<peffdai used in this ethical sense
not only in the NT writings, but in the Apostolic
Father.s (Ign, Magn. ix. 1 ; Hermas, Mand. xi. 12 ;
1 Clem. xxi. 8 ; Ep. of Barn, xix, 6, and also in
the Didache iii. 9 repeating Ep. of Barn. xix. 6,
/xerA diKalwv . . . dvacrTpa^Vi?)- Deissmann, Bible
Studies, Eng. tr., 1901, p. 88 (cf. Light from t/ie
Ancient East, Eng. tr.'-*, 1911, pp. 107, 315), points
out that ' the moral signification se gerere which
dva<TTpi<p€<Teai bears in 2 Co l'^ Eph 2», 1 P 1", 2 P
2'8, He 10" 13'8, 1 Ti 3", is illustrated by Grimm,
needlessly, on the analogy of the Hebrew •^hn,' and
shows that it is not to be explained as a Hebraism
(cf. ib. p. 194), by quoting the ' Inscription of Per-
gamus No. 224 A (middle of 2nd cent. B.C.), where
it is said of some high official of the king iv TrSxrtv
Ka[ipoii dfiifiiTTUS Kai dSlews dvaLffTpe(p6/ji€vos (cf. also
Moulton, Grammar of NT Greek, 1908, p. 11, and
T. Nageli, Wortschatz des Apostels Paulus, 1905,
pp. 34, 38).
The ethical use of dvaffrpofifi and dva<rrpi<f>ta6ai 18
thus quite frequent in Hellenistic Greek ; and
neither noun nor verb is Hebraic, nor peculiar to
the language of the NT, but common, as Deissmann
states, to the ancient world as a whole. The ety-
mology conveys the idea of movement -vvithm
certain limits or a given sphere. Such activity,
however, is more expressly defined by the words
denoting ' walking ' or ' going ' mentioned above.
All such expressions may be illustrated by the term
' the Way ' used in the Acts (see 9- W- ^ 22*- ^) of
the path of the Christians (see art. Cheistian
LlFE), which is marked out by Divine revelation,
as opposed to a'ipeais (Ac 24'''), the way a man
chooses for himself. R. Martin Pope.
CONVERSION.— 1. Terminology.— The concep-
tion of conversion, as of so much else in the NT,
rests on what had become familiar in the OT. But
we find nothing like a definite doctrine of conversion
in either ; much less a theology or a psychology.
The most common word in the OT is ' turn ' (2\v),
which is quite general in meaning ; it may be ac-
complished by the sinner himself (Ezk 18") or,
more rarely, by God (Jer 31"). In the NT, as far
as the Acts and Epistles are concerned, the noun
occurs only once (Ac 15^), but the verb is com-
paratively frequent : e.g. Ac 3'^ ^ 26'8, 1 Th P,
2 Co 3*', i P 2^*. It is significant that it occurs 12
times intransitively, 4 times transitively ; and the
tense (aorist) used most commonly implies that the
action is regarded as momentary more often than
continuous (there is implied continuity in Ac 14'*
15i», Gal 4», as against Ac 3'9 26'8, 2 Co 3'«, Ja 5"»).
It may be added that in all cases, except 4 (Ac 3"
28=", Ja S'"- 2"), RV translates by ' turn.' The verb
is only twice used literally (Rev V-, 2 P 2"), and it
is used once in Galatians (4") and twice in a single
passage, 2 P 2='- =», quoting from the OT (Pr 26"),
of perversion.
2. Suggestions from the context.— \Vhat are the
causes and accompaniments of conversion ? It ap-
pears as the result of preaching (Ac 14'"), or of
'signs' (9" IP'). It is connected with repentance
(3'" 26^) and followed by bond-service and endurance
(1 Th P); and in the story of Cornelius and his
friends, as St. Peter is preaching, at the moment
when he describes remission of sins as i^iven to
CONVERSION
CONVERSION
247
those who believe on Christ, the Holy Spirit falls
on them, and they speak with tongues and
' magnify God ' (Ac 10"- *). They are then bap-
tized. The same thing happens to the 12 disciples
of ApoUos at Ephesus (Ac 19'^) after they have
been baptized and St. Paul has laid his hands upon
them. (In 1 Co 12**> and W passim nothing is said
to connect the gift of 'tongues' with conversion.)
This glossolalia is the only outward sign of con-
version mentioned in the NT ; it is true that the
men in Stephen's unrepentant audience were ' cut
to the heart ' (Ac 7*^) ; but abnormalities such as
those which accompanied the early stages of the
Methodist movement, the American camp-meet-
ings, or the Welsh revival, are altogether absent
from the history of apostolic preaching and its
results.
3. Parallel expressions. — Although the actual
descriptions of conversion are few (see below, § 7),
references to the great transition are numerous.
The converts are reminded that they were recon-
ciled (2 Co 5^), that they died with Christ (Col 2*'),
that they were made alive together with Christ
(Eph 2*), that they were baptized into Christ
(Gal 3"), that they obtained mercy (Ro 1I»). The
word of the truth of the gospel is increasing in the
Colossians, since the day that they heard and knew
the grace of God in truth (Col l^ ; cf. He 1(F«- ^-).
They have renounced the hidden things of dark-
ness ; they have believed, they are washed, they
are sanctified (1 Co 6'^). The general term ' salva-
tion ' is used in 1 Co l-i, Ro W\ Tit 3«; St. Peter
writes to those who are elect, begotten again
(1 P 11- 3 ; cf. 2 P l^"). In all these phrases, stress
is laid sometimes on the action of God, sometimes
on the response of man ; nor is it always easy to
see whether the writers are referring to the actual
moment of conversion or not ; they would seem to
think more frequently of the new'life, introduced
by a definite exiierience (cf. St. Paul's use of the
perfect tense, •^XxtKores, 1 Co 15^*, ireTiffTevKa, 2 Ti
1^), than of the exact moment of transition.
The language of St. John, as might have been
expected, makes but little reference to the change
as an event happening in time ; his thought is
rather of belief or knowledge as an abiding at-
titude of mind (1 Jn 2^ 4^^) ; but we may compare
the striking phrase in 1 Jn 3'^ * have passed from
death unto life,' with that of St. Paul (2 Co 5^'), ' if
any man is in Christ, it is a new creating.'
References in the Apostolic Fathers to the con-
version of unbelievers are surprisingly few. These
\vriters are rather concerned to hold a high ethical
standard before their readers. Clement of Rome
speaks of those who have been called through His
wUl in Christ Jesus as being justified through faith
(xxxii. ), and constantly emphasizes the need of
repentance. The Didache makes no reference to
the conversion of outsiders as such, though one
would think that the members of the Church must
have regarded the exhortations of the ' Two Ways '
as more applicable to outsiders than to themselves.
Barnabas, who, like the Didache, quotes the ' Two
Ways,' speaks of the apostles as 'those who
preached unto us the forgiveness of sins' (^aii.);
refers to the time before belief on God, ' when the
abode of oui* heart Mas corrupt and weak, a temple
truly built Avith hands ' (xvi. ) ; and adds the signifi-
cant passage : ' He thatdesireth to be saved looketh
not to the man, but to Him that dwelleth and
speaketh in him, being amazed at this that he has
never at any time heard these words from the
mouth of the speaker, nor himself ever desiied to
hear them' (i6.).
4. Conyersion is from heathenism. — This is the
great difference in the use of the tenn in the XT
from that in the OT and in much of our modem
religious phraseology. AH the NT converts had
definitely broken with their old surroundings.
The language of the NT is the language of tlie
first stage in the history of a missionary church.
In the OT even sinners are for the most part
members of the chosen nation ; the prophets call
the people back to a holiness which they are re-
garded as having preWously lost. Even Ezekiel,
who alone seems to regard the history of Israel as
one of disobedience from the beginning, feels that
the nation has somehow been in touch with Jahweh
all along. In our own times, the majority of con-
verts have been brought up in a more or less
Christian atmosphere ; there has been a lengthened
period of suggestion followed at last by a decision.
Even where conversion seems most sudden, much
teaching has often preceded. NT preaching was
very diBerent. To the Jews, it occasioned an in-
tellectual shock, for the most part at first highly
resented (Ac 7**^-). With Grentiles this was even
more definitely the case. The shock was moral
and social as well. To the Jews, a great deal of
the morality of the apostolic preaching would be
familiar, especially the emphasis upon personal
purity in speech and conduct ; and the Jews, in the
Gentile world, were already a distinct community
(cf. the Rabbinic treatise, Aboda Zara) like the
Christians in India. For the Gentiles, that preach-
ing demanded a complete renunciation of their
existing habits, friendships, moral ideas, and often
of their business (cf. 1 Co IQr^- ; and Tert. de Idol.
— equally true a century before he wrote). Stan-
ley's w ell-known description of baptism, as symbol-
izing the definite rupture with one society and the
identification with another, is far more true of the
1st cent, than of any other {Christian Institutions*,
London, 1884, ch. i.).
5. Conversion and baptism. — The new convert
was not, indeed, regarded as being perfect from his
conversion onwards. His morals might be very de-
ficient (Eph 4^, 6 icX^irrwi'), and there was much
need of teaching (cf. the emphasis laid on this point
in the Pastorals). There must have been a large
number of 'babes in Christ.' But the practice of
modem missionaries in delaying baptism was un-
known in early times. Baptism followed the pro-
fession of belief (Ac 2"), and, as soon as belief and
repentance were professed, the convert was felt to
have broken with the old life (2" and S^*- ^). Often
both belief and repentance are only implied in the
actual narratives (2^* 16^').
6. Conyersion, repentance, belief. — Baptism
(q.v.) is then the seal [at^payii) of repentance and
conversion, the sign of admission to the new society
which is the Body of Christ. Yet this never takes
place without a change of heart ; so much so
that in the NT baptism of children is apparently
never refeiTed to (the meaning of 'household,'
1 Co 1'®, is dubious). Here again it must be re-
membered that the NT nowhere deals with a long-
established church, or with the questions which
would naturally arise in one. But where baptism
has not been preceded by a real conversion, the
writers speak in no uncertain tone (cf. the case of
Simon Magus, Ac 8^). What then is the relation
of conversion to repentance ? They are twice men-
tioned together (Ac 3'* and 26"*) ; repentance comes
first in both cases : repentance (tieTavoia, change
of mental attitude), it has been suggested, expresses
the ethical aspect of the process, conversion the
spiritual ; or they may be called the negative and
{ositive aspects. But they cannot be separated,
f there is a turning from (repentance), there must
be a turning to (conversion). Sometimes the initial
impulse will be dislike for the old (cf. Starbuck and
Hadlev, ut infra), or the goodness of God will be
felt as' leading to repentance (Ro 2*; cf. Ezk 36'^).
But the two are parts of one process. The same
thing must be said of belief. For belief is nothing
248
CONVERSION
CORINTH
but a turning or giving oneself to a person whose
support is expected with conhdenoe and whose will
is accepted as a command to be obeyed. And since
these commands cannot be obeyed witliout ceasing
to do what is inconsistent with them, belief really
includes what we have called both the negative
and the positive.
7. Individual instances. — Less can be learnt
from these, as referred to in the NT, than might have
been expected. Of the conversions of Barnabas,
Silas, Timothy, and the rest of St. Paul's great co-
adjutors, we know nothing. The Ethiopian eunuch
has already been referred to. Cornelius (Ac lO"'),
as a proselyte, has already broken with his heathen
manner of life, and his passing over to belief in
Christ is secured by his vision ; St. Peter's disciourse
simply completes tlie process : to adopt Seelierg's
suggestive phrase, Betehrwig is ended by Bckeh-
rung. Lydia also, who is apparently a proselyte,
believes while St. Paul is preaching {Ac Id'*), and at
once shows the change wrought in her by ofl'ering
to entertain the Apostle. The Philippian jailer,
blurting out in his terror a cry almost of despair
{Ac \&^), receives an answer which must have
seemed quite meaningless to him at first ; and then,
as the result of a discourse which is unfortunately
not preserved for us, believes and is baptized.
Whether any conversions took place at Malta
as the result of St. Paul's stay there is unknown.
The above instances are all of 6en tiles. The appeal
which led to the conversion of Jews would seem to
be that which St. Paul used to Agrippa : ' the re-
deeming work of the Messiah is foretold or implied
by the prophets ; you believe the prophets ; therefore
you must believe in the Messiah, Jesus whom we
preach ' (Ac 18« 2622'- ^ ; Lk 24^7). In the case of St.
Paul we have two accounts purporting to come from
his own lips (Ac 22. 26), and for the third (Ac 9)
he must have been the authority. Certainly, he
did not turn from any outward works of darkness{Ro
13'*) ; he may have been prepared previously, like
Cornelius, though unconsciously ; but when the
change came, in a blinding flash of celestial light,
it meant an instant and entire transference of his
loyalty and a complete destruction of his old self-
esteem. The culmination of his conversion, lead-
ing to baptism, was brought about, as in the case
of Cornelius, through two mutually dependent
visions, and actual instruction from a disciple. For
St. Paul, it was a turning from darkness to light,
a revealing of the Son of God in him (Gal V^) ; but
the only works of the flesh whose renunciation was
involved were anger, pride and hatred, and these he,
like his friends, would probably have considered, up
to the crisis, as positive virtues. Was this perhaps
the reason why anger, hatred, malice and strife find
sucli a prominent jdace in his later catalogues of
evil deeds?
8. To turn: tpansitive or intransitlYe 7— We
have left to the last the difficult question whether
man turns to God or God turns man to Himself.
The lan}j:uage of the NT gives little assistance (see
§ 1). Where the verb is not intransitive, the sub-
ject is a man ( Ja 5^'- *", and perhaps Ac 26^^), and
elsewhere we have simply the passive voice (1 P
2^), with no reference to the agent. But it is im-
possible to deny the share of God in the process
(Eph 2\ Col 2", Tit ,3», He l(fl\ 1 P P, Ro Ipo)
or the connexion between conversion and salvation
(1 Co 1=", Ro 10"). But the question of the relative
importance of the action of God and of man in con-
version never occurred to the NT writers ; and a
closer examination of the whole subject wUl show
that it is not a case of ' either ... or.' According
to our point of view, we may see the act as wholly
God's or wholly man's. Exliorting the sinner, tlie
preacher will say, ' Turn to God ' ; looking back on
the act, the sinner will say, 'God turned me to
Himself; or else we may use language which
admirably and daringly combines the two, employ-
ing the imperative of tlie passive voice, ' Be ye
reconciled to God ' (2 Co 5'^}. Conversion itself
rests on tlie Atonement ; man must Ije made ' at
one ' with God, and yet this cannot be done unless,
at tliat very moment, he makes himself 'at one.'
The question appears a dithcnlt one just because
the answer is invulved in the simplest processes of
action. All action between persons is mteraction.
It is the union of two elements to bring a third to
the birth. We nmy for the moment overlook either
tlie one or the other ; but both ai-e there. And
the two are really one. William James's theory
of the subliminal is suggestive : conversion results
from the breaking up of the fountains of the great
spiritual deep; there is a 'subliminal uprush ' in
me ; and a flood of perceptions, feelings, loves and
hates, of which I had hitherto been quite uncon-
scious, gives me a new conception of myself and
my life. The correctness of this account cannot
here be discu8.sed. It appears to cover much in
the vast changes described so simply in the NT.
It leaves room for, but it does not actually state,
the main factor in every NT reference to conversion,
and this is neitiier a new moral ideal nor a fresh
conception of oneself, but the redeeming love of a
God of mercy and righteousness, to whom the
sinner turns in repentance and bj' whose good-
ness that turning is encompassed and made
possible.
LrrBRATtTRB. — See references in art. 'Conversion' in ERE.
The conversions in the Acts are discussed in the various Lives
of St. Paul (see Padl) ; see also Commentaries on the Epistles
for discussions on the passag-es referred to in the article. W.
James, Varieties of Religious Experience, London, 1902 ; E. D.
Starbuclc, The Psychology of Religion, do. 1899, also art. in
ExpT, XXV. [1913-14] p. ^igff. ; F. Granger, The Soul of a
Christian, London, 1900 ; and G. Steven, Psychology of the Chris-
tian Soul, do. 1911, may be mentioned as treating of the experi-
ence of conversion generally. See also J. W. Chapman, S. II.
HadUy of Water Street , London, 190C. For a suggestive dis-
cussion of the difficulties in recaJling the exact experiences at
the time of conversion see W. Thimme, Augtisti7is geistige
Entwicklung, Berlin, 1908. W. F. LOFTHOUSE.
COPPERSMITH (xaXiteiJs, 2 Ti 4").— The Greek
word properly denoted a worker in x«Xf 6j {aes) — a
term applied indift'erently both to copper and its
alloys — and more generally a worker in any metal.
Copper was the first ore men learned to smelt and
work : ' Prius aeris erat quam ferri cognitus usus '
(Lucret. v. 1292). The handicraft of the copper-
smith was therefore very ancient. Later, when
iron came into use, x^^f f^J was extended to include
workers in the new ore, criSripevf being a term rarely
employed. In the LXX Tubal-cain is described as
a x'l^ff'^J x*^*^""^ 'f*^ atdripov (Gn 4*-). Herodotus
(i. 68) tells how Lichas, 'coming to a smithy,
looked attentively at the iron being forged, and
was struck with wonder when he saw what was
done. The smith (xaX/fei^s), perceiWng his a.stonish-
ment, desisted from his work.'
As the Romans drew their supply of aes chiefly
from the island of Cyprus, it came to be termed
aes cypritim, which was shortened to cyprium, and
corrupted into cyprum, whence comes the Eng.
word ' copper,' Fr. cuivre. Germ. Kupfer.
James Strahan.
CORINTH {K6pivdoi). — Corinth was the commer-
cial ca])ital of Greece, and one of the first centres
of Christian light in the continent of Europe.
Occupying a commanding position at the southern
extremity of the narrow istlimus which joined the
Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, and under
the steep northern side of the stupendous rock
of Acrocorinthus (1800 ft. above sea-level) which
formed one of natxire's strongest fortresses, it en-
joyed unique advantages alike for commerce and
defence. ' Corinth of the two seas ' (' bimaris Cor-
inthus' [Hor. Car. I. vii. 2; Ovid, Mrt. v. 407])
CORINTH
CORINTH
249
could not fail to become a great maritime power.
Its •western harbour, Lechjeuni, on the Corinthian
Gulf, received the shipping of Italy, Sicily, and
Spain; its eastern port, Cenchreae i^.v.), on the
Saronio Gulf, that ot Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia,
and Egypt. Instead of circumnavigating stormy
Cape Nfalea, coasting ships regularly made for the
Isthmus, where those of larger size transhipped
their cargoes, whilst those of smaller tonnage were
hauled from sea to sea on a tramway 5 miles long
{SioXxoi). ' For goods exporte<l from t*eloponnesus,
or imported by land, a toll was paid to those who
had the keys of the country ' (Strabo, VIII. vi. 20).
As an emporium of the traide of the East and the
West, Corinth grew into a splendid city, the home
of merchant princes, adorned with Temples and
filled with works of tine art.
Corinth was described as • the bridge of the sea '
(Pihd. Sem. vi. 4), and ' the gate of the Pelopon-
nesus ' (Xen. Ages. 2). ' Prosperous {evSaifjuaf) Cor-
inth ' is Herodotus ' designation of old Corinth.
' The Corinthians,' says Thucydides, ' were very
rich, as is shown by their poets, for they gave the
title of atpreios to the place ' {Hist. L 13). ' The city
was rich and opulent at all times,' says Strabo
(VII. vi. 23). At the zenith of its power it prob-
ably had a free population of 200,000, with half a
million slaves employed in its fleet and in its numer-
ous colonies.
Pillaged and razed to the ground by the Romans
under Lucius Mummius in 146 B.C., Corinth lay
desolate for a century, till Julius Caesar refounded
it in 46 B.C. as the Volonia Laus Julia Corinthu-s,
peopling it with Roman veterans and freedmen.
' The copestone of the republican epoch was the
atonement for the sack of Corinth made by the
greatest of all Romans and of all PhUhellenes, the
dictator Csesar, and the renewal of the star of
Hellas in the form of an independent community
of Roman citizens, the new "Julian Honour'
(Th. Mommsen, Provinces, Eng. tr.-, 1909, i. 26<3).
As the capital of the province of Achaia, and the
seat of proconsular government, new Corinth be-
came nearly as populous and prosperous as the old
had been, again deriving a vast revenue from the
sea, again developing its industries and cultivat-
ing its arts. Corinthian potters and especially
workers in Corinthian brass — a mixture of golcl,
silver, and copper — were famous all over the world :
'nobilis acre Corinthus' (Ov. Met. vi. 416). The
establishment of the Isthmian games in the sanc-
tuary of Poseidon (Strabo, VIII. vi. 22) made the
city a great centre of Hellenic life. But as it in-
creased in wealth and refinement, it succumbed to
the temptations of luxury. Theoretically, and not
unnaturally, it was devoted to the cult of Poseidon,
but practically it worshipped only Corinthian Aph-
rodite, who was doubtless no other than the Syrian
Astarte of the original Phcenician settlers. Her
temple had more than a thousand Up6Sov\oi — minis-
ters of \-ice not found in other shrines of Greece,
though common enough in those of Asia Minor —
and ' the city was frequented and enriched by the
multitudes who resorted thither on account of
them ' (Strabo, vm. vi. 22). Corinth became pro-
verbial for abysmal profligacy. ' To live like a
Corinthian' {Kopw6id^e<r6ai) was a synonym for
abandonment to immorality. ^yhen St". Paul
^vrote the appalling first page of hLs Epistle to
the Romans, he had never seen Rome, but he had
lived nearly two years in Corinth.
Into this centre of commerce, shrine of art, and
vortex of iniquity St. Paul came probably in the
autumn of A.D. 50. He came alone, depressed by
the apparent faQure of his preaching to the intel-
lectuals of Athens, entering his new spliere of
labour, as he confesses, with a sense of ' weakness
and fear and much trembling' (1 Co 2*j. But
when his companions, SUas and Timothy, whom
he had left in Philippi, rejoined him after some
weeks,^ ' he was constrained by the word ' (<rvrct-
X<To Tifi \6iy<f, Ac 18'). This probably means that
to these companions it seemed as if all his ener-
fies were being ' compressed ' into one channel, all
is thoughts controlled by a master idea. Carlyle
has shrewdly observed that ' the preaching man
of our day has lost the point.' The greatest
preacher of apostolic times had, perhaps after
some humiliation, rediscovered the point. His
profound philosophical disquisition in Athens — his
noble attempt to find common ground with the
speculative minds of Hellas — having apparently
missed the mark, he determined not to repeat his
error in Corinth ; here he would preach noth-
ing ' save Jesus Christ and him crucified ' (1 Co 2*).
He did not, of course, contemplate the preaching of
a new gospel, for in the province of Galatia, and
doubtless elsewhere, Christ had already been 'openly
set forth crucified' (Gal 3^). But in Corinth he
seemed to limit himself to one aspect of 'the
word,' to preach the Cross with a new passion. His
message, like his mind, was 'compressed.' The in-
tensity of spirit with wliich Christ faced His own
last task was indicated by the same word, run awi-
XOficLi, ' how am I straitened ! ' (Lk 12**).
The 'word of the cross,' preached with such fer-
vour, wrought moral miracles in pleasure-loving
Corinth. The spiritual attraction of Calvary was
the counter charm to the sensual temptations of
the corrupt city. Writing not long afterwards to
his converts, St, Paul gives a black list of the vari-
ous types of evil-doers in Corinth, and adds :
' such were some of you ; but ye were washed, but
ye were sanctified, but ye were justified, in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of
our God ' (1 Co 6*""). And if he found that the in-
veterate habits of a light-hearted pagan society
speedily re-asserted themselves even within the
Church (1 Co 5^ 6^-'^), it was still by the spiritual
influence of the same sacrifice that the members of
Christ's iKxly were to make and to keep themselves
pure (5«-«- "-^3 6"-»).
St. Paul had not intended to remain long in
Corinth, his heart being in Macedonia, to which
he had been Divinely called (Ac 16*- ^•), and where
his appointed task seemed scarcely begun. He
would have quickly retraced his steps if certain
difficulties, which seemed to him Satanic hin-
drances, could have been removed (1 Th 2"-").
But another night-vision (Ac 18*- ^'), attaching
itself no doubt to waking thoughts which had be-
gun to shape themselves in his mind, convinced
him that it was now his duty to remain in Corinth,
where many converts were to be won. As in other
cities, he laboured there with his own hands, that
his motives as a preacher might be above suspicion.
Being of the same trade {ofi^Tex'ot) with Aquila
and PrLscilla {q.v.), he accepted an invitation to
live in their house (18'). In a commercial centre
like Corinth the presence of Jews was a matter of
course (cf. Philo, Leg. ad Gaium, 36), and their
numbers had lately been augmented by the edict
of Claudius which banished all Jews from Rome
(Ac IS-). A number of Greeks had gradually
been attracted to the worship of the synagogue, in
wliich St. Paul, adhering to his plan of going to
the Jew first (Ro l''^2* ^"), 'reasoned every Sab-
bath' (Ac 18^), till the inevitable rupture took
Elace (V.*). He was then oflered the use of the
ouse of the ' God-fearing ' Titus Justus, who was
Erobably one of the Roman colani, and who may
ave adopted the cognomen of Justus when he be-
came a proselyte. The preaching of the gospel in
such a house" was calculated to >vin the ordinary
Gentile population, who might have been slow to
enter the synagogue.
250
CORINTH
CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE
The Corinthian converts were drawn froni tliree
classes of inhabitants — Roman colonists, Greek
iiicolaj, and Jewish settlers. The number of those
who bear Latin names — Lucius, Tertius, Quartus,
Fortunatus, Achaicus(Rol62'-**, 1 Co 16'^)— is strik-
ing. A few were men of some social standing,
such as Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue (Ac 18°),
(iaius, who was hospitable to St. Paul and to ' the
whole Church ' (if this means that the Church met
at his house, it is possible that he is to be iden-
tified with Ticus Justus), and Erastus, the citv
treasurer (Ro 16^). Not many in philosophical,
administrative, or aristocratic circles were called
(1 Co 1**), and St. Paul glories in the apparent im-
potence of the means by which the gospel gains
its victories : ' faex urbis lux orbis.' Yet Ramsay
may be right, on the whole, in niaintaining that in
Corinth, as everywhere else, ' the work of the
Christian Church was to create or to enlarge the
educated, the thoughtful middle class ' (Expositor,
6th ser., i. [1900] 98).
St. Paul's Corinthian experiences seem to have
directed his attention to the central importance of
the Church in Rome and to the attitude of the Im-
perial government to Christian missions. (1) His
host and hostess, having lately come from Italy,
were able to give him vivid first-hand intelligence
regarding the world-city, which from this time
certainly loomed large on his mental horizon : he
'must see Rome' (Ac 19^1; cf. Ro 1" 15^). (2)
His Corinthian trial, at the instance of jealous
Jews, before the proconsul Gallio, the large-minded
and tolei-ant brother of Seneca, on the charge of
worshipping God ' contrary to the law,' a trial
ending in his speedy and triumphant acquittal,
not only made it clear to him that Christianity
was a religio licita, which might be preached in
any part of the Empire, but evidently confirmed
his idea that the Imperial government might be
regarded as a restraining power (1 Th 2^), which
would give protection to law-abiding Christians,
especially to Roman citizens, engaged in the peace-
ful work of evangelization.
In Corinth St. Paul initiated a form of mission-
ary activity which proved immensely beneficial to
all the churches — the writing of letters. From
Corinth he dispatched 1 and 2 Thess., Rom., and
possibly Gal. ; .and to Corinth he sent not only the
two canonical Epistles which have come down to
us, but apparently two others — referred to in 1 Co
5^, 2 Co 2* 7* — one of which may be fragmentarily
preserved in 2 Co 6^*-7', while the other is per-
haps to be found, in whole or in part, in 2 Co 10-13,
It was in the Church of Corinth, with its numer-
ous types of converts and its astonishing variety
of gifts (1 Co 1*-'' 12<-»"), that the first ecclesiastical
divisions (o-x^o-Atara, 1 Co P" IP* 12^*) took place,
with an accompanying hero-worship which de-
tracted from the reverence due to Christ alone
(1 Co P"'^*). For the party-strife, so characteristic
of the democracy of Greek cities, in which persons
were put before principles, the three leaders who,
without being consulted, were set up as heads of
rival factions, were in no way to blame. St. Peter
ftrobably never visited Corinth at all. A polios
aboured for a time in this city, and achieved
much success among the Jews (Ac 18'''*), but
nothing could have been finer than the mutual
loyalty of St. Paul and Apollos (1 Co 3« 4« W%
Ct. also following article.
The Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Cor-
inthians was written about A.D. 97. While com-
mending their general tone and spirit, it contains
an exhortation to concord among the members of
the Church, which was still vexed by divisions.
See art. Clement of Rome, Epistle of.
LiTERATCRB.— E. Curtius, Pelopounesos, Gotha, 1851-2; W-
G. Clark, Peloponiiesux. London. 1858 ; E. Wilisch. G«schichte
Corinths, Leipzig, 1887, 1890, 1!X)1 ; Pausanias, Description of
Greece, ed. J. G. Frazer, London, 1898, ii'. 20-38; Baedeker,
Greece, do. 1889, >.«. 'Corinth'; art. 'OorinthuB* in Smith,
DGRG i. [186fl] 674. JaMES STRAHAN.
CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE.— 1. Aa-
thenticity. — It is generally agreed that both these
Epistles are rightly ascribed to St. Paul. As to
1 Cor, the external evidence is remarkably strong,
Clement of Rome directly appeals to it as the work
of the ' Apostle Paul ' (ad Cor. xlvii. : dvaXd^rre
TT)v iiruTTo\r)v tov /xaKapLov Jlat!i\ov rov ivoffrdXov. ri
wpCrrov vfiiy iv dpxy tov eiiayyeXLov iypa\j/ev ; itr
i.\7)delai irvevfi.aTiKC)s iir^ffreiXev iifuv vepl aiirov re Kal
K770a re <cai'Airo\\w, Sia t6 Kal t6t€ irpo<TK\l(Teii vfiai
irfirotrjadai,). The Epistle was certainly known also
to Ignatius and Poiycarp (cf. W, R. Inge, in The
Nl' in the Apostolic Fathers, 1905, p. 67 : ' Ignatius
must have known this Epistle almost by heart.
Although there are no quotations [in the strictest
sense, with mention of the source], echoes of its
language and thought pervade the whole of his
writings in such a manner as to leave no doubt
whatever that he was acquainted with the First
Epistle to the Corinthians.' P. V. M. Benecke
[io. p. 86] is equally sure about Poiycarp : ' Poly-
carp s use of 1 Corinthians may be regarded as
certain '). The internal evidence is equally strong.
The Epistle gives an extremely graphic picture of
a Christian Church of early date. Much of it is
occasional in character. There is nothing to
suggest forgery. The attack made on its auth-
enticity by Bruno Bauer, and renewed later by
Loman, Pierson, Naber, van Manen, Steck, and
others, has met with very little acceptance. Attacks
have also been made on its integrity by Hagge
and Volter, at these also have little to be said
for them.
2 Cor. appears in Marcion's Canon, and is after-
wards widely quoted. But there are few traces of
it in the Apostolic Fathers. Clement makes no
allusion to it, though it would have suited his
purpose to do so. It seems probable that it ^^ a>
not published until the churches began to look
upon St, Paul's letters as Scripture. It is in the
main personal, and contains but little moral or
doctrinal instruction. It is, therefore, quite in-
telligible that it should not have been published as
early as 1 Cor.,* which would be at once recognized
as a document of universal interest and great im-
portance ; but there is no reason to doubt its
Pauline authorship, in spite of the inferiority of
the external evidence for it. Irenaeus, Tertulfian,
Athenagoras, and Clement of Alexandria are all
familiar witli it and quote it freely. And the
internal evidence is very strong. Its autobio-
graphical touches carry their own assurance of
genuineness, and, while not in the main doctrinal,
' it is saturated with the characteristic theological
conceptions of St. Paul.'t
2. St. Paul's relations with Corinth before
writing 1 Corinthians. — St. Paul's first visit to
Corinth is described in Ac 18^"'^, where we have an
account of the foundation of the Corinthian Church.
After leaving Corinth, he continued to be in com-
munication with the Church there, and we can
reconstruct some part of his relations with it from
the evidence of his two extant Epistles to the
Coiinthians.
(a) St, Paul wrote a ' previous letter ' (1 Co S"),
in which he told the Corinthians not to keei>
company with fornicators. This must have been
due to information that immorality was creeping
into the Church. It is possible that a portion of
this letter is preserved in 2 Co 6'*-7' (see below).
•Cf. J. H. Kennedy, The Second aiid Third EpistU* to the
Corinthiam, 1900, p. "l41ff. ; K. Lake, The Earlier EpiitUt of
St. Paul, 1911, p. 163 f.
t UDB i. 492.
nOBTVTHTAXS, EPISTLES TO THE CQRI2sTHTA\S, EPISTLES TO THE 251
(b) The Corinthians had themselves >vritten a
letter to St. Panl, raising a number of points and
requesting his decision upon them (1 Co 7'- =* 8' 11-
120. They raise the question of marriage —
whether marriage is legitimate for a Christian,
the relation between husband and wife, between
a non-Christian husband and a Christian wife, and
vice versa. They interrogate him regarding the
status of virgins," and probiably also asK advice on
the question of eiSuXddxrra, with all the problems
of social life which it involves. The difficulties
that arose over the Eucharist may have been
mentioned in the letter (U""^), also the question
of spiritual gifts and of disorders in the assemblies,
perhaps also the question of the resurrection of the
dead. Attempts have been made to reconstruct
the Corinthian letter,* but these must necessarily
be too conjectural to be of any great value. It is
probable, however, that a good many of the expres-
sions used in 1 Cor. are direct quotations from their
letter, e.g. rdrra i^ecmv (cf. 10^), probably a sort of
catchword, which the Apostle accepts from them,
but qualifies. In 11- he probably quotes their letter.
(c) St. Paul had had other sources of information
besides this letter. The existence of parties with-
in the Corinthian Church had been made known
to him by Chloe's people or household (1 Co 1").
He had also heard, possibly from the same source,
of a case of incest (eh. 5), and of the habit which
had arisen of going to law with fellow-Christians
before heathen tribunals (6^-*). Apollos, too, had
visited Corinth (3®), and was now with St. Paul
at Ephesus (16"). Stephanas, Fortnnatus, and
Achaicus had also come to him from Corinth (16^").
3. Analysis of 1 Corinthians-— In view of the in-
formation received from these sources, St. Paul
•n-rote the First Epistle. It will be convenient here
to give a full analysis of it.
L ISTKODCCTIOSO-^-^
\iJi Salutation.
VT.*-9 Thank^ving for spirittud gifts of Corinthians.
IL REBUKE 0-^^i-&^y
la) Partv-tpirU, based on false intellectualism \a rdigion
110-17 ExtMxtation to tmity.
TT.u-ss The pandox of the Cross. Wliat seems to men
WMk and foolish is Divine strength and wisdom.
TT.2M1 Xhis is iUostrated by the natural characteristics of
Corinthian Christians — they are naturally weak
and foolish, but their strength and nisdom is
Christ.
21-* Further illnstTated by St. Pfcal** own behaviour
at Corinth.
TT.s^ Yet there is a qiiritaal wisdom for mature Oiris-
tians.
2U-33 Only the spiritoal man can understand this. The
Corinthians, when St. Paul preached to them,
were not yet spiritual.
33-* Xor are they yet spiritual, as is evidenced by
tieir factions.
TT.5-9 Foolishness of party -spirit, seeing that the work
of all is God's work.
YY.io-15 St. Paul has laid the One Foundation, Jesus
Christ. Others may build ujmn it, and_ are
responsible for the character of their building.
rv.16-1" The building is God's Temple. To destroy it is
to cause one's own destruction,
w. 10-23 Folly of subjection to human teachers. All be-
long to Christ.
41-5 Human teachers are responsible to Christ, and to
Him only.
TT.6-7 This rebuke is really only applicaUe to the
followers, not to theteachers.
TY.S-lS For the teachers are forced by their sufferings to
realize their limitationsi Only the followers
are proud.
TV.l*-l" Appeal to them to follow St. Paul's example.
Yv.18-21 He hopes to come himself, and test the truth of
their claims.
(6) Want of discipline in dealing vrith ease of incest (ch. 5).
5I-8 The case of incest. Necessity of excommunicat-
ing (lender.
TT.d-is ExpUnation of instractkMis given in former
letter about Christiuif^ attmide to immoral
persons.
(e) Litiffiousness (61-U).
di-6 Lawsuits not to be taken before heathen taribonals.
• Ct G. G. Rndlay, in Expositor, 6th ser. L [1900) 40HL
(P-11 Lawsuits altogether wrong. Christians ought
rather to endure wrong; bat no Cbrisuut
ooriit to give oocasioa for a lawsuit.
(d) Fomieatiim (6>*-»)-
git.1* The law of liberty does not apply to imparity.
TT.'*-*> Relation between Christ and believer incompat-
ible with fornication.
nL A.ySWSSS To QCESTJOAS (71-14^
(o) Marriage problems (ch. 7)l
71-7 Celibacy is best, bat marriage is sometimaa ex-
pedient.
w.S^ Unmarried persons and widows shoald, if posnble,
remain as they are.
VT.io-u Married couples should not sqwrate. If they do.
the wife most not re-marry.
TT.U-18 Mixed marriages are not real marriages in the
Christian sense, and therefore not indisscrfable.
TT.17-M It is best for pe<^Ie, both in marriage qnestkms
and in other matters,* to rem^n externally in
the ootiditioo in irtuch ttai^ were when tb^ be-
came CfaristiaasL
TT.**-* Viigins may marry witfaoat sin, though they do
better to remain unmarried.
TT.** Spiritual manriage is a good castom.t
TT.l^^ SeoMid marriage allowed, but not recommended.
(b) The eating <4 tkutgt saerijUed to idols (S^-lli).
8^-3 One dKMild be guided by tihe Iaw <^ Love.
w.^« CbristiaaB know that idols are nothing.
▼T.7-13 Yet to eat of a banquet in an idol's temple may
offoid the weaker brethren, and so is a sin
against the Law of Lore.
01-3 St. Paul claims spiritual liberty even more than
they can.
TT.^u He bas the same rights as the other apostles.
TV. 13-13 Yet he does not use the right to maintenance,
but surrenders it as a voluntary offering to
God.
TV.i*-33 He has surrendered his liberty for the sake of his
caose.
TT.*-W For the Christian life needs perpetual effort and
sdf-deniaL
101-9 This isQhistrated by the example of the Israelites,
most at whom perished in spice of their privi-
leges.
TT.m Their history is an example to us, that we may
avoid tiieir sins.
TY.13-I3 Xo temptation is too stzong to be resisted.
VT.14-— Id<datiy is a real danger. The Eucharist and
feasts opoo things sacrificed to idols are incom-
patiMe.
yy.a-st In any case the Law of Love is supreme.
w.B^ Christians may accept the invitations of non-
Christians,' and so run the risk of eating things
offered to idi^ Bat the Law of Lore forbids
that this shoold be done knowingly.
lOO-lli One must do aU to God's gloiy, and avoid giving
offence.
(e) Women in the assemblies (11>-I>).
US-ls Women most bare the head covered in the as-
semUies becanse they are inferior in spiritoal
status to men.
TV.U-I> Yet men and women are complementary.
TV.13-19 AppeaH to natural instinct.
T.U Aiqieal to Christian custom.
(d) Disorders at the LorSs Supper (Ui'-**).
1117-9 Prevalence of greed and drunkenness at the Lord's
Sapper.
Tv.!3^B Account of institution.
Tv.as-s Eesponsibility of commnnicanfc
VY.30^3 Physical evil and death cansed by unworthy re-
ception.
vv.33^ Command to avoid gluttony and self-assertion.
(«) Spiritual gifU (12l-14«X
121-3 Uie test of a Spirit is his attatode to Jesus.
Tv.^11 The gifts of the Spirit are diverse, but aU for use.
TV.13-13 Christ is One ; yet we in our variety are members
of His Body.
Tv.i^S The members of the natural body are interdepend-
ent.
TfJO^ So is it witti Christ's Body. Yet some gifts are
greater than others.
lSi-3 But all g^fta are uselesB without love.
TV.*' Descriptioa of love.
YT.^13 Temporary character of spiritual gifts cootnsted
with permanence of love.
V.13 Faith, hope, and love are permanent) and love ia
the greatest.
141-8 Superiority of projAecy to tuuguea.
TT.6-19 Unintelligibility of tongues.
VY.ao-S The only use of tongues is as a miracokos sign
to unbelievers.
Tv.»-» An outsider is impressed more by p«ophe<7 than
by tongues.
TT.W* Need of order in the assembhes.
rrM* Women forbidden to speak in the assembhes.
• V.21 may contain an exception in the case of slaves ; but the
Greek is ambiguous.
t The yntmm^ tit tiiis passage is not qaite certam. oat a. art.
• Agapets ' in ^RB.
252 CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE
1437-40 Final appeal for order and submission to St. Paul's
authority.
IV. The RssURJtiXTwy.— An answer to those who doubted
about the resurrection of ChriHtians (ch. 15).
161-11 Summary of St. Paul's Gospel, of which the re-
surrection is an essential part.
vv.12-11* The resurrection of Christians depends on the
fact of Christ's Resurrection.
vv.20-22 Parallel between Christ and Adam.
vv.23-28 The final consummation, the reig^ of the Father,
when Christ, havinjr suMued all His enemies,
delivers up to Him the Kingdom.
vv.29-32 Christian practices. Christian endurance and self-
denial unintelli^'ible without the Hesurrection.
VV.S3-34 Knowledge of Resurrection should be an incent-
ive to energy in Christian life.
vv. 35-38 Kature of resurrection body. Analogy of seed.
vv. 39-41 Variety of natural kinds.
vv.*2-46 The natural body is the suitable framework of
man's present self ; his future body will be the
suitable framework for him when he has become
spiritual.
w.-«7-4» So man must be changed from the likeness of the
First to that of the Second Adam.
w.sOiSS At the Last Trump, the dead shall arise incor-
ruptible, and those who are still on earth will
be suddenly changed and glorified.
W.B4-57 This is the conquest of death.
V.58 This gospel of the Resurrection gives value to all
moral eflfort.
V. PEHSOJf AT. MATTERS (ah. 16).
161-4 Arrangements about collection.
vv.5-9 St. Paul's intention to come and make some stay
at Corinth.
vv.lO-ii Commendation of Timothy.
V.12 Apollos' unwillingness to come,
vv. 13-14 Final exhortation.
vv.1^16 Commendation of the household of Stephanas.
vv.17-18 Thankfulness for the coming of Stephanas and
others,
vv. 19-21 Salutations and benediction.
4. St. Paul's relations with Corinth between 1
and 2 Corinthians. — It is necessary to go into some
detail with regard to the relations between St.
Paul and Corinth after the dispatch of 1 Cor., as
many questions connected with 2 Cor. depend upon
the view taken of the external history.
(a) Visit of Timothy . — In 1 Co 4" St. Paul speaks
of sending Timothy to Corinth, apparently with a
mission to deal with the party-spirit that was pre-
valent there. But in 16^" he speaks as thougn it
were uncertain whether Timothy would arrive.
In Ac 19*- we read that Timothy went into Mace-
donia. If that refers, as is probable, to the same
journey, Timothy must have had a mission to dis-
charge in Macedonia as well as in Corinth. We
hear nothing of his arrival at Corinth, But it is
quite certain that St. Paul did receive from some
source very bad news from Corinth. It is on the
whole probable that Timothy went to Corinth, arid
found the situation there very bad, that he made
no impression, and that he returned with alarming
news to St. Paul at Ephesus.
(6) St. Paul's second visit ev Xivrj. — On the receipt
of bad news from Corinth, whether from Timothy
or from some other source, St. Paul sailed thither
in person, but his visit was unsuccessful, and he
soon went back again to Asia Minor. The evidence
for this visit is to be found in three passages of
2 Cor., viz. 13*-* 12" 2^ The most natural exegesis
of 13'"* and 12" implies that he had been to Corinth
twice already, though it is just possible to avoid
this conclusion. When these two passages are
combined with 2', the case for a second visit to
Corinth becomes overwhelming, for in 2' it is im-
plied that St. Paul had paid a visit to Corinth iu
\vin[i. Now such a description would not apply to
his first visit, which was a distinct success, in spite
of certain disappointments and sorrows. The fact
that this visit is not mentioned in Acts is unim-
portant. It was very brief, and in the main un-
successful. The difficulties which occasioned it
were afterwards settled, and it would not naturally
enter into the plan followed by the author of Acts.
This visit must have been paid after 1 Cor. had
been written, for in that Epistle St. Paul speaks
throughout as though there had been only one
visit. His knowledge of the Ptate of alluirs at
Corinth is derived from information received, not
from personal observation (cf. 1" 5' 11'*), and in
4*' he shows that he realized the j)o&sibility that
he might have to pay a second visit, though he
was not sure about it.
(c) The severe letter. — On his return to Ephesus,
St. Paul wrote a severe letter ' out of much atilic-
tion and anguish of heart.' The letter so referred
to in 2 Co 2* must have been written at this time,
though efforts have been made to identify it either
with 1 Cor. or with the ' previous letter ' alluded
to in that Epistle (1 Co 5* ; see above, § 2). 1 Cor.
was certainly not written ' out of much affliction
and anguish of heart, with many tears.' It is calm
and in the main unemotional. Moreover, the
references to the * severe letter ' in 2 Co ""• * 3' I*'
2' do not suit 1 Cor. particularly well. There is
not a word in 1 Cor. to suggest that he was shrink-
ing from a visit for fear of its being unpleasant.
The 'previous letter' is also impossible. For St.
Paul only heard that his ' severe letter ' had
brought the Corinthians to repentance when Titus
returned and met him in Macedonia (see below).
But, when writing 1 Cor. , St. Paul had already had
an answer to the ' previous letter' (1 Co 5"'").
The theory has been put forward that part of
the 'severe letter' is to be found in 2 Co 10-13.
If this theory is correct, we should expect to find
(1) a great clifFerence in tone and spirit between
the two parts of the Epistle, together with a sudden
break of the sense at tiie end of ch. 9 : the last four
chapters should be severe and threatening, the first
nine should be encouraging, cheerful, and forgiving ;
(2) a certain number of cross-references, passages
in the first nine chapters which .seem to look back
to the last four ; (3) a solution of the rather in-
tricate question of the relations of Titus with
Corinth.
(1) The first nine chapters are clearly written at
a time when St. Paul has suddenly been relieved
from very great anxiety by the arrival of Titus
and the good news which he lia.s brought from
Corinth (7^"^ 2'2-'3). The whole tone of these
chapters is one of great relief, apparently caused
by the impression produced by his 'severe letter.'
But in chs. 10-13 we find great anxiety and great
passion. The change cannot fail to be noticed by
any reader of the Epistle. And there is a marked
break in the sense at the end of ch. 9. After speak-
ing of the collection, and ending with an ascription
of praise to God, suddenly, without even an dXXd,
he begins to threaten his readers. This has been
accounted for by those who believe in the integrity
of the Epistle in two ways — (i.) That the first nine
chapters were addressed to the repentant majority,
the last four to the rebellious minority. But there
is no hint of this. Ch. 10 is apparently addressed
to the Church as a whole. There seems no room
for a repentant majority. And chs. 1-9 give no
hint of a rebellious minority (cf. T'*"'"). (ii.) That
St. Paul received later news from Corinth while
writing the Epistle, and wrote the last four
chapters in the light of this later news. But surely
there would have been some indication of this. He
could hardly have allowed the earlier part to stand
without alteration.
(2) We find certain apparent cross-references
between the two parts of the Epistle, pointed out
by Kennedy in his Second and Third Epistles to
the Corinthians (pp. 79-94), and by Lake in The
Earlier Epistles of St. Paul (pp. 157-162). Of
these tiie most striking is tlie parallel between 2»
and 13'". In 2* the Apostle states tliat he wrote a
severe letter in order that when ho came he might
not have to be so .'icvere. In 13'" he says that he
is at that moment writing a severe letter, that he
CORINTHIAXS, EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIAN'S, EPISTLES TO THE 253
may not have to be severe when he comes. Again
in i'^ we have a parallel with 13-.
(3) The visit of Titus to Corinth mentioned in 7*
was with, or at the same time as, the ' severe letter.'
gn-w shows that St. Paul was sending Titos again
to make arrangements for the collection. This
surely he would not have ventured to do if he were
under the necessity of writing in the tone of chs.
10-13. Xo man would send a letter full of rebuke,
and of self-justification in the face of what seem
to have been charges of dishonesty, and in the
same letter ask his readers to subscribe money.
In 12^* he alludes to his custom of taking no money
from them for himself personally. He assumes
(v.") that they admit this, but then he says that
they may accuse him of winning their confidence
with a view to futxire etibrts to get something out
of them. How ? he asks. Xot by his representa-
tives ; e.g. Titus never 'made gain out of them.'
Clearly he alludes to some early work of Titus at
Corinth. Titus they know and trust. So he is a
suitable person to send at this critical moment to
Corinth. In ch. 7 we hear of the success of his
mission. The fact that he was a persona grata at
first and has recently been successful there makes
him a very suitable person to send again (ch. 8) to
arrange about the collection.
Finally, the last four chapters of 2 Cor. answer
admirably to the descriptions we have of the
' severe letter. ' They might well have been written
* out of much affliction and anguish of heart, with
many tears ' (2*). It is quite conceivable that after
writing them St. Paul might have regretted send-
ing them and wondered whether they were not too
severe (7"'*). Self -commendation is a very pro-
minent feature in them (3'). They show that the
Apostle was contemplating, but shrinking from, a
visit which he might have to pay (12*-** 13^). This
corresponds to 1^ and 2*. Thus the internal evi-
dence for the theory is very strong. No single
point is in itself conclusive ; but the conjunction
of different lines of evidence, and the fact that the
theory straightens out a tangled web and solves
many problems, is very significant.
The theory is made easier of acceptance by the
fact that 2 Cor. appears not to have been published
at an early date (see above, § 1). The Corinthian
Church would hardly have wanted to publish the
'severe letter,' and the later letter is in the main
personal, and does not contain much instruction.
It is quite possible that the MSS were not carefully
preserved, and the two letters may have been
conftLsed.
{d) Visit of Titvs.— The 'severe letter' and the
mission of Titus already alluded to were apparently
successful, and Titus met St. Paul in Macedonia,
bringing him reassuring news (2 Co 7*- "), after
which St. Paul wrote, according to the theory we
have adopted, 2 Co 1-9, probably sending Titus
with it, and instructing him to make arrangements
for the collection.
S. Analysis of 2 Co 10-13.
L STSOXG BEBUKEQ.011S),
101-s Appeal, and thre«t of strong action against his
detractors.
VT.** Oaim to possession ol q>irittial power, and de-
scription of that power.
y.7 The Christ-party's exclasiye claim onjustified.
TT.»u Threat of exertion of spiritual power on arrival
at Corinth.
TV. 12-16 St. Paxil's boasting, unlike that of his opponents,
shall be confined to his own sphere of work.
vT.17-18 But all self-oonunendation is to be deprecated.
n. St. Paws self-commexdatios asd its eeasoss
(Ul-1318).
(a) TJUreawiwOl^-**)-
111-3 His fears for them.
^.* Their tolerance of new preachers.
TT.3-S Comparison of himself with these preadun.
TT.7-U His refusal of maintenance.
VT.i*-i5 Itsreason— aroidanceofonfavoaiablecompanaon
■nith them.
(ft) TU M^-«aMMIMIMi«t»M(Ut«-l£U).
lli«^» Apologr lor boMtiBir.
Tv.n-si Cofnputooa of Mtnaelf with his tirals in recpect
of religioas prerantivea.
TT.sus InrespectotsulfeniigsoBbdMlf of ttacgospeL
lSl-« In respect of Tiaioos and rerelationa.
TT.*-M The thcnrn in the flesh and ita aignificaiKe.
Tv.U-U Comparison resumed in respect <rf wotk done at
Corinth.
TT.M-U JastilleatioB of his refnaal of BMintenaiice.
m. Forecast ow a tbird visit to Cojuvnr (isn^ui*).
12U-S1 HiafMn about what be may find at Corinth.
13i-> Threat at severe action.
TT.s-5 This is Hkelj to be mad* neoeaaary by their
aocnaatkn of weakneaa. IKacaasion of this.
VT.*-U His hope that after all it may not be neoesaaiy.
IV. BXBORTATIOS, SALVTATIOM. ASD BXSSDICTrOS (13^-14).
It is imposrible to feel any certain^ ahoot tiw place of ISU-'^
Some think that it is reaOy the oonchukn of cfaa. 1 to 9.
Bnt Oen seems no good reaaon to think ttiat it ia inits wrong-
place. St. Paul might quite well hare oondaded the 'severe
letter' with otdimiiy ezhortatknis and sataitatians. The
decision is made difltcnlt hy the fact tihat in any case idis.
10-13 can be no UKMre than a fragment of the 'severe letter,'
and we have no means of judging what pn^wrtioo of that
letter has been lost.
6. Analysis of 2 Co 1-9.
L St. Pauls sslatioks wits CorotbO. 21
11-3 Salutation.
w.3-5 "nuuBkagiving Utt oonecdatian.
VY.s-7 Farallehsm of their experioioes with bis.
TV.8-U His safferings anddeUveranoe in Asia,
w.i^i'* His clear oonscieiioe.
TT.1^3 His failure to cany oat his |H«vioas intention of
visiting them was not doe to ficklenesB.
lB-33 It ing due to his desire to spare them.
2^^ Beasmi for writiiq^ the ' severe letter.'
w.s-u £xhoitati<n to fbigive the offender.
TT.13-IS His anxietrV |sevioas to his meeting with TStns.
TV.14-I7 His thankfulness to God for His use of him.
IL VisoicATios or St. Paws ufs and work as ax
Aposrxs (S-7y.
31-S His 'letter of commendation 'is nothing but his
relations with them.
TT.*4 His ocmlldence, based on this, as a minister of
the New Covenant.
w.T-* The old and the new <liw|>fiwti<wi8 compared in
respect of otmtent.
TT.iO-u In respect of permanence.
VT. 13-16 In respect of dearaeas and openness.
Tv.n-is Tbg new dispensation brii^fs liberty and ttans-
formation into ChiistnB likeness.
41-S Consequent openness of Christian preacher.
TV.34 Any obscurity it due to the Windnww of the
hearers.
▼V.B4 For the content of the preadiliy is Ghiisti, ttie
ninminator.
rj Weakness of human preacher makes manifest
God's power.
w.S-U His oontinnal difficnlties, which are not, however,
insnperahle, show that the life manifest in his
convots comes from Christ.
TT.U-U AH his efforts are based 00 faith, and directed
to their conrenion to the oxl of God's glonr.
w.M-U 80 he works on, while the body grows weaker,
bat the siririt strongs*.
gts Qradaal duaolutkm of weak earthly boifies suc-
ceeded by bestowal of new spiritoal bodies.
▼T.^s So deatii ahaD mean presence with Christ^
w.^-io ISieiefore, in view of the Jodgment, be strives
to do Bis win.
rv.u-13 H|JB mast be his defteoe against chaiges alika of
fanatirism and o< excessive self-restraint.
W.14-U The constraining motive in eveiything is Chiisf s
Love.
w.iS-19 This transforms everything, so that he has a new
and spiritual knowledge of Christ and Chris-
w.i^si As CfaristTs ainlisBaadni' be preaches renmcilia-
tion to God, made poaaQde throagfa Qirist's
Sacrifice.
01-* His instant appeal to them.
w.3-3 As a Christian minister he endures harrtAiga.
vv.8-7 He displays supernatural virtues,
w.^io His life is one of continnal contrasts,
w.u-u He exhorts ttiem to respond to his affection.
&*-7i Impossibility of Christiana aasoriating witii im-
moral persons.
7** His affiecttonate and bonooraUe rdations with
them.
TV.*-' The relief bron^t to him by the coming- of IQtus.
VT.8-H Satisfactory result of the ' severe letter."
TT.13-16 The joy of Titus.
in. Tbb Collectiox for tbe poor Cejustiass at Jeru-
salem (&. 9)l
Si-^ Tbe generosity of the chorches of Macedonia.
rv.^~ Hie injanctkme to "ntus to stir iq> the Corinth-
ians in like manner.
vv.s-9 Tbe example <rf Christ.
TT.io-is Appeal to them to carry out their good resolations.
254 CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE
fciis-is Need of reciprocity among churches.
vv.16-24 Cominenilation of the deputation which he sends.
9l-fi Necessity of immediate action if his boasting is
not to be falsified,
vv.*-'? Cheerful giving.
vv.8-11 Generosity brings a blessing.
VV.12-U It also redounds to the glory and praise ol Ood.
7. Integrity of 2 Co 1-9.— Attempts have been
made to divide our 2 Cor. still further, or to ascribe
portions of it to a later editor or editors. Drastic
reconstructions have been proposed, e.g., by A.
Halinel,* D. Volter,t and H. Lisco.J But such
elaborations have but little to recommend them.
There are, however, reasons for thinking that 2
Co 6"-7' is a passage which has got misplaced. It
occurs in the middle of an affectionate appeal made
by St. Paul to the Corinthians, and appears to
have no connexion with what precedes and what
follows it. The supposed connexion is that St.
Paul urges them to show their affection for him
by ceasing from their immorality. But a closer
examination of the passage shows that the point is
not that they shoula cease to be immoral, but that
they should abstain from intercourse with un-
believers. Now we know from 1 Co 5®"'* that in a
letter written previously to the Corinthians he had
spoken on this subject, and that they had asked
for an explanation of his exact meaning, and in
the passage referred to he explains that he did not
mean, as they supposed, that they were not to
have anything to do with non-Christians, but only
that immoral Christians were to be avoided. In
the absence of definite evidence it is impossible to
be certain, but it is clear that 2 Co 6^*-7^ would
naturally be interpreted to mean what the Corin-
thians did as a matter of fact suppose St. Paul to
mean. And for this reason, taken together with
its irrelevance in its present position, it seems
extremely likely that it is an extract from the
' previous letter, ' whicli has by some means been
misplaced. If it is omitted here, the sense runs
on admirably from 2 Co 6^ to 7^ ; and we avoid the
necessity of having to suppose an extremely un-
natural digression on the part of St. Paul.
Another view which seems to deserve special
consideration is that which finds the situation
implied in ch. 8 inconsistent with that in ch. 9.
After the earnest exhortation to liberality con-
tained in ch. 8, we hardly expect to find in 9 the
words : ' About the ministration to the saints it is
superfluous for me to write to you.' Moreover,
these last words would certainly suggest that the
' ministration to the saints ' was a new subject,
with which he had not so far dealt. J. S. Semler,§
therefore, propounded the hypothesis that ch. 9
was a separate letter, addressed to the Christians
of Achaia. Others have supposed that it is ch. 8
that ought to be sepai-ated from the rest of the
Epistle {e.g. Hagge, Michelson). It is no doubt
true that, as the chapters stand, there is a certain
amount of repetition, and, as has been noticed
above, the beginning of ch. 9 would be more
natural if ch. 8 did not precede it. Moreover, the
subject of the ' collection ' seems to be treated at
disproportionate length. Yet these considerations
are not really conclusive. There is no question
that St. Paul attached very great importance to
the ' collection ' alike for religious and political
reasons ; and when he feels strongly about a sub-
ject he often deals with it in an emotional and
rather disconnected manner. This would account
also for the disproportionate length of his references
to it. And the situation implied in ch. 9, taken as
a whole, is not really inconsistent with that im-
plied in ch. 8. With some hesitation, therefore,
* Derzweite Korintherbrief det Apoitels PaxUus, Halle, 1904.
t PaxUus und seine Briefe, Strassburu:. 1905.
t Die Entatehung des zweiten Korintherbriefeg, Berlin, 1896.
§ Paraphrasis in Pauli ad Cor. Epistolas, Halle, 1770, 1776.
we conclude that it is unnecessary to separate chs.
8 and 9, and that it is probable that tney are in
their right places.
8. The troables at Corinth. — We must now
discuss the nature of the troubles at Corinth — a
subject of great complexity. The evidence at our
disposal is really not sufficient to enable us to
aiTive at a positive conclusion. The fact that we
only possess a portion of the 'severe letter,' in
which St. Paul deals with the troubles at their
height, and that the portion which we possess does
not include his treatment of the specific difficulties,
but is only a discussion in general terms, ambigu-
ous to us because of our ignorance of the context,
adds greatly to the complexity of the problem.
But there are certain passages in both Epistles
which throw some light on the situation.
(a) In 2 Co 2»-" 7'* St. Paul speaks of a par-
ticular offender. It appears that he has been
sentenced to some punishment by a majority of the
Corintliians {vwb riov irXeidvui'). St. Paul says that
the sentence is adequate. The language of the
passage suggests the existence of a dissentient
minority, and it would seem that St. Paul is ad-
dressing this minority when he gives his exhorta-
tion that the offender should now be forgiven and
encouraged, lest he should be swallowed up by
excessive grief. It seems most probable that the
minority had objected to the sentence as inade-
quate ; and this would imply that they were what
we may call an ultra-Pauline party. This suits
the passage better than the older view that they
were hostile to St. Paul, and objected to the
sentence as excessive. St. Paul's use of the word
lKav6v makes it clear that the objection was rather
that the sentence was inadequate. St. Paul says
in effect that the sentence passed by the majority
satisfies him, and urges them to forgive the man,
implying that their forgiveness will make all the
difference to the man's happiness. Who then was
the offender, and what had he done ? The view
that he was the man guilty of incest, mentioned in
1 Co 5, cannot possibly be right. For in 2 Co 7'*
St. Paul says : ' I wrote not for his sake who did
the wrong, nor for his sake who suffered the wrong,
but that your zeal for us might be made manifest
to you in the sigiit of God.' But (1) it is clear
from I Co 5* that in that case St. Paul was wTiting
' for his sake who did the wrong ' ; (2) ' He who
suffered the wrong ' (6 dSiKridtls) would have to be the
man's father. This would involve the supposition
that the father was alive, and that a Corinthian
Christian had .actually taken to wife his father's
wife during the lifetime of his father without protest
from his fellow-Christians. The language of 1 Co
5 does imply that it was a gross case of im-
morality, but it is hardly conceivable that this
could really have occurred. And, if it had
occurred, St. Paul would surely not have treated
it as lightly as he seems to treat it in 2 Co 2'"" and
7^'*. The language of these passages suggests
rather that the offence was a personal one, that
the offender had grossly insulted St. Paul when he
came to Corinth, and that 6 dSiKrjdeLs was St. Paul
himself. The suggestion has been made that 6
ddiKujOels was Timothy, and that he had been in-
sulted when he visited Corinth (cf. 1 Co 4" W).
This is possible, but it is more probable that the
reference is to an insult inflicted on St. Paul
himself : the fragment of the ' severe letter ' which
we possess is full of defence of his authority,
whic-h had clearly been in some way attacked. Iso
doubt there was a reference to tiie offender in the
part of the ' severe letter ' which is lost. St. Paul's
authority had been attacked, but it is not clear
from wliat quarter the attack had proceeded.
(6) In 1 Co 1'^ we read of the existence of
factions or parties at Corinth. It is possible that
COKIXTHIA^'S, EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE 255
here we may have the key to tlie Corinthian
troubles, for one of the parties at any rate may
?robably either have been from the first anti-
auline or have afterwards turned hostile to St.
Paul. It will therefore be convenient at this stage
to consider these parties. First of all, St. Paul,
with characteristic tact, mentions the party which
took his name, and condemns them. lie then
mentions the party of Apollos. The latter clearly
did not exist in opposition to St. Paul with the
consent of Apollos (1 Co 16"). ApoUos (^.v.) was
a Jew of Alexandria, who, after instruction from
Priscilla and Aquila, went into Achaia, where he
was very helpful to those who had believed, bein^
particularly skilful at confuting the Jews, and
using for this purpose his great knowledge of
Scripture (Ac IS^-*'-*). UntU he met with Priscilla
and AquUa, we are told that ' he spake and taught
accurately the things concerning Jesus, knowing
only the baptism of John.'
The meaning of this is uncertain, but it is
probable (cf. art. by J. H. A. Hart on ' Apollos ' in
JTkSt vii. [1905] 16flf.) that it means that he was
fully acquainted with Messianic prophecy, but
did not know to whom it referred, ' the things
concerning Jesus ' being texts from the OT which
from the Christian point of view referred to Jesus,
though not, of course, from the point of view of
Apollos himself at this time. This interpretation
gives a more intelligible sense to the passage than
that which is at first sight more natural, viz. that
TO. -repl 'iTjaov means the history of Jesus' life. It
would imply that he preached the same message as
John the Baptist — a message of the imminence of
the Kingdom, the marks of the Messiah, and the
need for repentance. His instruction at the hands
of Priscilla and AquUa taught him to whom the
Messianic passages with which he was familiar
referred. And at Corinth his knowledge of
Scripture was turned to good account in showing
that the Messiah had come and was none other
than Jesus. The view that the intellectualist
tendencies condemned in the early chapters of 1
Cor. were particularly characteristic of the party
of Apollos is not susceptible of proof, but it is not
inconsistent with what we know of Apollos. For
Alexandria was the home of philosophy, and
Apollos was an Alexandrian Jew. We ^o not,
however, know that he was a disciple of Philo, and
we do know that he was a disciple of John the
Baptist. These discipleships might be combined
in the same person, but it does not seem altogether
probable. The fact is that there is no evidence,
and we must be content to leave the matter
doubtful.
The party of Cephas was in all probability a
Judaizing party. To say this does not involve the
view that St. Peter was himself a Judaizer. But it
is extremely likely that those who used his name
were so. Lake {ITie Earlier Epistles of St. Paul,
pp. 112-117) maintains that it is probable that St.
Peter had himself been to Corinth, and that there
is no likelihood of his party having been Judaizing.
But this is perhaps the least convincing part of his
admirable discussion of the Epistles to the Corin-
thians. The policy of St. Peter was one of friendli-
ness to the work and mission of St. Paul, combined
with a personal respect for and adhesion to the Law.
The Acts certainly represents St. Peter as ac-
quiescing in the freedom of the Grcntiles from the
Law, but does not forbid the supposition that he
acquiesced with some reluctance. A modified and
liberal Judaism would describe his position with
suflBcient accuracy. This may well represent the
policy of his party at Corinth. Probably also they
went behind the authority of St. Paul to that of
the Twelve, of whom St. Peter was the recognized
leader. It is most likely that the main point in
dispute between them and the Pauline party was
this question of St. Paul's independent authority.
But we have no indication that they were an im-
portant body at Corinth.
The Christ-party is the real difficulty. Some
have held that iyu 8i Xpiarov is not the watch-
word of a party, but St. Paul's own cry. But
the form of the sentence makes this meet im-
probable. Moreover, there are indications in 2
Cor. of the existence of a Christ-party at Corinth
(10^). This party apparently questioned St. Paul's
authority. Their leaders commend themselves
(10^^), i.e. arrogate a lofty position to themselves.
They are probably referred to (11') as oi inrepXlay
av6aTo\oi. It appears that they declined to take
money from the Corinthians.* But he says that
they are false apostles, deceitful workers. In
justifying his own position against them he says
that he too is a Hebrew, etc. (11**). He certainly
excels them in the amount of his sufierings for
Christ. In the matter of visions and revelations
he is at least their equal. Therefore he is in no
respect inferior to them (12'^).
Broadly speaking, there are two views as to the
character of this Christ-party. The first is that
they were Judaizers, representatives of the party /
who sent emissaries to Antioch and preached the ^
necessity of circumcision for all Christians (Ac IS""-),
but were afterwards repudiated by St. James. It
is clear from 2 Co 11^ that they were Jews who
prided themselves on their Jewish birth. But
there is no kind of evidence that anyone had told
the Corinthians to observe the whole Jewish Law.
This is not one of the subjects with which St. Paul
has to deal in his" Epistles. The danger seems to
be the other way. Therefore it is on the whole
unlikely that this party were, as has been sup-
posed, more extreme Judaizers than the Cephas
party, representing themselves as being in an
authoritative position to say what the mind of
Christ really was, and what His own practice had
been, because of their common descent with Him
from an old Jewish stock and because they were in
continual commimication with His relatives.
A more probable view is that they were spiritual-
izers rather than Judaizers, and that they went
further than St. Paul in the direction of freedom
from the Law-. The arguments about dSukbdvra
in 1 Co 10 seem to be directed against men who
made a boast of their freedom from Jewish restric-
tions— Tama i^eariv seems to have been their cry.
St. Paul shows the danger of this, and the neces-
sary subservience of any such principle to the law
of charity, and consideration for weaker brethren.
The whole of 2 Cor. becomes more intelligible if
we suppose the opposition to St. Paul to have come
from a party of people who regarded themselves as
vvevfiariKoi, and therefore free from restrictions
and regulations concerning carnal matters. 2 Co 10-
implies that their charge against St. Paul was
that he walked according to the flesh, i.e. that he
was not TvevfiaTiKbs. The grounds of their attack
on his apostolicity were, it seems, such as would
most probably be employed by those who regarded
themselves as TvevnaTiKoi. For he defends himself
not only by asserting his Jewish birth, but, after
giving a list of his sufferings for Christ's sake
(which is the defence to which he himself attaches
most importance), by making claims to visions and
revelations (121-^"), and the working of miracles
(121-). Throughout the Epistle St. Paul claims to
be TTvevfiariKos in the onlj- legitimate sense, quite
as much as his opponents (cf. 5^^). The fact that
* This would appear from 2 Co lli^, where St. Paul asserts
that his object in refusing to accept maintenance was that in
the verv matter of which they boasted they might be found
even as he. This seems to make it clear that they did not
accept maintenance, and the phrase ei i-ts careo^Mi (H"-*) must
be interpreted in accordance with this fact.
256 CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE
these opponents were Jews does not make it im-
possible that they were also irvevfjMTiKoi. We have
evidence that there were Jews who did not attach
importance to circumcision and the ceremonial
Law, but treated the Law as symbolic (cf. Philo, de
Migratione Abrahami, quoted by Lake, op. cit. pp.
24, 25). The attack on the apostolicity or St. Paul
is also intelligible from this point of view. An
'apostle' was not much more than a missionary (cf.
DicUiche). ol wrepXiav itrSaroXoi cannot in any case
be the Twelve, for St. Paul was at this time on
good terms with tliem. Their attack on his apos-
tolicity was based on his lack of spiritual power
and 7vw(rts, and therefore cannot be regarded as in-
consistent with this view of their cliaracter. The
fact that they seem also to have prided themselves
on their Jewish birth, though logically inconsistent,
is not at all unnatural. For sucli pride of birth
often remains in people whose view of life makes it
wholly irrelevant.
It would seem, then, that the opponents of St.
Paul at Corinth were men who boasted that they
were above the Law as being in the Spirit. They
attacked St. Paul because he was still held in the
bonds of a legalism from which they had emanci-
pated themselves, and attached an altogether un-
due importance to such carnal matters as morality.
St. Paul's answer is a claim that he too is irvevixaTi-
k6% ; but there underlies this answer an undertone
of protest. He does not really accept their tests
of apostolicity. While asserting that he can meet
them on their own ground, he continually reminds
them that spiritual power and knowledge must
show themselves in zeal for morality and in actual
suffering for Christ's sake. It is on these points
that he lays the greatest stress.*
9. The doctFine of the Epistles. — [a) The Person
and Work of Christ. — No one can read the first
chapter of 1 Cor. without perceiving that the
writer places Jesus Christ in a position which is
more tlian human. There is, of course, no devel-
oped doctrine of God to be found either in tliis
chapter or elsewhere in the Epistles, but where St.
Paul places God and man over against one another,
he consistently puts Jesus Christ on the side of
God over against man. Grace and peace are to
come to man from God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ (1 Co 1*, 2 Co P). Jesus is never re-
garded as a man among men. He is the source, or
at any rate the medium, of God's gifts to men.
Christians call upon His Name, and the bond of
union between Christians in every place is that
they recognize the common Lordship of Christ.
When St. Paul wants to reprove the Corinthians
for the existence of factions among them, his crown-
ing argument is that thev are actually degrading
Christ to the position oi a party-leader, and so
Eutting Him on a level with ApoUos, Cephas, or
imself. Always he disclaims any independence
of Christ. ' We preach not ourselves but Christ
Jesus as Lord ' (2 Co 4'). When he is speaking
of the exalted position of 'spiritual men' (1 Co
210-16)^ he points out that the spiritual man is su-
perior to all others, for whereas the ' natural man '
can understand and form estimates only of ' natural
things,' the spiritual man can form estimates of all
things. He nas all that the ' natural man ' has,
and he can move freely in a sphere where the
' natural man ' is helpless. And he crowns liis argu-
ment by a quotation from the OT : ' Who hath
known the mind of the Lord, that he should in-
struct him ? ' That is to say, no one can understand
the thoughts of Jahweh. ' But we,' he adds,
'have the mind of Christ.' The 'natural man'
cannot understand the mind of God. But we who
are spiritual actually have the mind of Christ.
* For this whole section see Ijake, op. cit., where the case is
lucidly and convincingly stated.
The argument of this passage shows that St. Paul,
at any rate here, identified Christ with the Jahweh
of the OT. This is perhaps the most striking
example of the position which he gives to Christ,
but It is what tlie language of the Epistle
througliout would lead us to expect. He clearly
regards Christ as having existea before He was
born upon eartli. 'Though he was ricli, for our
sake he became poor ' (2 Co 8"). Yet it would be
dangerous to assert that he had a clear and consist-
ent view of the relation of Christ to the Father.
He regards Christ as sent by the Father, as in
some sense belonging to the Father (1 Co S'").
And in IP he seems to imply that the relation of
God to Clirist is parallel with the relation ol
Christ to man, and again with the relation of man
to woman. It seems superfluous, liowever, to sup-
pose that he had a very definite conception in his
mind. He need not have meant more than that,
as Clirist does the will of God, so man is to be
obedient to Christ, and woman to man. In 15"-^ he
looks forward to the time when the mediatorial
Kingdom of Christ shall come to an end, and God
shall be all in all. There is no reference here to
any termination of the personal existence of Christ ;
he is only thinking of the end of His mediatorial
Kingdom. But it seems clear from this and the
other passages mentioned that he regards Christ as
being definitely subordinate to the Father, though,
as has been said above, always on the Godward
side of things, over against man. He had not
faced the question of the bearing of this view on
monotheism.
As to the human life of Christ he has no doubt.
' He was crucified through weakness ' (2 Co IS*).
His Cross and Passion are the centre of the gospel
message. There is probably no Epistle in which
it is made so clear that St. Paul regards the Cross
as the centre of the Christian Creed. ' We preacli
Christ crucified ' (1 Co \^). 'The story of the
Cross is to them that are perishing foolishness, but
to us that are being saved it is the power of God '
(P^). There is very little in the way of an expla-
nation of the significance of the Cross. ' God was
in Christ reconciling the world to himself.' ' Him
who knew no sin he made to be sin for us, that we
might become the righteousness of God in him '
(2 Co 51""^^). But here again it is a mistake to
suppose that St. Paul had in mind any detailed
theory of Atonement. There was a sense in which
the death of Christ was a sacrifice (1 Co 5^) ; but
there is no theory of the Atonement either stated
or implied.
There is, however, a great deal of explicit teach-
ing about the relation between Christ and Chris-
tians. Christians are in Christ, and Christ is in
them. This relationship is brought about by the
action of God (1 Co 1**). And on this mystical
union of the Christian Avith Christ his spiritual
status entirely dei)ends. It is Christ with whom
he is united that is his wisdom. He is justified,
sanctified, and redeemed becau.se of this union.
The Christian calling can be described as a calling
into fellowship with Jesus Christ (P). And this
union makes a complete change in a man's whole
position. 'If anyone is in Christ, it is a new
creation : old things have passed away ; behold
they have become new ' (2 Co 5"). It is impossible
to exaggerate the stress which is laid by St. Paul
on this experience of union with Christ.
(h) The Church and the Christian ministrtf. — The
ruling thought of St. Paul about the Christian
Church is expressed by the metaphor of the Body
and the members (1 Co 12). The gifts of the Spirit
are most diverse in kind ; but it is One Spirit who
is the giver of them all. Just as in the human
body the members are diverse, and for all their
diversity of function are closely inter-related, and
CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHL\XS, EPISTLES TO THE 257
all of them necessary, so it is with the Church,
which is indeed the Body of Christ. Every indi-
vidual member of the Church has a necessary part
to play. Being a member of the Church, he is neces-
sarily a member of Christ. He does not give a list
of ecclesiastical officials. To suppose that he does
so is to misunderstand his argument. He merely
gives specimens of the diverse spiritual gifts which
God has bestowed upon the Church, and the lesson
which he desires to teach is the lesson of unity —
the same lesson as he tries to inculcate when he
rebukes the Corinthians for their factions (1 Co 1^*"-)
— diversity in unity, a unity which is secured by
the fact that the whole body is the Body of Christ,
and that the Spirit from whom the diverse gifts
descend is One. The Church is also compared to
the Temple of God (1 Co 3^*) built upon the One
Foundation, Jesus Christ (3^'). Here the lesson
is the same. The Christian teachers are indeed
different from one another, but all of them build
upon that One Foundation.
This brings us to the consideration of the position
which he assigns to the Christian ministry, about
which there is a good deal in the Epistles. While
deprecating strongly any usurpation by Christian
teachers of what should belong to Christ alone,
and asserting that they exist only for the benefit
of the Church, he claims for them an independence
of the Church which they serve. They are re-
sponsible to Christ, and to Him alone (1 Co 4'- *).
They are slaves of men, but they are ambassadors
of Clirist. And their authority can be put to the
test. St. Paul always claims that if he exerts his
authority he will be able to reduce his opponents
to subjection {4^^^, 2 Co 10" 13=*). He seems to
have been prepared to allow that the authority of
the Christian minister should be tested by his
spiritual power, which would on occasion manifest
itself by producing physical or natural results.
An instance of this is to be found in 1 Co 5', where
he speaks of delivering a man over to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be
saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. He seems to
mean that the carrying out of the sentence passed
by himself, and confirmed by the Corinthian
Church, would result in the death of the offender,
and that this would ultimately be for the salvation
of his soul. The passage may be paralleled by the
story of Ananias and Sapphira (Ac 5^""). As a
rule, however, spiritual power produced results
which were themselves spiritual ; and the main
proof of his own authority as a Christian minister
was the existence of the Corinthian Church.
(c) The Eucharist. — The accidental circumstance
that difficulties had arisen in the Church at Corinth
owing to the bad behaviour of some Corinthians at
the common meal with which the Eucharist was
associated, is responsible for the fact that we have
in 1 Co ll^s^-. QQj. earliest account of the institution
of the Eucharist. But in the same Epistle it is
alluded to in two other connexions. When St.
Paul is using the example of the Israelites as a
warning to tiie Corinthian Church against presum-
ing upon their pri\-ileges, he gives as instances of
the privileges of the Israelites the cloud which
went >vith them and the sea which they miracu-
lously crossed, and also the rock which, according
to the Jewish legend, followed them, and from
which they drank. These he clearly regards as
types of Baptism and the Eucharist. Thus he puts
into close association as the two great pri>'ilege3 of
the Christian Church the two Sacraments of the
Gospel ( 1 Co Ity'^). And immediately afterwards,
in warning the Corinthians against idolatry, he
treats the Eucharist as parallel with the heathen
sacrificial feasts, thus clearly showing that he re-
gards it as a sacrifice in the same sense in which
these heathen feasts were sacrifices. He regards
VOL. I. — 17
the communicant as entering into real communion
«-ith Christ through the act of eating the bread
and drinking the cup ; and similarly he seems to
regard real communion as brought about between
the worshipper at the heathen sacrifice and some
Scu/iovuH' wnose power was behind the idolatrous
worship (lCF*-*»). His account of the institution
he prefaces by the words, ' I received from the
Lord ' (11**), and this has been taken to mean that
he claims to have received it from the Lord Him-
self, presumably in a vision. But this is not
certain. Even ii it is true, it by no means follows
that he claims to receive all the details of his ac-
count in this way. It may be that he merely in-
tends to convey the impression that he received
directly from the Lord a revelation of the general
doctrinal meaning of the Eucharist. It is import-
ant to remember that he claims to have had other
visions and revelations of the Lord (2 Co 12*'*).
His account of the institution is marked by the
command to repeat the rite, which is given twice,
aft€r the institution of both bread and cup. He con-
nects it Avith the death of Christ, which is thus
proclaimed. He attaches great importance to due
preparation for reception ; and asserts that physical
evils have resulted from unworthy reception and
failure to discern the Body, which seems to mean
failure to diflerentiate the bread from ordinary-
bread. It may be said here briefly that St. Paul s
teaching about the Eucharist is that it is sacrificial,
that it brings about a real communion between the
communicant and Christ, that the bread and the
wine are endowed with the character of the Body
and Blood of Christ, and must not therefore be re-
ceived as ordinary bread and wine. See further
art. ErcHARiST.
{d) Eschatology. — St. Paul's treatment of the
questions submitted to him is always coloured by
his belief in the imminence of the xapovcia. Chris-
tians are ' waiting for the revelation of our Lord
Jesus Christ ' (1 Co 1^). His language implies that
he expects some at any rate of those to whom he
is writing to be alive at the xapown'o, and he appears
to expect to be alive hiniselJf (15*^'*^). The chief
characteristic of the xapouo-ta will be judgment
(2 Co S'**). The work of the Christian minister
will then be tested (1 Co S^). The Parousia will
be the signal for the beginning of the mediatorial
reign of Christ. ' He must reign, tUl he hath put
all his enemies under his feet ' (1 Co 15^). And then
finally comes the end of His reign, when God's rule
shall be unmediated (v.^). It is important to
notice that St. Paul does not discuss in these
Epistles the future condition of those who are not
Christians, It is with the resurrection of Chris-
tians that he is here concerned. For them he
affirms the resurrection of the body. But it is to
be noticed that he difterentiates the body from its
parts. ' Meats for the belly,' he says, ' and the
oelly for meats : but God shall bring to nought
both it and them. Now the body is not for fornica-
tion, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body :
and God both raised the Lord and will raise us
also through his power ' (6^'^). The new spiritual
body will differ from the old as the fruit difiers
from the seed sown. This life is the time of sowing,
and the nature of the spiritual body will depend
upon the character of the seed. But it will not be
of flesh and blood, and it will have no element of
corruption (15**). It will be a full and complete
means of self-expression for the 'spiritual' man,
just as the 'natural' body is a suitable means of
self-expression for the ' natural ' man, but is already
found inadequate for Christians, who are even now
becoming ' spiritual.' Christians have received an
earnest of the spiritual body in the gift of the
Holy Spirit (2 Co 5'). The metaphor of which he
is most fond is that of a garment. He is to be
258 CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE
clothed with tliis new spiritual body (1 Co 15",
2Co5i'^-)-
10. St. Paul's attitude to practical questions.—
(a) elSuXddvra. — One of tlie problems wliich facod
the Corinthian Christians was the question of their
attitude to the eating of things sacrificed to idols.
This aflected their social life very nearly. For
much of the meat sold in the market had been
offered to idols, and their heathen friends would
give banquets in idol-temples, using in the banquet
food that had been offered to the idols on domestic
and other anniversaries. Moreover, in the ordinary
entertainments given by heathen there was a possi-
bility that some of the food had been so ofiered.
It might have been supposed that the question
would be regarded as settled for St. Paul by the
Apostolic Decree (Ac 15). But, whatever be the
reason, no allusion at all is made to any decree of
the kind. St. Paul deals with the matter on first
principles. He enunciates the law of liberty, which
must, he says, be tempered by the law of love.
At first he makes a strong assertion of monotheism.
Idols, he says, are nothing (1 Co 8*). But else-
where he seems to admit that there is, or may
be, the power of a 5ai/j.6viov behind the idolatrous
worship (10^ ; see above, § 9 (c)). Whatever that
power may be, there is no danger to the Christian
m the mere act of eating. But there is a danger
for a man who has only recently emancipated
himself from idolatrous belief and practice, lest he
may be acting against his own conscience if he
eats. There is also a danger lest by eating he may
offend the conscience of his weaker brethren. And
so St. Paul's conclusion is that Christians may eat
what is set before them without asking questions,
may accept invitations to dine with their heathen
neighbours, but may not go and dine in a heathen
temple, which would be a mere act of bravado.
This is a good illustration of St. Paul's method of
dealing with practical problems, and settling them
upon fundamental Christian principles. The whole
discussion of this question in the Epistle is rendered
much more intelligible if we suppose that the op-
ponents with whom he had to deal regarded them-
selves as irvevfiaTiKoi. This supposition accounts
for the protest which he makes against self-styled
yvQffis, on which men relied, and thus felt them-
selves justified in ignoring the scruples of their
brethren.
(6) Marriage and the position of women. — St.
Paul's teaching upon this question is conditioned
by the attitude to women common in the world in
which he lived, and also by his expectation of the
vapovffLa. As the time is so short, it is best for
people to remain in the external circumstances in
which they were when they were converted (1 Co
■J18-20J ^g ^Q ^jjg desirability of marriage, he lays
stress upon the necessity of the avoidance of any-
thing that can distract the Christian from the
service of God. In most cases he thinks marriage
will constitute a distraction. Therefore for most
people celibacy is desirable. But if celibacy con-
stitutes a greater distraction than marriage, then
Christians should marry. There is no hint of any
view of conjugal relations as being in themselves
evil. The only consideration present to his mind
is as to whether marriage will help or hinder a
Christian in the service of God. His view that
celibacy from this point of view is the best state
is put forward on his own authority.
But for the indissolubility of Christian marriage
he claims the authority of Christ Himself (1 Co
710. 11) ^g to this he is quite explicit. A wife
must not separate from her husband ; if she do so,
she must not marry another ; and a husband must
not leave his wife. But where two non-Christians
have been married, and one of them is afterwards
converted, then, if the unbelieving partner is will-
ing, St. Paul thinks it is test that the marriage
should be regarded as binding ; yet he allows
divorce, apparently with liberty of re-marriage
(7"). His principle is quite clear. A marriage
entered upon by two non-ChrLstians is not a
Christian marriage at all, and was never intended
to be a permanent bond. It is not fair to the non-
Christian partner that it should be regarded as
necessarily permanent. Yet, if he is willing, it
had better be regarded as a Christian marriage.
For that will be better for the children.
His attitude to women is, as has been said,
affected by the current view of their position.
Women are not to take part in the assemblies, and
are not to be teachers. In one jiassage he speaks
as though women occupied an inferior spiritual
position to men (1 Co IP). But his language else-
where is inconsistent with this. The fact is that
St. Paul had not in this matter worked out his
own principles, and he is therefore inconsistent.
In his discussion of marriage he gives to women
a position which is distinctly high. The rights of
the wife are safeguarded no less than those of the
husband.
11. The character of St. Paul as revealed in the
two Epistles. — There is no Epistle in which the
personal character of St. Paul is so fully revealed
as in 2 Corinthians. The ' severe letter ' brings
before us a man acutely sensitive, affectionate,
and at the same time determined. He is in a high
degree impulsive. He writes a ' severe letter,' and
is sorry for having written it (7*). An immense
load is lifted from his heart by the news of the
repentance of the Corinthians|(7*- ''). He is intensely
affectionate, and yearns for the affection of his
converts (6"'^'). He never spares himself. There
is no limit to the demands which are made upon
him by his converts. It is no affectation on his
Eart to cro'svn the list of the sufferings which he
as endured for Christ by the words ' anxiety for
all the churches' (11^). We see him as a true
pastor, combining great practical wisdom with
remarkable emotional intensity. He is a mystic,
and he gives us an account of one of his mystical
experiences (12'"^ ; there is no reason to doubt that
in this passage he is speaking of himself). But he
is fully alive to the danger of mysticism. No one
could lay more emphatic stress upon the duty of
letting religion bear fruit in good works. Indeed
he is sometimes self-assertive where self-assertion
is needed. He does not hesitate to tell the Cor-
inthians to imitate him (1 Co 11'). But every
missionary must speak so on occasions. And he
was in the presence of teachers who asserted their
own authority against his. Above everything else
he is possessed with an over-mastering devotion
to Christ; for His sake he is willing to endure
everything, even ridicule (2 Co 5'^ "). Thus his
correspondence with the Corinthians is of immense
importance for the understanding of his character.
For we see him dealing with difficult practical
problems, and we see him when he is most deeply
moved by personal slights, and again by personal
reconciliation. It is absurd to look to sucn a man
for a systematic doctrinal system. He speaks as
he is moved. He makes experiments. He is often
tentative. He provides the material on which
doctrinal systems may be built. He is not himself
their builder.
12. Importance of the evidence of the Epistles.
— The importance of the Epistles to the Corinthians
consists largely in the fact that they give us
examples of St. Paul's methods of dealing with
practical difficulties which actually arose in an
early Christian community. He does not set out
to give instruction to the Corinthians, but rather
to answer questions which they themselves have
raised, or to reform abuses which have actually
CORmTHLAJNS, EPISTLES TO THE
CORNELIUS
259
grown up. We thus get a picture, of quite unique
value, of the life of such a community ; and the
doctrines and practices referred to in the Epistles
are evidently not being advocated by St. Paul now
for the first time, but are actually existing in the
Corinthian Church, and apparently have so existed
for some time.
(a) Doctrine. — It would seem that the doctrine
held by this Church was of a comparatively
advanced type. There is no hint of any ditlerence
of opinion at Corinth about fundamental beliefs.
Diflerences do exist, but they are concerned with
disciplinary or ethical rather than >vith theological
questions. It is true that there are some at Cor-
inth who deny the resurrection from the dead.
But it would appear from St. Paul's argument that
they all accepted the doctrine of the Kesurrection
of tJesus. For he argues from the Resurrection of
Jesus to the resurrection of Christians generally ;
and his argument seems to involve the supposition
that there was no dilference of opinion about the
Resurrection of Jesus. Similarly there is no hint
of any difference about the position assigned to
Jesus Himself, or about the expectation of His
speedy return in judgment. No one in the Cor-
inthian Church seems to have thought that Jesus
was merely human. The danger was probably
rather the other way. There may have been a
tendency to regard Him as a Redeemer-God in the
same sense as other redeemer-gods,* and to have
paid inadequate attention to His human life, but
for this there is no direct evidence. It is clear that
to a Christian this life was in the main a preparation
for entrance into the Kingdom of God when that
Kingdom should come. This preparation consisted
in the reception of Christian Sacraments, by which
he was transformed into a ' spiritual man.' But
the necessity of moral reformation was never for-
gotten, at any rate by St. Paul, though there may
have been a tendency on the part of some of the
Christians to forget it (1 Co 6*). All the evidence
of these Epistles goes to show that there was no
tendency to depreciate the importance and the
supernatural character of the change ^^TOught for
Christians by the life and death of Christ. The
danger probably lay in the other direction — lest
they should think that Baptism and the Eucharist
of themselves, without any effort on their own
part, were sufficient to ensure membership of the
Kingdom.
{b) Organization and discipline. — The chief piece
of evidence about the organization of the early
Christian Church is to be found in 1 Co 5. It
would seem from this chapter that for the decision
of a case of discipline there would be an assembly
of the Church, presided over by St. Paul in virtue
of his apostolic authority. St. Paul pronounces
sentence of excommunication, and it is ratified by
the assembly. It does not appear that the Apostle
recognized any right on the part of the assembly
to dispute his sentence. In the case specified St.
Paul IS himself absent from Corinth, but he acts
as though he were present, being indeed present,
as he says, in spirit. These Epistles tend to con-
firm the view that the Apostle held an absolutely
predominant position. Apart from the Apostle
there is not much evidence about organization,
though the discussion of the Body and members
includes the names of many Church offices. It is
clear that on the principle of the specialization of
function, different duties were assigned to different
members of the Church, in accordance with the
Divine choice expressed by diverse spiritual gifts
(1 Co 12^^^^) ; and there is a recognition of the fact
that some members are IdiuiTai, i.e. have no special
ministerial position in the Church {14i®). But
* See, however, A. Schweitzer, Pavi and hit Jnterpretert,
Eng. tr., 1912, p. 193 f.
there is really no evidence as to the different
functions discharged by the different officers.
13. Christianity and Gnosticism : the Christian
wisdom.— Christians have the mind of Christ (1 Co
2^'). This differentiates them at once from other
people, who are merely ypyxiKoi, The ^lottxAi fLvOfM-
roi IS the man whose spirit has not been touched
by the Divine Spirit. At Baptism a man is made
potentially rvevfianKdi ; he becomes vrjTios iv Xpurrif.
His life in the Christian Church is a rendering
actual of the potentiality of spirituality which is
now within him, and which shows itseu in moral
effects. Thus the Corinthians, although they
ou^ht to be by this time full-grown Christians, are
still babes. This is shown by the fact that they
displaj' party-spirit — a sure sign of carnality. As
long as a man is merely ^i/x'*''os, the Christian
wisdom is not for him, for he will not be able to
understand it. He has first to be converted by the
mere preaching of the Gospel of the Cross. St.
Paul seems to mean by ' Christian wisdom ' some-,
thing more than this, to. ^ddrj roO deoD, probably
the secret counsels of God, God's purpose towards
mankind. The purpose of the gift of the Spirit is
that we may know the things freely given to us by
God. Thus the greatness of the heritage of the
Christian appears to be the main content of the
' Christian wisdom.' There is no indication of an
esoteric doctrine, belonging to a privileged class
in the Christian Church. The ' Christian wisdom '
is, indeed, esoteric from the point of view of those
outside the Christian Church. And even for those
who are babes in Christ it is not suited, but only
for the rfKeioi. But all Christians may become
TiXeioi. It is their own fault if they do not.
LrrERATrRE. — In addition to the authorities cited throughout
the article, see A. P. Stanley, Epistles of St. Paul to the Cor-
inthiam*, 1876; J. A. Beet, St. PatWs Epistles to the Cor-
inthiaiu, ISSo ; G. G. Findlay, EGT, ' 1 Cor.,' 1900 ; J. H.
Bernard, EGT, '2 Cor.,' 1903; G. H. RendAR, Epistle* of SL
Paul to the Corinthians, 1909 ; P. Bachmann, D^ erste Biitf
des Pavlus an die Korinther. Leipzig, 1905, Der zweita Brief,
do. 1909 ; Commentaries on 1 Cor. : T. C. Edwards (21SS5),
C. J. ElUcott (lSi7), H. L. Goudge (Westminster Com., 1903),
Robertson- Plummer {ICC, 1911) ; on 2 Cor. : A. Plommer
(ComA. Gr. Test., 1903), A- Menzies (1912) ; artt. in HDB and
EBi. G. H. Clayton.
CORNELIUS (Kopi^^Xioi). — Cornelius was a Roman
centurion stationed at Caesarea in the early years
of the history of the Church (Ac 10'). His name
is of Roman origin, and he is described as belong-
ing to the Italian band or cohort. An inscription
recently discovered in Vienna proves that an
Italian cohort was stationed in Syria about A.D.
69, but Schiirer holds that this could not have
been the case under Agrippa in A.D. 40-^4, which
is the date of Cornelius (cf. Schurer, GJV*i. [1901]
463, also Expositor, 5th ser., iv. [1896] 469-472;
W. M. Ramsav, Expositor, 5th ser., iv. [1896]
194-201, V. [1897] 69). Leaving aside altogether the
question as to the presence in Caesarea at this date
of an Italian cohort recruited from Romans settled
in the district, there is no reason why Cornelius
even apart from his cohort may not have been
there on duty in the years referred to. Native
princes often received assistance from Roman
officers in training their home troops (cf . Knowling,
EGT, ' Acts,' 1900, p. 250). Cornelius enters into
the history of the Church through a series of
mutual visions received by him and the Apostle
Peter, who admitted him into the Church by
baptism. According to the narrative in Acts, St.
Peter, in the house of Simon the tanner of Joppa,
saw in a vision a cloth let down from heaven on
which were four-footed beasts, creeping things,
and fowls of the air, many of which in the eyes
of the Jews were regarded as unclean. When St.
Peter refers to their ceremonial uncleanness, the
message is given, ' What God hath cleansed make
260 CORNER, CORNER-STONE
COS
not thou common ' (Ac 10^*). After the vision had
passed messengers arrived from Cjesarea telling
St. Peter of Cornelius, who in a trance had received
a command to send to Joppa for him. The next
day the Apostle, accompanied by some of the
Christians oi Jojjpa, went to Ctesarea and preached
Jesus to Cornelius and his household, who gladly
accepted the message, received the Holy Ghost,
and were baptized. An important question arises
as to the exact significance of this act of St. Peter.
Luke evidently, from the space devoted to this in-
cident, regards it as of supreme importance and as
marking a decided step in the forward progress of
the Church. Cornelius is described as 'a devout
man and one that feared God.' The phrase 'a
devout man' might be used to denote goodness
characteristic of a Gentile, but, in connexion witli
'one that feared God,' it implies that Cornelius
was a proselyte, although there is no reason to be-
lieve tnat he had been formally admitted to the
Jewish Church by the rites of circumcision and
baptism. He belonged to that large class who
found greater truth and satisfaction in the teach-
ing of Judaism than in their own heathen religions,
and who observed the Jewish laAv of the Sabbath
and the regulations of ceremonial cleanness (cf.
Schurer, GJV* iii. [1909] p. 177, where Bertholet's
view is combated that tpo^o^/j-evoi rbv 0e6v, ' fearers
of God,' is not in Acts a terminus technicus).
The distinction which was drawn by later Judaism
between ' proselytes of righteousness ' and ' prose-
lytes of the gate' is not found till after NT times,
but there is little doubt that the circumstances
giving rise to this distinction did really exist, and
that ' the fearers of God ' of Acts are practically
identical with those who at a later date came to
be known as ' proselytes of the gate ' (see art.
Proselyte). The significance of the incident
seems then to lie in the recognition that full mem-
bership in the Christian Church was open not only
to Jews but also to the Gentiles who ' feared God.'
St. Peter uses the incident as a true precedent in
Ac IP*^', and reasserts its determining importance
at the Council of Jerusalem (Ac 15). The ad-
mission of Cornelius was the first step towards the
recognition of the universality of the gospel of
Christ. A further step was taken when member-
ship in the Christian Church was offered to the
heathen who had no relation to the synagogue.
Ltteraturk.— R. J. Knowling:, EGT, 'Acts,' 1900, p. 250;
C. V. Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, Enf;. tr., i. [1894] 103 f. ; A.
C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, 1897, p. 101 note.
W. F. Boyd.
CORNER, CORNER-STONE.— Among Semitic
peoples a special sacredness was supposed to belong
to the corners of structures, and tins probably lies
at the root of the metaphor. The Heb. n;^,pinndh,
' corner-stone,' is the stone at the angle, which,
uniting the walls, holds the two sides together.
It was chosen for its solidity and beauty to occupy
an important place either in the foundation or
the battlement. In the OT pinnGth denotes the
principal men in the community and the supports
of the State (e.g. Jg 20^, 1 S U^) ; cf. * Meum
praesidium et dulce decus meum ' (Hor. i. 1), where
strength and beauty are united in one. NT
believers saw Christ everywhere in the OT, and
hence the Avord which originally referred to the
choice among the chosen people came to signify
Christ. The figure of the corner-stone is thus
taken over from the OT, and specially from Ps 1 18^^
and Is 28^', the passages which rule the apostolic
use.
In the NT 'corner-stone' was applied by Jesus
to Himself (Mt 21**), and reappears in St. Peter's
address to the Sanhedrin : ' He is tlie stone which
was set at nought of you the builders, which was
made the head of the corner' (Ac 4" -^evbyievoi els
Kf(pa\T)u yuvlai). Quoting, evidently from memory,
the ApoHtle uses i^ovdeviu ' despise and regard
as valueless,' a word expressing great contempt ;
but later (1 P 2^) he uses the milder word dwoSo/cc/idi'a;
of the LXX, which means ' test and reject after
actual trial.' liamsay (Pauline Studies, London,
1906, p. 253) notes that ' at the Phrj'gian marble
quarries there have been found many block.s,
which had been cut, but not sent on to Home . . .
some of them bear the letters REPR, i.e. repro-
datum, "rejected." These were considered as
imperfect and unworthy pieces, and rejected by
the inspector.' It might happen, however, that a
stone passed over by one builder was seen and
chosen by another and wiser architect ; cf. Michel-
Angelo carving his colossal statue of David out of
a block of marble wliich had been spoiled and
rejected by an inferior sculptor some years before.
So St. Peter's argument in his Epistle (1 P2*''').
In ignorance and self-will the leaders of the people
had rejected the corner-stone, but others, with
truer spiritual discernment, making it the ground
of faith and belief in God, had found in the rejected
stone 'preciousness' (RVm 'honour') and worth;
fpTifios suggests both meanings.
In Eph 2-''' ' Christ Jesus himself being the chief
comer-stone ' (6i>tos dKpoyuviaiou airrov XpuTTOv 'lijffov),
the thought is of the unity of Jew and Gentile in
the Church — ' the saints build up the fabric, and
the corner-stone is Christ.' They are drawn and
held together in Him, as the walls of a building
cohere in and are united by the corner-stone, which
determines the lines of ' each several building ' and
compacts it into one.
Literature.— C. Gore, Ephes., London, 1898, p. 118; W. M.
Ramsay, Expositor, 5th ser. ix. [1899] 36 f. ; A. Maclaren, Ex-
positions : ' Ephesians,' London, 1909, p. 118, may be consulted
for doctrinal and homiletical uses. "W. M. GRANT.
COS (Kwj, now Stanchio = is rav Kw). — Cos was an
island of Caria, at the entrance to the Ceramic
Gulf, between the two headlands on which stood
the cities of Cnidus and Halicarnassus. Its chief
city, lying at the sheltered eastern extremity of
the island, was ' not large, but beautifully built,
and a most pleasing sight to mariners sailing by
the coast ' (Strabo, XIV. ii. 19). Its position on the
maritime highway betMeen the ^gean and the
Levant gave it great commercial importance and
wealth. It had the rank of a free city till the
time of Augustus.
Cos was ' the garden of the Egean ' (T. Lewin,
St. Paul, 1875, ii. 97). It was renowned for its
vines and looms, its literature and art, and above
all for its temple of .Esculapius and school of
medicine, which must have made it especially
interesting to St. Luke. It had Theocritus the
poet, Apelles the painter, and Hippocrates the
physician among its citizens. It attracted Jewish
settlers at least as early as the Maccabaean period
(1 Mac 15^). Some words which Josephus (Ant.
XIV. vii. 2) quotes from a lost work of Strabo —
' Mithridates sent to Cos and took . . . 800 talents
belonging to the Jews' — prove that the city had
become a Jewish banking centre. One of the
benefactors of the island was Herod the Great (BJ
I. xxi. 11). Another was the Emperor Claudius,
who decreed that it ' should be for ever discharged
from all tribute,' chiefly on account of its medical
fame (Tac. Ann. xii. Gl).
St. Paul and his companions, in their voyage
through the .^gean, ' came with a straight course '
— running before the wind (fvdvSpofi-fiffavTes) — from
Miletus to Cos, a distance of 40 miles. Of!" Cos,
where there was good shelter, they anchored for
the night, and next day, with a northerly wind
still blowing, they enjoyed an equally good passage
to Rhodes (Ac 21").
COUCH
COVENANT
261
LmRATi-RR. — L. Ross, Reisen naeh Koi, etc., Halle, 1862;
W. R. Paton and E. L. Hicks, The Iiiseriptions of Cos, Oxford,
1891. James Strahan.
CODCH.— See BED.
COUNCIL.— See Sanhedrix.
COURAGE.— See Boldness.
COURTS.— See Trial- at-Law.
COVENANT.— 1. Context.— In the EVV of the
NT 'covenant' is the translation of the Greek
word Siad^fiKri, which occurs 33 times. In the RV
the word is uniformly rendered ' covenant ' except
in He 9'*- ^'', where ' testament ' is used, with ' cove-
nant ' in the margin. In the AV, ' testament ' oc-
curs 13 times (Mt 26^, Mk U^^, Lk222o, 1 Co ll^*,
2 Co 3«- ", He 7« Qi* ^ '«• ^'- ^, Rev ll'») and ' cove-
nant ' 20 times (Lk 1", Ac 3» 7«, Ro 9* 11", Gal S''- "
4« Eph 2'-', He 8«- s. 9 w*. lo 94 w* iqis. 29 jw 13»). (For
further particulars see DCG i. 374.) Analyzing
the instances more closely, we see that 18 refer
directly to the OT, 7 occurring in quotations ; 12
have reference to the new or better dispensation
of Jesus, or to His blood ; 3 only (Gal 3^', He
914. i7j are concerned with ordinary human institu-
tions.
2. Use of 8ia9i^KT] in LXX. — It is most natural,
in view of this preponderance of references to the
OT, to seek in the LXX use of Siad-qKi) the clue
to its meaning in the NT. Siad-qKt) is the all but
invariable translation of the Hebrew word ir^^
{b'rith), which in our EVV is always rendered
' covenant,' never ' te.«tament. ' In some instances —
as, for example, 1 S18»23'», 1 K 2<3»«— the word indis-
putably means ' covenant ' in the full sense, i.e. a
mutual relationship between two parties. In
others, the idea of the mutual relationship is
wanting, as in 1 S IP ; but the idea of setting up
a relationship, which may be done by the free act
or choice of one person, is always present. It is
in this later sense that we understand the Divine
b^rith. This is a Divine order or arrangement
which takes its rise without any human co-of)era-
tion, springing from the choice of God Himself,
whose will and determination account for both its
origin and its character. The one-sidedness of such
an institution makes the word ' covenant ' a rather
unfortunate choice in our EW. Kautzsch goes so
far as to state that ' the usual rendering of b'rith,
namely " covenant," ought to be avoided as incor-
rect and misleading ' [HDB v. 630b). It seems that
we do not possess a word in English which exactly
conveys the meaning of the Divine b'riih. Neither
' arrangement ' nor ' disposition ' is at all adequate.
We are compelled in the OT to continue the use of
'covenant,' merely making the mental qualifica-
tion required.
AVe have next to inquire why the LXX chose
and adhered to the word diadifiKri as the rendering
of b'rith. It is an undoubted fact that throughout
the later classical period, and certainly in the
early Christian period, this word had, in common
usage, the meaning of 'will' or 'testament.' It
is sometimes stated that there is only one instance
of its use in the sense of ' covenant ' in the whole
of Greek literature, namely in Aristophanes, Birds,
440. Building upon this instance, Wackemagel
has recently suggested that this meaning was
current in the Ionic dialect, and may have been
derived by the LXX from that source. If this
were proved, many questions would be answered
at a stroke ; but unless some further evidence can
be adduced in its favour it seems veiy precarious.
On the other hand, further investigation rather
qualifies the absoluteness of the assertion that
Siadi^KTj means ' wUl ' and nothing else. Ramsay
in his Historical Commentary on the Galatiana,
and Norton in his Study of AIA9HKH, both show
that, before will-making in our modem sense had
become part of Greek social life, the word Siad-^xtt
might be used to express ' a disposition of relations
between two parties, where one party lays down
the conditions which the other accepts, not an
ordinary bargain or contract, but a more dignified
and solemn compact or covenant (Norton, op. cit.
p. 31). In particular Ramsay speaks of the Siaflijicij
as a solemn and binding covenant, guaranteed by
the authority of the whole people and their gods,
and being primarily an arrangement for the de-
volution of religious duties and rights (op. cit. p.
361 f.). Accordingly, it is urged that in the early
part of the 3rd cent. B.C. no better word was
available to express the OT idea of a solemn and
irrevocable disposition, made by God Himself of
His own gracious choice, and meant to secure a re-
ligious inheritance to His chosen people. Accept-
ing this as the best explanation offered as yet,
we may observe that the later Greek translators,
Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, writing at a
time when the meaning of Siad-qKt) had been nar-
rowed down to mean ' will ' exclusively, felt obliged
to fall back on the usual Greek word for ' covenant,'
(nvd-fiKfi. Similarly, as Riggenbach has pointed
out (Theol. Stud. 294), Josephus instinctively re-
places SiadrjKT) by (TwOriKri or the cognate verb, where
the reference is undoubtedly to a covenant agree-
ment between man and man, his linguistic sense
being ottended by the use of Siaff-nKt] in any sense
but that of ' will.' We come, therefore, to the
conclusion that in NT times the use of 8iad-pKrj
in the sense of a solemn promise or undertaking
had become an archaism. Readers of the English
Bible can easily recall analogies to such a process
in the nse of words like ' conversation ' or ' peculiar '
or 'walk disorderly.'
3. Use of SiaOi^KT) in apostolic and sub-apostolic
times. — (1) Ordinary usage. — When we come to
the NT period, there is no possible doubt that
in ordinary usage diaOriKT) means ' will ' (so G.
Milligan and J. H. Moulton in Expositor, 7th ser.,
vi. [1908] 563). ' The agreement of papyri and in-
scriptions with regard to the use of SiadriKt) is very
remarkable. . . . Any number of citations may be
made, and there is never a suggestion of any other
meaning ' (than ' will '). Deissmann, agreeing with
this conclusion, emphatically declares that the
usage was so fixed that St. Paul could not have em-
ployed the word in the sense of ' covenant.' ' There
IS ample material to back me in the statement
that no one in the Mediterranean world in the first
century A.D. would have thought of finding in the
word SiadriKTj the idea of "covenant." St. Paul
would not, and in fact did not. To St. Paul the
word meant what it meant in his Greek OT, ' ' a uni-
lateral enactment," in particular "a will or testa-
ment'" (Light from the Ancient East'', p. 341).
In his St. Paul (p. 152) he goes further and says
that St. Paul found in his Greek Bible the idea
that God had executed a will in our favour. It
does not, however, seem possible to grant that St.
Paul, who read his Hebrew Bible as well as his
Greek, always thought of a \nl\ when he read of
the Divine b'rith. Yet the expression of b^rith by
a word that meant ' will ' may have enriched the
OT idea with new associations. We may note in
further illustration of the usage in Jewish authors
that in the Greek apocryphal writings diadrqKTj and
(rvvdriKv are used, once at any rate, as synonymous
terms (cf. Wis 12^' ; ' covenants of good promises '
(ffweriicn), and 18^ : ' covenants made with the
fathers ' (diaevKrj). Philo appears to use SiadriKr] in
the sense of ' will,' saying that it is written ' for
the benefit of those who are worthy of a gift.'
262
COVENANT
COVENANT
Yet when he adds that it is 'a symbol of grace,
which God lia-s placed between Himself who offers
it, and man who receives it,' he seems to go back
to the somewliat wider use we found in the LXX
(Philo, dc Mut. Nom. vi. 52 f. ; of. Kiggenbach,
op. cit. p. 311 f.).
(2) JVT iisage. — Passing now to the NT, we
must ask whether its writers use diaOi/iKr) in wliat
is undoubtedly the Hebrew OT sense of thecovenant
between man and God, i.e. * unilateral enactment,'
or as ' will,' or in a sense derived from both mean-
ings, (a) It is best to begin with He 9'*"'^. Here,
in spite of some attempts to retain the meaning of
'covenant' throughout (Westcott, Hatch, Dods, et
al. ), the weight of evidence seems decisive that in
v.", at any rate, the writer is speaking of a human
will. As has been said, ' if the question were put
to any person of common intelligence, "What
document is that which is of no force at all during
the lifetime of the person who executed it ? " the
answer can only be, "A man's will or testament." '
The most usual exposition grants this, but then
supposes that the writer slips from one meaning in
v.'s to another in v. '7, and then back again to the
first one. But if Philo, with whose writings the
author was ffimiliar, could, as we have seen, read
the notion of will into an OT passage, there is
little ground for denying the same possibility here.
And when once the translation ' will ' is admitted
throughout tlie passage, the argument, which is so
difficult to follow from any other point of view,
becomes luminous. Verse 16 affirms that the in-
heritance contemplated under the first testament
of God could not be enjoyed until a death had
taken place; v." adds that this is illustrated by
the ordinary human practice, where a will comes
into force after death ; v.'^ states further that this
was foreshadowed, even at the time when the first
testament was given, by the death of the victim,
which, as the whole argument of the Epistle shows,
looked onwards to the perfect sacrifice of Christ.
It is indeed urged that the use of the word ' medi-
ator' in v.^* is fatal to the translation 'will,' since
a will needs no mediator, whilst a covenant does.
But, as has been shown by Cremer {Lexicon, p. 421),
citing illustrations from Diodorus Siculus, iv. 54,
and Jos. Ant. IV. vi. 7, the word /iecrlr-qs (mediator)
may be used in the sense of ' one who appears or
stands security for anything,' ' one who pledges
himself for promises,' a parallel conception to the
' surety ' in He 7"^. This is admirably illustrated
by the use of the cognate verb in He 6" ' God
interposed with an oath.' God gave His promise
to Abraham direct, and by the oath which He
swore condescended to become the guarantor of
His own word.
If we admit this translation of Siad'^Kri in these
verses, it appears to follow also in 9^ 10^ IS^, as
also in 7^ and 12^. The references in 8^^-, in view
of the direct citation from Jeremiah, seem less
certain, though Riggenbach argues for the same
meaning here. A dtadriKT) written on the heart is
less easy to think of as a 'testament.' Yet the
connexion of the diadrjKT} with the promise in v.®
suggests that this thought was not far away.
This is one of those cases where we cannot deny
that the archaic sense may have been present, but
we may at least claim that it has been enriched by
the new meaning of the word. Such a use is
easily illustrated. When Newman in his sermon
on ' Unreal Words ' says : ' Our professions, our
creed, our prayers, our dealings, our conversation,
our arguments, our teachiu", must henceforth be
sincere,' and goes on immediately to quote : ' In
godly sincerity ... we have had our conversation
in this world,' he understands of course the archaic
biblical use of the word he quotes. But can we
doubt that it has been enriched to him in such a
context and on such a subject by its later u.se to
describe speech ?
(6) Turning to St. Paul's Epistles, we may begin
with the much-discussed passage in Gal 3'*^".
Here St. Paul declares that he is about to speak
'after the manner of men.' By some he is sup-
posed to mean that he intends to use the word
SiaO-^KT) in its ordinary human sense of ' will,'
as opposed to its biblical sense of ' covenant.*
But It appears more likely that he means that
having taken his previous arguments from Scrip-
ture he will now make his point clearer by taking
an illustration from common daily life. Obviously
if he does this he must give to SiatfiJ/ci? its current
meaning, which is without doubt ' will.' But if so,
we ask whether he reverts to another meaning for
the same word in v.". The whole circle of ideas
is against this. It is a 5ia.di)K-i) of promise, i.e. a
testament. It belongs to Abraham and to his
seed, it comes by way of gift, it invests those
taking part in it with the rights of inheritance.
The testator designates his heir, and arranges that
at a predetermined time he shall receive the
specified boon (4^*). It is indeed argued (Lukyn
Williams, et al.) tliat we must not translate ' will,'
because this connotes death. But St. Paul seems
to have guarded himself against the over-pressing
of his argument, showing by his ' thougli it be
but a man's will ' that the analogy was not exact.
The word diad-fjKTf suggested to him that there was
a human document which no one could set aside,
namely a will ; how much more then when God
makes a will must that remain unalterable.
In Eph 2'^ and Ro 9* the idea of ' will ' seems
most probable. The use of the plural of diaOrjKT}
to express the singular meaning ' will ' is very
frequent in Greek, meaning either the different
provisions or the will as a whole. It is possible,
however, that the Apostle is thinking of the oft-
renewed promises made to the fathers. In Gal 4**
the word is twice used, and applied once to the
diaOriKri of promise given to Abraham and fulfilled
through Christ, and once to the 5ia0-/iKr] made at
Sinai. As we can hardly suppose that St. Paul
speaks of the Abrahamic dispensation in another
sense than in ch. 3, and as the thought of a will
seems clearly present in 4-', we find the same con-
ception here. The Law of Moses, which in 3"
appeared only as a supplement to the testament of
promise, delaying its operation but not cancelling
it, is here spoken of as an inferior testament.
There appears to be a very marked touch of irony
here. ' If you will have it that it is a testa-
ment,' says "the Apostle, 'and insist on choosing to
come under its provisions, it is a testament which
will bring you an inheritance of slavery.' Our
view of 2 Co 3" will be determined by our ex-
planation of 1 Co 11-^ Here we note the comment
of Zahn (Galater, p. 162) that the Greek word had
actually in the time of our Lord passed over into
the Aramaic as a loan-word in the sense of ' will.'
Hence we may suppose that our Lord, speaking
almost in the very presence of death, and promis-
ing to His disciples a share in His inheritance (Lk
22-*), enriched the OT idea of covenant with the
thoughts that cluster round the testament of a
dying man planning out the future of those who
are dear to him. Tins is the best illustratiim the
NT aftords of the new wealth of meaning put into
the old conception of b''rith. If so, we may find
this in St. Paul's use also. In the case of 2 Co 3'*,
where diaO^fiK-q seems to stand for the OT, the
archaic use appears more likely.
(c) Lastly (omitting Ro 11" and Rev 11", which,
as cited directly from the OT, do not contribute
anything to the understanding of the question),
we' may say that Ac 3^, referring to Abraham and
to the inheritance, may liave been at least coloured
COVETOUSXESS
CREATION
263
by the Greek conception of ' testament.' In Ac 7'
Siadi/iKr) stands for the seal which accompanied the
establishment of the new relationship, and sheds
no light upon its character.
(3) Sub-apostolic trriters. — Passing to the sub-
apostolic Christian writers, we find few instances
that are decisive. In Clem. Rom. ad Cor. i. the
word occurs twice (xv. 4, xx.w. 7), each time in
citations from the OT. The Epistle of Barnabas
quotes also from the OT, and refers specially to
tlie two tables of the SiadijKr) which were broken by
Moses (iv. 6f.). Yet his most frequent use is
'heirs of the Siad^Kij' (vi. 19, xiii. 1, 6, xiv. 5).
' Moses as a servant received it ; but the Lord
himself, having suflfered in our behalf, hath given
it to us that we should be the people of inherit-
ance. ' ' He was manifested that we . . . being
constituted heirs through him, might receive the
StaOi^K-Tj of the Lord Jesus, who was prepared for this
end; that ... he might by his word enter into
a diadriKi} with us.' In this last passage we seem
to have a clear instance of a passing over from the
idea of * will ' to that of ' covenant.'
4. Conclasion. — As an illustration of the new
fullness of meaning which we have discovered
above, reference may be made to one of the most
interesting of all the Jewish non-canonical writings.
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. There
the fathers of the Hebrew tribes plan out the
future of their descendants, and with warning and
promise speak of what lies before them. In the
S'T all earlier thoughts of God are summed up in
tlie grand conception of Fatherhood, whilst man's
relationship to God is set forth as perfected in the
realization of sonship. It was the Knowledge that
we have been brought into the family of God, and
made children of His and therefore heirs, that
called forth St. Paul's adoring gratitude (Ro S'**-).
Looking back into the past, he delighted to think
that this gracious ' wul ' which adopts us and
makes us heirs of the great inheritance had been
made long since in favour of Abraham, and of
those who are partakers of his spirit of faith and
trust. If he read into the OT b'rith something that
was hidden from the sight of those who first wrote
of it, it is but another illustration of Augustine's
saying : ' Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet.'
LrraRATURE. — E. Rigrgrenbach, ' Der Begriff der &ia0r\KTi im
Hebraerbrief (in The^ogisehe Studien Th. Zahn dargebraeht,
Leipzig, 1908), pp. ^1-316 ; J. Wackemagrel, ' EHe griechische
Sprache' {KiMur der Gegenwart, i. i (do. 190SJ); F. O.
Norton, A Lexieographieal and Historical Study of AIA8HKH,
Chicago, 1908; A. Deissmann, Linhtfrom the Ancient Eatt^,
Ene. tr., 1911, and 5t. PatiL Eng.'tr., 1912; G. Milligran and
J. H. Moulton, ' Lexical Notes from the Papyri,' in Expotitor,
7th ser., vi. [1908] 562; J. Behm, Der Begriff a^lABUKUim ST,
Leipzig, 1912 ; E. Lohmeyer, Diatheke.Ein Beitraa zur Erkldr-
ung des NTBegrifs, Leipzig, 1913 ; Dawson Walker, T?ie Gi/t
of Tongues, 190C, pp. Sl-175. See also the Commentaries on
Galatians and Hebrews : on GaL, especially W. M. Ramsay
(1899), Zahn (21907), Lnkyn WiUiams (1911). Lightfoot
(■•1874) ; on Hebrews, Westcott (1SS9), A. S. Peake (1902).
Cf. also artt. in Bible Dictionaries and Lexicons, especially
H. Cramer, Bibl-Theoi. Lexicons, isso.
Wilfrid J. Moultox.
COYETODSNESS.— In both AY and RV ' covet-
ous ' or ' covetous person ' translates xXcov^kt-i/j
(1 Co 5^°- " 6^", Eph 5'), and ' covetousness ' vXeov-
e^ta (Ro 1^, Eph 5\ Col S^, 1 Th 2«). Closely re-
lated terms are 4>i.\apyvpia (1 Ti 6^") = 'love of
money,' and ala-xpoKtpSris (1 Ti 3', Tit 1^) = ' greedy
of filthy lucre. ' (piXapyvpia and irXeove^ia are some-
times distinguished as ' covetousness ' and ' avarice,'
the desire to get and the desire to keep ; but this
distinction, which scarcely exists in fact, is not
borne out in NT usage. (fuXapyvpia, which is a
'root of all evils,' is manifested alike in greed of
gain and in parsimony. It emphasizes the object
of the desire, while the primary idea in rXeove^la
is the injustice of the means used for its attain-
ment. EtymologicaUy the latter word signifies
the desire or claim to have a larger share (irXdoy
^X"") than others ; in usage it is covetousness,
rapacity, the disposition to seek, and the habit of
seeking, one's own enrichment without regard to
the rights and interests of others. This sense
comes out clearly in the use of the verb rXeoKKreiv,
which in the Pauline Epistles (2 Co 2" 7* 12"- ",
1 Th 4*) always means to 'take advantage of
another. Such unrighteous advantage may be
taken in the transaction of business (t<^ rpdy/jutrt,
1 Th 4*), or by the employment of religious in-
fluence and ecclesiastical position as a means of
gain. In the apostolic writings the latter abuse
is strongly reprobated. To be without covetous-
ness is a mark of the true apostle (1 Th 2"), of the
worthy bishop (Tit 1"), deacon (1 Ti 3*), and elder
(1 P 5*). To be 'greedy of filthy lucre' is char-
acteristic of the false prophet (2 P 2*) ; and against
this charge St. Paul guards himself with sensitive
scrupulosity (1 Co Q^'s, 2 Co 7^ 12"- ").
(1) The apostolic writings show that then, as
now, covetousness, the grasping selfishness which
manifests itself in disregard of the interests, and
violation of the rights, of others, was one of the
most prevalent and flagrant of the evils which it
is the work of Christianity to eradicate.
(2) They take the gravest view of its heinous
sinfulness (Col 3*), its wide-spread ramifications
(1 Ti G'O), its ultimate consequences (1 Co 6'"). In
the Epistles of St. Paul, particularly, a central
place is always assigned to it in the organism of
vice. It is constantly set side by side with un-
chastity (1 Co o^"- ", Eph 4i9 o^- «, Col 3*, 1 Th 4*^)
in a fashion which has suggested to some exegetes
that in such passages rXeove^La signifies transgres-
sion of the rights of others in sexual rather than
in pecuniary relations (many thus understand ry
rpdyfiari in 1 Th 4^). "The preferable explanation
is that ' impurity and covetousness may be said to
divide between them nearly the whole domain of
selfishness and vice ' (Lightfoot, Col.^, 1879, p. 213).
' Homo extra Deum quaerit pabulum in creatura
material! vel per voluptatem vel per avaritiam '
(Bengel).
(3) Covetousness is a sin against one's own soul
— destructive of spiritual self-possession (He 13*),
bringing men into bondage to things external and
uncertain (1 Ti 6^") ; against one's neighbour (1 Th
4*) ; but ultimately and essentially against God.
The most pregnant word on the subject is that of
St. Paul (Col 3'), ' covetousness which is idolatry.'*
The antidote is regard for the righteous judgment
of God (1 Th 4®), love to one's neighbour (1 Co
1(P*), trust in God's unfailing providence (He 13'- *,
1 Ti 6'"), a soul-satisfying experience of life in
Christ (Ph 4"-i3).
LiTERATCRK. — Comm. on the passages quoted, especially
Lightfoot on Col S5 ; Armitage Robinson on Eph 4i9 53- * ;
J. Weiss on 1 Co 510- U ; Lietzmann on Bo 1» ; R. C. Trench.
Sew Testament Synonyms^, 1376, p. 78; Sermons Seic and
Old, 1886, p. 60 ; John Foster, Lecture4^, iL [1853] 161 ; also
Phillips Brooks, The Light of the World, 1891, p. 159 ; E. M.
Gotilburn, Tke jPursttit of BoUnett, 1860, p. 147.
Robert Law.
CRAFT.— See Arts.
CREATION.— The NT doctrine of creation in
general is that of the later OT writings and the
Apocrypha ; e.g. 2 Mac 7^, AVis 11*^. It is found
over the whole range of apostolic writings, from
the early speeches in the Acts (7'" [quoted from Is
66-] 1415 1724) to 2 Pet. (3»). God made the heaven
and the earth and all that therein is ; He is the one
supreme power in nature ; and He is as benevolent
as He is supreme (cf. Ac W). Human aflairs are
subject to His yviLl (cf. Ac IS^, Ja 4»*). Though
• Ct Euripides, Cyclops, 316-17 :
o sivavTXK, atSitartitrKt, rots ot>^o»« 9tif'
ra 5' oAAa cdfiirot icai Aoyuv cvfiop^Mt.
264
CREATION
CREATION
supreme, therefore, He is no capricious tyrant. The
concept of laws of nature, of course, is unknown ;
but the world is none the less a world of order ;
when surprising events take place, they serve as
reminders or signs of His jjoverament or as means
for the working out of His providential purposes
(of. Ac 12^''"-*"-). The existing world order, how-
ever, will not last for ever ; it will dissolve in a
catastrophe or series of catastroplies (cf. Ac 2'*''
quoting Jl 2''*"^'* ; also Jude, 2 P 2, and Rev, passim),
when the power that created will unmake to make
anew.
But throughout the OT writings is manifested
the feeling that some intermediary is needed in the
operations of God's government (cf. Jg S""^- 13^ [an
angel ; but note 6"] and Ezk 1 1' [the Spirit]). Later
Jewish thought went further and developed a de-
tailed angelology ; but the NT reproduces the
simpler thought of the OT (cf. Ac 27** [an angel ;
so in 12''] or 16* [the Holy Spirit]). And with
regard to the original act or acts of creation, the
simple ' And Jahweh formed ' or ' breathed ' of
Gn 2, and the even simpler ' And God said ' of Gn 1,
are extended even in the OT by the well-known
references to the brooding Spirit (Gn P ; perhaps,
like the rest of the chapter, containing a purified
echo of pagan cosmologies) and to Wisdom (Pr 8^
etc.); a hint of a primal man as an assessor at
creation has been found by Ewald in Job 15''. On
such foundations as these, later Jewish thought
built its theology of the Memra or Divine Word,
and of the Logos as it appears in Alexandrian
Judaism.
In contrast, perhaps in opposition, to all this, the
apostolic writings prefer the language of continual
reference to God Himself. They are troubled by
no Jewish (or Gnostic) fears as to God's contact
with the world of matter (Ro P" 4", He 1" [quot-
ing Ps 1022S-27] 3*). Note also He IP : ' the worlds
— alQ)V€^ — have been framed by the word of God '
(cf. Ro 1P«, 1 Co 12«, Eph 128 48). The practical de-
ductions from this view, that all things made by
God are good, and work together for good, are
found in Ro 8^8, 1 Ti 4*.
This insistence on God's sole activity makes the
more remarkable the relation of the Father to the
Son in the work of creation — a concept which, like
so many others, owes its most definite formulation to
St. Paul, but is represented in every other stratum
of apostolic teaching. Thus in 1 Co 8* we read :
' to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are
all things, and we unto him ; and one Lord Jesus
Christ, throu<jh (5tA) whom are all things, and we
through him. It is perhaps worth notice that this
great sentence occurs in the discussion of things
offered to idols, as if St. Paul expected the Cor-
inthians to recognize the truth as something quite
familiar (cf. Ro IP', where the expression is^K, not
dir6, deov). In Col P* we read that all things have
been created in Christ and through Him and unto
Him (eV, 5td, eh). In v.^' He is called the irpuT&roKo^
irdffrii Kriffeujs — a term which recalls Rev 3'^ but goes
far beyond it ; with this should be compared the
fiovoyevrj! of Jn 1" ; see also Ro 8^ (eh rb elvai avrbv
TrpurdTOKOv ev iroKKots dSfX^otj), Eph P, and 1 P 1^.
The same thought appears in somewhat different
language in He P'- (the Son 'through [Std] whom
lie made the worlds . . . upholding all things by
the word of his power'). In the lociis classicus
of the Johannine writings (Jn 1*) the preposition
is still ' through ' (5td). In these passages we have
what may be termed the distinctively Christian
contribution to the theistic doctrine of creation.
Instead of a word, or spirit, or angels, the great in-
strument of creation is a living Divine Person — the
Son. And the difference is not simply what the
Christian might express by saying that the instru-
ment is not the word but the Word. The Son is
not merely the instrument, He is the end ; Si airrov,
and also eh airrdv ; cf. Eph P" 'to sum up all things
in Christ' ; i.e. He is also the final cause, wliiie at
the same time, from another aspect, with regard
to His manifestation (1 P P"" quoted above), the linal
cause of tlie appearance of Christ in the world is
to be found in the Church. Christ is also I^rd of
the created world, in this present time (Eph 1*^,
Col 1"-^*) ; all things consist, have their ordered
being, in Him ; He is the hejid of all princi[)ality
and power (Col 2"), just as ' all the fulness of God '
dwells in Him (2®). And of all this created order
the Church is the crowning work ; of the Church
Christ is the Head (Eph 1'^) ; i.e. the Church, as
in some way distinct from the rest of creation,
stands in a unique and timeless relation to Christ.
It is impos.sible to enter into these daring
thoughts without asking. What then of evil?
Was evil too created by God, and through Christ?
To the childlike thought of the OT, evil was, or
rather is, created by God, like good (Is 45^ ; cf.
Am 3'). And the NT writers were too fully
steeped in the thought of the OT to feel the prob-
lem as we feel it to-day. But it was felt none the
less. In 1 P 4^", indeed, the suiferings of the good
only suggest the thought of a 'faithful Creator.'
Ps 8® is quoted three times in the Epistles : once in
Eph 1'^, with simple approval ; in 1 Co 15^ it is
recognized that the subjection of all things to
Christ is not yet complete ; so in He 2*'-, where this
recognition is joined to the author's characteristic
teaching with regard to the sufferings of Christ.
For the most part, St. Paul refers moral evil to the
'spiritual hosts of M'ickedness in the heavenly
places' (Eph 6^^; cf. 2^ also 2 Th 2«, 2 Co 4*).
i3ut in one pregnant passage, illuminating yet ob-
scure, Ro S^'**'-, he hears in the long wail of the
misery of creation the cries of the birth-pangs
which herald a new order, of which the leaders
and inaugurators are the sons of God ; and in the
apparent vanity (fruitlessness) of nature (in whicli
'or fifty seeds she often brings but one to bear'),
he sees the preparation for a new revelation of the
creative order and purposefulness of God ; while
no created thing is able even now to separate us
from the love of Christ (v.**). It is therefore not
surprising that, in contrast to the old order, St.
Paul should speak of the appearance of a new, here
and now. If the whole of creation is through
Christ, much more is the new character or self a
new creation (Gal 6^» ; cf. 2 Co 5", Eph 4'^* with
Eph 2^' and Ps 5P**). The 'new man in Clirist'
explains and satisfies the longing of the created
and imperfect world.*
Hitherto, no reference has been made to the
Epistles of St. John, and indeed in these Epistles
no mention is made of the act of creation. But it
may none the less be maintained that St. John
adcis an essential element to the whole apostolic
doctrine. A consideration of this maj' be intro-
duced by a summary of the foregoing. As we have
seen, the majority of apostolic writers are not in-
terested in the question. How did things originate ?
Their language can be used with equal sincerity by
those who believe in separate acts of creation and
in some form of evolution (though doubtless, if
questioned, all of them would have upheld a literal
interpretation of Gn 1). Their interest is in crea-
• A word should here be added on the four terms for creation
and created objects ; (CTwrit denotes created thin^ either singly
or collectively, like the much rarer irriV/xa (Bo 8i», Col l^s,
lie 911, 2 P 8* ; cf. Wis 198). xoa^o? is the world as an ordered
svstera ' relative to man as well as God ' (Westcott), and thus
comes to denote the order of things apart from fio<l. separate
from Him, and even in antagonism to Him (e.g. in Ro 3«, 1 Co l'-*
4«, 2Co 619, He ll^, Ja 127, and constantly in 1 Jn. ). oJwi- is chiefly
a dispensation evolvinjr into soiiiot.hin>,' further : when usefl in
the smgular, it refers either to the present age or U) the perfect
age ; but it is often used, quite naturally, in the plural (cf.
He 12 lia, also 2 Co **, Eph 22).
CRESCEXS
CRETE, CRETAlfS
265
tion as a stajje or epoch ; an epoch destined, after
its work is done, to give place to a better, whose
beginnings can even now be discerned. Neither
of these stages can be understood apart from Christ.
The first, lilce the second, is good, because it is the
work of God. It is based on Christ ; it is held to-
gether in Christ. But its goodness (to employ the
profound Aristotelian distinction) is a matt«r of
Si'va/xis rather than of im-eXixeia. Moreover, it
exists side by side with another order, Kdcfioi, which
is ruled over by the powers of evil, and which is
doomed not to be superseded but destroyed. The
second stage or epoch, whose succession to the
first is sometimes spoken of in terms of a sudden
catastrophe, sometimes, as it would seem, as the
result of a long process — ' one far-oflF divine event ' —
is the complete manifestation of the wnll of God ;
it involves a kind of transfigured pantheism, in
which God is all things, and in all things (1 Co 15^).
St. John does not, however, pay attention to
these two epochs ; his antithesis is throughout
between the present evil order and God's final
purposes (the phrase 6 kScho^ 6 fieWuv is never used).
This order is the abode of evil ( 1 Jn 2^*) and of the
great enemy of God (4^) ; it lies, indeed, in the evil
one (5'®) ; it is passing away (2'") ; it is not to be
loved (2'' ; contrast Jn 3^*), but to be conquered (5*).
On the other hand, the Son of God has been sent
into the world ; and through believing in Him is
enjoyed, here and now, the gift of eternal life — a
rift so complete and final that only in one passage
does 1 Jn. speak with any detiniteness of a future
order at all {S^). As the other apostolic writers
imply, the order of creation which centres in Christ,
properly understood, is not physical, but moral
and spiritual ; and therefore, to those who believe
in Christ, it is present here and now.
References in the Apostolic Fathers are not
numerous ; the deeper aspects of NT teaching were
hardly caught ; attention may be called, however,
to 1 Clement : ' the Creator and Father of the ages '
(ch. XXXV.), 'the God of the ages' (Iv.), and 'the
King of the ages' (Ixi.). In Hermas we have a
further reminiscence of the NT ( Vis. I. i. 6) : ' God,
who dwelleth in the heavens and created out of
nothing the things that are, and increased and
multiplied them for His church's sake.'
LiTERATrRK. — References to the literature on Creation as a
part of theiatic doctrine cannot be given here, but the reader
may be referred to G. H. A. v. Ewald, Old and yew Test.
Theology, Enp. tr., IsSa ; A. M. Fairbaim, The Philosophy of the
Christian Reli'jion, 1902 ; D. Somerville, St. PaiWs Concepticn
of Christ, 1897 ; and the Comm. of Westcott, Ligrhtfoot, and
Sanday-Headlam, ad Jocc "W". F. LOFTHOUSE.
CRESCENS (Kp^cTKTjs). — Crescens, a companion of
St. Paul during his last imprisonment, had at the
date of the writing of 2 Timothy gone to Galatia
(2 Ti 4^"), which may mean either Galatia in Asia
Minor or the western province of Gaul. We find
two of the best MSS (K and C) reading TaXkiap
(Gaul) for TaXarlav (Galatia), and Eusebius (HE
111. iv. 9), Epiphanius (Hcer. li. 11), Theodore of
Mopsuestia, and Theodoret understand Western
Gaul to be meant in the passage. If the Apostle
visited Spain, as we have every reason to suppose,
it is probable that he passed tlvrough Southern
Graul and may have founded churches there to
which Crescens may have been sent as a delegate.
On the otlier hand, the fact that the other delegates
mentioned in the verse were sent to the east of
Rome has led some to think that Asiatic Galatia
is meant. The reference in the Apostolic Constitu-
tions (viL 46) is ambiguous, as Western Gaul might
be referred to as Galatia. Lightfoot thinks it
likely that Western Gaul is indicated, and that
the Apostle would certainly have A^Titten ' Galatia '
when referring to the province in the West. He
also holds that TaWiav (Gaul) is an early explana-
tory gloss which crept into the text of several MSS
(GcUatiam^, 1876, p. 31). The churches of Vienne
and Mayence both claimed Crescens as their
founder. Of the man himself nothing further is
kno^vn. His name is Latin, and he may have
been a Roman freedman. He is commemorated in
tlie Roman MartjTolojnr on June 27 and in the
Greek Menologion on >fay 30, where he is treated
as one of ' the Seventy ' and bishop of Chalcedon
(Acta Sanctorum, June 27 ; Menologion, May 30).
W. F. Bo\T).
CRETE, CRETANS — One of the largest islands
in the Mediterranean, Crete (Kpn^) lies 60 miles
S. of Greece. It is about 150 miles in length from
E. to W., and varies from 7 to 30 miles in width.
The greater part of it is occupied by ranges of
mountains, but the valleys are exceedmgly fertile,
and the climate is delightful. While the northern
coast has good natural harbours, tiie southern is
much less indented, the mountains in many parts
rising almost like a wall from the sea. In ancient
times Crete had very numerous cities ; Horace
(echoing Homer, II. ii. 649) describes it as ' centum
nobilem Cretam urbibus ' (Epodcs, vs.. 29 ; cf.
Virgil, jEn. n\. 106). The recent excavations of
early sites have furnished astonishing evidence of
a highly developed pre-historic civilization, with
' Minoan ' palaces and shrines, a ' Minoan ' art of
which that of Mycenae is only an ottshoot, and a
' Minoan ' script of which the Phoenician alphabet
is but an altered copy (EBr^^ vii. 421).
Tacitus (Hist. v. 2) commits a curious error in
suggesting that the Jews came originally from
Crete, and that the name JucUei was derived from
Mt. Ida. The Jews who resided in Crete in the
early Maccabsean period (1 Mac 10^ 15^) were of
course immigrants. In 67 B.C. the island was
annexed by Rome, and combined with Cyrenaica
to form a single province, which remained senatorial
under the Empire.
The ship in which St. Paul sailed from Myra for
Italy would under ordinary conditions have gone
north of Crete, but she was driven by stress of
weather to seek the shelter of the south coast.
Rounding the promontory of Salmone in the east,
she coasted as far as Fair Havens, where she
remained for some time weather-bound. In an
attempt to reach the better harbour of Phoenix
(now probably Lutro), she hugged the shore till
she rounded Cape Matala, when a violent E.N.E.
wind suddenly beat down upon her from the
central mountains of the island, and compelled her
to scud till she was able to get under the lee of
the small island of Cauda (Ac 27*-^*). See Fair
Haveks, Phcexix, and Cauda.
It is not known how Crete was first evangelized.
Cretan Jews and proselytes were present at the
first Christian Pentecost, and some of them may
well have been among the 3000 converts (Ac 2"-'").
It is hardly likely that St. Paul was idle while he
was perforce spending ' much time ' (ikoj-oO yfibvov)
near the city of Lasea (27*^*). The Epistle to
Titus, though perhaps not Pauline, reflects a
credible tradition which links the name of Titus
with Cretan Christianity. The need of the churches
of which he had the oversight was organization
(Tit 1'). ' The natural inference is that up to this
time the Christians of Crete had gone on without
any kind of responsible government, and that this
anarchic condition was one considerable cAuse of
the evidently low moral condition to which they
had sunk. Accordingly, the appointment of elders
was a necessary first step towards raising the
standard of Christian life generally' (F. J. A.
Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 1897, p. 176).
The Cretans were a brave and turbulent race,
hard to govern, with an evil reputation for avarice,
mendacity, and drunkenness. The writer of Tit.
266
CRISPUS
CROSS, CRUCIFIXION
<l notes a hexameter of Epinienides, a prophet of
llieir own — called by Plato Ouo^ av-qp (Laivs, i, 64'2
D) — who brands them as 'always liars, beasts, and
idle gluttons ' (Tit l^-). For this indiscriminate
condemnation, uttered with prophetic indignation
and scorn, there was much excuse. The Greeks
coined a special word (Kprrrl^eiv) for a kind of talk
and conduct which was characteristic of Crete, and
to out-Cretan a Cretan (wpb^ KpljTa \s.p-i)Tl^(iv) was to
outwit a knave (Plut. /Emil. 23, Lysand. 20).
LiTBRATtmu.— T. A. B. Spratt, TravOi and Retearehet in
Crete, 2 vols., London, 1865 ; A. J. Evans, Scripta Minoa, i.
Oxford [1909] ; C. H. and H. B. Hawes, Crete the Forerunner of
Greece, I^ndoii, 1909. JaMKS StRAHAN.
CRISPUS.— Crispus {Kpl<nro$) was the ruler of
the Jewish synagogue at Corinth (Ac 18") who ac-
companied St. Paul when he abandoned the syna-
gogue for an adjoining house, and who became a
Christian. Crispus was one of the few persons whom
St. Paul himself baptized in Corinth (1 Co 1"), the
Apostle usually leaving the baptizing to others ;
but Crispus was one of the first converts, and one
of uncommon importance, whose conversion cost
him dear, whilst it was a notable encouragement
to St. Paul. The example set by a man of such
eminence had considerable influence. His own
household became Christians with him ; and their
conversion seems to have inaugurated a large in-
gathering.
LiTERATURK.— Artt. in HDB, vol. i., on ' Crispus,' ' Corinth,' p.
4S1", and ' I. Corinthians,' p. 485» ; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostolic
.-If/e.i.a [London, 1897] 305-310; R. J. Knowlingr, EGT, 'Acts,'
1900 ; and G. G. Findlay, EGT, ' 1 Cor.,' 1900, ad locc.
J. E. Roberts.
CROSS, CRUCIFIXION.— The English word is
derived from the Latin o-w.-r through the French
croix (Old French and Middle Englisn, crois). The
Oreek aravpbs is wider in its meaning than the
English word, and includes the upright stake, crux
simplex, to which the criminal was bound or upon
which he was impaled, as well as the crux com-
posita, of various shapes. In the NT, however,
ffravpos is confined to the usual English significa-
tion, and is equivalent to crux. It was the instru-
ment upon which criminals suffered death, and the
references in the NT are chiefly to the crucifixion
of Jesus Christ, the instrument becoming the
.symbol of the cardinal doctrine of the Christian
faith, the atonement and the work of human re-
demption, and in general the gospel itself.
1. Archaeological. — The crossing of two lines at
right angles as a symbol not only antedates Chris-
tianity, but is of the remotest antiquity, being pre-
historic in origin. The primitive form of the cross
was probably the gammate cross {crux gammata)
known by the Sanscrit name of swastika, as it is
designated hy students of archaeology. The form
of this cross LC, used as a token of benediction and
good luck, has been found on the ruins of ancient
Troy, on the Hittite monuments, in Cyprus, and in
Greece. In pre-historic times it was used, according
to de Mortillet, as a .symbol of consecration and
not as a merely ornamental device. The gammate
cross has been found on ancient Buddhist remains,
and it was largely employed by the Buddhists.
It has also been seen upon jewels and weapons
amongst the Gallic, the German, and the Scandi-
navian peoples, in China, and Ashanti, and amongst
the South American Indians. Although it was
used by the early Christians as a prophylactic
symbol, it was often placed along.side the other
forms of cross. In Egypt the cross is found in the
paintings on the tombs in the form -Q-, as the key
of life ; and although its material origin is doubtful,
the symbolism clearly indicates the vital germ.
From Egypt its use extended to tlie Phajoicians,
and afterwards to all the Semitic tribes.
2. Historical.— The relation of the non-Christian
symbolism of the cross to that of the Christian
Church need not be discussed here, although the
connexion is held by some writers to be very close.
We are on sure ground, however, in tracing the
Christian doctrine of the cross to the historic basis
as found in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. TJiis
mode of execution was exceedingly ancient in the
Orient, and it was practised amongst the Pha;ni-
cians (Valer. ii. 7), the E^ptians (Thuc. i. 110),
and the Persians (Herod, ix. 120). Amongst the
Romans it was a punishment considered too de-
grading for the citizens of the Empire (Josephus,
Ant. XX. vi. 2. BJ ll. xii. 6, xiv. 9, V. xi. 1).
Cicero (in Verr. ll. v. 66) speaks of it as being the
severest penalty, reserved only for slaves ('servi-
tutis extremum summumque suppliciura'). It
was inflicted upon those convicted for highway
robbery, piracy, and similar crimes (Petron. Ixxii. ;
Flor. III. xix.), also for the public accusation of a
master by a slave, for sedition, tumult, or false
witness. The arbor infelix spoken of by Cicero is
suggestive of the penalty of crucifixion {pro Rabir.
iii. tf.). The Jews did not crucify their criminals
whilst they were alive, although dead bodies were
hanged by them to the accursed tree ; consequently
the execution of Jesus Christ was carried out by
the Romans. The Jewish mode of execution was
by stoning to death (Lv 20* 24i6- =», Dt 13'« W, etc. ).
There were generally two forms of cross used in
capital punishment : the crux simplex, which con-
sisted of a single stake to which the victim was
fastened or upon which he was impaled ; also the
crux compacta. The latter was made of cross
pieces of wood and took the form of : (a) the crux
andreana or crux decussata, in shape like the
Greek X ; or (6) the crux commissa, in the shape
of the letter T or Greek Tau ; or {c) the crux
immissa, in which the vertical trunk extended
higher than the transverse beams. It was upon
the last-named form of cross, according to the
testimony of the Fathers, that Jesus was crucified.
Matthew tells us (27*^) that the titulus was placed
over {iiravo}) the head of Jesus.
Crucifixion was pi'eceded by scourging {virgin
ccedere), according to the custom of the Romans,
after which the prisoner was compelled to carry
his cross, or at least the transverse portion of it,
to the place of execution. There the cross would
be uplifted, and the victim bound to it by cords
{tollere in crucem). Tlien he would be fastened to
it by three (or perhaps four) nails (Lipsius, de
Cruce, II. vii.), and piobablj- also supported by
ropes (Pliny, xxviii, § 46), and tiie placard or titulus
bearing the name of the criminal and his sentence
would be fastened to the upper portion. The con-
demned man would in the ordinary way die of
hunger and thirst in the course of time ; but in order
to shorten the duration of the agony, the legs
of the sufferer might be broken, altliough this
practice was not common amongst the Romans.
Nor would the Romans jiermit the removal of the
corp.se without special authorization.
Ihe historical account of the crucifixion of our
Lord agrees with all the above details of the mode
of execution. He was condemned (falsely) for
sedition and tumult. He was scourged, and com-
pelled, until He was relieved, to carrj' His cross.
His legs were not broken, it is true, because it was
found that He was dead already ( Jn 19^-- ^). The
brigands who were crucified with Him were sub-
jected to cruci/rafjium, but one of the soldiers
pierced His side with a spear to make sure that
He was really dead, and there flowed out 'blood
and water.'
To the Romans the cross had no religious signi-
CROSS, CRUCIFIXIOX
CROSS, CRUCIFIXIOX
267
ficance as it had in the East ; they merely regarded
it as the material instrument of a most degrading
punishment. The Hebrew Scriptures, on the other
hand, contain what may be regarded as suggestions
of the crucitixion, as m the case of the uplifted
brazen serpent in the wilderness (Nu 'il^"), the
piercing of hands and feet in Ps 22^"', also in the
suppressed passage, referred to by Justin Martyr,
formerly contained in Ps 96^* (LXX version, some
codices).
As the instrument of Christ's execution came to
be regarded in the early Church as the means of
human redemption, it became the symbol of the
Passion, and later still it was used as a sign of
protection and defence. Some of the earlier forms
of the crucifix represented the Lord as reigning
from the tree, the triumphant Saviour-King, with
no signs of agony. There is, however, no monu-
ment of the cross or crucifix remaining which
belongs to the 1st century.
The ceremony of making the sign of the cross is
of great antiquity, and is referred to by Clement
of Alexandria {Strom, vi. 11 [Pair. Grceca, ix. 305])
and by Tertullian in the 3rd cent, {de Cor. Mil.
iii. ), who felt it necessary to defend the Christians
against the charge of the heathen that they too
were guilty of idolatry in the worship of the cross.
The superstitious use of the symbol to ward off
evil may be traced to the middle of the 2nd cent.,
whilst the adoration and the exaltation of the
cross came in later.
3. The doctrine of the cross in the early Church.
— The doctrine of the cross, or the death of Christ,
and the doctrine of the resurrection formed the
essential teaching in apostolic Christianity. At
Pentecost, and in the earliest contact of Chris-
tianity ^vith Judaism, the fact of the resurrec-
tion, or rather the Christ of the resurrection, came
to the front. But it was always the Crucified
One who had been raised from the dead. The
crucifixion was an event which was familiar to all,
but the distinctive message was that God had put
His seal and approval on the sacrifice of Christ.
On each occasion in the Acts on which St. Peter
preached the doctrine of the resurrection, hecharged
the Jews with having crucified Jesus (Ac 2" 4*' 5*
10®). In his First Epistle he spoke of Jesus as
having borne our sins in His own body on the tree
(1 P 2^).
St. Paul in his address in the synagogue at
Antioch of Pisidia proclaimed the fact of the re-
surrection and laid the responsibility of the cruci-
tixion of our Lord upon the Jews (Ac 13"'®).
It was in his Epistles, however, that he laid down
specificall}- the doctrine of the cross. In his First
Epistle to the Corinthians he refers to the cross as
the central feature of his ministrj', and states that
he had determined to know nothing among them
save Jteus Christ and Him crucified (2*). It is a
double reconciliation which is thereby effected, be-
tween God and man, Jew and Greek. The enmity
is slain through the cross, and access is gained in
one Spirit unto the Father (Eph 2'«-i8). It was
the sole means whereby reconciliation and peace
between God and man were possible (Col 1^).
The cross was a stumbling-block to the Jews and
foolishness to the Greeks, but it was God's wisdom,
not discernible by the natural man and only truly
appreciated by those who are spiritual (l*Co 1).
In Gal. the curse of the cross is brought forward
(3*'). This curse was borne by Jesus Christ on
behalf of all men, both Jews and Greeks, for it
rests upon those who have not kept the whole
law, as well as upon those who have ignored it al-
together. Neither Jews nor Gentiles can be justi-
fied by the works of the law ; both alike are under
the curse and are to be justified by faith alone.
The curse is transferred to Christ as the sacrificial
victim, and the 'bond written in ordinances' ia
nailed to His cross, and taken otit of the way (Col
2"). This idea is very prominent in the symbol-
ism of the scape^at, the transfer of the curse
being represented in the light of the victim bear-
ing the iniquities of the people into the wilderness
(Lv IB*"-). The shame, ignominy, and disgrace
which were associated with the cross formed the cul-
mination in the humiliation of Him who ' was in
the form of (Jod and counted it not a prize to be
equal with Grod,' and it was the ground of the
glorious exaltation with which God invested Him,
and for which He received the name which is above
every name, and should receive the homage of all
things in heaven and earth and under the earth
(Ph 2®-"). 'He was crucified through weakness,
yet he liveth through the power of God ' (2 Co 13*).
The Epistle to the Hebrews (especially 9"=* 10)
develops the conception of the High-Priesthood of
Christ and demonstrates that He is the High
Priest of good things to come, having through His
blood obtained eternal redemption for us, and thus
He becomes the Mediator of the new Covenant.
By His redemptive work once for all we are sancti-
fied and perfected for ever through the offering of
His body.
The hope of the race for the future is based
upon the atonement, and the consummation of the
dispensation is associated with the sacrifice of
Christ as the Lamb which hath been slain. The
Lord of the Churches is to receive the adoration of
the Church throughout all ages because He hath
loved us and washed us from our sins in His own
blood and hath made us a kingdom and priests
unto God the Father (Rev !'• % ' Because of the
suffering of death' He is 'crowned ^vith glory and
honour' (He 2®). Throughout the eschatological
references of the Apocalypse, the power and dig-
nity of the Lamb upon the throne culminate in
the ascription of all praise and glory to Him who
is worthy because He has been slain.
From the references in the NT we gather that
the cross and the crucifixion of Christ became the
symbol of human redemption and of the doctrine
of the atonement. The doctrine of the cross was
the central truth in the early Church, confirmed
and completed in the fact of the resurrection.
Though a symbol of humiliation, disgrace, and
shame, it came to stand for the most glorious truths
of the salvation wrought for us by Jesus Christ
and as sjmonymous with the gospel itself.
That this was the doctrine of the cross amongst
the churches of the 1st cent, is evidenced by the
writings of the ApostoUc Fathers. Polycarp refers
to the blood of Christ as demanding vengeance
upon BUs persecutors {Phil, ii.) ; he also alludes to
the cross, when he affirms that he who rejects the
testimony is of the devU (viL ), and enjoins prayer for
the enemies of the gospel (xiL). The doctrine of
the cross is with Ignatius the central teaching of
his faith, and he lays great stress upon the ' blwd,'
the ' passion,' and the ' cross ' of Christ, so much
so that he vividly recalls the words of St. Paul.
The cross means to him salvation and is the pledge
of eternal life, but it is a scandal to the unbeliever
{Eph. xviii. ). The words t6 voBk are very frequently
used by Ignatius, for in our Lord's passion all men
must cue ; through Christ's sufferings the penitent
is to return to Grod ; Christ's passion the saint must
strive to imitate ; and it is the joy and peace of the
Church. The main endeavour of Ignatius in com-
bating the Docetic heresy was to prove that the
sufferings of Christ were real experiences, especi-
ally in Trail, ix. (see also Trail. Inscr. xL, Smyrn.
L iii. viL, Philadel. Inscr. iv. viiL).
(1) The death of Christ upon the cross is the
saerifieefor human guilt and sin. — The immediate
cause of Christ's death was the animosity of the
268
CROSS, CRUCIFIXIOlSr
CROSS, CRUCIFIXION
Jews with whom our Lord was brought into colli-
sion through His teachings, His ministry, and His
claims. In the condemnation and death of Jesus
all liuman sin was epitomized and focused. It
was the rejection of the Messiah by God's chosen
people who represented the race in its treatment
of the Son of God. The death of Christ was,
however, voluntarily borne by Him, who was will-
ing to sacrifice Himself and become tlie victim
of the sins and wrongs of humanity. It is plainly
and repeatedly taught by Christ and His disciples
that He gave Himself on our behalf and for our
sakes. The Greek prepositions ivrl, vwip, did, irepL
are used Avith respect to this transaction as well
as such terms as propitiation, reconciliation,
mediator, and ransom. The propitiatory rites of
the Mosaic economy are freely employed by the
NT writers, not merely by way of illustration but
also as types of Christ, who has in His death ful-
filled and consummated them all.
The whole scheme of human redemption must
be viewed in the light of Divine and perfectly
holy love. Love transfers to itself every aspect of
suffering that its object has to bear. Even the
sense of isolation and ' the dereliction ' of our Lord,
as it is termed, must be regarded as the transfer
that love alone is capable of making. Perfect love
is perfect sympathy and perfect interest, and the
mystery of the cross is the mystery of love at its
highest power and value. When love sacrifices
itself for sin it must entail suffering. Although
love is regarded as identifying itself with its object
in the sense of shame, disgrace, and degradation,
there is no confusion of moral issues. Christ knew
no sin although He was made sin for us. He was
pure, harmless, and undefiled, without spot or
blemish. Nevertheless He experienced sin as God
experiences it, whilst He experienced its effects as
man does (Forsyth, Tlie Cruciality of the Cross, p.
212). As there is in the identification of love the
act of putting oneself in the place of another, an
element of identification, which in some sense
amounts to substitution, is always involved.
It is important, however, to observe that the
death of Christ regarded as a penalty or an act of
suffering is not per se stated to be the propitiation
or the satisfaction offered to Divine Justice or the
Moral Law. It was the perfection of the offering
and the finished obedience culminating in the
death of the cross which won the acceptance by
God of the sacrifice. The moral value or the offer-
ing was the sacrifice of a complete and absolutely
perfect life which met and satisfied the claims
of the law. It was not the transfer of an exact
equivalent in suffering which constituted the worth
and efficacy of the atonement, but the offering of
a complete personality in holy obedience and full
surrender. Such was the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross,
(2) The redemption of mankind is wrought by
means of Christ s death tipon the cross. — The race
is under condemnation and a curse through sin,
l)ut Christ has taken the curse upon Himself, and
in doing so has made an offering for the whole of
mankind — a cosmic sacrifice by the life of perfect
obedience that the Law required. This righteous-
ness is imputed to all who exercise true faith in
Him, Whilst the holy love of God in Christ
makes it possible that sin should be transferred to
the Redeemer, it is faith on the part of the be-
liever which makes possible the imputation of
the righteousness of Christ to the sinner's account.
The man who believes in Christ appropriates the
righteousness of Christ as his own, by accepting
the sacrifice and the satisfaction rendered to the
eternal law of right as being offered on his behalf.
Thus there is on the part of the believer the identi-
fication of himself witli Christ in His perfect sacri-
fice. He lays his hand as it were upon the head
of the scapegoat, and lie makes the offering of the
Paschal Lamb his own act. Christ is to him
the expression and the fulfilment of the perfect
righteousness which he feels is expected of him
and that is worthy of him. Ideally all that Christ
did, accomplished in His life of perfect obedience
to the will of God, culminating in the death of the
cross, is appropriated by the believer as his own,
Christ's rigliteousness is transferred to the believer
in so far as he is united to his Saviour by living
faith. He can say with St. Paul, ' I have been
crucified with Christ, yet I live ; and yet no longer
I, but Christ liveth in me' (Gal 2'-«'), and 'That I
may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having
a rigliteousness of mine own, even that which is
of the law, but that which is through faith in
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith '
(Ph 3»). The true self is not the actual self, but
the ideal self, which the believer finds in his Lord.
In the life and character of the believer this ideal
is being continuously and progressively realized, in
such a manner that he dies to sin and rises with
Christ in the power of His resurrection, and is en-
abled more and more to live the Christ-life in the
world. By faith we are united to Christ in His
death, dying to sin, and are raised into newness of
life in His resurrection.
The death of Christ upon the cross secures the
forgiveness of sin for those who accept the Christ
and His sacrificial work on their behalf. In Him
we have our redemption, the forgiveness of sins
(Eph V, Col 1"), The demands of the Law are
satisfied, God's requirements are met in the perfect
life and personality of our Lord, the rightness of
the moral obligation is acknowledged, and the God
of Holiness can forgive. The need of forgiveness
is seen in the psychological fact that every man
requires, before he can make a fresh start in a life
of holiness, the consciousness that he is entering
upon a new, unstained, and unblemished chapter
of his life, and that the guilty past is blotted out.
The incubus of guilt must be removed, and he must
take up his life as if the past had not been. He
needs to know that he is in a right relation with
God, and that his ideal is yet attainable. The as-
surance of forgiveness is absolutely necessary ; for
although the Lord is full of mercy, and there Ls
always forgiveness with Him, yet the requirements
of the Law must be acknowledged and satisfied.
They have been fully met in the death of Christ,
and the acceptance of that offering has been sealed
in the resurrection of Christ from the dead.
The mystic union of the believer with his Lord,
which is constituted by love and wrought through
faith, results in the crucifixion of self to the world
and of the world to self (Gal 6'*). The spell of sin
is broken, and the believer is dead to its power ;
the violated law has no hold upon the believer.
He is one with his Lord in the love that sacrificed
itself to the death, and is kindled within the heart
of the man who accepts the sacrifice as made on his
behalf. The love which brought Christ to the
cross and the grace of God in Christ establish a
spiritual unity with Christ in all His sufferings and
His judgment upon sin, so that man's lower nature
is crucified -svith Christ and His blood washes away
sin and cleanses from all guilt. Thus the blood of
the cross becomes the symbol of that redemptive
grace which brings men back to God, and by
which the triumph of the Redeemer over sin and
death is achieved.
LiTERATURK.— O. Zbcklef, Daa Krexu Chrigti, 1875 ; H.
Fulda, Das Krexu wul die Krevuigung, 1878 ; C. C. Everett,
The Gospel of Paul, 1893 ; artt. on ' Cross ' and ' Cni(-iHxion '
in HDB, DCG, ERE, Smith's DB, Elii, CE ; H. P. Liddon,
Bamptan Uctureg for 18668 1878, p. 472 ff. ; R. W. Dale, Tk»
Atonement, 1878; T, J. Crawford, The Doctnin- of Holy
CROWN
CUBIT
269
Scripture refpeetingtAe Atonement, 1S71,-^ST4 ; J. Denney, The
Atonement and the Modem Mind, 1903; P. T. Forsyth, The
Crtieiaiity of the Cnm, 1809, The Work of Chruit, 1910.
J. G. James.
CROWN.— The word is used in tlie apostolic
writings of the NT (AV) to translate two Greek
words — ffTfipafOi and SidSrjfui,. The RV, however,
distinguishes between them and alM'ays translates
didSijua by the word ' diadem.' The latter term is
less frequently used, and signifies the official head-
dress of a king or a priest. It was originally
applied to the silken fillet of blue or purple mixed
with wliite used by the Persians to confine the
hair (Gr. 5ta5«w, ' to bind '). By and by the word
came to be applied to the ornamental head-dress
of the king, which was distinguished by its colour
and the pendants of gold or jewels attached to it.
The Persian diadem was adopted by Alexander the
Great, and came to be regarded as the special and
distinctive head-dress of royalty. Metaphorically
the word was used to indicate royal power,
dominion, or authority. Thus in Kev 12* 13' 19*-
the RV gives the correct translation ' diadems '
(AV 'croAvns'). In Rev 12^ the royal power of
the dragon is referred to, in 13' the power of the
beast, and in 19" the royal dignity of Christ.
The term ffre^voi (Lat. corona, Eng. 'crown'
[AV or RV]), on the other hand, is never used of a
kingly crown (cf. Trench, NT St/n.^, London, 1876,
§ xxiii. ). It refers to the chaplet or wTeath given
by the Greeks as a mark of victory, e.g. to the
\*inner in the games, or as a reward of talent, of
military or naval prowess, or of civil distinction,
wliile it was also worn on festive occasions and at
funerals. The Romans in the same way used the
term corona, and distinguished a great many
crowns .made of different materials to signi^
various achievements in war and peace. No fewer
than eight crowns are mentioned as rewards for
military prowess. Thus a crown or wreath made
of grass, seeds, or wild flowers was given bv the
inhabitants of a besieged city to the general who
raised the siege (corona obsidionalis). To the
soldier who saved the life of a Roman citizen was
given a \vTeath of oak leaves (corona civica). The
sailor who first boarded an enemy's ship received
a golden crown (corona navalis or classica). In
the same way the soldier who first scaled
the wall of a l)esie"ed city received the corona
muralis, also of gold; while a similar crown,
corona castrensis or vallaris, was given to the
soldier who first crossed the rampart (vallum) and
forced an entrance into the enemy's camp. The
Romans also distinguished three kinds of triumphal
crowns [corona triumphal is), one made of bay
leaves and worn round the head of the general who
secured a triumph ; another of gold held over the
head of the victorious general during his triumph ;
and another, also made of gold, sent by the pro-
vinces to the victorious commander. In the same
way the general who received only an ovation
obtained a crown of myrtle (corona ovalia), while
another crown of olive leaf (corona oleagina) was
worn by the soldiers of the victorious axmy as well
as by their commander.
The custom of wearing crowns or chaplets at
festive entertainments originated in Greece and
was transferred to Rome. These festal wreaths
were made of various shrubs and flowers, such as
roses, violets, myrtle, and ivy, while at marriages
the bride and bridegroom were both adorned with
wreaths, the bride plucking the flowers with her
own hand. The practice of crowning the dead
with garlands of flowers and leaves, which was
also taken over from Greece to Rome, probably
arose from the desire to honour the departed who
had fallen in war.
Thus we see that the ideas underlying the word
ffTi<papoi are neither dominion nor royalty but (a)
victory, honour, reward ; and (b) ioy. (1) The
conquering Christ in the Book of the Revelation
is described as wearing a crown (6* 14"), as are
also the devastating locusts (9^) and the ' woman
clothed with the sun ' (12'). Here the idea is that
of victory. (2) In the same way the Christian who
b victorious over the temptations of life obtains as
his final reward a crown of victory (1 Co 9^, Rev
210 3Uj This is particularly described as a ' crown
of life ' ( Ja 1", Rev 2") and ' a crown of glorj- that
fadeth not away'(l P 5*). Probably the 'crown
of righteousness ' of 2 Ti 4* is to be understood as
signifying not ' the reward which is righteousness,'
but rather ' the reward of righteous acts.' The
Apostle has fought the good fight, finished the
course, kept the faith, and as the reward of these
things expects to receive the victors cro\^"n, the
victors reward (cf. EGT iv. [1910] 178). The
crown of life and the crown of glory are undoubt-
edly to be understood in the sense of ' the reward
or crown which is life,' ' which is glory.' Probably
a saying of Jesus suggested the use of the word
j crown in this connexion (cf. EGT iv. 427). (3)
The ideas of victory and of joy are both present in
the use of the term by St. Paul to describe his
converts. The Philippian Christians are his 'joy
and crown ' (4'), i.e. the marks of his victory, the
cause of his rejoicing, his reward ; so the Thessa-
lonians (1 Th 2") are his ' crown of rejoicing.'
The same word is used of the ' crown of thorns,'
which probably was intended to mock the defeat
and humiliation of the ' King of the Jews.' It
marked the ironical contempt of the Roman
soldiers for the Jews. In the later history of the
Apostolic Church the question of the relation of
Christian converts to these ' crowns ' of the Roman
army and Emperors became a burning one, which
is discussed by TertuUian in his work de Corona.
LrrKRATTRE.— Liddell and Scott, Greek-Eng. Lexieon, and
Grimm -Thayer, s.rv. origami and Stojiyui; 'Vf. Sinith,
Dictionary of Greek and Roman AntiguUiet, 1868, ».r.
'Corona' ; HDB i. 529 ; EGT iv. v. ; J. B. Ligrhtfoot. PhiHp-
pians*, isrs, p. 157. w. F. Boyd.
CRYSTAL (r/jiWaXXoj, from Kpim, frost).— The
glassy sea before the throne of God is like unto
crystal (Rev 4*), the light of the New Jerusalem
like a crystal-clear jasper (21"), and the river of
the water of life bright (\apLrp6v) as crystal (22').
KpCxrraWos signifies either ice (glacies) or rock-crystal
(crystallum). For the purp«ose of the similes it is
immaterial which of these is meant, as both are
colourless and transparent, and either may be
used to convey an idea of ' the white radiance of
eternity.' The same ambiguity attaches to the
terrible crystal (or ice) in Ezk 1^, where the LXX
renders rng by epjAn-oXAoj. The ancients regarded
rock-crystal as a kind of congealed water, whence
its name in Hebrew and Greek. It is really the
most refined kind of quartz. It crystallizes in
hexagonal prisms with pyramidal apices. The
Romans carved it into vases and goblets, some-
times elaborately engraved. It was supplied to
them from the Alps and India. Its use is now
largely superseded by that of glass.
James Strahan.
CUBIT (Gr. -rffxvi, lit. ' forearm ).— The most
I important Hebrew unit for measuring length was
from the earliest times the cubit. This was
approximately the length of the forearm from the
elbow to the tip of the middle finger, and we find
very frequent use of this measure in the OT. Like
our own ' foot ' as a measure of length, this standard
was averaged at an early date, and many varied
attempts have been made by metrologists to fix
the exact length of the Hebrew cubit in English
inches.
270
CUP
CURSE
Theevidenceof the OT generally, and particularly
of Ezekiel, goes to show that both before and after
the Exile a longer and a shorter cubit were recog-
nized. We find ' the cubit of a man ' (Dt 3") dis-
tinguished from a lon<'er cubit used in the measure-
ment of Ezekiel's Temple (Ezk 40» 43'^). The
'cubit of a man' is the measure in every-day use
at the date of the writing of Deut. (probably in
the time of Josiah). Ezekiel in describing the
Temple of his vision uses a larger measure — one
hana-breadth longer than the ordinary cubit. As
the prophet's measurements correspond with the
details of Solomon's Temple, he probably adopts
the ancient cubit, generally used in the days of
Solomon, in order that his new Temple may be an
exact reproduction of the Solomonic edifice. The
Chronicler (2 Ch '3") speaks of the dimensions
of this first Temple as being 'after the former
measure.' Common tradition fixes the length of
the cubit as six liand-breadths, and we have ground
for concluding that the larger cubit used in build-
ing in the age of Solomon measured seven hand-
breadths.
It is remarkable that in E^pt (see F. L. Griffith,
'Notes on Egyptian Weights and Measures,' in
PSBA xiv. [1892] 403) two cubits were in use
from early times, viz.. the ' short' cubit of six and
the ' royal ' cubit of seven hand-breadths. The
' royal ' cubit can be fixed with practical accuracy
at 20-63 in. (Petrie, JEBr^ xxiv. 483*). Using this
as a basis, we can fix the * short ' Egyptian cubit
at 17 "68 in., being six hand-breadths of 2*95 in, or
24 finger- breadths of '74 inches. It is uncertain
whether the Hebrew system of measurement was
originally derived from Egypt or not, but the
similarity of the two systems makes such a con-
clusion extremely probable.
Kennedy in HDB iv. 909 brings forward evidence
which seems to show that the cubit of later Judaism
and particularly at the date when Josephus wrote
his histories, had been approximated to tiie Roman-
Attic standard cubit, which was measured from
the elbow to the knuckle of the middle finger and
was equal to 17*5 in. (cf. Smith, Diet, of Gr. and
Rom. Ant.", 1875, p. 1227).
The cubit was subdivided into the span, equal
to i cubit ; the palm or hand-breadth, equal to Jth
of a cubit ; and the finger-breadth or digit, 2'tth of
a cubit. Four cubits formed a fathom, and six
cubits a reed.
In the apostolic writings of the NT the word
' cubit ' is found only once, viz. Rev 21", where
the seer describes the angel going forth to measure
the walls of the New Jerusalem : ' and he measured
the wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four
cubits, according to the measure of a man, that
is, of an angel.' The measure used by the writer
here is the ordinary Grajco- Roman cubit, of which
400 went to the arddiov or arddios of the preceding
verse. The mention of ' an angel ' does not imply
any reference to the ' royal cubit,' but is, as Moftatt
(EGT, ' Rev.,' 1910, p. 484) remarks, ' another naive
reminder (cf. 19''- ^" 22^- ") that angels were not
above men.' Swete says: 'The measurements
taken by angelic hands are such as are in common
use amon^ men. . . . There is perhaps the further
thought tliat men and angels are crOvSovXoi. (19'" 22')
and men shall one day be la-dyye\oi ' (Swete, Com.
in loc.). W. F. Boyd.
CUP (irorfipiov). — The Eucharistic cup is called
by St. Paul ' the cup of blessing ' (t6 vor-fipiov t^j
ev\oyla.%, 1 Co 10^'). Various shades of meaning
have been found in the plirase : (1) the cup wliich
Christ blessed, making it for ever a cup of bless-
ing ; (2) the cup which has been consecrated by a
prayer of thanksgiving for use in the Lord's Supper ;
(3) the cup which brings blessing to the communi-
cant. The sacramental cup is usually, and very
naturally, supposed to have been connected in
Jesus' mind with the third and most sacred of the
cups which, in the ceremonial of later Judaism,
were handed round at the Passover. That third
cup was known as ' the cup of blessing' (nj-iji d\3),
and St. Paul, who had often received it, also appears
to be tacitly comparing and contra.sting witli it
'the cup of blessing which we (Cliristians) bless.'
The identification of the Lord's Suj)per with the
Passover is, it is true, a much-disputed point, but
even if the institution of the Eucliarist took place
at an ordinary meal, the cup used by our Lord may
well have been signalized, both at the time and
ever afterwards, as the new cup of blessing.
Another name for it was 'the cup of the Lord'
(I Co 10*'), i.e. the cup received from His hand,
signifying fellowship with Him and devotion to
Him, to drink from which made it morally impos-
sible for the communicant to share in the riot and
debauch of heathen banquets — to drink ' the cup of
demons.'
13y a Semitic figure of speech, one's lot or experi-
ence, joyful or sorrowful, regarded as a Divine
appointment, is compared with a cup which Gcd
presents to one to drmk. Thus the writer of Rev.,
saturated with prophetic ideas and imagery, speaks
of Divine retribution as ' the wine of the wrath of
God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his
anger' (M"; cf. 16"*). J AMES Steahan.
CURSE. — Traces of the early belief that curses
rightly pronounced had an inherent power can
hardly be found in the NT. The principal force
of the word is either as an expletive provoked by
passion from an undisciplined mind, or as a serious
and stron" assertion of the connexion between evil-
doing and woe. Sometimes the imprecation of
Divine wrath is present, with sternness or mere
rage in the appeal ; sometimes religious sanctions
are implicit, and part of the connotation of the
Heb. herem or ban is preserved ; and in one passage
(Gal 3'""'^) the word recurs in various forms four
times in as many verses, and its suggestions relate
to one of the deepest inysteries of the Cross.
In Ac 23'-- "• -' and Rev 22" the Gr. word used is
a form or compound of anatJi^ma {q.v.) ; and in
each case the form is in the NT peculiar to the
passage, though not unknown in later ecclesiastical
usage. The curse or oath was the invocation upon
themselves of the judgments of God if the conspira-
tors failed to do as they had covenanted with one
another. It was a religious bond such as fanatical
hatred has always been disposed to resort to, and
superstitious terrors were called in to ensure the
common purpose. In the passage from Rev. the
word is strengthened by a prefix, and made equiva-
lent to our 'execration.' The phraseology is at
least reminiscent of Zee 14", and includes, but
foes beyond, the reversal of the doom of Gn 3".
n the Holy City, as in the Jerusalem of the pro-
phet, will be found no more any person or thing,
execrated or execrable, and there will be no need
for the incidence of any Divine judgment. It is
an anticipation of a condition of moral purity
without any breach of right relationship among
the residente or between them and God ; but the
prophetic parallel suggests that the primary idea
IS that of security, the people dwelling safely in
the absence of any influence that would involve
moral peril.
Anotlier root occurs in the rest of the passages,
its usage passing from the general idea of prayer
through that of the effect of prayer in securing ill
to an enemy and ending with a partial personifica-
tion in which Ara becomes a goddess of destruction
and revenge. Almost without exception the thought
is that of a Divine visitation upon an offender, in-
CUSTOM
CYMBAL
271
volving grievous, though not necessarily permanent,
suffering. The simplest form is found in Ro 3",
whicli is a free rendering from the LXX of Ps 10'.
In Ro 12" also the meaning does not go much be-
yond ordinary blasphemy (cf. Mt 5**). James (S**-)
makes the curse of an individual a wrong done to
mankind, and thus protests against the Pharisaic
temper of Jn 7*, and traces the sin back to its
actual source, a defect in love for man being an
effect of the absence of love for God. ' Children of
cursing' (2 P 2") is a Hebraism (cf. Eph 2*, Lk 10«) ;
it may denote nothing more than the extreme
wickedness of the men referred to, though one is
disposed to see an allusion to the wrath of God, as
in Ps 95". "Nigh unto a curse' (He 6') recalls
Gn 3'''- ; such land looks like that described in the
original curse, and therefore rejection and ' to be
burned ' are its natural fate. The burning is ap-
parently final, or at least like the destruction of a
land by volcanic eruption (Dt 29^), for the thought
of purification by the burning up of noxious
growths is foreign to the context.
There remains only the critical reference in
Gal 3'*"^. The starting-point of the argument
is the impossibility on the part of anybodv of
compliance with the requirements of a legal re-
ligion or specifically of the Jewish Law ; for while
the Mosaic Law is to the forefront, the Pauline
use of the word for 'law' without the article is
significant, and the pronouns look beyond the
group of converts from Judaism. Hence every
legal religion lays upon its adherents the unavoid-
able curse of Dt 27*, w^hich again is cited freely
from the LXX. The curse evidently means humi-
liating hopelessness of attainment ; strive as he
may, the aspiring man is bound in the shackles of
his very nature, and cannot meet the claims which
his religion is recognized as justly making upon
him. ' He that doeth them shall live in them '
(Lv 18*) is a law of life, which in experience becomes
a doom. The only refuge left is a sure one, for
Christ became a curse for us and thereby redeemed
us from the curse of the Law. What that curse
means is shown in two particulars. The one is His
death by crucifixion, and the other the fact that
this death was endured not for Himself but for
others. Shame and penalty, rejection by God
(Mk 15"), gathered upon Him; and thus faith
became the permanent secret of righteousness.
Crucifixion can hardly be said to have been practised
among the Jews ; though there are many instances
of their exposing dead bodies on stakes or other-
■Nvise, and to that the citation from Dt 21^ relates.
To the Roman the shame of the punishment was
intolerable because of its association with slaves
and captives ; to the Jew it was an outrage upon
humanity. It meant the defilement of the land,
and the concentration upon the sufferer of the
wrath of God. It has been argued that Christ's
death in this way, though He was personally
sinless, was the formal inauguration of a better
method of salvation than Mosaism (but see C. C.
Everett, The Gospel of Paul, 1893). But neither
Jew nor Gentile would be likely thus to understand
it ; nor do such spectacular expedients appear to
enter into Grod's methods of salvation. The Paul-
ine thought is rather that Christ was made sin for
us (2 Co 5^) and a curse for us, bearing the penal-
ties of sin and thus etiecting our redemption.
LrrBRATTRK.— In additioa to Comm. on the passages cited, and
»rtt. on ' Ban ' in SDB and on ' Cxireing and Blessing ' in ERE,
see F. Weber, Die Lehren de* Talmud, 1880, n. 137 S. ; E.
Schiirer, HJP n. iL [1835] 60 £f. R. 'VV', MoSS.
CUSTOM. — 1. Custom in its primary significance
is habitual practice, on the part of either the indi-
vidual or the community. The Greek word idoi
implying both usage and habit is employed in the
■ NT to denote the routine of the priest's oflBce (Lk 1»),
the practice of attending the ceremonial feast
(Lk 2**), and detailed observance of ancestral prac-
tice or the Mosaic ritual (Ac 6" 16-' 21" 26» 28").
The formation of habit in individual conduct
through frequent repetition is a process well known
to the psychological student, but the origin and
development of custom in the community are in-
volved in some obscurity. The first step towards
the establishment of a polity and organized societv
is the formation of a ' cake of custom,' as Bagehot
terms it (Physics and Polities [ISS, 1872], p. 27) ;
but it is a matter of dispute as to the way in which
the ' cake ' was made, since it goes back to the re-
motest antiquity. The parities of circumstance
were in those far-distant days more prominent than
in the historical period, but it is thought by some,
as e.gr. Henry Maine, that the specific commands
and judgments of the ruler or sovereign preceded
the establishment of custom {Ancient Lauf^, new
impression, 1907, p. 4tl'.). Most probably it is a
collective product or a common creation. It is
generally field that custom was the precursor of
law and one of the chief elements in its evolution.
^^*hether amongst primitive peoples or in later
times, custom has a tremendous influence over the
actions of the individual and the community,
rivalling even the law itself, with its appropriate
sanctions. The law recognizes the force of custom
and usage, but apart from the legalized forms ;
whilst the individual is largely under the domina-
tion of habit, so the community is under the sway
of custom.
2. The word 'custom' in English, through the
associations of law and obligation, is extended to
cover what is connoted by the Greek tAos in its
signification of toll, tax, or duty. The State with
its authority and sovereign power becomes the
Ti\o%, but the term is used in a derivative sense to
include what is due to. the State, as custom in the
sense of toU. The tax-gatherer, 6 tcXwi't;s, collected
the enstom on behalf of the State or the King
(Mt 17*). In Ro IS' the payment of custom to-
gether with tribute, no less than fear and honour,
formed part of the obligation devolving upon the
Christian with respect to the higher powers, which
indeed are ' ordained of Giod.' J. G. Jaues.
CTVBIL (ici/M/SoXoF, from n'fiSoi, 'a hollow'),—
The word signifies one of a pair of brass or bronze
plates which make a ringing sound when brought
sharply together. The word appears only in
1 Co 13^, where KVfi^aXov dXaXcl^or is used to describe
the man whose lack of love despoils even his un-
doubted gifts of intellect and eloquence. The ad-
jective is better translated as 'clanging'; cf. the
cymbalum eoncrepans of Jerome on Gal 5*. Pliny
{ffX Praef. § 25) has an expression which is
suggestive : ' hie quem Tiberius Caesar cvmbalum
mundi vocabat ' ; and in modem days, Goethe is
said to have thought of 1 Co 13^ when he read
Byron's poems.
Little is known for certain of Je\<ish music in
the Apostolic Age, and we rely mostly on inference.
As a race the Hebrews did not deserve Cicero's
tribute to the ancient Egyptians, but they culti-
vated music and were probably influenced by the
Egyptians and Assynaiis (but cf. J. L. SaaLschiitz
[Geschichte und Wiirdigung der ilusik bei den
Hebrdern, 1829, p. 67], who believed that the Jews
preserved their own national music). Harmony
and counter-point were almost unknown, though
C. Engel (The Music of the Most Ancient Nations,
1864, pp. 320, 356) holds that the Hebrews were
acquainted with some form of harmony ; and,
consequently, much attention was devoted to form
and volume of sound, and to combinations of in-
struments. This accounts for the prevalence of
272
CYPRUS
CYRENE, CYRENIANS
percussion instruments, especially tliose, like the
cymbal, which had a shrill, clanying sound. Cym-
bals were in the hands of the chief musicians, and
were used to mark time, as they were used in
Egypt, Greece, and Rome, where tiiey played
their part in the festivals of Cybele and Bacchus.
From 1 Ch 15** we learn that cymbals were made
of brass, but, if we can trust Josephus (whose
account of Jewish music is at times perplexing),
thev were also made of bronze. He describes them
as large broad plates of bronze (Ant. vii. xii. 3).
In Wellhausen's 'Psalms' (Haupt's FB, 1898),
Appendix, there are two illustrations of Assyrian
musicians which make it plain that cymbals were of
two varieties : the one depicts bell-shaped cymbals
with handles which permit the player to strike
them together, the one on the top of the otlier ;
the second shows flat cymbals, similar to modern
dinner-plates, with cord handles, and these were
beat against each other sideways.
In the OT, to which one must turn for knowledge
of cymbals, the two words used are d^p^v? and
D'^¥^y. In Ps 150* the latter word appears, and
it has been supposed that ' loud cymbals ' are cas-
tanets (of. Engel, op. cit. p. 312), but Wellhausen
tliinks this very doubtful. Zee 14-" presents diffi-
culties to the exegete, but it is possible to compare
the noise of tinkling trappings of horses -with the
clanging of miniature cymbals. Cymbals are still
used in the East at religious and secular festivals
(see W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, new
ed., 1910, pt. iv. p. 698). Arcihijald Main.
CYPRUS (KuVpoj). — The name is given to a large
island in the N.E. angle of the Mediterranean, 46
miles S. of Cilicia and 60 miles W. of Syria. In
line weather the Taurus and the Lebanon ranges
are both distinctly visible from its higher ground.
Its greatest length from W. to E. is 140 miles
(including the eastern promontory, which is 45
miles long), and its greatest breadth 60 miles. It
consists mainly of two mountain ranges, running
E. and W. , separated by a wide and low-lying
plain, which is drained by the Pediaeus. Strabo
des(;ribes it as a land of wine, oil, and corn (XIV.
vi. 4). The fragrance of its flowers won for it the
epithet einbdrji. For centuries it derived a great
revenue from exports of copper and timber, the
supply of which has long been exhausted. The
word 'copper' itself comes from 'Cyprus.' The
island owed much to Phoenician and Greek colonists,
but it never developed the nobler aspects of Hellenic
culture and art. Its Oriental character always
predominated, and the Cyprian queen, whom the
Greeks identilied with Aphrodite, was really the
Astarte of Syria.
The Cypriotes never had energy enough to
establish themselves as an independent nation.
After having been successively under Assyrian,
Egyptian, Persian, and Greek influence, they be-
came subject to Rome in 57 B.C. Cyprus was at
tirst an Imperial province, but in 22 B.C. Augustus
gave it to the Senate in exchange for S. Gaul (Dio
Cass. liii. 12), so that St. Luke is strictly accurate
in calling the governor at the time of St. Paul's
visit ' the proconsul ' (dvdinraTos, Ac 13^). An in-
scription or Soli on the north coast of the island is
dated 'in the proconsulrship of Paulus,' who was
jirobably the Sergius Paulus of Acts (D. G.
Hogarth, Devia Cypria, London, 1889, p. 114).
The names of several other proconsuls of the
province are found on coins and inscriptions (op.
cit. Appendix). The presence of Jews in Cyprus
during the Maccaba;an i)eriod is indicatea by
1 Mac 15-^ and probably many others were
attracted to the island when Augustus farmed the
copi)er mines to Herod the Great (Jos. Ant. XVI.
iv. 5).
The part which Cypru.s played in the progress
of apostolic Christianity was singularly nonour-
able. She helped to lil)eralize the primitive Church.
Her Jewish population had the gospel preached
among them by Christians whom persecution
drove from Jerusalem after the death of Stephen
(Ac 11"), and some Christian Jews of Cyprus, along
with others from Cyrene, initiated a new move-
ment by preaching at Antioch ' to the Greeks also'
( 1 1^). This reading, rather than ' to the Hellenists,'
is required to bring out the contrast to 'Jews
only ' in the previous verse ; and where the MS
autuority is about equal the sense must decide.
Barnabas, who discovered St. Paul (11*") and be-
came his first comrade in missionary labour, was
a native of Cyprus. It was probably at the
instance of Barnabas that the island became the
earliest scene of their united evangelism (13*).
After preaching in the synagogues of Salamis —
the plural number indicates that the Jewish
colony was large — they went through the whole
island (13"), and Ramsay (Expositor, 5th ser. iii.
[1896] p. 385ft'.) contends that ditXdbvrei signifies 'a
missionary progress.' The verb, with the accusative
of the region traversed, occurs other eight times
in Acts (never in chs. 1-12), and also in 1 Co 16*,
each time apparently with this meaning, and it
seems to have been a terminus technicus in the
missionary language of the Apostle and the his-
torian. To travel across Cyprus by either of two
roads — the one inland, the other along the south
coast — would take only 3 or 4 days, but an evan-
gelistic tour would occupy a much longer time.
The Apostles had John Mark, Barnabas' cousin,
himself perhaps a Cypriote, with them as their
attendant (wtjp^ttjs, Ac 13*), but he deserted them
at Perga, and his conduct ultimately led to the
painful separation of the two leaders (IS*'"*').
Barnabas and Mark thereafter returned to Cyprus
(v.^*), probably to resume a joint-ministry, of which
no record has been preserved. Another Cypriote
was the 'early disciple' Mnason, who may have
been one of Barnabas ' converts, and who became
St. Paul's host in Jerusalem (Ac 2P'').
The other references to Cyprus are geographical.
Tiie ship which brought St. Paul back to Syria at
the end of his second missionary tour went straight
across the high seas from Patara to Tyre, Cyprus
being sighted — 6.vatl>avivTei is one of St. Luke's
many nautical terms — on the left, i.e. to north-
ward (Ac 2P). At the beginning of his voyage
from Cajsarea to Italy, his ship sailed round the
north side of the island, in order to get under its
lee, and to have the benefit of the current which
sets strongly westward along the coast of Cilicia
and Pamphilia.
The connexion of the Jews with Cypms ended
in disaster. In A.D. 117 they rose and massacred
240,000 of their fellow-citizens. To avenge this
appalling crime, Hadrian banished all the Jews
from the island, forbidding them to return on pain
of death. If at any time thereafter a Jew was
wrecked on the shores of Cyprus, he pleaded for
mercy in vain (Eusebius, HE iv. 6). The later his-
tory of the Cyprian Church lacks distinction. The
legendary discovery of St. Matthew's Gospel in the
tomb of Barnabas at Salamis gave the patriarch of
the island the right to sign his name in red ink ; and
the Council of Cyprus was convened for the purpose
of forbidding the reading of the books of Origen !
Liter ATURK.—E. Oberhummer, Die Insel Cypem, i. (Munich,
190;i] ; Perrot and Chipiez, PMnicie et Cypre, Paris, ISaS ;
M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Ki/iirus, Dihel und Homer, 1 vols.,
Berlin, 1898. JAMES STRAHAN.
CYRENE, CYRE N I ANS.— Cyrene (Kvpijvri), the
ca])ital of Cyrenaica, was an important city in N.
Africa, about equidistant from Alexandria and
DALMATIA
DAMASCUS, DAMASCENES 273
Carthage. It was founded by a colony of Dorians
in 631 B.C., and its inhabitants retained their
thoronghly Hellenic nature, though with some
mixture or Libyan blood.
Standing on a plateau 10 miles from the coast,
1800 feet above the sea-level, with a background
of mountains on the S., and in full view of the sea
to the N., the city was famous for its beauty, its
climate, and its fertility. It excelled in culture
as well as in commerce. It was the birth-place of
Aristippus, whose school of philosophy was called
the Cyrenaic, of Callimachus the poet, of Eratos-
thenes the father of geography, and of Carneades
the founder of the Kew Academy. The phrase
used in Ac 2''* to describe Cyrenaica, ri nipri t^s
Aj/3i>)ji t^i koto, Kvpn^rr/r, corresponds with Ai^vti tj
Tepl Kvfr^priy of Dio Cassios (liiL 12) and ^ rpit
Kvf>Ti»j}p AiiivTj of Josephus (Ant. XVI. vL 1).
After the time of Alexander, Cyrene was subject
to the Greek kings of Egj-pt. Jewish settlers
were attracted to it at an early period. Ptolemy
the son of Lagos (305-285 B.C.), 'being desirous to
secure the government of Cyrene and of the other
cities of Libya to himself, sent a party of Jews to
inhabit them' (Jos. c. Ap. ii. 4), and in all such
cities the Jews had equsd rights with the Mace-
donians and Greeks. Strabo (quoted by Jos. Ant.
xrv. vii. 2) says that the poptilation of Cyrene
consisted of citizens, husbandmen, strangers, and
Jews. The second book of Maccabees is stated to
have been ^vritten by Jason of Cyrene (2 Mac 2^).
The territory of Cyrene was left to the Romans by
Ptolemy Apion in 95 B.C. Cyrenaica and Crete,
being separated by no great expanse of sea, were
made into a dual province, Creta et CyrencE, which
at the division of the provinces in 27 B.C. became
senatorial. Under Roman government the Jews
had their ancient privileges confirmed (Jos. Ant.
XVI. vi. 5).
Cyrenians played an interesting and important
part in the expansion of the primitive Church.
Simon of Cyrene (6 Kvpr\vaioi in each of the Synop-
tists, Mt 27^-, Mk 15", Lk 23"«) was the cross-bearer,
and his sons Rufus and Alexander were Christians
well known to St. Mark's first readers (Mk 15*').
Rufus may be the ' choice Christian ' {rbr (KXexTdf
ip KirptV) of Ro IG'', whose mother had at some time
' mothered ' St. Paul. Jews and proselytes from
Cyrenaica were present at the first Chnstian
Pentecost (Ac 2*"). Cyrenian Jews resident in
Jerusalem, where they had a Hellenistic synagogue,
were among the narrow-minded antagonists of
Stephen (6^) ; but, on the other hand, Cyrenian
Jewish Christians, progressive in thouglit and
action, were among the original founders of Gentile
Christianity in Antioch (II-*), and Lucius of CjTene
was one of a number of prophets and teachers in
that city who are credited with the organization of
the first mission to the nations (13'). A tradition
which cannot be called well-founded makes Lucius
the first bishop of Cyrenaica.
An insurrection in the reign of Trajan, in which
the Jews of CjTcne massacred many Greek and
Roman citizens, led to great disasters. The beauti-
ful city was destroyed by the Saracens in the 4th
century. Extensive rains still attest its former
magnificence.
LrreRATtnuL— C. Ritter, frdfaoidc, u [Berlin, 1822]; A. F.
Gottscbick, GeseA. der Grundung und Bhtte det hell. Staatet
in Kyrenaika, Leipzig, I&d*; G. Haimann, La Cirenaica,
Borne, laS2; D. G. Hogarth, in Monthly Review, Jan. 1S94.
James Strahax.
D
DILMATIIL (AaX/wtrro).— Till about the middle
of the 1st cent, this term denoted the southern
part of the Roman province of Illyricum (q.v.).
Thereafter it began to be extended to the whole
province. Both Pliny and Suetonius reflect this
change. For a time the two terms were con-
vertible. From the Flavian period onward Dal-
matia was the word regularly usetl. St. Paul, who
consistently gave geographical names their Roman
sense, first employed the old provincial term (Ro
15'"), but in his last Epistle (2 Ti 4'* occurs in what
is generally regarded as a genuine Pauline frag-
ment) he adopted the new designation. In his own
missionary progress he went as far as the frontiers
of Illyricum (m<xp* Tov'TXkvpiKov), but probably did
not enter it. His lieutenant Titus took possession
of Dalmatia for Christ. James Strahan.
DAMARIS. — Damaris was converted by the
preaching of St. Paul at Athens (Ac 17**}. The
name is probably a corruption of Damalis (' heifer '),
a popular name among the Greeks. St. Chrysostom
(rfe Sacerd. iv. 7) makes Damaris the wife of Dion-
ysius the Areopa^te, as does the Latin of Codex E
('cum uxore suo'), though the Greek has only 'a
woman.' W. M. Ramsay {St. Paul, 1895, p. 252)
suggests that she was one of the educated ircUpcu.
She seems to have been a person of some import-
ance, since her name is mentioned, and it is open
to doubt whether a prominent Athenian woman
would have been present. Codex Bezae omits all
reference to her.
VOL. I. — 18
I>rBtATiniB. — F. Blass, Cotn. hi loe. ; W. M. Ramsay, The
CJutrek in the Roman Empire, London, 1S93, p. 161 ; J. F^ten,
ApoiielgetehiehU. FYeiburg L B., 1S93, p. 337.
F. W. WORSLEY.
DAHASCUS,DAMA8CEIIES.— Damascus (Aa^cur-
k6s) cannot now be regarded as the oldest city in the
world, but it has a surer title to fame in its possession
of the secret of eternal youth. While Tadmor and
Palmyra, Baalbek and Jerash, have only a ' glory
hovering round decay,' Damascus is still ' the
head of Syria,' the queen of Oriental cities. The
creations of architectural genius have their day
and cease to be, but Damascus is the perennial
gift of Nature. The green oasis between Mount
Hermon and the desert must always be a theatre
of human activity. Wheresoever the river comes,
there is life. Damascus has no means of self-
defence, has never done anything memorable in
warfare, has been captured and plundered many
times, and more than once almost annihilated, but
it has always quickly recovered itself, and to-day
the white smokeless city, embowered in its gardens
and orchards and surrounded by its hundred villages,
i is to every Arab what it was to young Muhammad
I gazing down upon it from the brow of Salahiyeh —
j the symbol of Paradise.
During the centuries of Greek and of Roman
■ sway in Svria, Damascus had to yield precedence
to Antiocli. The Hellenic city in the Levant
became the first metropolis of Gentile Christianity,
i and organized the earliest missions to the \N estem
i nations. Yet in a sense the religion of Europe
274
DARKNESS
DATES
came by the way of Damascus, which was tlie scene
of the conversion of the greatest of all mission-
aries. It is in connexion with this event alone
that the city is ever mentioned in the NT. The
story is told three times in Acts (9*-» 22»-" 26'-«').
In the 1st cent, of our era the Jewish colony in
Damascus was large and influential. During a
tumult in the reign of Nero 10,000 Jews were
massacred. Josephus indicates the extent of
Jewish proselytism in the city when he states that
the Damascenes ' distrusted their own wives, who
were almost all atldicted to the Jewisli religion'
{BJ II. XX. 2). It is not known when or how
Christianity first came to Damascus. There were
doubtless Syrian Jews in Jerusalem at every feast
of Pentecost, though none are mentioned in Ac 2.
Damascus was the first of the ' foreign cities ' (Ac
26") from which the Jewish authorities resolve<l to
root out the Nazarene heresy. St. Paul came to it
as a voluntary inquisitor, to call the Christian Jews
to account for their apostasy. He was armed with
• the authority and commission of the chief priests '
(Ac 26'-).
' In a certain sense the Sanhedrin exercised Jurisdiction over
every Jewisli community in tiie world. ... Its orders were
regarded as binding throiijfhout the entire domain of ortiiodox
Judaism. It liad power, for example, to issue warrants to the
Contrre(rations(syna(;o(j:ues)in Damascus for the apprehension of
the Christians in that quarter '{Schiirer, JIJP ii. i. [1885] 186).
St. Paul had instructions to deal summarily
'with any that were of the way' (Ac 9'^), but the
letters which he carried ' for the synagogues ' (9-)
were never delivered, and his 'commission' (26'-)
was never executed. One of the Christians whom
he intended to ' bring bound to Jerusalem' (9'^)
baptized him (9'**), and ' with the disciples who
were at Dainascus ' (9'^) he enjoyed his first
Christian fellowship. None of them were among
the confessors who afterwards haunted him 'with
their remembered faces, dear men and women
whom' he 'sought and slew.' In Damascus he
' preached Jesus ' (9™), the substance of his gospel
being ' that he is tiie Son of God,' ' that tiiis is the
Christ' (920- =2). The incident of St. Paul's escape
from conspirators by his being let down over the
city wall in a basket (q.v.) is recorded by the
wnter of Acts (Ac 9^"'*), and confirmed in one of
St. Paul's own letters (2 Co IF-). While St. Luke
ascribes the i)lot against him to the Jews, St. Paul
relates that it was the etlinarch under Aretas the
king who guarded the city of the Damascenes to
take him. The two versions of the story can be
reconciled by supposing that the governor turned
out the garrison and set a watch at the instigation
of influential Jews, who represented St. Paul as a
disturber of the peace of the city. The alleged
ascendancy of the Nabatseau king in Damascus at
that time raises a difficult historical problem,
which has an important bearing upon the chrono-
logy of the primitive Church. This point is dis-
cus.sed under ARABIA, Aretas, Ethnarch.
LiTBRATiRR.— G. A. Smith, IIGIIL, 1897, p. 641 ff. ; Bae-
deker, Uandbook to Syria and Palestine, 1912, p. 29811. ; W.
Smith, Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Geog. i. [1856] 748; R. W.
Pounder, St. Paxil and his Cities, 1913, p. 58 ; H. Macmillan,
Gleaninnsin Holy Fields, 1899, pp. 101, 114; E. B. Redlich,
St. Paul and his Companions, 1913.
James Straiian.
DARKNESS.— See Light and Darknp^ss.
DART.— See Armour.
DATES.— The dates of the Apostolic Age are
interlinked with those of the NT as a whole. No
•single date is fixeil with the absolute precision
which modern historical science demands in the
case of recent or contemporaneous cljronology.
Although some individual dates are so nearly agreed
upon that all practical ends aimed at in chronology
are secured, yet, in the words of W. M. Ramsay,
' No man can as yet prove his own opinion about
chronology and order in the New Testament to the
satisfaction of other scholars ' (Expositor, 8th ser.,
ii. [1911] 154). In re-stating the information ac-
cessible on these dates, it will be well to exhibit
clearly the limits of the apostolic period, to repro-
duce some Iloman Imperial dates, to fix some
pivotal points which may serve as landmarks, and
to determine the times of some of the important
events in the life of tlie Christian community so
far as they can be related to the above. What
has been said of tlie dilliculty of reaciiing indisput-
able results will be found to be especially true of
the last part of this task.
I. General Li hit Dates.— In its broadest ac-
ceptance (in ecclesiastical history) the Apostolic
Age begins with the birth of Jesus Christ (usually
reckoned as 4 B.C.), and ends with the passing of
the hast of the apostles from the scene of action, i.e.
the death of John in the reign of Trajan, or, for
the sake of convenience, a.d. 100. In a narrower
sense, the first 33 years of this general period are not
included in the Apostolic Age. They constitute an
epoch by themselves. The problems raised in them
are connected with the life and work of Jesus, and
the story is told in tiie Canonical Gospels. In this
definition of it, the Apostolic Age begins M'itii the
Day of Pentecost, or at the point M'here the author
of Acts takes up the story ; and it ends with the
last of the apostles. In a still narrower sense, the
])criod beginning with the Fall of Jerusalem (A.U.
70) is thrown off' on the ground that ' NT history
may fitly be said to close with the great catastrophe
of A.D. 70' (Turner in JIDB i. 415''). This limita-
tion may be further justified by the fact tiiat the de-
struction of the Temjde established a new order of
things not simply with reference to Judaism, but
also to the whole apostolic activitj', and that the
only items of importance in Christian history that
can be included in a chronology subsequent to that
event are the dates of some apostolic (or other NT)
writings.
The date of the Crucifixion. — Since the Apostolic
Age begins with the Day of Pentecost, the question
of the year in which the Crucifixion occurred falls
to be briefly reviewed here. The line of departure
for the chronology of the Crucifixion is given by the
Gospel narratives. These name both the Koman
and the Jewisli rulers of the day. The Iloman
Emperor was Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), the procurator
of Juda;a was Pontius Pilate (A.D. 26-36), the high
priest of the Jews was Caiajdias (A.D. 25[?]-34[?]).
Since Pilate must have been i)iocurator for two or
three years before the case of Jesus came for trial
(cf. Jos. Ant. XVIII. iii. 1-3, BJ ll. ix. 2-4), and
since, according to St. Luke, the wliole ministry of
Jesus falls after the 15th year of Tiberius (A.D. 29,
if sole reign is meant, and 27, if co-regency with
Augustus), it follows tihat the earliest year for the
Crucifixion is 28.* The latest limit is fixed by the
fact that after 34 Caiaplias was no longer high
priest. Between 28 and 34, however, the deter-
mination of the exact year is facilitated by the
astronomical calculations as to tiie coincidence of
Passover with the day of the week implied in the
Gospel narrative. There is a margin of uncertainty
on this point ; but, whichever way the perplexing
problem is solved, the year 29 or 30 still satisfies
the conditions.t As between the two years to
which the discussion narrows down the choice, the
year 30 seems upon the whole, in view of traditional
as well as internal grounds, to be the more satisfac-
tory.
* The question is somewhat complicated hy the uncertainty
tiA to the lenarth of the ministry of Jesus (cf. h. Fendt, Die Dauer
der Offentliehev Wirksainkeit Jesu, 1906; W. Homanner, Die
Daui-r der offentUchen Wirksamkeit Jesu, 1008).
f I«"or full discussion see Turner in UDB i. 410 ; cf. also art.
'Dates "in DCG\. 413.
DATES
DATES
275
The net results arrivetl at for limiting dates,
therefore, are :
(l)The Apostolic Church =4 B.C.-A.D. 100.
(2) The Apostolic Age = A.D. 30-100.
(3) The Apo6tolic £ra=A.D. 30-70.
II. liOMA y iMPERls L Da tes. — Jesus Christ was
crucitie<l during the reign of Tilierius, juid more
precisely in the lotli year of that Emperor's sole
rule, and the 17th, or 18th, of his co-regency with
Augustus. Tiberius was followed by Caius Cali-
gula in A.D. 37. Caligula was succeeded by Claud-
ius in 41. Nero followed Claudius in 54, and was
supplanted in 68 by Galba. Otho succeeded Galba
in 69, and was followed by Vespasian in 70. Ves-
pasian was followed by his son Titus in 79. Domi-
tian came next in 81, reigning until 96. Then came
Nerva, whose reign lasted till 98 ; and, so far as the
Apostolic Age was concerned, Trajan closed the suc-
cession, ascending the throne in 98 and reigning till
117.
A.D.
AJ>.
Tiberius
. 14-37
_
. 70-79
Calijfula
. 37^1
Titus .
. 79-81
Claudius
. 41-54
Domitian
. 81-96
Nero
. 54-68
Nerva .
. 96-98
Galba .
. 68-69
Trajan.
. 98-117
Otho .
. 69-70
III. Pi roTAL Dates. — Close scrutiny brings into
measurably clear detail the following hxed points
in the apostolic chronologj', which, therefore, may
serve as general landmarks.
1. The rule of Aretas OYer Damascus. — In un-
ravelling the complications of the problem raised
by the mention of an ' ethnarch of Aretas ' by St.
Paul (2 Co 11**), it must be borne in mind that
Rome governed the subject territories of Asia either
directly or through subject princes. Before 3S-34
and after 62-63 Damascus was under direct Roman
administration. This is made clear from the extant
Syrian coins of these years, which bear the heads
of the Roman Emperors Tiberius and Nero and
do not allude to subject rulers. Since some allusion
is always made where subject princes inter^'ene,
the case seems clearly made out that only after 34
and before 62 could a Nabataean king have secured
ascendancy at Damascus. How this came about,
however, is not definitely known. It could certainly
not have been due to rebellion or any other form of
violence. And if it was brought about peacefully,
it is probable that it was done upon the initiative,
or by consent, of Caligula, who is kno%vn to have
encouraged the devolution of as much autonomy on j
the native dynasts as was consistent with Roman
suzerainty. The Nabatiean ascendancy in Damas-
cus was thus near its beginning during the last
years of Aretas (Harithath) rv. For the accession
of this king is placed by Josephus {Ant. XVI. ix. 4)
in connexion with certain events in the latter part
of the reign of Herod the Great. His immediiate
successor Abia ruled under Claudius and was a con-
temporary of Izates, of Adiabene, against whom he
waged war upon invitation of certain malcontents
and traitors (.4ri<. XX. iv. 1). The probable limits of
his reiioi thus appear to be 9 B.C. and A.D. 39 or 40
(cf. CIS, pt. ii. 197-217 ; also Sehiirer, JJJPl. ii. 357,
n. i. 66, 67). The 'governor (ethnarch) of Aretas'
referred to by St. Paul must therefore have acted his
part of guarding the gates of Damascus before the
year 39. But how long before is not certain. And
since from Gal 1"' it is clear that Saul returned to
Damascus as a Christian leader after a period of
three jears spent in Arabia, and the flight from
Damascus (2 Co II*-) cannot be identified %vith any
later event than this visit, his conversion must have
taken place not later than 36, and perhaps several
years earlier. See also art. Aretas.
2. The death of Herod Agrippa I. — According to
Josephus (Ant. XIX. viii. 2, BJ II. xi. 6), Agrippa
died at the age of 54, at the end of the seventh
year of his reign, four of which had been passed
under Caligula and three under Claudius ; Josephus
also makes it plain that the three years that fell
under the reign of Claudius were the period of
Agrippa's sole rule over the whole of Palestine,
and that he had been made king over the whole of
Palestine by Claudius immediately after his acces-
sion {Ant. XIX. v. 1, BJ II. xi. 5). Since Claudius
succeeded Caligula on 24th Jan. 41, the death of
Agrippa must be dated in 44. This conclnsion
harmonizes with the circumstance that the festivi-
ties at Caesarea during which he was stricken with
his fatal illness were being held in honour of the
safe return of the Emperor from Britain {awmipia%.
Ant. XIX. viii. 2) in the year 44 (Dio Cass. Ix. 23 ;
Suet. Claud. 17). But if this was the occasion for
the celebration, the time of the year for it was in
all probability the late summer or early autumn,
since news of the return of the Emperor must have
taken some time to reach the East. The j'ear 44
is thus fixed as the date of the events in Ac 12,
and at the same time serves as a tenninus ad quern
for all that precedes.
3. The proconsolship of Gallio in Achaia. — L.
Junius Gallio (Ac 18'-), brother of the philosopher
Seneca and mention^ by him in aflectionate
terms {Quest. Nat., Preface), but adopted by the
rhetorician Gallio, served a proconsulship of one
year in Achaia some time between 44 and 54. The
fact of his residence in Achaia is certified bjr Seneca,
who alludes {Ep. XVIII. i. 104) to his having l)een
obliged to leave that province on account of a fever.
It is further attested by the mention of his name
in an inscription found near Plataea in which he is
designated as a benefactor of the city : 'H toX/j
nXaratcwj' Xwi^iov 'lov]¥iov TaWluva 'Ariarop [dfdO}-
xoTov Toy iavrijs eycpTfe'rjjv]. But, since neither of
these references to Gallio's experience in Achaia is
associated with any date, the exact year of his pro-
consulship was left to be determined in the earlier
computations upon purely conjectural grounds ; and
these yielded no palpable gain in the direction of
greater fixity.
Thus a great variety of resalts was reached : Anirer (de Tem-
porum . . . Ratione, 1833, p. 119X a.d. 52-54 ; WieaeIer(CAfYmo{.
des apottcL ZeitaUen, 1848. p. 119), Lewin {Fa*U Saeri, 1866,
p. 299X BUaa {Ada Apott., 1895, p. 23), Harnack (Gaeh. der
aUekrUtL LU., 1897, u. 237X 48-60 ; Tomer {HDB L 417t>), after
44, {nrobably after 49 or 50 ; Hoennicke (CKnm. det Leben* des
ApogteU Pauliu, 1903. p. 30), at the latest 53-54; demoi
(PatUus, 1904), 53-53 ; O. Holtzmann (NTZG*. 1906, p. 144),
53 ; and Zahn {Introd. to ST, Eng. tr., 1909, iiL 470), 53-54.
This uncertainty has been altogether removed
by the discovery at Delphi of four fragments of an
inscription naming Gallio and linking bis proconsul-
ship with the 26th acclamation of Claudius as
Imperator. The fragments were fitted together
and the inscription was given to the public by
fimUe Bourguet {de Rebus Delphicis Imperatorice
jEtatis Capita Duo, MontpeUier, 1905). The dis-
covery and its significance were discussed more or
less fully by Deissmann {Paulus, 1911, pp. 159-
176 ; Eng. tr., 1912, Appendix I. p. 235), OfFord
{PEFSt April 1908, p. 163), and Ramsay {Expositor,
7th sen, vii. [1909] 468). The text Ls not in a per-
fect stat« of preservation, but is sufficiently clear,
with the restorations which have been proposed
by Bourguet, to cover the chronological point
under dispute. It was a letter sent by Claudius
when he bore the title of Imperator XXVL (KG
na-njfyraTplSos). It names Junius Gallio as the
friend of the writer and proconsul of Achaia:
fioi,]Nios rAAAiaxo[0aoj] mot KAI [ire^-
IIATOS;. This meaning of the inscription was first
pointed out by A. J. Reinach {BEG, 1907, p. 49),
and is independently reached or otherviise accepted
by Otford (/oc. cU'), Ramsay {loc. eit.), Clemen
{ThLZ, 1910, col. 656), Loisy (with his usual hyper-
critical caution. Heme d'hist. et de lit. relig..
276
DATES
DATES
March, April, 1911, pp. 139-144), and Deissmann
{loc. cit.). The exact date of the acclamation of
Claudius as Iinperator xxvi. is not jjjiven any-
where. But, since from 11. Cagnat's tables (Cours
d'6piffraphie latine^, 1898, p. 478) it appears that at
the liieginning of 52 Claudius was Imperator XXIV.
and at the end Imperator XXVir., l>oththe 25th and
the 26th acclamations must have been issued some
time in 52, and in all probability after victories
secured duringthesummerseason. ButifGallio was
proconsul when the document was sent to Deljjhi,
since the proconsular year was fixed by Claudius as
beginning April 1 (Dio Ca.ssius, Ivii. 14. 5 ; Ix. 11. 6,
17. 3), Gallio's term of office falls in the year begin-
ning with the spring of 52. Cf. art. Acts of thk
Apostlks, VI. 3.
i. The recall of Felix and the accession of
Festus. — Tiie appointment of Felix was one of tlie
later acts of the Emperor Claudius ; and Nero on
his accession confirmed it {BJ il. xii. 8, xiii. 2-7 ;
Ant. XX. viii. 4, 5). The exact year of the event
is given by Eusebius (Chron. [Armen. VS and
some MSS of Jerome's tr.]) as the 11th year of
Claudius. Tacitus {Ann. xii. 64 ; cf. Jos. BJ II.
xii. 7f.), in his account of the troubles leading to
the dej)Osition of Cumanus, placed the event in
connexion with the year 52. Although Harnack
has drawn a different conclusion from the Eusebian
Chronicle, it seems upon the whole that these three
sources agree in pointing to the year 52 for the
arrival of Felix in Palestine, or, at all events, for
his assumption of the proconsulship. Much more
complicated, however, is the question of the ter-
mination of Felix's tenure of office. There is no
doubt that, like Cumanus, Felix had by his misrule
made himself the object of hatred ana the ground
of complaint on the part of the Jews, and that,
owing to representations made by the latter, he
had fallen into disfavour, and had escaped con-
demnation only by the timely intercession of his
brother Pallas (Josephus, Ant. xx. viii. 7-9).
According to the apparent meaning of Josephus'
words, this occurred after Festus had assumed
control of Palestine in succession to Felix. But
Tacitus informs us that Pallas had already fallen
from his place as Nero's favourite in 55 {Ann. xiii.
14), i.e. when Britannicus was 13 years of age.
With this Dio Cassius (Ixi. 7. 4) agrees.
Assuming that Josephus is correct, and taking
in addition the testimony of Eusebius (Chron.),
who places the accession of Festus in the second
year of Nero, Harnack {Gesch. der altchristl. Lit.
1. 235) and Holtzmann {NTZG, p. 128 f.) place the
vindication of Felix in 55 and the arrival of Festus
in Palestine in 56. But, while this course seems
the natural one upon the narrow range of evidence
taken into account, it is precluded when the follow-
ing considerations come into view. — (1) The sedition
of 'the Egyptian' (Ac 21*^) occurred during tiie
procuratorship of Felix, and some time earlier than
the arrest of St. Paul. But Josephus informs us
that it took place during the reign of Nero, or
after 54 {BJ II. xiii. 5 ; Ant. XX. viii. 6). If the
downfall of Felix is to be dated before 56, the
arrest of St. Paul must have been made in 63 or at
the latest in 54, and the uprising of ' the Egyptian '
still earlier, or from two to four years before the
accession of Nero. — (2) The marriage of Felix and
Drusilla is, according to Josephus, rendered impos-
sible before 55. For she had been given by her
brother Agrippa to Azizus of Emesa, being herself
15 years of age, in 53 {Ant. XX. vii. 1). Butaccord-
ing to Ac 24^* she wa,s married to Felix at the time
of St. Paul's appearance before the procurator.
Either, therefore, the arrest of the Apostle and the
end of the proconsulship of Felix must be dated
several years later than 63, to allow time for the
necessary development of the intrigues by which
Felix lured her to unfaitiifulness to her husband
and ])er8uaded iicr to marry him, or these events
must be condensed within an incredibly short
interval. Besides, between the appearance of St.
Paul before Felix and Drusilla and the deposi-
tion of Felix two years must be allowed (Ac 24*). —
(3) Felix had sent certain Jewish leaders to Home,
wiiere they were imjtri.soned pending trial. Jos-
ephus says that in his own 27th year (63-64) he
went to Rome to negotiate the liberation of these
prisoners. But if Felix ceased ruling Judnea in 56,
these men were kept confined for the unparalleled
period of 8 or 10 years. If, on the other hand,
Felix remained in office until 60, their imprison-
ment lasted only 4 years. — (4) The length of the
procuratorship of telix may be approximately
computed from a comparison of Ac 24"* and 24''".
In the former passage Felix is said to have already
ruled 'many year.s.' It would be impossible to
construe this as meaning less than three years. In
the latter his rule is reported as continuing for
two years longer, thus giving a minimum of five
years. This is, however, a bare minimum, and
may well be doubled without violence to the
situation. If, therefore, the computations which
fix the date of the appointment of Felix be correct
as given above, and the year 52 is approximately
the correct time of that event, the year 59 or 60
would be a rea.sonable one to fix on as the time of
the end of his rule.
The only consideration that offers any diflSciilty in the way of
this conclusion is the fact that Josephus associates the recall of
Felix with the influential period of Pallas at court ; but (a)
Josephus may have been in error in attributing Felix's escajH!
from punishment to the intercession of Pallas. (6) He may
have grouped together events belonging to two separate dates,
t.e. certain charges made at the early date, when Pallas by his
plea on behalf of Felix saved him from punishment, and the
final complaints which ended in his removal. If this be the
case, the effectiveness of the later accusations of the Jews could
be all the more easily understood, since at that time Poppsea
had acquired her influence over Nero and an appeal of the
Jewish leaders would enlist her strong endorsement, (c) It
may be, however, that Pallas, after being charged with high
treason and found innocent, was re-instated into favour by
Nero, and so continued until the year 60. This is not probable
in view of the testimony of Tacitus, who tells us that Pallas was
indeed acquitted along with Burrhus {Ann. xiii. 23) ; but that
he was never again treated with special favour (tfc. xiii. 2). He
died of poison in the year 62. The conflict between the state-
ments of Tacitus and Josephus is best harmonized if we take
the former to have been well informed on the order and time
of events in Rome, but misled as to similar matters in Judasa ;
Josephus, on the other hand, may be regarded as accurate in his
statements regarding Palestinian events and less so on matters
of an internal character in Rome. The result yielded by this
view is that Felix was found guilty of maladministration in
54-55 and escaped punishment at this time through the interces-
sion of his brother Pallas. Pallas was himself charged with high
treason the following year and fell from Imperial favour. Felix
continued until 60, and meantime added to the grievances of the
Jews, and yet entrenched himself in favour with sundry leaders
because of his bold measures against certain classes of criminals.
In 60, however, he was finally brought to trial, and in the absence
of the powerful intercession of his brother was at this time de-
posed and succeeded by Festus. Cf. also artt. Fbux, Fkstus.
IV. Corroborative Dates.— 'T\\e&& are such
as do not of themselves permit of clear determina-
tion, but can be deduced from general considera-
tions ; and when so deduced confirm and elucidate
the chronology as a whole.
1. The famine under Claudius. — Josephus, in
connexion with his account of Agrippa s death
(Ant. XX. ii. 1, 6, v. 2), tells how Helena, queen
of Adiabene, and her son Izates were converted to
Judaism and made a visit to Jerusalem during a
famine which both she and her son helped to re-
lieve by procuring provisions at great expense.
According to Ac H'-^s-so a famine occurred ' through-
out all the world,' but presumably it was especially
severe in Juda>a, for it was to this point that the
brethren 'determined to send relief.' This relief
came 'by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.' The
death of Herod must have taken place during this
visit of Paul and Barnabas (Ac li?") ; else why
DATES
DATES
277
should it appear after the account of the mission
of tlie Apostles to Judaea and before their return
from Jerusalem ? This is a natural inference ; but
it meets with a difficulty in the omission of all
mention of this visit in Gal 1'", where St. Paul
Eresumably mves an exhaustive statement of all
is visits to Jerusalem. The difficulty is primarily
one of harmony between Gal. and Acts. Yet it
indirectly affects the chronological problem. By
way of explanation it may be said that the enumer-
ation of the visits in Gal 1" was meant to be ex-
haustive, not absolutely but relatively to the possi-
bility of St. Paul's meeting the ' pillar ' apostles
at Jerusalem. If it were known that during the
famine tliey were absent from the city, St. Paul
might very well fail to allude to a visit at that
time.
But even with the visit fixed during the distress
of the famine, which is in general associated with
the time of Herod's death, it still remains doubtful
whether this famine took place in 44. Since both
Josephus and the author of Acts introduce the
whole transaction (Ant. XX. ii. 1 ; Ac 12') with
the general formula ' about tliat time,' the famine
may very well ha%'e occurred as late as 45 or 46.
2. The expulsion of the Jews from Rome (Ac 18- ;
also Suet. Claud. 25). — This cannot be the action
alluded to by Dio Cassius (Ix. 6), who expresslj'
says that the Emperor, deeming it unwise to ex-
clude the Jews from the city, commanded them
not to hold meetings together, although he per-
mitted them to retain their ancestral customs
{Tdrpios ^ios). The decree, therefore, must be a
later one unmentioned by the secular historians
(except Suetonius, who assigns no date to it). It is
possible, in spite of the generally favourable attitude
of Claudius towards Agrippa II. in the yeais be-
tween 51 and 54, that he saw the necessity of
checking the gro\^'ing power of the Jewish com-
munity in the capital, and decreed their exclusion
from the city.
3. Sergius Paulas (Ac 13^"").— The data for the
fixing of Sergius Paulus in a scheme of NT chron-
ology are as follows : (1) The name occurs in in-
scriptions. Of these one was first published by
L. Palma di Cesnola (Salaminia, 1887, p. 256) and
afterwards carefully edited by D. G. Hogarth in
Devia Cypria, 1889, p. 114. It ends with the words
TLfi.yp-ev<Ta% tt]v ffovXriv [5«]a e^affTuv (iri UavXov [dvO^v-
xdrov. Palseogiapliically the inscription is judged
to belong to the 1st century. The second inscrip-
tion is one found in the city of Rome naming
L. Sergius Paulus as one of the curatores riparum
et alvei Tiber is during the reign of Claudius (CIL
vi. 31545). — (2) The government of Cyprus was by
proconsuls. The island came under Roman control
before the establishment of the Empire, but was
defined as a 'senatorial' province in 22 B.C. under
Augustus (Dio Cass. liii. 12. 7 ; liv. 4. 1). Upon
these data, however, while it is very clear tliat
about A.D. 50 L. Sergius Paulus (who had already
been a high officer in Rome) was holding the pro-
consulship of Cyprus, no nearer approach to the
precise date either of the beginning or the end
of his rule can be made. See also art. Sergius
Paulcs.
4. Agrippa ii. and Drusilla.— Agrippa u., the
son of Agrippa I., was bom in A.D. 28. According
to Photius [Bibl. 33) he died in 100. At the time
of his father's death he was considered too young
for the responsibilities of the large kingdom, which
was therefore again put under the care of procu-
rators. But on the death of his uncle in the eighth
year of Claudius (48) he was given the government
('kingdom') of Chalcis (Ant. XX. v. 2, BJ n. xii.
1). Within four years, liowever, Claudius, 'when
he had already completed the twelfth year of his
reign' (Ant. XX. vii. 1), transferred him from the
kingdom of Chalcis to the rule of a greater realm
consisting of the tetrarchy of his great-uncle
Philip, of the tetrarchy of Lysanias, and of that
portion of Abilene which had been governed
by Varus (BJ ii. xii. 8). When Is'ero succeeded
Claudius, he enlarged this kingdom by the addition
of considerable tracts of Galilee and Persea, but
the dates of these larger additions are not clearly
given. More important than the growth of
Agrippa's power is his giving of his sister in mar-
riage to Azizus, whom not long after (/xrr' ov roXiip
xpovov) she left in order to marry the Roman procu-
rator Felix. These events cannot be fixed earlier
than 54 or 55. The incidents of Ac 20'« 24»- »
are therefore posterior to this time. Cf. art.
Drusilla.
5. Death of St. Peter and St Paul in Rome.—
The belief that the martyrdom of the two apostles
took place in Rome in one of the last years of
Nero's reign is basetl on tradition. Epiphanius
places it in the 12th year of Nero, Euthalius in
the 13th, Jerome in the 14th. Dionysius of Corinth
associates the death of St. Peter and St. Paul in
the phrase kolto. rbv airrbv Kaipov ( ' about the same
time '). No positive result for precise chronology
is gained by these data. The general conclusion,
however, that St. Paul's death took place after 64
is borne out by the necessity for finding a place in
his life later than the Roman imprisonment for the
composition of the Pastoral Epistles ; and, although
this necessity is not admitted on all sides, the pre-
dominance of view among critics seems to recognize
it. The death of the two apostles may thus be
approximately placed between the years 65 and 68.
See artt. Paul, Peter.
6. The Passoyer at Philippi (Ac 20*-').— "W. M.
Ramsay, upon the basis of some very precarious
data (see his St. Paul, p. 289 ft'; also Turner's
discussion, HDB i. 419 f.), claims the fixed date 57
for St. Paul's fifth and last recorded visit to Jeru-
salem, which was also the occasion of his arrest.
The argument is briefly as follows. The Apostle
celebrated the Lord's Supper at Troas on Sunday
night (v.''). If so, he must have left Philippi on
Friday. Friday was the day after the Pa.ssover,
which was therefore observed on Thursday that
year. But the 14th Nisan (Passover Day) fell on
I'hursday in the year 57, not in 56 or 58. The un-
certain factors in the computation are : (1) the ex-
act day of the week for the Passover ; concerning
this there is always room for dispute, owing to
the well-known but unscientific method of the
Jews in determining the beginning of the month
Nisan ; (2) the interval between the Passover and
St. Paul's departure from Philippi, which, on
Ramsay's assumption, is a single night (but the
text does not exclude a longer interval) ; (3) the
time when the Lord's Supper was oteerved at
Troas, which is stated to have been ' the first of
the week' (rg luq. tGiv (ra^^druy) (but this may be
construed as Saturday evening towards Sunday).
Any one of these uncertainties vitiates the con-
clusion arrived at. Yet on the whole the conclu-
sion corroborates the date 59, and is not necessarily
inconsistent with 60 for the removal of St. Paul to
Rome.
V. Palestisias Secular Dates.—!. The pro-
curators of Judaea. — (1) Pontius Pilate, it seems
to be universally agreed, was appointed procurator
of Judaea in 26, and held the office until 36, being
then deposed and sent to Rome by Vitellius, after
'ten years in Judaea' (-(4 «<. xvill. iv. 2). He ar-
rived in Rome just after the death of Tiberius.
(2) The jear folloAving the deposition of Pilate,
the Imperial authority of Rome was represented
in Judtea by ilarcdlus, a friend and deputy of
Vitellius. He is nowhere given the title of * pro-
curator,' and Josephus is careful to call him a
278
DATES
DATES
'curator' (ivifitK-q-Hii, Ant. XVIII. iv. 2). Nor liad
he apparently come into sulficient proininencH!
through any action to warrant his being mentioned
in the succession.
(.S) From 37-41 the procurator was a certain
MnritUus {Ant. xviil. vi. 10) who, like Marcelhis,
does not seem to have done anything official worthy
of note.
(4) From 41 to 44 Agrippa I., as km^ on approxi-
mately the level of inde[)endence enjoyed by his
grandfather Herod tlie Great, superseded all pro-
curators. At his death, according to Josephus,
Cuspius Fndus was appointed, tlius resuming the
line broken for three years (Ant. xix. ix. 2, XX. v.
1, BJ II. xi. 6 ; Tacit. Hist, v, U). The term of
office of Fadus was probably between two and
three years.
(6) Tiberius Alexander, a renegade Jew, who
was rewarded for liis apostasy l)y appointment to
various offices, culminating in the procuratorship,
probably reached Palestine in 46 (Jos. A7it. XX. v.
2; BJ II. xi. 6, xv. 1, xviii. 7f., IV. x. 6, VI. iv.
3 ; Tacit. Ann. xv. 28, Hist. i. 11, ii. 74, 79 ; Suet.
Vespas. 6).
(6) Ventidius Cunianus was sent to succeed
Alexander in 48. According to Tacitus (Ann. xii.
54), he was placed over Galilee only, wliile Felix
was assigned rule over Samaria. They were both
involved in various cruelties practised on the
natives, and both were accused before Quadratus,
who was commissioned to examine into the atlair.
But the commissioner quietly exculpated Felix,
and even gave him a place on the court of investi-
gation and judgment. Cumanus was condemned
and removed. Such a joint procuratorship, how-
ever, is excluded by Josephus explicit statements
(Ant. XX. vi. 2, vii. 1). According to these,
Cumanus alone was the procurator and alone
responsible. Felix was sent by Claudius from
Rome to succeed him at the express request of
Jonathan, the high priest. The contradiction is
probably due to some confusion on the part of
Tacitus. The date of the removal of Cunianus
may be approximately fixed as 52.
(7) .(4??<o«i?<*jPeZix immediately succeeded Cuma-
nus. Soon after bis arrival in Palestine, he saw
and was enamoured of Drusilla, the sister of Ilerod
Agrippa II., and enticed her to leave her husband,
Azizus king of Emesa, and marry himself. This
he succeeded in accomplishing through the aid of
a magician from Cyprus, bearing the name of
Simon. Drusilla was born in 38, being six years
of age at the time of her father's death (44), and
his youngest child. She was therefore at this
time 14 or 15 years old. The procur<atorship of
Felix was characterized by arbitrariness and greed.
Though he did much to punish lawlessness, he
also provoked complaints on account of which he
was recalled in 60. See above. III. 4 and art. Felix.
(8) Porcius Festus. — The reasons which fix the
beginning of the procuratorship of Festus in 60
have been given above. The time of the year
Avhen he arrived is determined as the summer
season (Ac 25'). There are clearer data for fixing
the end of liis term. From B.T vi. v. 3 we learn
that Albinus his successor was in Jerusalem at
the Feast of Tabernacles (?), four years before the
outbreak of the great war and seven years and
five months before the capture of Jerusalem — or,
in other words, the I"'cast of Tabernacles of the
year 62. Allowing for sufficient time for the
next procurator to assume the reins of government
at Ca3sarea, for a similar interval for his appoitit-
ment, for the journey from Home and arrival in
Palestine, the death of Festus, whi(Oi took i)lace
while he was still in olfice in I'alestine, must be
dated very early in the summer or late in the
spring of 62.
(9) Allnnus. — The date of the death of Porcius
Festus determines also that of the acce.ssion of
Albinus (BJ VI. v. 3). W. M. liamHay (Expositor,
6th ser., ii. [1900] 81-105), in harmony with his
theory that the death of Festus occurred in the
autumn of 60, dates the arrival of Albinus in May
or June 61. But the computation rests on a series
of obscure and questionable considerations. Albinus
was recalled in 64, after more than two years of
maladministration.
(10) Gessius Florus was the last of the procu-
rators. According to Josephus (yl»^. XX. xi. 1), it
was in his second year that the Jewish War broke
out. Since this is fixed at 66 (BJ II. xiv. 4), he
must have entered upon his office in 64. The end
of his administration was also the end of the
method of governing Judaea by procurators. For
the events which follow the year 66 and culminate
in the catastrophe of 70 he is held responsible.
We thus obtain the following list of procurators
of Juda;a, with dates of their administration :
A.D.
A.D.
Pilate .
. 26-3C
Ventidius Cumanus
. 48-62
(.Marcellus) .
. 30-37
Antonius Felix
. 52-00
Marullus
. 37-41
I'orcius Festus
. m-f>'i
Cuspius Fadus
. 44-46
Albinus .
. 62-64
Tiberius Alexander
. 4(5-48
Ucs^ius Florus
. 64-70
2. The Herodian kings. — When Jesus Christ was
crucified, Herod Antipas and Herod Philip were
reigning siiuultaneously in accordance with the
testamentary provision of their father, Herod the
Great. Antipas held Galilee and Pera;a ; Philip
ruled over the region beyond Jordan. Both bore
the title of tetrarch. Philip died in 34 without
a successor. In 37 his place was filled by the
appointment of his nephew, the son of Aristobulus
and brother of Herodias, Herod Agiippa I., and
this was done by Caligula, whom Agrippa liad
befriended. He did not, however, take .active
possession of his kingdom until 39. He lived for
the most part in Home, and engaged in intrigues
with the politicians and secured the deposition and
banishment of Antipas. When the tetrarchy of
Antipas was added to his (BJ II. ix. 6), he took
his place in Jewish natioujil affairs, and by a.ssist-
ing Claudius to the Imperial throne after the
assassination of Caligula, he so ingratiated himself
into the favour of the new Emperor that the
province of Judaea was added to his domains immedi-
ately on the accession of Claiidius (A.D. 41). Thus
he came to unite the different sections of the
kingdom of his grandfather, Herod the Great (BJ
II. xi. 5f.). He issued coins from which it api)ears
that he must have reigned until 44 or 45. These
dates, given for the most i)art by Josephus, are
corroborated by the incidental coincidence of the
order of events in Acts. The death of Herod is
recited in Ac 12. All that precedes must be dated
l)efore 44 ; all that follows, after that year. The
appearance of Cornelius as the representative
Roman military authority in Ca^sarea is jjiobably
prior to the elevation of Agiippa to the standing
of Herod the Great (41).
When Agrippa I. died, his son, Herod Agiippa II.
was deemed too young to succeed him, but in 49
he was given a portion of his father's kingdom
(Chalcis), held by his uncle Herod. In 53 he
exchanged this kingdom for another, made up of
portions of (ialilec and Peraui, and thus reigned
to his death in 100.
The following table exhibits the Herodian rulers
during the Apostolic Age :
AntijMxs, A. p. 4-39 — Galilee ami Peraja.
I'hilip, A.D. 4-34— beyond Jordan.
Airrippa I., A.D. 87, as t«trarch ; 39(41)-4*. iw kinff.
'VKripi>all., A.D. 4^53 (of Chalci8),-KH) (of Galilee, PcrtDa.etc.).
VI. Pauline DatE-S.— The pre-eminence of St.
Paul in the Anostolic Age and the leading part he
took in the development of the earliest Church
DATES
DATES
279
have fumishetl tlie ground for the preservation, in
his own Epistles and in tiie Book of Acts, of a
double series of data rej^rding his work. These
determine not only the general order of the facts
of his ministry, but also many of the minuter
details of time and place. The accuracy of the
author of Acts has been questioned, especially on
matters of remoter interest ; but his reports of the
movements of St. Paul are coming to be more and
more recognized as drawn from personal knowledge
of, companionship with, and participation in, the
Apostle s ministry.*
A fixed starting-point for Pauline chronology is
given in the year of the accession of Festns. This
took place, as shown above, in a.d. 60. But,
according to Ac 24=", St. Paul was detained by
Felix a prisoner at Csesarea for two years. His
arrest must, therefore, have taken place in 58
(possibly as early as May). But he left PMlippi
40 days earlier, late in March or about the begin-
ning of April ('after the days of unleavened
bread'). From Philippi his course is next trace-
able backward to Corinth. His presence at Philippi
was only incidental, his purpose being to journey
into Syria (Ac 20^). At Corinth he had spent three
months, arriving there in January of the j'ear 58.
This visit to Corinth immediately followed the
memorable and troublous residence at Ephesus.
From a comparison of 1 Co 16*"* and 2 Co 2^^ with
2 Co 7^ it may be gathered that the continuation
of the whole journey from Ephesus to Corinth
through Macedonia was prolonged by circumstances
not included in the record. A fair allowance for
these yields the approximate estimate of nine
months earlier, or the spring of 57, for the end of
the stay at Ephesus. This stay, however, lasted
nearly three full years.f This leads to the year
54. The departure from Antioch in the spring or
summer of 54 marks the beginning of the third
missionary journey.
The interval between the second and third
missionary journeys is not given detinitely. It in-
cluded some sort of a visit to the churches inGal-
atia and Phrygia, and a sojourn of some length
in Antioch (Ac 18^ * after he had spent some time
there '). It is probable that this stay at Antioch
was as long as one year ; but, assuming that it
was not, there is still the period of three years to
be a.ssigned to the second missionary journey.
One year and six months were probably consumed
in the earlier part of the journey. This would
bring the beginning of the ]oumey to the spring
of 51 ; or, if the sojourn at Antioch had occupied
a whole year, to 50.
The second missionary journey was immediately
preceded by the Apostolic Conference at Jerusalem
on the question of the admission of the Gentile
converts ^vithout the rite of circumcision (Ac 15).
The interval between the Conference, from which
St. Paul proceeded immediately to Antioch, and
the beginning of the journey, was very brief and
spent at Antioch. The Conference itself would
thus appear to have been held in 49-50.
The chronology of the years between the con-
version of the Apostle and the Conference at Jeru-
salem may now be approached from another point
of view. The item furnished by the allusion to the
* The researches of W. M. Ramsay and A. Hamack have
contributed much toward this result (cf. Ramsay, St. Paui,
189S, Luke the Phytieian, 1906; Hamack, Luke the Ph^tieian^
1907, The AeU of the Apostles, 1909, The DaU of the Acts and o)
the S^noplie Goapeis, 1911).
t Although in Ac 19^ the period of his active work in the
synagogue is said to be three months and in Ac 1910 his teach-
ing in the school of Trrannus two years, the further detail in
Ac 19^ (' for a season ') would tend to confirm the conclusion
reached here that the 'three years' of Ac 2031, though possibly
reckoned in the Hebrew sense of ' parts of three,' were in real-
ity more nearly three entire years than a whole year with mere
fiagmente of the year preceding and the year following.
* ethnarch of Aretas ' at Damascus (2 Co 11** ; cf.
al)ove) fixes as the latest limit for the conversion
of St. Paul the year 36, but admits of several
years' latitude for the earlier limit. In determin-
ing this earlier limit much depends on the identi-
fication of the journey to Jenisalem alluded to in
Gal 2"^-. Two questions must be answered here :
(1) When did the 14 years begin — at the conversion
or after the three years mentioned in Gal 1"?
(2) Are these full years in each ca.se, or are
they reckoned after the Hebrew plan, with parts
of years at the beginning and end counted in the
number as separate years? The answers to these
questions yield respectively longer or shorter
periods between the conversion and second visit of
the Apostle to Jerusalem. The longest period ad-
missible is 17 years ; the shortest, 12. The smaller
of these figures is excluded almost certainlj^ by
the datum found in connexion with the control of
Damascus by Aretas, which does not admit of a
later date for the conversion than 36. The longer
period necessitates the very early date of 32 or 33
tor the conversion. This is favoured by W. M.
Ramsay, who fixes the conversion in 33. But
there are intermediate possibilities. The interval
may have been 13, 14, or 15 years ; which would
bring the conversion in any one of the years 34-36,
with the probability in favour of the earlier dates.
The Conference at Jerusalem arose out of the
conditions produced by St. Paul's preaching during
the first missionary journey. This is shown by
the place given it by St. Luke, and also by the
fact that it was during this journey that the
preaching of the gospel met with large success
among the Gentiles, and that a definite movement
to preach to the Gentiles independently of the
Jews was inaugurated (Ac IS''* 14^). From these
considerations it would be natural to draw the
inference that no very long interval separates the
end of the journey from the Conference. In spite,
therefore, of ' the long time ' alluded to in Ac 14'^,
it is safe to fix the limits of the first missionary
journey at 47-48.
Between the date of the conversion of St. Paul
and the beginning of the first missionary journey
it is possible to identify the date of one more in-
cident, viz. the visit to Jerusalem, with the aid
in relief of the famine. Computations inde{)endent
of the life of St. Paul lead to the placing of this
date in the year 45-46 (cf. IV. 1). For reasons
given in rehearsing these computations it is im-
possible to identify this visit with that made in
Gal 2'. This must be regarded as the prolonged
visit for purposes of conference and thorough in-
terchange of views with the leaders of the Jeru-
salem church of which the author of Acts gives an
account in ch. 15. The chronology of the life and
work of St. Paul yielded by the above items may
therefore be put as follows :
A.D.
Conversion . . . 34-35
Visit to Jerusalem with
aid for famine-stricken
church .... 45-46
First missionary jour-
ney ... . 47-48
Conference at Jerusa-
lem ... . 49-50
Second missionary jo«ir-
ney .... 51-54
Third missioDary jour-
ney .... 54-57
VII. Apostolic Church Dates.— i. Pente-
cost.— It is manifestly the intention of the author
of Acts to begin his narrative with the significant
event of Pentecost. Just as he had closed his
Gospel with the account of the Resurrection of the
crucified Jesus, he opens his second treatise with
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. For the
Apostolic Age, Pentecost becomes the epoch-
Arrest at Jemsalem . 58
Impriaonmoit at Cb-
sarea . 5S-«0
Removal to Borne . 00
Imprisonment at Rome 60-43
Release .62
Last missionary jour-
ney .... 63-64
AiT^t, imprisonment,
and execution at
Rome . . (65-«7t)
280
DATES
DATES
making day. But, as the very name of it indi-
cates, Pentecost was a relative date in the year,
being computed from a day of manifestly more
importance than itself. Accordingly, in the de-
termination of the year for the Pentecost of Ac 2
it is necessary to revert to the computation which
fixed the date of the Crucifixion (see above, I.).
Pentecost is thus dated in May A.D. 30.
2. The martyrdom of Stephen.— The date of
this event is fixed with approximate certainty by
its relation to the conversion of St. Paul. It was
the persecution following the death of Stephen
which enlisted Saul in tlie eilbrt to exterminate
the nascent Christian community and thus led him
on the way to Damascus and his conversion.
Stephen's martyrdom could not therefore have
preceded the conversion by a very long interval,
and must have taken place between 32 and 34.
3. The execution of James the son of Zebedee,
together with the imprisonment and deliverance of
St. Peter, is so closely associated with the death of
Herod that both these events may be safely placed
in the same year (44).*
4. The rise of Antioch into prominence as a
centre of Christian aggressiveness must be placed
at some time before the year 46, though, from the
nature of the case, the exact time cannot be fixed.
From Ac 2^ (cf. Tacit. Ann. xv. 44) it is clear
that some time before the year of the famine there
was a large number of believers to attract atten-
tion and to be recognized as a type of religionists
different from the Jews. Immediately after the
year of the famine the church at Antioch became
the fountain-head of missionary activity.
5. The Conference at Jerusalem is placed,
through its relation to the missionary journeys
of St. Paul, in the year 50.
6. The death of James the brother of Jesas. —
From the time of the Conference at Jerusalem, St.
James was recognized as one of the foremost men
in the Christian community at Jerusalem (Ac 15'*,
Gal 2"). In consequence of his relation to the
mother church, he bears the title of bishop of that
church. According to Josephus, he was put to
death during the interregnum between the pro-
curatorships of Festus and Albinus {Ant. XX. ix.
1). This was in the year 62.
7. The death of St. Peter — For the date of St.
Peter's death we are obliged to appeal to extra-
historical (purely traditional) information. The
diflRculties of estimating the value of such informa-
tion are due (1) to the absence of sufficient data
regarding the original witnesses on whose authority
such information secured circulation, and (2) to
the facility with which even good historians in
antiquity accepted unverified statements where
events of importance were concerned. The desire
for some definite data often overcame whatever
intuitive sense of accuracy may at other times
have ruled the outlook of these historians. Thus
tradition, i.e. the unverifiable belief of an age not
capable of direct contact with the facts, may be
credited frequently with a high degree of pro-
bability, more frequently with less probability ;
in most instances it is incapable of giving more
than the mere possibility of what it attests. In
the case of the death of St. Peter several consider-
ations conspire to render the tradition highlj'
probable. The Apostle was in Rome at a time of
persecution. This appears from the contents of
• In a recently published fragment of Papias (de Boor, Td
V. 2, p. 170) it is said that 'John and James his brother were
killed by the Jews.' This, toprether with the bracketing of the
names of the two brothers in the Martyrology on the same day,
has led some to infer that the death of John tho son of Zebedee
took place in 44. The question, however, is involved in the
vexed problem of the identity of the author of the Founh
Gospel, and must be left open for further investigation and
discussion. See art. Jambs and Joun (sons of Zebedee).
1 Peter, irresi)ective of the genuineness of the
writing. Even if it be assumed, as seems probable
to many scliolars, tliat it was comi>osed about A.D.
80, it would issue from a period near enough the
date of the reputed death of St. Peter to afford a
reflexion of a living current belief regarding his
experiences. The allusion to 'Babylon' in the
Epistle has from the days of Papias (Euseh. HE
ii. 15) to the present time (with slight exceptions)
been taken to refer to Rome. From this city the
Apostle, according to Papias, sent the letter to his
fellow-Christians dispersed and scattered by the
persecution of which he was made a victim. But,
even granting that the martyrdom of the Apostle
occurred in the Neronian persecution, the question
of the exact year remains uncertain. Ilarnack
believes that it took place in 64 (Gesch. der
altchristl. Lit. bis Euseb., pt. i. 'Chron.,' 249 ff.).
Erbes (TU, new series, iv. [1900]) fixes it in 63.
Of the older historians, William Cave (Lives of
the Apontles, 1677, ' St. Peter,' xi. 7) also believed
in the date 64. In the Chronicon of Eusebius, how-
ever, the 13th or 14th year of Nero (67-68) is given
as tlie date, and the same conclusion is accepted
by Jerome. The tradition of the Roman Catholic
Church has uniformly adhered to the period 42-67
as ' the twenty-five year episcopate ' of the Apostle
in Rome. Upon the whole, this later date seems
best supported. See IV. 5 and art. Petek.
8. The pre-eminence of Ephesus in Christian
activity may be generally placed in connexion
with the ministry of St. Paul in that city ; but its
rise to the first rank as the seat of apostolic
influence under John (the Presbyter?) must have
followed the Fall of Jerusalem, but cannot be fixed
with precision.
9. The death of St. John, 'the beloved disciple,'
is associated by tradition with his residence at
Ephesus to an extreme old age, occurring in the
reign of Trajan (98-117). See art. James and
John (sons of Zebedee).
VIII. Literary Z>>4r^s.— Nothing in the Apos-
tolic Age was fuller of significance for the future
than the production of the NT writings. But,
while the dates of production of a few of these are
comparatively easy to determine, the majority do
not afford sufficient data for the positive solution
of the problem as it affects tliem.
1. The Epistle of James. — Discussions of the
date of this writing are based for the most part on
the neutral features of it. The character of the
audience to which it is addressed does not l»etray
an advanced development of Christian thought or
practice. There is no allusion to Gentiles in the
Church. Compact organization has not yet been
achieved, and it is possible for teachers (5iSd<rKaXoi)
to assume the function at will (3' ; cf. Ac 13', Ro
12^). The eschatological outlook still includes the
vivid expectation of the Parousia (5^'*), which has
not been disputed as in 2 P 3^*. In general the
author addresses Jews as if the new doctrine of
Christianity were the legitimate and rightful
outcome oi historic Judaism. Such a point of
view was natural in the early beginnings when
the challenge to Christianity was still in its first
forms, but scarcely after the rupture between
Judaism and the Church had issued in open
and wholesale hostilities on each side. On the
other hand, certain characteristics of language
and style, together with supposed allusions to tlie
Pauline doctrme of justification by faith, have led
others to assume an extremely late date for the
Epistle. Upon the whole, it seems probable that
the date 40 to 44 is the correct one. Cf. James,
Epistle of.
2. The Thessalonian Epistles. — The First
Epistle was written during the sojourn at Corinth
(Ac 18"). The reference to Achaia (I''-) is decisive
DATES
DATES
281
on this point. The view that Athens was the
place of writing, held by Theodoret and many
ancient Fathers, is deduced from 3', which, how-
ever, evidently refers to a stay at Athens some-
what anterior to the composition of the Epistle.
Since the Corinthian sojourn falls in 52-53, 1 Thess.
must be dated accordingly. The Second Epistle
could not have been written much later than its
predecessor. It is evidently designed to explain
what was misunderstood in 1 Thess. (2 Th 2-), and
aims to do tliis as speedily as possible. Cf.
Thessaloxiaks, Epistles to the.
3. Galatians. — The date of Galatians has been
made the subject of a new discussion as the con-
sequence of the promulgation of the South Galatian
theory of its destination. The traditional dating
of the document based on the North Galatian
destination fixed it in the sojourn of the Apostle
at Ephesus (Ac 19*). The reasons for this view
are that St. Paul proceeded from Galatia to
Ephesus (Ac 18^), and must have written either
before he reached that city (which is improbable)
or during his sojourn, or perhaps on the way from
Ephesus to Corinth. The rise of the South Gala-
tian theory, however, renders it possible to think
of a much earlier date. Accordingly, many argue
for its priority over all the Pauline writings
(Emilie Briggs, New World, 1900, p. 115fr. ; C. W.
Emmet, Expositor, 1th. ser., ix. [1910] 242 flF. ; Garvie,
Studies of Paul and his Gospel, 1911, p. 23 fF.);
some trace it even to a time anterior to the Con-
ference at Jerusalem. Calvin, singularly, held
this view (cf. Com. on Gal 2^), fixing the date at 48
or 49. Had St. Paul written it as early as this
date, however, he must have named Barnabas,
who was still with him in his labours. Upon the
whole, the year 54 still appears the most probable
for the writing of this Epistle. See, further, art.
Galatians, Epistle to the.
4. The Corinthian Epistles.— The First Epistle
was written in Ephesus some time before Pentecost
(1 Co 16*), whether before or after the Passover
does not appear (5®^). The Apostle was expecting
to leave very soon ; and the writing must, there-
fore, be placed towards the close of the stay at
Ephesus, hence about the time of the Passover in
56. On the assumption of the unity of 2 Cor., the
intei^-al between it and the First Epistle could not
have been very long, and the writing must accord-
ingly be placed somewhat later in the same year.
But, if the Epistle is a composite one, as it seems
reasonable to believe upon good critical grounds,
the probabilities are that the earliest section of it
(6"-7*) constitutes a fragment of a letter earlier
than 1 Corinthians. The second section in point
of time is 2 Co 10-13 ('the painful letter') and re-
presents the sequel to 1 Cor. , growing out of the
situation created by the last-named communication.
This portion of 2 Cot. is accordingly to be located
in 56 as above. The remainder of the composite
document (2 Co 1-9, exc. 6'^^) must be dated later
than chs. 10-13, but is not necessarily separated
from this section by a long interval. If the phrases
' since last year ' (drb -ripvai), • a year ago ' (2 Co
8^*), 'for a year past' (9^) refer to 1 Co 16^ approxi-
mately one year must have intervened between
this portion of 2 Cor. and the First Epistle. This
would bring the date to 57. Thus the dates of St.
Paul's letters to Corinth would be : (1) 2 Co 6"-7'
in 55 or early 56 ; (2) 1 Cor. in 66 before Pentecost ;
(3) 2 Co 10-13 in summer of 66 ; (4) 2 Co 1-9, late
56 or 57. Cf. CoRiXTHiAXS, Epistles to the.
5. Romans.— Since Ro 15 must be regarded as
an original part of the whole Epistle (cf. Moflatt,
LNT, p. 143), the allusion in v.^s to St. Pauls in-
tended journey to Jerusalem fixes the point of
departure for the date of the Epistle. The state-
ment in V.** that the Apostle had 'fulfilled' the
! gospel ' from Jenisalem and round about even onto
Illyricum,' lias led some to place the writing of
Romans in Illyricum ; but the greater proljability
lies with the view which identities the place with
Corinth, and fixes the date as the eve of St. Paul's
departure thence for 'Sj'ria' (Ac 20*). This was
in the spring of 58 (during the Apostle's three
months' sojourn at Corinth). See art. Romans,
Epistle to the.
6. The Imprisonment Epistles.— Under this title
are usually included Ephesians, Colossians, Philip-
pians, and Philemon. Ephesians is by many made
an exception to this class. The period of St. Paul's
imprisonment, however, is divided into two parts
by his removal from Caesarea to Rome. Assuming
the Pauline authority of Ephesians, it has been,
with Colossians and Philemon, located in the
Caesarean period of his imprisonment (56-60; so
Meyer, Weiss, Sabatier [The Apostle Paul, 1891,
pp. 225-249]). Others have included even Philip-
pians in this list. But it is difficult to think of
Philippians and Philemon as composed elsewhere
than in Rome and during the Roman part of the
imprisonment (cf. the reasons in a summary by
Bleek, Einleitung in das NT*, 1885, § 161). It is
possible, though not probable, however, that Col.,
which was written earlier than Eph., may have
fallen within the latter portion of the Caesarean
imprisonment. In such a case the order and dates
of these writings would be: (1) Colossians in 59
(Caesarea) ; (2) Ephesians in 60 (Rome) ; (3) Phile-
mon in 60 (Rome) ; (4) Philippians in 61 (Rome).
See artt. on the various Epistles named.
7. The Pastoral Epistles. — The present condition
of opinion on the problem of the Pastoral Epistles
presents three distinct views as to their dates : (1)
that they were composed by the Apostle after his
release from the Roman imprisonment (62), towards
the end of his fourth missionary journey (66 or 67) ;
(2) that they represent a much more advanced
stage of development in Christian thought and
organization, and therefore fall between the date
of St. Paul's death and the reign of Hadrian (A.D.
67-117), with the greater probability for 90-100 (cf.
Motfatt, LNT, pp. 395-^20) ; (3) that they represent
short letters by St. Paul produced in his la.st year
and expanded by interpolation. The merits of
these views it is not possible to discuss in the com-
pass of this article (cf. J. V. Bartlet, Acts [The
Century Bible, 1901], Moffatt, loc. ci7., and the artt.
on Timothy, Ep. to, and Titus, Ep. to).
8. Acts. — All the discussion of the problem
created by the abrupt close of the Book of Acts
seems to lead to but one clear conclusion, viz. that
the author knew nothing more to tell about St.
Paul and the fortunes of the gosj>el, and that the
date of the composition of the book coincides with
the end of the second year of the Apostle's im-
prisonment at Rome (62). This in general is the
simple process of reasoning that ruled opinion in
ancient times from the days of Eusebius onwards
(HE 11. xxii. 6). In modem times its advocates
have been some of the ablest critics ( Alford, Godet,
Salmon, Rendall, Bisping, Rackham, Blass, and
Harnack). On the other side, it is argued that,
as Acts is a sequel to the Third Gospel (rhw iiiv
rpGrrov \(r/op), which, it is assumed, was written
after A.D. 70, the earliest date possible for Acts
must be some years posterior to this date. The
more precise determination of the period, however,
becomes a question of extremely debatable con-
siderations. Accordingly, a wide variety of dates
of composition is proposed, as by Zahn, Ueadlam,
Bartlet (72-74) ; by Bleek. Adeney, Gilbert (80) ;
by Jiilicher, Burkitt, Wrede (c. 100); by the
Tubingen critics (110-120), or even later. Hamack,
however, has sho\vn reasons why the posteriority
of St. Luke to the year 70 cannot stand {The Date
282
DATES
DATES
of Acts and of the Sijiwptic Gospcln), and the tradi-
tional datin;^ at A.b. 62 may l)e said to liave re-
ceived a rehabilitation at his liands. See art.
Acts ok thk Ai'().sti,k.s.
9. The Synoptic Gospels.— That the Syii«i)Li(!
Gospels were coinpoKed njion Mie basis of pre-exist-
ing collections of 'Sayinys of .Jesus,' throu},di a
process of development, may be assumed as one
of tl>e fairly well-established results of modern
critical study. How lon<^ this process continued
is of secondary importance. The order in which
the Gospels evidently appeared is— Mark, Luke,
Matthew. The earliest notices of the time of tlie
composition of iMark are not perfectly harmonious.
Iren;eu3 (Ilccr. iii. 1) testilies that Mark, 'the
disciple and interjjreter of Peter,' published 'the
things preached by Peter' after the dei)arture
(i^oBov) of Paul and Peter ; but Clement of Alex-
andria, a contemporary, represents the Gospel of
Mark as written in the lifetime of Peter, and adds
that the Apostle 'neither forbade nor encouniL'cd'
the work. This discrepancy is not of com- ■ ;i < mi-
tradiction. The 'departure,' to which Jiuiuriis
makes the writing of Mark jmsterior, may be a
mere departure from Rome (though this is not
likely) ; or it may be that the statement of Clement
merely means that Peter knew of Mark's purpose
to write, though that pur[)ose was not actually
carried out till after his death. The best view,
however, of the discord is that neither of the re-
presentations is primarily based on chronological
interest, and therefore neither can be used as a
precise datum in a chronological computation. So
far as the passage in Irenajus is concerned. Chap-
man has shown this to be true (JThSt, vi. [1905]
p. 503 if.), and Harnack contends that it is also true
of the passage in Clement. Such an estimate of
tliese 'testimonies' of the ancients leaves the time
of the origin of the Gospels indefinite, but is in
itself just. Upon the whole, therefore, it seems
not improbable that Mark and Luke at least were
composed before Acts and in the years of St. Paul's
imprisonment in Rome or even earlier. The case
is slightly different with Matthew, where signs of
a later time are more clearly visible (27* 28^* : ^ws
TTis ffrifjLepov, 'until to-day,' implying a considerable
interval from the days of Jesus) ; a date as late as
70 or even later is quite admissible. See art. GOS-
PELS and artt. on separate Gospels in DCG.
10. Epistle to the Hebrews. — The evidence as
to the date of this production is extremely faint and
uncertain. The external data are partly some free
citations from it in Clem. Rom. (xix. 2, xxi. 9 [cf.
He 121], xxxiv. 1 [cf. He 2i» 3^ 4--= !-'•]), and partly
a certain dependence of thought on St. Paul and
on 1 Peter. Internal data appealed to are such as
that the Temple service was still operative (7** 8^'®
g6-9 1310J . that, considering the purpose of the
writing, if the Temple service had been rendered
impossible by such an event as tlie catastrophe of
70, the writer must have mentioned the fact ; the
non-occurrence of any severe persecution of Chris-
tians in the Hebrew world leading to martyrdom
(12*), the possibility of which is, however, kept in
view. Otlier items are slighter and less conclusive.
The most decisive indications of time seem to be
the allusions in 10^^'- 12^ *"■, which show that the
writer was thinking of an attitude in his readers
of shrinking from suflering publicly, whether this
was imminent or actual, though not severe. In
Palestine this attitude of mind Avas to be met in
the years of the Jewisii war. The latter portion of
the period, therefore, or the years 68 and 69, may
very well be taken as the most approjtriate setting
for tlie writing. See, further, Hebrkws, Epistle
TO THE.
11. The Epistles of Peter and Jude.— The date
of the death of St. Peter as already iixed necessi-
tates a date for 1 and 2 Peter priui \<, liT. For 2
l'eU'A{f/.v.), in the present conditio: I c 1 i.- > \idence,
this proves impossible, on both iuLcriKil and ex-
ternal grounds. The conclusion is inevitable that
this writing (togetlier with Jude [q.v.]) must be
detaclied from the Apostolic Age. For 1 Peter,
however, there is a very natural place in the
Apostle's sojourn in Rome. The mention of ' Baby-
lon'(5'*) has been from very early days (Euseb. JIE\\.
15) referre<l to Rome, in harmony with the literary
methods of the day. The conditions reliected in
the writing al.so correspond with those that pre-
vailed in the reign of Isero. Christians had been
obliged to leave the capital in large numi>ers and
create a new ' Dispersion.' It was a time of tempta-
tion to fall away becau.se of hardships, threatened
or actual, for bearing the name ' Christian.' Alto-
gether, the year 66 or even 65 may, therefore, well
have been the date of the writing of thb Epistle.
See, further, art. PKTEii, EpLSTLES OF.
12. The Johannine writings. — Of the writings
of this group the Apocalyp.se oilers the clearest
marks of its age. But even here, from the earliest
times, difl'ering views have prevailed. Signs of an
earlier time tlian Domitiaii's reign may easily be
pointed out in the book. But they are quite as easily
accounted for as reminiscences or traditions incor-
|)oiated into the work. The undeniable allusion
to the worship of the Emperor (17'*' '-), however,
j)oints to the reign of Domitian, under whom for
the first time Emperor- worship assumed its serious
aspect to the Christians. This, with some minor
considerations, gives the predominance of weight
to the Domitianic dating of the Apocalypse. See,
further, art. Apocalypse.
The Fourth Gospel is related to the Apocalypse
not merely by the external and superhcial identity
of the author's name but by the substantial agree-
ment of the two writings in view-point and doctrinal
system. Stylistic and linguistic characteristics,
however, separate them very widely, and the atlili-
ation of the two is best explained on the groimd
of origin within a Johannine 'school' or group.
But if the Apocalypse was written between 85 and
95, the Gospel cannot bo dated much earlier than
the latter year, since such a Johannine group must
have taken some time to develop its characteristic
point of view and conceptions. On the other hand,
the likelihood that Ignatius, Justin, and Papias
were familiar with the Gospel fixes the latest date
for the latter as 110. It must be dated, then, some
time between 95 and 110, with the probability
strongly in favour of a year prior to 100.
Of the Johannine Epistles (see JOHN, EpiSTLES
OF) the First must be connected in time as well as
authorship with the Fourth Gospel. Whether it
preceded the larger writing or followed it is of
small importance. Its general period remains the
same. The two minor Epistles by the Presbyter
issue from the same group, and probably belong
to the same general period.
James .
1 and 2 Thessaloiii-
ans
Galatians
1 and 2 Uorinthi-
ana .
Uonian!)
Inilirisonment Ep-
istles (Col.,
Eph., Philuin.,
Phil.)
ClIRONOLOaiCAL Tablb.
A.D.
44 (80-100)
.53
f)4 (50-53)
56-57
58
59-Cl
A.D.
Synoptic Oospels
(Mk. fCOJ, Lk.
(Ulj, Mt. [GSJ) . 60-68
Acts . . . .62
Pastoral Epistles (1
and 2 Tim., Tit.) . 60
1 Pet. . . .6(1
Hebrews . . . (>9
Apocalypsi- . s1-96
Epistles lit John . JS (?)
Foiinli tiospel . . >.»O-100 (?)
LiTKRATURK. — The primary sources of information outside the
apostolic records and Epistles are the works of Josephus (,4nt.
and BJ); the Amtaiioi Tacitus ; Suetonius, The Lives of the
Tvxlve Canars ; and the works of Eusebius (IlEiunl Chrunieon,
together with Jerome's VH). The mmlern study of the subject
h.18 issued in a vast number of discussions. Some of these are
iucorporuted in worka of larger scope, such as E. Schiirer,
DAUGHTER
DAY AND NIGHT
283
(ijy3 i. [1901], ii. iii. (189S) (HJP, Eng. tr., 188&-1890) ; W. M.
R&msay, St. Paul the TratetUr and the Homan Citizen, 1S85 ;
A. Harnack, (ii-fe/iiehte der altchrirtl. Lit., ii. (1S97] ; C. H.
Turner, un. 'fhronol. of NT' in HDB i. [1898] 403 ; T. Zahn.
Introd. to the ST (Eng. tr., 19(»X Appendix ; J. Moffatt, LST,
1911. Of scjKirate trealments of the Apostolic Age, mention
must be made of R. Anger, de Temporum in Acti.i Apott.
Ratione, 1633 ; T. Lewin, Fatti Sacri, 1SC5 ; G. Hoennicke,
ChtvnoLde* UUntda ApotteU PatUm, 1903; F. Westber;?,
BM. CkrvnoL, 19ia ANDBEW C. ZeNOS.
DAUGHTER.— See Family.
DAYID (Aoi'€/a, but TR Aa/St'S). — David, the
must popular of the heroes and the most illostrious
of the kings of Lsrael, is ofteu alluded to in the
NT. He is ' David the son of Jesse ' (Ac 13-), a
name reminiscent of his lowly origin ; and he is
' the patriarch David ' (2^), ' our father David '
(4*), one of that company of venerable progenitors
who may be supposed to have l>equeathed some-
thing of their spirit to all their descendants. He
is habitually thought of as the ideal of manhood,
the man (annip) after God's heart, doing all His will
(13-) ; and as the devout worshipper who desired
to find a habitation for the God of Jacob (7^).
All Israelites loved to think of his ' days ' (T'**) as
the golden age of Hebrew history, and of ' the holy
and sure blessings ' shown to him (13**), or Divine
f>romLses made to his family, as pledges of ever-
asting favour to his nation. He is of course in-
cluded in the roll of the OT heroes of faith (He 11^-).
These were matters of ancient history, but the
relation of David to the Messiah seemed a point
of vital importance to every Jew and Je\rish Chris-
tian, as well as of deep interest to all educated
Gentile Christians. The Davidic descent of the
coming Deliverer — based on Is 11*, Jer 23*, Ps 132*^
— was an article of faith among the scribes, who
connected with it the hope of regal power and a
restored Kingdom. It would be too much to say
that our Lord's own discussion of the point (Mt
22*S Mk 12*s, Lk 2t)^') amounts to a denial on His
part of Davidic descent, but it clearly implies that
He did not attach to the traditional genealogy the
same importance as the Rabbis. The Messiah's
spiritual Lordship, acknowledged by the writer of
Ps 110 — who is presumed to be David — is for Him
the essential fact (cf. W. Baldensperger, Das Selbst-
betmisstsein Jesti-, 1892, p. 82 f.). The Apostolic
Church, however, appears to have taken for granted
His Davidic extraction on the male side. ThLs fact
is genealogically set forth in Mt 1^'^* and Lk 3^**.
Much earlier, St. Paul is said to have referred to it
at Pisidian Antioch (Ac 13-^), and in Ro P he
expresses the belief that Christ was ' bom of the
seed of David according to the flesh ' (cf. 2 Ti 2^).
For the writer of the Revelation, too, it is an
article of faith that Christ is ' the Root (meaning
shoot or scion from the main stem) of David' (5*),
' the Root and Oflspring of David ' (22'8).
Before the rise of historical and literary criti-
cism, the Psalms were assumed to be Davidic in
authorship and many of tliem directly Messianic
in import. In Ac 1^* the 69th Psalm, in 2» Ps 16,
in 2** Ps 110, in 4» Ps 2, in Ro 4« Ps 32, in 11*
Ps 69, and in He 4" Ps 95 are ascribed to David.
Ps 16 is supix»sed to be the poetical embodiment
of an astonishing vision granted to David, of the
resurrection of his greater Son. In its original
significance it was a cry for the deliveranc-e of the
Amter from death and the expression of a serene
hope that tlie prayer would be answered. St.
Peter is struck by the parallel between the words
of ' the patriarch David ' and the experience of
Christ, and instead of abstracting the eternal
principle contained in the Psalm — that God cannot
leave to destruction any holy one with whom He
had made a covenant — and applj-ing it to Christ,
be assumes, as the exegetical methods of his time
permitted him to do, that the Psalmist had the
actual historical events directly in view a thousand
years before their occurrence. In the same way
Ps 110, which ascribes to an ideal King tlie high-
est participation in the sovereignty of God, is
interpreted, on the ground that Da\-id himself
' ascended not into the heavens,' as a prevision on
his part of the Ascension of Christ (Ac 2**). His-
torical criticism insists on the rigid separation of
all the Psalms from their NT applications. Each
of them had its own meaning in its own time and
place. The words ' his office let another take '
(Ac 1* II Ps 109*) were no doubt originally spoken
regarding some traitor, but probably not by David,
and certainly not concerning the betrayer of our
Lord. Yet ' the idea lying behind the parallel
perceived ... is usually profound, admitting of
suggestive restatement in terms of our own more
rigorous literary methods' (J. V. Bartlet, Acts
[Century Bible, 1901], p. 145).
In Rev 3^ the Messiah is described as ' be that
hath the key of David.' This is part of a message
of comfort to the persecuted Church of Phila-
delphia. The whole verse is an adaptation of
Is 22—. The idea is that the steward who has the
key of the house possesses the symbol of unlimited
authority over the household. As the Scion of the
house of David, Christ has supreme power in the
Divine realm, admitting and excluding whom He
will. ' And the key of the house of Da^ad will I
lay upon his shoulder' (Is 22"^') is synonymous
with 'And the government shall be upon his
shoulder' (9*). Vested with that authority, pos-
sessing that key, the Messiah sets before the Jew-
ish Christians of Philadelphia, who are shut out
from the synagogue, the ever-open door of His
eternal Kingdom.
LrrKEATTRB.— F. Weber, JOdisehe Theologie, Leip^, 1887, p.
3S2f. ; C. A. Briggrs, The MetsiaA of theApoMet, 1S85, pp. 42,
74 ff. ; E. F. Scott, The Kingdcmaitd the Measiak, 1911, p. 175 ff.
James Straha^*.
DAY AKD NIGHT (figurative).*— Besides theii
literal meanings, ' day ' has frequently, and
' night ' on two or three occasions, a figurative
signification.
1. By a species of synecdoche, ' day ' is often
employed generally as an equivalent lor 'time';
cf. the similar use of cV in the OT (Gn 47*, Jg 18*,
2 S 211, etc.)_ i The day of salvation ' (2 Co 6*) is
the time when salvation is possible ; ' the day
of visitation ' (1 P 2^-), the time when God visits
mankind with His grace, though some would make
it equivalent to the day of judgment ; ' the e^il
day ' (Eph 6^'), the time of Satan's assaults. In
this use of the word the plural is much more
common, and is illustrated by such phrases as ' for
a few days' (He 12'»), 'in the last days' (2 Ti 3^),
'good days' (1 P 3^*). Sometimes 'days' is
followed by the genitive either of a person or a
thing. With the genitive of a person it denotes
the period of his life or public activity. 'The
days of David ' (Ac 7**) are the years of his reign ;
'the days of Noah' (1 P 3*), the time when he
was a preacher of righteotisness to the disobedient
world. With the genitive of a thing, ' days '
refers to the time of its occurrence, as 'in the
days of the taxing' (Ac 5*^), 'in the days of the
voice ' (Rev 10").
2. In Rev. ' day ' is used as a mystical symbol
for a certain period of tune. As to the length of
that time tlie interpreters of apocalyptic have
widely differed. Some have taken the author to
be using words in their literal meaning when he
writes in 11» 12« of the 1260 days (with which cf.
the corresponding 42 months of 13* and the ' time
and times and half a time,' i.e. 3^ years, of 12").
More commonly the ' year-day principle ' (cf . Ezk 4*)
* For ' day ' and ' nigfat ' in the litenJ sense see art. Xikx.
284
DAY OF THE LORD
DEACON, DEACONESS
has been applied, so that the 1260 days have stood
for the same number of years. Similarly the ' ten
days ' of tribulation (2'"), instead of being regarded
as a round-number expression for a short and
limited period (cf. Job 19^, Dn 1"), l,as been taken
to indicate a persecution of the Church at Smyrna
lasting for 10 years.
3. In a specific sense ' the day ' (Ro 13'-, 1 Co 3",
1 Th 5», He 10=», 2 P l'») and ' that day ' (1 Th 5«,
2 Th I'o, 2 Ti 1"- " 48) are used metaphorically for
the Parousia with all its glorious accompaniments,
in contrast with which the present world of sin
and sorrow appears as ' the night.' ' The night is
far spent,' St. Paul exclaims, ' the day is at hand '
(Ro 13'"). Elsewhere he conceives of Christ's
people as illumined already by the glorious light
of that day's dawn, so that, although they still
have the night around them just as others have,
they do not belong to it, but are ' sons of light and
sons of the day ' (1 Th 5"), whose calling it is to ' cast
off the works of darkness ' and to ' put on the
armour of light ' (Ro 13'" ; cf. 1 Th 5*). In keeping
with this metaphorical description of the glory of
the Parousia as a shining day is the conception of
the heavenly city, illumined by the presence of the
Lamb (Rev 21^), as a city of unfading light : ' for
there shall be no night there ' (v.=» ; cf. 22*- »). In
this distinctive sense ' the day ' is more fully de-
scribed as 'the day of the Lord' (1 Th 5*, etc.),
' the day of our Lord Jesus ' (2 Co 1"), ' the day of
Jesus Christ' (Ph 1»), 'the day of Christ' (v.'O),
* the day of God ' (2 P 3'^), ' the great day ' (Jude«),
' the great day of God Almighty ' (Rev 16"). It
is further delined by a variety of epithets in which
reference is made to its characteristic manifesta-
tions and events. Thus it is ' the day of judgment '
(2 P 29 3^ 1 Jn 4"), «of wrath' (Ro2», Rev 6'^),
' of slaiighter ' ( Ja 5"), ' of revelation of the right-
eous judgment of God ' (Ro 2*) ; but also ' tlie day
of redemption ' (Eph 4**), a day in which Christ's
people shall not only have boldness (1 Jn 4'^), but
shall rejoice (Ph 2'®), and whose coming they are
to look for and earnestly desire (2 P 3'^).
J. C. Lambert.
DAY OF THE LORD.— See Eschatology.
DAY-STAR.— In the OT there are traces of the
survival of a dawn myth of which we have re-
miniscences in Job 3", where 'the eyelids of the
dawn ' (in;f'-'5vcy ; LXX iuatpdpov dvaT^\\ovTa) glance
over the mountain-tops to behold the sleeping
earth. The morning- or day-star is the son of
the dawn, as in the great ode on the overthrow of
the ^king of Babylon (in^^-j^ "j^'n ; LXX ew<7<j>6po% 6
rrpwt dvariWuv ; AV ' Lucifer, son of the morning' ;
but RV 'day star' [Is 14'^]). From this came the
metaphor. But in the NT the physical associa-
tions of the ligure are entirely lost, and the word
'day-star' has become the equivalent of harbinger
or forerunner — some joyful event or appearance
foretelling the end of the night of distress and
sorrow, and the dawning of a new and better day.
'This species of symbolism was employed freely,
as every reader knows, in the Gospels. . . . John
the Ba])tist was the Forerunner, the Morning
Star. Christ was tlie Sun, tlie Light of the
World. . . . The \isage persisted as it had been
originated ' (W. M. Ramsay, Luke the Physician,
p. 230 f.).
Tlie word ' day-star ' occurs in the NT only in 2 P
1'* — Kai (pwaipdpoi dfareiKr) iv rats KapSlaii v/jidv — ' and
the day-star arise in your hearts' (AV and RV).
Tlie thought, however, is fairly common (cf. such
expressions as ' the daysiiring [dvaroXri] from on
higli,' Lk P8 ; ' his marvellous light ' [(f>Qs], 1 P 2"-' ;
and specially 'I will give him the morning star'
[rbu daripa rbv ■irpuiv6v'\. Rev 2** ; ' the briglit, tlie
morning star' [6 daTT)p 6 \afivp6i 6 Trpui'vdi], 22'*).
In the Apocalyjpse, it should be noted, the usage
(228 22'") is dillerent. While in the Gospels ' an
earlier age and another style of thought ' (Ramsay,
on. cit. p. 234) had called Christ not a Star but
the Sun and the Light of the World, in Revelation
Christ calls Himself the Morning-Star as ' the
herald and introducer of a new era,' and the gift
of the Morning-Star means ' the dawn of a
brighter day and a new career.' In 2 P 1'* the
writer, discussing the efl'ect produced by the
Transfiguration or Jesus, says that by it ' we have
the word of prophecy made more sure' (RV). The
glorification of Christ on the Mount was not only
a partial fulfilment of Messianic prediction, but
was in itself the earnest of a complete glorification.
In the squalid place of the world (RVm iv avx/itjpi^
rdirq) — the adj. occurs only here in the NT), where
the Christian's lot is cast, the prophecies, even
with their partial fulfilment, are a lamp shining.
The new day heralded by the day-star may be
the Second Advent (Bennett, Century Bible, in
loc.) ; but there is more to be said for Plumptre's
view {Cambridge Bible), that the rising of the day-
star points to a direct manifestation of Christ in
the soul of the believer (iv rats KupdLats iifiQv). It is
the revelation and confirmation in the heart of the
Christian of what had been foreshadowed both by
the prophetic word and the earthly manifestation
of God 8 Son. Christ in the heart is the gleam,
the light, the Day-star, which the believer follows,
and to which he moves. He has therefore the
testimony in himself that he follows, not wander-
ing tires, but a star.
Witsius (Trench, Epp. to the Seven Churches^,
London, 1867, p. 155) sums up the import of the
morning-star as follows: (1) a closer communion
with Christ, the fountain of light ; (2) an increase
of light and spiritual knowledge ; (3) glorious and
unspeakable joy, which is often compared with
light. Such hopes 2 Peter holds before Christians
in the squalidness of a world where God is not
known. But they know, for the day-star shines
in their hearts.
'Nor would I vex my heart with jjrief or strife
Though friend and lover Thou hast put afar,
If I could see, through my worn tent of life
The stedfast shining of Thy morning star'
(Louise Chandler Moulton).
For the same thought in the hymnology of the
Church reference may be made to the Advent
Hymns, ' Light of the lonely pilgrim's heart. Star
of the coming day,' also ' Come, O come, Immanuel.'
LiTBRATURK.— W. M. Ramsay, Luke the Physician, London,
1908, pp. 230-234. For the morning-star in the symbolistn of
the NT, see G. Mackinlay, The Magi : How they recognized
Christ's Star, do. 1907. W. M. GRANT.
DEACON, DEACONESS.— • Deacon ' or ' deacon-
ess' (5idKovos, masc. or fem.) means one who serves
or ministers. In classical Greek the word commonly
implies menial service. In the NT it implies the
noble service of doing work for God (2 Co 6* 1 1",
Eph e'*', 1 Th 8^), or ministering to the needs of
others (Ro 16' ; cf. 1 Co 16'», 2 Co 8^ 9') ; and the
meaning of the tenn, with its cognates 'service'
or ' ministry ' and ' to serve ' or ' to minister '
{dMKovia and diaKovelv) is nearly everywhere quite
general and does not indicate a special office. The
only passage in which special officials are certainly
mentioned is 1 Ti 38-'-, where v." refers to women
deacons (RV) rather than to wives of deacons (AV).
But it is highly probable that 'with [the] bishops
and deacons' (Ph 1') also refers to special officials ;
although it is just possible that St. Paul is merely
mentioning the two functions which must exist in
every organized community, viz. government and
service. A church consists of rulers and ruled.
The case of Phcebe, ' didKovos of the church which
DEARTH
DEBT, DEBTOR
285
is in Cenchreie' (Ko 16'), is doubtful. She may
be a female deacon ; but this is very unlikely, for
there is no trace of deacons or other officials in the
church of Corinth at this time. Phcebe was prob-
ably a lady, living at the port of Corinth, who
remlered much service to St. Paul and other
Christians. Milligan (on 1 Th S') quotes inscrip-
tions which show that SiiKovos (masc. and fem.) was
a religious title in pre-Christian times. The Seven
(Ac 6j are probably not to be identified with the
later deacons. The special function of deacons,
whether men or women, was to distribute the alms
of the congregation and to minister to the needs
of the poor ; they were the church's relieving
officers. They also probably helped to order the
men and the women in public worship. The
qualities required in them (1 Ti 3*"'*) agree with
tnis : ' not greetly of sordid gain,' and ' faithful in
all things,' point to the care of money. See artt.
CrirRCH GovERXMEXT and Minister, Mixistry.
LrrBRATTKB.— F. J. A. Hort. The Christian Eetiesia, London,
1897, pp. 196-217 ; M. R. Vincent, Philippians {ICC, Edin-
burgh. 1S97), pp. 36-51 ; art. ' Deacon ' in UDB.
Alfred Plummee.
DEARTH.— See Famine.
DEATH.— See Life and Death.
DEBT, DEBTOR.— The Acts and the Epistles
give few glimpses of the trade of the time (cf. Ja
4ijff. 1 xh i?* 4", 2 Th 2,^-, Ac 19^-, 1 Co 7»
Ko 13'*-, Rev 18*'*). This may seem all the more
remarkable since Christianity touched the com-
merce of the Roman world at so many points and
used the fine Roman roads (see art. Trade and
Commerce). The allusions to debt are quite
incidental, and come in generally in the meta-
phorical u=e of words.
1. Literal use. — The word 'debt' signifying a
business transaction is found in Philem '* (6<pei\€i),
where St. Paul delicately refers to money or
valuables stolen from Philemon by Onesimus.
St. Paul here uses the technical language of
business — toOto e/iol fXXi^o. We meet e\\o7^ci> in
pagan inscriptions and in an Imperial papyrus
letter of the time of Hadrian (Deissmann, Light
from the Ancient East-, 79 f.). Dibelius ('Kol.'
in Handbuch zum NT, 1912, p. 129) quotes various
examples, as tnrip dppapQpoi [rj tJi^j i\Koyovn£p[o]v
(GrenfeU and Hunt, ii. 67, 16 ff.). In the rest of
St. Paul's half -humorous sally with Philemon
(bypa^pa t^ e/x^ x^'PO b® probably has in mind to
xeipoypa^wp (Col 2'*). The debtor could have an-
other to ^vrite for him if unable to write himself
(cf. specimen of such a note by an aypafinaros from
the Fayyum papyri [Deissmann, op. cit. p. 335]).
The common word for ' repay ' is d-roiiiwfu (cf. Ro
13'), but St. Paul here uses aroriau), • which is much
stronger than droSwo-w' (Deissmann, p. 335 n. ; cf.
also Moulton and Milligan, in Expositor, 7th ser.,
vi. [1908] 19 If.). St. Paul thus gives Philemon
his note of hand to pay the debt of Onesimus. In
Ph 4'* St. Paul uses, perhaps in playful vein again,
the technical word for a receipt, dr^xw, in express-
ing his appreciation of the liberal contribution
sent to him by the Philippians (cf. d-rex^ for a
tax-receipt on an ostracon from Thebes [Deissmann,
p. 111]). The term eis Xbr^ov inQw (Ph 4I') has
the atmosphere of book-keeping (cf. also etj Xrf7oi'
ihaews rat Xtj^^cwj in v.'*). In Ro 4* we find the
figure of credit for actual work as a debt — icard
d<p€i\T}iJLa. This is simply pay for work done ( wages).
The word 6 iiwdbt, hire for pay, is the common
expression (cf. the proverb in 1 Ti 5'® and filaOijiua
(hured house) in Ac 28**).
In Ja 5* tlie curtain is raised upon the social
wrong done to labour by grinding employers who
kept back (d^wrrtp^w) the wages of the men who
k
tilled the fields. James rather implies that there
was little recourse to law in such cases, but con-
soles the wronged workers in that Giod has beard
their cries. There was imprisonment for debt,
as was the case in England and America till some
50 j-ears ago, but it was only with difficulty that
the workman could bring such a law to bear on his
employer. In Ro 13*'* St. Paul expresBly urges
the iu>man Christians to pay taxes, a form of
debt paid with poor grace in all the ages. Christi-
anity is on the side of law and order, and recog-
nizes the debt of the citizens to government for
the maintenance of order. ' For this cause ye pay
tribute also' (v.*), tpbpom TeXen-e. In v.' he urges
the duty of paying (a.-r65onrt) back in full (perfective
use of dxo as in dx^(i> above) one's taxes. ^>6poi is
the tribute paid by the subject nation (Lk 20**,
1 Mac 10^), while reXoi represents the customs and
dues which would in any case be paid for the
support of the civil government (Mt 17^, 1 Mac
10*'). So Sanday-Headlam, Bomans, in loco.
In Ro 13^ St. Paul covers the whole field by /itiSevl
li-qbkv dipeCKere. We are not to imagine that he is
opposed to debt as the basis of business. The
early Jewish prohibirions against debt and interest
(usury) contemplated a world where only the poor
and unfortunate had to borrow. But already,
long before St. Paul's time, borrowing and lending
was a regular business custom at the basis of trade.
Extortionate rates of interest were often charged
(cf. Horace [Sat. l. iL 14], who expressly states
that interest at the rate of 5 per cent a month or
60 per cent a year was sometimes exacted). Jesus
draws a picture of imprisonment, and even slavery,
for debt in the Parable of the Two Creditors (Mt
18^**; cf. also 5^*-). But the point of view of
St. Paul here is the moral obligation of the debtor
to pay his debt. In few things do Christians show
greater moral laxity than in the matter of debt.
Evidently St. Paul had already noticed this laxity.
He makes this exhortation the occasion of a strong
argument for love, but the context shows that
literal financial obligations ((J^tXiJ, common in the
papyri in this sense) are in mind as well as the
metaphorical applications of d^iXw.
2. Metaphorical uses. — The examples in the
apostolic period chiefly come under this heading.
The debt of love in lio 13* is a case in point. It
may be noted that dydnj can no longer be claimed
as a purely biblical word (cf. Deissmann, (^. cit.
p. 70). None the less Christianity glorifies the
word. The debt of love is the only one that must
not be paid in full, but the interest must be paid.
For other instances of d^tXw see Ro 15'"", 1 Co 5'*.
In Ro 13^ d^(Xi7 covers all kinds of obligations,
financial and moral (cf. also 1 Co 7' [conjugal
duty]). The metaphorical use of d^tX^s ap|>ears
in Ro 1", Gal 5*, etc. The metaphor of debt is
found in various other words. Thus, when St.
Paul speaks of Christians being ' slaves of Christ,'
he is thinking of the obligation due to the new
Master who has set us free from the bondage of
sin at the price of His o^\ti blood. The figure need
not be overworked, but this is the heart of it (cf.
Ro 6'»-=», Gal 2* 5', 1 Co 6» 7», Ro 3*», 1 Ti 2«, Tit
2" ; cf. also 1 P l'«. He 9"). (See Deissmann, op.
cit. pp. 324-44 for a luminous discussion of the
whole subject of manumission of slaves in the
inscriptions and papyri, as illustrating the NT use
of words like droXirrpoxrii, \vTp6o>, Xvrpop, drrikvrpof,
dyopdi'it), Tifi/fi, i\ev0ep6ti>, iXeiSepoi, iKevdepla, Sov\<n,
SovXei'U}, KaTabov\6<i), etc.) The use of dfoSiSufu
with the figure of paying oflF a debt is common (cf.
Ro 2« 12'', etc.). appa^dup (Eph 1") presents the
idea of pledge (mortgage), earnest money to
guarantee the full payment (Deissmann, op. cit.
p. 340). In He 7** in the same way tyyvm is surety
or guarantor. It seems clear that StaO-fiKri in He
286
DECREE
DEMAS
9"'- has tl»e notion of a will (testament) wiiich is
paid at death. Dcissmann (op. cit. p. 341) argues
that ' no one in the Mediterranean world in the
first century A. I), would have thou<,'ht of lindinj,' in
the word 5ta^7jK7; the idea of " covenant." St. I'aul
would not, and in fact did not.' That aweeping
statement overlooks the LXX, however. ('{. art.
COVKNANT. Tlio figurative use of iWoydw occurs
in Ro 51s.
liiTKRATUBB.— Artt. in IIDIi, DCG, JE, and CE, and Com-
luentaries on the passapfes cited ; A. Deissmann, Ilihle SUidies,
Eiij,'. tr., 1901, and Light /rani, the Ancient Kasf\ 1911; A.
Edersheim, LT ii. p. 2C8ff. ; E. Schiirer, IIJ I' 11. i. 362 f.
A. T. Robertson.
DECREE. — This word occurs only three times in
the NT, once in the singular (Lk 2^), where it is
the decree of Cujsar Augustus that all the world
should be taxed, and twice in the plural (Ac IG^
17'), the reference in the one case being to the de-
cisions of the Apostolic Church at Jerusalem, and
in the other to the decrees of the Roman Emperors
against treason.
The word in its technical or theological sense of
the Divine decree of human salvation, or of the
decrees of (Jod comprehended in His eternal purpose
whereby He foreordains whatsoever comes to pass,
is therefore not found in the NT at all. The
Greek word wiiich it most nearly represents is
■irp60€cns, which describes the purpose of God in
eternity for the salvation of men. 'They that
love God ' are ' the called according to his purpose '
(ol Kard. irpdOeffiv k\t)toI, Ro 8-**). ' The purpose of
God according to election ' (t; /car iKXoyriv irp60€<ns
Tov Oeov, yi') is to stand, not of works but of His
own sovereign grace who calls them that believe.
Christians are ' allotted their inheritance, having
been foreordained according to the purpose of liiin
who worketh <all things after tlie counsel of Iiis
will' [irpoopLaOivres Kara irpdOecriv tov tA Travra ivep-
yovvTos, Eph 1"). The Divine purpose is ' a purpose
of the ages' which God fulfilled in Christ (Eph 3")
as He had purposed it in Him (irpo^Oero, Eph 1^).
God's eternal decree depends upon the counsel of
His own will, for it is ' not according to our works
but according to his own purpose {Kara Ldiav
vpSdeffiv) and grace given in Christ Jesus before
times eternal ' that ' he saved us and called us with
a holy calling ' (2 Ti P). See artt. Call, Election,
and PnEDESTINATION,
The decree of God, however, is not to be con-
ceived in the same way as that of Darius or Nebu-
chadrezzar, who could say, ' I have made a decree :
let it be done with speea' (Ezr 6'-^). God's decree
has no constraining etl'ect on the things to which it
is directed, because it is not promulgated to the
world, but is really His secret plan for the regula-
tion of His own procedure. It is not the pro.ximate
cause of events, yet the objects which it contem-
Elates are absolutely certain, and are in due time
rought to pass. Whilst the decrees of God are
' his eternal purpose whereby he foreordains
whatsoever comes to pass,' yet He accomplishes
His ends by the means proper thereto, and even
when men are moved by Divine grace to embrace
the gospel ofier, they do so in the exercise of their
liberty as free agents. As St. Paul says : ' God
hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctilication of the Spirit and belief of
the truth ' (2 Tii 2^^). T. NiCOL.
DELIVERER.— In the Acts and Epistles the
word 'ileliverer' occurs only twice. Once (Ac 7^)
the original word is 6 Xi/rpwrijj and once (Ro 11"*) it
is 6 pv6fjL€vo^. The reference in Acts is to Moses,
and so does not specifically concern us here, except
that the word is one of a group (Xvrpov, dvrlXvTpov,
\vTp6u, diroXt'Tpuffi^) used of the redemptive work of
Christ. In the Koine the word Xirrpof usually meant
the purchase-money for the manumission of slaves
(A. Oeissraann, Lu/htfrrmi tfu; Aiu-ieuf Kast'^, 1911,
p. 331 f.). In the LXX (I's 19'* 68=») the word
\vTpo3rf)% is used of God Himself, and the XvTpoxm
wrought by Christ is illustrated by that wrought
l)y Moses (Lk l** 2**, He 9'-, Tit 2'^), and that
notion may have influenced Luke's choice of the
word in Ac7^(R. J. Knowling, FAtT, 'Acts,' 1900,
p. 192). The passag<' in Ro 11"-*' (6 pv6nevo%) is a
quotation from Is ,'i9-'" and is given the Messianic
interpretation. ' There shall come out of Zion
the Deliverer.' It is a free quotation, the LXX
having iK "Liibv instead of iveKtv "Li^v, while the
Hebrew has ' to Zion.' Some of the current Jewish
writings (En. xc. 33; Sib. Orac. iii. 710 f. ; Pas.
Sol. xvii. 33-35) cherished the hope of the conver-
sion of the Gentiles. St. Paul here seizes on that
hoj)e, and the OT prophecy of the Messiah as
Deliverer, to hold out a second hope to the Jews
who have already in large mea-sure rejected the
Messiah. Before He comes again, or at His com-
ing, the Jews will turn in large numbers to the
Delivereroncerejected(cf. Sanday-Headlam, Kom.^,
1902, in loc). In 1 Th l'" St. Paul had already
used 6 pvo/ievoi of Jesus in connexion also with the
expectation of the Second Coming of Christ. It is
not here translated ' the Deliverer ' because the
l)articiple is followed by -^/nS?, 'who delivereth us
from the wrath to come.' The word fivu means
properly ' to draw,' and so the middle voice is ' to
draw to one's self for shelter,' ' to rescue.' The
word emphasizes the power of Christ as our De-
liverer, £K TTjs opyrji TTjs ipxop^vri^. The deliverance
is complete (^/c) (Milligan, Thess., 1908, in loc).
This word pvofiai is the most frequent one for de-
liverance by God. St. Paul in 2 Co 1'" uses it of
his rescue from death in Ephesus (ipvcyaro i^ynas Kal
pvaerai — Kal in pvfferai). It is the word for our
rescue from the power of darkness in Col 1'^. St.
Paul has it also in 2 Ti 3" when he tells how the
Lord delivered him out of his persecutions. In
4'''* he uses it of his rescue from the lion, and of
his hope that the Lord will deliver him from every
evil deed. In 2 P 2* St. Peter uses it also for God's
help in temptation. In Gal l* St. Paul has 6Vwj
e^i\T)Tai for Christ's purpose to deliver us from the
present evil age. The word is i^aipiop.a.i, * to take
out from,' while in He 2'* the word for deliverance
from the fear of death is dTraXXdcrtrw, ' to set free
from.'
These words are simply those that in the RV
happen to be translated by ' deliver ' in English.
But they by no means cover the whole subject.
As a matter of fact all the atoning work of
Christ is embraced in the notion of deliverance
from sin and its effects. St. Paul himself epito-
mizes his conception of Christ as Deliverer in his
pajan of victory in 1 Co \b^^- : ' Death is swallowed
up in victory. O death, where is thy victory ? O
death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is
sin ; and the power of sin is the law ; but thanks
be to God, who giveth us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ.' This deliverance applies
to the whole man (soul and body) and to the whole
creation (Ro 8^*"^). It means ultimately the over-
throw of Satan and the complete triumph of Christ
in a new heaven and anew earth (the Apocalypse).
A. T. Robertson.
DELUGE.— See Flood.
DEMAS ( AT7May, perhapsashort form of Demetrius,
as Silas wiis of Sitvanus). — Demas was a Christian
believer who was with St. Paul during his imprison-
ment in Rome, and sends greetings to the Colossians
(4'*) and to Philemon (v.^^). Probably he was a
Thessalonian, and in both the references he is men-
tioned in connexion with St. Luke, while in 2 Ti
4'" his conduct is contrasted with that of the beloved
DEMETRIUS
DEMON
287
I
phj'sician. In the last-named passage we are in-
formed that Demas left the Apostle when he was
awaiting his trial before Nero. The desertion
seems to have been deeply resentetl by St. Paul,
who describes liis action as due to his ' having loved
this present world.' Probably Demas realized that
it wa.-* tlangerous to be connected with one who was
certain to be condemned by Nero, and he saved his
life by returning to his home in Thessalonica. The
phrase used, however, suggests that the prospect
of worldly advantage was tlie motive which deter-
mined Demas. No doubt the busy commercial
centre of Thessalonica ottered many opportunities
for success in business, and love of money may
have been the besetting sin of this professing
Christian. The name ' Demetrius ' occurs t^vice in
the list of politarchs of Thessalonica ; and, while
we cannot say with certainty that the Demas of
2 Ti 4'* is identical with either of these, the possi-
bility is not excluded. In this case the prospect of
civic honours may have been the reason which led
him to abandon the hardships and dangers of the
Apostle's life and return to Thessalonica, where his
family may have held i)ositions of influence.
Perhaps the bare mention of his name in Col 4"
and the reference in Ph '2^- -' may indic^ite that
the Apostle even at this early date suspected the
genuineness of Demas, who was vrith him at the
time of his writing to Philippi (cf. Ilamsay, St.
Paul, p. 358). We have no certain assurance that
the apostasy of Demas was hnal, but the darker
view of his character has usually been taken, as
e.g. by Bunyan in The Pilgrim's Progress. Epi-
phanius {Ever. li. 6) classes him among the apos-
tates from the faith. It is impossible to iden-
tify Demas with any Demetrius mentioned in
the NT.
LiTERATURK. — W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Tratelifr and
the Roman Citizen^ 1897, p. 35*; J. B. Lightfoot, Colosgiaitg
and Phileinon'i, 1876, pp. 36, 242 ; artt. in HOB, EDi, and SDB.
W. F. Boyd.
DEMETRIUS. — There are two, if not three,
persons of this name mentioned in the NT— a fact
which is not surprising, considering how very
common the name was in the Greek world.
1. Demetrius, the sUversmith of Ephesus (Ac 19).
A business man, profoundly interested in the
success of his business, Demetrius was a manu-
factiirer of various objects in silver, of which the
most protitable were small silver models of the
shrine of the Ephesian gotldess Artemis (see
DiAXA). These models were purchased by the
rich, dedicated to the gofldess, and hung up within
her temple. The presiching of St. Paul was so
{jowerful that devotion to the goddess became less
Srevaient, the demand for sucli oti'erings was re-
uced, and Demetrius felt his livelihood in danger.
He called a meeting of the gild of his handicraft
to decide on a means for coping with the new
situation. The meeting ended in a public disturb-
ance. Nothing is known of the later life of
Demetrius.
2. Demetrius, an important member of the church
referred to in the Second and Third Epistles of St.
John. It is impossible to identify the church with
certainty, but there can be little doubt that it was
in the province of Asia. The presbyter-overseer of
the church is absent, and in his absence Gains and
Demetrius act in the truest interest of the members.
Demetrius' good conduct (3 Jn ^) is attested bv all.
3. The full name of Demas (Col 4", 2 Ti 4>",
Philem'^) may very well have been Demetrius
(possibly Demodorus, Demodotus) ; see Demas.
LrrERATTRE. — See W. M. Ramsay's lifelike picture of the
scene at Ephesus in his St. PaiU the Traveller and the Soman
Citizen, London, 1895, p. 277 ff. The best list of pet-naues is
found in A. N. Jannaris, An Historical Greek Grammar, do.
1897. 5 2S7. A. SOUTER.
DEMON.— 1. Nomenclature. — The word Satiiipiof
(or Saifiioy, which, however, occurs only once in the
NT in the best M8S, viz. in Mt 8", though some
MSS have it in Mk 5'-, Lk 8^, and some inferior
ones in Rev 16'* 18"-) is almost always rendered
' devil ' in EV, though RVm usually gives ' demon.'
In the KV of the OT 'demon ' is found in Dt 32",
Ps 106", Bar 4' (Heb. -tp, LXX Satfji6yiov). Origin-
ally Saifuov had a somewhat more personal conno-
tation than Saifiovior, which is formed from the
adjective (i.e. 'a Divine thing'); and both had a*
neutral sense : a spirit inferior to the supreme
gods, superior to man, but not necessarily evU.
Some trace of this neutral sense is found in the
apostolic writings. Thus Seiffidaifiwy, SeiffiSaifMOfta
have probably not the bad sense of ' sui>erstitions,'
' superstition ' in Ac 17** 23"^ — which at any rate
would hardly suit the former passage, where St.
Paul is not likely to have gone out of his way to
insult the Athenians — but the neutral sense of
' religious,' ' religion.' This view is borne out by
the papyri, where, Deissmann says (Light from
Ancient East, 1910, p. 283), the context of these
words always implies commendation. And simi-
larly St. Luke's phrase (Lk 4") 'a spirit of an un-
clean demon ' would imply the existence of a pure
demon, just as ' unclean .spirits ' imply the existence
of pure spirits. The neutral .sense is also found in
the saying attributed to our Lord by Ignatius
(Smym. 3 ; see Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers^, pt. ii.
vol. ii. [1889] p. 296) : ' Lay hold and handle me, and
see that I am not a bodiless demon ' (daifiofiov aaib-
/jMTov), a saying clearly founded on or parallel to
Lk 24^, perhaps due to an independent oral tra-
dition. But ordinarily in the NT daifwvioy has a
bad sense, and signifies ' an evil spirit.' The ex-
pression ' to have a demon ' (or ' demons '), which
occurs several times in the Gospels (fx^ir daifwvioy
[Saifidvia], equivalent to 8aifiofi^€<r6ai, which is also
frequent there), is the same as the paraphrases found
elsewhere in the NT which avoid the word
'demon' (Ac 8' 'had unclean spirits,' 19" 'had
evil spirits,' 10*®, etc.). In Christian writings the
word ' demon ' always means an evil being, though
it is curious that, in the NT and (as far as tlie
present writer has observed) in the Fathers, Satan
himself is never called Saifiwp or oaifiopioi' (' demon ').
Conversely his angels are never in the NT called
'devils' (5td;JoXoi), though in Jn 6'* Judas is called
did^oXos. The Fathers emphatically assert that
all demons are evil : see e.g. Tertull. Apol. 22,
Orig. c. Cels. v. 5, viii. 39 (the Son of God not a
demon), Cypr. Quod idola dii non sint, 6f. By
the time of Augustine even the heathen used the
word ' demon ' only in a bad sense [de Civ. Dei,
vs.. 19).
2. Conceptions about demons in apostolic writ-
ings.— Demons are regarded as the ministers of
Satan — a host of evil angels over whom he has
command. They are the ' angels which kept not
their own principality {apxnv) but left their proper
habitation' (Jude*'), who 'when they sinned' were
' cast down to Tartarus ' (2 P 2*). They are de-
scribed as the Dragon's angels, forming his army
(Rev 12^- 9 ; cf. Mt 25*>). That these angels are
the same as the demons appears from the fact that
Satan is the prince of the demons (Mk 3-), and
that demoniacs are said to be ' oppressed of the
devil' (tov Sia^oXov, i.e. Satan [see Dea'IL], Ac 10* :
cf. Lk 13'*). Thus there are good spirits and evU
spirits which must be distinguished and proved :
tne spirit of the Antichrist must be distinguished
from the Spirit of God (1 Jn 4').
St. Paul, in not dissimilar language, speaks of
discemings of spirits (1 Co 12"* ; cf. 2 Co 11*) and
of evil angels as being 'principalities' {dpxai),
' powers,' ' world-rulers {KofffioKpdropfs) of this dark-
ness,' * spiritual beings {ryevfiaTticd) of vic^edwess
288
dp:mon
DERBE
in the heavenly [places]' (Eph 6'^; the last plnase
may be roughly rendered ' in the sphere of spiritual
activities'; of. Robinson's note on Eph F and see
art. Air) ; perhaps also as being ' the rulers of this
age which are coming to nought . . . the spirit
of the world' (1 Co 2"- '■') ; or collectively as 'all
rule and all authority and power ' which are to be
abolished (1 Co 15»*- ^, Eph 1»"-). That these are
Satan's hosts appears from the context of the Last
passage (2-), which speaks of the Prince of the
power of the air (see Air).
It would seem that St. Paul regarded the heathen
gods as demons, having a real existence, though
they were not gods. On the one hand, ' no idol is
anything in the world, and there is no God but
one' (1 Co S'') ; on the other hand, tlie sacrifices of
the heathen are offered to demons, not to God,
and therefore Christians must not attend heathen
temples lest tliey have communion with demons
(lQ'.w. . nytg ^\yQ ijea tijat; sacrifice involves com-
munion between the Avorshipper and the wor-
shipped). So in the LXX Ps 96» aflirms that all
the gods of the heathen are demons (Heb. d'"?'^H,
i.e. 'vanities' ; Vulg. daemonia) ; and Dt 32''' (see
above) both in the Heb. text and in the LXX
clearly identifies the heathen gods with demons.
And similarly in Rev 9-" the worship of demons is
joined to that of idols.
The activity of demons towards man is great.
Though, after a fashion, they believe — not with
the Christian's faith, which is born of love, but with
faith compelled by fear (Ja 2^" : they ' siiudder') —
yet with the ingenuity which is peculiarly their
own (Ja 3^' <ro4)ia . . . da(.fxoviu)8Tis), they try to
draw man away from his belief : they are ' sedu-
cing spirits,' whose teaching is called the ' doctrine
of demons ' (1 Ti 4^'-, so most commentators) ; their
captain is called the ' spirit that now worketh in
the sons of disobedience ' (Eph 2*, where, however,
' spirit ' is in apposition to ' power,' not to ' prince,'
perhaps by grammatical assimilation ; see Robin-
son's note ad loc). The demons accordingly in-
stigate evil men against the good ; they are ' un-
clean spirits, as it were frogs' coming 'out of the
mouth of the dragon . . . for they are spirits of
demons,' instigating the * kings of the whole world '
to the ' war of the great day of God ' (Rev 16'^'-).
If we identify them with the ' rulers of this age '
of 1 Co 2* (see above), they instigated our Lord's
crucifixion (v.*). See also Devil.
Demons are able to work miracles or signs (c-rjfiela,
Rev 16'^), as Antichrist can (2 Th 2') ; they attract
worship from men (Rev 9^ ; cf. Dt 32" above),
and have their temples and tables (see above).
Rome, the corrupt cajjital of the heathen world,
designated ' Babylon,' is the habitation of demons,
the prison of every unclean spirit, tiie prison of
every unclean and hateful bird (Rev 18-).
Just as the fruits of the working of the Holy
Ghost in man are called the spirit ' of power and
love and discipline ' (2 Ti 1^) and ' of truth ' (1 Jn 4«),
so those of the demons are ' the spirit of bondage '
(Ro 8"*), and ' stupor ' (KaTai/iyJewy, 11*), and 'fear-
fulness' (2 Ti V), and ' error' (1 Jn 4«).
3. Demoniacal possession. — This subject is much
less spoken of in tlie writings which are here dealt
Avith than in the Gospels. The evangelistic records
depict a much stronger activity of evil in Palestine
during the earthly life of our Lord than that which,
as the rest of NT would lead us to suppose, existed
elsewhere and at a later time. Yet in four passages
of Acts we read of possession by unclean or evil
spirits : at Jerusalem (5'*) ; in Samaria, where they
Avere expelled at the preaching of Philip (8^) ; at
Philippi, Avhere the ventriloquist maiden is said to
have a spirit, a Python (16" : irveO/ia vvdwva is the
best reading) ; and at Ephesus, Avhere by St. Paul's
miracles the evil spirits were expelled (19'-). In
this last passage we read of the evil spirit speaking
out of the possessed man's mouth, and of the man's
actions being tliose of the evil sjiirit (v.") ; also of
Jewish exorcists who endi;avourcd to expel him (the
seven of v.'* become in all the best MSS two at v." ;
probably there Avero seven brothers, but only tAvo
took part in this incident). The word 'exorcist'
does not occur elsewhere in the NT. The pa.ssage
about the Python (16'") is very remarkjible. The
name is derived from Pytho, a district near Delphi
where the dragon (called Python) Avas slain by
Apollo. The title Avas thus given to a diviner :
both Apollo and tiie Delphic priestess Avere called
'the Pythian' (6 Uddio^, tj ll^Ola). Ventriloquists
Avere regarded as being under the influence of
demons, and as being able to divine ; they were, as
Plutarch tells us (Moralin, ed. Xylander, ii. 414 E,
quoted by Wetstein on Ac 16'"), called truOuvf^,
wvO(l)vi<T<Tai. Here, then, we have the conception of
something other than ordinary madness being a
Eossession by evil spirits ; and this incident may
e considered as a stepping-stone to the conception
found in some NT Avriters of physical disease as
being, at least in some cases, also a possession.
This is the case especially in the Avritings of Luke
the physician. Thus the Avoman who Avas ' bowed
together ' is said to have had ' a spirit of infirmity '
(irveO/ia A(TOivila.s, Lk 13") and to have been bound
by Satan (v.'") ; our Lord ' rebuked ' (eVerfACTjo-e) the
fever of Simon's Avife's mother (Lk 4**), as if it were
an unclean spirit ; a deaf-mute is said to have a
' dumb spirit ' or ' a dumb and deaf spirit '(Mk 9"-^).
There is nothing which leads us to suppose that
the conception of demoniacal possession Avhich Ave
find Avell established in the four Gospels, especially
in the Synoptics, Avas not shared by the other NT
Avriters ; but it is noteAvorthy that, as the subject
is only glanced at in the Fourth Gospel (Avith refer-
ence to the charge against our Lord, Jn 7^ 8*^*-
lO-'o'-), so it is not dealt with at all by St. Paul,
though we could perhaps hardly expect that it
should be spoken of in epistolary writings. We
may, however, remark that the language of the
famous passage Ro 7'<-2s, in which the Apostle
speaks of the poAver of sin in the Christian — for
Ave can hardly think that he is speaking of himself
only before his conversion — bears a close likeness
to that used to describe demoniacal possession.
Literature. — This article has dealt only with the period from
the Ascension to the end of the 1st cent. ; for this reference
maybe made to H. St. J. Thackeray, The lielationoj St. Paul
to Contemporary Jewish Thought, London, 1900, ch. vi. For
demoniacal possession see R. C. Trench, Notes on the Miracles
of our LoriP, London, 1870, § 5 ('The Demoniacs in the Country
of the Gadarenes '). On the subject in general see H. B. Swete,
The Holy Spirit in the yew Testament, Ixmdon, 1900, Appendix C;
A Harnack, The Mis.tion and Kxpan.si<in of Christianitii, Eng.
tr.-', 1908, i. 125 ff. ; O. C. Whitehouse in 11 DB, art. 'Demon,
Devil' ; W. O. E. Oesterley in />C(r', art. 'Demon, Demoniacs' ;
R. W. Moss in SDB, welt. ' Devil,' ' Possession.' For IKWt-
apostolic conceptions of demonology see H. L. Pass in ERE,
art. ' Demons and Spirits (Christian) ' ; for those of other nations
see the various articles under the same title in KRE.
A. J, Maclean.
DE PUTY. — This is the AV translation of dv^i^iraroi,
the Gr. equivalent of pro conside, ' proconsul ' (q.v. ).
In NT times ' proconsul ' Avas the name given to
the governor of a senatorial province — tliat is, a
province under the supervision of the Roman
Senate, Avhich appointed the governors. In the
NT the foUoAving senatorial provinces are referred
to as under proconsuls : Asia, governed by an ex-
consul, callea proconsul, a province of the highest
class, and Cyprus and Achaia, each governed by
an ex-prsetor, also called proconsul, provinces of
the second class. A. SOUTER.
DERBE (A(?/)/3j?).— Derbe Avas one of 'the cities
of Lycaonia' into Avhicli Paul and Barnabas Hed
Avhen driven from Iconium (Ac 14"). Stral>o says
it Avas ' on the Hanks of the Isaurian region, ad-
DESCENT IKIO HADES
DESCENT INTO HADES
289
herin^ (fTire4>vK6s) to Cappailocia' (XII. vi. 3). It
belonged to that part of Lycaonia which, in the
1st cent. B.C., the Romans added, as an 'eleventh
Strategia,' to the territory of the kings of Cappa-
docia (XII. i. 4). From them it was seized, along
with tlie more important town of Laranda, bj
Antipater the robber (called 6 Aep^-rnii), who is
otherwise known as a friend of Cicero {ad Fam.
xiii. 73). Antipater was attacked and slain by
AmjTitasof Galatia (c. 29 B.C.), who added Laranda
and Derbe to the extensive territories which he
ruled as a Roman subject-king. On the death of
Amyntas in 25 B.C. his kingdom was formed
into the Roman province of Galatia. But the
' eleventh Strat€gia ' again received special treat-
ment. After changing hands more than once, it
was ultimately added — as the inscriptions on coins
indicate — to the kingdom of Antiochus IV., and
therefore called 'Strategia Antiochiane' (Ptolemy,
V. 6), an arrangement which lasted from a.d. 41
to the death of Antiochus in 72. Derbe, however,
being required as a fortress city on the Roman
frontier, was detached from the Strategia and in-
cluded in the province of Galatia, after which it re-
ceived a new constitution, and was named Claudio-
Derbe, which was equivalent to Imperial Derbe.
Ethnically and geographically Lycaonian, the
city was now politically Galatian. As in Lystra,
the educated natives were no doubt bilingual,
speaking Lycaonian (XvKaovurrl, Ac 14") among
themselves, but using Greek as the language of
commerce and culture. Derbe lay on the great
trade-route between Ephesus and Syrian Antioch.
All the cities on that line had been hellenized by
the Seleucids, whose task the Romans now con-
tinued. St. Paul's first visit to Derbe was very suc-
cessful ; he ' made many disciples ' (Ac 14^), and the
city is not mentioned as one of the places in which
he was persecuted (2 Ti 3"). It is a striking fact
that he made Deroe the last stage of his missionarj- i
progress, instead of going on to the neighbouring
and greater city of Laranda. His action appears
to be prompted by a motive which the historian
does not formally state. Because Derbe was the
limit of Roman territory, he made it the limit of
his mission. He followed the lines of Empire.
In his second journey he evidently crossed the
Taurus by the CUician Gates, passed through the
kingdom of Antiochus, and so ' came to Derbe
and Lystra' (Ac 15*^-16^). A third visit is prob-
ably implied by the statement that 'he went
through the region of Galatia and Phrygia in
order, stablishing all the disciples' (18^). On the
Southern Galatian theory, the Christians of Derbe
formed one of the ' churches of Galatia' (1 Co 16^
Gal 1^), and they were among the avomjToi TaXaToi
(Gal 34 whom he exhorted to stand fast in their
Christian liberty (5'). Imperial Derbe stood in
closer relations with the Roman colonies of Antioch
and Lystra than with the non-Roman Lycaones of
the kingdom of Antiochus.
Sterrett (Wolfe Expedition, 18S8, p. 23) placed
Derbe between the villages of Zosta and Bossola
on the road from Konia to Laranda. In both of
these places there are numerous ancient cut stones
and inscriptions, but it is doubtful if they are in
situ, and W. M. Ramsay thinks that the position
of the ancient city is indicated by a large deserted
mound, called by the Turks Gudelissin, about 3
miles "SV.N.W. from Zosta. It still waits to be
explored.
Lttkratteb.— W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman
Empire, 1S93, pp. 54-56, The CitUso/St. Paul, 1907, p. 385 «f.,
Eut. Com. on GaL, 1S99, pp. 22S-234 ; W. Smitb, DGRG i.
[i85«)770. James Stkahak.
DESCENT INTO HADES.— 1. By the Hebrews,
Sheol or Hades was regarded as the under world,
VOL. I. — IQ
a subterranean region of abysses and mysterious
waters upon which the earth rested (Ps 24* 136*).
It was the region to which all souls passed after
death, there to live a shadow-like existence, in-
capable of the higher forms of spiritual activity,
such as the praise of Jahweh (Ps 6*). In NT
times, a distinction has been drawn between the
departments of Sheol inhabited by the good and
the bad : ' Paradise ' is the resting-place of the
righteous and penitent (Lk 23**), while the ' abyss '
(q. V. ) is spoken of as the abode of demons (Lk 8" ;
cf. Rev 91 IV 17» 20').
2. Those who accepted the Jewish cosmogony
believed that, at death, every soul passed to this
hidden region. The death of Christ involved for
Him, as for every son of man, the same ionmey.
To the first disciples, that He 'descenaed into
Hades' wotild not present itself as an article of
faith, or as a matter of revelation ; it was implied
in the fact of His death. That He went into
' the abyss ' does not need argument for St. Paul
(Ro 10^ ; cf. Eph 4* kot^jSij th rd KOTilrrepa [Upti rtji
yrji) ; that His soul was in Hades after the Cruci-
fixion is assumed as a matter of course in Ac 2^'.
No one in the Apostolic or sub-Apostolic Age
would have been impelled by dogmatic considera-
tions to insert the article of the Descent into Hades
in the baptismal creed, for it was only another way
of saying that Christ died. In the NT, accordingly
(with the exception of 1 P 3'® 4*), the references to
Christ's Descent into the under world are incidental
only, introduced to illustrate special points ; e.g.
Ac 2*', that Christ did not remain in Hades ; Mt
12**, that the period of His sojourn ' in the heart
of the earth' was ' three days and three nights' ;
Eph 4', that the Crucified who descended is the
Ascended Lord ; and Lk 23^, that the penitent
thief would be in security with Christ in the
unseen life after death. (It is to be observed,
however, that Lk 23^ is not quoted by the Fathers
as illustrating the Descensus, some of them — e.g.
TertuUian — holding that Paradise was not a de-
partment of Hades, but distinct from it.)
3. But the question was inevitable : when Christ
descended to the under world, what oflSce did He
perform there? And in attempting to find an
answer to the question as to the consequences and
the purpose of Christ's Descent into Sheol, the
early Christians nattirally betook themselves to
the "OT and to the forecasts of Messiah's mission
which they found therein. Even before specula-
tion began on these points, it had been natural to
use OT language when the fact of the Descensus
was mentioned : thus Ro 10' goes back to Dt 30",
and Ac 2^1 to Ps 16»*>. Now the OT suggested a
deliverance of the righteous from Sheol, and this
thought was destinetl to be prominent in the
development of Christian eschatology.
Sheol, as we have seen, is the abode of the
spirits of the departed (Ps 49'*), and it is from
Sneol, personified as the ruler of this gloomy
region, that the righteous Hebrew looked for
deliverance. ' God will redeem mv soul from the
power of Sheol ' was his hope (Ps 49" ; cf. Ps 30»).
The Divine promise was, ' I will ransom them from
the power of Sheol' (Hos 13"). 'Because of the
blood of the covenant I have brought forth thy
prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water ' (Zee
9^^) is a prophetic forecast.* To St. Paul's thought,
the climax of Christ's victory was the conquest of
death (1 Co 15**) ; and it was part of the purpose
of His humiliation that in His triumph the powers
of the under world should own His swayfPh 2^"
Xva rap ybwv Kdfi\Jnj . . , KoraxOoriwr). When it
was asked how this subjugation was exhibited,
the answer was ready to hand. It was in the
deliverance fiom Satan's bondage of the dead whom
* So it is interpreted by C>TiI of Jemsalem (Cot. xiiL 3<X
290
DESCENT INTO HADES
DESCENT INTO HADES
he had in thrall in Sheol. Christ has the keys of
death and of Hades (llev l**).
It is possible that some such conception of
Messiah's mission to the departed was prevalent
in pre-Christian days. Two paasages from tlie
Bereshith Rabba * are cited as testifying to Jewish
belief : ' When they that are bound, they that are
in Gehinnom, saw the light of the Messiah, they
rejoiced to receive him ' ; and ' This is that which
stands written, We shall rejoice and exult in thee.
When ? When the captives climb out of hell, and
the Shechinah at their head.' But the date of
this literature is uncertain, and it may be affected
by Christian ideas. At any rate, this conception
of the purpose of Christ's Descensus is prominent
in the earliest Christian documents. Thus in a
section of the Ascension of Isaiah (ix. 16 f.)
assigned by Charles to the close of the 1st cent,
we hare : ' when lie hath plundered the angel of
death, he will ascend [sc. from Hades] on the
third day . . . and many of the righteous will
ascend with him ' (cf. also x. 8, 14 and xi. 19,
* They crucified him, and he descended to the
angel of Sheol'). With this should be compared
Mt 27'^ '^t perhaps the earliest suggestion of the
tliought that the saints were freed from the
bondage of Hades by the Descent of Christ.f In
a '2nd cent, section of the Sibylline Oracles (i. 377)
M"e have : birbr hv AiSwvio^ oIkov \ /3-^<rrrot d77A\wj'
4iraLV(xaTa<TlTiv TedveQiffiv ; and tagain (viii. 310): T/j^eiB'eh
^XlS-qv iyyiWuv iXirida vacnv. The date of the
(Christian) interpolation in the Latin version of
Sir 24*' is not certain, but the words interpolated
are significant : ' Penetrabo omnes inreriores
partes terrae et inspiciam omnes dormientes, et
illuminabo onmes sperantes in Domino.' We have
an explicit statement in Origen, who, commenting
on Ro 5", says : ' Christum vero idcirco in infemum
descendisse, non solum ut ipse non teneretur a
morte, sed ut et eos, qui inibi non tarn praevarica-
tionis crimine, quam moriendi conditione habe-
bantur, abstraheret. ' :J: Origen elsewhere inter-
Srets the binding of the ' strong man ' of Mt 12^^ as a
inding of Satan in the under world, and Irenaeus
gives the same exegesis. § This is the general
view : the express purpose of Christ's Descent to
Hades was to liberate the souls who were there
in thrall. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus
works out, in picturesque detail, the story of the
* Harrowing of^ Hell,' a legend which deeply im-
pressed the consciousness of Christendom. So
wide-spread was this belief in the early Christian
period that a controversy arose as to whether the
souls of Jews or of Gentiles or of both were in-
cluded in the deliverance Avrought by Christ in
Hades. Marcion — if Irenaeus || is to be trusted —
held that it was only for the redemption of the
wicked heathen of olden time, but Justin H and
Irenieus ** restricted it to the righteous of Israel ;
while Clement of Alexandria ft and his school
included both Jew and Gentile in its grace. We
find, then, that, while the NT gives no explicit
sanction to this idea of the conquest of the powers
of the under world and the deliverance of im-
prisoned souls by Clirist's Descent into Hades, it
was firmly established in the 2nd and 3rd cent.,
and that it grew out of OT phrases about the
redemption from Sheol.
5. Tlie idea that C\m9,t preaclied in Hades to the
souls who were in bondage there has a somewhat
ditlerent history. It is found in Ignatius tt : ' even
the prophets, being His disciples in the spirit, were
* Quoted from Weber by Bigg on 1 P Si» {ICC, 1901, p. 163).
t So Origen interprets Mt 27^2 as a fulfilment of Ps 6818
{Lommatzsch, vi. 344).
X Lommatzsch, vi. 844.
I ib. I. xxvii.
** adv. Ucer. xv. xxvii. 2.
ti ad Moan. ix.
g adv. Hcer. v. xxL 8.
% Tryph. 72.
ft Strom, ii. 9.
expecting Him as their teacher, and for this cause,
He, whom they rightlj- awaited, when He came,
raised them from the dead.' More explicit is an
oracle quoted both by Justin * and by Irenaeus t as
from Isaiah or Jeremiah, although it is not in the
OT, and its source has not been traced : ' The
Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel
who lay in the graves, and descended to preach
to them His own salvation.' + In like manner,
the apocryphal Gospel of Peter (2nd cent.) tells
of a voice from heaven which said, 'Thou didst
preach to them that sleep ' {^K-^pv^ai toU Kotfiunivoti).
This, according to Clement of Alexandria, who
does not countenance the legendary developments
of the idea of liberation, was the sole purpose of
Christ's Descent into Hades, viz. that He should
preach the gospel there.§
Of Christ's preaching in Hades there is no
foreshadowing in the OT, although Clement of
Alexandria II Mill have it that Job 28^ predicts it.
But it is plainlj' stated in 1 P 3'" 4', and the eti'orts
to explain these passages of a preaching of the pre-
existent Christ to the patriarchs, or of His mission
to the spiritually dead, can only be regarded as
after-thoughts of Christology, although they have
the authority of Augustine and Aquinas. The
words are explicit : rots iv <pv\aK-§ irvev/juicnv vopevdeli
iK-qpv^ev . . . veKpoh evirYyeXlffdr]. It is noteworthy,
however, that early Christian belief on this point
was not founded on these texts. They are not
cited in connexion with the Descensus by the
earliest writers, .such as Ignatius, Justin, or
Irenaeus. Cyprian II quotes 1 P 4*, but he otters no
comment upon it ; and Clement of Alexandria ** is
the first to use 1 P 3^* to illustrate the proclama-
tion of the gospel in Hades. Nothing is said in
either passage as to the effect of the preaching ;
there is no suggestion of that triumphant deliver-
ance of souls from Hades, on which the next age
loved to dwell. Indeed, 1 P 3^^ does not speak of a
preaching to all the spirits of the departed, but
only to those of the antediluvian patriarchs ; and
this limitation, whatever be its precise significance,
needs to be kept in mind. It was, perhaps, because
of this limitation that the passage was not quoted
by the early Christian writers when debating the
meaning of the Descensus ; the doctrine was de-
veloping itself in quite a dilierent way.
6. A curious passage in the Shepherd of Hermas
{Sim. ix. 16) throws some light on the primitive
Christian conception of the under world. A
parable is told of the building of a tower which
represents the Church at rest. All the stones
which are built into the tower are taken from ' a
certain deep place' {iK pvOoO Tiv6s), i.e. the under
world. The first tier represents the first genera-
tion of men, i.e. from Adam to Abraham ; the
second, those from Abraham to Moses ; the third,
the prophets and ministers (sc. of the Old Cove-
nant) ; while the fourth tier represents the apostles
and teachers of the New Covenant. All alike had
'to rise up through water' that they might be
made alive, so that the seal of baptism is needed
for all. Now the 'apostles and teachers' differed
from the rest in that they had been baptized
before they passed into the under world ; but when
there, 'after they had fallen asleep in the power
and faith of the Son of God, they preached also to
them that had fallen asleep before tliem, and them-
selves gave unto them the seal of the preaching,'
sc. baptism. Thus Hermas does not speak of a
Descent of Christ into Hades, but he finds a mission
* Tryph. 72. t adv. Ha»: in. xx. 4.
t In other passages of Irenaeus where this oracle is quoted
(rv. xxxiii. 12, v. xxxi. 1) it ends, 'descended to rescue and
deliver them,' no mention being made of the preaching of
Christ in Hades.
« Strom, vi. 6. II ib.
H Test. iL 27. •* Stnm. vL 6.
DESCENT INTO HADES
DESCENT INTO HADES
291
there for the apostles and teachers of the Christian
dispens<ation, viz. that they might evangelize and
baptize the pre-Christian saints, so that tliey too
uiiglit become members of the Church. Clement
of Alexandria ' quotes this pai^sage from Hermas,
and addst that the apostles preached in Hades,
folloicing the Lord. Probably neither writer had
formulated a quite consistent scheme of Christ's
mission to the under world. As Clement held that
the apostles were follovctrs of Christ in Hades, so
Origen taught that Christ had forerunners there.
He held that as the prophets, both those of the
OT and John Baptist, were His heralds on earth,
to they were His heralds in the under world : J
'\-q<TOVi (is ^dou yi-fove, Kai oL rpixftTJrai rpd avrov, xai
TpoKTjfiMTffovffi Tov 'KfHffTM/ TTji' iriSTi/iiay.
7. The primitive view, so far as it can be collected
from Hermas and Ignatius, seems to be correctly
expounded by Loofs.§ Christians, since the Re-
demption wrought by their Master, were not sub-
ject to the bondage of Hades after death ; from
the power of death they had been freed once for
all. And what Christ did for the patriarchs in
Hades was to place them in a like position to those
who had been favouK,^ by His presence on earth.
Those who welcomed Him there were delivered
from thrall, as all His disciples had already been
delivered. This was not held by TertuUiaUii or
by Irenaeus,"! but it is definitely stated by Origen** :
edi* draWayQfuv yevo^evoi jcoXm Kai dyadoi . . . ov
KaT(\eixr6fie6a els ttji' X'^P"^ 5rov ■weptififyov tov "S.purTOV
til xpo 7-7S -rapovffias airrov Koifuifuvoi.
This may have been the significance of the
preaching in Hades, mentioned in 1 P 3'" 4* ; but
it remains obscure why it is limited (at least in the
first passage) to the antediluvian sinners, for there
is no hint that they are to be taken as typical of
all men who lived before Christ's Advent.
8. The Descent into Hades is the topic in several
of the recently discovered Odes 0/ Solomon, which
date from the 2nd century.
These remarkable hymns were first published from the Sjriac
by Rendel Harris in 1909, and several editions have appeared
since in German, French, and English. Opinion is divided as
to their date and doctrinal standpoint ; but it is not doubtful
that the passages here cited are Christian. They may be dated,
provisionally, between A.D. 150 and 180.
In Ode xxxL 1 ff. we have a Song of the Victory
of Christ in the under world : ' The abysses were
dissolved before the Lord : and darkness was de-
stroyed by His appearance : error went astray and
perished at His hand : and folly found no path to
walk in . . . He opened His mouth and spake
grace and joy . . . His face was justified, for thus
His holy Father had given to Him. Come forth,
3-6 that have been afflicted and receive joy, and
possess your souls by His grace, and take to you
immortal life.' And in xlii. loft*. : ' Sheol saw me,
and was made miserable : Death cast me up and
many along with me ... I made a congregation
of living men amongst his dead men, and I spake
with them by lining lips . . . and those who had
died . . . said, Son of God, have pity on us . . .
and bring us out from the bonds of darkness ; and
open to us the door by which we shall come out to
thee.'
Here we have the redemption of souls in Hades,
and also a preaching by Christ there after His
Passion. In these Odes there is the earliest appear-
ance of the detailed doctrine of the Descensus
which is found in the Gospel of Nicodemus, and
was afterwards universally prevalent in Christian
circles. The Odes do not appeal directly to Scrip-
ture ; and the manner in which they allude to the
* Strom iL 9. t *. vi. 6.
X Horn, in 1 Sam. ?53-a» (Lommatzscb, xL 326).
i ERE iv. 661. ! de Anima, 58.
5 adv. Hctr. v. xxxL 2.
** Horn, in 1 Sam. •»»-** (Lommatzsch, xi. 332).
fact and the purpose of the Descensus shows that
it must have been a familiar Christian idea at the
date of their composition.
9. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus tells (ii.
10) that John Baptist announced to the patriarclis
in Hades that he had baptized the Christ, who
would soon come to bring them deliverance. We
have already (§ 6) found in Origen the conception
of John as the precursor of Clirist in the under
world ; but we have now to notice the remarkable
similarity between the language used about the
Descensus and that used about baptism. Four
points in particular may be noted :
(a) The Descent was a going down into ' the
abyss ' (Bo 10'). A text of the OT quoted by CjtU
of Jerusalem * as pre-figming this is Jon 2'- ', wmch
is in the LXX :
i^vaffos iKviiXwaiv fie iax^rij,
(Sv ri xe^oXi) fiov els ffxifffMS 6peuiw,
Kori^rpf els yf^v ^j 6L (jLoyXol airrfjs xdroxoi aliivioi.
Now in baptism we are ' buried with him ' and
' united with him by the likeness of his death '
(Ro 6*- '). The Fathers, e.g. Basil,t speak explicitly
of our baptism as a reflexion or imitation of Christ's
Descensus ; as a "Western Council t has it, ' in aquis
mersio, quasi in infemum descensio est.'
{b) When Christ descended, the keepers of the
gates of Hades were scared (cf. Job 38" vvXtMol ii
4S0V I56irres ae l-mj^ay), and the Gospel of Nicodemus
(ii. 8) speaks of the brazen gates and iron bars
being broken (cf. Ps 107^®, Is 45-). The powers of
the under world were terrified. Now the Epistle
of Barnabas (§ 11) quotes as predictive of baptism
Is 45- ' I will crush gates of brass and break in
pieces bolts of iron ' ; and the same text is alluded
to in Odes of Solomon, xviL 9, where again the re-
ference is to baptism. Further, all the Eastern
baptismal rites bring in the idea of the waters (the
mysterious region where evil spirits dwell) being
terrified at the coming of Christ for baptism,
quoting Ps 77'* 114' 2S^ as forecasting this. We
have the same thing in Odes of Solomon, xxiv. 1
and xxxi. If. In some pictorial representations of
tlie Baptism of Christ, Jordan is depicted allegoric-
ally as starting away in astonLshea fear. That is,
the terror of the powers of evil is described in the
same language, whether the Descent to Hades or
Christian baptism is the topic. §
(c) The main purpose, as we have seen (§ 3) of
the Descensus was the release of captive souls.
But that baptism is a release from bondage, the
bondage of sin, is a commonplace in early Christian
literature. Baptism, says Cyril of Jerusalem,;! is
cu'xAuiXwrMs Xih-pof (cf. Odes of Solomon, xvii. 11,
xxL 1, XXV. 1, and Ephraim Syrus, Hymns on the
Nativity, xv. 9 : ' Blessed be He who has annulled
the bonds').
(d) The Gospel of Nicodemus describes the
passage to Paradise of the saints redeemed from
Hades by Christ. It was, again, a familiar thought
in early Christian speculation that in baptism we
are restored to Paradise, to the state from which
Adam fell, the guilt of original sin being annulled
(cf. Origen,^ CjTil of Jerusalem,** Basil,tt and
Ephraim,:;:^ who says of the baptized: 'the fruit
which Adam tasted not in Paradise, this day in
your mouths has been placed.' See also Odes of
Solomon, xi. 14).
Other illustrations might be given, but these are
sufficient to show that what may be called the
folklore of the Descent into Hades is closely con-
nected with the folklore of baptism. The juxta-
• Cat. xir. 20. i de Spiritu Saneto, xv. 35.
; 4tb Council of TUedo (633X cap. 6.
i See Bernard, Odes ofSoltmum (TS viiL 3 [1912]). p. 33 f., for
a fuller statement and for references in regard to the matter of
this section g^enerally.
I ProeaL 16. H in Gen, ». ** Cat L i.
ft Horn. xiJL 2. tX Epiphany Hprnnt, xiiL 17.
292
DESERT, WILDERNESS
DESTRUCTION
position of the two thoughts — the ministry of Christ
in Hades and the ettieacy of baptism — in 1 1' 3"*'- is
remarkable, and deserves a closer examination than
it has yet received from commentators.
10. The article ' He descended into Hell ' does
not appear in any Creed until the 4th cent., the
Arian Symbol of Sirmium (359) being the first to
include it ; and it is not included in the baptismal
Creed of the Eastern Churcli to this day. The
motive with which it was inserted in the Creeds of
the West is not clear ; but, whatever the motive
was originally, the clause now is useful as testify-
ing to the perfect humanity of Christ, His spirit
having passed into the unseen world after death,
as the spirits of the departed do. Nor are we just
to early Christian tradition, or mindful of the
implications of 1 P 3"* 4^, if we do not recognize
that this Descensus must have affected in some way
the condition of souls in the unseen world.
LiTERATURK. — This is very copious. The artt. ' Descent to
Hades (Christ's)' by Loofs in KliE and ' Hell (Descent into)'
by Burn in DCQ with the literature there cited are most valu-
able. A lar^e number of Patristic references will be found in
F. Huidekoper, Christ's Mission to the Underworld-, New
York, 1876. H. B. Swete, The Apostles' Creed, London, 1894 ;
E. C. S. Gibson, The Thirty-Xine Articles o/ the Church of
England, do. 189(>-97 ; and J. Turmel, La Descente du Christ
aux enfers, Paris, 1905, <;ive useful summaries. C. Bigg, Epp.
of St. Peter and St. Jiide (ICC, 1901), is the fullest English
Commentary on the Petrine texts. J. H. BERNARD.
DESERT, WILDERNESS.— The ideas suggested
to our minds by the words 'desert' or 'wilderness'
differ to a considerable extent from those conveyed
to an Oriental by the biblical terms so translated.
When we think of a desert we tend to imagine a
bare sandy waste, without any vegetation or water,
such as the Desert of the Sahara in N. Africa.
The ' desert ' of the Bible is rather a place without
human habitations, devoid of cities or towns, but
by no means devoid of vegetation, at least for a
considerable portion of the year. Properly speak-
ing, the desert was the place to whicli the cattle
were driven (Heb. njin from nj^ 'to drive'), an
uncultivated region where pasturage, however
scanty, was to be found. Joel, for instance, speaks
of the fire having devoured the pastures of the
wilderness (P"), and of the locusts leaving a
desolate wilderness behind them (2^). It was in
the wilderness that the shepherds tended their
flocks, and other forms of life were also to be
found there. Thus, e.g., pelicans (Ps 102«), wild
asses (Jer 2"^), ostriches (La 4^), jackals (Mai P)
had their home in the desert. As the pasture to
be found in the wilderness was scanty and in-
sufficient to support a fiock of sheep for any length
of time, the shepherds had to move from place to
place in order to obtain the necessary food for their
nocks. The desert was thus the special home of
nomadic or wandering tribes, although the name
' desert ' or ' wilderness ' was applied to the un-
cultivated tracts of land beyond the bounds of
the cultivated area near the towns or villages.
Some of the deserts mentioned in Scripture are
small, and correspond to the English 'common ' or
uncultivated pasture ground near a village on
whicli any of tlie inhabitants could graze their
cattle. Thus we read of the Wilderness of Gibeon
(2 S 2^*), of Tekoa (2 Cii 2020), of Damascus (1 K
19^*). On the other iiand, many of the wildernesses
referred to in the Bible are simply parts of larger
deserts. Some of these larger tracts of unculti-
vated pasture land are, e.g. , the Wilderness of Judah
(Jg V% of Moab (Dt 2**), of Edom (2 K 3"). The
Wilderness of Judah included the Wilderness of
Ziph, of Tekoa, of Engedi.
The best-known desert of the Bible is the
Wilderness of Sinai, where the tribes of Israel
wandered before settling in Canaan. God's care
for the people in those days of wandering is re-
peatedly referred to by prophets and psalmists
{e.g. Hos 13», Jer 2«, Am 2^i Ps 78" lOT* 1.36'«).
In the same way the sin and unbelief of the people
in the wilderness are mentioned (e.g. Ps 78** 106"),
while on the other hand several of the prophets
seem to look on the time of the sojourn in the
wilderness as the ideal period in the story of
Israel's relation to God (e.g. Jer 2^ Am 5**).
In the apostolic writings we have several refer-
ences to 'wilderness' or 'desert.' The terms em-
ployed are ipiifxla and ffyn/J-os, the latter used either
as a noun or adjective witli tSttos or xt^P* or some
similar M'ord understood. In the life of our Lord
the desert holds an important place. It is the
scene of the Temptation, of the feeding of the 5000,
of midnight prayer and rest from labour. In tlie
life of St. Paul we have a reference to his sojourn
in Arabia (Gal 1") after his conversion, and un-
doubtedly we are to understand that the Apostle
had retired to the desert for meditation. The
evangelist Philip is instructed by the Spirit to go
to meet the Ethiopian eunuch on the road from
Jerusalem to Gaza, and the statement follows,
' which is desert ' ( Ac 8^). If this refers to the
road Avhich passed through the desert, there is no
difhculty ; but the natural application of the words
is to Gaza itself, which in the time of Philip was
a prosperous town. G. A. Smith (HGUL*, 1897, p.
186 f.) supposes that the reference is to Old Gaza,
past which the road ran ; but the more likely
explanation is that the sentence is a later marginal
gloss inserted after Gaza had passed away, and that
it at length crept into the text (cf. HDD iv. 918'*).
In the Epistle to the Hebrews reference is
made to the persecuted followers of Christ 'who
wandered in deserts and mountains ' (11^). Prob-
ably this refers to the Jewish Christians of tlie
Holy Land during the great war witii Rome and
after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. The
apostolic writings also contain repeated allusions
to the wilderness of Israel's wanderings. In the
speeches of St. Stephen and St. Paul, as recorded
in the Acts of the Apostles, we find the story of the
desert sojourn, in the accounts of the hi.story of
God's revelation of Himself to mankind (Ac 73«-38-
•«2-'»4 1318). St. Paul in 1 Co 10» refers to the
temptation, sin, and punishment of the people in
the Avilderness as a warning to Christian believers
against giving way to temptation. A similar use
of the temptation in the Avildemess is made in
He 38- 1^.
In Rev 12^' '* ' the woman clothed with the sun '
has a place prepared for her in the wilderness,
whither she nees from before the dragon, while in
17* the seer is canied to the wilderness to see the
' woman sitting upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full
of names of blasphemy.' The thought behind the
former reference, of the wilderness as a place
of refuge for the woman, may be taken from the
history of the Jews who fled from Pharaoh to the
wilderness, but there may be no more than the
general idea of the wilderness as a place of refuge
and concealment, so amply illustrated in the life
of David. The idea in the latter instance may be
connected with the Jewish conception of the desert
as the liome of demons or evil spirits (cf. art.
Demon). W. F. Boyd.
DESTRUCTION.— The material is scanty in St.
Paul's writings for ' a detailed theory on this most
awe-inspiring of all subjects,' and it is proper for
us to note ' the " wise Agnosticism " (the phrase is
Dr. Orr's in discussing the teaching of Scripture
on eternal punishment) of St. Paul with the at-
tempted theories of the Synagogue-theologians'
(H. A. A. Kennedy, St. Paul's Conceptions ofth(
Last Things, 1904, pp. 313, 315 ; cf. also 4 Ezr. ix. 13,
' Enquire not further how the ungodly are to be
DEVIL
DEVIL
293
tormented, but rather investigate the manner in
which the righteous are to be saved'). But there
can be little doubt that the term 'destruction' to
St. Paul meant, not annihilation, but a continual
existence of some sort in the outer darkness away
from Grod. St. Paul has a group of words for this
idea. <Jpr) (1 Th l'», Ro 2»- » 5») is a more general
term and applies to the Day of Judgment, ffdwarot
(Ro 6-'- " 8*) is not the death of the body, which is
true of all, but rather the second death of Rev
20*- ". The NT gives no scientific description of
death, nor is one possible in the spiritual sphere.
The analogy of Nature (see Butlers Analogy, ed.
Gladstone, 1896, and Drummonds Satural Law
in the Spiritual World, 1883) does not make an-
nihilation necessary. The words ipOeipa and <t>$opd
(Gal 6^, 2 P 2^-) have the notion of corruption.
Note the contrast in 1 Co 15** between ip <l>dopq.
and iv d(f>dapctif. St. Paul uses tpdeipu in 1 Co 3"
for the punishment of one who destroys {<p0fipui)
the Temple of God. In Ro 3'^ destruction {<rur-
rpinfia) and misery {raXai-rupia) are coupled together
for the ways of the sinful. Bat the chief words
for the idea of destruction of the unbelieving are
arwXfia (dsroXXicj) and 6\edp<K, both from 6\\vfit, ' to
destroy.' In Rev 9^* 6 'AxoWiwi', the destroyer, is
the title of Satan. The use of aro in dxdWi'/u and
dxiiXeia is perfective, and in Greek literature
generally the terms mean 'destruction.' This
fact is used by the advocates of conditional im-
mortality in favour of the doctrine of the annihi-
lation of the wicked, but it is by no means clear
that the words connote extinction of consciousness.
Least of all is this true of the LXX use of the
words. In 2 P 3" oTwXeta is used for the Day of
Judgment and punishment of the wicked, which
implies life after death. In Ph 1*^ the word is in
opposition to ffomjpia, in He 10® it is opposed to
repiToiifffii rip fvxv^ (see also Ja 4", Jude ', 1 Co 1"
lO* IS^s, 2 Co 2«'- 4», Ro 2" Ph 3", Rev 17«- ").
There seems no good reason for reading into the
context the notion of annihilation of the soul, for
that was probably an idea wholly foreign to St.
Paul. The term SXfdpos meets us 'in 1 Th 5^ 2 Th
P, 1 Ti 6» (etj SXfdpop Kal dx«\«ar). In 2 Th l^ we
have TL(rov<Tiv SKtdpov cutbriov, which is the only pas-
sage that makes a statement about the duration
of the destruction of the wicked. Aristotle (de
Coslo, L 9, 15) defines aliiv as the limit (t6 tAoi)
either of a man's epoch or the limit of aJl things
(eternity). The word does not in itself denote
eternity, but it lends itself readily to that idea.
The context in 2 Th 1* makes the notion of final-
ity or eternity necessary (Milligan, Thess., 1908,
ad loc.). The word SkeOpot denotes hopeless ruin
(cf. Beet, The Last Things, ed. 1905, p. 122 fF.). In
4 Mac 10" we have t^ aluwiov rod rvpavvov 6\e$pov
in contrast with top doiSifiop tQp evaepdv ^low (cf.
Milligan, op. cit. p. 65). St. Paul's natural mean-
ing is the ruin of the v^icked, which goes on for
ever. It is a dark subject from any point of view,
but eternal sinning seems to call for eternal
punishing. See also artt. on LIFE AXD Death,
FrxiSHMEXT, and Perdition.
A. T. Robertson'.
DEVIL {Std^oXos). — In this article the conception
of tiie Evil One in the apostolic ^vritings and of
the various names used to describe him Tvill be
considered ; for the passages in EV where ' devil '
represents Scufioviov see Demon.
1. The name 8idpoXo«. — {a ) It is used as a common
noun or as an adjective to denote ' a slanderer' or
'slanderous' (NT in Pastoral Epistles only), as in
1 Ti 3" (women not to be slanderers), 2 Ti 3% Tit 2* ;
and so in LXX of Haman (Est 7* 8^ ; Heb. ly, -ns,
Vulg. hostis and adversarius). The corresponding
verb is used of accusation, where the charge is not
necessarily false, as in Lk 16^ (5te;3X^^) of the unjust
steward, though probably a secret enmity is in-
ferred ; and Papias (apr. £useb. HE m. xxxix. 16)
uses the verb (unless it is Eusebius' paraphrase)
with reference to the ' woman accused of many
sins before the Lord.' It is noteworthy in this
connexion that the devil's accusations against man,
though undoubtedly hostile, are not always untrue.
(b) As a proper name bid^oKm is constantly used
in the NT, usually with the article, but oocasion-
aUy it is anarthrous (Ac IS'", 1 P o*. Rev l^ 20»).
It is explicitly identified in Rev 12* 20* with the
Heb. name Satan, and, like that name, it is not
used in the NT in the plnr. (except in the primary
sense of ' slanderer ' as above), and is not applied
to Satan's angels, as we apply the word 'cievils'
to them. It is curious that we never in English
use ' Devil ' as a proper name without the article,
while we always use * Satan ' in this way. Hence
the title does not convey to our ears quite the same
idea as it conveyed to the Jews. Conversely we
should do well if we did not alxcays treat ' Christ '
as a proper name, but sometimes used it as a title
or attribute, 'the Christ,' as occasionally in RV
{e.g. Lk 24=6). In the OT ' Satan ' (from lej?, ' to
hate,' • to be an enemy to,' the root idea being the
enmity between the serpent and the seed of the
woman, Gn 3") is generally used with the article,
iP^t", as denoting the adversary : in 1 K 5* it is used
without the article, as denoting any adversary
(LXX ivipovXos, Vulg. Satan). The name ' Satan,'
liowever, had not been transliterated into Greek
till shortly before the Christian era, for we never
find it so rendered in the LXX, but always 6
Sid^oXos. The latter is used as a proper name in
the LXX of Job !«•, Zee 3^ (Vulg. Satan), and
Wis 2^ (Vulg. Diabolus) ; and so often in the NT.
There we have, as frequently, 6 Zaravdi, almost
always with an article, but in 2 Co 12^ we have ^arop
or Zaroj'a without the article; some cursives in
Rev 20* have Zarapdt anarthrous. The translitera-
tion ' Satan ' is found 34 times in the NT, of which
14 cases are in the Gospels.
(c) We find in the apostolic writings some para-
phrases of the name ' Satan.' ' The EvU One ' (6
rornp6i) is used in Eph 6'«, 1 Jn 2^^ 3" 5^«- ; this
designation is also found 5 times in the Gospels,
and, in addition, probably in the last clause of the
Lord's Prayer. In the Apocalypse ' the dragon ' is
frequently used as a sjmonym for Satan, 6 dpaxup
probably meaning ' the sharp-seeing one,' from
dipKOfiai.* It is used in Rev 12»- 13- *■ " 16»20*
as denoting a large serpent (as in classical Greek),
explicitly identified with the ' old serpent ' of Gn 3
in Rev 12* 20^. This identification is perhaps im-
plied in Ro 16*>, 2 Co 11» (cf. Wis 2^). Satan is
also called ' the Accuser ' and ' the Destroyer ' (see
below, § 2). For other names see AoyERSAUY,
Air, Belial.
2. Apostolic doctrine about the dcYil or Satan.
— The apostles, like their Jewish contemporaries,
taught that Satan was a personal being, the prince
of evil spirits or demons (Rev 12^- *, Eph 2"- ; cf. Mt
25", Mk 3^, but the name ' Beelzebub ' is not found
in the NT outside the Gospels), and therefore one
of the 'angels which kept not their own princi-
pality' (Jude®, 2 P 2*). In accordance with the
conception of Wis 2^, that his malignity towards
man is caused by envy (for Jewish ideas see
Edersheim, LT*, 1887, L 165), he is represented as
pre-eminently the adversary of man (1 P 5*), and
as accusing him to God (Rev 12^* KaTrryopm or
Kar^iop ; the reference seems to be to Job and
Joshua the high priest). He has power in this
world, though only for a while (Rev 12"), and
therefore is called the ' god of this world ' or * age '
• The wonl iixUmr in the LXX renders three Hebrew wotda :
PJB, tannin (Job 712). rij^, naAdth (Job 2613X jn^S, livtalhan
(Job 4025).
294
DEVIL
DEVIL
(o/wc) who ' hath blinded the thoughts (vorifiaTa) of
the unbelieving' (2 Co 4*; of. Jn H** 16" 'the
prince of the [this] worid '). This ' power of Satan '
IS contrasted with ' God ' as ' darkness ' with ' light '
in the heavenly vision at St. Paul's conversion
(Ac 26'"). 'The devil' has 'the power of death'
(He 2"), not that he can inflict death at will, but
that death entered into the world through sin
(Ko 5''^) at his instigation (Wis 2"). As Westcott
remarks (on He 2'^), death as death is no part of
the Divine order, but is the devil's realm ; he
makes it subservient to his end. He must, there-
fore, almost certainly be iden tilled with ' the De-
stroyer' who iin])ears as Apollyon {iiroWvuv) or
Abaddon ([nji*, lit. 'destruction'; see AnADDON)
in Rev 9", the king of the locusts who has power
to injure men for five months — the name is akin to
' Asmodaeus ' of To 3* (nps-x, from lot^, ' to destroy '),
but not with the 'Destroyer' of 1 Co 10'" (see
Angels, 8 (6)).
The devil uses his power to seduce man to sin ;
he tempts Ananias to lie to the Holy Ghost (Ac 5') ;
he deceives the whole world (Rev 12® 20*- '") ; he
is pre-eminently 'the tempter' (1 Th 3», 1 Co 7') ;
he tempts with wiles and devices and snares (Eph
6", 2 Co 2", 1 Ti 3^ 2 Ti 2^6) ; he uses evil men as
his instruments or ministers, who ' fashion them-
selves as ministers of righteousness' even as he
'fashioned himself into an angel of light' (2 Co
11"'- ). A passage in the Pastoral Epistles ( 1 Ti 3«)
suggests that the fundamental temptation with
which Satan seduces men is pride. The Christian
iirlffKowo^ must not be puffed up with pride lest he
fall into the condemnation (Kplfxa) into which the
devil fell (i.e. when cast out of heaven ; this seems
to be the most probable interpretation, not 'the
judgment wrought by the devil' ; cf. Jn 16" 'the
prince of this world hath been judged,' K^Kpirai).
Satan is far from being omnipotent ; man can re-
sist him, and he will nee (Ja 4^) ; man must not
'give place to' him, i.e. not give him scope to
work (Eph 4^"). Not that man can resist by his
own strength, but only by the indwelling power of
the Holy Spirit, who helps his infirmity (Ro S^,
1 Co 3'*, and in St. Paul's Epistles passim ; cf. Mt
12^) ; the Holy Spirit is man's Helper or Para-
clete against the Evil Spirit.
The devil is described as instigating opposition
to Christian work * and persecution ; whether by
blinding the minds (lit. thoughts) of the unbeliev-
ing (2 Co 4*), or directly by suggesting opposition,
as when he ' hindered ' St. Paul's return to Thessa-
lonica (1 Th 2'*), perhaps (as Ramsay thinks {St.
Paul, 1895, p. 230 f.]) by putting into the minds of
the politarchs the idea of exacting security for the
leading Christians of that city (Ac 17*). Similarly
in Rev 2'" the devil is said to be about to cast some
of the Smyrnaean Christians into prison ; and Per-
gamum, the centre of the Emperor-worship which
led to the persecution described in the Apocalypse,
is called Satan's throne (2'^). No phrase marks
more clearly than this the difference of attitude
towards the Roman official world between the
Seer on the one hand and St. Paul and St. Luke
on the other, or (as it seems to the present writer)
the interval between the dates of writing. The
Seer looks on the Emperor and his officials as
closely allied with Satan, while St. Paul and St.
Luke look upon them as Christ's instruments (Ro
13*, etc. ; and note the statements about Roman
officials in Acts). In close connexion with the
above passages, the persecuting Jews are called a
'synagogue of Satan' (Rev 2" 3").
3. The conflict with Satan. — Michael and his
good angels are represented as at war in heaven
with the devil and his angels (Rev 12^) as a direct
result of the spiritual travail of the Christian
* In this sense Peter is called 'Satan ' in Mt 1(1-'.
Church (vv,'"*). Satan is cast down to the earth
and persecutes the Cliurch (v.'*). But he is bound
by the angel for a thousand years, i.e. for a long
jieriod, and cast into the abyss that he may no
longer deceive (20*'-). This period of binding
synchronizes with Christ's reign of a thousand
years (see v.''), when the triumph is shared by the
martyrs (vv.*-*) ; this is the ' first resurrection,'
and is best interpreted >is taking place in the pre-
sent life, and as referring to the cessation of the
persecution, which w»is to last for a comparatively
short time — 3^ days (11*- ") as comjjared with 1000
years (20'^- ■*), and to the establishment of a domin-
ant Christianity. But the reign of Christ is not
said to be 'on earth.' The reign of the martyrs
was not to be an earthly one ; they ' would live
and reign with Christ as kings and priests in the
hearts of all succeeding generations of Christians,
while their work Iwre fruit in the subjection of
the civilized world to the obedience of the faith.
. . . The age of the martyrs, however long it
might last, would be followed by a far longer
period of Christian supremacy' (Swete, extending
and adapting Augustine, de Civ. Dei, xx. 7ff.).
In other words, Satan's power for evil now is not
to be compared with his power at the beginning
of our era. This conception of an anticipatory
victory over Satan may be compared with Ro 16'*',
1 Jn 3» 5'8.
After the thousand years the devil will be i-e-
leased (Rev 20^) ; there will be a great activity
of all the powers of evil before the Last Day ; but
he will be finally overthrown (v.'"), and Christ's
triumph will be complete. This is the great mes-
sage of the Apocalypse. The struggle between
the Church and the World will end in Satan l>eing
vanquished for ever.
4. Satan dwelling in men. — This subject is con-
sidered in art. Demon ; but certain NT phrases
may be noticed here.
(a) Wicked men are called 'children of the
devil ' (Ac 13'«, Elymas ; 1 Jn 3'») ; and in Rev 2»*
the ' mysteries ' of the false teachers at Thyatira
are called ' the deep things of Satan, as they .say,'
as opposed to the ' deep things of God ' of which
St. Paul speaks (1 Co 2'« ; cf. Ro ll^, Eph 3'8) ;
i.e. ' the deep things as they call them, but they
are the deep things of Satan.' In these wicked men
and teachers Satan is conceived as dwelling ; but
pre-eminently he dwells in the man who is his re-
Eresentative, and who is endowed with his attri-
utes, ' the lawless one ' (Antichrist) who works
false miracles and has his Parousia even as Christ
has (2 Th 2*, where see Milligan's note).
{b) Delivering unto Satan. — This phrase is found
in 1 Co 5*'- and 1 Ti 1-", and is perhaps ba.sed on
Job 1'^ 2", where the patriarch is delivered to Satan
to be tried by sutlenng. In St. Paul the phrase
seems to denote excommunication, the excommuni-
cate becoming a dwelling-place for the Evil One.
It is, indeed, thought by some that the phrase
'destruction of the flesh' in 1 Co 5' means the
infliction of death, as in the case of Ananias and
Sapphira (Alford, Goudge, etc.). But; in 1 Tim.
death cannot be intended, for the object of the
discipline is that the offender may be taught not
to blaspheme ; and in 1 Cor. the balance of proba-
bility perhaps lies with the opinion that the
oH'ender is the same as the man who was received
back into communion in 2 Co 2" 7'^ (for the contrary
view see A. Menzies, Second Corinthians, London,
1912, p. xviitf.). Ramsaythink8thatthephra.se
was an adaptation of a pagan idea in which the
punishment of an oH'ender is left to the gods. Un-
doubtedly excommunication in the early Church
was a severe penalty ; bodily sufferings are not
impossibly referred to, for these are attributed to
Satan in the NT (Lk 13'". tlie woman whom Satan
DIADEM
DIAKA
295
had bound), and St. Paul calls his ' stake in the
Hesh,' whatever form of suffering that might have
been, ' a messenger of Satan to buffet me ' (2 Co 12^).
Yet this discipline is intended to bring about re-
pentance, ' that the spirit may be saved in the day
of the Lord Jesus.'
LiTERATCRB.— H. St J. Tbackeray, The Relation vj St.
Paul to Contemporary Jevish ThouglU, 1900, p. 142 ff. (esp. p.
170 f.); E. B. Redlich, St. Paul and his Companions, 1913,
index, t.v. ' Satan ' ; A. Naime, The Epistle of Priesthood,
1913, pp. 57, 267 ff. ; T. J. Hardy, Th« Bsliffiou* Instinct, 1913,
p. 151 ff. ; T. Haerini:, The Christian Faith, Kog. tr., 1913, i.
4S1 f. See art. Demos. For the Apocalypse passages see espe-
ciallv H. B. Swete's admirable Commentarv, London, 1906.
A. J. aiACLEAJT.
DIADEM.— See Crow^.
DIANA.— The use of the name * Diana ' in Acl9
(AV and RV) to indicate the Ephesian goddess is
probably due to the influence of the Latin Vulgate.
From a very early time the Romans used the Italian
names of their own divinities to indicate also Greek
divinities whose characteristics were analogous to
those of their own. It was thus that the Greek
maiden huntress-goddess Artemis was early equated
with the Latin goddess Diana, maiden and huntress.
(In the earliest Roman period Diana and Janus
[ = Dianus] are male and female divinities corre-
sponding to one another.) But the Artemis of
Ephesus is a divinity entirely difierent in char-
acter from the ordinary Greek Artemis ; and that
such a goddess should come to be represented in
English by the name Diana is almost ridiculous.
The goddess of Ephesus, called Artemis by the
Greeks, was a divinity of a type wide-spread
throughout Anatolia and the East generally (cf., for
instance, ch. iii. in Ramsay's Cities and Bishoprics
of Phrygia, Oxford, 1895). She represented the re-
productive power of the human race. The Oriental
mind was from early ages powerfully impressed by
this, the greatest of all human faculties, and wor-
shipped it, now under the male form, now under
the female. There are still in India, for instance,
sur%"ivals of phallic worship. The Artemis of Ephe-
sus was represented in art astnultimammia, covered
with breasts. The worship of such divine repro-
ductive power nattirally lent itself in practice to
disgusting excesses. Instead of being kept on a
spiritual level, it was continually made the excuse
for brutalizing and enervating practices — prostitu-
tion, incest, etc.
The origin of the name 'Artemis' is veiled in
obscurity, and the attempts of both ancients and
modems to derive the word have been unsuccessful ;
the best suggestion is that of Ed. Meyer, that the
word is cognate with dpra.uei'y, dprafioi, dprafiuy, and
means ' the female butcher. ' This would suit certain
early aspects of the cult very well. But it is as a
Nature-goddess that we find the most wide-spread
worship of Artemis in the earliest days of which
we have any knowledge. She was worshipped on
mountains and in valleys, in woods and by streams.
Her working and her power were recognized in all
life, plant and animal, as beneficent in their birth
and growth, as signs of wrath in their destruction
and death. "With her is sometimes united a male
counterpart. She is in any case wife and mother ;
she nourishes the young, aids women in childbirth,
and sets bounds to their life. Afterwards various
developments in this original conception take place.
The wife and mother element, with the growth of
the Apollo legend, both Apollo and Artemis being
children of Leto, retires into the background, and
Artemis becomes a maiden goddess. She also
becomes the goddess of seafaring men, and is
patroness of all places and things connected with
them. In Homer she appears mainly as the god-
dess of death of the old Nature religion. From
the 5th cent, onwards we meet her as goddess of
the moon, while Apollo is god of the sun. On tlie
boundaries of the Greek world her cult is associated
with the barbarous ceremonies of other divinities
recognized as related.
The most important aspects of the Artemis cult
for the NT are naturally those connected with the
life of Nature, but the whole idea of Artemis must
be sketched as briefly as possible. Various trees
are sacred to her. >Ioisture as fertilizing them is
sacred to her — lakes, marshes, and rivers. She is
thus also a goddess of agriculture. Her beneficence
causes the crops to grow, and she destroys opposing
forces ; whence offerings of crops are made to her.
Of all seasons she loves spring best. She is mistress
of the world of wild animals, such as bears, lions,
wolves, and panthers, and also of birds and fish.
Out of this conception the huntress idea would
naturally develop. And it seems that it was in con-
nexion with this that the idea of the goddess as a
virgin arose. She was also the protectress of cattle.
Further, she was reverenced as the guardian of
yoimg people, and to her maidens made ottering of
the toys, etc. , of their childhood. Among her other
attributes was that of goddess of childbirth, goddess
of women in general, especially goddess of death
(particularly for women), and as such she demanded
human sacrifice. She was a goddess of war, of the
sea, of roads, of markets and trade, of government,
of healing, protectress from danger, guardian of
oaths (by her women were accustomed to swear),
goddess of maidenhood, of beauty, of dancing and
music. Finally she was a moon-goddess.
The Ephesian cult was in its origin non-Greek.
The application of the name Artemis to a goddess
of the characteristics of the Ephesian divinity
shows that this identification must have been
made in very early times, before any idea of vir-
ginity attached to the godde-ss among the Greeks.
The cult of the Ephesian goddess remained Oriental,
and she was never regarded as virgin. Her temple
was a vast institution, with countless priests,
priestesses, and temple-servants. The priests were
eunuchs, and were called /teyd^Kfot ; there was one
high priest. The goddess was also served bj- three
grades of priestesses, called /ieWi^pai, UpcU, and
■wapiipai ; at the head of these was a high priestess.
Under the dominion of these priests and priestesses
there was a large number of temple-slaves of both
sexes. The cult was wild and orgiastic in its char-
acter. As a result of partial hellenization two
developments took place. First, the worship of
Apollo was sometimes associated with that of his
Greek sister. Second, games were established on
the Greek model, called 'AprepUffta or OUov/itPiKd,
and were held annually in the month Artemision
(= April).
The Ephesian cult of Artemis was by no means
confined to Ephesus. The statement of Acts (19"),
'whom all Asia and the Roman world worship,'
was no exaggeration. Evidence of this cult has
been found in numerous cities of Asia Minor as
well as in the following places further afield :
Autun, Marseilles, Rhone Mouth (France), Em-
poriae, Hemeroscopeum, Rhode (Spain), Epidaurus,
Megalopolis, Corinth, Scillus (Greece), Neapolis
(Samaria), Panticapaeum (Crimea), Rome, and Sj-ria.
The Ephesians were proud of the goddess not only
because she was theirs, but because her worship
brought countless visitors from every part of the
Empire. This of course was also good for trade,
so that religion and self-interest went hand in
hand. The account in Acts (19=^*^) Ulustrates
most vi\-idly the enthusiasm which can be aroused
when religious fanaticism and commercial greed
are in tune. The manufacture of offerings to the
goddess brought in extensive profit to the makers.
St. Paul's preaching, which appealed to the better
educated classes, drew many away from the coarse
^96
DIASPORA
DIDACHE
and barbarous cult of Artemis. The demand for
otferings decreased ; hence the meeting and the
riot. The air rang with shouts of ' Great Ephesian
Artemis ! '
Ephesians prized very greatly the honorary title
of vfUKdpoi, temple-keeper (lit. ' temple-sweeper ')
of the great Artemis and of her image which fell
down from the sky (Ac 19^). This image was
<ioubtless a meteoric stone of crude shape like the
Palladium preserved at Rome.
It was in Ephesus(5'.'W.) that the Artemis worship
was at length Christianized in the middle of the
5th cent, by the substitution of the Mother of God
{deordKos). This was the beginning of Mariolatry.
LiTERATURB. — On Anatolian religion, see W. M. Ramsay's
art. 'Religion of Greece and Asia Minor' in IIDB, vol. v., and
ch. iii. of his Cities and Bishoprics of Phrugia, Oxford, 1895 ;
on Artemis, see L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, vol. ii.,
Oxford, 1896, cp. 425-486 ; Schreiber, ' Artemis,' in Roscher's
Lexikon der Mythologie ; and Wernicke in Pauly-Wisaowa,
to the last of which the present writer is particularly indebted.
A. SOUTER.
DIASPORA See Dispersion.
DIDACHE. — 1. Discovery. — That at one time a
book called the Teaching or Teachings of the
Apostles had an extensive circulation in Christian
circles had long been evident before the actual
discovery of any MS. The nature of this book,
so highly esteemed in certain quarters, was a
matter of conjecture. It was thought by some to
be another name for the Apostolic Constitutions.
Others, like Archbishop Ussher, were certain that
it must be a much shorter document, omitting
much of that later compilation. It came to be
recognized that behind the whole development of
works like the Apostolic Church Ordinance, and
the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons there must
be a common original. A brilliant attempt at
reconstruction was made by Krawutzscky (Theol.
Quartalschrift, iii. [1882] pp. 359-445), who, from
the matter common to these two works, framed a
document which anticipated with wonderful ac-
curacy the first part of the Didache, but which
he called, after Kufinus, Ducb Vice vel Judicium
Petri.
At the time when this was published, a MS of
the Didache had already been discovered in the
library of the Jerusalem monastery in the Phanar
or Greek quarter of Constantinople, and was given
to the world in the end of 1883 by its discoverer,
Philotheus Bryennios, the Metropolitan of Nico-
media. The MS belongs to the 11th century.
It contains, besides the Didache, six other early
writings or groups of writings, beginning with
Chrysostom's Synopsis of the Old and Neto Testa-
ments, and including the Epistle of Barnabas and
the Epistles of Clement of Konie. At its close the
scribe has appended a note to the effect that it was
finished ' by the hand of Leo, notary and sinner,'
in A.M. 6064, i.e. A.D. 1056.
No other book of primitive Christianity outside
the NT has found so many and such industrious
editors. This MS is still the only one known of
the whole Didache, but in Harnack's edition {TU
ii. 1, 2 [1884]) von Gebhardt draws attention to
a Latin fragment from a MS of the 10th cent.,
formerly in the convent library of Melk, which,
even in its brevity, has one marked ditl'erence from
owe Didache, to be referred to later. Then in 1900,
J. Schlecht published from a Munich MS of tlie
11th cent, an old Latin version {Doctrina XII.
Apostolorum, Freiburg i. B., 1900), co-extensive
with the first six chapters of the Didache, contain-
ing, among other variations, the same notewortliy
omission. These are the texts on which all present
investigation must rest.
The re-discovery of the Didache created a great
sensation, and it was hailed as a most important
find. It was seen to fill a gap between the Apostolic
Church and the Church of the 2nd cent., in matters
of worship, ministry, and doctrine.
• Until the discovery of the DidaeM,' says Sanday (ExpotUor,
3rd ser. v. [1887] 106), ' there were certam phenomena of the
Apostolic age which hung as it were in the air. They were like
threads cut off abruptly of which we saw the beginning, but
neither middle nor end. It is just these phenomena that the
Didaehi takes up, brings them again to our sight, and connects
them with the course of subsequent history.'
It was seen to be the actual forerunner of a
whole series of later works in the East. It differs
from its succes-sors in that it does not claim direct
apostolic inspiration ; it is simply the summary of
what its author conceived to be the teaching of
the apostles,
' It is anonymous, but not pseudonymous ; post-Apostolin,
but not pseudo- Apostolic' (SchafT, Oliest Church Maniial\
New York, 1889, p. 14).
2. Contents. — The Didache is not a long docu-
ment. It is about the same size as the EpLstle to
the Galatians. In the MS it is not divided ; but
there is now a standard division into chapters and
verses, whicli is followed in this discussion. This
division is quite satisfactory save at one point —
xi. 1,2 ought to belong to ch. x.
The Didache may be divided into two main
parts, the latter containing three sections, thus :
I. Chs. L-vi. Pre-baptismal moral teachiuK.
II. Chs. vii.-xvi. General instructions to the Christian com-
munity concerning :
(a) Rites (vii.-xi. 2).
(b) Office-bearers (xi. 3-xv.).
(c) The Last Things and the duty of watchfulness (xvi.).
At the head of the MS appears the title, ' The
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles ' {Aidaxv '"wj'
5d)5eKa diroffTdXuv). The first part opens with a
sub-title which runs continuously with the text
(see facsimile in Schaff or Rendel Harris). The
sub-title is ' The Teaching of the Lord by the
Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles' (AiSox^? Kvpiov did,
Twv dd)S€Ka diroffTdXwv rots Idvecnv).
This sub-title was either the original title of the whole work,
the present title being an abbreviation (in which case the word
€6ve<Tiv refers to Gentile Christians) or, as is just possible from
its position in the MS, it was originally the title of a shorter
work corresponding in length to the Latin Version, in which
case eOveiTiv means ' those not yet received within the Christian
fold,' and indicates that the work contains the moral teaching
given to those who are stiU outside the Church — the candidates
for baptism.
The first part consists of a delineation of the
Two Ways— the Way of Life and the Way of
Death. The Way of Life consists in obedience to
three commandments : (a) Love to God, (b) Love
to one's fellow-men, and (c) the Golden Rule in its
negative form. The Way of Life is set forth not
as a logical development of these three in turn,
but first positively, and then negatively. The
positive development (i. 3-6) consists mainly of
extracts from the Sermon on the Mount. The
negative begins with a prohibition of gross sins
(ii.); it proceeds, after the manner of a Jewisli
'fence to the Law,' to a warning against subtler
forms which lead on to the grosser (iii.); it con-
cludes with the inculcation of duties necessary for
a true life in the Church and in the household
(iv. ). The Way of Death is delineated in a list of
sins and sinners (v.). The moral instruction ends
with a warning against going astray from 'this
Way of the Teaching,' and the injunction to follow
it as far as possible. This part, unlike the rest of
the book, is addressed to an individual, the con-
nectin<^ link between it and the other part ad-
dressed to the community being the words : ' Having
first taught all these things, baptize ye.'
The second part begins with (a) instructions as
to the baptism which is to follow this moral in-
struction of the cacechumen (vii.); fasting and its
days ; prayer, its times and its form, the Lord's
Prayer (vii'i.) ; the Eucharist and the common meal
DIDACHE
DIDACHE
297
associated with it, together with forms of prayer
(ix. and x.). It is added, however, that the
prophets are to be left free in prayer. The men-
tion of the prophets leads on to the next section,
but first of all there is a more direct connecting
link in the injunction to receive all who come
teaching 'all these things aforesaid.' {b) The
section on the Christian ministry deals first with
the apostles and their reception as they pass on
their way to their fields of labour (xi. 3-6), then
at greater length with the prophets (xL 7, xii.), who
were evidently more familiar visitants. Commonly
they were itinerant, but they might be settled in
one community. Simple tests of character are
given, for there is the constant danger of being
deceived by a pretended prophet. The itinerant
prophet suggests the hospitality to be given to
way-faring Christians (xii.). The settled prophet
suggests the disposal of first-fruits (xiii.), as also
regulations for the Lord's Day and the Eucharist
(xiv.). The local ministry of bishops and deacons
is dealt with in a short chapter (xv.) which closes
this section on the office-bearers of the Church.
(c) The last section (xvi.) counsels watchfulness
and preparedness in view of the approaching end.
Signs of the end are enumerated, and ' then shall
the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of
heaven.' With these words the Didaehe comes to
a conclusion.
3. Sources. — To begin with express quotations,
there are two from the OT (xiv. 3= Mai 1"-", xvi.
7 = Zee 14*), two from the NT (viiL 2 = Mt6»«', ix.
5 = Mt 7*), and one probably from some nnkncwn
apocrj-phal book (i. 6). There are, besides, three
separate references to what our Lord has com-
manded in the gospel (xi. 3, xv. 3, 4). Apart from
express quotations, reminiscences of the OT are
clear, especially in the first six chapters, and the
same applies to the OT Apocrypha (Sirach and
Tobit). Direct borrowings from the NT are even
more numerous. Harnack (op. cit. pp. 70-76) has
tabulated 23, and of these 17 are from Matthew.
(For full list of actual parallels with the NT see
Schaff, op. cit. pp. 82-9-5.) Certain features point
to acquaintance with Luke — e.g. the form of the
quotations from the Sermon on the Mount in L
3-5, and the order of cup and bread in ix. 2. 3 — but
there is no conclusive proof that Luke was actually
used. Mark seems to be unused. The case of
John is doubtful. There are resemblances to Jn 6
and 17 in the Eucharistic prayers, the most re-
markable being the use of the formula ' Holy
Father' (irdTep a^ie, x. 2=Jn 17"). So many and
so subtle are the parallels, that acquaintance with
John must be admitted, or else it must be supposed
that the Didachc, or at least its liturgical forms,
originated in a Johannine milieu. The canonical
Gospel of Matthew seems the cliief source for our
author's knowledge of the teaching of the Lord,
but alongside this written Gospel he was familiar
with phrases from the oral tradition. On the
question of the use of St. Paul's Epistles, almost
every intermediate position has been occupied
between that of Harnack (1884), who could find no
single clear trace of their use, and that of Armitage
Robinson {JTkSt xiii. [1912] 3o0), who regards the
writer as intimately acquainted with 1 Corinthians :
'he has imitated its sub-divisions, borrowed its
words and phrases, and modified its thoughts to
suit his own purposes.' There are certainly traces,
but tliey are few in number. His debt to St. Paul
is not great. Much more marked is his debt to
Jewish writings. The work has been called 'a
sort of Church Catechism intensely Jewish ' ( West-
minster Review, Jan. 18So, p. 206). Apart from L
3-5 there is little that is specifically Christian in
the first part, and nearly all of it has its parallels
in Durely Jewish literature. For this section there
has been posited as source a Jewish proselj-te
catechism of the 'Two Ways,' and parallels and
borrowings are not wanting in the later portions of
the Didaehe as well (cf. C. Taylor, The Teaching <^
the Twelve Apostles, with Illustrations from the
Talmud, Cambridge, 1886).
4. Integrity.— There is no doubt that the Didaehe
as we have it in the Constantinople MS reads like
a unity. Its parts are closely knit together and
follow an orderly development. That the primal
Didaehe was co-extensive with our text, with
perhaps a few omissions and some textual varia-
tions, seems an almost certain inference. But the
two facts, that the Latin of Schlecht (L) contains
only the first part with no sign of being unfinished,
but, on the contrary, with a conclusion of its own,
and that certain apparently dependent writings
seem to have known these chapters only, suggest
that the Didaehe did once actually exist in such a
shorter form. The two main questions which
emerge whenever the integrity of the fuller
Didaehe is discussed arise in this way. Ever since
Taylor pointed out the numerous Jewish parallels,
and even before that, the theory of its dependence
on a Jewish proselyte catec'hism of the Two
Ways has been advanced and defended. The dis-
covery of L seems to confirm this. Was there
ever, then, such a Jewish catechism ? And was it
purely a catechism of the Two Ways, or did it
contain further material ? The case for a Jewish
original seems proved. It was natural that Chris-
tians reared in Judaism, familiar with Jewish
missionary propaganda and methods of instructing
converts, should take over and use the forms which
they had seen observed in the reception of prose-
lytes, and the Didaehe bears many a trace of being
such a Jewish document worked over in the Chris-
tian interest. Was this written or oral catechesis
of Judaism co-extensive with chs. L-vi., or are we
to look for a larger document having matter
parallel with some parts of chs. vii.-xvi.? It was
surely to be expected that any such instruction
should contain, besides moral precepts, teaching in
regard to the ceremonial and legal requirements of
Judaism — circumcision, the Sabbath, foods, tirst-
fruits, fasts, prayers, festivals, and so forth. And
when we find phenomena such as these — the
Christian fasts and prayers carefully diflerentiated
from the fasts and prayers of the ' hypocrites ' (viii.
1, 2) ; the weekly day of worship, called the Lord's
Day of the Lord {Kvpuuci} Kvpiov, xiv. 1), correspond-
ing to the ' Sabbath of the Lord ' (Lv 23'), instruc-
tions for the disposal of first-fruits (xiii. 3-7)
obviously dependent on, and contrasted with,
Jewish customs — then it seems almost a certainty
that the Jewish source did contain matter corre-
sponding in some measure to the later chapters
of our Didaehe. Further, in view of the eschato-
logical interest of contemporary Jewish thought,
it would be natural that such a manual should con-
tain an eschatological section parallel with ch. xvi.
But if there was, as seems natural, and appears
to be a justifiable inference from the phenomena
of the text, a Jewish catechesis, oral or written,
corresponding to the material in both parts of the
Didaehe, it seems to follow that the first form of
the Didaehe was not the truncated form of L, but
the fuller form of the Constantinople MS ; in a
word, that chs. vii.-xvi. belong to the primal
document. We have, then, to regard L as an
abbreviation. But is this crwiible? How could
any Christian writer abbreviate in the manner in
which this has been done ? It is easy to explain
the omission of chs. vii.-xvi. If L belongs to the
4th cent., as Schlecht himself maintained, there
would be at least two factors in the omission : (1)
Church conditions did not at all correspond in his
day with the situation in the Didaehe, and (2) the
298
DIDACHE
DIDACHE
material of the Didache had already been worked
up and modernized in other cognate documents to
be considered in the next section. The one grave
objection to this whole hypothesis— to the primary
nature of the whole of the fuller Didache— is the
omission in L of i, 3-ii. 1, and the omission in the
Epistle of Barnabas of any trace of this passage.
How can we explain the psychology of an ab-
breviator who could omit the one specifically
Christian part, supposing it to be primary?
Certain explanations suggest themselves. He
may have reckoned these verses among the
counsels of perfection, and considered it unwise to
place them at the outset before catechumens. Did
they not belong to a later stage and a higher plane
of attainment? Or he may have regarded his
version of the Two Ways as a kind of equivalent
to the abrenuntiatio diaboli, and considered posi-
tive precepts out of place. In all probability tnere
was a negative and positive baptismal vow from
very early days {anoTayi) and ffwrayi)). Explana-
tion is not impossible, but neither is it necessary.
The conclusion of the present writer is, that the
fuller Didache, with the probable exception of i.
3-ii. 1, or parts thereof, and a few isolated ex-
pressions later, is the primary form ; that it is not
an expansion from a form corresponding to L, but
that L is either an abbreviation of it, which is
not inexplicable, or more probably an abbreviation
of an earlier form of the complete version.
The stages in tlie history of the Didache were
something like this: (1) Jewish document of the
Two Ways plits instruction in the practices and
customs of the Jewish faith ; (2) a Cliristian adap-
tation (A) corresponding to our Didache with some
few omissions, from which (3) the I>atin version (L)
is an excerpt, and of which (4) our Didache (D) is a
slightly revised version, with probably a few more
definitely Christian additions. The contents of A
were practically identical with our Didache. (For
analyses of the history of the text which employ a
greater number of recensions see Harnack, Gesch.
der altchristl. Litteratur, i. [Leipzig, 1893] 87,
and Hennecke in ZNTW ii. [1901] 58 tl".)
S. Cognate and dependent works.— (a) Barna-
bas.— That the Epistle of Barnabas is a cognate
work is obvious. But the significance of the
common material has been interpreted in very
different ways. The diversity of opinion is per-
haps most clearly seen in the first German and the
first English editions. The very phenomena which
prove for Harnack the priority of Barnabas, for
Hitchcock and Brown prove its later and deriva-
tive character. The bulk of the common matter
is to be found in three chapters (xviii.-xx.), which
contain most of the matter in Didache i.-v,, witli
the exception of i, 3-ii. 1. But there is also a very
close parallel, too close to be a coincidence, with
Did. xvi. 2 in Barnabas iv. 9, 10. It should be
noted in passing that the priority of the Didache
seems to be hinted at, if not implied, in the way in
which this common matter is introduced in Barna-
bas : ' Let us pass over to another knowledge and
teaching (SiSaxw).' For without pressing the
word, the suggestion is here at least of transition
to a new source of material. Without entering
into details, the conclusion come to is, that Bar-
nabas used the Didache, but in the earlier Christian
recension (A). If he had it before him'in document-
ary form, he expanded it freely, but he may have
quoted familiar material from memory and ampli-
fied it in the process.
(b) Hernias. — The connexion with Hermas is
neither so extended nor so obvious. The relation-
ship played a great part in earlier discussions from
its bearing on the question of date, but it has now
receded into the background. It is matter of
general agreement now that Hermas used the
Didaclie, but there is much to be said for the
thesis of Hennecke, that both Barnabas and
Hermas used the earlier Christian recension (A),
while the final form (I)) is indebted in some very
minor points to both.
(c) The Apostolic Church Ordinance. — This is an
adaptation of the Didache to suit the altered
ecclesiastical condition of Egypt in the end of the
3rd or beginning of the 4tn century. Here the
bulk of tlie material of the first part of the Didache
is distributed among the individual apostles, who
in turn contribute their part in a kind of dramatic
dialogue. Following on this, and corresponding to
the rest of the Didache, are similarly delivered
directions about bishops, presbyters, deacons,
readers, widows, deaconesses, the conduct of tlie
laity, and the participation of women in the
liturgical service, sliowing in botli the enumeration
of office-bearers .and the powers ascribed to them a
much more developed stage of Church organization.
As source the Apostolic Church Ordinance has a
form of the Didache very like ours : it may have
been the earlier Christian recension, though the
mass of textual evidence jioints rather to its being
ours plus Barnabas.
(d) Didascalia. — This work fulfilled for Syria
towards the end of the 3rd cent, what the last-
named did for Egypt a little later. It is not,
however, like it, simply an adaptation of the
Didache. Indeed, it was earlier regarded as com-
pletely independent, but its dependence may now
be held as proved (cf. C. Holzhey, Die Abhdngigkeit
d. syr. Didascalia v. d. Didache, Freiburg, 1898).
No certain conclusion can be drawn as to what
form its author had before him.
(e) Apostoli<: Constitutions and Canons. — The
first six chapters embody the Didascalia, and to
that extent the Didache is used at second-hand.
Direct relationship is confined to the first 32
chapters of the seventh book. Most of the
Didache is here embodied, but with significant
alterations and additions which betray a later age.
The adaptation is clearly based on our text of the
Didache. Here at last there is no serious question
of dependence on an earlier recension.
(/) Other works. — For a full list the reader is
referred to Harnack {Gesch. der altchristl. Lift. i.
87), Rendel Harris (Teaching of the Apostles, 1888),
and Vernon Bartlet (HDB v. 442). Chief among
these may be mentioned : Athanasius, Syntagma
Doctrincc, which is obviously dependent on JDid.
i.-vi., and less obviously on xii. xiii., the under-
lying text probably being the earlier recension (A) ;
the pseudo-Athanasian Fides Niccena and Did-
ascalia cccxviii. Patrum, where the basis is
evidently the Syntagma ; the Life of Schnudi,
which includes most of the first part in an Arabic
version, derived probably from the Apostolic
Church Ordinance.
We have, therefore, continuing the numbers at
the end of § 4, (5) Barnabas (B) and Hernias (H),
dependent on the earlier Christian recension (A)
and probably known to the maker of the final re-
cension (D) ; (6) the Apostolic Church Ordinance
(CO), possibly based on A, but more probably on D
-l-B; (7) the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons
(A), clearly based on D ; (8) the Syntagma (S) and
dependent works based on the earlier recension (A).
The evidence, then, points with great probability,
for it can never amount to demonstration, to (1)
the circulation and use of two recensions of the
Didache, an earlier and a later, which differ in the
omission and inclusion respectively of i. 3-ii. 1 and
in certain other ascertainable points of slight im-
portance ; (2) the gradual disappearance of the
second part of the Didache in the two ways of (a)
omission, as in B and L— in B, through lack of
relevance, in L through lack of correspondence to
DIDACHE
DtDACHE
299
actual conditions; (ft) supersession by a complete
recast of mat«jrial to suit altered ecclesiastical con-
ditions as in CO and A, and, it may be added, by
omission and supersession jointly, as in S ; (3) the
fortunate preservation of a complete copy of the
later of these recensions by a scribe -whose full MS
shows interest in what he conceived, generally
rightly, to be genuine remains of Christian anti-
quity.
The general result may be tabulated thus :
Jewish Original
6. Place of origin and date.— (1) Place. — Both
place and date seem to assume importance when
we begin to discuss the significance of the work in
relation to the problems of the early Church. But
this is true of the place only to a very limited ex-
tent. For, though it were proved to have origin-
ated in some more isolated community, yet its
acceptance by so wide a circle would show that it
was no mere reflexion of abnormal conditions which
existed nowhere else. Most of the regions in which
early Christianity had any hold have been sug-
gested as the place of origin — Syria (in particular,
Palestine), Egypt, Asia Minor, Thessalonica, Rome.
But the great bulk of opinion is almost equally
divided between Egypt and Syria. On behalf of
Egypt it can be, and has been, urged that the
earliest references and quotations belong to Egypt ;
that the work had there from an early date almost
canonical authority, and was used freely from the
time of Clement to that of Athanasius and later.
On the other hand, the testimony of use from Syria,
though less imposing, is also strong. Further, the
form of the doxology in the Lord's Prayer has
Egj-ptian affinities. It omits ' the kingdom ' with
the Sahidic version. But the doxology itself origin-
ated in Svria, and was thence adoptea into Svrian
texts of the NT (Westcott and Hort, XT, 'l882,
App. p. 9). Against the claim for Egypt there is
what Schaff calls 'the insuperable objection ' — the
allusion to the broken bread having been scattered
in grains ' upon the mountains.' But after aU this
only proves that this particular form of praver
here incorporated did not originate in Egypt, Wt
in some hillier land. The objection is not ' insuper-
able,' but it has more weight than is commonly
allowed, for later Egyptian works certainly felt
the difficulty. ('Upon the mountains ' is omitted
in Apost. Const., and represented by 'upon this
table ' in the pseudo-Athanasian tract de Virgini-
tmte. ) On behalf of Syria, in particular of Palestine,
there can be urged the marked affinity of the
Didache with the Epistle of James and other recog-
nized products of Palestinian Christianity, and the
fact that it must have arisen in a community where
it was necessary to make decisive the distinction
between themselves and non-Christian Jews, e.g.
in the regulations about fasts (viiL 1). A multi-
tude of lesser indications are urged on both sides,
but it is quite unnecessary to make any decisive
pronouncement in favour of either. The essential
point is that, from an early date, it was accepted
in both, in one or other recension, and therefore
comes from the heart of a situation which could
not be regarded as impossible, or even as irregular,
in either.
(2) Date. — In regard to date, there has been the
same wide divergence — dates having been sug-
gested from A.D. 50 to 500 — and the same substantial
agreement. The great ma.ss of opinion, however,
is again divided, in somewhat unequal portions,
between two periods — the larger number favouring
a date between 80 and 100, and the smaller cling-
ing firmly to a date between 120 and 160. Space
forbids a detailed examination of the evidence. It
may be said briefly, in regard to external evidence,
that the earlier date is confirmed by such indica-
tions as the citation of the Didache as Scripture by
Clement of Alexandria and the fact that it is an
adaptation of a Jewish manual. Such an adapta-
tion could only be made early. And one thing to
be remembered is, that long before its actual dis-
covery it had been assigned, necessarily on external
evidence, by Grabe (1698) to the closing years of
the 1st cent, or the very commencement of the
2nd. Internal evidence confirms this. The general
correspondence of conditions with those of the
Ascension of Isaiah (see HDB v. 448-9), the vivid
contrast with Jewish customs, the simple nature
of the liturgy, all point to this conclusion. Another
point has l)een well made by Taylor (op. cit. p. 53),
who says in regard to the rules for baptism con-
tained in the Didache :
' That distinction sboold be made more rabbinieo between the
kinds of water to be used is one of the evidences of the Jewish
origin and early date of the Teaching. TertalUan (de Bapt. 4)
enamerates the various kinds, making no distinction (KuIIa dis-
tinctio est, man quis an stagno, flumine an fonte, lacu an alveo
diluatur) ; whilst at a still later date we find merely the injunc-
tion to baptize in water {Apost. Contt. viL 22).'
Bal if Barnabas and Hermas had influence on the
text of oxaDidcu^j we seem driven to some such con-
clusion as this — that the earlier Christian recension
dates from the earlier period (80-100) and the later,
which differs onlv in certain insignificant details,
from the later (120-160).
7. Tendency. — Before we go on to discuss the
evidence of the Didache, and the bearings of that
evidence on the problems of the Apostolic and sub-
Apostolic Church, we have to face this question :
Has the Didache any special purpose or tendency
which would lead us to suspect or to discredit its
evidence? In this connexion we encounter first
the contention of Hilgenfeld that it is coloured by
Montanism. But the general discussion to which
the book gave a great impetus has made clear that
it must be pre-Montanist. For if Montanism had
arisen, and its problems had to be faced, then this
book, if produced in the orthodox interest, would
have said much less about the prophets, and if
written from a Montanist point of view, it could
not have resisted saying more. Krawutzscky, who
had so fully anticipated the first part of the Did-
ache in his reconstruction, assigned it, on its ap-
pearance, to an Ebionite heretic at the close of the
2nd century. But searching criticism has failed to
discern any clear trace of that heresy. It has been
characterized, on obvious grounds, as pro-Judaistic
and anti-Judaistic, which implies that it preserves
the balance of normal Christianity. Research has
failed to displace it from the main current of the
Church's life. No writer with a predilection for
any early heresj- could have hidden it so well, nor
would his book have commanded such universal
recognition.
In this connexion mention must be made of the
contention of Armitage Robinson that the book
300
DIDACHE
DIDACHE
reflects no actual conditions whicli ever existed
anywhere, but is a ' free creation ' of the author
workinj,' on the basis of 1 Cor. with close depend-
ence on Matthew and John. But it is surely un-
thinkable that any Christian writer could have
produced a manual which had hardly any corre-
spondence with the conditions of the Church of
which he was a member and just as little with
the conditions of the Church of the NT, and
with no suggestion of substituting a new ideal of
Churcli life and government. The Didachc cer-
tainly has its roots in the NT ; it also has its
dissimilarities from it ; but that is because the
Christianity familiar to its author had its roots in
the NT, but had in the meantime grown to some-
thing ditterent. Tlie Didachc represents an actual
stage in the development through which the
Church passed. The pivpose of its author was
evidently to represent, justify, and confirm actual
conditions, and to guard against evident dangers.
8. Church conditions. — It is a simple community
with which we are brought into contact in the
Didachc, without the developed organization and
manifold official activity of the communities for
which the later bodies of legislation were compiled
(see art. Apostolic Coxstitutions). The in-
stru(!tions, even in regard to baptism and the
Eucharist, are addressed to the community, and
not to any official personage or class of officials.
The ' sovereignty of the community ' is implied
throughout. Attempts have been made to evade
this. The latest has been already referred to
(JThSt xiii. 33911"). The significance of the ad-
dress is here discounted as a mere trick of style,
borrowed from the practice of St. Paul. But this
stands or falls with the whole theory that the
Didache is a ' free creation ' of the author with no
relation to actual conditions, a theory which we
have just shown good ground for rejecting. No
work which passed over and slighted the recog-
nized position of accredited officials could have
found such general currency and acquired such
wide repute. The community, therefore, is sove-
reign. It tests travellers and prophets ; it makes
provision for the Christian poor ; it sets apart
' bisliops and deacons ' ; it exercises discipline ;
the Sacraments of tlie Church are its concern. It
is obviously a small community, but not isolated
or out of touch with the general body of Chris-
tians. It is knit to them by the golden thread of
hospitality, by the visits of itinerant apostles and
prophets, by the unity of the one bread. It is
situated in a locality where Christianity is past its
first beginnings. The missionary propaganda of
the Church is now further afield. Apostles are
known only as exceptional visitants on the way to
their proper spheres of labour elsewhere. Though
past its first beginnings, it is not yet beyond the
possibility of being taken by outsiders for a mere
phase of Judaism. Open divergence of practice
in outward ordinances is, therefore, strongly
emphasized. The moral requirements of the com-
munity are of the highest order, but its doctrinal
position, though strictly orthodox, is wanting in
precision and fullness. The lack of emphasis on
soteriology seems to have been felt by Barnabas,
who, followed in this respect by the Apostolic
Ch%irch Ordinance, added to the opening words of
the Way of Life — ' Thou shalt love God who made
thee ' — the words, ' Thou shalt glorify Him who
redeemed thee from death.'
The members meet on the Lord's Day for worship.
Here we have the first testimony outside the NT
to the Lord's Day as a day of public worship. A
little later Pliny reports to Trajan from Bitnynia
that the Christians there were accustomed on a
fixed day (stuto die) to assemble before daylight to
sing hymns to Christ as a God, and to bind them-
selves by a sacravientum. On every detail of this
report we have fresh light from the Didache. \Vor-
ship is on the Lord's Day. It consists in the break-
ing of bread, giving of thanks, and confession of
sins — the sacramentum (?). And the Eucharist (see
below) has as one of its closing sentences, ' Hosanna
to the God of David ' — a hymn to Christ as a God.
Baptism is the rite of initiation. ' Living water,'
i.e. water of spring or stream, is to be preferred to
other kinds, but even warm water is allowed in
exceptional circumstances. Immersion is normal,
but, where the water is insufficient, aft'usion is per-
missible. The rite is administered after a definite
course of instruction, and always in tlie Name of
the Trinity. The candidate for baptism is to fast
beforehand. Fasting, recommended to the bap-
tizer and those associated with him, is enjoined on
the baptized. No mention is made of any anoint-
ing, or the use of anything save water.
The Eucharist is the centre of Christian worship,
but the evidence of the Didache has proved a bono
of contention. Instructions in regard to it seem to
be given twice over, in chs. ix. x, and in ch. xiv.
It is with regard to the former instructions that
difficulties emerge and controversies have arisen.
The instructions are thus introduced : ' Now as
regards the Eucharist (the Thank-oflering) give
thanks after this manner ' (irepl 5f r^j evxapi.ffTi.a.%,
ovTU) evxapicT-rio-ca-e). Forms of prayer are given,
simple and non-theological.
' We thank Thee, our Father, for the holy vine of David Thy
servant, which Thou hast made known to us through Jesus,
Thy servant [Trots] : to Thee be tJie glory for ever."
'"\Ve thank Thee, our Father, for the life and knowledge
which Thou hast made known to us through Jesus, Thy servant.
To Thee be the glory for ever. As this broken bread was
scattered (in grains] upon the mountains and being gathered
together became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together
from the ends of the earth unto Thy Kingdom : for Thine is
the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.'
The former is given for the cup {irorfipiov), the
latter for the broken bread {KXdfffia), and there
is another form, similar in thought and diction
but longer, for the close, after being filled (/xerd t6
ifiirXrjffdrivai).
The difficulties in regard to these two chapters
arise in this way. There is no trace of the words
of institution, and there seems no room for them.
Were these simple prayers meant as consecration
prayers ? Were they meant for the use of the pre-
siding brother at all, or were they written to be
used by the recipient (so Box, jfhSt iii. 367 f.)?
Why does the thanksgiving for the cup come before
the thanksgiving for the bread? Why are these
words, whicli sound like an invitation to the Table,
placed at the very end — ' If any one is holy, let
him come ; if any one is not holy, let him repent'?
And why does the previous chapter end with a
similar ' fencing of the tables,' given in the very
midst of the forms of prayer ('let no one eat or
drink of your Eucharist except those who have
been baptized into the name of the Lord ') ? What
do the words ixera rb ^ij.ir\rjadrjv<u imply ? Are they
to be interpreted in a literal or spiritual fashion ?
Finally, wliy was it necessary to give instructions
about the Eucharist in ch. xiv., if these had already
been given in detail in chs. ix. and x. ?
Beginning with the last question, it has been
suggested (V. Ermoni, L' Agape dans VEglise primi-
tive, 1904, p. 17 fi".) that the first instructions refer
to the Agape, and the Agape alone. But there ia
no other case in which any writer uses the word
ei}xa/)i<rTia in the sense of the Agape alone. AH
the indications point to a combined Agape and
Eucharist, and tne word evxapiffria refers to this
combination, i.e. it includes the Agape, just as in
Ignatius (Smj/rn. 8) the word Agape has the same
meaning, i.e. it includes the Eucharist. The words
were never interchangeable, but either, it seems,
DIDACHE
DIDACHE
301
I
might be used of the combined celebration. The pro-
bability, then, being that these chapters refer tosuch
a combination, can we disentangle the Agape from
the Eucharist? Are thej- inextricably mingled, or
can we see that one preceded the other ? Certain
of the questions asked above seem to point to the
former alternative, but the balance of evidence is
•with the latter, and points to the Agape preceding
the Eucharist. The words ' after being filled ' seem
to shut us in to that. The attempt to find true
analogies to a spiritual or mj'stical interpretation
has failed. Jn 6'^ so often appealed to, makes for
the opposite view. And the author of the Apostolic
Constitutions, who was dealing with the Eucharist
only, has to alter the words to ' after reception' (/xera
Si rrir furaXriftr). The prayers already given for the
cup and the bread refer, then, to the Agape : the
* fencing of the tables ' at the end of ch. ix. is pre-
para.tory to the Eucharist proper ; the prayer in
ch. X. is the transition, the closing prayer of the
Agape, or the opening prayer of the Eucharist,
according to the point of view; the Eucharist
follows immediately on the prayer. No formula
is given for it. The words of institution may then
have been recited. At both Agape and Eucharist
the prophets are to have full liberty in prayer.
The closing invitation is to catechumens present
to come forward to the full privilege and duties of
Church membership. One grave objection to this
interpretation is that it presupposes a simple
liturgy for the Agape and none at all, or practi-
cally none, for the Eucharist. A priori, we expect
the exact opposite. But no other explanation seems
to satisfy nearly so many of the conditions. Fur-
ther, absence of fixed forms is characteristic of the
Eucharist even later. Justin Martyr {First Apo-
logy, 65-67) tells us that the presiding oflBcial (6
rpoeardn) offers prayers and thanksgivings accord-
ing to his ability {Sa-rj dvya/m ovrip).
The Agape, then, in this small community, is
combined with the Eucharist. It is a common meal
shared by the brethren, with a simple liturgy of
its own, Jewish in origin, with marked affinity
to Jewish blessings at meals. It is followed by
the Eucharist so closely that it is all one service.
None but the baptized participate. Forms are
lacking, as a member of the charismatic ministry
seems in general to preside, and he is to be left
free to follow the promptings of the Spirit. Cate-
chumens and members under discipline are not ex-
cluded from the place of celebration. On the con-
trary, they are expected to be present, and are
urged publicly to acquire or recover the right of
participation. The Eucharist is a sacrifice (dvffia),
and the words of Malachi are taken as a prophecy
of it, 'In every place and time offer me a pure
sacrifice, for I am a great King, saith the Lord.'
But this does not indicate, as Bickell thought, the
germ of the doctrine of the Mass, nor what is
technically knoNvn as the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
The sacrifice, as all approximately contemporary
use of the word confirms, consists in the prayers,
the praises, the worship, and the gifts of believers
(see ERE V. 546 f.).
There is no trace of a Christian year in the
Didache, but there is a Christian week. The
Lord's Day is the day of worship ; "Wednesday and
Friday are fasts. The only evident reason for the
choice of these days is the necessity of being dLs-
tinct in all things from the ' hypocrites' — the un-
belie^■ing Jews — who fast on Mondays and Thurs-
days ; but the real underlying reason may have
been that which was put forward later for these
days as semi-fasts, viz. that Wednesday was the
day of the Betrayal and Friday that of the Cruci-
fixion. There is also what may be called a Chris-
tian day. The beginnings of a certain formalism
in devotional exercises appear in the injunction
to pray, using the Lord's Prayer, three times a
daj'. This, too, is founded on Jewish practice.
No definite hours are named, and therefore no
change of hour is suggested. Tertullian, later,
prescribes definite hours. Christians are to pray
at the third, sixth, and ninth hours, in addition
to the ordinary morning and evening prayers of
which no Christian needs to be reminded. These
devotions are to include the Lord's Prayer (de
Orat. XXV., x.). Clement of Alexandria, in the
work in which he cites the Didache as Scripture,
though he knows, and, to some extent, commends,
the three hours of prayer, rather disparages the
adhesion to these definite hours. 'The yrwirruc&t
prays throughout his whole life, endeavouring by
prayer to have fellowship with God ' {Strom, vii. 7).
It was in its account of the office-bearers of the
Church and the nature of the ministry that the
recovered Didache produced the most profound im-
f)ression. Accounts of origins and development
ike Li^htfoot's were greatly strengthened in most
particmars, but others received from it a fatal
stroke. The details and even the general trend of
these controversies lie outside the scope of this
article. Our attention is confined to the evidence
of the Didache itself. Even in its first section it
puts a very high value on the ministry. The cate-
chumen is enjoined to ' remember night and day
him that speaks to thee the word of God, for
wheresoever the Lordship is spoken of, there is
the Lord.' "W'ho are included among those that
speak the word of God ? The reference plainly is,
in the first place, to the unlocalized or charbmatic
ministry, which occupies so large a place in the
part dealing with office-bearers. This ministry is
not appointed by the members of the Church, their
office is transmitted through no human channel.
They comprise only the first three of St. Paul's
list in 1 Co 12® — apostles, prophets, and teachers.
The apostles are e\idently, as already said, rare
visitants. The missionary work of the Church is
elsewhere. But every apostle who pays a visit is
to be received as the Lord. He is not to remain
longer than two days, for impostors are rife, and
the desire to live for longer than two days on the
generosity of the community and in the sunshine
of its favour, is a sure sign of a false prophet.
The genuine apostle will not ask for money, nor
take with him more than the necessary food for
the next stage of his journey. Prophets are more
common, but are held in high esteem. The true
prophet is not to be tried or proved ; his word is
to be accepted as that of one who speaks in the
Spirit. He is to be free from the rules and forms
that bind other men. But abuses have crept into
the prophetic office, and counterfeit prophets are
to be detected by their behaviour, especially by
their asking for money for themselves, or ordering
an Agape for their own benefit. A prophet may
wish to connect himself with a particular com-
munity. Such a settled prophet is worthy of sup-
port. First-fruits are to be set aside for the use
of these men, for, in this respect, they are like the
high priests of the Jews. There were communities
without any resident prophet. In such the first-
fruits were to be given directly to the poor. An
obscure sentence about the prophet 'making as-
semblies for a worldly mystery' or 'acting with
a view to the worldly mystery of the Church '
(even the translation is doubtful) has, as yet, re-
ceived no satisfactory interpretation. Little is
said about the third class of the general ministry,
the teachers. They too are worthy of support.
This implies that there were both peripatetic and
settled teachers. The slightness of the reference
cannot be due to their rarity. May it not be due
to the following? It is commonly argued that the
Shepherd of Hermas passed over the prophets be-
302
DIDACHE
DISCIPLE
cause its author belonged to that order. May it
not equally be that the Didaclie says little about
the teachers for a similar reason? The very name
of his work would indicate tliat its author was
numbered among the teachers.
In addition to this ministry to the whole Church,
there is a local ministry of bishops and deacons.
They are appointed and set apart by the local
church. Tiieir authority is, thus, not directly
derived from the Holy Spirit. They are in danger
of being despised, but are to be honoured along
with the prophets and teachers. Such is the char-
acter of the ministry as known to the author of
the Didachc. It shows us the local ministry
strengthening its position in a small community
and in need of having its position strengthenecl,
while the general ministry is fading into tlie back-
ground through tlie prevalence of plausible coun-
terfeits from mercenary motives. (For fuller dis-
cussion of the significance of all this see Harnack,
TUii. I, 2, pp. 93-157; C. H. Turner, Studies in
Early Church History, 1912, rip. 1-32 ; T. M. Lind-
say, The Church and the Ministry, 1902, esp. p.
170 ff.)
With such a full-length picture of contemporary
Church conditions, it is not remarkable that the
Didache was hailed as a most important find. At
times its importance may have been over-estimated,
but it certainly fills a blank in our knowledge. It
sets clearly before us facts which might have been,
and indeed were, reached by gathering together
the scattered and less delinite indications of other
works. It sketches the nature of the work, the
worship, and the ministry in one community which,
though small, was not isolated ; though doubtless
individual, was not peculiar. It gave the initial
impulse to works of a similar character without
which our knowledge of the early centuries in
these matters would be much more meagre than
it is.
LiTERATUnB. — In addition to the works cited and named in
the text of the article, the following may be referred to :
I. Editions.— H. de Romestin, Oxford, 1S84 ; A. Hilg:enfeld,
NT extra Canonem receptuin, fasc. iv.", Leipzig, 1884 ; R. D.
Hitchcock and F. Brown 2, New York, 1885 ; P. Sabatier,
Paris, 1885 ; H. D. M. Spence, London, 1SS5 ; F. X. Funk,
Doctrina duodedin Apostolorum, Tubinjren, 1887 ; E. Jacquier,
Lyons, 1891 ; L. E. Iselin and A. Heusler, Eine bisher unbe-
kannte Version des ersten Teileg der Apoftellehre, in T(J xiii. 1,
Leipzig, 1895 ; C. Bigg, London, 1898 ; H. Lietzmann, Bonn,
1903.
n. D18CD8810N8.— (1) General. — G. Bonet-Maury, La Doc-
trine des douze Apdtres, Paris, 1884 ; Th. Zahn, Porschungen
zur Geschichte des NT Kanons und der altkirchl. Litteratur,
pt. iii., Erlangen, 1884 ; G. V. Lechler, Das apostolische und
nachapostolische Zeitalter'^, Karlsruhe, 1885 (Eng. tr., Edin-
burgh, 18S6) ; E. Backhouse and C. Tyler, Early Church
History^, London, 1885 ; G. Wohlenberg, Die Lehre der zwiilf
Apostd in ihrem Verhdltnis zum NT Schrifttmn, Leipzig, 1888 ;
J. Heron, The Church of the Sub-Apostulic Age . . . in the
Light of the ' Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' London, 1888 ;
A. Harnack, art. ' Apostellehre ' in PAA'3 i., Leipzig, 189G; F.
X. Funk, Kirchengesehichtliche Abhandhmgen, li., Paderborn,
1899; A. Ehrhard, Die altchristl. Litterattir und ihre Erfor-
schung von 18SU-1900, Freiburg i. B., 1900; K. Kohler, art.
' Didache ' in JE iv., London, 1903 ; P. Drews in E. Hennecke's
HaTidbtiehzuden NT Apocryphen, Tnb\ngen,lO0i ; O. Barden-
hewer, Patrology, Freiburg i. B. and St. Louis, Mo., 1908 ; H.
M. Gwatkin, Early Church History, London, 1909, vol. i.
(2) Special.— (a) Ministry. — E. Loaning, Die Genieindever-
fassung des Urchristenthums, Halle, 1888 ; J. R^ville, Origincs
de Pipiscopat, Paris, 1895 ; J. W. Falconer, From Apostle to
Priest, Edinburgh, 1900 ; A. Harnack, The Mission and Expan-
sion of Chrutianity in the First Three Centuries'^, London, 1908,
vol. i. — (b) Worship. — O. Moe, Die Aposteilehre und der Dekalog
im Unterricht der alten Kirche, Giitersloh, 1896 ; J. F. Keating,
The Agape and the Eucharist in the Early Church, London,
1901 ; P. Ladeuze, ' L'Eucharistie et les repas communs des
fid61es dans le Didache' in Revue de I'Orient Chritien, 1902,
no. 3 ; J. C. Lambert, The Sacraments in tlie NT, Edinburgh,
1903 ; A. Andersen, Das A bcndtnahl in den zwei ersten
Jahrhunderten, Qiessen, 1904 ; E. von der Goltz, Tischgebete
und Abendmuhlsgebete in der altchristl. und in der griech.
Kirche (TUxiv. 2b), Leipzij.', 1905 ; F. M. RendtorflF, Die Taufe
im Urchristentum, do. 1905 ; M. Goguel, L'Eucharistie. Des
origmes d Justin, martur, Paris, 1909 ; J. H. Srawley, art.
' Eucharist (to end of Middle Ages)' in ERE v., Edinburgh. 1912.
Hugh Watt.
DIGAMY See Marriage.
DIONYSIUS.— See Areopagite.
DIOSCURI (Ac 28", KVm ; AV « Castor and
Pollux,' ItV 'the Twin Brothers').— The Dioscuri
were the sons of Leda and Zeus, Castor being
mortal and Pollu.x immortal. They were famed
for many exploits, and at length, in a battle
against the sons of Aphareus, Castor was slain by
Idas. Pollux besought Zeus that he too might die.
According to one fable the Father of the Gods
granted Castor life on condition that the brothers
should alternately spend a day in Hades, but
another states that their love was rewarded by
Zeus, who placed them together among tlie stars
as the Gemini. They were regarded as the patrons
of athletic contests. Castor presiding over the
equestrian events, Pollux being the god of boxing
{KdffTopd Slinri^aiiov Kal irv^ a-yaBbv IIo\uoet/K6a[Hom.
11. iii. 237]). Their worship was very strictly ob-
served among the Dorian peoples, and they were
also held in special reverence at Rome, as they
were popularly supposed to have fought on the side
of the Commonwealth at the battle of Lake Regillus
and to have carried the news of victory to the city
(Dion. Hal. Ant. Bom. vi. 13). It is worthy of
note that they were specially held in honour in the
district of Cyrenaica near Alexandria (schol. Pindar,
Pyth. V. 6).
The ships of the ancients cairied two figures as
a rule, one being the Hgure-head (wapaarifjLov, in-
signe), after which the ship was named (Virgil,
jEn. V, 116, X. 166, 188, 209), and the other in the
stern. The latter was the tutela or image of the
divine being under whose guardianship the vessel
was supposed to sail. The Dioscuri were regarded as
the guardian deities of sailors, and Horace speaks
of ' the brothers of Helen, the beaming stars,' as
shining propitiously on those at sea {Odes, 1. iii. 2,
xii. 25 ; cf. Catullus, iv. 27 ; Euripides, Helena,
1662-5). F. W. WORSLEY.
DIOTREPHES. — An otherwise unknown man
named in 3 Jn^as ambitious, masterful, and tyran-
nical. As the author.ship of the Epistle, its des-
tination, and date are all doubtful, any attempt
to identify Diotrephes is futile. His main interest
for the student of the Apostolic Church is that he
is a witness to the ojvposite currents of thought
which disturbed it. The writer of 3 John was
apparently responsible for a band of travelling
evangelists to whom Diotrephes refused a welcome.
The ground of refusal appears, from the references to
' truth ' in the Epistle, to have been a difference of
doctrine. If the writer was a ' pneumatic ' teacher,
Diotrephes would probably be a Catholic officer of
inliuence, but of lower standing than the writer.
If the writer, on the other hand, was a Catholic
teacher, Diotrephes was probably a man of Docetic
views. The name occurs in profane Greek twice —
once as son of Ileraclitus in the 3rd cent. B.C., and
once as the name of an Antiochene rhetorician
(Pauly-Wissowa, *.!>.). W. F. Cobb.
DISCIPLE. — The use of the word 'disciple'
(Ata^Tyr^s) in the NT is remarkable and very in-
structive. It occurs 238 times in the Gospels. In
the Epistles and the Apocalypse it does not occur
at all, its place being taken by ' saints ' (07104) «uid
' brethren (dSeX^oi). Acts e.xhibits the transition,
with ' disciple ' (/to^rpTjs) 28 times and the feminine
form (/to^T^pio) once, but with ' saints ' 4 times
(gi3. 32. 41 2610) and ' brethren ' (not counting ad-
dresses, and mostly in the second half of the book)
about 32 times. In Acts, ' believers ' (viarevovTei,
TTiffTfvffayres, vtiriffrevKdres) is another frequent equi
valent. The explanation of the change from ' clis-
DISCIPLLS^E
DISCIPLINE
303
ciple' to the other terms is simple. During His
life on earth, the followers of Jesus were called
' disciples ' in reference to Him ; afterwards they
were called 'saints' in reference to their sacred
calling, or 'brethren' in relation to one another
(Sanday, Inspiration', 1896, p. 289). In Acts, the
first title is going out of use, and the others are
coming in ; in ch. 9 all three terms are found.
Christ's charge, ' Make disciples of all the nations'
(Mt *28'*), may have helped to keep ' disciple ' in use.
' Disciple ' means more than one who listens to a
teacher ; it implies his acceptance of the teaching,
and his effort to act in accordance with it ; it im-
plies beinga 'believer' in theteacher and being ready
to be an 'imitator' {fufirtn^) of him (Xen. Jlem. I.
vi. 3). It is remarkable that St. Paul does not call
his converts his ' disciples ' — that might seem to be
taking the place of Christ (1 Co l^^); but he
speaks of them as his ' imitators.' In the Gospels,
'disciple' is often used in a special sense of the
Twelve, and sometimes of the followers of human
teachers — Moses, or John the Baptist, or the
Pharisees. Neither use is found in Acts : in 19^
' disciples ' does not mean disciples of John, as is
shown by ' when ye believed ' (xwrrewrajn-ej), that is,
' when ye became Christians,' which is the dominant
meaning of this verb in Acts. These 'disciples'
were imperfectly instructed Christians.
See also ait. Apostle. Alfred Plummee,
DISCIPLINE.— The root meaning of ' discipline '
is ' instruction,' but in course of time it came to be
used for ' moral training,' ' chastening,' ' punish-
ment.' The subject naturally divides itself into
two parts : (1) the spiritual discipline of the soul ;
(2) the ecclesiastical discipline of offenders.
1. The training necessary for the discipline of
the soul. — This may be under the guidance of
another or under one's own direction. — (a) In order
to develop and perfect man's moral nature, (rod
deals with him as a wise father with a child. The
benefit of such treatment is pointed out in He
101-13 icf. Mt 5'*''-). Its final efficacy depends upon
the spirit in which it is received. The motive for
its endurance must be right, and the end in view
must be clearly perceived. The Heavenly Father
does more than simply teach His children ; He
disciplines them with more (cf. Pr 3", Job 5^^) or
less severity (cf. Pr l*- ^ 4'). If the Author of
Salvation was made perfect through sufferings (He
2i» ; cf. 5»'- 7^, Lk 13^-), it is clear that the ' many
sons' must pass through the same process and
experience as the ' well-beloved Son.' In their
case the need is the more urgent, for latent powers
must be developed, lack of symmetry corrected,
the stains of sin removed, evil tendencies eradi-
cated. Errors in doctrine and action must be
transformed into truth and righteousness (1 Co
ll^ff-, 2 Jn^o*-, 2 Ti 2i«'- ; cf. Tit 3i«, 1 Co 5*-«
2 Th 3*). Body and mind can move towards
perfection only under the guiding hand of the
Holy Father. Pain and sorrow, frustrated hopes,
long delays, loneliness, changed circumstances,
persecution, the death ef loved ones, and other
'dispensations of Providence,' are designed to
chasten and ennoble the soul. Character, not
creed, is the final aim. Having begun a good work
in His children, God will ' perfect it until the day
of Jesus Christ ' (Ph 1«).
(b) The Christian must also discipline himself.
Through the crucifixion of his lower nature he
rises into newness of life. St. Paul describes (Tit
2^ the negative side as ' denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts,' and the positive as to ' live soberly,
and righteously, and godly in this present world '
(' sobrie erga nos ; juste erga proximum ; pie erga
Denm' [St. Bernard, Sermon xi., Paris, 1667-90]) ;
see Ro 128, Tit 2^ ; cf . 2 Ti 2^^, 1 P 4-, 1 Jn 2»« ;
also Lk 1", Ac 17*» 24» The Christian must put
away anger, bitterness, clamour, covetousness,
envy, evil-speaking, falsehood, fornication, guile,
hypocrisy, malice, railing, shameful speaking,
undeanness, wrath (Eph 4'7-«, Col 3*-" ; cf. Ja 1«',
1 P 2'). Then he must acquire and mature posi-
tive virtues. This involves at every stage self-
discipline (see Ro 6'» 8", 1 Co 9»«-, Col 3* ; cf . Mt
5» 18», Mk 9*^ Gal 5»«).
Many elements enter into this discipline of self.
Amongst others the following deserve special
mention : prayer, ' the hallowing of desire, by
carrying it up to the fountain of holiness' (J.
Monson, Com. on St. Mattheti^, 1885, p. 89) ; see
Ro 1212; cf. Ac 1", Eph 6»8, Col 4*-*, 1 P 4'; cf.
Mt 28*1, Lk 18' 21» Fasting is frequently as-
sociated with prayer : e.g. Ac 13' 14", Did. vii. 4,
vUi. 1, and many other passages. Ramsay (St.
Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, London,
1895, p. 122) speaks of the solemn prayer and fast
which accompanied the appointment of the elders,
and savs that 'this meeting and rite of fasting,
A\hich TPaul celebrated in each city on his return
journey, is to be taken as the form that was to be
permanently observed.' Sobriety in thought and
action is commended (Ro 12» ; cf . 1 P 4' [Gr.], 1 Th
5S. 8^ 1 Xi 2?- '» ; cf. Sir 18» [Gr.]) ; toatch/ulness (Ac
2415, Ro 819- », 1 Co V 16", 2 Co 4^. Eph 6i«, Col 4-,
Tit 213, He 13", 1 P 4^ 2 P 3" ; cf . Mt 24^ 26", Mk
13^, Lk 21*) ; obedience (Ro 131', 2 Co 2* 7" 10«,
1 Ti 21-', Tit 31, 1 P 212- 1* 31, 1 Jn 23 3^) ; patience
(Ro 5» 8» 15*, 1 Th 1', 2 Th l^-^ 3*, He 10«, Ja 1»;
cf. Mt ICF 24i», Lk 21") ; conflict against error and
evil forces and on behalf of the truth (Eph 6'^"'*,
1 Ti li8-» 6", 2 Ti 2^*4^^, PhUem», Jude^) ; work
(Ac 18», Eph 4^, 1 Th 4I', 2 Th 3»-") ; almsgiving
(Ac 24", Ro 12" 15»- », 1 Co 16i-», 2 Co 9«- ', Gal 6i»,
1 Ti 6"-i», He 1316, Ja 2^^- 1«, 1 Jn 3" ; cf . Mt e"- » To
4"-ii) ; temperance (Ac 24«, 1 Co 9», Gal 5» ; cf.
Sir IS* [Gr.], Tit 1«, 2 P 1«); chastUy (Ro 13", Gal
524 1 p 211, 1 Jn 2i« ; cf. Sir 18*) ; meekness (Ro
12i«, Eph 4^ 52, Ph 2?, Col 3'2, 1 Ti 6", 1 P 5*- •).
In Ph 4* and 2 P !*■* there are inspiring direc-
tions for this same self-discipline. ' If there be
any virtue, and if there be any praise,' the
brethren are to ' think on,' or ' take account of,'
'whatsoever things are true, honourable, just,
pure, lovely, of good report.' If men are to become
partakers of the Divine nature, and to escape the
corruption that is in the world by lust, they must
heed the injunction : ' For this very cause adding
on your part all diligence, in your faith supply
virtue ; and in your virtue knowledge ; and in
j'our knowledge temperance ; and in your temper-
ance patience ; and in your patience godliness ;
and in your godliness love of the brethren ; and in
your love of the brethren love' (see also 1 Co 13
and 1 Jn 41*). This will save from idleness and
unfruitfulness. They wiU give the more diligence
to make their calling and election sure.
Xo doubt the expectation in the Apostolic Age
of the cataclysmic and immediate coming of Christ
led to rigour and austerity of life, which were
afterwards relaxed in many places. The moral
necessity of discipline is always the same, even
though the power of belief in the second coming of
Christ in spectacular fashion wanes or departs.
After the close of the 1st cent, the development
of asceticism and penance became pronounced.
The XT gives little or no countenance to the
extreme forms that these disciplinary systems
assumed.
2. Ecclesiastical discipline. — For self -protection
and self-assertion the early Church had to exercise
a strict discipline. Its well-being and very life
depended upon the suppression of abuses and the
exptilsion of persistent and gross offenders. In
some cases toleration would have meant unfaith-
304
DISCIPLINE
DISPERSIOX
fulness to Christ and degradation to the commnnity.
The duty of maintaining an adequate discipline
•was one of the most difficult and most important
tasks that confronted the primitive Ecclesia.
Jesus Himself gave to the apostles (Mt 16^*' '^ Jn
20'«- ^) and to the Church (Mt 18i»-J») a disciplinary
charter. The Church followed the main lines of
guidance therein contained. Only public sins were
dealt with in the ecclesiastical courts. Private
ofiences were to be confessed to each other (Ja 5'"),
that prayer might be oHered for forgiveness (5",
1 Jn 5'®), and also confessed to God (1 Jn 1").
Further, Christians were discouraged from carry-
ing disputes to the civil courts (1 Co 6^ cf. 5" 6'*).
' Let not those who have disputes go to law before
the civil powers, but let them by all means be re-
conciled by the leaders of the Church, and let them
rightly yield to their decision ' (see Clem. Ep. ad
Jacob., 10). The object of ecclesiastical discipline
was to prevent scandal and to restore the ofiender.
When private rebuke and remonstrance failed (Mt
18'*; CI. 1 Th 5'''), the wrong-doer was censured by
the whole community (cf. 1 Ti S^", Gal 2"). This
sentence might be pronounced by some person in
authority, or by the community as community.
If the accused person still remained obdurate, and
in the case of heinous sin, the Church proceeded to
expulsion and excommunication (Ro 16'^, 1 Co
52. 11. 13^ 2 Jn *"). The ofiender was thrust out from
religious "jatherings and debarred from social inter-
course. To such excommunication might be added
the further penalty of physical punishment (Ac
51-10 gw, 1 Co 55, 1 Ti 52») or an anathema {avMeixa,
1 Co 16-^, Gal 1*). Knowing the great influence
of the mind over the body, one can readily under-
stand that disease, and even death, might follow
such sentences. It was fully believed that the
culprit was exposed, without defence, to the attacks
of Satan (1 Co S'^).
The whole Church exercised this power of dis-
cipline. St. Paul addresses the community in
1 Cor,, which is our earliest guide on the subject.
Laymen on occasion could teach, preach, and exer-
cise disciplinary powers. In the case of excom-
munication it was not necessary that there should
be unanimity. A majority vote was sufficient (2
Co 2"). It was believed that Christ was actually
present (Mt 18^") to confirm the sentence, which
was pronounced in His name (1 Co 5*, 2 Co 2'").
No doubt the procedure followed in the main
that of the synagogue, where expulsion was of
three types — simple putting forth, excommunica-
tion with a curse, and a final anathema sentence.
Discipline was designed to be reformatory and not
simply punitive or retaliatory. There must be, if
possible, ' rectification ' (see 2 Ti 3^*, where eiravdp-
0u(7is is significantly joined with -n-aidela). Repent-
ance is to be followed by forgiveness (2 Co 2'"^'*,
Gal 6S Jude**). The penitent was probably re-
ceived into the Church again by the imposition of
hands (cf. 1 Ti 5^2).
Owing to persecution, the discipline of the Church
became more and more simply moral influence.
The demand for it was more urgent than ever ;
but, while some communities remained faithful to
this duty, others grew more lax (e.g. the jjractice
of obtaining libelli).
See also Admonition, Anathema, Chastise-
ment, and Excommunication.
LrrBRATURE.— J. H. Kurtz, Church History, Eng. tr., i.2,
London, 18!)1 ; F. J, A. Hort, The Christian Ecclesia. do. 1897 ;
C. V. Weizsacker, Apogtolic Age, Eng. tr., i.2, do. 1897, ii., 1895 ;
P. SchafF, llisto7~y of the Apostolic Age, Eklinbureb, 1886; E.
Hatch, Orfjanization of the Early Christian Churches, London,
1880; A. C. McGiffert, Christianity in the Apostolic Age,
Edinburgh, 1897 ; J. B. Lightfoot, Dissertations on the Apos-
tolic Age, London, 1892 ; H. H. Henson, Apostolic Christianitt/,
do. 1898; art. ' Discipline (Christian) ' in ERE.
H. CaRISS J. SiDNELL.
DISPERSION. — ^ Siaffiropd (from Siatrvflpuj 'to
scatter,' as dyopd from dyelpu 'to gather') is used
collectively in the LXX and the NT for the Jews
.settled abroad. The most important NT reference
occurs in Jn 7** : ' Whither will this man go that
we shall not find him ? Will he go unto the Dia-
spora among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles ? '
This splenetic utterance was an unconscious pro-
phecy of the course our Lord actually followed,
when, having reached the goal of His public minis-
try, and having received ' all authority in heaven
and on earth,' He went on ' to make disciples of all
the nations.'* The first line of advance was al-
ready marked out by the Diaspora. It was the
bridge between the Jew and the Greek, and soon
the sound of many feet speeding over it with
their message of goou tidings was heard ; or it was
the viaduct by which the living waters that went
forth from Jerusalem were led to the cities of the
Roman Empire.
The Diaspora partly originated from causes over
which the Jews had no control, and was partly the
result of a spontaneous movement outwards. It
was largely due to the policy adopted by the great
conquerors of antiquity of deporting into exile
a considerable number of the population of the
countries which they subdued. The various trans-
plantations sufiered by the Jews need not be re-
counted here. But their dispersion was still more
largely due, in Greek and Roman times, to volun-
tary emigration from Palestine. The conquests of
Alexander the Great turned what had hitherto
been barred avenues and dangerous tracks into
safe and open roads, and the Jews were not slow
to take advantage of the openings, both in the
direction of secular culture and of commercial
enterprise, that lay before them. In NT times,
they were domiciled in all the countries along the
shores of the Mediterranean. The accounts of Philo
and Josephus, of which the substantial accuracy is
attested by inscriptions (HDB v. 92"), enable us to
see how much at home the Jews were in Syria, Egypt,
Asia Minor, and the Greek cities and islands, and
all the data now available afford grounds for be-
lieving that they numbered at this period from
three to four and a half millions, and that they
formed about seven per cent of the population of
the Roman Empire (EBi i. 1112; Harnack,
Mission and Expansion^, i. 10, 11).
Following Jeremiah's advice to the exiles in
Babylon, they ' sought the peace ' of the cities
they settled in, without, however, amalgamating
with the other inhabitants. The dislike created
by their aloofness gave way a little before the invol-
untary respect commanded by their intelligence,
their aptitude for work, and their exemplary
family life, but was never completely overcome.
Yet they had the art of conciliating the great, and
of gaining powerful patrons. Several of the Syrian
and Egyptian kings were their warm friends.
Amongst their friends must also be included Julius
Ca'sar, who with the prescience of genius saw in
them the true connecting link between the East
and West, and would not have relished their being
made the butt of Roman wits. Their mourning
for his death (' noctibus continuis bustum frequent-
arunt,' Suet. C. Itdius Ccesar, 84) reminds us of the
mourning of the Jews in London for Edward VII.
The Jews could not carry on their sacrificial
worship in foreign lands — we may let pass the
schismatic attempt to do so at Leontopolis in
Egypt — but they kept in full communion with
Jerusalem by making pilgrimages to the great
feasts, and by sending the yearly poll-tax of half a
shekel for the upkeep of the Temple (cf. Mt 17'-'*).
' The Law and the Prophets and the Psalms ' went
" • The secret which niahce had divined within the Saviour's
lifetime' (Gwatkin, Earlp Church Hist. i. 18).
DISPERSION
DISPERSION
305
I
with them everywhere, bat ' in the Greek Diaspora
. . . strict canonicity was accorded only to the ,
Torah' (ERE iL 580^). The obser\ance which j
attracted most notice from their Gentile neighbours !
was that of the Sabbath rest. On the day of rest
all classes of the Diaspora were ' gathered into
one,' and felt that they were indeed ' the people of
the Gotl of Abraham.'
That Julius Caesar had regarded them as his
friends was not forgotten by those who came after
him. It was a precedent tnat proved of immense
advantage to the Jews settled in Rome. The free- i
dom he granted them in the exercise of their re- ,
ligious customs was endorsed by hie grand-nephew
Augustus (Jos. Ant. xiv. 10, xvi. 6), and, after
weathering some dangerous storms, became the
settled policy of the Empire. In Roman law,
Jewish societies were collegia licita, privileged
clubs or gilds. Meetings in their synagogues,
or Tpoo-ei-xai, or ca^^areia (op. cit. xvi. 6. 2) were
not hamfiered with any troublesome restrictions.
They could settle matters pertaining to their law
without going to the Roman tribunal (cf. Ac 18'''- ^'),
and were apparently permitted to inflict punish-
ment for what they looked upon as scmsm or
apostasy (Ac 26^', 2 Co 11**). They had a coinage
ot their own for sacred purposes (HDB v. 57'). In
the region beyond the Tiber, ' in the neighbourhood
of the wharls where the barges from Ostia were
accustomed to unlade' (F. W. Farrar, Life and Work
of .Sf. Paul, 1 vol., 1897, p. 585), many of them
found employment, or drove a brisk trade. The
only occasion on which they were seriously tlireat-
enea ^^•itll the loss of their privileges occurred
under Claudius, who, in the words of the historian,
' ludaeos irapulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes
Roma expnlit ' (Suet. Claud. 25). The meaning of
these words is uncertain {HDB iv. 307', v. 98» ;
EBi i. 757 ; JE iv. 563 ; Gwatkin, Early Church
Hist. i. 40 ; Zahn, Introd. to NT, i. 433), but if they
refer to tumults in the Jewish quarter caused by
the preaching of the gospel, we may conjecture
that Aquila, a Jew of the Dispersion, had been
one of its preachers (Ac 18-). The edict of Claud-
ius was probably found unworkable (Ramsay, St.
Paul, 254). This Emperor seems to have been as
favourable to the Jews as his predecessors (Jos.
Ant. xix. 5. 2, 3).
Long before they had acquired a political status
in Rome, a great inward change had been working
among the Jews of the Dispersion. As may be in-
ferred from the fact already mentioned, that strict
canonicity was accorded only to the Torah, they
carried abroad with them an intensely legal con-
ception of their religion. It was conceived as
consisting simply in the observance of a definite
code of laws as to worship and life, given bj' (Jod
on Mount Sinai. So long as this conception pre-
dominated, their relations with their non-Jewish
neighbours were little more than ordinary business
relations. But as soon as the stimulus exerted by
the higher culture of the Greeks was felt, an in-
ward change began to work. Habitual intercourse
with a people so advanced in civilization could not
fail to have its effect. They were captivated by
the freedom and range of Greek thought. They
recognized in their philosophical and ethical ideas
a manifestation of the Divine Wisdom. There
was thus evolved a tendency to tone down what
was repellent in Judaism in order to bring their
faith into harmony with the Greek mind. Illustra-
tions of this tendencj' are found in the Prophetic
and Wisdom literature, in the modification of
OT anthropomorphism by the LXX, in the serious
attempt of Philo to find the philosophy of Plato
and the Stoics in the nanatives of Genesis by the
method of allegorical interpretation (HDB v.'l99).
The LXX itself was the outcome of the keen de-
VOL. I. — 20
sire to make their religion understood, as well as
to guard and preserve it from influences hostile
to it. The favourable reception which it met with
brought to the front an aspect of their religion
yet scarcely apprehended, viz. that it was a re-
ligion of hope for mankind. The words of the
prophets concerning the future of the human race
began to be read with a more open mind. There
it was found that Israel was adled to be the mis-
sionary to the nations. Many in the Dispersion
realizea that they were in a specially favoured
position for undertaking this missionary , duty.
In spreading the knowledge of their faith, they
laid stress, not upon ritual details, but upon the
great central principles of the unity of God, and
the cleansing and saving power of His word. As
they went on communicating those spiritual prin-
ciples to others, they became more spiritual them-
selves, and also more expectant of ' the good things
to come.' A large number of high-minded Greeks
were convinced of the truth of their doctrine of
God. Those whom they won over, the <re^iJLtroi
or (po^ovfiepoi. t6v dedf of the Apostolic Age, were al-
ready far on their way to the more complete satis-
faction of their spintuai wants that was to be
found in Christianity.
From the founding of Alexandria and Antioch,
the Jews were rol^Toi (civex), but in the older
Greek cities, except those of which the constitu-
tions were altered by Alexander or his successors
(HDB V. 104 f. ; Expositor, 7th ser., ii. 37 f.), they
were simply /i^oocoi (incolce, 'residents'). The Jews
of Rome whom Cicero mentions as possessing the
Roman civitas (pro Flacco, 28) probably belonged
to the class of libertini or enfranchised slaves (cf.
Ac 6*). Jews of Ephesus, Sardis, Delos, etc., had
the R^man civitas, as appears from the edicts pre-
served by Josephus {Ant. xiv. 10). St. Paul's citi-
zenship (y.w.) of the Hellenistic city of Tarsus (Ac
21*) is to be distinguished from his Roman citizen-
ship (Ac 22^ ; cf. 16^^). The latter right may have
been conferred by some Roman potentate on cer-
tain important Tarsian families (Ramsay, Ex-
positor, 7th ser., ii. 144, 152 ; cf. Schiirer, HDB v.
105 f.). It was not the least important of St.
Paul's providential equipments for the Apostle-
ship, and was recognized as entitling him to re-
spect from Roman officials. The laws of the Em-
Eire had a high moral value for the Apostle, and
e repaid what he owed to them by fervent inter-
cessions for those who administered them (Ro 13*-^,
1 Ti 2'- -).
In St. Paul himself — his training, his conversion,
his missionary calling, his Christian achievement
— we can study, as in a single picture, the service
rendered by the Dispersion to the free course of
the gospel. Himself a Jew of the Dispersion,
educated in a strict Rabbinical school, he bad
the two-fold advantage of becoming proficient in
Judaism, the religion of his fathers (Gal 1"), and
of growing up in his CUician home under the pene-
trating influence of Greek civilization. The ques-
tion of Ro 3*, 'Is God the God of the Jews only ?
Is he not the God of the Gentiles also ? ' was
one that he must have often asked himself in his
Pharisaic days ; and when the sight and the call
of Jesus had given him the decisive answer, ' Yea,
of the Gentiles also,' this became the moving force
of his strenuous life (cf. Job. Weiss, Paul and
Jesus, p. 67). He had been a traveller from his
youth, for the joumej' from Tarsus to Jerusalem
was not a short one ; but now he took a wider cir-
cuit (Ro 15^*), and would fain have embraced the
whole world in his travels (v.^), so anxious vyas
he to proclaim what he believed to be the religion
of redemption for all mankind. The highest ser-
vice that the Dispersion has up till now rendered
to the world is its becoming tne starting-point of
306
DISPERSION
DIVINATION
the aggressive Christian movement of St. Paul and
his felTovv-apostles ; what further service it may
be designed to render, in the form in which it now
exists, IS yet hidden in the counsels of the Eternal.
It may cause some surprise that St. Paul never
visited Alexandria, where the freest development
of pre-Christian J udaism took place. This develop-
ment, however, was in many respects alien to St.
Paul's mind. Alexandrian Judaism was ' a cul-
tured Unitarianism with strong ethical convic-
tions. The old dream of a theocracy was forgotten,
and Messianism aroused no interest' (Inge, EBE
i. 309 ; cf. Wernle, Beginnings of Christianity, i.
177). This brief account must be qualified, how-
ever, by the statement in Acts (IS'*), that it was
a gifted Alexandrian Jew, Apollos, who, after
' the way of God had been expounded to him more
carefully,' demonstrated the Messiahship of Jesus
publicly, before the Jews in Corinth, with energy
and success (cf. Harnack, Acts of the Apostles, p.
121). The illustrious Church of Alexandria must
have been founded, like other churches, on ' the
Rejected Stone.'
Many traits of the Diaspora mentioned above
are illustrated by the Acts and the Epistles. The
long list of foreign Jews present at Pentecost
.shows how widely scattered their settlements were.
Was it by means of some of these (Ac 2^**), return-
ing to their native synagogue ' in the power of the
Spirit,' that the faith of Christ first reached the
city of Rome? At Antioch, some Cyprian and
Cyrenaean Christians were the first to take the
bold step of ' speaking unto the Gentiles also,
preaching Jesus as the Lord' (Ac 11-°, 'where the
sense of the passage seems to require "EWijvas'
[Gwatkin, Early Church Hist. i. 56n.]). The
names of Barnaoas of Cyprus, Philip of Csesarea,
Lucius of Cyrene, Timothy of Lystra, Jason of
Thessalonica, Sopater of Bercea, Crispus of Corinth,
Aquila of Pontus, illustrate how largely the
Church's assets consisted of Jews settled abroad.
The tent-making of Aquila, in which St. Paul
joined him, gives a glimpse into the industrial life
of the Diaspora. Amongst his ' kinsmen ' in Asia
and Europe the Apostle found some of his most
efficient coadjutors ; from them too, and not only
from the unbelieving portion of them, there came
some of his most fanatical opponents.
In Ja 1^ St. James may be addressing the Chris-
tian Jews of the Eastern Dispersion, and in 1 P P
St. Peter those of the Western (J. B. Mayor, Ep.
of James^, 1910, p. 30) ; but in 1 P 1^ it is much
more probable that the whole body of Christians
living at the time are addressed as being now,
spiritually, ' the Israel of God ' (Gal 6'* ; cf. Hort,
First Epistle of Peter, I. l-II. 17, 1898, p. 7).
There are few data to satisfy our curiosity about
what happened to the Jewish Diaspora from a.d.
70 to 100. The rebellion against the Roman
authority seems to have met with no sympathy on
the part of the Jews of Rome. They had no snare
in the insurrections under Vespasian, Trajan, or
Hadrian, and were left unmolested (JE iv. 563).*
We even hear that 'after a.d. 70 till perhaps 100,
Judaism made many converts especially in Rome '
(Parting of the Roads, pp. 286, 305). Those Jews
who had had their home in Jerusalem were com-
pelled after A.D. 70 to live after the manner of
their brethren of the Diaspora [EBi ii. 2286). The
story of the re-organization of Judaism on a non-
sacerdotal basis by Jochanan ben Zakkai, the
founder of the School of Jamnia near Joppa, and
his successors, has recently been re-tola by E.
Levine in a manner that commands attention and
respect (Parting of the Boads, 299 f.). But to
' ' Even the destruction of Jerusalem scarcely endangered the
toleration of the Jews at Rome ' (Gwatkin, Early Church Uiit,
i. 40).
pursue this interesting line of study would take
us far beyond the limits of the Apostolic Age.
LiTBEATURE. — H. M. Gwatkin, Early Church Uintory to A.D.
SIS, 1909, i. 1-72 ; A. Harnack, The Mintion arid Expansion of
Christianity in the First Three Centuries^, 1908, i. 1 ff., Act* of
the Apostles, 1909, p. 121 ; The Parting of the Roads, 1912,
Essay iv. : ' Judaism in the Days of the Christ ' (Oesterley),
Essay ix. : 'The Breach between Judaism and Christianitv '
(Levine) ; W. M. Ramsay, Expositor, 6th ser., v. [1902) : ' The
Jews in the Oricco- Asiatic Cities," 7th ser., ii. [1906] : 'Tarsus,*
§§ xi.-xvii. ; H. Schultz, OT Theology, 1892, i. 423 ; J. Weiss,
Paul and Jesus, 1909, pp. 69, 67 ; P. Wernle, Beginnings of
Christianity, 1903-04, i. 177 ; Th. Zahn, Introd. to NT, 1909, i.
433, ii. 184 ; artt. on ' Dispersion ' or ' Diasjwra ' in EBi i. 1106
(Guthe), DCQ i. 465 (M'Neile), JE\v. 559 (Reinach), HDB v. 91
(Schiirer), Smith's DB i. 787 (Westcott). See also HDB ii.
608b (Sanday), iv. 307 (Patrick and Relton), v. 67» (Buhl), v.
199 (Drummond); EBi u. 2286 (Guthe), ERE 1. 309 (Inge), iL
580>> (von Dobschiiti). JaME.S DONALD.
DIVINATION.— 1. Definition.— Primitive man,
under the influence of animatism and animbm,
came to think of himself as surrounded by in-
numerable spirits. These in course of time became
difi'erentiated into gods, goddesses, demons, ghosts,
etc. These beings could influence, enter into, and
animate not only each other, but human beings,
beasts, and things. Man gradually realized that
it was his duty to discover and cultivate relations,
friendly or defensive, with these — a duty inten.si-
fied by his covetousness of good and his aversion
to calamities or privations. Some of the methods
he employed for doing this became regulated and
systematized into forms of worship, i.e. approved
methods of approaching and propitiating tlie
spirits. As these forms became more and more
universally recognized, they acquired a sacred
character, which difi'erentiated them from, and
placed them on a higher level than, other cere-
monies. Still the latter continued to be practised,
because the forms of worship did not meet all
men's necessities. Unusual circumstances occurred
through which, or on account of which, the di-
vinities communicated with men, or by reason of
which men felt the need of communicating with
those beings in whose hands lay the destinies of
their lives. These survivals of the lower culture,
from which the regular forms of worship had
shaken themselves free, may be grouped under
the name ' Divination.'
The Latin name for a divine being was deus.
Diviis indicates the quality possessed by a thing
which makes it 'godlike ; divinus rather the
qualities which make a being ' divine ' ; divinitas
means ' the divine nature ' ; divinare, ' to see like a
god ' ; and divinatio, ' the power of seeing like a
god.' This came to be confined, in ordinary use, to
the power of foreseeing. But the word has a much
wider meaning. To Chrysippus and tlie Stoics,
' divination ' was the means of communication
between the gods and men. Cicero (de Div. i. 38)
argues that, if there are gods, there must be men
who have the power of communicating with them.
In English 'divination' has the wider meaning
akin to the original significance. Divination tlien
rests on the idea that, apart from forms of wor-
ship, a divinity and a human being can, when
necessary, come into living touch witn eacli other,
the divinity acting on or through the man, thus
revealing his mind to him ; or the man by ap-
proved methods so revealing his mind to the
divinity that the latter acts on or through him.
2. Divination and magic. — Just as worship, by
becoming' systematized, left behind it the forms of
communication called 'divination,' so divination,
as it became more regulated and elaborated in the
hands of professional diviners, left behind it
cruder and lower forms of communication which
may all be included under the term 'magic.'*
• A. C. Haddon, Magic and Fetishism, 1906 ; F. B. Jevons,
Comparative Religion, 1913.
DIVI^^ATION
DIVINATION
307
The distinction between divination and magic may
be briefly and not inaccurately stated thus : the
diviner is in toucli with the divinities because he
is their servant ; the magician, because, for the
time being, he is their master. Thus, each of
these forms of communication, though existing
alongside of each other and accepted by the same
people, has its own distinctive features.
3. Development. — If we think of the above three
methods of communication between the divinities
and men as existing, in embryo, in the earliest
ages, we can realize how they were each developed
by such great races as the Semites and the Aryans,
and how the common inheritance of each of these
was developed along distinctive lines by the
different nations springing from them. Thus, to
confine our attention to divination, we have that
of the Semites, * developing into that of the Meso-
potamians,t Persians,* Jews,§ and Arabians ;1| and
that of the Aryans,"i^ developing into that of the
Vedas,** Greeks,++ Romans,ti Celts,§§ Teutons, ;•
and Lithuanians;^^ while that of the Egyptians
strongly influenced and was influenced by many of
these.***
The Pax Romana and the toleration of the
Roman Government permitted the cults of in-
numerable divinities and all these forms of divina-
tion to spread throughout the Empire ; and Jews,
Christians, worshippers of all kinds of Eastern and
Egyptian deities, diviners, ' magicians, astrologers,
ancJ wizards jostled each other in a theological con-
fusion to which no parallel can be found ' (K. Lake,
Tlie Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, 1911, p. 47).
i. Divination in the Apostolic Age. — It is difficult,
but necessary, to realize this amazing profusion of
divinities as a distinct feature of the Apostolic Age.
Besides mentioning Jahweh, the God of the Hebrews,
Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, worshipped by
the Christians, and some of the innumerable ethnic
deities, the literature of the Apostolic Age contains
references to angels, archangels, living creatures,
Satan, the Devil, the Wicked One, the Antichrist,
demons, unclean and evil powers, dominions, princi-
palities, authorities, thrones, and glories.
It is not easy to decide how far belief in these
aflected the various classes. But practically this
is true : each man had his favourite divinity to
which all Gentiles added a select group of deities
whom they reverenced. Rationalists like the Sad-
ducees denied the existence of d.',-/e\oi and -rvevfuiTa
(Ac 23*) ; many of the more educated viewed the
existence of the minor supernatural beings with
* W. Robertson Smith, SS^, 1894 ; Th. Xoldeke, Sketehes/rvm
Eostem Hittory, Eng. tr., 1S92 ; ERE L 390 ; J. E. Carpenter,
Comparatici Religion, 1913 ; BDB v. S3ff. and the Literature
there mentioned.
t J. E. Carpenter, op. cit. ; A. H. Sayce, RsHgion of the
Ancient Babylonian*, lo«7 ; G. Maspero, Dawn of OvciliuUiot^,
1896 : Stephen Langdon, ' Private Penance,' in Trantaetiont of
the Third International Congrest/or the History af ReUgiont,
1906, p. 319 ; L. W. King, Bab. Magic and Sorcery, 1806, Bab.
Religwn and Mjfthologt, 1889; L. B. Funell, Greece and
Babylon, 1911 ; ERE L 316, iv. 783, and literature there
mentioned ; R. C. Thompson, The Report of the Magicians and
Aitrologen of Sineteh and Babylon, 1900, also The DeviU and
Evil Spirits of Babylonia, 1903-01.
: ERE iv. 818 ; J. H. Moulton, Early Religiout Poetry of
Persia, 1911.
§ ERE It. 806 ; S. A. Cook, The Religion ofAndent Palestine,
1908 ; T. W. DaTies, Magic, Diuination, and Demonology among
the Hebreics and their Neighbours, 1898 ; BDB L 611 ff.
! ERE i. 659.
•7 R. V. Ihering, TheErx>lutumoftheAryan,tT. Drucker, 1897 ;
I. Taylor, The Origin of the Aryans, 1889 ; ERE L 11 and the
Literature there mentioned.
*♦ lb. iv. 8-27.
ft W. R. Halliday, Greek JMvination, 1913; ERE iv. 796, vL
401 ; Gilbert Murray, Four Stages of Greek Religion, 1912.
U \V. Warde Fowler, ITie Religious Experience of the Roman
People, 1911 ; ERE iv. 820.
ii lb. in. 2TT, iv. 787. . ! lb. iv. 827.
15 lb. iv. 814.
*** /6. vL 374 ; F. Cumont, Tfie Oriental Religions in Roman
Paganism, Eng. tr., 1911, p. 73 ff.
more or le^ scepticism ; but the mass of people lived
in the belief and the fear of these divine beings.
In that age men felt themselves surrounded by a
great cloud of witnesses (He 12*), living in a world
where the gods appeared (Ac 14" 28*), where Jesus
appeared to St. Paul (9'^- ^ 28") and to Stephen
(7**), and His Spirit prohibited action (16"), where
an itinerant preacher was received as a messenger of
God, or even as Christ Jesus re-incarnated (Gal 4") ;
where the Holy Spirit was a distinct living person-
ality, where the assertion that a man was the Son of
God made a Roman governor tremble (Jn 19*), and
the patience of His death caused a Roman centurion
to exclaim: 'This was a Son of God' (Mt 27**).
In such a world the Satan fashioned himself into
an iyyeXoi tporrds (2 Co 11"), dcUftoves entered into
men, and were cast out by men (Lk 11", Mk 9"),
converts to the religion of Jesus who had believwi
and were baptized proposed to purchase the ability
to confer the Holy Spirit (Ac 8"), the power of the
evil eye was exercised (Mk 7"), and dpxal and divd-
M€is, 'principalities' and 'powers' (Ro 8*^), 'mus-
ter«i their unseen array.' 2s or must we think that
the Christians stood far removed from the common
beliefs of the age. This is clear from many things.
Think of their belief in the Satan, the antagonist
who stood over against God. He was conceived as
a huge dragon, or old serpent (Rev 12* 13" [as
amended by Charles in his Studies in the Apoca-
lypse, 1913, p. 100] 20*), and as such was identified
with Si&^oKoi. He was regarded as having his
abode in the skies, in which he and his irf^eKoi had
been defeated by an dpx<i77«^os Michael and his
iyyeXoi, and thro^vn down on the earth (12^"*) to be
flung into the abyss for a thousand years (20*- ').
He had his subordinate spirits. Special mention
is made of ' the Lawless One ' [according to K B]
(2 Th 2*), and the dyyeXot who fought for him
(Rev 12^-9), and afflicted men s bodies (2 Co 12^),
and even destroyed them (1 Co 5'). He himself
could masquerade as i.y/t\oz (punbs (2 Co 11"), and
could equip his servants with full powers, the
miracles and portents of falsehood, and the full
deceitfulness of evil (2 Th •!!?• "). The Satan was
the adversary of men ; his chief aim was to seduce
to wrong (Rev 20*- *• ^", Eph 2^) by tempting to such
sins as lying, cheating (Ac 5'), incontinence (1 Co 7',
1 Ti 5^), gross sexual excess, ' his deep mysteries '
(Rev 2^, Eph 2*). He gains advantages by clever
manoeu%Tes (2 Co 2^"'). He is the accuser of the
members of the Christian brotherhood (Rev 12^").
He hinders good endeavours (1 Th 2^), but the
God of peace crushes him under His people's feet
(Ro 16^). Jews hostile to the religion of Jesus are
thought of by the Christians as his servants who
form his synagogue (Rev 2* 3*), and in places noted
for wickedness he dwells in power as a king on his
throne (2^'). By a deliberate act of judgment an
oflender could be consigned to the Satan's power
for the destruction of his body (1 Co 5', 1 Ti l*").
The natural and inevitable outcome of this
multiplicity of divinities was the universal practice
of divination. The testimony of history to this
fact is fully confirmed by the discovery of con-
temporary texts, among which are 'innumerable
. . . horoscopes, amulets, cursing tablets, and
magical books. . . . The whole ancient world is
full of miracles' (Deissmann, Light from the
Ancient East^, 1911, pp. 284, 393). Divination
and magic were prevalent not merely among sects
like the Essenes, but among the Jews generally
(Schiirer, HJP n. iii. [1886] p. 151 fl'., n. ii. [1885]
p. 204). The writings of the Apostolic Fathers
show the relation of the Christians to these arts.
In the Didache among other commandments are
these, ' thou shalt not practise magic, thou shalt
not use enchantments,' oi> fw.yfvffeit, ov ipap/juuceiaets
(ii.), and this entreaty, 'become not an omen-
308
DIVINATION
DOCTOR
watcher, nor one who uses charms, nor an astro-
loger, nor one who purifies,' i.e. one who averts
disease or removes sin by sacrifices, fiv yl^fov olwvo-
<TK6iros . . . fJLrjBi ivaoi56s, p^TjS^ fiaO-rj/xaTiKdi, firjdi
irfpiKadalpuv (iii.). Hernias (Mand. xi. 4) cautions
Cliristians not to consult soothsayers (navrevovr ai).
The Didache describes the Way of Death as full,
among other things, of ' magical arts and potions,'
tiayelai, fpapfWKLai, (v,), while in the Way of Dark-
ness, among other things that destroy the soul, are
' potions and magical arts,' tpap/uiKeia, fiayeia (Ep.
Barn. xx. ). Ignatius speaks of the birtii of Jesus
as destroying or making ridiculous every kind of
magic, jrao-a juuiyeia {Eph. xix.), and exiiorts his
readers ' to flee evil arts,' rds KaKorexvi-a^ fpfOye, but
all tlie more to discourse in public regarding them
{Ep. to Polycarp, v.). In Ps. -Ignatius, Ep. to the
Antiochians, xi., 'the practice of magic,' 707;reias,
is a vice forbidden even to the Gentiles. Aristides
(Apol. xi. ) in indicating tlie things which Christians
should not do, omits all reference to divination or
magic, and a similar omission is noticeable in Ep.
Barn. xix. and in 1 Clement, xxx. xxxv. Hero
is warned (Ps. -Ignatius, Ep. to Hero, ii.) to dis-
trust any one teaching beyond what is commanded,
even ' though he work miracles,' k&v ar}ij,e1a irof^.
In the description which Aristides declares the
Greeks give of their gods, he writes that they say
some of them were ' sorcerers,' (papixaKovs {Apol.
viii.), 'practising sorcery,' tpap/MKelas (xiii.), and he
calls Hermes 'a magician,' fidyov (x.). But it is
noticeable that in Ps. -Ignatius, Ep. to the Anti-
ochians, xii., among the Church officials is 'the
exorcist,' ewopKiaTi^s, and in the Ep. to the Philip-
pians, v., Christ is by way of honour called 'this
magician,' ixdyo^ oZros, while in Ephesians, xx., the
sacramental bread is called ' the medicine of im-
mortality,' (pdpfiaKov ddava<Tias. Pagan testimony
is to the same effect. The Emperor Hadrian (a.d.
117-138), writing to the Consul Servianus on the
state of Egypt, says : ' There is no ruler of a
synagogue of Jews, no Samaritan, no Presbyter of
the Christians who is not an astrologer, a sooth-
sayer, a quack [mathematicus, harnspax, aliptesl '
{Script. Hist. August., Ill 'i, 'Vopisci Saturninus,' 8).
These supernatural beings communicated with
men by means of &YYe\oi { ' angels ' or ' messengers ')
or prophets, by possession, by means of the hand,
tongues, dreams, visions, trances, voices, sounds.
The human beings in touch with these super-
natural beings were variously named exorcists,
soothsayers, sorcerers, enchanters ; and, lower still,
magicians, witches, and wizards. They had various
methods of bringing the power of the divinities to
act on men, all of which may be classed into two
groups : {a) regular : blessing, cursing, pronoun-
cing anathema, invoking the Name, embracing,
laying on of hands, shadowing, signs and wonders,
as e.g. healing, or smiting with disease such as
blindness ; (6) exceptional : the lot, the vow, the
oath, and committing to Satan.
As religion has become spiritualized, divination
has more and more lost its hold on the minds of
men. The ultimate end will be reached when
worship shall be the approach to the One Father
by a man, who, because he is taught and led by
the indwelling Spirit of Jesus, needs no divination,
and who, because he can protter his remiests to the
Father in prayer, scorns all magic. But the end
is not yet.
LmiRATURE. — ^There is no book dealin^r with Divination in the
Apostolic Age. Reference to its various phases will he found
in modern Commentaries and in works on Comparative Religion,
and Anthropology, as those of E. B. Tylor, A. E. Crawley,
J. G. Frazer, F. B. Jevons, J. H. Leuba, and R. R. Marett.
In addition to these and the authorities cited throughout the
art., reference may be made to F. W. M. Myers, on 'Greek
Oracles,' in Essays, 1883, and to the series of articles in ERE
vi. 775 fl. P. A. Gordon Clark.
DIVINITY.— See Chrlst, Christology.
DIVISIONS The work of the Apostle Paul was
much hindered by divisions in the Church. There
are many passages in his Epistles which refer to
this, but the subject cannot be better studied than
in 1 Co 1""^. The Corinthian Church, though
outwardly united, was divided in its allegiance to
different teachers — ' I am of Paul, and I of Apollos,
and I of Cephas, and I of Christ.' Much ingenuity
has been expended in sketching the characteristics
of these four parties, but it is not easy to be certain
of them. Apollos was a Jew of Alexandria (Ac
18**'^), a disciple of the Baptist, who, being more
fully instructed by Aquila and Priscilla, was bap-
tized into tlie Christian Church. At Corinth his
learning and eloquence made a great impression, and
there might be many who would regard him as a
leader in the faith ; but there need not have been
any serious division in the Church on this account.
Far greater difficulty would be experienced be-
tween those who are generally known as the Juda-
izing party and those who accepted the teaching
of the Apostle.
The question of Gentile converts being free from
the yoke of the Law of Moses had been settled by
the Council held at Jerusalem (Ac 15^"^), but the
Judaizing party had not acquiesced ex animo in
that decision. The Epistle to the Galatians gives
us an insight into their tactics then, and it is highly
probable that in the 'Christ' party of 1 Co 1"^-
we meet with the same line of action. In the
Second Epistle to the Corinthians the Apostle
defends his authority and apostolicity in much the
same way as he does in the Epistle to the Gala-
tians (2 Co 10. 11. 12, Gal 1" 2"^^).
This party would perhaps point to the obedience
of Christ to the Law during His life, and would
strongly advocate the position that Christianity
was an outcome of Judaism, and that the Gentile
in accepting Christ mu8t|bow his head to tlie yoke
of the Law as well. In 1 Cor. we see this partj- in
its infancy ; but in 2 Cor. it has grown to much
more dangerous proportions. From the internal
evidence of the latter Epistle we may gather some-
thing of their claims. Thej' were Hebrews ; they
claimed to be apostles ; they preached another
gospel and another Jesus (2 Co 1 1 ). Their insistence
upon obedience to the ceremonial Law brought
them into direct conflict with St. Paul's teaching
on justification. They made many grievous and
unjust charges against him, and sought in every
way to discredit him and to belittle his authority.
The Epistle makes it clear that they met with
considerable success. The Corinthians were in-
fatuated with their new teachers, and turned
against the Apostle. In some way the news of
the defection reached St. Paul, and led to his paying
a visit to Corinth. This visit is not recorded in
the Acts but is alluded to in this Epistle (2 Co 13).
This was followed by a stern letter which some
think is preserved in 2 Co 10-13 ; and finallj', on
receipt of the good news of their repentance, St.
Paul wrote with thankfulness tlie Epistle which
we have in 2 Co 1-9. Morley Stevenson.
DIVORCE.— See Marriage.
DOCTOR. — 'Doctor' (Lk 2*« 5", Ac 5") =
•teacher.' The 'doctor' was a scribe. Till 40
years old he was talmtd ('scholar'). Probably
after examination he became tnlmtd hakham (' sage
scholar'). On receiving a call from a particular
community, he was solemnly ordained to office
with laying on of hands, and became rabbi
('master'). Such was the process after A.D. 70.
In the NT rabbi has not so specialized an applica-
tion. The Law, especially the oral tradition, was
DOCTRINE
DOMITIAX
309
the great subject of study ; it was learned by in-
defatigable memorizing. Discussions were held
at which listeners might put questions (cf. Lk 2*).
LiTKRATCRK.— E. Schurcr, EJP n. i. §25 (n.); W. Bonsset,
Reliffion desJutUntumtim neutett. Zeitalter, 1903, iL 5, p. 147 ;
art. ' Doctor ' in UDB, DCG, and CE.
W. D. NiVEX.
DOCTRINE.— See Teachixg.
DOG (icvW, Ph 3», 2 P 2», Rev 22").— In Pales-
tine the dog plays a very insignificant and con-
temptible part, and is in consequence the symbol
for all that is ignoble and mean. The ordinary
pariah street-dogs are from two to three feet long,
tawny in colour, have small eyes, short fur, and
comparatively little hair on the tail. They act as
scavengers, clearing away carcases and offal, which
form the staple of their food, and which, but for
them, might create pestilence (cf. H. B. Tristram,
Natural ffistorj/^", p. 78). They bark and howl
all night (cf. Ps 59^ "), but as a rule are afraid of
men, though on occasions they attack travellers
in lonely places. Sometimes they are trained to
act as sheep-dogs (cf. Job 30^), not, however, for
dri\'ing the sheep, as with us, but for guarding
them against the attacks of wolves and jackals at
night. Dogs were seldom regarded or treated as
pets; this was perhaps due to the fact that the
Jews were not a hunting people. Tristram, how-
ever, informs us that he had no difficulty in mak-
ing a pet of a puppy taken from pariah dogs (op.
cit. p. 80), while we have clear evidence in Mt 15^
1 Mk 7*^ that they sometimes became household
pets ; it is, however, noticeable that the term used
in these two passages is the diminutive Kwdpiov.
The only other breed of dog kno^\•n in Palestine
is the Persian greyhound, which resembles our
greyhound in general form and appearance, but
is larger and stronger, though not so swift. This
dog is used by shaikhs for hunting the gazelle.
When used as a personal epithet in OT and NT,
' dog ' is a term of absolute contempt when applied
to others, of extreme humility when applied to one-
self. In Ph 3-, St. Paul applies the term to his
•Judaizing opponents — ' Look to, be on your guard
against, the dogs, the workers of mischief, the con-
cision' (cf. Lightfoot, Philippians*, 1878, p. 143) —
a party, clearly, well-defined and well-known to
the members of the Philippian Church. In 2 P 2^
the 'dog' is mentioned along with the 'sow' as
in Horace (Epp. I. ii. 26) — the dog turning to his
own vomit again, and the sow that hath bathed
itself (in mud), to wallowing in the mire. The
reference is to apostates — those who, after being
converted to the way of righteousness and having
abandoned the filth in which they had once so
zealously 'bathed,' return again to wallow in the
mire of their former delights. In Rev 22^^, the
' dogs ' are those who are corrupted by the foul vices
of the heathen world, many of whom were doubt-
less to be found within the pale of the Church (cf.
ou. :»{._ -2 Co 12-').
LiTERAirKE. — For the dog in Palestine see H. B. Tristram,
Satural History of the BibU^O^ 1911, p. 78 ff. ; also SWP : ' The
Fauna and Flora of Palestine,' 1SS4, p. 21 ; P. G. Balden-
sperger, ' The Immovable East," in PEFSt, 1903, p. 73, 1904,
p. 361 ; J. E. Hanauer, ' Palestinian Animal Folk-Lore,' in
PEFSt, 1904, p. 265 ; W. M. Thomson. The Land and the
Book, new ed., 1910, pp. 17S-179. On the texts see especially
J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians*. 1878, p. 143 f. ; C. Bigg, Epp.
of St. PeUr and St. Jude (ICC, 1901X p. 2S7 f. ; H. B. Swete,
The Apocalypse oj Sf, John, 1907, p. 308.
P. S. P. Haxdcock.
DOMINION.— This word is used, though not in-
variably, in the translation of three Gr. expressions :
(l)the verb Ki-ptevetv, 'to be lord of,' 'to have do-
minion over ' (Ro 6«- " 7^ AV and RV ; 2 Co 1^* AV,
where RV has ' have lordship ') ; (2) t6 Kpara ; (3)
TO /cpdTos is rendered thus in the doxologies in 1 P
4" 5", Jude=», Rev 1« 5^ (RV). In the only other
doxology where it occurs (1 Ti 6'*) RV strangely
retains ' power ' of AV. Lightfoot (on Col 1") says
that ' the word Kpdros in the NT is applied solely to
GJod,' Tliayer (*.i'. Si/vo/wj), more cautiously, that
the word is used ' in the NT chiefly of God ' ; He
2^* is an exception.
Kvpi6m)i is found in four passages, viz. Eph 1",
Col li« (plural), Jude 8, 2 P 2>»; RV in all cases
gives ' dominion,' AV in the first three, and in the
margin of 2 P 2'" (text, 'government'). In Eph.
and Col. a class of angels is meant (Milton's ' Dom-
inations ') with which compare 1 Co 8', where angels
are called /tv/uw (Grimm-Thayer, Lexicon, s.v.
KvpioTTii). The meaning of the word in Peter and
Jude presents some difficulty, (a) Many suppose
that here also angels are referred to, which 2 P 2"
and the reference to the sin of the Sodomites seem
to support. Cremer (Lexicon, s.v. Kvpiirris) says
that in Peter evil angels are implied from the con-
text, tliough not in Jude. But, as Bennett (C'en-
tury Bible : ' The General Epistles,' 1901, p. 334)
points out, ' it does not seem likely that blasphemy
against angels would be so conspicuous a sin of
licentious men as to call forth this emphatic con-
demnation.' (b) KvpioTtji may be understood of the
power and majesty of God (Bigg, St. Peter and St.
Jude\_ICC, 1901], p. 279), or the Lordship of Christ,
in support of which 2 P 2'- ®, Jude *■ ^* may be quoted.
(c) It may refer to authorities in the Church whose
legitimate power these men despised and spoke
against. Bennett inclines to this interpretation
in Jude and regards it as included also in 2 Peter,
where he gives the general principle of the argu-
ment thus : when good angels withstand dignities,
i.e. evil angels, although the good are the more
powerful, they do not abuse their opponents ; how
absurd and wicked for evil men to abuse good
angels, or perhaps even the legitimate Church
authorities. J. R. Lumby (in Speaker's Comment-
ary : ' Heb. to Rev.,' 1881, p. 395) combines (6) and
(c) above -. ' the railing at dignities, though its fir.st
exhibition might be made against the Apostles and
those set in authority in the Church, yet went
further and resulted in the denial of our only
Master, God Himself, whose dominion these sinners
were disregarding, and our Lord Jesus Christ,
whose glory these men speak evil of or raU at.'
In the RV of 1 Ti 2*^ ai/devreiy dvdpos is translated
' to have dominion over,' AV ' to usurp authority
over.' See also art. Prixcipality.
W. H. DUXDAS.
DOMITIAN.— Titus Flauius Domitianus, second
son of Titus Flauius Vespasianus (Emperor A.D.
69-79 ; see Vespasiax) and his kinswoman Flauia
Domitilla, and brother of Titus Flauius Vespasianus
(Emperor A.D. 79-81 ; see TiTts), was Roman
Emperor from A.D. 81 to 96. He was bom on 24
October A.D. 51 in Rome, during the principate of
Claudius, almost twelve years after his brother
Titus. He lost his mother and only sister in early
life, and when his father and brother entered on
the Jewish "War in A.D. 66, Domitian was scarcely
fifteen years old. When his father was called to
the Imperial throne on 1 July 69, his sons received
corresponding honours, each being named Ca^ar
and princeps iuuentutis. Domitian had a narrow
escape at the hands of the Vitellians, being com-
pelled to leave the Capitol in the robes of a priest
of Isis, which a freedman had procured for him.
On his father's accession Domitian received the
Eraetorship, which he held from 1 January 70,
ut exercised for the most part by deputy. Follow-
ing the fashion .set by Au^stus, he robbed L.
Lamia .Eniilianus of his wife Domitia Longina,
and, after living with her for some time unmarried,
i finally married her. It was unfortunate for his
i future career that his father and elder brother
310
DOMITIAN
DOMITIAN
were absent for a lengthy period from Rome and
Italy, being detained by the Jewish War. The
sudden accession to power and influence of a youtli
of barely eighteen years of age ended, as might
have been expected, in a disastrous perversion of
character. The complaints against him served to
hasten his father's return. Before 21 June 70,
Domitian and Mucianus, the most prominent sup-
g)rter of the Flavian house, left Rome for the
allo-German war. A change in the situation
caused Domitian to return. He lived for a period
in his Alban villa in retirement from public life.
On the return of his father he received much dis-
tinction, but so far as direct government of the
Empire was concerned he was kept in the back-
ground. He was, however, six times consul before
he became Emperor. On the death of Vespasian
(79) Titus became Emperor ; Domitian, tliough
openly spoken of as consors imperii, was wisely
kept in an inferior position.
On the death of Titus through fever, Domitian
became Emperor (13 September 81). Henceforth
his title was Imperator Ca;sar Domitianus (Domi-
tianus Caisar) Augustus. The title Gernianicus
was conferred upon him in 84, and he became
censor perpetuus (after 5 Sept.) in 85. Certain of
the important events of his reign may be enumer-
ated. It was probably very soon after tlie death
of Titus that the decree for the construction of the
arch in his honour, still standing at the Summa
Sacra Via, was passed. On it are the famous
representations of the Golden Candlestick, etc. (see
art. Rome). His first year was also signalized by
the victories of Cn. lulius Agricola in Scotland
and the establishment of fortified posts as far as
the line of the Forth and Clyde. In 82 the rebuild-
ing of the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill,
which had been destroyed by fire in 80, was com-
pleted. In the same year the roads in the Imperial
provinces of Asia Minor were repaired, and Agricola
carried out his fifth campaign, planning also an
invasion of Ireland which never took place. In
83 an expedition to Germany took place as the
result of which victories were gained over the
Chatti. Territory was added to the Empire in the
region of Taunus and Wetterau on the right bank
of the Rhine, and secured by a fortified rampart
(limes). This success brought the title Germaniciis
to Domitian on 3 September 84 (cf. Statins, Siluce
[passim] for the use of the name ; passages in
Klotz's index, p. 187). About this time Domitian
also allowed himself to be appointed consul for ten
years, and received the censoria potestas for life,
and other honours. The pay of the soldiers was
increased by a third. In 83, on his sixth campaign,
Agricola had been able, with the co-operation of
his fleet, to extend his hold over our island. He
marched as far north as Inchtuthill near Dunkeld,
and made a lasting camp there. In 84 occurred
the battle of Mons Graupius (locality uncertain),
by whicli the Caledonians received a crushing blow.
Agricola left Britain in a pacified state, when
Domitian's jealousy recalled him soon after this
victory. In the period 85-87 Domitian led in
fierson two expeditions against the Dacians, who
lad provoked war. They crossed the Danube and
invaded the province of Mcesia. The governor of
Mcesia, Oppius Sabinus, was defeated and killed.
The Dacians thereupon ravaged the territory on
the right bank of the Danube and destroyed towns
and forts. About the end of January 86 Domitian
himself took the field. Of the details of the war
almost nothing is known. It appears that Domitian
issued his commands for the most part from the
Imperial camp in the province of Mcesia. The
Decebalus was conquered, and Domitian took the
credit of the victory to himself. He was back in
Rome in the summer of 86, but the war was con-
tinued by Cornelius Fuscus, who appears to liave
suttered a heavy defeat.
About the .same period the Romans were engaged
in warfare against the Nasamones on the African
coast, and against the Germans. It was in
Domitian's reign that the custom of buying off
the opposition of Rome's enemies began. During
this period the Emperor became more and more a
tyrant and less and less a constitutional prince.
It is significant that he allowed liimself to be called
dortiinus ac dens (A.D. 85-86). Tyranny aroused
the more republican of the senators, and many were
condemned ; a conspiracy against the Emperor was
discovered and crushed. Probably about the end
of 89 Domitian triumphed over the Dacians and
the Germans, whose governor, L. Antonius Satur-
ninus, sought to dethrone him. Domitian had
taken part in both these wars himself. We learn
also of an expedition against the Quadi, the
Marcomani, and tlie Sarmatians, all of whom were
allies of the Dacians, Domitian was recognized
as victor, peace was made between the combatants,
and large sums of money were sent by Domitian to
the Decebalus, The year 89 was marked by further
condemnations of distinguished persons and the
confiscation of their property. Twenty years after
Nero's death (9 June 68) a false Nero appeared,
and caused an uprising among the Parthians which
it was extremely difficult to quell. It is not im-
possible that some reference to this occurrence is
latent in Rev 13^. In the year 91 a Vestal virgin,
charged with having broken her vow of chastity,
was Dy the orders of the ' censor ' Domitian sud-
jected to the ancient penalty of being buried alive.
In this year also was unveiled the great equestrian
statue of Domitian in the Forum (celebrated by
Statins in his Sihtce, i. 1), the base of which is
still in position. In 92 (or, strictly, in the period
Oct. 91 to Sept. 92) there was a good vine crop
but a bad cereal crop. Domitian in consequence
ordered that no new vineyards should be laid out
in Italy and that the vines of the provinces should
be reduced to one half their former number. This
measure, intended to improve agriculture, was not
carried out strictly. The provinces complained,
among them Asia Minor. M. Salomon Reinach
pointed out in 1901 (in EA, reprinted in Cultes,
Mythes et Beligions, ii. [1906] 356-380) that there
is a reference to this edict latent in the difficult
passage Rev 6" (see Sanday in JThSt viii. [1906-
07] 488 f.). In the same year Domitian conducted
war against the Sarmatians with success. Next
year (93) was marked by more condemnation of the
nobility, and among others the great Agricola fell
a victim. Now began the reign of terror which
ended only with the death of Domitian. Among
those who suffered were some of the noblest Romans,
men and women, that ever lived.
It was in the year Oct. 93 to Sept. 94, according to
the Chronicle of Eusebius, as translated by Jerome,
that the Domitianic persecution of the Christians
began, and that the Apostle John, being ban-
ished to the island ' Pathmus,' saw the Ajwcalypse
(cf. other ancient references recorded in the intro-
ductions to theiCommentariesby Swete, Bousset.and
Hort, to which add pseudo- Augustine, Qucestiones
Veteris et Novi Testamenti CXA'VII, Ixxvi. [Ixxii.]
2 : ' ista Reuelatio eo tempore facta est, a no ajjos-
tolus lohannes in insula erat Pathmos, relegatus a
Domitiano imperatore fidei causa '). For tlie diffi-
culty in dating the Apocalypse see art. Apoca-
lypse. There must have been a fierce persecution
of Christians in Domitian's time, and the Apoca-
lypse would seem to be the mirror of it. The
Church always believed Domitian to have been the
second great jjersecutor. The wonder is that the
outbreak did not come earlier, in view of Domitian's
a.ssumption of the titles ' Lord and God ' referred
DOOR
DORCAS
311
to above. It has been usual to connect with this
persecution the charge of ' atheism ' (by which, of
course, the Romans meant the worship of no god in
visible form : they had long charged the Jews
with the same [cf. Lucan, ii. 592-3 : ' dedita sacris
incerti ludaea del ']) brought against two relations
of the Emperor. These were Flauius Clemens,
the consul of the year (95), first cousin of the
Emperor, and his wife, FlauiaDomitilla, niece of the
Emperor. Clemens was beheaded, and Domitilla
was banished to Pandateria. A grave in the cata-
combs near Rome belonged to the latter. Before
the summer of this year 95 the Via Domitiaiia
connecting Sinuessa and Puteoli was completed
(celebrated by Statins, Siluce, iv. 3). This meant
a saving of time for journeys from Rome to Naples
and beyond (see art. ROADS AND Travel). In
the year 96, on 18 Sept., the much-hated Emperor
met his death at the hands of his friends, his
freedman, and his wife.
Ltteratcrb. — Among the ancient authorities, his beneficiaries
Statins and Martial say all and more than all the good there
is to be said of Domitian ; the part of Tacitus' Hut. dealing
with him has perished ; there are occasional references in con-
temporary authors, and there are the biography by Suetonius
and parts of Dio Cassius, Orosius, etc. The b^ modern work
is S. GseU, £ssai sur le regne de I'empereur Domitien, Paris,
1S94 ; there is an excellent resume with references and literature
\a Weynand's art. in Paulj'-Wissowa, vi. [1909] 2541-2596 ; A.
V. Domaszewski, Gesch. d. rom. Kaiser, Leipzig, 1909, vol. ii. ;
general histories of the Empire. On Domitian and Christianity
see W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire,
London, 1893, chs. xii. and xiii. A. SOUTER.
DOOR.* — The examples of the concrete use
of dvpa, 'door,' are all found in Acts, and may
be treated under three heads: (1) house doors,
(2) prison doors, (3) Temple doors. The first two
occur in the narratives of miraculous events.
1. In Ac 5* the feet of them that buried Ananias
are said to be itri tj dvfxf, nigh at hand, if not act-
ually heard by those within. More Wvid still is
the instance of 12'^, where one required to knock
at, or beat, the door, to make oneself heard with-
in. (The presence of a knocker for the purpose is
not to ])e inferred, for Jewish doors at least.) Trjv
Biipav Tov irvXQvos (cf. Ezk 40^^ [LXX]) is best under-
stood as a door abutting on the street or lane,
which gave the entry to a covered passage com-
municating with the court of the house, in which
the living rooms were situated (see Gate). Rhoda
stood in this passage, hearing, but seeing not (be-
sides, it was night), the Apostle Peter, who was
without, and being in command of the way so
long as the door, not the gate, remained locked
or barred, dvoi^avrts (v.'*) implies door, which is
rightly not expressed in RV. For modem usage
see Mackie, Bible Manners and Customs, 1898, p.
95.
2. With one exception (Ac 12®) the doors of
prisons are found in the plural (Ac 5'^- ^ 16^ ^).
The indications afforded by the narrative of Acts
are too meagre to enable us to reconstruct the
form of these places of detention, either in Jeru-
salem or at Philippi. Security seems to have been
given by guards, chains, and stocks rather than
by any peculiar strength of door. Of necessity
the bolt or bar was attached to the outside, of cell
doors at least. For the situation at Philippi, see
Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 1895, p. 220 f .
3. In Ac S'-* the Beautiful Gate of the Temple
(cf v.i*) is described by the word for 'door,' which
RV brings out. As in the private house, so here,
the door forms part of the gate, the latter being
in reality a portal. This particular gate of the
Temple is now believed to be the Corinthian Gate,
which is identical with the Nicanor Gate, on the
east side of the Temple precincts. Its doors, and
* This art. deals with ' door ' as distinct from ' gate,' ' gate-
way,' or ' porch,' of which it forms a part (see Gate).
other parts, were of Corinthian brass (or bronze),
probably solid, being shut with difficulty by twenty
men (Josephus, BJ VI. v. 3 ; cf. Ant. XV. xi. 5, BJ
II. xvii. 3, V. v. 3, c. Ap. ii. 10). They seem to
have been double doors [EBi, art. ' Temple '), stand-
ing at the entrance to the portal. Compare, for
Babylonian Temples, PSBA, 1912, p. 90 if. For
the Beautiful Gate of the Temple see the full and
illuminating account by A. R. S. Kennedy in
ExpTs.^. [1908-09] 270 f. ; also art. Temple.
We read (Ac 21**) that the people laid hold on
St. Paul, and dragged him out of the Temple, and
straightway the doors were shut. Farrar {Life
and Work of St. Paul, 1897, p. 532) locates this
turmoil at the Beautiful Gate, but, considering the
number of doors that gave access to the Temple
precincts, there are other possibilities.
In Rev 21-* we can picture the gates as provided
Aivith doors, although these were not in use.
The metaphorical use of dvpa in Acts, Epistles,
etc., may be briefly noted. In this sense the word
appears without the definite article, Ac 14^ being
no exception: 'a door of faith' (RV). In St.
Paul's Epistles mention is made of a great door
and effectual (1 Co 16'), a door being opened (2 Co
2^), a door for the word (Col 4»), all with the
notion of opportunity and facUity. The idea of
the nearness of judgment is brought out by Ja 5*
(cf. Mt 24^8): 'The judge standeth before the
doors,' where RV replaces the singular of AV by
the plural, following the Greek.
In Rev 3'- * a door is set or given, iivei^iJiAvriv
(note peculiar verbal form), i.e. a door already
opened, which none can shut (see Key), and in 4'
a door is already opened in the heavens at the
moment the vision commences. In contrast to
this is the closed door of Rev 3^, a passage in
which is concentrated great wealth of meaning.
W. Cruickshank.
DORCAS. — This name occurs in the narrative of
St. Peter's sojourn in the plain of Western Palestine
after the dispersion of the Jerusalem Church on
the martyrdom of Stephen (Ac 9^®"*^). It is given
as a translation of the Aramaic proper name
Tabitha ('Tabitha which is by interpretation
Dorcas,' Ac 9**). The word t'bithd' (kh'^e) is
Aramaic corresponding to the Heb. s^bt ('z^), and
is either the term applied to an animal of the deer
species, ' roebuck ' or ' roe ' in AV, ' gazelle ' in RV,
or a proper name borne by women. The word is
translated in the LXX by the term Sop/cds (5^pKo/iat,
' see ' — a reference to the large eyes of the animal).
Both the Aramaic and the Greek terms were used
as proper names;for women, and the writer of the
Acts gives the translation for the benefit of his
Greek readers, though the woman was probably
known as Tabitha.
The bearer of the name was a dweller in Joppa,
a female disciple who had devoted herself to ' good
works 'and to 'almsgiving.' One feature of her
benevolent acti\'ity was the making of garments
which she distributed among the poor, a circum-
stance which is regarded as indicating special
goodness, as a woman with means adequate to
provide such benefactions might have been content
with merely giving her money. This circumstance
has in later Christianity given the inspiration and
the name to the so-called Dorcas societies devoted
to providing garments for the poor. There is no
ground for concluding that Tabitha was a deacon-
ess, nor can we tell whether she was one of the
widows or married.
This disciple fell ill and died when St. Peter was
in the neighbouring town of Lydda, nine miles
distant. The believers in Joppa at once sent for
the Apostle. Their motive for so doing is not
apparent, but it is unlikely that they expected him
to work a miracle. More likely the sorrowing
312
DOXOLOGY
DOXOLOGY
friends turned to St. Peter for comfort in their
bereavement, and his proximity led them to send
for him. On his arrival the mourners showed the
Apostle the garments Dorcas had made and spoke
of her alms. The narrative then tells how St.
Peter put them all out of the room, knelt down
and jn-ayed, and turning to the woman said, ' Tabitha,
arihie ! ' when she opened her eyes, sat up, and was
handed over to the widows. This raising of Tabitha
is reported to have become widely known and to
have led large numbers to attach themselves to
the Church.
The account of the raising of Dorcas has obvious
points of similarity to that of the raising of Jairus'
daughter (Mt 9^, Mk 5«-", Lk 8"), but there is
sufficient dissimilarity in details to cause us at
once to dismiss the notion that the one is a mere
imitation of the other. It is natural that St. Peter,
who was present at the raising of Jairus' daughter,
should follow the method of his Master, while we
see how, with the humility of Elijah or Elisha (1 K
17^, 2 K 4^^), he does not at first speak the word of
power but kneels down in prayer. Holtzmann and
Pfleiderer regard the raising of Tabitha as parallel
to the restoration of Eutychus by St. Paul (Ac
20*'"), but beyond the fact that these commen-
tators suppose both Tabitha and Eutychus to have
been only apparently dead, there is no similarity
between the two cases.
Literature.— R. J. KnowHng:, ^EGT, ' Acts," 1900, p. 247f.;
I. Edersheim, Jewish Social Li/e, 1908, p. 78 ; HDB, art.
Dorcas ' ; Conini. ot Holtzmann, Zeller, Meyer- Wendt,
loco
W. F. Boyd,
DOXOLOGY {5o^o\oyla, only in eccl. Greek).—
The name is given to brief forms of praise to God
(or to Christ, or to the Trinity) used in early
Christianity, the models of which were taken
over from Judaism. They sometimes occur as a
momentary interruption in the midst of a dis-
course, a sudden breaking forth of praise at the
mention of the name of God, of which 2 Co IP'
is an example. We shall consider the most im-
portant of these in chronological order. 1. Gal l^.
— The appropriate ascription of praise to the
Father for His redemption of mankind according
to His will, wherein is revealed His attributes of
wisdom, holiness, love, in which for us His glory
chiefly consists. 2. Ro 11*. — The ' all things ' are
the tilings which have to do only with the king-
dom of grace to which He has invited Jew and
Gentile, and the doxology is the natural climax of
praise for such wisdom and love ; the ' Him ' refers to
God, not to Christ ; v.** is an echo of Is 40", and
v.^ of Job 41'S and the first part of v.^* cannot
have Trinitarian reference, as the context does not
suit. ' It is the relation of the Godhead as a Avhole
to the universe and to created things. God (not
neces.sarily the Father) is the source and inspirer
and goal of all things.' * 3. Ro 16". — While gram-
matically the ' to whom ' (if, if it be retained) could
refer to Christ, and while according to the spirit
and even language of the NT there is no objection
to sucli reference, it is quite certain that the
pronoun refers to the 'only wise Go<l,' as that is
in .accordance with the whole purpose of the writer.
It is the most fitting close to the Epistle, as it
embodies the faith from which its central chapters
proceed.! The dislocation of the language is
probably to be explained by the intense spiritual
feeling of the writer, who, without waiting to
clear the matter up, bursts out into the usual
doxolo^'y to God. 4. Eph 3".— It is the glory
which 18 due to Grod and befits Him. It is rendered
* Sanday-Headlam, Romanffi {ICC, 1902), p. 340.
t See F. .1. A. Hort in JPh iii. (1870) 56 ; and for a con-
vincing discussion of the tjenuinenees of this doxology see E. H.
Gifford in Speaker's Com., ' Romans,' 1881, pp. 22-27.
' in the Church * as the special domain where God
is interested, viz. in a social brotherhood having
organic life in Christ — the praise not being a thing
of secular or voluntary ritual, but having its life
and reason only in Christ and in a society redeemed
and possessed by Him. 5. Ph 4**. — Notice here
also the emphasis : the glory, that glory which is
His attribute and element. 6. 1 Ti 1". — Here we
find echoes of Jewish forms : To 13"- ^*', Enoch ix. 4,
Rev 15'. The thought and phraseology are
Hebraic. Bengel thought the a^ons had indirect
reference to Gnosticism, but this is not necessary.
7. 2 Ti 4".—' The Lord ' here refers to Christ (cf.
17), to whom this doxology is addressed.* 8. He
13^. — This doxology may be to the ' God of peace '
of v.^, but it is both more natural and more gram-
matical to refer it to Christ, immediately pre-
ceding. Throughout the whole Epistle the latter
has been constantly before the mind of the writer.
9. 1 P 4".— Hart well remarks that the in.sertion
of 'is' (iffriv) changes the doxology to a statement
of fact, and thus supports the interpretation of
' whose ' (v) as referring to the immediate ante-
cedent, Jesus Christ, >vnich seems al.so otherwise
required. The thought is: already He posses-ses
the glory and victory ; therefore (v.*^) Cliristians
endure joyfully their present sulFering.t 10. 1 P
5". — This refers to God, and ' dominion ' is em-
phasized as a consolation on account of the per-
secution. 11. 2 P 3^, — Here we have another
doxology to Chri.st. ' For ever ' signifies lit. ' unto
the day of eternity,' and occurs only here. Cf.
Sir 18'". Bigg makes the point that eis rovs alwvai
('unto the ages') became so immediately the
ruling phrase that this doxology cannot have been
written after liturgical exprestsions became in any
degree stereotyped. 12. Jude ^.—' Majesty ' (else-
where He 1' only) and 'power' are unusual in
doxologies. 13. RcY 1'- *. — ' The adoration of
Christ, which vibrates in this doxology, is one of
the most impressive features of the book. The
prophet feels that the one hope for the loyalists of
God in this period of trial is to be conscious that
they owe everything to the redeeming love of
Jesus. Faithfulness depends on faith, and faith is
rallied by the grasp not of itself but of its object.
Mysterious explanations of history follow, but it
is passionate aevotion to Jesus, and not any skill
in exploring prophecy, which proves the .source of
moral heroism in the churches. Jesus sacrificed
himself for us ; ainrip i] 56^a. From this inward
trust and wonder, which leap up at the sight of
Jesus and His grace, the loyalty of Christians
flows.' i 14. Rev 5".— God and Christ ('the
Lamb') are linked together in this doxology, as
often in thought among the early Christians (Jn
17*, 1 Ti 2', Rev 7^" : ' salvation unto our God who
sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb'). 15.
Rev 7^2.— It is a fine saying of Rabbi Pinchas and
Rabbi Jochanan on Ps 100- : ' Though all oHerings
cease in the future, the offering of praise alone
shall not cease ; though all prayers cease, thanks-
giving alone shall not cease.'
A famous passage often interpreted a.s a doxolojjy either to
Christ or to God the Father is Uo 95. For rererrinj,' all words
after ' of whom ' (or ' from whom,' «f S>v) to Christ it may be
argued that : (a) it supplies the antithesis which ' according to
the flesh ' supports, and (6) it is grammatically better, for o ur
(' he being ') naturally applies to what precedes : the person who
is over all is naturally the person first mentioned. If we
punctuate so as to read ' God who is over all,' there are objec-
tions : (1) Civ would in that case be abnormal, and (2) ' blessed '
would be unparalleled in position, as it ought to stand llrst in
the sentence as in Eph !'■> and in the LX.\. Besides, the
doxology to God seems here without a motive, without either
psychological or rhetorical reason, a solecism which Jare on the
• See N. J. D. White, EGT, '2 Tim.,' 1910, p. 188.
i J. H. A. Hart, KGT, ' 1 Pet.,' 1910, p. 78.
t J. MofTatt, EGT, ' Rev.,' 1910, p. 339, also art. in Expotitor,
ethser., V. 302 fl.
DRAGON
DREAM
313
harmonies of St. Paul's pen. Then almost all the ancient inter-
preters, whatever their views, referred the whole to Christ
From consideration of language Socinus consented. Against
this Stromann argues* that (i-) 'God blessed for ever* occurs
frequently in the OT (though that does not prevent the predicate
from being also used for Christ in the NT); (ii.) 'blessed for
ever' is u^ for God in Ro 1^* (but similar expressions are also
fiven to Christ in the XT [see above], and when once the possi-
iliiy is granted, each case must be judged on its merits) ; (iii.)
where ' blesed ' is used in the NT it is always used of God (but
exactly equivalent expressions are used also of Christ). It is
true that the fact of St. Paul's not csilling Christ ' God ' outright,
but even making a distinction (1 Co 6*), strikes Meyer and
Denney t so strongly that they cannot allow the interpretation
here. But to this theological argument it may be replied that
passages like 2 Co 4* 13", Col 113-20, ph 2S-u ascribe no less
dignity to Christ than if St. Paul had used ' God ' of Him.
Wiiilel a Christian Jew would ordinarily use ' God ' tor the
Father, and ' Lord ' for Christ, he might also use ' Lord ' lor the
Father (1 Ck» 3») and * Spirit ' for Christ (2 Co 3»7). As soon as
the religious idea that meant the Divinity of Christ reacted in
the use of names, the word ' God ' would be used of Him, as we
see in John, Ignatius, Ac 2028 (the two oldest >ISS), and Ti 2'3. j
There is no impoesibility in such a use here, therefore, and we
are again driven back to the natural, and grammatical, inter-
pretation.
In the sub- Apostolic Age we have in Clement of
Rome (A.D. 97) 'to whom (God) be the glory for
ever and ever,' chs. 3S, 43, 45, 50 perhaps of Christ,
58 'through whom (Christ) is the glory, etc.,' and
65 ' through whom (Christ) be glory and honour,
power and greatness and eternal dominion unto
him (God) from the ages past and for ever and ever.
Amen.' Ignatius uses none of the doxologies.
The Didache (c. A.D. 1(X) to 125) adds to the Lord's
Prayer : ' For thine is the power and glory for ever
and ever ' (ch. 8) ; gives in the Eucharistic prayers
twice : ' Thine is the glory for ever and ever,' and
once : ' For thine is the glory and the power
through Jesus Christ for ever and ever ' (ch. 9). In
the post-Eucharistic prayer it gives twice the same
benediction again : ' Thine is the glory for ever
and ever,' and once : 'Thine is the power and the
glory for ever and ever.' The doxologies in the
Martyrdom of Polycarp and in Justin ^lartyr are
too late for this work.
LiTERATTRK. — Besides the books referred to above, see F. H.
Chase, The Lords Prayer m the Early Church ( = TS i. 3 [1891]),
166-1 7S ; and, especially for liturgical use, Thalhofer in Wetzer-
Weltei. iiL 2IJ0G-10; P. Meyer in PRE 3 y. 593-t ; H.
Fortescue in CE v. [1909] 150-1 ; Wolff in RGG ii. [Tubingen,
1910] 930 fL ; G. Rietschel, Uhrbuch der Liturmk, Berlin, 1900,
p-355f. J. Alfred Faulkner.
DRAGON (5/xi/caw).— The word is found in the
NT onlj- in Rev 12»-" 13-*-" 16'3 20^. In each
case, with the exception of 13" ('as a dragon'),
the reference is to the symbolical ' great red dragon '
with seven heads and ten horns (12') who is ex-
pressly identified with ' the old serpent, he that is
called the Devil and Satan ' (v.^ ; cf. 20=). When
inquiry is made into the origin and meaning of the
symbolism, it becomes evident that what we find
in Rev. is an adoption and application to Christian
purposes of certain conceptions that played a large
part in the literature of pre-Christian Judaism,
and had originally been suggested to the Jewish
mind by its contact with the Babj-lonian myth-
ology. The Apocryphal book of Bel and the Dragon
testiiies to the existence in Babylon of a dragon-
worship that must have been associated with be-
lief in the ancient dragon-myth which forms so
important a feature of the Babylonian cosmogony.
In the Creation-epic Tiamat is "the power of chaos
and darkness, personified as a gigantic dragon or
monster of the deep, who is eventually overcome
by Marduk, the god of light. In the' post-exilic
Jewish apocalyptic literature a dragon of the
• ZSTW, 1907, pp. 4, 319.
t Meyer, Com. in loe. ; Denney, EGT, ' Bom.,' 1900. p. 658.
J See Sanday-Headlam, Romans, pp. 233-238; GifiFonl,
Speaker's Com., ' Romans," pp. IS, 168, 178-9. Lepsius, Bischoff,
and Striimann (ZSTW, 1907, p. 319, 1908, p. 80) conjecture that
the true reading is uiv 6 (instead of 6 ttv) : i.e. ' of whom (of the
Israelites) is God over all. blessed for ever.'
depths becomes the representative of the forces of
evil and opposition to goodness and God. But it
was characteristic of Judaism, with its fervent
Messianic expectations, that the idea of a conflict
between God and the dragon should be transferred
from the past to the future, from cosmogony to
history and eschatologj-, .so that the revolt of the
dragon and his subjection by the Divine might be-
came an episode not of pre-historic ages but of the
last days (cf. Is 27S Dn 7*). In Rev. the visions
of non-canonical as well as canonical apocalyptists
have been freely made use of ; and the Jewish
features of the story of the dragon are apparent
(cf. 12^ with Eth. Enoch, xx. 5, Assumption of
Moses, X. 2). But what is characteristic is that
the figure and functions of the dragon are turned
to Christian uses, so that they have a bearing
upon Christ's earthly birth and heavenly glory
(12*), upon the present conflict of Christianity
with the M-orld's evil powers and its victory over
them by ' the blood of the Lamb ' and ' the testi-
mony of Jesus Christ* (vv.i^i*-"), and above all
upon the assurance of Christian faith that God
will destroy the dragon's present power to accuse
His people and persecute them even unto death
(w.'"- "• ^^ "), and will at the appointed time send
forth His angel to subdue him utterly (20^'').
Literature. — H. Gnnkel, Sehopfung und Chaos, Gotttngen,
1895 ; 'W. Bonsset, The Antichrist Legend, Eng. tr., London,
1896 ; art. ' Dragon' in EBi. J. C. LAMBERT.
DREAM. — 'Dream' may be defined as a series
of thoughts, images, or other mental states, which
are experienced during sleep. The words that aire
most frequently translated ' dream ' in the Bible
are ci^q and tvap. In the OT dreams are described
somewhat in detail, especially those of Jacob
(Gn 28i*>-2*), of Joseph (Gn Tt^^"), of Nebuchadrezzar
(Dn 2 and 4), and of Daniel (Dn 7). In the NT, the
only instances given are those of the appearance of
the angel to Joseph (Mt V^^ 2>^ ^^- ^), the dream
of the Magi (Mt 2"), and the notable dream of
Pilate's wife (Mt 27^). In spite of the fact that
certain dreams are set out with considerable fullness
of detail, the instances recorded are not numerous,
which seems to indicate that God's revelations by
this medium are to be regarded as exceptional and
providential rather than as the usual means of
communication of the Divine will. The Fathers
were in the habit of warning the Christians against
the tendency to consider dreams asomens in a super-
stitious sense.
The only references to dreams or dreaming in the
apostolic writings are Ac 2*^ ' your old men shall
dream dreams' (quoted from Jl 2^), and Jude'
' these also (the false teachers of v.*) in their dream-
ings defile the tiesh ' : the reference is understood
by Bigg (Second Pet. andJude[ICC, 1901]), follow-
ing von Soden and Spitta, to be to the attempt of
the false teachers to support their doctrines by
revelations.
The earliest theories present the dream-world as
real but remote — a region where the second self
wanders in company with other second selves.
The next stage is that of symbolic pictures unfolded
to the inner organs of perception by some super-
natural being. The general depression of \-ital
activities during sleep may produce complete un-
consciousness, especially during the early part of
the night, but portions of the brain may be in
activity in dreaming, with the accompanying
partial consciousness. It was asserted by the Car-
tesians and Leibniz, and as stoutly denied by
Locke, that the soul is always thinking ; but many
modem ^^•riters consider that dreaming takes place
only during the process of waking. It is gener-
ally admitted that, whilst for the most part the
1 material of our dreams is drawn from our waking
314
DRESS
DRUNKEN^^ESS
experiences, the stimuli, external or internal, act-
ing upon the sense organs during sleep produce the
exaggerated and fantastic impressions m the mind
which are woven into the fabric of our dreams.
On the other hand, ¥. W. H. My ern (Human Per-
sonality) regards dreams, with certain other mental
states, as being ' uprushes ' from the subliminal
self, and sleep with all its phenomena as the re-
freshing of the soul by the influences of the world
of spirit. This view, if correct, would nllbrd scope
for the revelation of God's will as narrated in the
biblical accounts, if not in exceptional experiences
of the present time. At any rate, there is nothing
in raotfern psychology to preclude the possibility
of Divine manifestations in dreams. Many recent
writers enjoin the cultivation of restfulness and
repose of the soul in order that sleep may be bene-
licial and may not be disturbed by unpleasant
dreams. George Macdonald sings in his Evening
Hymn :
' Nor let me wander all in rain
Through dreams that mock and flee ;
But even in visions of the brain
Go wandering toward Thee.'
LiTBRATDRE. — Art. ' Drcams ' in IIDB, 'Dream' in DCG, and
'Dreams and Sleep' in J':HE; J. Sully, Illusions (ISS, 1882) ;
F. W. H. Myers, Huiium Personality, new ed., 1907 ; G. T.
Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, 1883, ii. 429-436 ; S. Freud,
Die Trawndeutung, 1900 (Eng. tr.. The Interpretation of
Dreams, 1913). A ifuU bibliography will be found in Baldwin's
Diet, of Philosophy and Psychology, vol. iii. pt. ii. [1905] p.
1034. J. G. James.
DRESS.— See Clothes.
DRUNKENNESS.— It may be taken for granted
that the wine of the Bible was fermented, and
therefore, when taken in excess, intoxicating.
Unfermented wine is a modern concept. The
ancients had not that knowledge of antiseptic pre-
cautions which would have enabled them to pre-
serve the juice of the {^rape in an unfermented
state. It was the inebriating property of wine
that constituted the sting of the calumny with
which the sanctimonious tried to injure our Lord —
'I5oi> dvOpuTros olvow&rrjs (Mt IP*, Lk 7'*). There
would have been no scandal in His habitually-
partaking of a beverage which was never harmful.
Christ bade men take heed lest their hearts should
be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness
{KpanrdXj] Kai fiiO^, Lk 2P'*), but He evidently
regarded it as possible to draw the line between
the use and the abuse of wine. He was not a
Nazirite, Rechabite, or Essene. A Palestinian
movement against wine and strong drink might
conceivably have been begun by the Baptist
(Lk V^), but not by Christ. His religion was not
in its essence a system of ascetic negations ; it was
much more than one of the ' creeds which deny
and restrain.' In His time and country, drunken-
ness, however pernicious in individual cases, could
not be regarded as one of the deadly national
sins.
'Orientals are not inclined to intemperance. The warm
climate very quickly makes it a cause of discomfort and disease '
(Mackie, Bible Manners and Customs, 1898, p. 46). Moreover,
'the wines of Palestine may be assumed on the whole not to
have exceeded the strength of an ordinary claret ' (A. R. S.
Kennedy, EBi iv. 5319).
It was Gentile rather than Jewish wine-drinking
habits that Apostolic Christianity had to combat,
and Bacchus (Dionysus) was notoriously one of the
most powerful of the gods of Greece and Home.
The apostles did not fight against the social
customs of pagan nations with a new legalism. It
was not the Christian but the Judaizer or the
Gnostic who repeated the parrot-cry, ' Handle not,
taste not, toucn not.' Christianity goes to work
in a wholly difl'erent manner. It relies on the
power of great positive truths. It creates a passion
for high things which deadens the taste for low
things. Its distinction is that it makes every man
a legislator to him.self. The inordinate use of wine
and strong drink becomes morally impossible for a
Cliristian, not because there is an external law
which forbids it, but. because his own enlightened
conscience condemns it. St. Paul does not say to
the Roman Ciiristians, ' Let us walk lawfully, not
in revelling and drunkenness,' but ' Let us walk
becomingly' (eu(TxviJ-^'"^^> lio 13^^). This means
tliat there is a beautiful new (txvm^ or ideal of
conduct, of which every man becomes enamoured
when he accepts the Christ in whom it is embodied.
Thereafter he feels, with a shuddering repulsion,
hoAv ill it would become him to walk in 'revelling
and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness.'
He abjures the thouglit of being at once spiritual
and sensual. Having put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
he cannot continue to make provision for the flesh,
to fulfil its lusts.
It is true that the moral verdicts of the Christian
are not always immediate and sure. ' Manifest
are the works of the flesh,' wrote St. Paul, naming
among them 'drunkenness' (/x^Oai, Gal 5'*- **), but
they were far from being so manifest to all his
converts. The Christian conscience needed to be
educated, the spiritual taste to be cultivated. At
Corinth the dydinj, or love-feast, whicli ended in
the Lord's Supper, all too readily degenerated into
something not very unlike the banquets in tlie idol-
temples. ' One is hungry, find another is drunken '
(fj,edijei, 1 Co IP^). ' Paul paints the scene in strong
colours ; but who would be warranted in saying
that the reality fell at all short of the description ? '
(Meyer, Com. in loc). It has always been one
of tlie enchantments of Bacchus and Comus to
make their devotees glory in their shame, so that
they
' Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before'
(Milton, Comus, 74 f.).
That this is true of the vulgar and of the educated
alike, both in pagan and in Christian times, is
attested not only by a thousand drinking-songs but
by the orgies of the ' Symposium ' and the ' Noctes
Ambrosianae.' Yet even Omar Khayyam, after
all his praise of the Vine, is obliged to confess that
he has ' drowned liis glory in a shallow cup ' ; and,
in the light of Christianity, drunkenness stands
condemned as a sin against the body which is a
' member of Christ.'
Christianity is a religion of principles, not of
rules, and in Ro 14'^ St. Paul states a principle
which justifies any kind and thouglitful man, apart
from considerations of personal safety and happi-
ness, in becoming an abstainer. In doing this the
Apostle is far from imposing a new yoke of bondage.
He does not categorically say to the Christian,
' Thou shalt not drink wine,' but he reasons that
it is good (KoXdv) — it is a beautiful morale — in
certain conditions and from certain motives, to
abstain. There was evidently a tendency among
Christian liberals, who rightly gloried m their
free evangelical position, to say, ' If men will per-
vert and abuse our example, we cannot help it ;
the fault is their own, and they must bear the
consequences.' St. Paul, the freest of all, sees a
more excellent way, and chooses to walk in it,
though he does not exercise his apostolic authority
to command otliers to follow him. What is his
own liberty to drink a little wine in comparison
with the temporal safety and eternal salvation of
thou.sands who are unable to use the same freedom
without stumbling ? He cannot — no man can — live
merely unto himself, and he would sooner be so far
a Nazirite or an Essene than do any tiling to hurt
a brother.
It is noticeable that there was never any organ-
DRUNKENNESS
EAGLE
315
ized movement in the Apostolic or post -Apostolic
Church against the use ot strong drink- Many of
the Fathers, follomng the example of Philo — who
wrote .1 l)ook -repi iidd-ns on Gn ^^ — dealt with the
subject at length. Clement, Cyprian, Chrysostom,
Jerome, and Augustine all preached moderation to
every one and atetinence to some. But neither the
apostles nor the Fathers ever dreamed of seeking
legislation for the prohibition or even the restric-
tion of the sale and use of intoxicating liquors.
Since their time two things — the discovery of dis-
tilled liquors in the 13th cent., and the trend of
ci>-ilization northward — have greatly altered the
conditions of the problem.
' Extremists now place all alcohol-containing drinks onder
the same ban, hut fermented liquors are still generally held to
be comj>aratively innocuous ; nor can any one deny that there
is a difference. It is safe to say that if spirits had never been
discovered the historj" of the question would have l)eeD entirely
different ' (A. ShadweU, ££rii xsyi. 578). ' The evils which it is
desired to check are much greater in some countries than in
others. . . . The inhabitants of south Europe are much less given
to alcoholic excess than those of central Europe, who agaio are
more temperate than those of the north ' (ti. xvi. 759).
Just where the temptations to dmnkenness are
greatest, the Apostle's principle of self-denial for
the sake of others is evidently the highest ethic.
No drunkard can ' inherit the Kingdom of God '
(1 Co 6^*;, and the task of Christian churches and
governments is 'to make it easy for men to do
good and diflBcult for them to do evil.'
Since, however, it is notoriously impossible to
make men sober merely by legislation, the main
factors in the problem must always be moral and re-
ligious. The Apostolic Chtirch found the true solu-
tion. The Christians who were filled with the Holy
Spirit on the day of Pentecost were mockingly said
to be filled Avith wine (-yXevKos, Ac 2^, perhaps
' sweet wine ' ; not ' new wine,' as Pentecost took
place eight months after the vintage). St. Peter
tried to convince the multitude that it was not a
sensual but a spiritual intoxication, and St. Paul
gives to all Christians the remarkable cotinsel, ' Be
not drunken with wine, wherein is dissolutenes.s
(dffwria ; cf. offwrus in Lk 15^), but be filled with
the Spirit' (Eph 5^). It is presupposed that every
man naturally craves some form of exhilaration,
loving to have his feelings excited, his imagination
fired, his spirit thrilled. And drunkenness is the
perversion of a true instinct. It is the fool's way
of drowning care and rising victorious over the ills
of life. Intoxication is the tragic parody of in-
spiration. What every man ne^s is a spiritual
enthttsiasm which completely diverts his thoughts
from the pursuit of sensuous excitement, on the
psychological principle that two conflicring passions
cannot dominate the mind at the same time. That
enthusiasm is the gift of the Divine Spirit.
The injtmction to Timothy to be no longer a
water-drinker {firjK^i vSpordrei) but to use a little
wine (1 Ti 5^) is now generally regarded as post-
Pauline. It is ' evidently, in the context in which
it stands, not merely a sanitary but quite as much
a moral precept, and thus implies that Timothy
had himself begun to abjure wine on pounds of
personal sanctity ' (F. J. A. Hort, Judaistic Chris-
tianity, 1894, p. 144). The words were probably
written about the time of the first appearance of
the Encratites (EEE v. 301), who made abstinence
from flesh, wine, and marriage the chief part of
their religion, seeking salvation not by faith but
by asceticism. Water-drinking thus for a time
became associated with a deadly error. This was
a situation in which Christians felt it to be therr
duty to assert their right to use what they re-
garded as the creature and gift of God (1 Ti 4** •).
See, further, art. Abstinence.
James Strahax.
DSUSILLA (Ac 24"). — The youngest of the
three daughters of Herod Agrippa I. She was but
six years old when her father died in a.d. 44
(Jos. Ant. xrx. ix. 1). He had betrothed her to
Epiphanea, son of the king of Commagene. This
marriage did not take place, as Epiphanes refused
to undergo the rite of circumcision (Ant. xx. vii.
1). Drtisilla was given by her brother Agrippa ll.
to Azizus, king of Emesa. The marriage took
place seemingly in a.d. 53. Very shortly afterwards
the procurator Felix, who had lately come to
Juda», met the yoting queen and was captivated by
her charms (' She did indeed exceed all other women
in beauty' [Ant. XX. vii. 2]). Employing as his
emissary one Simon, a Cypriote, he persuaded her
to leave her husband and to join him as his third
wife — and third queen (' trium reginarum maritum,'
writes Suetonius of Felix [Claud, xx^iii.]). Of
this union there was issue a son, who was given
the name Agrippa, and of whom Josephus (Ant.
XX. vii. 2) records incidentally that he and his
wife perished in the eruption of Vesu>-ius in the
reign of the Emperor Titus, i.e. in a.d. 79. Of
DrusiUa herself nothing is recorded later than the
sta.tement in Acts, which permits us to assume
that she was present when St. Paul had audience
of Felix, and used the opportunity to reason ' of
righteotisness, and temperance, and the judgment
to come.' G. P. GOCUD.
DYSENTERY (AV 'bloody flux'; Gr. hvaew-
Tf piov, Ac 28*). — When St. Paul and his com-
panions, on their way to Kome, were shipwrecked
on the island of Malta, the father of Publius who
was governor of the island was suttering from this
malady in an aggravated form. The symptoms of
the disease are inflammation of the mucous mem-
brane of the large intestine, mucous, bloody, diffi-
cult, and painful evacuations, accompamiecl with
more or less fever. Owing to Publius' kindness
to the little group of delayed travellers, the Apostle
visited his father, ' prayed, and laid his hands on
him, and healed him.' This was evidently a case
of mental healing, made effective by prayer and per-
sonal contact. C. A. Beck:with.
E
E16LE (ierSs, Rev 4' 8" 12").— There can be but
little doubt that the 'eagle' of the EV ought in
most cases rather to be rendered ' vulture.' Both
the Hebrew word -t»i (in the OT) and the Greek
word deros (in the NT) are used to designate
' vnlture ' as well as ' eagle,' and it is a bird of this
species rather than an eagle that is generally re-
ferred to both in the OT and the NT. though in
the above-mentioned passages it is just possible
that derdj may denote an eagle.
Four kinds of vultures are known in Palestine
(cf. Tristram, SWF : ' The Fauna and Flora of
Palestine,' 1884, p. 94), viz. (1) Gypcetus barbatus;
(2) Gypsfulvus, or * gnfibn' ; (3) Neophron perenop-
tents, the 'Egyptian vulture'; (4) Vultur monachus
(cf. Post in HDB i. 632). The Gyps fulvu* or
316
EAGLE
EAR
' griffon ' is supposed to be referred to in most of tlie
passages in the OT and the NT.
There are said to be eight different kinds of eagle
in Palestine: (1) Aquila chryscetus, or 'Golden
Eagle.' This is seen in winter all over Palestine,
but in summer it is only to be found in the
mountain ranges of Lebanon and Hermon. (2)
Aquila heliaca, or ' Imperial Eagle,' which is more
common than the Golden Eagle, and does not leave
its winter haunts in summer time. The Imperial
Eagle prefers to make its nest in trees rather than
cliffs, and in this respect differs from the Golden
Eagle. (3) Aquila clanga, or 'Greater Spotted
Eagle.' (4) Aquila rapax, or 'Tawny Eagle,'
which is found fairly frequently in the wooded
districts of Palestine. This bird breeds in the
cliffs, and plunders other birds of their prey. (5)
Aquila pennata, or ' Booted Eagle,' which is found
chiefly m the wooded parts of Galilee, the Lebanon
and Phoenicia. (6) Aquila nipalensis, or ' Steppe
Eagle.' (7) Aqtiila bonelli, or ' Bonelli's Eagle,'
which is not uncommon in the wadis and rocky
districts of Central Palestine. This bird is more
like a falcon than an eagle. (8) Circcetus gallicus,
or ' Short- toed Eagle.' This is by far the common-
est of all Palestinian eagles. They remain from
early spring to the beginning of winter, when
most of them migrate, probably to Arabia. This
fearless and dignified bird is easily recognized by
its lar^e flat head, huge yellow eyes, and brightly
spotted breast. Its short toes and tarsi are covered
with scales which aftbrd it protection against the
serpents on which it preys. The abundance of this
species is doubtless accounted for by the large
number of lizards and serpents found in Palestine.
It is found throughout Central Europe, but only
rarely ; on the other hand, it is seen fairly often
in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.
It breeds in trees and not on rocks.
In Rev 4" the eagle plays a part in the vision of
the tlirone in heaven : 'And the first creature was
like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and
the third creature had a face as of a man, and the
fourth cieature was like a flying eagle.' These four
forms, which suggest all that is strongest, noblest,
wisest, and swiftest in animate nature, are the same
as those in Ezekiel's vision (Ezk 1"*), but here the
order is difterent, and each ' living creature ' has
six Avings, while in Ezekiel each has only four
wings. Nature, including man, is thus represented
before the Throne as consciously or unconsciously
taking its part in the fulfilment of the will of the
Divine.
In Rev 8" : * And I saw, and I heard an ea^le,
flying in mid heaven, saying with a great voice,
Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell on the earth,
by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the
three angels who are yet to sound,' the eagle ap-
pears as the herald of calamity. The first series
of four trumpet-blasts have gone forth, and the
forces of Nature have done tlieir work ruthlessly,
but the worst is yet to come. The eagle — which,
it will be noted, was heard as well as seen — is
chosen on account of its swiftness as a fitting
emblem of the judgment about to fall upon the
pa^an population of the world.
In Rev 12^'' the eagle is the means whereby the
woman — i.e. the Christian Church — is conveyed
away from the dragon and his fury to a place of
safety in the wilderness. The actual event alluded
to was no doubt the escape of the Church of Jeru-
salem to Pella (cf. Mk 13" ' then let them that are
in Juda>a flee unto the mountains'), though the
life of the Church and her members must always
to some extent be a solitary life — i.e. in the world
but not of it — and her vocation will, from one
]>oint of view, always be that of a 'voice crying
in the wilderness.' Again, in the early days of I
Christianity persecution made secrecy necessary
for the very existence of the Church. Tfie figure
in Rev 12" is paralleled in the OT. Thus in Ex
19* Jahweh is represented as saying, ' Ye have
seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how 1
bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto
myself,' while in Dt 32" He is likened unto an
eagle : ' As an eagle that stineth up her nest, that
fluttereth over her young, he spread abroad his
wings, he took them, he bare them on his pinions.'
Lastly, in Is 40^' the promise to those who shall
'wait upon the Lord' is that 'they shall renew
their strength,' and ' mount up with wings as
eagles.' In all the passages in Revelation, it is pro-
bable that drr6j denotes ' vulture ' as elsewhere.
Liter ATUEB.— For the eagle in Palestine see H. B. Tristram,
SWP, "The Fauna and Flora of Palestine,' 1884, pp. 94-101,
Natural History of the Bible^o, i9ll, p. 17'2ff. ; W. M. Thom-
son, The Land and the Book, new ed., 1910, p. 150 f. ; E. W. G.
Masterman, in SDJJ, ZOO; G. E. Post, in HDB i. 632 ; A. E.
Shipley and S. A. Cook, in EBi ii. 1145. On the texts see
especially H. B. Swete, T?ie Apoealvpse of St. John-, 1907,
aa io<=- P. S. P. HaNDCOCK.
EAR. — The finer shades of biblical statement are
discerned only as we succeed in placing ourselves
at the contemporary point of view. This is par-
ticularly the case with references to personality
and its elements or manifestations, since primitive
or ancient psychology dift'ers so greatly from the
psychology of the present time. For example,
primitive psj'chology, in its ignorance of the nervous
system, distributes psychical and ethical attributes
to the various physical organs. There are triljes
that give the ears of a dead enemy to their youths
to be eaten, because they regard the physical ear
as the seat of intelligence, which thus becomes an
attribute of the consumer (J. G. Frazer, The Golden
Bough^, 1900, ii. 357 f. ). Though the Bible contains
nothing so crude as this, yet the same idea of local-
ized psychical function underlies its references to
the ear. The high priest's ear is consecrated by
the application of ram's blood, that he may the
better hear God (Lv 8^^) ; the slave's ear, on his
renunciation of liberty, is pierced by his master,
as a guarantee of his permanent obedience (Ex 21'",
Dt 15'''). Such practices help to give the true line
of approach to many biblical references to the ear,
the full force of which might otherwise be missed.
The 'peripheral consciousness' of the ear (cf. 1 S 3",
Job 12'^ Ec 1^, etc.) must be remembered in regard
to phrases which have become to us simply conven-
tional, such as the repeated refrain of the Apoca-
lypse, ' He that hath an ear, let him hear ' (Rev 2%
etc. ; oi5j). This greater intensity of local meaning
gives new point to the Pauline analogy between
the human body and the Church. Since ' the body
is not one member, but many' (1 Co 12"), in a
psychical and moral, as well as in a physical, sense,
it is more readily conceivable that the ear might
resent its inferiority to the eye (v.'*). Its actual
co-operation with the eye is therefore a more eflec-
tive rebuke to the envy springing from Corinthian
individualism.
Moral or spiritual qualities are assigned to the
ear in several passages, according to the frequent
OT usage (Pr 15=*', Is 59', etc.); one example is
quoted from the OT and applied by St. Paul to
the Jews of Rome : ' their ears are dull of hearing '
(Ac 28^ ; cf. Ro 11^). The same charge is brought
by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews against
those to whom he writes (5" ; ixoal, not oh). This
attribution of quality to the organ does not, of
course, imply naturalistic determinism ; the ear is
part of the responsible personality. If men ' hav-
ing itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers
after their own lusts,' it is because ' they will turn
away tlieir ears from the truth ' (2 Ti 4^'- ; d/coij).
The OT reference to the ' uncircumciaed ' ear ( Jer 6'")
EAKNEST
EARTHQUAKE
317
is several times repeated (Ac 7" ; Ep. Bam. ix. 4,
X. 12).
The only significant act named in this literature
in reference to the ear is that of those who hear
Stephen declare his vision of Jesus at the right hand
of God : they stop their ears, that the blasphemy
may not enter (Ac 7"). Ignatius writes to the
Ephesians (ix. 1), with reference to false teachers,
' ye stopped your ears, so that ye might not receive
the seed sown by them.' Irenieus (ap. Eus. HE
V. 20) says of Polycarp that ' if that blessed and
apostolic presbyter had heard any such thing [as
the Gnosticism of Florinus], he would have cried
out, and stopped his ears.' The baptismal practice
of a later a^ protected the ear of the candidate by
the Effeta (Ephphatha), a rite based on the miracle
recorded in Mk 7**. The priest touched the ear
with his finger moistened with saliva (Duchesne,
Origines du Culte Chretien*, 1908, p. 311). The posi-
tive side of the baptismal anointing of the ear seems
to be implied in the Odes of Solomon, ix. 1 : ' Open
vour ears, and I •will speak to you' (cf. J. H.
Semard, TS viii. 3 [1912] ad loc.). For the
apostles, therefore, the ear forms the correlate to
' the word of faith which we preach ' (Ro 10*"^'),
which is conceived with equal pregnancy of mean-
ing as the vehicle of the Spirit (E. Sokolowski,
Die Begi-iffe Geist tend Leben bei Paidus, 1903,
pp. 263-267). Through the response of the con-
scious ear to the spoken word, an experience is
begun which eventually passes into the realm of
those ' things which ear heard not ' (1 Co 2® ; cf. 1
Clem, xxxiv. 8, 2 Clem. xi. 7), and of those ' un-
speakable words which it is not lawful for a man
to utter' (2 Co 12^). H. Wheeler Roblnsox.
EARNEST (appo^wj-).— The word occurs three
times in the NT, \\z. 2 Co 1- 5^ ' the earnest of
the Spirit," and Eph 1" ' the earnest of our inherit-
ance." The word means ' pledge,' ' surety,' ' assur-
ance,' and is taken from an old Hebrew term used
in connexion with the transference of property.
The Hebrew equivalent jia-rj is found in Gn 38"- ^^- ^
referring to the pledge of a staft' and a signet -ring
given by Judah to Tamar as an assurance that she
would receive her hire. Probably the word came
into Greek through Phoenician traders, and we
find it in Latin in three forms : arrhabo, arrabo
{e.g. Plautus, True. m. ii. 20), and arrha (e.g.
Aulus GeUius, xvn. ii. 21). It is found in the
form arra or arrhes in the languages most directly
derived from the Latin. The Scotch word ' arles '
—the coin given by a master to a servant on en-
gagement as a pledge that the fee will be duly
paid — is derived from the same source, and corre-
sponds to the obsolete English word 'earlespenny.'
The word signifies, not merely a pledge, but also
a part of the possession. In the conveyance of
property in ancient times it was usual for the
seller to give the buyer a handful of earth or part
of the thatch of the house as a token that the wir-
gain would be binding, and that the whole pro-
perty, of which the buyer thus received a part,
would be delivered over in due course.
In Scripture the idea underlying this conception is
frequently referred to. Thus in Gn 24— ** the ear-
rings and the bracelets given by Eliezer to Rebecca
are tokens of the wealth of his master and evidence
of a comfortable home in Canaan. In the NT
passages the Holy Spirit which is given to believers
is regarded by the Apostle as both the pledge and
the tirst-fruits of the inheritance that awaits them.
In 2 Co 1^ 5' 'the earnest of the Spirit' is the
earnest which is the Spirit. The present posses-
sions of Christian believers imparted by the Spirit
are both pledge and foretaste of the future bliss
that awaits them. They are the ' earnest ' of the
•inheritance' (Eph 1"). W. F. Bo^i).
EARTH, EARTHEN, EARTHY, EARTHLY.—
Earth (yfj) is used in a variety of meanings, which
may be distinguished as follows: (1) the dust or
matter of which the first man was made (1 Co l.V") ;
(2) the fertile soil which yields grass and herbs
and fruit (He 6', Ja 5', Rev 9*) ; (3) the solid
ground upon which men stand or fall (Ac 9*- *) ; (4)
the land in contrast %vith the sea (2 P 3', Rev 10*) ;
(5) the whole world as the abode of men (Ac 1*,
etc. ; equivalent here to the more frequent oUov-
uirv) or beasts (Ac 10" II*) ; (6) the eartn in space,
in contrast with the visible heavens — skies and
stars (Ac 2'*, Rev 6") ; (7) the earth in contrast
with the invisible heavens — the dwelling-place of
Grod and Christ, of angels and perfected saints
(Ac 7«, 1 Co 15", Eph 31*, He 8*; cf. v.i) ; (8) the
earth in contrast with the underworld (Ph 2'*,
Rev o*" ") ; (9) the earth with a moral connota-
tion, as the sphere of a merely worldly life to
which is opposed the heavenly life with Christ in
God (Col 3- »).
Earthen {itrrpdKanK, fr. &rrpaicoF=:' burnt clay,' or
anything made therefrom). — The Gr. word .occurs
twice in the NT, but in EV is only once translated
' earthen.' In 2 Ti 2^ the rendering is ' of earth,'
and the reference is simply to the material of the
earthen vessels in contrast with those of gold and
silver and wood. In 2 Co 4", where * earthen ' is
used, there appears to be a suggestion not only of
the meanness of the earthen vessels in contrast
with the preciousness of the treasure they con-
tain, but of their frailty in contrast Avith the ex-
ceeding greatness of the Divine power of God who
uses them as His instruments.
Earthy (xoi'^ds, ' made of earth,' fr. xow = * earth,'
' dust,' by which in the LXX is; is rendered in Gn
2^, etc. ; though in other passages yri is freguently
employed for the same purpose, just as it is by
St. Paul in 1 Co 15*^). — The only occurrence of the
word is in 1 Co 15"- *^ **, where Adam is called
'earthy,' i.e. consisting of earth-material, in con-
trast with Christ, the ' heavenly,' i.e. of heavenly
origin. The meaning of ' earthy ' here is thus sug-
gested by (7) above as well as by (1).
Earthly (erifeioi, * upon the earth,' ' terrestrial,'
2 Co 51, Ph 313, Ja 3").— Outside of the Fourth
Gk>spel ' earthly ' occurs only 3 times in the NT,
but (-riyeLos is found also in 1 Co 15**, where EV
renders 'terrestrial,' and Ph 2'*, where EV gives
'things on earth.' In all these passages there is
a contrast of the earthly with the heavenly. In
1 Co 15**, 2 Co 5^ the contrast is that suggested
under (7). In Ph 3'*, Ja 3'* it is that suggested
under (9). In Ph 2^", while ' things on earth ' are
contrasted with ' things in heaven, ' the meaning of
iriyficK itself is that suggested by (5), the ' things on
earth ' being the inhabitants ot the whole world ;
and there is a further contrast with the 'things
under the earth,' the inhabitants of the under world
(cf. (8)). J. C. Lambert.
EARTHQUAKE {(reurfuii, from <reia;, ' to shake ').
— In the ancient East all abnormal phenomena
were regarded as supernatural, and any attempt
to explain them by secondary causes was dis-
couraged as savouring of irreverent prying into
hidden things. Being at once so mysterious and
so terrible, earthquakes and volcanoes were traced
to the direct activity of One 'who looketh upon
the earth and it trembleth ; he toucheth the
mountains and they smoke ' (Ps 104*^). Minor
tremors were not, indeed, always interpreted as
signs of the Divine displeasure; sometimes quite
the contrary. When a company of disciples were
praising God and praying after the release of St.
Peter and St. John from prison, the shaking of
the room was regarded as a token that the Lord
Himself was at hand to defend His cause. But
31S
EASTER
EBIONISM
more severe shocks were always apt to cause a
panic fear, whicli was naturally greatest in the
breasts of those who were conscious of guilt.
When St. Paul and Silas were praying and singing
in a Philippian gaol, the place was sliaken by an
earthquake violent enough to open the doors and
loose every man's bands (Ramsay's explanations
[St. Paul, 1895, p. 221] are interesting) ; but terror
prevented the prisoners from seizing the oppor-
tunity of escaping, and the chance was past before
they had recovered their wits.
Eartiiquakes play a great rdle in prophetic and
apocalyptic literature, (iod's last self-manifesta-
tion, like the first at Sinai, is to be in an earth-
quake, and His voice will make not only the earth
but also the heaven tremble. While the things
tliat are shaken will be removed, those that are
unshaken (ra fi^ craXevd/aeva) will remain, the tem-
poral giving place to the eternal (He 12-*"^*; cf.
Hag ^'•). When the sixth seal of the Book of
Destiny is opened, there is a great earthquake
(Rev 6'*). When the censer filled with fire is cast
upon the earth, there follow thunders and an
earthquake (8*). In another earthquake the tentli
part of a great city falls (probably Jerusalem is
meant, though some think of Rome) and 7000
persons are killed (11"). When the last bowl is
poured upon the air, the greatest earthquake ever
felt cleaves Jerusalem into three parts, and en-
tirely destroys the pagan cities (16"*^).
The writer of the Revelation may himself have
experienced many earthquakes, and at any rate he
could not but be familiar with reports of such
visitations, for in Asia Minor they were frequent
and disastrous. In a.d. 17 ' twelve populous cities
of Asia' — among them Sardis and Philadelphia —
' fell in ruins from an earthquake which happened
by night ' (Tac. Ann. ii. 47). In A.D. 60 ' Laodicea,
one of the famous cities of Asia,' was ' prostrated by
an earthquake' {ib. xiv. 27). Palestine and Syria
were very liable to similar disturbances ; regard-
ing earthquakes in Jerusalem see G. A. Smith,
Jerusalem, 1907-08, i. 61 fi'.
The religious impression made by earthquakes
in pre-scientific ages was profound (see e.ff. Mt 27"*).
They were regarded as judgments or warnings, it
might be as si^ns of the approaching end of the
world, ' the beginning of travail ' (Lk 13^=Mt 24^).
Even Pliny, tlie ardent student of Nature, asserts
that they are invariably precursors of calamity
{UN ii. 81-86). The just man of the Stoics was
undismayed by them : ' si fractus illabatur orbis,
impavidum fenent ruinae' (Hor. Car. III. iii. 7f.).
Jesus assured His disciples that amid all the ' Mes-
sianic woes ' not a hair of their head should perish
(Lk 2118).
It was not till the middle of the 19th cent, that
a careful investigation of the phenomena of earth-
quakes was begun. Seismology is now an exact
science, in which remarkable progress has been
made in Japan, a land of earthquakes. But while
man rationalizes such calamities, and can no longer
rerard them as strictly supernatural, he is practi-
cally as helpless as ever in their presence. In the
earthquake of 1908 which destroyed Messina and
Reggio (the Rhegium of Ac 28'^) the loss of life
was appalling. James Strahan.
EASTER.— See Passover.
EBIONISM. — Ebionism is best understood as the
generic name under which may be included a
variety of movements, diverging more or less from
Catholic Christianity, and primarily due to a con-
ception of the permanent validity of the Jewish
Law. Of these, some were merely tolerable and
tolerant peculiarities ; some were intolerable and
intolerant perversions of Christianity.
As soon as Christianity became conscious of its
world-wide mission, the problem arose as to its
relation to the Judaism out of which it sprang.
This produced what we might a priori expect — a
dillerence within the primitive Christian com-
munity between a liberal and a conservative
tendency. It was a liberalism which steadily
advanced, a conservatism which as steadily hara-
ened and became more intolerant, and drifted
further out of likeness to normal Christianity.
Jewish Christian conservatism in its dillerent
degrees and phases gives rise to the various species
of Ebionism.
1. Characteristics. — All Ebionites are distin-
guished by two main and common characteristics :
(1) an over-exaltation of the Jewish Law; (2) a
defective Christology. We may take the first as
fundamental. The second is deducible from it.
To hold by the validity of the Law is obviously to
find no adequate place for the work of a Redeemer
(Gal 5*). Clirist tends to be recognized merely as
a new prophet enforcing the old truth. And de-
fective views of the work of Christ logically issue
in, if they are not based upon, defective views of
His Person. It is clear also, that those who hold
the Law to be permanent, cannot consistently
accept the authority of St. Paul, so we find that
(3) hostility to St. Paul, involving the rejection of
his Epistles, was a characteristic common, not to
all, but to many, Ebionites.
2. Main groups.— There are three distinct classes
of Ebionites. Ancient authorities speak of two
sects of Ebionites, the more nearly orthodox of
which they call Nazarenes. It is necessary, how-
ever, to add as a third group those Ebionites whose
system results from a union of other elements with
the original mixture of Judaism and Cliristianity.
Our classification, therefore, of the Ebionite sects
is : (1) Nazarenes, (2) Ebionites proper, (3) Syncre-
tistic Ebionites.
The clear division into two sects, named Naza-
renes and Ebionites, appears in the 4th cent, in
Epiphanius (Hwr. xxx. 1) and Jerome {Ep. 112, ad
August. 13). But in the preceding cent. Origen
speaks of ' the two-fold sect of the Ebionites ' (c.
Cels. V. 61), though lie has not the name Nazarene.
In the 2nd cent. Justin Martyr divides Jewish
Christians into two classes : those who, while they
observed the Law themselves, did not require
believing Gentiles to comply therewith, and who
were willing to associate with them ; and those
who refused to recognize all who had not complied
with the Law (Dial. c. Tryph. xlvii.). Justin has
neither name. At the end of the same cent., we
find the name Ebionite for the first time in Irenoeus
(adv. Hcer. I. xxvi. 2, etc.). He has no distinction
between Ebionites and Nazarenes, and in this
Hippolytus and Tertullian follow him. It is not
surprising that only writers who had special oppor-
tunity of familiarity with Palestinian Christianity
should be aware of the distinction.
3. Name. — In all probability both names, Naza-
renes and Ebionites, applied originally to all Jewish
Christians. It was not unnatural that they should
be called Nazarenes (Ac 24") ; it was not unnatural
that they should call themselves Ebionites, a name
signifying ' the poor ' (Heb. p'Sf , 'cbrjon). We know
that the Ebionites identified themselves with the
Christians of Ac 4^'-, and claimed the blessing of Lk
620(Epiphan. xxx. 17). (Gal2"'is an interesting verse
in this connexion. It seems clear that ' the poor,'
if not a name for the whole Christian community
of Jerusalem, is to be understood at least of Jewisii
Christian poor. ) Or, on the other hand, the name
may have been attached to Jewish Christians in
contempt. At all events, we may take it as highly
probable that the two names were originally desig-
nations of Jewish Christians generallj', and the
EBIONISM
EBIONISM
319
retention of those primitive names is in keeping
with the essentially conservative character of
Ebionism.
Some of the Fathers (the earliest of them
Tertullian) derive the name Ebionite from a
certain teacher, Ebion. In modem times Hilgen-
feld is inclined to support this view [Ketzer-
geschichte, 1884, p. 422 tt.), but it is highly probable
that this is a mistake, and that Ebion had no more
existence than Gnosticus, the supposed founder of
Gnosticism. Origen has another explanation of
the name Ebionite as descriptive of the poverty
of the dogmatic conceptions of the sect. This is
but an interesting coincidence.
4. Nazarenes. — We begin with the Nazarenes,
who came nearest orthodoxy, and are to be con-
sidered not as heretics, but as a sect of Jewish
Christians. Our information regarding them is
scanty, and several details are obscure. Our main
and almost sole authorities are Jerome (de Vir.
illustr. iii., and some references scattered in his
Commentaries) and Epiphanius (Hcer. xxix.). The
latter, who on almost every subject must be used
with the greatest caution, is in this particular case
specially confused, but has the candour to admit
that his knowledge of the Nazarenes is limited.
Jerome had opportunity of gaining accurate ac-
quaintance with their views, and unless we admit
his authority, we have practically no knowledge
of the sect at all.
Mainly from Jerome, then, we learn that the
views or the Nazarenes on the three important
points (bindingness of the Law, Christology,
authority of St. Paul) were as follows :
(a) As to the Law, they held that it was binding
on themselves, and continued to observe it. They
seem, however, to have distinguished the Mosaic
Law from the ordinances of the Rabbis, and to
have rejected the latter (so Kurtz, Hist, of Christian
Church, Eng. tr., 1860, vol. i. § 48, 1). They did
not regard the Law as binding on Gentile Chris-
tians, and did not decline fellowship with them.
They honoured the Prophets highly.
(h) As to Christ, they acknowledged His
Messiahship and Divinity. They termed Him the
First-born of the Holy Spirit from His birth. At
His baptism the whole fount of the Holy Spirit
{omnis forts Spiritus Sancti) descended on Him.
They accepted the Virgin-birth. They looked for
His millennial reign on earth. They mourned
the unbelief of their Jewish brethren, and prayed
for their conversion.
(c) They bore no antipathy to St. Paul, and
accepted his Epistles. They used a Gospel ac-
cording to Matthew in Hebrew (see below). "We
shall comment on these views below, in connexion
with those of the Ebionites proper.
5. Ebionites proper. — In strong contrast to the
Nazarenes stand the Ebionites proper, regarding
whom our information is fuller and clearer. Our
main authorities are Irenaeus (adv. Ucer. I. xxvi.,
in. XV., V. iii.), Hippolytus {Ucer. vii. 22, x. 18),
Epiphanius (Hoer. xxx.), and Tertullian (de
Prcescr. Hcer. xxxiii.). Eusebius (HE iii. 27)
and Theodoret (Hcer. Fab. ii. 2) may also be
mentioned. In the main these give a consistent
account, which may be summarized as follows :
(a) The Ebionites not only continued to observe
the Law themselves, but held its observances as
absolutely necessary for salvation and binding on
all, and refused fellowship with all who did not
comply Mith it.
(6) As to Christ, their views were Cerinthian
(see art. Cerixthus). Jesus is the Messiah, yet a
mere man, born by natural generation to Joseph
and Marj-. On His baptism, a higher Spirit united
itself with Him, and so He became the Messiah.
He became Chnst, they further taught, by per-
fectly fulfilling the Law ; and by perfectly ful-
filling it they too could become Christs (Hippol.
Phil. viL 22). They agreed with the Nazarenes in
expecting a millennial reign on earth. In their
\'iew, this was to be Christ's compensation for His
death, which was an offence to them.
(c) The Ebionites denounced St. Paul as a heretic,
circulated foolish stories to his discredit, and re-
jected all his Epistles as unauthoritative. They
agreed with the Nazarenes in accepting a Hebrew
gospel, and in addition had certain spurious writ-
ings which bore the names of apostles — James,
Matthew, and John (Epiphan. Hcer. xxx. 23).
This Hebrew gospel used by Nazarenes and
Ebionites was in all probability the Gospel accord-
ing to the Hebrews, of which only fragments have
survived. "With this work we are not here con-
cerned. It is in place to say that most likely it
was a Nazarene production. In ancient writers
it is sometimes attributed to the twelve apostles,
more often to Matthew. The Ebionite version was
accommodated to their peculiar views by both muti-
lation and interpolation ; thus it omitted the firet
two chapters, and began the life of Jesus with the
baptism. For full treatment of this subject see
E. B. Nicholson, The Gospel according to the
Hebrews, 1879.
From the information at our disposal we cannot
say how rapidly Ebionism developed, nor estimate
the position it had reached by the close of the 1st
century. No doubt all the essential elements were
active before then. In the NT itself we see the
process well begun. Dating from the Council of
Jerusalem (Ac 15), we can see not only the possi-
bility but the actuality of the rise of three distinct
groups of Jewish Christians : (a) those who em-
braced Christianity in all its fullness, and developed
with it ; (b) those who accepted the indefinite com-
promise represented in the finding of the Council,
and did not advance beyond it, which is essenti-
ally the position of the Nazarenes ; (c) those who
did not agree with the finding, and continued to
protest against it, which is the starting-point of
the Ebionites proper. We see them carrying on
an active propaganda against the liberal school
whose leader was St. Paul. The Epistle to the
Galatians (q.v.) is St. Paul's polemic against them.
In Corinth, too, they have been active (2 Co 10-13).
After the Fall of Jerusalem, just as Judaism
became more intolerant and more exclusive, so we
may suppose this judaizing sect followed suit, and,
retiring more ana more from fellowship with the
Church at large, and seeking to strengthen their
own position, they by degrees formulated the
system we have described.
In brief, then, while the Nazarenes are only
Christians of a stunted growth, the Ebionites
proper are heretics holding a system that is false
to the real spirit of Christianity. While the
Nazarenes are Judaistic, the Ebionites are Juda-
izers. Neither Nazarenes nor Ebionites seem to
have been of great influence. The latter were the
more wide-spread, and, we may suppose, the more
numerous. While the Nazarenes were practicaUj'
confined to Palestine and Syria, Ebionites seem to
have been found in Asia Minor, Cyprus, and as far
west as Rome.
6. Syncretistic Ebionites. — The most conserva-
tive movement could not escape the syncretistic
tendencies of the age with which we are dealing.
We have notices of several varieties which we class
together as Sj-ncretistic Ebionites.
(a) The first of these we may term the Ebionites
of Epiphanius. Epiphanius agrees with Irenaeus
in describing the Ebionites as we have done above.
But he adds several details of which there is no
trace in Irenaeus. Making all allowances for the
generally unsatisfactory character of Epiphanius
320
ECSTASY
EDIFICATION
as an accurate historian, we cannot set aside what
he reports so clearly. Tlie easiest explanation is
that the Ebionites of Irenaeus developed into the
Ebionites of Epiphanius, i.e. Ebionism as a whole
became syncretistic. The Ebionites of Epiphanius
show traces of Samaritanism and an influence
which we may with great probability term Essenic.
The former is shown in their rejection of the
Prophets later than Joshua, and of Kings David
and Solomon {Hccr. xxx. 18). The latter is mani-
fest in their abstinence from flesh and wine, their
rejection of sacrifices, their oft-repeated, even
daily, baptism (xxx. 15, 16).
The siege and fall of Jenisalem were events
of the greatest importance for Judaism (see art.
Pharisees) and Jewish Christianity alike. Jews
and Christians, including Ebionites, settled east of
the Jordan. There they came into close contact
with a Judaism that was far from pure. The most
important form of this was Essenism (see art.
EssENES). There were also the Nasarseans, who
exhibited the very peculiarities described in the
Ebionites by Epiphanius, except perhaps as regards
the baptisms (Epiphan. ffcer. xviii.). If, as seems
probable, the Order of Essenes was broken up after
the Fall of Jerusalem, it is very likely that many
of them would associate with the Ebionites, who
held the Law in such esteem, and would be able to
impress their own customs on their associates.
(o) A still more pronounced Essenic influence is
patent when we consider the Elkesaites. The Book
of Elkesai was in great repute among Essenes,
Nasar.i?ans, and other trans-Jordanic sects, and
Ebionites accepted it also (Epiphan. Hier. xxx. 3).
Tlie book appeared about a.d. 100. Hippolytus
(Phil. ix. 8-12) gives details regarding it. Its
main points are : bindingness of the Law ; sub-
stitution of frequent baptisms for sacrifices ; re-
jection of the Prophets and St. Paul ; Christ's
appearance in Adam and others ; permissibility of
formal idolatry in times of persecution ; majjic,
astrology, prophecy. This is specially interesting
because we trace here a germ of Gnostic doctrine.
Gnostic tendencies are still more pronounced in
the Ebionism of the Clementine Literature, which,
however, falls outside the period we are concerned
with. Gnosticism has there advanced sufficiently
to induce even a more favourable view of St. Paul.
The union of Ebionism with Gnosticism is one of
the strangest cases of extremes meeting. In most
things the two movements are completely antitheti-
cal : one pr.actically denied Christ's humanity, the
other His Divinity ; one made salvation depend on
obedience to the Law, the other on speculative
knowledge. Yet the two met in a strange amalgam.
The explanation lies in the Essenism with which
Ebionism entered into relation. It was already a
Gnosticism of a sort. Ebionism ran its course till
about the otli cent., when in all its forms it was
extinct. It was despised by Jews and Christians
alike, and had no strength to maintain itself, as is
shown by the unnatural union it entered into with
its own antithesis.
Literature. — Besides the works mentioned in the art., see F.
C. Baur, de Ebianitarum Origine, 1831, and Dogmengexchichte,
1805-68; F. C. A. Schwegler, Das nachapustol. Xeitalter,
1846 ; A. Ritschl, Die Kntstehung der altkathol. Kirche'^ 1857 ;
A. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte^, 1893 ; G. P. Fisher, Uist. of
Christian Doctrine, 18!»0; C. v. Weizsacker, Apostol. Age,
Eng. tr., ii. [1895] 27 ; E. Reuss, Hist, of Christian Theol. in
Apoftol. Age, i. [187'-'1 100 ; Church Histories of Neander, Kurtz,
Schaif, and Moeller ; artt. 'Ebionism' and 'Elkesaites' in
ERE; 'Ebioniten' and 'Elkesaiten' inPRE^; 'Ebionites' in
JE ; ' Ebionism ' in DOG ; ' Ebionites ' in CE.
W. D. NiVEN.
ECSTASY.— See Rapture and Tongues, Gift
OF.
EDIFICATION.— The term (olKoSofj.i^) means liter-
ally ' building up.' The figurative sense of building
up .•ipiritually has two applications in apostolic
usage. (1) It signifies the spiritual advancement,
in a general way, of the Church. (2) It is the
special process or didactic means whereby the
faith, knowledge, and experience of individuals
were established and enlarged.
In AV olKodofi-ri and the cognate verb olKoSo/xiw,
in the figurative sense, are translated * edification '
or ' edify ' 19 times. The two meanings indicated
above are more apparent in RV, where ' building
up ' is often employed to express the more general
idea, especially where, as in Eph 4'*, ' the pictur-
esqueness of the metaphor must be preserved '
(Armitage Robinson, Ephesians, 1903, p. 182),
while 'edification' or 'edify' occurs 14 times.
Half of these are found in 1 Co 14, where they bear
the special meaning.
1. General. — The figurative use of the term
oUodofiri for that which huild.<! up generally the
Church and the spiritual life of individuals within
the Christian community is almost exclusively
Pauline. The germ of the idea is probably to l>e
found in the saying of Christ (Mt 16^*) concerning
the building of His Church (Lightfoot, Notes on
Epistles of St. Paul, 1895, p. 191). But St. Paul
frequently applies the metaphor of building to the
structure and growth of the Christian life (1 Co
3»'-, Eph 2««-, Col 2^ ; cf. 1 P 2'). Edification is
the promotion of this building up process by speech
(Eph 4-") or conduct (Ro 15^). Ihree elements in
the Church contribute to it — peace, both external
(Ac 931) and internal (Ro W^) ; love (Eph 4'"-), in
contrast especially with boasted knowledge (1 Co 8')
or self-seeking (lO^'*) ; and service (SiaKovla) wherein
each may share in the ministering of all (Eph 4'"-,
1 Th 5").
2. Special. — In its specialized use, oIkoSo/jltj is a
technical term for the exercise of ' spiritual gifts '
{xapicr^aTa) within the Christian congregation by
its members, for the mutual 'edification' of in-
dividuals. St. Paul's description of the variety
and exercise of these endowments in Corinth ( 1 Co
12 and 14) is probably true of most places in which
the Church was established. There were evidently
meetings held almost exclusively for ' edification,'
to which unbelievers were admitted (1 Co 14^').
It was not a formal service for Divine worship, but
rather a fellowship meeting with the practical aim
of attbrding members with a ' gift ' an opportunity
of using their supernaturally bestowed powers for
the spiritual welfare of all present (1 Co 12^; cf. 1
P 41'"-). At such times the most notable contribu-
tions would be : (a) teaching (5t5ax^), which included
the ' word of wisdom ' and the ' word of knowledge '
(1 Co 12*) ; (6) prophecy {irpo<t)T]T€la), which dealt
with future events (Ac 11^) or revealed an in-
sight into the needs of those present (1 Co 14*- ^*'-) ;
(c) glossolalia or tongues {yifrj yXucrffQv), which were
probably incomprehensible utterances expressive
of prayer or praise (v.^*).
Closely connected with prophecy was ' discerning
of spirits,' and M'ith glossolalia 'the interpreta-
tion of tongues' (1 Co 121" i4i.'7ff.), j^ addition
tliere would be prayer, the reciting or singing of
hymns, the reading of Scripture, and the ' word of
exhortation' (1 Co 142«, Eph 5'», Col 3", Ac 13»).
In order that genuine edification might result
from such a variety of gifts, exercised often under
stress of great excitement, two rules were laid
down for the Corinthian Church : (1) the compara-
tive value of x^'P^"'/^''""' m'lst be recognized — e.g.
prophecy is superior to ' tongues ' for purposes "of
edification (1 Co 14'-'-'); (2) there must be an
observajice of due order in the meetings (vv. *'■*').
LiTERATHRE. — FDB, artt. 'Church,' 'Edification': H.
Cremer, Bibl.-Theol. Lex. oj .XT Greek, s.w. oiicoioniu), oIkoSohtj ;
O. Pfleiderer, Paulinism, Kng. tr.'«. 1891, i. 229-2.W : C. von
Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, Eng. tr.s, ii. [1899] 246-279 ; A. C.
EDUCATION
EDUCATION
321
McGiffert. History <.f '
l>p. :>■:■ ' Ho : E. von Dc
rhur.-h. Kiis,'. tr., 11*04.
atui the Miuitiri/ in lui
M. Scott Fletchek.
EDUCATION.— 1. Jewish.— The Jews from early
tiiuea priztnl eilueation iu a measure beyond the
nations aruund tliem. It was the key to the know-
ledge of their written Law, the observance of which
was required by the whole people without respect
of rank or class. They were the people of a Book,
and wherever there is awTitten literature, and that
religiously binding, elementary education, at least
in t^e forms of riding and writing, is imperative
and indispensable. The rise of the synagogue, and
of the order of Scribes in connexion therewith,
exercised a powerful influence upon the progress
of education among the mass of the people. In the
4th cent. B.C. there was a synagogue in every town,
and in the 2nd cent, in every considerable village
as well. To the synagogues there were in all pro-
bability attached schools, both elementary and
higher, and the hazzdn (' the attendant,' Lk ■4-''^
RV^) may well have been the teacher. The value
of education was understood among the Jews before
the Christian era. In the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs we read : ' Do j'e also teach your chil-
dren letters, that they may have understanding
all their life, reading unceasingly the Law of God '
(' Levi,' xiii. 2). In the Psalnis of Solotnon the fre-
quent use of traiSeikw, iraidevn^i, and -raiSeia (with
the significant addition of fiafiSos, vii, 8, and of
ixaar^, xviii. 8) points to the existence of schools
and of a professional class of teachers. By the
Apostolic Age there is abundant evidence of the
general difl'usion of education among the people.
• Our principal care of all,' says Josephus (c. Ap. i.
12), comparing the Jews with other nations, 'is to
educate our children well, and to observe the laws,
and we think it to be the most necessary business
of our whole life to keep this religion which has
been handed down to us.' Among the Jews every
chUd had to learn to read ; scarcely any Jewish
children were to be found to whom reading of a
written document was strange, and therefore were
there so many poor Jewish parents ready to
deny themselves the necessaries of life in order to
let their children have instruction (c. Ap. iL 26 ;
cf. B. Strassburger, Gesch. dcr Erziehttng bei den
Israeliten, 1885, p. 7). The result of instruction
from the earliest years in the home, and of teaching
received on the Sabbath, and on the frequent oc-
casions of national festivals, is, according to the
Jewish historian, ' that if anybody do but ask any
one of our people about our laws, he could more
easily tell them all than he could tell his own
name. For Ijecause of our having learned them as
soon as ever we became sensible of anything, we
have them as it were engraven on our souls ' (c. Ap.
u. 19).
Education began, as Josephus says, 'with the
earliest infancy.' Philo speaks of "Jewish youth
'being taught, so to speak, from their very swad-
dling clothes by parents and teachers and inspectors,
even before thej' receive instruction in the holy laws
and unwritten customs of their religion, to believe
in Goil the one Father and Creator of the world '
(Legal, ad Gaium, 16). ' From a babe thou hast
known the sacred writings,' writes St. Paul to
Timotliy (2 Ti 3^), recalling his disciple's early ac-
quaintance with the OT Scriptures. At the age of
six the Jewish boy would go to the elementary
school (Beth ha-Sepher), but before this he would
have received lessons in Scripture from his parents
and have learned the Sh'ma and the Hallel. From
the sixth to the tenth year he would make a study
of the Law, along with writing and arithmetic. At
the age of ten he would be admitted to the higher
VOL, I. — 21
school (Beth ha-Midrash), where he would make the
acquaintance of the oral Law, beginning with the
Mishna, ' repetition,' the oral traditions of the Law.
At the age of tliirteen he would be acknowledged
by a sort of rite of confirmation as a ' Son of the
Commandment ' (Bar-mi»vah), and from this point
his further studies would depend upon the career
he was to follow in life. If he was to become a
Rabbi, he would continue his studies in the Law,
and, as Saul of Tarsus did, betake himself to some
famous teacher and sit at his feet as a disciple.
Although schools were thus in existence in con-
nexion with the synagogues, it was nottlU compara-
tively late that schools, in the modern sense, for
the education of children by themselves, seem to
have been instituted (see art. ' Education ' in HDB).
They are said to have been first established by
Simon beu-Shetach in the 1st cent. B.C., but this
is disputed. However this may be, schools were
E laced upon a satisfactory and permanent footing
y Joshua bSn-Gamaliel, who is said to have been
high priest from A.D. 63 to 65, and who ordained
that teachers of youth should be placed in every
town and every village, and that children on arriv-
ing at school age should be sent to them for in-
struction. Of him it is said that if he had not lived,
the Law would have perished from Israel. The love
of sacred learning and the study of the Law in
synagogue and school saved the Jewish people from
extinction. When Jerusalem had been destroyed
and the Jewish population had been scattered after
the disastrous events of A.D. 70, the school accom-
panied the people into the lands of their dispersion.
Jamnia, between Joppa and Aishdod, then became
the headg^uarters of Jewish learning, and retained
the position till the unhappy close of Bar Cochba's
rebellion. The learned circle then moved north-
wards to Galilee, and Tiberias and Sepphoris
became seats of Rabbinical training. Wherever
the Jews were settled, the family gathering of the
Passover, the household instruction as to its origin
and history, and the training in the knowledge of
the Law, served to knit them together and to in-
tensify their national feeling even in the midst of
heathen surroundings.
WhUe the great subject of school instruction was
the Law, the work of the elementary school em-
braced reading, writing, &nd arithmetic. To make
the Jewish boy familiar with the Hebrew charac-
ters in every jot and tittle, and to make him able
to produce them himself, was the business of the
Beth ha-Sepher, ' the House of the Book.' Reading
thus came to be a universal accomplishment among
the Jewish people, and it was a necessary qualifi-
cation where the sacred books were not the exclu-
sive concern of a priestly caste, but were meant to
be read and studied in the home as well as read
aloud and expounded in the synago^e. The case
of Timothy already referred to is evidence of this ;
and the Scriptures which the Jewish converts of
Bercea ' examined daily * were no doubt the OT in
Greek which they were trained to study for them-
selves. Writing may not have been so general an
accomplishment, but it must also have been in con-
siderable demand. This can be inferred from the
numerous copies of the Scripture books which had
to be produced ; and from the prevalence of fphiUin
('phylacteries') and m'zuzoth, little metal cases
containing the Sh'ma', the name of God, and texts
of Scripture, fastened to the ' doorposts ' of Jewish
houses, which were in use before the Apostolic Age.
The simple rules of arithmetic would be wanted to
calculate the weeks, months, and festivals of the
Jewish year.
In the higher school, BSth ha-Midrash, 'the
House of Study,' the contents of the Law and the
Books of Scripture as a whole were expounded by
the authorities. It is said to have been a role of
322
EDUCATION
EDUCATION
the Jewish schools not to allow all and sundry,
without regard to age, to read all the books of
Holy Scripture, but to give to the young all those
portions of Scripture whose literal sense com-
manded universal acceptance, and only after they
had attained the age of twentv-five to allow theiu
to read the whole. Origen tefls of the scruples of
the Jewish teachers in regard to the reading of
the Song of Solomon by the young (Harnack, Bible
Beading in the Early Church, 1912, p. 30 f.). liut
there was no lack of materials for reading and ex-
position. In course of time there grew up tlie
great and varied literature now contained in the
Talmud — tiie Mishna, the Gemara, and the Mid-
rdshic literature of all sorts — narrative, illustra-
tive, proverbial, parabolic, and allegorical (see I.
Abrahams, Short Histury of Jewish JAterature,
1906, ch. iv. ; Oesterley and IJox, lieligion and
Worship of the Synagogue-, 1911, ch. v.).
In the school the children sat on the floor in a
circle round the teacher, who occupied a ciiair or
bench (Lk 2« lO'^, Ac 22»). The method of instruc-
tion was oral and catechetical. In the schools at-
tached to the synagogues of Eastern Judaism to
this day, committing to memory and learning by
rote are the chief methods of instruction, and the
clamour of infant and youthful voices is lieard re-
peating verses and passages of Scripture the wliole
school day. This kind of oral repetition and com-
mitting to memory undoubtedly occupied a large
place in the earliest Christian teaching, and had
an important influence in the composition of the
gospel narratives. The purpose of St. Luke in
writing his Gospel was that Theophilus might
know more fully the certainty of the things con-
cerning Jesus wherein he had been instructed
{KaTTjxv^Vs) (Lk V). Apollos having been thus in-
structed in the way of the Lord (Ac 18-') taught
with accuracy the facts concerning Jesus. But
whilst the method had great advantages, it had
also great dangers, tending to crush out all origin-
ality and life, and to result in barren formalism.
In the education of the Jewish boy, punishment,
we may be sure, was not withheld. The directions
of the 13ook of Proverbs, whicii is itself a treasury
of sound educational principles, were carried out
not only in the home but in tlie school (Pr 12-^
19^" 23'^). St. Paul, addressing a self-righteous
Jew, exposes the inconsistency of the man who
profes-ses to be a guide of the blind (odrjybv rv(f)KQ)v),
a corrector of the foolish (xaiSeurTjv ^.(ppdvwv), and
a teacher of infants (SiSaffKoKov vr]iriu3v), and yet does
not know the inwardness of the Law (Ho 2^'"-).
Games had some part in the life of Jewish
schoolboys. One game consisted in imitating
their elders at marriages and funerals (Mt IP**'-).
Kiddies and guesses seem to have been common,
and story-telling, music, and song Avere not want-
ing. But when, under tlie influence of Antiochus
Epiphanes, a gynmasion for the athletic perform-
ances of the Greeks was set up in Jerusalem and
the youth of the city were required to strip them-
selves of their clothing, it became a grievous cause of
ottence to the pious among the people (I Mac l""^').
See art ' Games ' in HDB.
Whilst the education of Jewish youth on the
theoretical side centred in the Law and was calcu-
lated to instil piety towards God, no instruction
was complete witliout the knowledge of some
trade or handicraft. To circumcise him, to teach
him tlie Law, to give him a trade, were the
))rimaiy obligations of a father towards his son.
' He that teadieth not his son a trade doeth the
same as if he taught him to be a thief,' is a Jewish
saying. Jesus Himself was the carpenter (Mk 6*),
and Saul of Tarsus, the scholar of Gamaliel, was a
tent-maker (Ac 18*). We hear of Kabbis who were
needle-makers, tanners, and followed other occupa-
tions, and who, like St. Paul, made it their boast
that their own hands ministered to their necessities
and to them that acconijianied them (Ac 20").
The education of the Jewish youth began at
home, and the parents were the first instructors.
Of a noted teacher of the 2nd cent. A.D. it was
said that he never broke his fast until he had first
given a lesson to his son. But in due course the
children were sent to school, in Kabbinic times
apparently under the protection of a jnedagogue,
better known, however, in Greek family life
(Gal 3'-*). The teacher was required to be a man
of unblemished character, of gentle and patient
disposition, with aptness to teach. Only married
men could be eiii])loycd as teachers. Women and
unmarried men were excluded from the oflice.
The oflice itself was full of honour : ' A city which
neglects to aj)point tejichers ought to be destroyed,'
runs the saying. One teacher was to be employed
where there were 25 scholars (with an assistant
where the number exceeded 25), and two where they
exceeded 40. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the
Christian era teacliers received salaries, but the
remuneration was in respect of the more technical
part of the instruction. Nothing was to be charged
for the Midrdsh, the exposition of Scripture.
The girls in Jewish families were not by any
means left without instruction. The women of the
household, like Eunice, the mother, and Lois, the
grandmother, of Timothy (2 Ti P), who at leiist in-
fluenced the boys, woula have a more active part
in the mstruction of the girls. This means that
they were not themselves left without education.
The example of Priscilla, the wife of Aquila,
shows that a Jewess (who did not owe all her train-
ing to Christianity) might be possessed of high
gifts and attainments (Ac 18^). In the Talmud
similar instances of gifted and accompli.Hhed women
are to be found. One of the most notable features
in what is known as the Reform movement in
modern Judaism is the earnestness with which its
adlierents insist upon the more general and the
higher education of women.
Literature.— Kelevant articles in J. Hamburger, Real-En-
cyclafiddie /iir Bibel und Talmxtd^, 1884 ff. ; S. S. Laurie,
Hist. Survey of Pre-Christian Educatimi, 1895 : 'The Semitic
Races ' ; A. Buchler, The Economic Catiditions of Judcea a/tei-
the Destruction of the Second Temple, 1912 ; art. ' Education
(JewislO' by Morris Joseph in ERE v. [1912] 194, and Litera-
ture there cited.
2. Greek. — Among the Greeks education was
the aUhir of the State. Its purpose was to prepare
the sons of free citizens for tlie duties awaiting
them, first in the family and then in the State.
Whilst among the Jews education was meant for
all, without respect of rank or class, among the
Greeks it was intended for the few — the wealthy
and the well-born. Plutarch in his treatise on the
education of cliildren says : ' Some one may object
that I ill undertaking to give prescriptions in the
training of children of free citizens apparently
neglect the training of the poor townsmen, and
only think of instructing the rich — to wliich the
obvious answer is that I should desire the training
I prescribe to be attainable alike by all ; but if any
through want of private means cannot attain it,
let them blame their fortune and not their adviser.
Every eflort, however, must be made even by the
poor to train their children in the best possible way,
and if tliis is beyond them to do it according to
their means' (de Lib. Educ. ii.). Down to the
Roman period at least, this educational exclusive-
ness was maintained, and only the .ions of those
who were full citizens were the subjects of educa-
tion, although there were ca^es in which daughters
rose to distinction in letters, and even examples
of slave.s, like the philosopher Ej)ictetus, who
burst the restraints of their i)osition and showed
themselves capable of rising to eminence in learn-
EDUCATION
EDUCATIOX
323
ing and virtue. We even read of beqaests beii^
made to provide free education to cbiloren of both
sexes, but the rule was that women needed no
more instruction than they were Jikely to receive
at home. Being an afiair of the State, education
was under the control of i^cials appointed to
superintend it. GymHcutie, for the tnuning of tiie
body, and music in the larger sense, including
letters, for the training of the mind, were the sub-
jects of instruction. These— athletics, literature,
music — \iere regulated by a body of guardians of
public instruction (r<u2ar^Mt). We hear of an
Ephdioinh at the head of a collie of ifpti^oc, or
youths who have entered the higher school, and of
a Gymnasiarch who superintends the exercises of
the roXuirrpa and pays the txaining-masters.
The stages of edncati<a were practically the
same in all the difii»ent bnmehes of the wide-spread
Grecian people. First, there was the stage of home
education, extending from birth to the end of the
seventh year, when the children were under paren-
tal super^'ision ; second, the stage of school ednca-
tion, beginning vfith the ^gfath year and lasting to
the sixteenth or eighteenth year; thirdly, there
was the stage from the nxteenth or eighteenth to
the twenty- hrst year, when the youths were i^n/jfiotj
and were subjected to strict discipline and training.
Before a youth was enrolled among the i^^ he
had to undergo an examination {iatu/mtria) to make
sore that he was the son of an Atiienian citizen
and that he had the phyaqne for the duties now
devolving upon him. This was really the univer-
sity stage of lus career, for he then attended the
class of the rhetors and sophists who lectured in
such institutions as the Lyceum and the Academy,
and devoted himself to the study of rhetoric and
philosophy (cf. Ac 19^). On the cmnpletion of this
course he was reauly to enter upon the exercise of
his duties towards the State.
When the boy, at the age of seven, wrait to
school — the granunar school and the gymnastic
school — he was accompanied by a servant called
a raiBarftfjos who carried his books and writing
materials, his lyre and other instamments, and
saw him to school and back (see Schoolmaster,
TCTOR). The school-rooms of ancient Athens seem
to have been simple enough, ccmtaining little or
no furniture — they were often nothing but porches
open to wind and sun, where the children sat on
the ground, or on low benches, and the teacher <m
a high chair. At first the child would be exer-
cised in * the rudiments,' t& orotxaa (cf. Col 2^ and
Xen. Mem. n. L 1). Great stiess was laid upon
reading, recitation, and singing. In partimlar, the
memory was exercised upon the best litoatore,
and cultivated to an extraordinary d^ree of re-
tentiveness. The works of .^sop and Theognis
were much in use in the dass^rooms. Homer was
valued not merelv as a poet but as an imspined
moral teacher, and the Hiad and Odyssey were the
Bible of the Greeks. Great pains were also taken
with the art of writing. Tablets covered with
wax formed the material to receive the writing,
and the stylus was employed to trace the letters.
By aitostolic times papyrus or parchment was in
use, written upon with pen (cdAo/ios) and ink
ipika^) (2 Jn », 3 Jn» ; cf. 2 Co 3» and 2 Ti 4»).
Sher^.s (&rr/Muca) were a conmion writing material
—::..: used by tiie very poor in ancient E^rpt.
Exercises in writing and in grammar have hoea
presCTved to us in the soil of Egypt written on
ostraca, on wooden tablets, on tahlets smeared over
with wax, and have now been recovered to let us
see the performances of the school children of
twenty centimes ago. Among th«n are school
cofHes giving the letters of the ^phabet, syllables,
common words and proper names, conjugation of
verbs, pithy at proverlnal sayings as headlines.
and there are even exercises having the appearance
of being school punishments (E. Zieljarth, Avs der
caUiken SehuU, 1910, in Lietzmann's KUine Texts).
The mention of school punishments leads to the
subject of school discipline. At home, at school,
and in the palaestra, the rod and the lash were
freely used. It is from school life, both Jewish and
Greek, that St. Paul, as noted already, derives the
imagery of a well-known passage in lus Epistles
(Bo 2"'^). In the Psalms of &>lonum, a Jewish
book written under Greek induraice, there is refer-
ence both to the rod (pifiSoi, viL 8) and to the lash
{fiicni, xviiL 8) as instnunoits of puni^unoit;
and * chastening,' ' correction ' (inuitia), occurs again
and again in this smse (Eph 6^ 2 Ti 2,^, He 12" ;
cL IHdaeMe, 4).
'We are given over to grammar,' says Sextos
Empiricns {tidv. Math. L 41), ' from ehiluiood, and
almost from our baby-clothes.' Grammar was
saoceeded by rhetoric, which had accomplished its
purpose when the student had acquired the power
of speaking ofihand on any subject under discus-
sion. In addition to these subjects, philosophy
was also taught, its technical terms bemg mastered
and its various schools discriminated. Arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy belcmged to the programme
of secondary educati<m, and from Plato and Aris-
totle there have come down to us the seven liberal
arts — ^the friviMm and tiie quadnriwm of the Middle
Ages. All the while gynmastic training went
hand in hand with tiie training of the inteUeetw
The gymnasum, where the youths of Greece exer-
cised themselves naked, was oicloeed by walls and
fitted up with dressing-romns, bath-rooms, and
requisites for running, leaping, wrestling, boxing,
and other athletic exercises, and there were seats
round about the course for spectators, and porticoes
where philosofdiers gi^ered.
By the Apostolic Age it had become the practice
for promising students to supplement their school
education by seeking out and attending the lectures
of eminent teachers in what we should call the
great universities. Roman Emperors like Claudius
and Nero had dtme much to encourage Greek
culture and to introduce it into Bome itself, where
the Athexueum was a great centre of learning.
At this epoch Athens and Bome had famous
schools, but even they had to yield to Bhodes,
Alexandria, and Tarsus; and Marseilles, which
had been from the very early days of Greek history
a centre of Greek influence, was in the time of
Strabo m«He frequented than Athms. The idea
that Barnabas of Cyprus and Saul of Tarsus had
met in eariy life at the university of Tarsus is by
no means nncifnl, and it was to his education at
Tarsus that St. Paul owed the power to ' move in
Hellenic Society at his ease' (W. M. Bamsay,
Pictures of the Apostolic Church, 1910, p. 346).
That St. Luke had received a medical education
and was familiar with the great medical writers of
the Greek world is now almost universally ad-
mitted ; his literary style and the frequent echoes
of Greek authors, ai, least in the Acts of the
Aposties, prove him to have been a well-educated
and cultured Uellenistw Of the various philosophic
schools then exercising an influraioe upon thought
in the Greek world two are expressly mentioned
in the Acts (17**) — the Stoics and the Epicureans.
St. Paul must have received Stoic teaching at
Tarsus, where the school flomiBfaed, and he knew
and quoted at least one Stoic poet (Ac 17*). A
century later Marcus Aurelius endowed the four
great philosophical schools of Athens — the Aca-
d»nic, the Peripatetic, the Epicurean, and the
Stmc. Justin Martyr, a little earlier, in the ac-
count he gives of his conversion to Christianity
{Dial, cum Tryph. 2 S.\ shows how the representa^
tives of the Stoic, the Peripatetic, the Pythagorean,
324
EDUCATION
EDUCATION
and the Academic (Platonic;) Schools in turn failed
to satisfy his yearning after trutli, and satisfaction
came to him when he found Cliristianity to be the
only philosoi)hy sure and suited to the needs of
man. Christianity, brought into contact with
the society in which tliis philosophical habit of
mind had established itself, modified, stimulated,
and elevated it, and in turn was modified by the
habit of ndnd of those who accepted it. ' It was
impossible for Greeks, educated as they were with
an education which penetrated tlieir whole nature,
to receive or to retain Christianity in its primitive
simplicity. Their own life had become complex
and artificial : it liad its fixed ideas and its j)erma-
uent categories : it necessarily gave to Christianity
something of its own form' (E. Hatch, Influence
of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian
Church lUibbert Lectures, 1888], 1890, ch. ii.
p. 48f.).
LiTKRATiTRR. — T. Davidson, Aristotle (in Great Educators),
1892 ; S. S. Laurie, llist. Survey of Pre-Christian Education,
1895: 'The Hellenic Race'; J. P. Mahaffy, The Greek World
under Human Swap, 1800; art. 'Education (Greek)' by W.
Murison in ERE v. 185 and Literature there cited.
3. Christian. — The sentiment which caused
education to be so prized among the Jews must in
course of time have caused it to be greatly desired
among the followers of Christ. To tlie first Cliris-
tians, as to the Lord and His ajwstles, the UT
Scriptures were the Bible, and, outside the Holy
Land at least, the Bible in the LXX translation.
No doubt it was a roll of this translation
which the Ethiopian eunucli was carrying back
with him to his home far up the Nile, when Philip
the Evangelist joined him in his chariot on the
Gaza road (Ac 8^"'-). It was the same Scriptures
wherein the youthful Timotliy was instructed from
infancy in the home of his (ireek fatlier, under the
guidance of Eunice and Lois (2 Ti 3^*). St. Paul,
in the many quotations he makes from the OT,
quotes from the LXX rather than from the Hebrew
original. 'The LXX was to him as mucli "the
Bible " as our English version is to us ; and, as is
the case with many Christian writers, he knew it
so well that his sentences are constantly moulded
by its rhythm, and his thoughts incessantly
coloured by its expressions' (Earrar, St. Paul,
1879, i. 47). It was not till the second half of the
2nd cent, that most of the NT books were recog-
nized in the Church as the Oracles of God, and on
the same level of authority as the books of the OT.
' Among the Jewish Christians,' as Harnack points
out, ' tlie private use of the Holy Scriptures simply
continued ; for the fact that they liad become
believers in the Messiahship of Jesus had absolutely
no otlier effect than to increase this use, in so far
as it was now necessary to study not only the Law
but also the Prophets and the Kethubim, seeing
that these afforded j)rophetic proofs of the Messiah-
ship of Jesus, and in so far as tlie religious inde-
pendence of the individual Christian was still
greater than that of the ordinary Jew' (Bible
Mcading in the Early Church, p. 32).
That the private study which had been devoted
to the OT came in due course to be given to tlie
books of the NT may be seen from the use of them
in the writings of the A))ostolic Eathers. The OT,
the Gospels, and the Epistles of St. Paul had a
wide circulation at an early period, in all the
provinces of the early (Jhurch, and were perused
and applied to tlieir sjiiritual needs by multitudes
of Christians, not clerical only, but lay ; not men
only, but women. ' Ye know tlie Holy Scriptures,'
writes Clement of Rome to the Corinthian Chris-
tians (1 Clem. liii. 1), 'Yea, your knowledge is
laudable, and ye have deep insight into the Grades
of (iod.' 'What are these articles in your hand-
bag?' asks the proooasul Saturniuus when ex-
amining Speratus, one of the band of Scillitan
martyrs in N. Africa. ' The books and eiiistles of
St. Paul,' was the reply (7'6' i. 2 [1891], p. 114).
The feeling grew and spread that it was at once a
privilege and a duty thus to make acquaintance
with tlie meaning and teaching of Holy Scripture.
In Asia Minor and in Gaul, in Syria and Egypt,
this feeling juevaiied. Men like Justin Martyr,
Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, became Christians
— such is their own a(;knowledgment — by reading
the Scriptures for themselves. By and by wealthy
Christians had Bibles copied at their own expense
to be given or lent to their poorer bretliren.
Pamphilus, the friend of Eu-sebius, whose library
at Ca3.sarea was famous, had Bibles copied to keep
in stock and to be given away as occasion demandetf,
' not only to men but also to women whom he saw
devoted to the reading of Scripture ' (Jerome, Apol.
c. Rufin. i. 9).
All tiiis intellectual activity devoted to the
study of the Scriptures imjjlies throughout the
early Church a considerable level of educational
attainment. Tiiat many of the jioorest and least
educated found in Christ and His teaching the
satisfaction of their deepest needs is manifest from
the NT itself (1 Co l^*"-), and Celsus sought to dis-
credit the Christian system by aspersing the in-
tellectual as well as the moral character of its ad-
herents. Origen in answer points to the passages
of the OT, especially in the Psalms, which the
Christians also use, which inculcate wisdom and
understanding, and declares that education, so far
from being despised among the Christians, is the
pathway to virtue and knowledge, the one stable
and permanent reality (c. Cels. iii. 49, 72). We
must not suppose, however, that the Church of the
first days took any steps to provide schools and an
educational system of her own. Members of the
Christian community !iad no alternative but to
send their sons to the schools of their localities to
receive instruction along with scholars who were
heathen and accustomed to the usages and customs,
the superstitions and fables, often corrupt and un-
clean, of ])aganism. Although the Eathers of the
Church did not permit their youth to become in-
structors ill pagan schools, they did not consider it
wise to deny them the advantages of a liberal
education, even thougli .associated with falsehood
and idolatry. If they had forbidden their attend-
ance they would have justly incurred the charges
made by Celsus of hostility to learning. Christian
parents made a virtue of necessity, which TertuUian
approves, only recommending Christian pupils to
accept the good and reject the bad (de Idolatria, x. ).
Scarcely less pressing and even more difficult
was the question of the propriety of studying the
productions of the great pagan writers. Among
those who took the liberal view was Justin Martyr,
who held that ' those who lived with Logos are
Christians, even if they were accounted atheists :
of whom among Greeks were Socrates and Hera-
clitus ' {Apol. i. 46). Clement of Alexandria was
conspicuously broad in his Christian sympathies,
and his quotations from classical writers have
preserved to us fragments of authors whose
works have otherwise jierished. Others, like
Cyprian, drew a sliarp dividing line between
pagan philosophy and Christian doctrine.
But thougii the circumstances of the times
rendered separate Christian elementary instruc-
tion impossible and inadvisable in the early Ciiurch,
the Church was not iiuliflcrent to the (Christian
instruction of her members. Eoremost among
the members l)elonging to the Body of Christ are
' teachers,' mentioned along with ' apostles ' and
' ]>rophets ' (1 (^o 12*). Elsewhere they are classed
with 'pastors' (Ejih 4"). Among the gifts that
laiuister to the upbuilding of the social fabric of
EGYPT
ELECT LADY
325
Christianity is 'teaching' (Ro 12"). Power to
teacli was a qualitication which Timothy was
char^etl to look for in the blslions whom he should
apjtoint (1 Ti 3-), and he was told that the servant
of the Lord in any office must have aptness to
teacli (2 Ti 2^*). The teacher as a separate func-
tionary seems early to have disappeared from the
Church, his functions being absoroetl by the more
official presb3-ter or bishop {q.v.), who was always
required to be able to teach (Charteris, I'he Church
of Christ, p. 32). The need, however, for institu-
tions for higher instruction in the things of Christ
came to be felt early. Out of the training of the
candidates for baptism grew the catechetical
schools in great centres of pagan learning. The
first and most notable of them was the catecheti-
cal school of Alexandria, of which Pantfenus was
the founder, and Clement and Origen were the most
distinguished ornaments. This was the counter-
part of the pagan university, offering to philo-
sophic pagans an academic and articulated view of
the Christian system, and to earnest Christians of
intellectual gifts and tastes training for the offices
of preachers ;ind teachers. Gregory Thaumaturgus
commends Origen as having t.iught him philo-
sophy, logic, mathematics, general literature, and
ethics as the groimd-work of theological training,
after which he proceeded to the exiJosition of the
sacreil Scriptures. Under Clement and Origen
the school was great and prosperous, and schools
at C;esarea, Jerusalem, and elsewhere were founded
upon its model.
The share which woman had in the work of
Christian education apart from her influence and
work in the home is not made clear in the records
of Church history. In the Syriac Didascalia
Apostolorum, however, translated by Mrs. M. D.
Gibson (1W3), we have an official document of the
3rd cent, directing the deaconesses to assist in the
baptism of women, to teach and educate them
afterwards, and to visit and nurse the sick.
LrmtATtrR]!. — A. Hamack, Bible Reading in the Barly
Church, 1912; A. H. Charteris, The Church of Christ, 1906,
under ' Education' and 'Teachers' ; P. Monroe. Text-Book in
the Uiitnrsi of Education, 1905 ; art ' Bible in the Church ' by
E. von Dobschiitz in ERE u. 579. THOMAS NiCOL.
EGYPT (ktyxnrroiY—ST references to Egypt occur
mostly in historical retrospects. As the land which
was friendly and hospitable to the Hebrews in the
time of Joseph, but cruel and oppressive in that of
Moses, it is mentionetl twelve times in Stephen's
addre-ss before the Sanhedrin (Ac 7), once in St.
Paul's speech at Lystra (13'^), and four times in
Hebrews (3'* 8* ll-*-^). There is a single allusion
to contemporary Egypt in the account of the first
Christian Pentecost : among the Jews and prose-
lytes who were ' sojourning in Jerusalem,' and who
formed St. Peter's audience, were ' the dwellers (oi
KOTotKow-Tei) ... in Egypt ' (Ac 2^- ">).
Philo estimated that there were not fewer than
a million Jews in Egypt in his time (in Flaccum,
6; see Schiirer, HJP n. ii. [1885] 229). The
movement from Palestine into Egypt, partly
by voluntary emigration and partly by forcible
de{X)rtation, had been going on for six centuries.
Aristeas (Epist. 13) states that Psammeticns (pro-
bably the Second, 594-586 B.C.) had Jewish mer-
cenaries in his army. A company of Jews fled
to Egypt after the Fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.
(Jer 42-43). Some Aramaic papjTi found at Assuan
and Elephantine show that a colony of Jews was
settled at this garrison and trading post (59*3 miles
S. of Cairo) in the 6th and 5th centuries B.G., and
that they had built a temple to Jahweh. Many
Jews were attracted to Alexandria at the time of its
foundation by the otier of citizenship (Jos. c. Ap.
iL 4, Ant. XIX. v. 2). Ptolemy Lagi carried a vast
number of Jews captive to Eg3'pt (Aristeas, Epist.
12-14). Philo mentions that two of the five quarters
into which Alexandria was divided were called ' the
Jewish ' (»» Flaccum, 8). In no country M-ere the
Jews so prosperous, so influential, so cultured as
they were in Egypt, where some of them held im-
portant offices of State under the Ptolemys (Jos. c.
Ap. ii. 5, Ant. Xlll. x. 4, xiii. 1, 2), and where an
attempt was made to fuse Hellenic with Hebrew
ideals.
History gives no trustworthy account of the
evangelization of Egypt. The statement found in
Eusebius {HE ii, 16) that St. Mark was the first
missionary who went thither, and that he preached
there the Gospel which he had written, Ls con-
fessedly legendary, and the idea that Apollos had
some share in the enlightenment of his native city
is no more than a natural conjecture. There are
few materials to fill the gap between apostolic
times and the beginning of the 3rd cent., when
Alexandria {q.v. ), the home of Clement and Origen,
became the intellectual capital of Christendom.
Even till the days of Constantino the progress of
Christianity in Egypt was almost confined to this
one Hellenistic city.
' The great city which spiritually is called Sodom
and Egypt ' (Rev 1 1®) is probably Jerusalem , regarded
as the latter-day enemy of righteousness and of
God's people, such as Sodom and Egj-pt had been
in ancient times. The alternative view is that
Rome is the great city which is allegorically or
mystically named. If the addition ' where also
their Lord was crucified ' were original, it would
of course decide the point ; but this may be a gloss.
LirERATdiE. — A. Hamack, The Jftnion and Ea^ansion of
Ckrigtianity in the First Three Ceniuriei^, Eng. tr., 1908 ; A.
H. Sayce and A. E. Cowley, Aramaic Paps/ri diseovered at
Anouan, Oxford, 1906 ; artt. in SDB, DCG, SBi, and HDB,
with the Literature there cited. JaMES STBAHAX.
EGYPTIAN, THE.— See Assassins.
ELAHITES. — Elamites are mentioned in Ac 2^
among the sojourners in Jerusalem on the Day of
Pentecost. Jews settled in Elam during the post-
exUic period, whence they and their descendants
came up to the Holy City for the annual religious
festivals. Elam lay due east of Babj-Ionia and the
lower Tigris, and corresponds to the modem
Khuzigtan. Its ruling cities were Shushan (or
Susa) and Ansan (or Anzan), and the earliest
native rulers called themselves /»a<ms, or ' viceroys,*
in acknowledgment of dependence upon Babylonia.
The native Elamites had been gradually en-
croached ui>on, from the west, by invading Semites,
who brought their own system of writing with
them. This system was adopted by the Elamite
princes for many of their votive Ablets and in-
scribed monuments. For a brief period after
2300 B.C. Elamite chieftains ruled in Babylonia,
but their power was broken by Hammnrabi,
whose son Samsu-Uuna finally restored Babylonian
supremacy.
LmRATURK.— L. W. King: ai>d H. R. Hall, Egypt and
Wettem Asia in the Light of Reeent Diteoteries, 19U7, ch. v. ;
H. Winckler, History of Babylonia and Asgyria, Eng. tr., 1907,
ch. ii. ; artt. 'Elam' in PRB^ and JE, and ' Elam, Etamites' in
UDB. A. W. COOKK.
ELDER. — ' Elder ' preserves better than * presby-
ter ' the history of the title, which goes back to
the fact that tribes were governed by the heads of
their component families. ' Elder ' is probably
the earliest name, after 'apostle,' for a Christian
official (Ac 11**). See Bishop and Chukch Goverx-
MEXT. A. PLUilMEK.
ELECT LADY.— See JoHX, Epistles op.
326
ELECTION
ELECTION
ELECTION. — 1. Definition. — Election, in the
teaciiing of the apostles, is tlie nietliod l»y which
God f^ives eilect to His eternal purpose to redeem
and save niaui<ind ; so that the elect arc those who
are niarketl out in God's purpose of grace from
eternity as lieirs of salvation.
2. Election in the OT.— The doctrine of a Divine
election lies at the very heart of revelation and
redemption. Abraham was chosen that in him
all the families of the earth should be blessed (Gn
12^). It was through the chosen people, the seed
of Abraham, that God was pleased to make the
clearest and fullest revelation of Himself to man
and to prepare the way in the fullness of the time
for the world's redemption. Through their patri-
archs and their Divinely guided history, through
the laws and institutions of the Mosaic economy,
through tabernacle and temple, through jirophets
and psalmists, through their sacred Scriptures, and
at length through the Incarnate Word, born of
the chosen people, the world has received the
knowledge of the being and spirituality of God,
of the love and mercy and grace of our Father in
heaven. To Israel their great legislator said :
' Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God :
the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar
people unto himself, above all peoples that are
upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set
his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye
were more in number than any peoj)le ; for ye
were the fewest of all peoples : but because the
Lord loveth you ' (Dt 7'^''). Israel was chosen to
spread abroad the Divine glory, and God desig-
nates them by His prophet ' My chosen, the people
which I formed for myself, that they might set
forth my praise' (Is 43-"-^'). They were taught,
also, to realize how great were their privileges :
* Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord ; the
people whom he hath chosen for his own inherit-
ance ' (Ps 33'2; cf. ISS''). Their very position on
the face of the earth, placed in the midst of the
nations, was chosen with a view to tlioir discipline
and sanctilication, for thus the Maccabican annal-
ist puts it : ' Howbeit the Lord did not choose the
nation for the place's sake, but the place for the
nation's sake ' (2 Mac 5^^). And the destiny of
the elect people was to culminate in the Elect Ser-
vant of the Lord : ' Behold my servant whom I up-
hold ; my chosen (TO?, 6 iKXe'icrds fiov) in whom my
soul delighteth : I have put my spirit upon him ;
he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles'
(Is 42' RV ; ' the Elect one ' ap])ears as a Messianic
designation in the Book of Enoch, xl. 5, xlv. 3,
4, 5, xlix. 2, 4, and is found applied to Christ in Lk
9** 23^'). This conception of Israel as the people
of God's election colours the whole of the teaching
of the apostles and forms the subject of St. Paul's
great discussion in the chapters where he deals
with the problem of their rejection (Ro 9-11).
That the Jewish people had come to attribute to
it an exaggerated and erroneous value is clear not
only from St. Paul's argument but also from the
Rabbinical literature of the time (see Sanday-
Headlam, Roman^, p. 248 fi'.).
3. Biblical use of the word.— In biblical Greek
the word iKXcKrol {iKX^ytcrOai, eKXoyrj) is of frequent
occurrence. In the OT we find ^kKcktos used in the
sense of picked men (Jg 20'*, 1 S 24*) ; of indi-
viduals chosen by God for special service (Moses,
Ps 106^ [LXX 105] ; David, Ps SO^*- " [LXX 88]) ;
of the nation Israel (Ps 106» [LXX 105], Is 45''
65»- '•') ; of the Servant of the Lord (Is 42' ; cf. 52i»).
In the NT we find the verb used, always in the
middle voice, of our Lord's choice of the Twelve
from the company of the disciples (Lk 6'^, Jn 0""
I318 1519^ j\^. i^i . Qf j;|,g choice of an apostle in the
filace of Judas (Ac 1") ; of Stephen and his col-
eagues (Ac 6°) ; of God's choice of the patriarchs
(Ac 13'") ; and of the choice of delegates to carry
the decisions of the Apostolic Council to the Gen-
tile churches (Ac IS**' '■'■'*). It is used of Gotl's
choice of the foolish things of the world to put to
shame them that are wise, and the weak things to
l)ut to shame the things wliich are strong (1 ("o 1-'') ;
and of His choice of the poor to be rich in faith
and heirs of the kingdom inomi-^cil to them that
love Him (Ja 2*).
In the Gospels ^KXeKroi and nXrjToi are distin-
guished: KXrjToi, as Jjightfoot puts it (Colossuins*,
1879, p. 220), ' being those summoned to the privi-
leges of the Gospel, and ^kXckto/ tiiose appointed to
final salvation (Mt 24--- ''*■ =», Mk 13'*- =«• =^, Lk 18^).
But in St. Paul no such distinction can be traced.
With him the two terms seem to be co-extensive,
as two aspects of the same process, kXtjtoL having
special reference to the goal, and 4kX€kto[ to the
starting-point. The same persons are "called"
to Christ and "chosen out from the world.' It
is to be noticed in the Epistles that while 6 koXQv
is used of God or (Christ in the present tense (1 Th
212 5J4^ Qj^i 58j^ ^ iKXeydfxevos is never used, nor the
present tense of any jiart, the aorist being em-
ployed to describe what depended upon God's
eternal purpose (Eph 1", 2 Th 2'3). In St. Peter's
Epistles KXijrds is not found, nor iKXiytaOai, but the
verbal adjective (kXcktSs is fo\ind four times, once
of 'elect' ])(!ople (1'), once of Christians as an
'elect race' (2"), and twice, following the UT, of
Christ as the Living Stone, choice and 'chosen' to
be the corner-stone (2^- "). iKXoy-q is found of the
Divine act (Ac O'', Ro 9" li'- =», 1 Th l^ 2 P 1'"),
and once as the abstract for the concrete £kX€ktoI
(Ro IV).
i. St. Paul's doctrine. — It is St. Paul who most
fully develoi)s the doctrine in its strictly theological
aspects. His teaching, however, imly expands that
of our Lord on the same subject, as when He speaks
of those whom the Father had given Him (Jn 6^- "*
17^' -*), to whom He should give life eternal, and
whom lie should keei) so that they would never
perish (Jn 10^). St. Paul from an early period
of his missionary labours saw results which were
recognized in his circle to be due to an inHuence
higher than man's — to the predestinating counsel
of God. For the historian tells how, on St. Paul's
preaching for the first time to Gentiles at Antioch
of Pisidia, ' as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed' (Ac IS'"*). This was on his fii-st
missionary journey. On his second he preached
to the Thessalonians among others, and in the
two Epistles written to them on that extended
journey there is the clear recognition of the same
influence. Giving thanks to God for them, St. Paul
in the opening words of the First Epistle discerns
in their experience, and sets forth for their comfort,
theproofsof their 'election '(iTh l*-'**). From their
response to the gospel call, their acceptance of the
gospel message, their patient endurance of atlliction,
and the joy they had in their new spiritual life, a
joy begotten in them of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul
inferred and knew their election. And not long
after, when he wrote the Second Epistle to correct
misapprehensions produced by the First, he set
before the Thessalonian Christians, in language
still loftier and more explicit, this profound and
encouraging truth of a Divine election (2 Th 2""").
God is here represented as taking them for His own
(the verb is e'CXaro, not i^eX^^aro), and it is 'from the
beginning,' from eternity (there is a rejuling
dwapx'^t', ' firstfruits,' instead of dv' dpx^s). that
the transaction dates. It is not to religious
l>rivileges merely, nor even to a possible or con-
tingent salvation, that they have been chosen,
but to an actual and present ex|)erience of its
blessings, felt in holiness of life an<l assurance of
the truth. This was, indeed, what they were calle<l
ELECTION
ELECTION
327
to enjoj* through the gospel preaclted by St. I'aul
and his colleagues, so as at length to obtain the
glorv of the Lord Jesus Christ. In liLs Epistle to
the lioiuans, written not long after, St. Paul, in eh.
8, rising to tlie loftiest heights of Divine inspira-
tion, and penetrating, as it might seem, to the secret
place of the counsels of the Most High, apprehends
for himself, and makes known for the encourage-
ment of faith, the links of the great chain of the
Divine election by which the Church of believers
is bound about the feet of God — ' foreknown,'
* foreordained,' ' called,' ' justified,' ' glorified ' (lio
gas-30) Here ' they that love God ' are co-extensive
and identical with ' them that are called according
to his purpose.' They are 'foreordained,' so that
they may attain the likeness of Grod's Son, and,
further, that He may be glorified in them and see
of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. God's
elect (Ro 8**) may have the assaults of temptation
and trial to face, and tribulation, anguish, |>erse-
cution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword to en-
dure ; but nothing can separate them from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus.
These disclosures regarding God's eternal pur-
pose of grace are continued and extended by St.
Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the
spiritual blessings enjoyed in such abundance by
them are tracetl up to their election by God — ' even
as he chose us in him (Christ) before the founda-
tion of the world, that we should be holy and with-
out blemish before him in love: having fore-
ordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus
Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure
of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace'
(Eph 1*"^). It is a further development of this
when St. Paul says again in the same Epistle :
' We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
for good works, which God afore prepared that we
should walk in them ' (Eph 2'"). The unconditional
character of the Divine choice, emphasized in these
statements of the Ai)ostle, is affirmed again when,
writing to Timothy, he bids him suffer for the
gospel ' according to the power of God, who saved
us and called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to his own purpose
of grace which was given in Christ Jesus before
times eternal ' (2 Ti P).
In a separate passage of the Epistle to the
Romans (chs. 9-1 1 ) St. Paul deals with the mystery
of the call of the Gentiles to take the place of gain-
saying and disol>edient Israel. In so doing he first
vindicates Gotl from the reproach of having de-
parted from His ancient covenant — a reproach which
would be well-founded if the covenant people were
rejected and the Gentiles put in their place. Such
a rejection, he contends, would not be altogether
out of keeping with God's treatment of His people
in the course of their history.
"There was from the first an element of inscrutable selective-
ness in God's dealings within the race of Abraham. Ishniael
was rejected, Isaac chosen : Esaa was rejected and Jacob chosen,
antecedently to all moral conduct, though both were of the
same father and mother. Such selectiveness ought at least to
have prevented the Jews from resting their claims simply on
having '•.\braham to their father"' (Gore, 'Argument of
Romans ix.-xi.' in Studia Bibiiea, iil. 40 ; ct A- B. Bruce, St.
Paul's Conception of Christianity , p. 312ff.X
' The election within the election ' here, St. Paul
argues, is the Christian Church— the Israel after
the Spirit ; and the reproach of "the objector falls
to the ground (Ro 9*"^). Besides, the Apostle
further maintains, God, in His electing purpose, is
sovereign, as is seen in the difference between the
two sons of Rebecca ; in the Divine word to Moses :
' I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy ' ;
and in the hardening of the heart of Pharaoh (Ro
9i»-i4) ^j after all, if the election were cancelled,
the blame would be Israel's own, because of un-
belief and disobedience, such as Moses denounced.
and Isaiah bewailed when he said: 'All the day
long did I spread out my hands unto a disobedient
and gainsaj-ing people ' (Ro 10-').
But, despite appearances, Israel was not east off.
Their rejection was not final. There were believing
Israelites, like St. Paul himself, in all the churches ;
and he could say : * At this j)resent time also there
is a remnant according to the election of grace'
(Ro 11*). Meanwhile the problem of Israel's un-
belief and of the passing over of spiritual privilege
to the Gentiles (Ro IP') is to be solved by the
Gentiles provoking Israel to jealousy — appreciat-
ing and embracing and profiting by the blessings
of the Christian salvation to such an extent that
Israel will be moved to desire and to possess those
blessings for their own. When Jews in numbers
come to seek as their own the righteousness and
goodness which they see thus manifested in the
Uves of Christians, and are stirred up to envy and
emulation by the contemplation of them, the time
will be at hand when all Israel — Israel as a nation
— shall be saved. Of that issue St. Paul has no
doubt, for ' the gifts and calling of God are with-
out repentance ' (Ro 1 1-*).
To sum up St. Paul's teaching, election (1) is
the outcome of a gracious purpose of the heart of
God as it contemplates fallen humanity from all
eternity (Ro 8^- =» ; cf. Ro 5*-'«) ; (2) is a display of
Di\-ine grace calculated to redound to the glory
of God by setting forth HLs love and mercy towards
sinful men (Eph 1^") ; (3) is not conditioned upon
any good foreseen in the elect, nor in any fait li or
merit which they may exhibit in time (Ro 9""'*),
but is ' according to the good pleasure of his will '
(Eph 1'), 'according to his own purpose of grace'
(2 Ti 1*), of God's sovereign purpose and grace
(Ro 9" 11*-^) ; (4) is carried out ' in Christ ' (Eph 1*
2"*) through the elect being brought into union
with Him by faith, that they may receive forgive-
ness of sins and every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places (Eph l*- ') ; (5) issues in sanctifica-
tion by the Spirit and assurance of the truth (2 Th
2'*'-) and heavenly glory (Ro 8*) ; and (6) is proved
by acceptance of the gospel call and by the trust
and peace and joy of believing and obedient hearts
(1 Th l*-«).
5. St. Peter's doctrine. — If St. Peter's allusions
to the subject of election are few they fully support
the teaching of St. Paul. In his addresses at
Jerusalem after Pentecost, he speaks of ' the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God'
(Ac 2^) with reference to J^us. It is fitting that
the Apostle of the Circumcision should speak of
Him as 'a living stone, rejected indeed of man,
but with Giod elect, precious ' (I P 2* ; cf. dxo5e5«7-
fUvov, ' approved,' Ac 2"—), and even quote concern-
ing Him the prophetic Scripture : ' Behold I lay in
Zion a chief comer-stone, elect, precious ' (2* ; cf.
Is 28"). Of Christ he speaks, too, as ' foreknown '
(1*; Hort, adloc, 'designated afore') before the
foundation of the world.
St. Peter gives manifest prominence to the
doctrine of election when, in the opening words of
his First Epistle, he addresses the Jewish Christians
of Pontus and other Asiatic provinces as ' the elect
who are sojourners' there (^jtXe«:To*j xopextoiJ/MHi
Suur-ropai Ubmov, rrX.). 'Elect' they are because
their lot is cast in favoured lands where the
messengers of the gosjiel have proclaimed the good
tidings — still more because they have obeyed and
believed the message, and have had experience of
the blood of sprinkling and of the sanctifying
power of the Holy Spirit — yea, because they have
been ' designated afore,' not to service as Christ
was from the foundation of the world (1^), but to
blessing, even all the blessings of the Christian
salvation by God the Father Himself (I'-*). Con-
ceived of as the Christian Israel, the Israel after
328
ELEMENTS
ELEMENTS
the Snirit, tliese Jewisli believers are, as St. I'eter
elsewhere calls them, ' an elect race, a royal ))riest-
hood, a holy nation, a people for (jlod's own
possession ' (2®, where election is seen to be not
simply to jjrivile^e, but to character and service,
to holy livinj,' and the setting forth of the Divine
glory). Although they are an ' elect race ' they are
also in the same context described as 'living
stones' (2'), and Hort is right when he says 'tiie
whole spirit of the Kpistle excludes any swallowing
up of the individual relation to God in the corpo-
rate relation to Him; and the individual relation
to God implies tlie individual election' {First
Epistle of St. Peter, J. l-II. 17, 1898, p. 14).
Few as are St. Peter's utterances regarding the
doctrine, they entirely support St. Paul, even when,
emphasizing the urgency of the matter as a part
of i)ractical religion, he bids his readers give
diligence to make their 'calling and election sure'
(2 I' 1'").
6. St. John's doctrine. — It is from St. John that
we have the record of our Lord's most impressive
teaching on the subject of those whom the Father
had given Him (.In 6='"- ^ 17-- ^*). In his Gospel he
uses iKKifeadai, always, however, as employed in
His discour.ses by the Lord Himself and with a
definite reference to the Twelve, or to the company
of the disciples. In his Second Epistle (vv.'- ") he
has iKXeKTT). Whether tiie word desci'ibes an indi-
vidual or a society it is not easy to say, but at
least it has the same theological signification as in
St. Paul and St. Peter. In the Apocalypse (17") ^^--
\eKTol is used in a very significant connexion, where
they that are with the Lamb in His warfare against
the powers of evil, and in His victory over tliem,
are 'calletl and chosen and faithful.' They are
' called ' (K\r]Tol) in liaA'ing heard and accepted the
gospel message ; ' chosen ' {^kXcktoI) as thus having
given evidence of their Divine election ; ' faithful '
(iricrTol) as having yielded the loyal devotion of
their lives to their Divine Leader, and persevered
therein to the end. That ' the elect ' are the same
as 'tlie .sealed' (Rev 7'*) may be inferred from tiie
manner in which the 144,000 pass unscathed
through the conflicts and terrors let loose upon
them (W).
From this passage apparently comes the thought
of the ' number ' of the elect as in the Book of Com-
mon Prayer (' Order for the Burial of the Dead ') :
'that it mayplease Thee to accomplisli thenumber
of Thine elect.' The thought appears early in the
sub- Apostolic Church, for in Clement's Epistle to
the Corinthians he urges thum to ' pray with
earnest supplication and intercession that the
Creator of all would preserve unharmed the con-
stituted number of His elect in all the world
through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, through
whom He called us from darkness to light,
from ignorance to knowledge of the glory of His
name' (lix. 2 ; cf. ii. 4, Iviii. 2; Apostol. Const, v.
15, viii. 22). No countenance is given in the Early
Church to the idea that ' the elect ' may live as
they list and at last be saved. ' Let us cleave to
the innocent and the righteous,' says Clement of
Rome, ' for such are the elect of God ' {op. cit. xlvi.
4). 'It is through faith,' says Hennas {Vis. in.
viii. 3), ' that the elect of God are saved.' ' In love
all the elect of God were made perfect,' says
Clement again (xlix. 5), ' for without love nothing
is wellpleasing unto God.'
LiTERATtiHE. — C. Hodg-B, Systematic Theology, 1874, ii. 333 ff. ;
H. C. G. Moule, Outlines of Christian noctrine, 1889, p. :i7fl. ;
C. Gore, in SIndia /i/fc^/cn.'iii. flSOll.STff. ; Sanday-Headlam,
Jlomam'^(ICC, 1902), LMSff. ; A. B. Bruce, St. f aid's Concep-
tion of Christianity, 1S04, p. ."ilOff. ; Coiiiiuentaries on passages
noticed above, especially Ligrhtfoot and Hort, ad lore.
Thomas Nicol.
ELEMENTS {aToixf'ia, elementa). — aTotxuov is
properly a stake or jieg in a row (orolxos) ; then,
one of a .series, a component part, an element. The
sj)ecial meanings of cTTotxfia are : {a) the letters
of the alpiiabet; {b) the physical elements or con-
stituents of the universe ; (c) the heavenly bodies ;
{d) the rudiments or princi2na of a ."mbject ; (c) the
elementary spirits, angels, genii, or demons of the
cosmos. Eacn of these meanings, with the excep-
tion of the first, has been found by exegetes in one
or other of the NT passages in which aroixfui,
occurs. In one ca.se (lie 5'-) the interpretation {d)
is beyond dispute ; the others have given rise to
much discussion.
From Plato downwards aroixf'io. frequently de-
notes the elements of which the world is composed.
Empedocles had already reckoned four ultimate
elements — fire, water, earth, and air — but called
them pii^ibfiara (ed. Sturz, 1805, p. '255 If.). Plato
preferred to speak of the aroixfio. rov vavrds {Tim.
48 B; cf. The.fKt. '201 E). In the Orphic Hymns
(iv. 4) the air {aiOrip) is called Koaixov ffroix^ov
dpiffTov. Aristotle distinguished o-rotxf'a from dpxal
(though the terms were often interclianged) as the
material cause from the formal or motive {Metaph.
IV. i. 1, iii. 1). The Stoic definition of a ffToix^^ov
is ' that out of which, as their first jtrinciple,
things generated are made, and into which, as
their last remains, they are resolved ' (Diog. Laert.,
Zcno, 69). ffTotxfta has this meaning in Wis 7" :
' For himself gave me an unerring knowledge of tlie
things that are, to know the constitution of the
world, and the operation of the elements' (saJ
ivipyeiav aToixeluv ; cf. 19"*). In 2 Mac 7-"^ a mother
says to her seven martyr sons : ' It was not I that
brought into order the first elements ((rroixftwcrti')
of each one of you.'
This is probably the meaning of the term in 2 P
3^" : ' The day of the Lord shall come as a thief ;
in which . . . the elements shall be dissolved with
fervent heat' {aTot-x^ta 5k Kav<rovn€va \vdri<reTai [or
\v6ri<TovTai]) ; and v.^^: 'the elements shall melt
(TT^Kerat) with fervent heat.' Here RVm gives
the alternative ' heavenly bodies,' which is a mean-
ing the word came to have in early ecclesiastical
writers. The stars were called o-T-otxt'o either as
the elements of the heavens, or — a less likely ex-
planation— because in them the elements of man's
life and destiny were supposed to reside. Justin
speaks of rd ovpdvia ffToixfia. {Apol. ii. 5). Theoph.
of Antioch has aToixela Oeov {ad Antol. i. 4), and the
word bears the same meaning in Ep. ad Diug. vii.
2. In 2 P 3'" the situation of aToix^M between
ovpavol and 717 favours this interi)retation ; the
universe seems to consist of the vault of heaven,
the heavenly bodies, and the earth. But as the
writer of the Epistle is not methodical, and as, in
painting a lurid picture of final destruction, he
evidently uses the strongest language at his com-
mand, it is probable that the <rToix"« who.se burn-
ing he contemplates are the elements of the whole
universe.
The Gr. word frequently denoted the rudiments
or principia of a science, art, or discipline. The
(TTOLxe'ia of geometry, grammar, or logic are the
first ])rinciples ; aroix^'ia. t^s X^|ewj are the j)arts of
speech (Aris. Poet. xx. 1) ; (xroixf'a t^^ apfriis, the
elements of virtue (Plut. de Lib. Educ. xvi. 2).
The word unquestionably has this meaning in
He 5'-, ' the rudiments of the first nrinciples (tA
(TToixfia. TTJs dpxv^) of the oracles of God ' — the ABC
of Christian education, what is milk for babes but
not solid food for men (v.^").
The phrase in regard to which there is most
division of opinion is rd ffrotxf'^o- tov Kdapiov (Gal 4",
Col 2"- ^ ; rov kIxthov is clearly implied in Gal 4").
(i.) Many take ffroix^'io- J" the intellectual sense:
' the elementary things, the immature beginnings
of religion, which occupy the minds of those who
are still without the pale of Cliristianity' (Meyer
ELEMENTS
ELIJAH
S29
on Gal 4') ; 'tlie elements of religious training, or
the ceremonial precepts common alike to the wor-
ship of Jews and of Gentiles ' (Grimm-Thayer, s.v. ).
To this view there are strong objections. Those
who are in bondage to the <rT<MXf «x of the world are
compared with heirs who are still under guardians
and stewards (Gal 4'-'), where the parallel suggests
the personality of the <rr<Hx«*- To serve the
a-Toixfia is the same thing as serving them that by
nature are no gods (4*) — a statement by no means
e\ident if the arotxe'" are the rudiments of religious
instruction. The relapse from God to the <rTotx«a
(4*) can scarcely be a return to a mere abstraction.
The observance of times and seasons is according to
the ffTotx«a of the world, not according to Christ
(Col 2^) — a contrast which suggests that the (rrotxf'a
and Christ are personal rivals. When men died
with Christ from the <n-otxe«a of the world (v.^),
this was more than a death to rudimentary teach-
ing; The oTotxeJa are apparently identical with the
principalities and powers of which Christ is Head
and over which He triumphs (w.^*-"). Finally, a
man's knowledge of tlie (rT«x«a is not approved
as his beginning of religious education, but con-
demned as his ' philosojihy and vain deceit ' (v.*).
(ii.) Those interpreters come nearer the facts of
the case who suggest that the aroixeia to which the
Galatian and Colossian Christians were reverting
were the heavenly bodies conceived as animated
and therefore to be worshipped. Such worship
was certainly common enough among the Gentiles.
' They say tliat the stars are all and every one real
parts of Jove, and live, and have reasonable souls,
and therefore are absolute gods ' (Aug. de Civ. Dei,
iv. 11). Nor was the belief in astral spirits confined
to pagans. In the Prcedicatio Petri (ap. Clem.
Alex. Strom, vi. 5) the Jews are represented as
Xarpevovrei ay^feXon koX apxo-yyiXon, HTjyi /coi ffe\-f)VT;,
and this worsliip is classed with that of the heathen.
Clear evidence of this belief is found in Philo (de
Mundi Op. i. S4) and in the Book of Enoch (xli.
xliii.). The animated heavenly bodies, however,
would rather be described as to. a-roixe'ia rov ovpopov,
and the ffroixeia of the ' cosmos ' must include those
of earth as well as those of heaven.
(iii.) Many recent expositors therefore maintain
that the (rroixfia are the angels or personal elemental
spirits which were supposed to animate all things.
There is evidence that this view was wide-spread.
The Book of Enoch (Ixxxii. 10 f . ) speaks of the
angels of the stars keeping watch, the leaders
dividing the seasons, the taxiarchs the months, and
the chiliarchs the days. Stars are punished if they
fail to appear when due (xviii. 15). The Book of
Jubilees (ch. ii.) refers to the creation of the angels
of the face (or presence), and the angels who cry
' holy,' the angels of the spirit of wind and of hail,
of thunder and of lightning, of heat and of cold, of
each of the seasons, of dawn and of evening, etc.
The same species of animism is found in the As-
cension of Isaiah (iv. 18), 2 Es 8"'-, Sibyll. Orac.
(vii. 33-35). In the Testament of Solomon (Migne,
Pair. Gr. cxxii. 1315) the spirits who come before
the king say : ' We are the <rrotxetd, the rulers of
this under world ' (oi KocfioKpaTopes rov aKorovi tovtov).
The belief survives in modern Greek folk-lore, in I
which the tutelary spirit who is supposed to reside
in every rock, stream, bridge, and so forth, is called
a <rr(HXfU)y.
Not a few passages in the NT indicate the pre-
valence of this conception. The four winds have
their four angels (Kev 7^- '), and the fire has its
angel (14'*). Each of the Seven Churches has its
angel (2. 3). Angels take the form of winds and fire
(He r Ps 104^). The inferiority of the law to the
gospel is due to its administration by angels (Gal
3^). The belief in a world of intermediate spirits
is the basal thought of Gnosticism, which St. Paul
encounters in its incipient forms. ' Jewish wor-
ship of law and pagan worship of gods are for him
fundamentally tlie .same bondage under the lower
world-powers which stand between God and men.*
Grant that this language is paradoxical, ' it is
still extremely .significant that Paul dares to speak
in this way of the law ' (Bonsset in Die Schnften
des NT, ii. 62).
Even in 2 P 3"- " it is possible that the <n-otxf «i
which are to be ' dissolved,' or ' melted,' are ele-
mental spirits. ' This may or may not seem strange
to us, but we must ever learn anew that bygone
times had a different conception of the world ' '( Holl-
mann in Die Schriften de* NT, ii. 594), Schoettgen
quotes the Rabbinical words : 'No choir of angels
sings God's praises t^^-ice, for each day God creates
new hosts which siog His praises and then vanish
into the stream of fire from under the throne of His
glory whence they came.' A closer parallel is found
in Test, of the XII. Pair., ' Levi,' 4, where it is said
that on the Judgment Day all creation will be
troubled and the invisible spirits melt away {koI rww
aopcLTOiv rpevfiaTOJv TriKOitAvur).
LiTEBATTRB. — Hermann Diets. EUmeniMm : Eine Voturbeit
ztiin grieehUehen und lateinUehen Theuntnu, 1899 ; E. T.
Hinks, 'The Meaning of the Phrase ri orotycui toG kooiiov'
in .JBL^ vol. XV. [1S96], p. 183ff. ; artt. bv G. A. Deissmann in
EBi ; by M. S. Teny in SDB ; by J. Massie in UDB.
J.\MES StRAHAX.
ELIJAH ('HX/aj). — One incident in the life of
Elijah is recalled by St. Paul (Ro ll-~*) and another
by St. James (o"*-).
(1) Much is to be learned from a great man's
mistakes ; the memory of his lapses may save
others from falling. In a mood of despair Elijah
imagined that the worst had happened to Israel,
and that the worst was likelj' to overtake himself.
The prophets were slain, the altars were digged
down, he was left alone, and his enemies were
seeking his life. Ahab and Jezebel and the false
prophets had triumphed ; it was all over with the
cause of righteousness and truth for which he
had laboured. Seeing that all Israel had proved
unfaithful to God, there was nothing for the lonely,
outlawed prophet to live for, and he requested that
he might die. But the answer — 6 xpi^MarurM^i, the
Divine oracle — proved him to be the victim of a
morbid fancy, and brought him back to facts.
Among the faithless many others were as faithful
as he. God had reserved for Himself seven thou-
sand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal.
All Israel had not forsaken Him, and — what Mas
still more important — He had in no wise forsaken
Israel. There is but one thing that could ever
conceivably justify pessimism — the failure of
Divine power or love ; and the fear of that calamity
is but a human weakness. Now St. Paul could
not help seeing the close analogy between the
conditions of Elijah's critical time and those of his
own. Israel as a whole seemed once more to have
forsaken God, in rejecting the Messiah. In certain
moods St. Paul might be tempted to compare
himself — lonely, hated, hunted— to the sad prophet.
But did the ' great refusal' of the majority prove
either that all Israel was unfaithful or that God
had cast ofi' His people? No, for (a) now as in
Elijah's rime there were splendid exceptions, form-
ing a remnant (Xet^^a = iK7) which was the true
Israel ; and (b) God's immutable faithfulness made
the idea of a rejection incredible and almost un-
thinkable.
(2) St. James (&""•) takes an illustration from
the story of Elijah, and in doing so reminds his
readers that, though so great in life and so remote
from ordinary humanity in the manner of his
exodus from the world, the prophet was yet a man
of like passions (or 'nature,' RVm) with us —
irdpcjroi ofiotoraditi ijfup—SO that his experiences
330
ELYMAS
EMPEROR- WORSH IP
may sorve as a lielp fo weak, onliiiai y niortiils.
Till) success (if liis prayer for a tiiiu! <ii 'ln.u-lit,
aiiila^^aiii fur rain iu a lime of famine, is cii cd a« an
evidence of tlie fact that ' tlie prayer of .a rij,diteons
man availetli much in its workin;,'.' It lias to he
noted, however, tliat the OT narrative (1 K 17)
contains no reference whatever to tlie former
petition, while the latter is scarcely deducible from
1 K 18^^, where it is only stated that the prophet
bowed himself down upon the earth and put his
face between his knees. Siracli (4S"^- ^), however,
atlirms that he ' brought a famine,' and ' by the
word of the Lord he shut up the heaven.' In
4 Ezra (vii. 109) Elijah is cited as an example of
intercession p?'0 his quipluviam anxperunt.
James Strahan.
ELYMAS.— See Bar-Jesus.
EMERALD {(rfi6.pa-ySo<i). — The emeraldis a mineral
of the same species as the beryl. It owes its value
as a j;em to its extremely beautiful velvety f,aeen
colour, which is ascribed to the chromium it con-
tains. The jirimary form of its crystal is a hexa-
gonal prism variously modified. It is electric by
friction, and frequently transjiarent, Init sometimes
only translucent. Flinders i'etrie (JIDB iv. 620)
suggests that the (xixapaySo^ with which the rainbow
(7/)tj) round about the throne is compared (Rev 4^)
was rock-crystal, as only a coloui'less stone could
throw prismatic colours. IJut the nimbus or halo
may have been emerald in colour and only like a
rainbow in form. The fourth foundation of the
wall of the New Jerusalem is emerald (Rev 2V^).
James Strahan.
EMPEROR.— See Augustus.
EMPEROR-WORSHIP. — One of the most in-
teresting and important facts in the inner history
of the Roman Lmpire prior to the adoption of
Christianity as the State-religion was the rise of
Emperor-worship. Only in recent years have the
facts regarding it been adequately investigated,
and their importance for the early history of Chris-
tianity recognized and appreciated.
1. Origin and development. — Emperor-worship,
like many other strange phenomena, was first of
all a product of the contact and fusion of Oriental-
ism and Hellenism, which for all practical purposes
may be dated from the conquests of Alexander the
Great. In each of these modes of thought it had a
root ; and, before the advent of Roman power, the
reigning monarch had been regarded as divine in
those regions where (ireek and Oriental thought
had blended. In Oriental societies generally — e.(/.
Egypt, Babylon, Persia, China — it was the custom
from early times to speak of the ruler as ' son of
God,' and in otiier ways to p.ay him divine honour
— a custom which may easily be derived from the
genei-al tendency there to cringing adulation and
extravagant flattery on the part of the subject (in
Ac 12'-- we have a good example), and from a natural
desire on the part of tlie monarch to confirm so
useful a sanction of his authority. In the Hellenic
world an approach to this is fouml m the custom
of raising to divine rank after death those who in
their lifetime had been pre-eminent for bravery or
other qualities of great service to the community.
To such men sacred rites and festivals were decreed,
and in one formula used in inscrii)tions they are
spoken of as ' gods and heroes ' (E. Rolide, Psijche"^,
Tiibingen, 1903, ii. 353). As noted above, in the
kingdoms formed out of the Empire of Alexander
in which Orientalism was hellenized, the deification
of the monarch was definitely carried out. An in-
scription of Halicarnassus, c. 306 B.C., describes
Ptolemy I. as '^unrjp koI 9e6s, ' Saviour and God '
(Dittenberger, Orient. Gr. Inscr. Selcctw, 190.3-05,
xvi, 2, 3). The Syrian kings named Antiochns are
termed 0<<5j (God), the infamous Antiochus iv. being
designated on his own coins as 0e6j ' liTrti^avTjj (' the
(jod who has appearetl among men').
It was in hellenized Asia that the deification of
the Roman power began. In 195 U.C Smyrna in-
stituted the worship of the jiower of Rome, and
from 95 n.C onwards we fintl in Asia the worship
of various Ijenelicent Roman ollicials, e.g. Scaivola,
Q. Cicero (cf. Ramsay, Letters to the Seven Churches,
j». 117). .Julius Cicsar was honoured in his lifetime
man P'phesian inscriiition as ' the God descended
from Mars and Venus, who has appeared in human
form, and the universal Saviour of the life of men'
( Dittenberger, Sylloge Gr. Inscript.^, Leipzig, 1898,
.347, 1. 6 [vol. i. p. 552]). Upon his successor, the
great Augustus, the East showered divine honours
in profusion. A temple was dedicated at Pergamum
to Rome and Augustus with a gild of choristers
'for the God Augustus and the Goddess Rome.'
A similar temple rose at Ancyra in Galatia, ami
the recognition of the deity of Ciesar Ixicame wide-
spread in the Orient.
It is to be noted that it wiis no mere flattery
that was expressed in this deification. It was a
sincere sentiment of gratitude that led the East
to confer on Cicsar the highest honour conceivable.
The pax Ruinana which he gave them and preserved
for them was an inestim.able boon, lie did for
them what their gods seemed unable to do : he put
an end to their constant dread and frequent experi-
ence of warfare, tyranny, injustice. He gave them
security of life and goods, kept safe the highways,
fostered their commerce, and developed their re-
sources. And all those benefits were safeguarded
to them by a might which seemed invincible and
irresistible. Viewed through a medium of Ea.stern
poetic emotion, Cresar easily appeared invested
with essential qualities of godhe.ad — limitless power
wielded for the good of the subject. Many in.scrip-
tions miglit be quoted which show that the Eiistern
pagan world found its Messiah in Ciesar, the
language in some cases bearing a resemblance to
Jewish Messianic psalms and prophecies. The
following will serve as illustration. It is an in-
scription of date 9-4 B.C. (Ramsay) in honour of the
birthday of Augustus, and is a decree of the com-
mune or Asia, instituting the Augustan era, and
ordered to be put up in all the leading cities
(Ramsay, op. cit. 436). We give only an extract :
' This daj- has given tlie earth an entirely new aspect. . . .
Rightly does he judge who recognises in this birthday the
beginning of life and of all the powers of life, now is the time
ended when men pitied themselves for being born. . . . All-
ruling Providence has lilled this man with such gifts for the
salvation of the world as designate him the Saviour for us and
for the coming generations, of wars will he make an end, and
establish all things worthily. By his appearing are the hopes
of our forefathers fulfilled. . . . The birthday of Go<l ha«
brought to the world glad tidings. . . . From his birthday a
new era begins.'
(For whole inscription see Mitteilungen Inst. Athen.
xxiv. [1889] 275 If.)
Nor was it only in the Orient that Caesar ap-
peared a being worthy of tlivine honour. The
est.ablishment of his power meant the restoration
of tranquillity and security to Italy after a reign of
terror. The last two centuries of the Republic
were marked by a constant succession of revolu-
tions, each of which drenched Rome with Roman
blood, and none of which could produce a just or
stable government. The patience with which the
tj'rannies and cruelties of the bad Emperors were
endured is eloquent testimony to the lasting im-
pression of horror which the nightmare of the
expiring Republic had produced. And the early
years of the Empire seemed full of proini.se. A
new era seemed begun in Italy no less than in the
East. Vergil wrote his well-known ' Messianic '
fourth Eclogue jiredicting the birth of a son who
.should ' put an entl to the age of iron, ami cause
E^rPEROR- WORSHIP
EMPEROR- WORSHU^
331
tlie age of gohl to arise for the whole world,' the
reference being, according to tlie most probable
view, to a son of Augustus wliose birth was ex-
pected A.u. 40. Tlie Senate decreed that the birth-
place of Augustus was a holy place (Suet, t'lesar
Ortdr. Aug. 5). Stories of portents and miracles
at his birth grew with the years. The new name
Augustus borne by Octavian and liis successors
connoted from the first .something of superhuman
dignity. Thus Rome was prepared for the deifica-
tion of the reigning Ciesar ; in fact, it was reluctance
on the part of Augustus to accept it that somewhat
retarded the process. He limited the worship of
Romans to the <lead Julius Ctesar who had received
ajxitheosis in 42 B.C. under the title Dimts. As
early as a.d. 14, however, Augustus accepted dei-
fication from Beneventum.
Thus we see that deification was an honour
spontaneou^^ly offered to Ctcsar by grateful, enthusi-
astic, and devoted subjects. What was the attitude
of the Roman Government towards it ? Not too
much weight is to be laid on the reluctance ^vith
which Augustus accepted the dignity. Reluctance
in accepting offices and honours offered was his
settled policy. On the other hand, it may be that
the practical mind of a Roman did honestly feel
that there was sonietliing embarrassing, ludicrous,
or even impious in his ovm deification. But the
same practical mind, with its genius for govern-
ment, soon perceived that in Caesar-worship the
Empire would secure what it lacked — a bond of
unity and a jwwerful safeguard of loyalty. In the
East especially this was eminently desirable and
conspicuously lacking. "We must simply refer the
reader to Ramsay's demonstration {op. cit. pp.
115, 127) of the place filled by Caesar-worship as
the great bond of Empire in that region. It was
because of this special need of the Eastern pro-
vinces that Augustus accepted deification from
them, while ostensibly refusing it from Italy. But
the principle once adopted as part of Roman state-
craft could not be limited spatially as matter of
practice, still less as matter of theory. Caesar
could not be a god in one province if he were mere
man in another. Hence Caesar-worship rapidly
l>ecame organized and highly developed as the
State-religion of the Empire ; the Ca?sars so far
conquered their reluctance to pose as gods that
Domitian proudly designatetl himself as Dominus
et Deus, 'Lord and God' (Suet., Domitian, 13).
Caesar-worship was enforced by the whole might
of the State ; refusal to worship the Emperor
was high treason. The Jews alone were exempt.
For details as to the organization of the new re-
ligion, its priesthood, the pomp of its ritual, etc., we
must refer tlie reader to Mommsen, The Provinces
of the Roman Empire ; and Lightfoot, Apostol.
Fathers, pt. ii. : ' Ignatius and Poly carp.'
2. Caesarism and paganism. — It is necessary to
make a few remarks on the relation of the new
religion to the old paganism, because in sermons
and other popular treatments of the subject the
facts are often mis-statetl. In no sense was the
worship of Caesar either enforced or adopted as a
substitute for other religions. It did not displace
or quarrel with any of them. The old gods did
not leave the stage to make room for Caesar.
Contrary to what is often asserted, the old religions
were very far from liaving l<»t ; their power. The
satirical strictures of Juvenal and Martial on
Roman city-society are no proof that the old
Roman religion was powerless. The fact that
several of the Emperors acted munificently towards
the temples of the old gods shows two things — that
the old religion was still in force and far from
negligible, and that the new religion was not at all
a rival to it (cf. S. Dill, Roman Society from Nero
to Marcus Aurelius, London, 1904, bk. iv. ch. 3).
Indeed, the very Augustus who was the first, and
remained the ideal, Emi>eror-god, was also the
restorer to the ancient Roman religion of the
dignity it had lost in the troublous times of the
dying Republic.
But a further stage was reached, and first of all
in Asia, at which the new religion became con-
scious tliat it could maintain itself only by cloeely
allying itself with other religions, by associating
Caesar with the local divinities. How Csesariam
came to neetl this buttress is intelligible enough.
It was only one or two generations that could have
adequate experience of the vast benefit that Caesar's
rule brought with it. The previous state of social
misery became more and more a dim memory as
time pa.ssed, and the fervour with which Caesar
was greeted as divine could not and did not last.
Hence, while during the 1st cent, the State-religion
was simply the woi-ship of Rome and Caesar, in the
2nd cent, a modification was necessary ; and, as
indicated, this consisted in associating Ciesar with
a local god who could call forth a gennine religions
feeling. On coins we find Rome and Augustas
associated ^vith Diana, Persephone, etc. (see
Ramsay, op. cit., p. 123 f.). Thus it is entirely
erroneous to say that the new religion owed any
of its strength to the decay of the old paganism ;
it was only in close alliance ^vith the old that
Ciesarism as a religion could continue in exist-
ence.
3. Caesarism and Christianity. — It will be con-
venient to treat of this under three heads : (a) the
antagonism ; (6) the resemblances ; (c) Cjesarisni
in the NT.
(a) The antagonism. — This is the most obvious
and familiar point in the relation of Caesarism to
Christianity. It is known to all that Rome per-
secuted Christianity. What needs to be noted is
that persecution was not a spasmodic thing due to
the whim and caprice of specially ' bad ' Emperors,
as has sometimes been represented. Persecution
of Christianity was the deliberate and settled
policy, not of this or that tyrant, but of the Roman
State. From the time that Christianity attained
any great dimensions to the day of Constantine's
Edict of Toleration, there exLsted between it and
the Roman power a relation of antagonism ; and
a condition of persecution resulted for the Church.
The persecution might be wide-spread or local, few
or many Christians might be involved : that de-
pendetl entirely on the diligence and zeal of Roman
officials. From what has been said above, the
reason for this state of matters is quite plain.
Rome had no option but to persecute. Caesar-
worship was the bond of Empire, the test of loyalty,
and Christians refusetl to worship Caesar. They
were, therefore, a danger to the State. Other
charges were preferred agadnst them, but this
came to be the one capital charge — treason to the
State manifest in refusing to worship Caesar. The
story of persecution, of course, is a varied one ; we
cannot trace its development here. But we have
indicated its rationale — the principle which from
the first underlay it, and gradually became explicit.
^yith Christianity as one religion among others
Rome would not have concerned herself. Because
Christianity threatened what had been adopted as
a political safeguard of the first importance for the
coherence of the Empire, Rome, without a reversal
of her adopted policy, could do nothing else than
attempt to extirpate this dangerous sect.
"The Christuui who refused this sacrifice (to the vma^ ol
Caesar) fell automatkatlly under the charge of majettat, i.e. of
mortal insult w treason to the Emperor, who leprcacnted in
his own person the niajest>', wisdom, and beneficent power of
Rome' (Workman, Pen^vtion in the Early Church, p. lOlX
Thus the fact that the great and good Marcus
Aurelius was a persecutor of Christians does not
k
332
EMPEROR-WORSHIP
ENLIGHTENMENT
require the laboured explaining away it has often
received, e.g. from Farrar in Seekerx after God,
1891, p. 25711". The fact may he fully accepted
and easily (ixplained. Just because oi his good-
ness as a ruler, he was a persecutor. His first
duty was to suppress anarchy, and in the view of
the JRoman (Jovernment ('hristians were anarchists.
We do not need to expound here the inner, in-
herent antagonism of the two religions. It was
that of tlie material and the spiritual, the seen
and the unseen, the temporal and the eternal, the
glorification of success and the exaltation of ser-
vice even wlien it meant renunciation, loss, and
self-sacrifice ; the one boasted of a throne, the
other of a Cross.
(/>) lie.temblances. — The opposition of Christian-
itj" and Cii'sarism becomes more marked when we
consider their resemblances, (a) Both were uni-
versal religions ; we do not need to dwell on that.
(/3) Each ])roclaimed and honoured a ' Messiah.'
As noted above, Caesar's praise was celebrated in
phrases closely parallel to the praises of Messiali
m Isaiah or the Psalms. The prosperity and peace
of Messiah's reign as pictured in Isaiah have been
regarded by many as the basis of Vergil's Eclogue,
though there is no probability in the view. Simi-
lar ' Messianic ' passages are by no means rare in
the Latin literature of the period. Throughout
the world, indeed, there was an expectancy of
some great deliverer. The Cliurch proclaimed
Jesus, the pagan world acclaimed Cn^sar. (7) All
the great designations by which Christians ex-
pressed the dignity of Christ had already been
used of Ciesar. This is the most striking, as it is
the least familiar, thing to be noted. 'Lord,'
'our Lord,' 'Saviour,' 'Son of God,' 'Image of
God,' ' God manifest ' — precisely the greatest n<ames
applied to Christ in the NT — were all familiar,
throughout the East at least, as usual terms in
which to speak of the Emperor (for details see H.
A. A. Kennedy, in Expositor. 7th ser., vii. [1909]
289 fr.). While some of the terms, e.g. 'Son of
God,' certainly had a root quite independent of
Caesarisni, and all as applied to Christ and Chris-
tians had a dillerent content from the same terms
applied to Caesar by pagans, the parallelism is too
complete to be pure coincidence. To seize as emi-
nently suitable for their own purpose the whole
vocabulary of Ctesar-adoration was a bold and
brilliant stroke of poli(!y on the part of the preachers
of Christianity. Tiie humble missionaries, speaking
of Jesus as the Emperor was spoken of, must have
made a startling and very profound impression.
On the one hand, keen hostility would be aroused,
but on the other, in many cases an eager curiosity
and interest would be awakened. Any religiously-
minded pagan must have felt the difliculty of the
real godhead of Ciesar. Cresarism after all could
not satisfy any religious instinct. To any deep
reflexion it must appear in reality the negation of
religion.
' It was only a sham religion, a matter of outward show and
masrnificent ceremonial. It was almost devoid of power over
the heart and will of man, when the lirst stronj; sense of relief
from misery had grown weak, because it was utterly unable
10 satisfy the religious needs and cravings of human nature '
(Ramsay", op. cit., p. 123).
The proclamation of a spiritual Kingdom with a
King to whom all the higliest titles borne by
Ca'sar really ap])lied cannot but have made a
strong appeal to the interest of many of the more
serious in pagan cities (cf. Kenneily, loc. cit.).
From another point of view this strange parallel-
ism may be regarded as one among many aspects
of a providential preparation of the pagan world
for Christianity. Men were familiar with its
greatest conceptions before it appeared ; their con-
ceptions required only to be spiritualized.
(c) NT references. — Outside the Apocalypse there
is only one clear reference to Ca»sarism, and it is
slight, viz. the mention in Ac 19*i of the ' Asiarciis '
who were friends of St. Paul. The provinces were
united in communes for Civsar-worship, and the
president or higli priest of the commune of Asia
was termed ' Asiarch.' So in Galatia thcsre was the
'Galatarch,' in IJithynia the ' Bithyniarch,' et<'.
The Asiarcli held office for a limited period, but re-
tained the honorary title, hence there might be
several Asiarchs in Ephesus (see EGTin loc.), Cf.
art. AsiAKCil.
It is scarcely too much to say that in Caisarism
we have a key to the Apocalypse. With that key
many obscurities disappear, and the value of part
of the book as a sober historical document becomes
plain. Knowledge of the history of Caisarism makes
it clear why Pergamum is described as ' Satan's
seat' (Rev 2^^). At Pergamum, the administrative
capital of the province, the first temple to Augustus
was built. For 40 years it was the sole centre of
Csesarism for the province ; and, after other temples
were established, it retained its primacy. ' SaUin '
is a symbolic expression for whatever was the great
obstacle and hostile influence to Christianity ;
hence Pergamum was Satan's seat par excellence
(see Ramsay, op. cit., p. 294). We cannot here deal
with the whole subject of C.-esarism in the Apoca-
lypse. We must be content to refer briefly to ch.
13, which Csesarism explains, and which makes a
contribution to our knowledge of Csesarism. The
' first Beast ' is the Imperial power, the ' second
Beast ' is the government of the Province of Asia,
with its ' two horns,' proconsul and commune.
The chapter proceeds to record how the commune
maintained the Imperial religion, the worship of
' the first Beast.' ' It maketh all to worship,' and
orders images of Ciasar to be made (vv.'-").
Verses l.S-15 add to our knowledge the fact that
p.seudo-miracles were practised by the priests of
Csesarism. The miracles in question were the
familiar accomplishments of the priests of many
faiths — lire-producing and ventriloquism ; and, as
Ramsay shows (op. cit., p. 99 11'.), there is no reason
to doubt the accuracy of the account here given,
tiiough it is our sole authority on tiie point. Verses
16-17 indicate a policy of ' boycott' against Chris-
tians. This might quite possibly be not ordered
by the proconsul, but recommended by the com-
mune. Other points in this interesting chapter
deserve notice ; every phrase is significant ; but the
reader must be referred to Ramsay's exposition
{oj}. cit. ch. ix.),
LiTERATi'iiK. — The general reader will find the following suffi-
cient : W. M. Rainsay, The Church in the Roman Empire,
London, 1893, 2'A« Letter.^ to the Sevn Churches of Asia. do.
11)01; H. A. A. Kennedy, art. 'Apostolic Preaching and Km-
peror Worship' in ExptisUiir, 7th ser., vii. 289 ff. ; T. R. Glover,
The Conjlict of Hcligions in the Early lioman Empire, I^judon,
1909; J. Iverach, art. ' Cajsarism ' in ERE iii. [1910] 50 IT.
For further study may be mentioned : T. Mommsen, The
Provinces of the Rom. Empire", Eng. tr., London, 1909 ; J. B.
Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers', pt. ii.: ' S. Ignatius and 8. I'oly-
carp,* do. 1889; B. F. Westcott, 'The two Empires: the
Church and the World,' in Epistles of St. John, do. 1883, p.
237 ff. ; C. J. Neumann, Der romliche Staattind dirallijeinrine
Kirche, Leipzig, ISOO; C. Bigg, The Church's Task vniler the
Roman Empire, Oxford, 1905 ; E. G. Hardy, Studies in Roman
Uistory, London, 19l).'i ; H. B. Workman, Perseeutiwtx in the
Early Church, do. 1906. W. D. NiVEN.
ENLIGHTENMENT (^on-to-MiJt).— Enlightenment
is the intellectual and moral elloct i)roduced in the
sjjiritual experience of l>elievers by the reception
of the Christian revelation. Objectively, it is
called 'the li^ht ((pum<rn6u RVm 'illumination')
of the knowledge of the glory of God in tlie fiice
of .lesus Christ' (2 Co 4"). The gospel is God
calling us 'out of darkness into his marvellous
ligiit ' (1 P 2"). In the Fourth ( Jo.spel Christ claims
to be ' the light of tlie world,' t£> <^iy tov Kdap-ov
(Jn 8'* 9*). Even before His Incarnation, as the
ENXIGHTENMENT
ENMITY
338
Divine Lojios, He is said to have been the inform-
ing princijile of both life and truth within humanitj',
• the true lijjht which lighteth (^K^rifet) every man '
(Jn 1»). Subjectively, specihc Christian enli^'hten-
ment arises in the consciousness of those who
actually embrace the truth revealed in the person,
teaching, and work of the historic Christ. It is no
mere intellectual iUumination whereby abstract or
doctrinal truth is understood. St. Paul regards it
as a gift of spiritual insight into the Divine nature
and redemptive purposes. It is God's bestowal of
• a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of him ' ; it is ' having the eyes of your heart en-
lightened {ire<f>uTifffjieyovs) that ye may know' (Eph
I'"'-). This spiritual insight manifests itself in
action. It has ethical as well as intellectual results.
' The fruit of the light (6 Kaprbs rod ^wroj) is in all
goodness, and righteousness, and truth ; ' hence
the enlightened 'walk as children of light' (Eph
S**-). St. Paul calls his early converts 'sons of
light,' wot <f)UT6s, and concludes, ' Let us, since we
are of the daj-, l)e sober ' ( 1 Th 5*- *).
Two passages in Hebrews (6^"* lO'"''), which pre-
suppose this enlightenment, call for special attention
because they have been thought to contain refer-
ence to baptism on the one hand, and to the pagan
Mysteries on the other. That there is some
allusion to baptism in 6* is quite probable, for the
two expressions, ' once enlightened,' and ' made
partakers of the Holy Ghost,' correspond respec-
tively to the preceding expressions in v. 2, ' teaching
of baptisms' and 'laying on of hands.' As in-
struction in Christian truth formed part of the
preparation of catechumens for baptism, the rite
itself attested the enlightenment resulting there-
from. It is a well-known fact that the terms
' baptism ' and ' enlightenment ' soon after apostolic
times became synonymous. Syriac versions of the
NT render the word ' enlightened ' in both 6* and
KF* by ' baptized.' As early as Justin Martyr
(150) ' enlightenment' had become a recognized term
for baptism. In his Apology (i. 61), aft«r speaking
of baptism as a ' new birth ' (avarfiwriaLz), Justin
says : ' And this washing is called enlightenment
(/caXeirat 5^ rovro to Xovrpbv ^orrur^ds) because those
who learn these things [i.e. the Christian teaching]
have their understanding enlightened.' He also,
in the same passage, calls the recently baptized
' the newly enlightened.' Later patristic writers,
understanding ' enlightened ' in He 6* to mean
' baptized,' inferred from tlie expression, ' those
who were once (oira^, ' once for aU ') enlightened
... it is imijossible to renew,' that it was inad-
missible to rebaptize, while the Montanists and
Novatians went so far as to deny the possibility of
absolution for those who sinned after baptism,
holding that baptism in the blood of martyrdom
alone would avail in the case of flagrant sin.
In reference to the ilysteries, it may be said to
be probable that the term 'enlightened,' occurring
in these two pas-sages, is one of the many NT
words which reproduce the phraseology made
current by these pagan cults. In He 6*"* 'en-
lightened ' occurs among quite a number of other
terms or ideas which were current in connexion with
the Mysteries. For instance, ' perfection ' (reXet-
dnp), or 'full growth' (RVm), was the technical
term for the state of the fully initiated (oi reXeioi)
into one or other of these cults. The mention of
'baptisms 'in this connexion reminds us that the
Mysteries also had lustrations among their initia-
tory rites. The twice-mentioned ' tasting ' sug-
gests the symlwlic tasting and eating in the pagan
ceremonies. The expressions ' made partakers of
the Holy Ghost' and tasting 'the powers of the
age to cojne' recall the fact that the ideas of a
possible participation in the Divine nature and a
future life were central in the symbolism of all the
Mysteries, however crudely or even repulsively set
forth. A. S. Carman draws attention (Bibliotheca
Sacra, vol. 1. [1893]) to the use made by the
NT of terminology- drawn from the Mysteries.
G. Anrich contends (Doji antike Mysterientoesen,
1893) that no direct dependence of Christianity
upon the Mysteries could be established. A
more complete knowledge of the nature and
diffusion of mystery-cults in apostolic times,
together with the recognition of auiditional terms
in the NT vocabulary drawn from them, makes it
easier to accept the recent opinion of Clemen
(Primitive Christianity and its non- Jewish Sources,
1912, p. 345) concerning He 6* that ' the expression
(fHjni^ew, which also occurs in 10** and then in Eph
\i&2?, 2 Ti 1^", is borrowed from the language of
the Mysteries : and this is the more probable
seeing that in the Mysteries there was also a
sacred meal, and in He 6* "tasting" and "en-
lightened" are associated.'
In relation to the dependence which the NT
shows in this subject, as in others, upon both the
phraseology and religious ideas of earlier and
lower cults, it must be borne in mind that a richer
and fuller content has been poured by Christianity
into those pagan forms of expression, and that
here, as in the case of the Jewish Law, Christ
came ' not to destroy, but to fulfil.'
IjnRATUKK. — On the relatioD of enlightenment to baptism in
He 6* 1033 see Comni. of B. F. Westcott, F. W. Farrar,
A. B. Davidson, A. S. Peake, E. C. Wickham, and art.
'Baptism (Early Christian)' by Kirsopp Lake in ERE. On
the connexion between Christianity and the Mysteries generally
see, in addition to works mentioned above, S. Cheetbam, The
Mj/gteries, Pagan and Chrittian, 1897 ; R. Reitzenstein, Die
heUenittitehen MygterienreligUmen, 1910 ; P. Gardner, The
Religious Experience of Saint Paul, 1911, cb. ir. on "The
Pauline Mystery'; H. A A. Kennedv, St. Paul and the
Ml/gterv-Religions, 1913 ; artt. by W. M. Ramsay on
' Mysteries ' in EBr^ and ' Religion of Greece and Asia Minor *
in HDB, voL v. p. 109 ; artt. on ' Mvsterv ' bv A. Stewart in
BDB, by G. A. Jiilicher in EBi, and by B. W. Bacon in
DCG. See also A. Loisy's art. "The Christian Mystery' in
HJ, Oct. 1911. M. ScoTT Fletcher.
ENMITY {ix^pa). — Human life is disquieted and
embittered by enmities, active and passive. (1)
Men are enemies of God in their mind (7-3 SiavoLf)
by their wicked works (Col 1*^). This is not to be
taken in a passive sense, which would imply that
they are hateful to God [invisos Deo, says Meyer,
ad loc.). Their enmity is active. The carnal
mind {(ppovrjfia), caring only for the gratification of
the senses, is hostility to («'$) God (Ro 8"). The
friendship {(piXla, which implies ' loving ' as well as
' being loved ') of the world, which loves its o^\•n
( Jn 15^'), is enmity with God (Ja 4*, Vulg. inimica
est dei). Some who profess Christianity are sadly
called enemies of the Cross (Ph 3^) ; and a man
may so habitually pursue low ends as to become
an enemy of all righteousness (Ac 13*'). It is the
work of Christ to subdue this active inward enmity
to God and goodness, and thus to undo the work
of the Enemy who has sown the seeds of evil in the
human heart (Mt 13*^). While sinners are recon-
ciled to God, it is nowhere said in the NT that
God, as if He were hostile, needs to be reconciled
to sinners. ' It is the mind of man, not the mind
of God, which must undergo a change, that a re-
union may be effected ' (J. B. Lightfoot, Col.', 1879,
p. 159).
(2) The enmity of Jew and Gentile was notorious.
After smouldering for centuries, it finally burst
into the flames of the Bellum Judaicum. The con-
tempt of Greek for barbarian was equally pro-
nounced. Christ came to end these and all similar
racial antipathies. By His Cross He ' abolished '
and ' slew ' the enmity (Eph 2"- ^*), creating a new-
manhood which is neither Jewish, Greek, nor
Roman, but comprehensive, cosmopolitan, catholic,
fulfilling the highest classical ideal of human
334
ENOCH
ENOCH, BOOK OF
fellowship — ' huinanl nihil a me aliemini \mto '
(Terence, Henut. I. i. 25) — all becau.se it is Christian.
(3) The Christian, however, cannot hel]) liaving
enemies. Just hecause he is not of tlie world, the
•world liates him (Jn lo'*""-). But the spirit of
Chri.st that is in him constrains him to feed his
enemy when hungry, give him drink when thirsty
(Ro VZ-'^), and so endeavour to change him into a
friend.
(4) Every preaclier, because he is bound to be a
moralist and reformer, runs a special risk of being
mistaken for an enemy. Trutl), though s])oken in
love, may arouse liatred : wtrre ix^P^^ v/j-Qf yiyoya
d\rj9evwt> v/u.tv ; (Gal 4'*). Yet a moment's tliouglit
would make it clear that the aim is not to hurt
but to heal, and the surgeon who skilfully uses the
knife is ever counted a benefactor.
(5) The courageous faith of the early Church
assumed that Christ would put all His enemie.s
under His feet (1 Co \b^ ; cf. He 1'^ W^), i.e. that
every form of evil, moral and physical alike, would
linally be subdued. ' The last enemy that shall
be destroyed is death ' (1 Co 15-").
(6) A smgle passage seems, prima facie, to imply
that men may sometimes be enemies of God sensu
passivo. To the llomans St. Paul says of the
Jews, ' They are enemies for your sake (Ho 11'^).
They are treated as enemies in order that salvation
may come to the Gentiles. But the enmity is far
from being absolute ; they are all the time ' beloved '
(ayaTTTjToi Sia. tovs iraripas, 1\^}.
James Strahan.
ENOCH (Ei>uix)- — Enoch (along with Elijah) was
regarded as havingaunique destiny among the saints
of the OT, in that when his earthly life was ended he
was taken directly to heaven. Gn 5^^ is referred to
(1) by the writer of Hebrews (11"), who gives Enoch
tlie second place in his roll of the faithful. Instead
of the Hebrew text ('and Enocli walked with God,
and he was not, for God took him '), the writer had
before him the LXX version : Kal ev-qpiar-qaev 'Evwx
r(^ ^ey- Kal oix '>)vpi-(TKeTo, 8(.6ti fxeridriKtv avrbv 6 Bibs.
The phra.se 'he pleased God' — wliich is used in
other places (Gn 17' 24'"' 48'^ etc.) where the original
lias ' he walked with (or before) God ' — is regarded
Iry the author of Hebrews as a testimony to
Enoch's faith. To the statement that 'God took
(or translated) him ' the Avriter adds the explanatory
words ' that he should not (or did not) see death.'
The idea of immortality has rather to be imported
into the original words, which, as Calvin saw,
might imply no more than ' mors quaedam extra-
ordinaria. But the tliought that Enocli escaped
death had already been suggested by Sirach (49'^)
in his eulogy of famous men : ' No man was
created \\\im\. the eartli such as was Enoch ; for he
was taken up {aveXrjfjLcpdr]) from the eartli.' In 4
Ezr, vi. 26, Enoch and Elijah are spoken of as
men 'who have not tasted death from their birth.'
Josephus preserves tlie ambiguity of the original
in a characteristic phrase, ' he departed to the
deity' (dvexiipncf ""pAs rb 6dov), but instead of
venturing to infer that this implies actual death-
les.sness, the liistorian merely adds : ' whence it is
that his death is not recorded' (Ant. I. iii. 4).
The 'two witne.s.ses ' in Kev 11" are generally re-
garded as Enoch and Elijah.
(2) In later Judaism the words 'and Enoch
walked with (xod' were interpreted as meaning
that he was made the recipient of special Divini;
revelations. In the recovered Hebrew text of Sir
44'® he is described as 'an examide of knowledge'
(changed in the Greek into virddayfia nerafolai rai^
7c)'€ar$), and the Jiook of Jnhili-rx says, ' He was
the first among men . . . who learned writing and
knowledge and wisdom. . . . And he was with
the angels of (Jod these six jubilees of years, and
they showed him everything which is on earth and
in the heavens ' (ch. iv. [Charles, Ajwr. mid Pseud-
cpiff., 1913, p. 18 f.]). Enoch the saint was thus
transformed into the j)atron of esoteric knowledge,
and became the author of ajK>calyptic books. In
Jude'^ he is designated ' the seventh from Adam,'
a ])hrase taken from the Book of Enoch (Ix. 8,
xciii. 3), and a passage is (juoted in which he is re-
l)re.sented as threatening judgment upon the false
teachers of the early Christian Church.
' The extraordinary developments of the Enoch -le^'end in
later Judaism could never have grown out of this i^assage
[(in 5^1-2^] alone ; everythin^f tfoes to show that the record hu
a niytholo((ical basis, which must have continued to he a living
tradition in Jewish circles in the time of the Aix)calyi>tic writers.
A clue to the mystery that invests the fixture of Enoiih has been
discovered in Babylonian literature' (Skinner, GfiienU [ICC,
1910], p. 1.S2). He is there identified with Knmeduranki, who is
described in a ritual tablet from the library of Asshurbanipnl
as a favourite of the ifo<l8, and is said to have been initiated into
the mysteiifs of heaven and earth, and instructed in certain
arts of (livinaiion which he handed down to his son.
James Strahan.
ENOCH,BOOKOF.— /7?<rorfMc<«ry.— TheEthiopic
Book of Eno(;h (or 1 Enoch, .as it is now more con-
veniently denominated) is the largest, and, after
the canonical Book of Daniel, the most important
of the Jewish apocalyptic works which have so
recently come to be recognized as supplying most
important data for the critical study of NT ideas
and phraseology. The Book — or rather the Books
— of Enoch the reader will find to be a work of
curious complexity and unevenness. It is a wonder-
ful mass of heterogeneous elements ; in fact, it is
quite a cycle of works in itself — geographical,
astronomical, prophetic, moral, and historical. In
this medley we find certain recurring notes. The
temporary success and triumph of the wicked,
idolaters, luxurious, rich, oppressors, rulers, kings,
and mighty ones, and the present suflerings of the
righteous, are continually contrasted with their
future destiny — after death or after judgment,
according to tne views of the particuljir author as
to the moment at which moral discrimination will
l)egin. Another recurring note is the subservience
of natural phenomena to spiritual and qua.si-per-
sonal forces, which in turn are responsible and as
a rule obedient to God. Kepeatedly and with
dramatic force the unfailing order of Nature is
contrasted with the disobetlience of man. Yet
another recurring feature, and one common to
this apocalyptic literature, is the reserving of the
visions and the books of Enoch for the la.st days,
for the elect to read and understand. On the
other hand, there is ever and anon a baffling change
in the presentation of ideas about the Kingdom,
the Messiah, the form of the future judgment and
life after death. The pictures of the Messianic
Kingdom take on a shifting, ever-changing form,
in accordance with the views of the author and
the particular tribulations under which each indi-
vidual writer was labouring. Judgment is medi-
ated now by angels of jiunishment, now by the
archangels, or the sword of the righteous or inter-
necine strife, or by the Son of Man, or exercised
immediately by God Him.self. Darkness and
chains and burning fire, valleys and the abyss,
loom large in all descrijitions of the place and mode
of puni.shment. There is a highly developed angcl-
ology, in keeping with the general conception of
Gods transcendence, and an equally developed
demonolo^, wliich is connected Avitli the interest
of the various authors in the problem of the seat
and origin of evil. The ixjwer of i>rayer — whether
that of the angels, the dei)arted holy ones, or the
righteous on earth — is recognized, esjiecially in the
bringing in of judgment. The space devoted to
the calendar, however, and the movement.s «)f the
heavenly l.'odies, and the secrets of natural force.s,
stands in sheer contrast to the NT silence on those
subjects.
ENOCH, BOOK OF
ENOCH, BOOK OF
335
We cannot close without quoting Cliarles's words
in his introduction (Book of Enoch, 1912, p. x) :
' In the Age to which the Enoch literature belongs there is
morcment ever} where, and nowhere dogmatic fixity and final-
ity. And though at times the movement may be reactionarj',
yet the general trend is onward and upward.' This work is the
most imi>ortant historical memorial ' of the religious develop-
niont of Judaism from 200 B.C. to 100 A.D., and particularly of
the li-M'lopment of that side of Judaism, to which historiciLUy
ChrirUntlom in large measure owes its existence.'
"NVe have only to take the single example of
the unique portrait of the 'Son of Man ' in the
Parables — eternally pre-existent Avith God, recog-
nized now by the righteous, and hereafter to bie
owned and adored by all, even His foes — to be
assured of the truth of this verdict.
1. Contents. — Section i. : chs. i.-xxxvi.
i.-v. — Enoch takes up his parable: God's com-
ing to judgment to help and bless the righteous
and- destroy the ungodly (i. 1-9) ; Nature's un-
failing order (ii. 1-v. 3) contrasted with sinners'
disobedience ; a curse on them, but forgiveness,
peace, and joy for the elect (v. 4-9).
vi.-xi. {Xoachic fragment). — Fall of certain
angels, through union with women (vi. 1-vii. 1);
birth of giants who devour mankind and drink
blood (vii. 2-6). Knowledge of arts, magic, and
astronomy imparted by fallen angels (viii. 1-4).
Cry of souls of dead for vengeance (viii. 4, ix. 3,
10) heard by the four archangels, who bring their
cause Ijefore God (ix. 1-11). God sends Uriel to
Noali to warn him of approaching Deluge (x. 1-3).
Raphael is to bind Azazel in desert in Dudael tUl
judgment day, and heal the earth (x. 4-7) ; Gabriel
to destroy giants by internecine strife (x. 9-10, 15),
Michael to bind Semjaza and his associates for
seventy generations in valleys of the earth (x.
11-14). All evil is to cease, and the plant of
righteousness (i.e. Israel) to appear (x. 16). All
the righteous are to escape and live till they beget
thousands of children (x. 17), the earth is to yield
a thousandfold, all men are to become righteous
and adore God (x. 21). Sin and punishment will
cease for ever (x. 22). Store-chambers of blessing
in heaven will be opened (xi.).
xii.-xvi. — A Dream Vision of Enoch. — Enoch is
hidden from men (xii. 1) and is sent to the fallen
angels ('Watchers') with the message : 'no peace
nor forgiveness' (xii. 4-6), which he delivers to
Azazel (xiii. 1, 2) and the others (xiii. 3) ; they
beseech Enoch to write a petition for them (xiii.
4-6) ; as he reads it he falls asleep and sees ^nsions
of chastisement, which he recounts to them (xiii.
7-10). The message of the vision is given in xiv.
1-7 ; the manner of it in xiv. 8-xvi. 4. He ascends
in the vision to heaven, past crystal walls into a
crystal house and a greater house beyond, to the
blazing throne of the Great Glory (xiv. 20), whom
no angel can behold. He entrusts Enoch with
the message to the Watchers ; they had sinned
in taking wives (xv. 3-7) ; from the dead giants'
bodies proceed evil spirits which, remaining on
earth, do all harm with impunity till the Great
Judgment (xv. 8-xvi. 1) ; the Watchers' doom is
repeated (xvi. 2-4).
xvii.-xxxvi. — Enoch's tioo journeys : through the
earth and to Sheol. — (a) xvii.-xix. — Enoch is
brought to the ends of tlie earth and views trea-
suries of stars, and the winds that uphold heaven
(xvii. 1-xviii. 3), and seven mountains of precious
stones (xviii. 6), and beyond, a deep abyss of fire
(xviii. 11), and further, an utter waste (xviii. 12)
with seven stars like burning mountains, bound for
ten thousand years for not obser>'ing their appointed
times (xviii. 13-16). Here stand the fallen angels,
whose spirits seduce men to idolatry (xix. 1)
and their wives, turned into sirens (xix. 2). — (b)
X \'. -XX x vi . — The seven archangels — Uriel, Raphael,
Raguel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel, Remiel — and
their functions (xx.). Enoch proceeds to chaos and
the seven stars and the abyss of xviii. 12-16 (xxi.
1-7), which is the final pn.son of the fallen angels
(xxi. »-10). Elsewhere in the west he se^ a
great mountain with three (' four' in text) hollow
places ( = Sheol), to contain men's souls till the
Great Judgment — one for martyrs like Abel and
other righteous men, with a bright spring of water
(xxii. 5-9), one for unpunished sinners (xxii. 10, 11),
one for sinners (who suffered in life), who never
rise (xxii. 12-13). Thereafter, still in the west,
he sees the fire of the heavenly luminaries (xxiii.),
and elsewhere again, beyond a mountain range of
fire, seven mountains of precious stones, the central
one to be God's throne on earth, with the tree of
life (xxiv. 1-xxv. 3) to be transplanted after the
judgment to the holy place, where the righteous
shall eat of it and live a Ion"' life on earth (xxv. 4-6).
In the middle of the earth Enoch sees a holy moun-
tain (Zion) with its surrounding summits and
ravines (xxvi.), and the accursed valley (of Hinnom)
which is to be the scene of the Last Judgtnent
(xxvii.). Thence he goes east (xxviii.-xxxiii. ), past
fragrant trees and mountains, over the Erjtlirrean
Sea and the angel Zotiel (xxxii. 2), to the garden of
the righteous, and the Tree of Wisdom, w liich is
fully described (xxxii. 3-6). Thence to the earth's
ends whereon heaven rests, with three portals for
the stars in east and west (xxxiii. 3, xxxvi. 2, 3)
and three in north and soutli for the winds (xxxiv.
1-3, xxxvi. 1).
Sectiox II. : chs. xxxvii.-lxxi. — The Parables.
— xxxvii. 1 commences ' the second vision ... of
wisdom ' ; till the pre-sent day such wLsdom has
never been given as is embodied in these three
Parables recounted to those that dwell on the
earth (xxxvii. 4, 5).
xxxviii.-xliv. — The First Parable. — When the
Righteous One appears, where will the sinners'
dwelling be? Then shall the kings and mighty
perish and be given into the hands of the righteous
and holy (xxxviiL). [Descent of the Watchers —
an interpolation (xxxix. 1, 2).] A whirlwind
carries otf Enoch to the end of the heavens ; he
views the dwelling-places of the holy who pray for
mankind, and the Righteous One's abode under the
wings of the Lord of Spirits (xxxix. 3-14) ; an
innumerable multitude, and four presences ( = arch-
angels)— Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Phanuel
— and their functions (xl.); heaven's secrets and
weighing of men's actions (xii. 1, 2) ; secrets of
natural phenomena and sun and moon ; their
chambers and weighing of the stars (xii. 3-9, xliii.
1, 2, xliv.) ; the stars stand for the holy who dwell
on the earth (xliiL 4). A fragment. — Wisdom goes
forth, and finds no dwelling-place among men,
so returns to heaven ; while unrighteousness is
welcomed and remains with men (xlii. ).
xlv.-lvii. — The Second Parable. — The lot of the
apostates : the new heaven and earth. Those
who deny the name of Lord of Spirits are preserved
for judgment (xiv. 1, 2). 'Mine Elect One' on
throne of glory shall try men's works ; heaven and
earth transformed (xiv. 3-6). The Head of Days
and Son of Man (xlvi. 1-4) shall put down the kings
and the mighty ; they have no hope of rising from
their graves(xl vi. 5-8). ' In those days ' the prayer of
the righteous united with angelic intercession was
heard (xlvii. 1,2); the Head of Days on the throne
of His glory, books of the living opened, vengeance
of righteous at hand (xlvii. 3, 4). Enoch sees the
inexhaustible fountain of righteousness : ' at that
hour' the Son of Man was ' named ' in the i)resence
of the Lord of Spirits ; he is a staff" to the righteous,
the light of the Gentiles : in His name the righteous
are saved ; kings and mighty are to bum like straw
(xlviii. ); infinite wisdom and power of the Elect One
(xlix.). [1. — An interpolation*. — In those days the
336
ENOCH, BOOK OF
ENOCH, BOOK OF
holy become victorious ; the others (i.e. (ientiles)
witness tiiis antl repent — tliey have no luinour, b\it
are saved in tlie name of the Lord of S|)irits.] In
those days eartli, Sheol, and Abaddon give up what
tiiey hold. The Elect One arises, sits on God's
throne, and (ihooses out the righteous amid uni-
versal rejoicing (li.). Enoch sees seven metal
mountains (symbols of world-powers) : they will
serve the Anointed's dominion (Hi. 4), and melt
before the Elect One (lii. 6). Next he sees a deep
valley with open moutlis, and angels of punishment
1)reparing instruments of Satan to destroy the
cings and the mighty (liii. 1-5) ; after tliis the
Iiighteous and Elect One shall Clause the house of
His congregation to appear (liii. 6). In another
part he sees a deep valley with burning fire ; here
the kings and the mighty are cast in (liv. 1, 2),
and iron chains made for Azazel's hosts, whom four
archangels will cast into the burning furnace on
that great day (liv. 3-6), after judgment by the
Elect One (Iv. 3, 4) ; angels of punishment with
scourges are seen proceeding to cast the Watchers'
ciiildren into the abyss (Ivi. 1-4). [Fragments. — (a)
liv. 7-lv. 2 (Noachic). — Punisiiment by waters im-
pending, promise of non-recurrence, (b) Ivi. 5-8. —
The angels are to stir up the Parthians and Medes
to tread upon the land of God's elect, but ' the city
of my righteous' shall hinder their horses ; they shall
slay one another, and Sheol shall devour them in
presence of the elect, (c) Ivii. 1-3. — Ahostof wagons
IS seen, earth's pillars are shaken by the noise
(return of Dispersion).]
Iviii.-lxxi. — The Third Parable. — Endless light
and life for righteous (Iviii. ). [Secrets of lightnings,
anintrusionilix.).'] [Noachic fragment (ior 'Enoch'
read * Noah' in Ix. 1). — The Head of Days on the
throne of glory announces the judgment (Ix. 1-6, 25) ;
Leviathan a female monster, and Behemoth a male,
parted, one in the abysses of the ocean, the other
m the wilderness to the east of the garden (Eden)
where Enoch was taken up; they shall feed . . . (pre-
sumably till given as food to the elect as in 2 Bar.
xxix. 4 ; 4 I'^zr. vi. 52) (Ix. 7-10, 24) ; chambers of
winds, secrets of thunder, spirits of the sea, hoar-
frost, snow, mist and rain (Ix. 11-23).]
Third Parable resumed. — The angels are seen
with long cords ; they go to measure Paradise
(Ixx. 3) and recover all the righteous dead from sea
or desert (Ixi. 1-5) ; the Lord of Spirits places the
Elect One on the tiirone of glory to judge (Ixi. 6-9) ;
all the heavenly hosts, Cherubim, Seraphim, and
Ophannim, angels of power and of principalities,
the Elect One, the powers on earth and over water,
the elect who dwell in the garden of life, and all
flesh shall join in praising God (Ixi. 10-13). The
kings and the mighty are called upon to recognize
the Elect One, now seated on the throne ; pained
and terrified, they glorify God (Ixii. 1-6) and adore
the Son of Man ; but are delivered to the angels
for jiunishment (Ixii. 9-12) ; the righteous had
previously known the Son of Man, though hidden
from the beginning, and shall eat and lie down and
rise up for ever with Him, and be clothed with
garments of glory and of life (Ixii. 7, 8, 13-16) ;
unavailing repentance and confession of the kings
and the mighty (Ixiii.) ; vision of fallen angels in
prison (Ixiv.). [Noachic fragment (Ixv.-lxix. 25). —
Noaii calls on Enoch at the ends of the earth ; he
is told judgment is imminent l>ecause of sorcery and
idolatry, and the violence of the Satans ; Noah is
to be preserved : fiom him shall proceed a fountain
of righteous and iioly ( = Israel) for ever (Ixv.) ; the
angels of j)unishment hold the Flood in check
(Ixvi.); Noah is told that the angels are making
an ark for him (Ixvii. 1-3) ; God will imprison the
angels, who had taught men how to sin, in the
burning valley, which Enoch had shown Noali ;
thence proceea waters which now heal the bodies
of the kings and the mighty (Ixvii. 8), but it will
one tlay become a lire ever-burning Uxvii. 13).
Enoch gives Noah these secrets in the book of
Parables (Ixviii. 1). Michael and Raphael are
astonished at the sternness of the judgment u]>on
the fallen angels (Ixviii. 2-5); the names of the
fallen angels and Satans who led them astray and
taught men kno%vle<lge and writing (Ixix. 1-13) ;
the hidden name anil oath which presei've all things
in due order (Ixix. 14-25).]
Close of Third Parable. — Universal joy at the
revealing of the Son of Man, who receives ' the
sum of judgment ' (Ixix. 26-29). [Two fragments
belonging to Parables: (a) Ixx. — Enoch finally
translated on the chariots of the spirit, and set
between the north and the south (i.e. in Paradise).
(b) Ixxi. — ' After this' he is translated in sj)irit ; he
sees the sons of (iod, the secrets of heaven, the
crystal house, and countless angels and the four
archangels, the Head of D.ays, the Son of Man,
who brings in endless peace for the righteous.]
Section in. : chs. Ixxii.-lxxxii.— r^e Book of
the Courses of the Heavenly Lumiiuiries. — The sun
(Ixxii.), the moon and its phases (Ixxiii.), the lunar
year (Ixxiv.), the stars, the twelve winds and their
portals (Ixxvi.), the lour quarters of the world, the
seven great mountains, rivers, islands (Ixxvii.), the
moon's waxing and waning (Ixxviii. ), recapitulation
(Ixxix., Ixxx. 1), perversion of Nature and the
iieavenly bodies owing to man's sin (Ixxx. 2-8).
Enoch sees the heavenly tablets containing men's
deeds to all eternity, and is given one year to
teach them to Methuselah (Ixxxi.); his charge to
Methuselah to hand on the books to the genera-
tions of the world ; blessing on the observers of the
true system of reckoning — year of 364 days (Ixxxii.
1-9) ; stars which lead the seasons and the months
(Ixxxii. 10-20).
Section iv. : chs. Ixxxiii. -xc. — Two Dream
Visions: (a) Ixxxiii., Ixxxiv. ; (b) Ixxxv.-xc. — (a)
Vision of earth's destruction : Mahalalel bids
Enoch pray that a remnant may remain (Ixxxiii.
1-9) ; prayer of Enoch for survival of plant of
eternal seed ( = Israel) (Ixxxiii. 10-lxxxiv. G). (6)
Second dream, in which Enoch sees Adam and other
patriarchs under symbolism of bulls, etc. (Ixxxv.) ;
stars ( = angels) fall from heaven, and unite with
cattle (Ixxxvi., Ixxxvii.) ; the first star is cast into
the abyss ; evil beasts slay one another (Ixxxviii.).
In symbolism Enoch sees the history of Noah and
the Deluge ; Israel at the Exodus, crossing the
Jordan, under the Judges ; the building of the
Temple ; the two kingdoms ; the Fall of Jerusa-
lem (Ixxxix. 1-67). Israel is entrusted to the
Seventy Shepherds ( = angelic rulers) from the Cap-
tivity to the Mjiccaba'an revolt (Ixxxix. 68-xc. 12) ;
the enlightened lambs (=Chasids) and the great
horn ( = Judas Maccabivus) (xc. 6-12). The final
assault of the lieathen ; a great sword is given to the
sheep (=Jews) ; the Lord of the sheep intervenes
(xc. 13-19) ; a throne is erected in the pleasant
land for Him ; the sealed books are opened ; the
sinning star's are cast into the abyss of fire, also the
Seventy Shepherds ; the blinded sheep into the
abyss in the midst of the earth ( = Gehenna) (xc.
20-27) ; the old house (^Temple) is removed ; the
Lord of the sheep brings a new house, greater and
loftier ; the sword is sealed up ; all the sheep
'see ' (i.e. are enlightened) ; a white bull ( = Messiah)
is born, and is adored by all ; the others are all
transformed into white bulls, and the Lord of the
sheep rejoices over them all alike ; Enoch awakes
and weeps (xc. 28-42).
Section v. : chs. xci.-civ. — (a) Enoch's Book for
his Children (xcii. 1). — Go«l has api)ointed days for
all things ; the righteous are to arise from sleep
and walk in eternal light, and sin is to disjijijiear
(xcii.). Methuselah and his family are sunuuoned
ENOCH, BOOK OF
ENOCH, BOOK OF
337
and exhorted to love rigliteousness ; violence must
increase, but judgment will follow ; idols will fail,
and the heathen be judged in fire for ever ; the
righteous are to rise again (xci. 1-11).
(6) Apocalypse of Weeks. — 1st week : Enoch bom.
2nd : the first end ; Noah saved. 3rd : Abraham
electetl as the plant of righteous judgment. 4th :
the law for all generations made. 5th: house of
glory . . . built. 6th : all Israel blinded ; Elijah
ascends to heaven ; the Dispersion. 7th : general
apostasy ; the elect righteous elected to receive
seven-fold instruction concerning all creation { =
Enoch's revelations). 8th : week of righteousness
and of sword ; Temple rebuilt for ever ; all mankind
converted. 9th : righteous judgment revealed to
the whole world ; sin abolished. 10th : great eternal
judgment on angels ; new heaven ; thereafter
Aveeks without number for ever (xciii., xci. 12-17).
(c)- Warnings and tcoes. — Warnings against
paths of unrighteousness (xciv, 1-5) ; Avoes against
oppressors and rich (xciv. 6-11) and sinners (xcv.
2-7) ; hope for righteous (xcvi. 1-3) ; their prayer
heard (xcvii. 5) ; woes against the luxurious and
the rich (xcvi. 4-8, xcvii. 1-10). Warnings against
indulgence ; sin is of man's own devising, and
every sin is every day recorded in heaven (xcviii.
1-8) ; sinners are prepared for the day of destruc-
tion ; they will be given into hands of righteous
(xcviii. 9-16). AVoes on godless and law-breakers
(xcix. ) ; the righteous are to raise prayers and
place them before the angels, who are to place the
sin of sinners for a memorial before the Most High
(xcix. 3). Sinners are to destroy one another
(c. 1-3) ; angels descend into secret places and
gather all who brought down sin (i.e. fallen angels) ;
the righteous and holy receive guardians till an end
is made of sin ; though the righteous sleep long,
they have nothing to fear ; angels, sun, moon, and
stars will witness to the sins of sinners (c. 4-13); God
is obeyed by all Nature, therefore His law should
be observed by men (ci. ). Terrors of the judgment-
day ; the righteous who died in misery are not to
grieve but await judgment (cii. 1-5). Taunts of
sinners — after death we and the righteous are equal
(cii. 6-11). Enoch knows a mystery from the
lieavenly tablets — the spirits of the righteous dead
shall live and rejoice (ciii. 1-4) ; woes of sinners
who died in honour — their spirits descend into
darkness, chains, and burning flame (ciii. 5-8) ;
woes of the righteous (ciii. 9-15) ; yet in heaven
the angels remember them for good, and their
names are WTitten ; they shall shine as lights of
heaven (civ. 1, 2) ; 'cry for judgment, and it shall
appear ' (civ. 3). The writings of Enoch are to be
given to the righteous — they give joy, uprightness,
and wisdom (civ. 9-13).
[Messianic fragment (cv. ). — God and the Messiah
to dwell with men.] {Noachic fragment (cvi.-
cvii.). — Lamech has a wondrous son ; Methuselah
inquires of Enoch at the ends of the earth about
him ; Enoch replies that a Deluge is to come
because of sin introduced by the fallen angels ;
this son shall alone be saved — sin will arise again
after him till the final anniliilation of evil.]
An independent addition (cviii.). — Another book
written by Enoch ' for his son and those who keep
the law in the last days ' ; the righteous are to wait
for the destruction of the ungodly, whose spirits
sufler in fire (cviii. 1-6) ; the spirits of the humble
who lived ascetic lives and belonged to the genera-
tion of light shall God bring forth in shining light
and seat each on the throne of his honour in never-
ending splendour (cviii. 7-15).
2. Title. — The work is referred to under several
titles. Of these the oldest are (a) the Books of
Enoch [Test. Jud. xviii. 1, Test. Lev. x. 5 [A] ;
Origen, c. Celsum, v. 54, in Num. Horn, xxviii. 2 —
this title is implied in the division of the work into
VOL. I. — 22
books ; 1 En. xiv. 1, IxxiL 1, Ixxxii. 1, xcii. 1,
cviii. 1 ; Syncellus, Chronographia [ed. Dind., 1829,
i. 20, etc.]) ; (b) the Words of Enoch (Jub. xxi. 10 ;
Test. Benj. ix. 1 ; cf. i En. i, 1, xiv. 1). Other
titles are (c) the Book of Enoch (Test. Lev. x. 5 [a] ;
Origen, de Princ. I. iii. 3, etc.) ; (d) the Writing of
Enoch (Test. Lev. xiv. 1 ; Tertullian, de Cultu lent.
i. 3) ; (e) Enoch (Jude " ; Ep. Bam. iv. 3 ; Clem.
Alex., Eclog. Proph. [ed. Dind., 1869, iii 456, 474] ;
Origen, in loannem, vi. 25, c. Celstim, v. 54 ; Ter-
tullian, de Cultu Fern, iL 10, de Idol, iv., xv.).
3. Canonicity. — That the work was recognized
as inspired in certain Jewish circles appears from
the above references in Jubilees and the Test. XII.
Patriarchs. St. Jude quotes a passage from it as
an authentic prophecy of Enoch. The Epistle of
Barnabas (xvi. 5) refers to it in the words X^ft yhp
f) ypa<trfi ; Athenagoras (Leg. pro Christianis, 24) as
A TO?s wpcxpriTais iKiretfxhvyirat ; Tert. (de Idol. XV.),
'Spiritus . . . prececinit per , . . Enoch' ; (de Cultu
i^ew. i. 3), ' scioscripturam Enoch . . . nonrecipia
quibusdam, quia nee in armarium Judaicnm admit-
titur . . . cum Enoch eadem scriptura etiam de
Domino praedicarit, a nobis quidem nihil omnino
rejicienduni est, quod pertiueat ad nos. ... A
Judaeis potest jam videri propterea reiecta, sicut
et cetera quae Christum sonant. ' Origen, however,
in c. Celsum, v. 54, says : iv rah iKKXijaiais au vdw
(pdperaL ihs Ofta rd eiriyeypa/ifjiiva tov 'Evujx /3(/3X(a.
Chrysostom (Horn, in Gen. vi. 1), Jerome (Coin, in
Ps. cxxxii. 3), and Augustine (de Civ. Dei, XV.
xxiii. 4) denounce the work as apocryphal, and this
opinion henceforward prevails.
4. Critical structure and dates. — That the work
was composite might be inferred from the external
evidence of the titles, ' Books ' or ' Words of Enoch,'
under which the work is quoted in other writings.
But internal evidence is more decisive. The fre-
quent headings, such as ' the book written by Enoch '
(xcii. 1), 'another book which Enoch wrote' (cviii.
1), and the divergence of historical outlook, of
method of treatment, of ideas and phrases, in the
various parts, point even more clearly to the fact
that the work in its present form is a redaction of
several of the more prominent writings belonging
to a diffuse and varied cycle of literature passing
under the name of Enoch. The work as we have
it falls naturally into five quit« distinct main
sections as shown in 1 above :
Section i. : Visions and jmimeys (for contents
see above). — xu.-xxxvi. belong to the earliest
Enochic portion of this section ; they are pre-
Maccabaean, as, unlike Ixxxiii.-xc, they make no
reference to Antiochus' persecution. They fall
into subsections : xii.-xvi. (out of their original
order), xvii.-xix., xx.-xxxvi. Chs. vi.-xi. belong
to the earlier Book of Noah (see below). Chs. i.-v.
appear to be an introduction written by the final
editor of the entire work. The problem in this
section is the origin of evil, which is traced to the
fall of the Watchers. There is no Messiah ; God
Himself is to abide with men (xxv. 3) ; all the
Gentiles will become righteous and worship God
(x. 21) ; the righteous are admitted to the tree of
life and live patriarchal lives with very material
joys and blessings.
Section ii. : The Parables (formerly known as
'the Similitudes'). — There are three Parables
(xxxviii.-xliv., xlv.-lvii., h'iii.-lxix.), while xxxvii.
forms an introduction, and Ixx. a conclusion to
them. Ch. Ixxi. belongs to the Third Parable.
There are many interpolations. Some are from
the Book of Noah— Ix., Ixv.-lxix. 25 confessedly,
and probably xxxix. 1-2, liv. 7-lv. 2 as well.
Behind the Parables proper lie two sources, as Beer
(Kautzsch's Apok. und Pseud, ii. 227) has shown :
one deals with the ' Son of Man ' — xl. 3-7, xlvi.-
xlviii. 7, Hi. 3-4, Ixi. 3-4, Ixii. 2-lxiiL, Ixix. 26-29,
338
ENOCH, BOOK OF
ENOCH, BOOK OF
Ixx.-lxxi., and has 'the an<jel who went with me'
as Enoch's interpreter ; the other deals with ' the
Elect One' — xxxviii.-xxxix., xl. 1-2, 8-10, xli. 1-2,
9, xlv., xlviii. 8-10, l.-lii, 1-2, 5-9, liii.-liv. 6, Iv.
3-lvii., Ixi. 1-2, 5-13, ixii. 1, and has the 'an<;el of
peace ' as interpreter of tlie vision (so Charles,
Enoch, p. 65). Only the former source attributes
pre-existence to the Son of Man (xlviii. 2). This
section is full of peculiar features, e.g. ' Lord of
Spirits 'as a Divine title; Phanuel replaces Uriel
as the fourth archanf^el. The angelolo;,'y is more
developed : besides Clierubim, we have Serapiiini,
Ophannim, angels of power and of princijialities.
And so is the demonology : the origin of evil is
traced back to the Satans and an original evil
spirit- world. The Messiah is eternally pre-existent,
and all judgment is committed to Him. The date
of this section appears to lie between 95 and 64
B.C. and probably between 95 and 79. ' The kings
and the mighty ' are evidently the later Maccabamn
princes and their Sadduciism supporters. Tlie
mighty cannot refer to the Romans ; it must refer
to the Sadducfean nobles, who did not support the
Herods. The problem is the oppression of the
righteous by the kings and mighty, and the
solution consists in a vision of the coming liberator
and vindicator, the Messiah of supernatural power
and privilege.
Section hi. : The Book of the Heavenly Lumin-
aries.— (yhs. Ixxii.-lxxviii., Ixxxii., Ixxix. are
original to this section ; Ixxx. and Ixxxi. are in-
terpolations. The conceptions at times approach
those of i.-xxxvi., but the points of divergence are
very numerous. The date is not ascertainable.
The object is to establish the solar year of 364 days
as a Divine law revealed as early as the time of
Enoch (Ixxiv. 12 as emended. Cf. Juh. vi. 32-36).
Section iv. : The Dream Visions. — There is only
one interpolation — xc. 14^. xc. 13-15 and xc. 16-
18 are doublets. Tliere is close agreement with
and evident knowledge of vi.-xi., but no depend-
ence on them. The concei)tions are more spiritual
and developed. The date would be before 161 B.C.,
as Judas Maccabjeus is still warring (xc. 13) ; the
end is expected to be about 140 B.C., as the fourth
period of twelve shepherds would end then. The
problem is the continued depression of Israel after
the Return, which is attributed to the neglect of
its seventy angelic guardians.
Section v. — This section really commences with
xcii. 1 (see heading), and the original order of the
first four chapters was xcii., xci. 1-10, 18-19, xciii.
1-10, xci. 12-17, xciv. ; of these xciii. 1-10, xci. 12-
17 form the short 'Apocalypse of Weeks.' There
is a close resemblance throughout xci. -civ. to i.-
xxxvi., in phrases, references, and ideas, but the
divergences are not less numerous (see Charles, p.
21911".). The righteous alone rise, and in spirit
only, not in body, to walk in eternal light in heaven.
Contrast the crude materialism of i.-xxxvi. The
date is determined by the interpretation we put on
ciii. 14, 15 — ' the rulers . . . did not remove from
us the yoke of those that devoured us and dispersed
us and murdered -us.' If the massacre of the
Pharisees by John Hyrcanus is meant, the date
must be later than that year — 94 B.C. (cf. Parables).
Otherwise, 104-95 B.C. (so Charles). The problem
is ethical (the seeming impunity of the prosperous
wicked — who, however,ataeathdescend toSiieoland
the flame for ever), not national, as in Ixxxiii.-xc.
cv. — An independent Me.><sianic fragment; cvi.-
cvii. — part of the earlier Rook of Noah ; c\ iii.
Sresupposes i.-xxxvi. and xci. -civ., and is later in
ate, and strongly ascetic, if not Essene, in tone.
Book of Noah. — Scattered through the work we
find a series of more or less fragmentary passages
— vi.-xi., liv. 7-1 V. 2, Ix., Ixv.-lxix. 25, cvi.-cvii.,
and probably xxix. 1, 2*) — which generally refer
to Noah and the Deluge. Their inclusion appears
to be due to the final editor, who forced into what
are often awkward contexts fragments of this
earlier work, or series of works, wiiicli we also
know from Jtib. vii. 20-39, x. 1-15, xxi. 10.
5. The text.— The t«xt is not extant in the
original Semitic form, but we possess a Greek
translation of a part, and an Ethiopic version of
the whole.
(1) The Greek version exists in duplicate to some
extent, {a) The superior in point of text is to be
found in Syncellus (Chronographia, ed. Dind. i.
20-23, etc.), who quotes vi.-x. 14, xv. 8-xvi. 1, and
also gives viii, 4-ix. 4 in variant form. He also
gives a quotation ' from the first book of Enoch
concerning the watchers' (ed. Dind. i. 47) which
does not occur in our present text, (b) The longer
but less accurate text for i.-xxxii. (and xix. 3-xxi.
9 in duplicate) was discovered in 1886-7 at Aklimim,
and published by Rouriant in 1892. Another
fragment, in tachygraphic characters, exists in a
Vatican Greek MS — no. 1809 (see at eml of this art. ).
(2) The Ethiopic version, which is a translation
from the Greek, is known in '29 MSS, of whicli 15
are in England. The best are numljered gg^mqtu
in Charles's Ethiopic text (q.v.). This text is in-
ferior to that of the Syncellus Greek and is much
nearer to that of the Akhmim Fragment (known
generally as the ' Gizeh Greek ').
(3) The Latin version is a mere fragment, cvi.
1-18, discovered in 1893 by M. R. James in the
Rritish Museum and published by him in that
year in TS ii. 3.
(4) The quotations, both Greek and Latin, except
for those in Syncellus, add little to the restoration
of the true text. See Lawlor, art. in Journal of
Philology, xxv. [1897] 164-225, and Charles's Intro-
ductions under ' Influence on Patristic Literature'
in his two recent editions.
6. Original language. — The original language is
now admitted to be Semitic — either Hebrew or
Aramaic. Chs. vi.-xxxvi. were almost certainly
in Aramaic, The transliterations tpovKd (xviii. 8),
/xavSo^apd (xxviii. 1), and ^a^Srjpi (xxix. 1), all
show the Aramaic termination ; while in vi. 7 and
viii. 3 the proper names are only appropriate in
Aramaic. To the rest of the book (except Ixxxiii.-
xc, which was possibly in Aramaic) Charles un-
hesitatingly assigns a Hebrew original. In xxxvii.-
Ixxi. Hchmidt (OT and Se^nitic Studies, 1908, ii. 336-
343) argues for Aramaic, but is answered by Charles.
7. Poetical element. — This bulks largely in
1 Enoch, but was first recognized by Charles, who
prints it in verse form in his two recent editions.
Its recognition is of use in helping at times to
restore the true order, and at times to excise
dittographs.
8. Influence on NT.— (1) Diction and idea.s.—
(a) The Epistle of St. Jude is remarkable for con-
taining, with the possible exception of '2 Ti 3', the
only two direct citations from pseudepigraj>hs in
the NT. And of these two citations the only one
made by name is from the Book of Enoch, which
is quoted as though it pos.sessed much the same
authority as a canonical book of prophecy. It may
be instructive to compare tlie words in Jude with
the text of Enoch as restored by Charles :
Jude '■*• "* — 'ISoii 7i\dei' Kvpiot iv 1 En. i. 9— 'ISou ipxtrax avvnut
ayi'atf nvpidcriv avToii, fivpiairiy ayt'aiv avrou,
iroiTjo'ai KpitTiV Ktna irdvrutv, iroti7(rai Kpi<Tiv vara irai'rwM,
(cat f Ae'yfai irdi'Tas Toiis dat- Koi arroAfcrai jroiTot tous airt-
KaX iXiy^ai ndtrav vapxa
wept ndi'Twv (pyuv ttj^ a<r<-
/3«ia{ avTciii' mv r)<TfPr)(Tay
Kai (TK\r)pu>y un* eXdXTjfTav ko-
ytav Kar' avTOV afxaprwAot
(itrc/Sctt.
For the aKX-qpol Xdyoi cf. 1 En. v. 4, xxvii. 2.
Further, St. Jude's (lescription of Enoch as 'the
TTcpt Trai^wi' Toil' tpytav aire-
peiai avriiv mv y\(Tf^Tiaov
Ka\ mpl jrotTioi" tmv aKKi\puv
ttv t\dX.ri<rav xar' ai>ToO aft-
apTuAol acTc/Sctf.
EXOCH, BOOK OF
EXOCH, BOOK OF
339
seventh from Adam ' is identical with tliat in the
Noachic interpolation in the Parables (Ix. 8).
The Epistle is full of reminiscences of Enoch.
Cf. Jude *, ' denying our only Master and Lord,
Jesus Christ,' with 1 En. xlviii. 10, 'they have
denieil tiie I^ord of Spirits and His Anointed ' ;
Jude", 'angels which . . . left their proper habita-
tion,' with 1 En. xii. 4, ' the Watchers . . . who
have left the high heaven,' and xv. 7, ' as for the
spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their
dwelling ' ; Jude ", ' kept in everlasting bonds under
darkness unto the judgment of the great day,' with
1 En. X. 4-6, ' Bind Azazel . . . and cast him into
the darkness . . . and cover him with darkness,
and let him abide there for ever . . . and on the
day of the great judgment he shall be cast into
the fire,' and x. 11, 12, 'Bind Semjaza . . . bind
them fast for seventy generations . . . till the
Judgment that is for ever and ever is consum-
mated ' ; Jude ", ' wandering stars,' with 1 En. xviii.
15, xxi. 2, 3, 6.
(b) 2 Peter is closely related to Jude, and 2 P 2*
is more than an echo of Jude®. The fuller details,
indeed, may be due to 1 Enoch, while the juxta-
position of the first judgment on the angels in 2 P
2* with the Deluge in 2 P 2* is characteristic of 1
Enoch as it stands, especially in its Noachic interpo-
lations, e.j/. x. 1-16, Ixv. 1-lxvii. 4. AsNoah iscalled
' a preacher of righteousness' in 2 P 2^, we might
venture to assume that this title implies that he,
and not Christ, was taken to be the preacher to
the spirits in prison in 1 P 3" by the author of 2
Peter. If this be admitted, 1 P 3i»- ^ might pos-
sibly be claimed as witnessing to the original form
of tlie Noah Apocalypse in which it was not Enoch
but Noah who was sent to reprimand the Watchers
(see 1 En. xii. 1-4, ' Enoch was hidden . . . and
his activities had to do with the Watchers. . . .
"Enoch, thou scribe of righteousness, go declare
to the Watchers " '). In support of this view we
may note (a) that the references to the sin of
the angels are all (except Ixxxvi. 1) in Noachic
passages ; (^) that in defiance of chronology and
the context the name ' Noah ' has been altered to
• Enoch ' in Ix. 1 ; that ' the longsuflering of God
waited ' in 1 P 3** seems to echo 1 En. Ix. 5, ' until
this day lasted His mercy ; and He hath been
merciful and longsutfering. . . .' Cf. too Ixvi. 2
and Ixvii. 2, where angels hold the waters in
check and other angels are constructing the ark,
with 1 P S-"", ' while the ark was a-preparing.'
On the other hand, of course, there are great
exegetical difficulties in 1 P 3'*' ** in the way of this
view, thougli ' the spirits . . . which aforetime
were disoljedient' suggests angelic and not human
offenders, and the prison of the angels is a common-
place in 1 En. (x. 4, 12, xix. 1, xxi. 10, Ixvii. 4,
etc. ).
(r) In St. John's First Epistle we have the fre-
quent contrast between light and darkness so
characteristic of 1 Enoch : e.g. 1 Jn 1" ' walk in the
light ' I! 1 En. xcii. 4 ; 1 Jn 2* ' the darkness is pass-
ing away ' I! 1 En. Iviii. 5. The warning in 1 Jn
2*', ' love not the world, neither the things that
are in the world,' has a close parallel in 1 En.
cviii. 8, ' loved not any of the good things which
are in the world,' and in xlviii. 7.
(d) For St. James's woes against the rich (5^"*),
only paralleled in the NT by our Lord's words on
the danger of trusting to wealth, cf. 1 En. xlvL 7,
Ixiii. 10, xciv. 8-11, xcvi. 4-8, xcvii. 8-10.
(c) The Book of Revelation is naturally full of
Jewish apocalyptic phraseology and imagery, and
parallels are abundant with 1 Enoch, (a) Angel-
olofjy. — 'Seven (arch)angels ' (Rev 8- and? 1* 4')!!
1 En. XX. 1-8, xc. 21 ; 'four living creatures' (Rev
4*) y ' four presences ' (1 En. xl. 2-9) ; ' have no
rest day and night' (Rev 4*) || 1 En. xxxix. 13;
angels ottier men's prayers to GJod (Rev &•*; cf.
5*) I! 1 En. ix. 1-3, xlvii. 2, xcix. 3 ; angels of
winds (Rev 7") and of waters (16') [| 1 En. Ixix. 22.
(/3) Demonology. — ' A star from heaven fallen unto
the earth ' (Rev 9')— for phrase cf. 1 En. Ixxxvi.
1 ; ' Satan . . . accuser of our brethren . . . be-
fore our God' (Rev 12*-"') || 'Satans . . . before
the Lord of Spirits ... to accuse them who dwell
on the earth' (1 En. xl. 7); the false prophet 'de-
ceiveth them that dwell on the earth ^ (Rev 13") ||
the ' hosts of Azazel . . . leading astray those
who dwell on the earth ' (/ En. liv. 56) ; idolatry as
demon worship (Rev 9^) \\ 1 En. xix. 1, xcix. 7.
(•y) Boasting of rich. — ' I am rich and have gotten
riches ' (Rev 3") I! * we have become rich A>-ith riches
and have possessions ' (i En. xcvii. 8). (5) Stages of
judgment. — Praj^er of saints for vengeance (Rev
6'") II 1 En. xlvii, 2, etc. ; terror of the kings and
the great at the sight of ' him that sitteth on the
throne' and at 'the ^v^ath of the Lamb' (Rev 6")
ii ' when they see that Son of Man sitting on the
throne of His glory ' (i En. Ixii. 5) ; the sinners'
blood rises to the horses' bridles (Rev 14^) [[ to the
horses' breasts (i En. c. 3) ; books opened (Rev
20'-) \\ 1 En. xc. 20 ; book of life (Rev 201*) ||
books of the living (1 En. xlvii. 3) ; Satan bound
for a thousand years (Rev 20^) and then cast into
lake of fire (20^*) i! Semjaza and his associates
bound for seventy generations (i En. x. 12) and
then led off to the abyss of fire (x. 13). (c) Resur-
rection.— The sea, death, and Hades give up their
dead (Rev 20J») 1| the earth, Sheol, and hell (i En.
li. 1), the desert and the sea (Ixi. 5) restore their
dead, (i") The future reuxtrds of the righteous. —
' Blessed are the dead wMch die in the tord ' (Rev
14'*) li ' Blessed is the man who dies in righteous-
ness' (1 En. Ixxxi. 4); saints in white raiment
(Rev 3*) II angels clothed in white {1 En. xc. 31)
and saints (clad) in shining light (cviii. 12) ; ' foun-
tains of waters of life ' (Rev 7'') il a ' bright spring
of water ' (i En. xxii. 9 ; cf. xlviii. 1) ; eat with
Christ (Rev 3») \\ ' with that Son of Man shall they
eat and lie down and rise up for ever' {1 En. Ixii.
14) ; sit on throne with Christ (Rev 3=^ ; cf. 20*)
II 'I will seat each on the throne of his honour'
(cviii. 12) ; Christ will spread His tabernacle over
them (Rev 7**) II ' I will cause my Elect One to
dwell among them ' {1 En. xlv. 4) ; 'no turse
any more ' (Rev 22')|| ' no sorrow or plague,' etc.
(i En. XXV. 6).
(/) In Acts we have a parallel with 1 Enoch : Ac
10* ' thy prayers . . . are gone up for a memorial
before God 'jj 1 En. xcix. 3 ' raise your prayers as a
memorial. . . before the Most High.'
ig) Hebrews.— With He 4'* cf. 1 En. ix. 5 'all
things are naked and open in thy sight, and thou
seest all things and nothing can hide itself from
thee' ; cf. also He 11'" 12- (the heaveni}- Jerusalem
built by God Himself) with 1 En. xc. 29 ; 11* refers
to the translation of Enoch and nnderst^inds 'walked
with God' in Gn 5^ as ' pleased God.' Cf. 1 En.
XV. 1.
{h) St. PauFs Epistles.— 1 Th 5» I! / En. Ixii. 4
' then shall pain come upon them as on a woman in
travail' ; Ro838(cf. 2ThP,Eph 1-', Col l'«)iii^n. Ixi.
10 'angels of power and . . . of principalities.' With
2 Co 4" cf. 1 En. xxxviii. 4 ' the Lord of Spirits has
caused Ms light to appear (so Charles) on the face
of the holy, righteous, and elect' ; 2 Co IP' i| 1 En.
Ixxvii. 1 ' He who is blessed for ever ' ; Gal 1* |j 1 En.
xlviii. 7 'this world of unrighteousness' ; Ph 2'" ||
1 En. xlviii. 5 ' shall fall down and worship before
him (=Son of Man)'; Col 2» ;! i En. xhi. 3 'the
Son of Man . . . who revealeth all the treasures
of that which is bidden ' ; 1 Ti 1' i! i En. xciii. 4 'a
law- shall be made for the sinners' ; 1 Ti 1'* J! 1 En.
xciv. 1 ' worthy of acceptation ' ; 1 Ti 5=^ i| i En.
xxxix. 1 ; 1 Ti 6'® II 1 En. xiv. 21 ' none of the angels
340
ENOCH, BOOK OF
ENOCH, BOOK OF
could enter and could holiold liis face by reason of
the maj^nificence and glory, and no Uesn could be-
hold him.'
(t) NT in general. — VhrnseB which recur in the
NT arc ' Lord of lords and King of kings' (/ En. ix. 4,
Rev IT'*; cf. 1 Ti 6">) ; ' holy angels ' (i A'n. Ixxi. 1,
etc., llev 14'", etc. ; cf. Ac lO-") ; 'the generation
of light' (2 En. cviii. 11): cf. Eph 5" 'children
of light,' 1 Th 5» 'sons of light' (so Lk 16«,
Jn 12*').
(2) Theology.— (ffl) T/ie Messiah.— The 'Son of
Man ' in the Parables is pre-cxistcnt : ' before the
sun and the signs were created, before the stars of
the heaven were made, his name was named before
the Lord of Spirits ' (xlviii. 3), ' for this reason hatli
he been chosen and hidden before him, before the
creation of tlie world and for evermore" (xlviii. 6),
' for from the beginning the Son of Man was hidden,
and the Most High preserved him in the presence
of his might, and revealed him to the elect (Ixii. 7 ;
cf. xxxix. 6, 7, xlvi. 1-3). For ' before the creation '
cf. Col 1", and for ' from the beginning' cf. Jn P,
IJn P, Rev 1" 21« 22'^ and for ' revealed ' cf. 1 Ti 3i«,
1 Jn 3''*, and esp. 1 P l'^. He is a supernatural
being. In Dn 7'^ the * one like unto a son of man '
is brought before God and dominion is bestowed on
him. In 1 En. xxxix. 6, 7, xlvi. 1, 2, Ixii. 7 the
'Son of Man' is with God (cf. Jn 1^) and will
sit on His throne (li, 3). He is the ideally Bight-
coMs One(xxxviii. 2) — 'theRigliteous and Elect One
(liii. 6 ; cf. xlvi. 3) ; cf. Ac 3^* V^ 22^* 1 Jn 2^. He is
the Elect (xl. 5, xlv. 3, 4, xlix. 2, 4, etc.) ; cf. Lk 9^
23*^; tlie Anointed or Christ (xlviii. 10, lii. 4). He
has all knowledge (xlvi. 3, xlix. 2, 4), all ivisdom
(xlix. 1,3, li. 3), all dominion (Ixii. 6; cf. Mt 28i8).
' The sum of judgment ' is ' given unto the Son of
Man' (Ixix. 27 ; cf. Jn 5*^ ^). God ' appoints a judge
for them all and he judges them all before Him '
(xli. 9 ; cf. Ac 17^'). He judges both men and
angels (li. 2, Iv. 4, Ixi. 8, Ixii. 2, 3). He is Vindicator
of the righteous (but not redeemer of mankind). He
has ' preserved the lotof the righteous ' (xlviii. 7) and
will be ' the hope of those who are troubled of heart '
(xlviii. 4). He has been revealed to the righteous
(Ixii. 7) and in due time will 'cause the house of
his congregation to appear ' (liii. 6). Outside the
Parables God Himself is the Judge (cf. 1 P 1",
Rev 20^2) ; in the Parables it is the Son of Man
(cf. 1 P 4», Rev 6i«-" 2212, etc.). It is an unforgiv-
able sin to deny the Anointed One (xlviii. 10). The
words ' in his name they are saved ' in xlviii. 7
must refer to the Lord of Spirits, not to the Son of
Man, as Charles takes it. Eor the phrase, however,
cf. Ac 412, 1 Co 6".
(b) Messianic Kingdom. — Whereas in i.-xxxvi.
there is a very sensuous conception of Messianic
bliss, and the scene of the Kingdom is the existing
Jerusalem and Holy Land purified from sin, in
Ixxxiii.-xc. we find a more advanced conception.
The centre of the Kingdom is now to be a new Jeru-
salem brought to earth by God Himself (cf. He 12^,
Rev 3^2 21*), and the citizens of it are to be trans-
formed after the likeness of the Messiah, whose
origin is, however, natural and human. In xci.-civ.
we have a Kingdom of limited duration, followed
by the last judgment (cf. Rev 20'»- »• ""'»). In the
Parables we have a new heaven and a new earth,
under a supernatural head, the fount of wisdom,
righteousness, and power.
(c) The Resurrection in i.-xxxvi. is of soul and
body to a limited life in an eternal Messianic
Kingdom on earth. In the Parables the resurrec-
tion is to a spiritual Kingdom, in which the holy
are clothed with a spiritual body, 'garments of
life ... of glory ' (Ixii. 16 ; cf. 1 Co IS"- ", 2 Co
o'"*). In xci.-civ. there is a resurrection of the
spirit only.
(d) The Judgment in 2 Enoch precedes the King-
dom, except in xci.-civ. (for which cf. Rev 21"").
See under 8 (2) (n) above.
(c) Sheol or Hades in 1 En. xxii. is a place of souls,
good and bad, in the intermediate state, in 1 En.
Ixiii. 10, xcix. 11, ciii. 7 of wicked souls in their
final state of woe ; cf. Rev 20"-'* (of wicked only (?)
in intermediate state).
(/) lietribution and salvation. — In xci.-civ. the
tone is extremely ' other-worldly,' and the contrast
between the present prosperity of the wicked and
the sutterings of the righteous and their future
destinies is emphasized throughout. Judgment
will be according to works, which ' the Son of
Man will try' (xlv. 3) and judge, 'and in the
balance shall (men's) deeds be weighed ' (Ixi. 8 ; cf.
xli. 1). These works, however, are the outcome of
faith on the part of ' the righteous whose elect
works,' as also they themselves, ' hang upon the
Lord of Spirits ' (xxxviii. 2 ; cf. xl. 5, xlvi. 8). The
' elect ' is a frequent title of the righteous, and im-
plies dependence \ipon God's grace.
(g) Sin and repentance. — Man's will is free, and
the two ways of righteousness and violence lie
before him for his choice (xci. 18, xciv, 3). Though
sin goes back in origin to the fallen angels and the
Satans, ' man of himself has created it ' (xcviii. 4 ;
cf. Ja 1"'"). 1 En. xl. 9 assigns to Phanuel the
oversight of ' repentance unto hope of those who
inherit eternal life.' On the other hand, repent-
ance will be unavailing for men after the manifes-
tation of the Son of Man on the throne of gloiy
(Ixiii. 1-11), and at all times for fallen angels (xii.
6, xiv. 4, Ixv. 11).
{h) Angels.— 'M&m&ge is forbidden to them (xv.
7 ; cf. iMt 222S-33) ; 1 Co ll^" possibly refers to the
seduction of angels by women, which, however,
agrees with the narrative of the angels' fall in
Jubilees rather than in 1 Enoch.
(i) The conversion of the Gentiles is expected
generally in 1 Enoch, e.g. x. 21, 1. 2, xc. 30, 33,xci. 14.
LlTKRATURB. — I. ClIIEP KD1TI0S8 OP THK TKXT. — (i.) In the
Greek vemions.—U . Bouriant, Fragments du texte gree du
Livre d' Henoch { = Mimmres publics par leg meiubres de la
missdon archeologique franfaise au Cajre, Paris, 18y2-!)9. toni.
ix. fasc. i.), pp. 91-136 ; A. Lods, L'E'nangile et FApocali/pse
de Pierre avcc le texte grec du Livre d'Henoch. Fac-simiU du
manuserit reproduit en Sh planches doubles, en heliogravure
(=M<imoires publics par leg menibres de la mission archio.
loqiqxte fran<;aise au Caire, torn. ix. fasc. iii.), also Le Livre
d'Hinoch: Fragments grecs decouverts d Akhniim, publifs
avec les variantes du texte ithiopien, traduits et annates, Paris,
1892 ; A. Dillmann, ' Uber den neugefundenen gTiechtschen
Text des Henochbuches ' in Sitzungsberiehte der kgl. preuss.
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, li.-liii. | Berlin, 1892),
pp. 1039-1054, 1079-1092; R. H. Charles, The Hook of Enoch,
Oxford, 1893, pp. 318-370, 21912, pp. 273-305 ; H. B. Swete,
OT in Greek, vol. iii. [Cambrid;re, 1905], pp. 789-809 ; J. Flem-
ming and L. Radermacher, Das Buck Henoch, Leipzig, 1901,
pp. 18-60, 113-114. For the Vatican Fragment, see A. Mai,
Patrum Nova Bibliotheca, Rome, 1844-71 ; J. Gildemeister,
in ZDMG ix. [1855] pp. 621-4, and O. von Gebhardt in Merx'
Archiv fiir witsenscha/tl. Erforsehungen des AT, Halle, 1872,
ii. 243.
(ii.) In the Latin version..— M. R. James, \n TS n. 3 : Apoc-
rypha Anecdota, Cambridge, 1893, pp. 146-1.50 ; R. H. Charles,
BookofEnoch^, pp. 372-375, 2pp. 264-268 ; Anecdota Oxonirnsia.
The Ethiopia Version of the Book of Enoch, Oxford, 1906, p.
2 ff. ; Apocrypha and Pseudepiqrapha, Oxford, 1913, pp. 278, 279.
(iii.) In the Ethiopia version. — R. Laurence, Libri Enoch
Versio Aethiopica, Oxford, 1838 ; A. Dillmann, Liber Ilenoeh,
Aethiopice, ad quinque codicum fidem editiis. cum variis lee-
tionibtis, Leipzig, 1851 ; R. H. Charles, Anecdota Oxoniensia.
The Ethiopia Femon of the Book of Enoch ; J. Flemming, Dot
Buch Ilenoch: Aethiopischer Text ( = TIT, new ser., vii. 1)
Leipzig, 1902.
(iv.) In translations.— R. Laurence, The Book of Enoch . . .
now first translated from an Ethiopia MS in the Bodleian
Library, Oxford, 1821 ; A. Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch iiber-
setzt und erklart, Leipzig, 1853 ; G. H. Schodde, The Book of
Enoch translated with I ntrodtiction and Notes, Andover, 1882 ;
R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch translated from DUlmann'i
Ethiopia Text emended and revised . . ., Oxford, 1S93, translated
anew from the Editor's Ethiopia Text .... Oxford, 1912; G.
Beer, in Kautzsch's Apok. vnd Pseud., Tubingen, 1900, ii. 286-
310 ; J. Flemming: and L. Radermacher, Das Buch Henoch ;
F. Martin, Le Livre d'HiUioch traduit sur le texte tthiopim,
Paris, 1906 ; R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,
u. 188-281.
EXVY
EP.EXETUS
341
I
II. Chief critical WQnnuBS.—G. C F. Liicke, Einleitung in
die Ofenbarung des Johaniug^, Bonn, 1852, pp. 8SK144. 1071-3 ;
A. rTillmann, 1)03 Buch Henoch iiOerseUt uiid erklari, also in
PRE^ \\l [I860) 308-310. PRE^ xii. [18S3J 350-352 ; G. H. A-
Ewald, Abkandlung iiber det athiopitehen Buches Hendkk
Entstehung, Sinn und Zusammenteteung, Gottineen, 1854 ;
Higtory of JtraeP, London, 1869-80, v. 345-9; A. HUgenfeld,
Die jiidiseke ApokalyptiJt, Jena, 1867, pp. 91-184 ; J. Halevy,
' Recherches sur Is lanf^e de la i^daction primitive du livre
d'Enoch, in J A, 1867, pp. 352-395; O. von Gebhardt, 'Die 70
Hirten des Buches Henoch ..." in Merx' Archie j'iir witten-
tehafa. Er/orsehung des AT, vol ii. pp. 163-246 ; Tideman, 'De
Apokalypse van Henoch en het Essenisme,' in Theol. njdtekrtft,
1875, pp. 261-296 ; J. Dnunmond, The Jewish Mestifth, London,
1877, pp. 17-73; E. Schiirer, HJP u. iii. [Edinburi^h, 1886]
pp. 54-73; W. Baidenspereer, Das Selbstbeicusttsetn Jmu,
Strassburg, 18SS, pp. 7-16 ; R. H. Charles, Book of Enoch ;
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, ii. 163-1S5 ; C. Clemen, ' Die
Zusammensetzung des Buches Henoch,' in Theoiogisehe Studien
und KritiJcen, Ixxi. [1S9S], pp. 211-227 ; G. Beer, in Kautzsch's
Apok. und Pseud, des AT ii. 224-230; J. Flemmingr and L.
Radermacher, Dag Bueh Henoch ; F. Martin, Le Livre
d'Henoch. A. Ll. DA^aES.
ENYY. — Envy is the feeling of mortification or
ill-will occasioned by the contemplation of the
superior advantages of others.
' Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach'
(Thomson, Seasons, 'Spring,' 2S3X
In the NT the word is used to translate two Gr.
terms, ipBopos and f^Xos, the former of which is
invariably (with the possible exception of Ja 4')
taken in malam partem, while the latter is fre-
quently used in a good sense.
(1) 'fhose who are given up to a reprobate mind
are ' full of envy ' (^eoToi)? tf>66vov, Ro 1^), and the
character of the word is strikingly indicated by
the company it keeps, <pd6vo% and <f>6vo^ ( ' murder )
going together. Among the works of the flesh
are ' envyings ' (Gal 5*^), such as are occasioned by
quarrels about words (1 Ti G*). Christians can
recall the time when they were ' living in malice
and envy ' (Tit 3') ; and even now they need the
injunction to ' put away all envies' (1 P 2^) ; it ill
becomes them to be seen ' provoking one another,
envying one another ' (Gal 5*). In Rome St. Paul
found, witli mingled feelings, some men actually
preaching Christ from en^-y, moved to evangeli-
cal activity by the strange and sinister inspiration
of uneasiness and displeasure at his own success as
an apostle (Ph 1") (see Faction). If the RV of
Ja 4* is correct, <f>doveu3 has its usual evil sense, and
this difficult passage means, ' Do you think that God
will implant in us a spirit of envy, the parent of
strife and hate ? ' But it may be better to trans-
late, either, ' For even unto jealous envy (' bis zur
Eifersucht ' [von Soden]) he longeth for the spirit
which he made to dwell in us,' or ' That spirit
which he made to dwell in us yeameth for us
even unto jealous envy.' If either of the last two
renderings is right, <f>d6vos is for once ascribed to
God, or to a spirit which proceeds from Him, and
the word has no appreciable dilierence of meaning
from the f^Xos ('jealousy') which is so often at-
tributed to Him in the OT {debs fijXwnJj, Ex 20*,
etc.). He longs for the devotion of His people
with an intensity which is often present in, as
well as with a purity which is mostly absent from,
our human envy. Very different from this passion
of holj' desire was the <pd6voi of the pagan go<ls (t6
^eloi' TTav e<m <pdov€p6v, says Solon, Herod, i. 32 ; cf.
iii. 40) — that begrudging of uninterrupted human
happiness which CrcESUs and Polyerates had so
much reason to fear.
(2) In the RV of Ac 7" 13*> IT^, Ro V6^^, 1 Co 3»,
Ja 3'^ '^ ' jealousy ' is .substituted for AV ' en^'y,'
in Ac 5" for 'indignation,' and in 2 Co 12^ for
'emulation.' In all these instances the word is
f^Xoj (vb. fT/Xooj), usetl in a bad sense, though in
many other cases it has a good meaning and is
translated ' zeal ' (Ro W, 2 Co 7'- " 9S Ph 3«). In
2 Co 11- i'T^Xfj) deov means a zeal or jealousy like
that which is an attribute of God, most pure in its
quality', and making its possessor intensely solici-
tous for the salvation of men.
In 2 Co 9" the RVm suggests * emulation of you '
as the translation of 6 i'/uDv f^Xoi. William Law,
who calls envy ' the most ungenerous, base, and
wicked passion that can enter the heart of man '
(A. Whyte, Characters and Characteristics of
William Law*, 1907, p. 77), denies that any real
distinction can be diuwn between envy and emula-
tion.
' If this were to be attempted, the fineness of the distinction
would show that it is easier to divide them in words than to
separat« them in action. For emulation, when it is defined
in its best manner, is nothing else but a refinement upon envy,
or rather the most plausible p>art of that black and poisonous
passion. And though it is easy to separate them in the notion,
yet the most acute philosopher, that understands the art of
distinguishing ever so well, if he gives himself up to emulation,
will certainly find himself deep in envy.'
If this were the case, there would be an end of
all generous rivalry and fair competition. But it
is contrary to the natural feeling of mankind.
Plato says, ' Let every man contend in the race
without envy ' (Jowett-, 1875, v. 75), and St. Paul
frequently stimulates his readers with the lan-
guage of the arena. The distinction between
<p66yos and f^Xos (in the good sense) is broad and
deep. The one is a moral disease — ' rottenness in
the bones ' (Pr 14^), ' aegritudo suscepta propter
alterius res secundas ' (Cicero, Tiisc. iv. 8) ; the
other is the health and vigour of a spirit that
covets earnestly the best gifts. Nothing but good
can come of the strenuous endeavour to equal and
even excel the virtues, graces, and high achieve-
ments of another. Ben Jonson has the line, ' This
faire jeraulation, and no envy is,' and Dryden • a
noble emulation heats your breast.' f^Xos (from
f^w, 'boil') is, in fact, like its Hebrew equivalent
nicp (' heat,' ' ardour '), an ethically neutral energy,
which may become either good or bad, according
to the quality of the objects to which it is directed
and the spirit in which they are pursued. It in-
stigated the patriarchs (fijXwaojrrej, Ac 7*) to sell
their brother into Egjpt, and the Judaizers (fijXoO-
(Tip, Gal 4") to seek the perversion of St. Paul's
spiritual children. Love (aydri}) has no affinity
with this base passion (oii s'lyXoT, 1 Co 13*). Love
generates a rarer, purer zeal of its own, and ' it is
good to be zealously sought in a good matter at all
times ' (KoXdv 5^ ^-qXaOffOat (v Ka\(fi iravTore, Gal 4^*).
jAilES STKAHAK.
EP.SNETUS ('EvaLvfTos, Ro 16*— a Greek name).
— Epa?netus is saluted by St. Paul and described
as ' my beloved ' and as ' the firstfruits of Asia
unto Christ ' (rbv ayartjTOf fiov, os effru' drapxh ttj%
'Affiai eli XfuffrSy). The only other persons de-
scribed in Ro 16 as ' my beloved ' are Ampliatus
(rbv aya-rtfTov fiov iv icvpuf), v.^) and Stachys (v.*).
Persis, a woman, is saluted perhaps with inten-
tional delicacy as 'the beloved' (v.^-). Epaenetus
was probably a personal convert of the Apostle's,
and as such specially dear to him. He was the
tirst to become a Christian in the Roman pro-
vince of Asia (the TR reading 'Axatas must be re-
jected in favour of 'Afflas, supported by the over-
whelming authority of KABCD). Asstmiing the
Roman destination of these salutations, Epjtnetus
must have been at the time of writing resident
in or on a \'i.sit to Rome. (The discovery of an
Ephesian Epaenetus on a Roman inscription is
interesting but unimportant [Sanday-Headlam,
Romaiu^ (ICC, 1902), p. 421].) But the reference
to Epaenetus, together with the salutation of
Prisca and Aquila (v.'), who appear in 1 Co 16'»
and again in 2 Ti 4^8 as living in Ephesns, has
given rise to the suggestion that this section of
Romans was originally addressed to the Church of
Ephesus. Epaenetus, however, is not said to have
342
EPAPHRAS
EPAPHRODITUS
been an Ephesian (see Lightfoot, Biblical Essays,
1893, p. 301).
For the designation 'firstfruits' we must com-
pare the description of the ' household of Stephanas '
(1 Co 16'') — 'the firstfruits of Achaia' (dirapx') t^s
'Axalas) — and note the suggestion that ministry in
the Church was connected at first with seniority
of faith, a suggestion more than supported by
Clement of Rome, J<^p. ad Cor. xlii. Nothing
could be more natural tlian that the work of super-
intending the local Christian communities should
be entrusted to those among tlie first converts who
were found capable of undertaking it. The term
'firstfruits' had a special religious significance —
that of dedication to God — and this idea must have
been present when the original nucleus of a church
was so called. Epa!netus, as the senior Cliristian,
had a position of responsibility ; and that he was
actually a leader would appear from his place
in these salutations — second only to ' Prisca and
Aquila my fellow-workers' (Ro 16'). Cf. also
Andronicus and Junias (or Junia), who are said to
'have ))ccn in Christ' before tit. Paul, and the
possibility that tliey were known as apostles
(v.'') ; also tlie prominence given to Mnason as an
'original' disciple in Ac 21'". The position thus
given to the earliest converts of the missions and
the services demanded from them may have been
analogous to the privileges and obligations of the
relations of the Lord. Blood-relationship with
Jesus gave to those who could claim it an official
status in the Church which was handed on to their
descendants (see A. Harnack, Constitution and
Law of the Church, Eng. tr., 1910, pp. 32-37).
T. B. Allwokthy.
EPAPHRAS (shortened probably from Epaphro-
ditus, but not to be identified with the evangelist
so named). — Epapliras was a native or citizen of
Colossic (Col 4"), the founder, or at least an early
and leading teaclier of the Church there (Col V,
wliere Kal, 'also,' is omitted in the oldest MSS),
who had special relations with the neighbouring
churches of Laodicea and Hierapolis (4'^). St. Paul
had not yet visited this community when he wrote
Col. ; but if the reading vir^p i^ixwv ('on our behalf,'
' as our delegate ') be accepted in V (as by RV on
the autiiority of the three oldest MSS), the Apostle,
during his long residence at Ephesus, when ' all who
dwelt in Asia heard the Word ' (Ac 19'"), must have
specially commissioned Epapliras to evangelize
Colossaj in his (St. Paul's) name (Col 4'2- '3).
Epapliras' intimate association with St. Paul is
shown by the designations ' beloved fellow-bonds-
man ' (P) and 'fellow-captive' (Philem'"). Tlie
latter word (cf. Col 4'», Ro 16^), if it be not liere
used metaphorically, suggests either that Epaphras'
friendship with St. Paul created suspicion and thus
led to his arrest, or that he voluntarily shared the
Apostle's captivity (Lightfoot, Colossiatis^, 1879,
p. 34 f.).*
When Col. was written, Epaphras had recently
arrived in Rome, and had given St. Paul a report
of the Church of Colossu;. The Apostle assures
the Colossian Christians of Epaphras' great zeal
as well as fervent prayers for them ; and he conveys
to them the friendly greeting of their townsman,
who remained in Rome witii St. Paul (Col 4'-- '3).
The report about tiie Church of Colossie was on
the whole favourable. Epapliras testifies to the
spiritual life and fruitfulness of its members ; to
their conspicuous faith, hope, and charity (1*"*).
There was, however, a disquieting account of a
peculiar heresy, which had broken out in the com-
munity— a combination of Judaistic formalism with
Oriental theosophy (see CoLO.s.siANS). Ei)apiiras,
* Jerome {Com. on Phileni^S) mentions, without endorsing it,
a tradition Hiat St. Paul and Epaphras, in boyhood, were
carried together as captives iu war from Judaja to Tarsus.
liiled with anxiety, had wrestled {iywuii;'6n€i>oi) in
prayer for his converts ' that they mightstand fully
assured in all the Mill of God ' (4''''). Probably one
reason of his visit to Rome was to consult St. Paul
about this new peril. The solicitude of Ejiaphras
was shared by the Apostle, who, amid thanksgiving
for the spiritual progress of the Colossians, ad-
monishes them (1^) to abide in the truth, ' groundetl
and stedfast.' Epaphras sends salutations to the
household of Philemon, the letter to whom was
dispatched along with the Epistle to the Colossians.
Thenceforth Epaj)hras disappears from reliable
history ; later traditions represent him as ' bishop'
of Colossa", .as suffering martyrdom, and eventually
having his bones interred under the Church of Sta.
Maria Maggiore in Rome.
LiTKRATiiRK.— J. D. Strohhach, (le Epaphrd, 1710; Commen-
taries of Lightfoot, Ellicott, Eadie, Abbott, Wohlenberg'.
Maclaren, Haupt.etc, on Colossians ; F. Vigouroux, Diet, ae
la Bible, 1891-98 ; art. ' Kpapliras ' in IWIi, SUB, and EBi.
Henry Cowan.
EPAPHRODITUS ( = ' favoured by Aphrodite
[VeniLs],' 'comely'). — Epaphroditus was a lea<ling
member and delegate or messenger of the Philip-
pian Church, mentioned only in Ph 2^ and 4™.
He arrived in Rome during St. Paul's earlier im-
prisonment with a substantial 'gift' (presumably
of money) from the Philippian Christians to the
Apostle, of whose impoverishment they had heard.
After fulfilling his commission, and strengthening,
through his own warmly affectionate personality,
the bond of communion between the Apostle and
his ' dearly beloved ' Philippian converts, Epaphro-
ditus remained in Rome partlj' to render personal
service to St, Paul, as the representative of the
devoted Philippians, and partly to take a share in
the ' work of Christ ' as the Apostle's colleague in
missionary ministry. St. Paul describes him as
' my brother, and fellow-worker, and fellow-soldier,'
implying at once 'common sympathies, labours
undertaken in common, and community in suffer-
ing and struggle' (J. S. Howson, Companions of
St. Paid, p. 235). The 'true yoke-fellow,' also, of
Ph 4* is believed by Lightfoot {Philippiani^, 1878,
p. 158) to be most probably Epaphroditus, since ' in
his case alone there would be no risk of making
the reference unintelligible by the suppression of
the name.' His evangelistic zeal, however, com-
bined with devotion to St. Paul, over-taxed his
strength, and became the occasion of severe illness
which almost issued in death (2^* ^). It is notable
that St. Paul, whose power of working miracles is
frequently referred to (Ac W> 28», 2 Co 12'^), did
not exercise it in the case of Epaphroditus. It
was a power Avhicli, ' gi'cat as it was, was not his
own, to use at his own will' (Barry in Ellicott's
Com. on NT, 1884, Ph 2"). Some inner voice
doubtless enabled apostles to know when the time
for working a miracle ha<l come. But ' the prayer
of a righteous man availeth much ' ; and earnest
supplications were doubtless offered up in Rome by
St. Paul and the Church there for the recovery of
Epaphroditus. These prayers were heard. ' Grod
had mercy uiion him, and not on him only but on me
also, lest I should have sorrow on sorrow' (Ph 2/").
Meanwhile the Philippians had heard of their
delegate's illness, and by and by their anxiety
became known at Rome. Partly to relieve that
solicitude and to satisfy the ' longing ' of Epaphro-
ditus ; partly to convey the Apostle's grateful
acknowledgment of the recent gift ; partly also,
we may presume (although with delicate considera-
tion this reason is not expressly stated), in order
that the invalid's health may be fully restored
through entire rest such as he would not take in
Rome, the Apostle sends him back to Philippi
with a cordial testimony to his zealous lalK)urs and
chivalrous service. Epaphroditus thereafter dis-
EPHESLAJN^S, EPISTLE TO THE
EPHE8IANS, EPISTLE TO THE 343
api>ears from NT history, leavinj; behind him the
fra^'rant memory of self-forgetful and self-sacri-
ficing devotion at once to the person of St. Paul
and to the cause of Christ.
Theodoret (Com. on Ph 2^) represents Epaphro-
ditus (with some hesitation) as * bishop ' of Pnilippi.
Pseudo-Dorotheus includes him (without proba-
bilitj', however, since nothing suggests that he
was a Hebrew) among the Seventj' of Lk W ; and
he calls him 'bishop* of Andriace, the port of
Myra in Lycia. In \-irtue of the designation
drotTToXos (Ph 2®) the Greek Church places Epaphro-
ditus in the same rank with Barnabas, Silas, and
others ; but the context suggests the original
meaning, 'messenger.'
Ltterattkb.— H. S. Seekings, Men of Pauline Circle, 1914 ;
J. S. Howson. Companions of St. Paul, 1871 ; E. B. Redlich,
St. Paul and his Companions, 1913, p. 230; J. A. Beet, in
Expositor, 3rd ser. ix. [1889] 54 ff. ; Commentaries of Ellicott,
Eadie, Lightfoot, Vincent, Weiss, von Soden. See also
arte. iB HDB, SDB. and EBi. HEXRY CoWAN.
EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE.— 1. Date and
place of writing. — From internal e\'idence, there
is little difficulty in determining the circumstances
under which Ephesians was written. St. Paul is a
prisoner at the time (3' 4' &"), and writes from
prison to ' the saints which are in Ephesus.' His
imprisonment has lasted long enough to give rise
to grave anxiety among the Christian communities
(3'' 6-). He speaks of himself as 'the prisoner'
(3^ 4^), as though that were a title of honour con-
secrated by long use. This in itself makes it
natural to date the Epistle from Rome rather than
from Cjesarea. Other internal evidence, though
slight, points in the same direction. St. Paul's
captiWty permits at least some liberty in preaching
(6i»»' ; cf. Ac 2S^-''\ Ph 1^ "). The phrase ' I am
a chained ambassador' (6^) certainly has more
point after the appeal to Cfesar, and suggests that
St. Paul has reached Rome to bear wtness for the
gospel ' Ijefore kings.' And the grand, almost im-
perial, width of outlook which the Epistle shows
may well have been inspired in the pro-vincial
citizen from Tarsus when he came at last to see
with his own eyes the city which ruled the world,
with its centralized authority and its citizenship
open to every land and race (cf. Lock, art. ' Ephes-
ians' in HDB). It is thus natural to date the
Epistle c. A.D. 60.
This result would be quite inevitable if it could
be maintained that Eph. is a later work than Phil.,
which must certainly have been written from Rome
(Ph P^, etc. ). This has been argued by such writers
as Bleek, Lightfoot {PkUippians*, 1878, p. 30 fF.),
Sanday (Smith's DBT- L [1893] 627), Hort (Judaistic
Christianity, 1894, p. 115f.), Lock {loc. cit.). It is
true that Phil, resembles the earlier Epistles in
style and manner more than do the other Cap-
tivity Epistles. But it is impossible to postulate
an orderly development in these things in such a
writer as St. Paul. There is nothing in Eph. or
Col. more startling as a development of Pauline
doctrine than Ph •^". And the not« of urgency
and anxiety in Phil, marks it out as dating from
the last days of the captivity at Rome (cf. Motfatt,
LNT, pp. 168-170 : Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller
and the Roman Citizen, 1895, p. 357 f.).
A more certain result as to Eph. is given by its
relation to Col. and Philemon. The three Epistles
are all sent l)y the hand of Tychicus to the same
district. Col. and Philem. at least were sent to-
gether, and the literary connexion between Col.
and Eph. is so close that it seems inevitable to
associate Eph. with the other two. Philem. at
least must have been sent from Rome, despite the
arguments of Reuss and Meyer ; and this carries
with it the conclusion that Eph. was sent from the
same place (see art. CoLOSSlAXS).
2. Occasion and porpose.— This Epistle stands
alone among the Pauline literature. The other
twelve writings ascribed to St. Paul have all some
special and more or less urgent occasion and purjK>se,
whether personal or controversial. Here neither
purpose nor occasion can be clearly traced. The
writer is not concerned to press his claims against
rivals or opponents. The bitter controversy with
Jndaizing teachers lies in the past, and only faint
echoes of the battle can be heard (2"- '*• "). The
troubles at Colossae are in the background (1"-"
24.8 3J0 6«), but do not ruffle the serenity of the
writer's mind. No special dangers seem to lie be-
fore the readers. Apart from the address, indeed,
it would be difficult to see that any special readers
are intended, though in the main the Epistle is
addressed to Gentile converts (1" 2'- "• " etc.).
Some danger of false teaching is perhaps suggest^
in 4**- '^, but the references are quite general in
character. Controversy is laid aside for the time
being, and the writer deals with the problems of
the Gentile Church in a spirit at once detached
and lofty. Two special points emerge, half the
Epistle being devoted to each. Chs. 1-3 deal with
the respective positions of Jew and Gentile in the
unity of the Church, from which we may conjecture
that this was one of the main difficulties in the
churches founded by St. PauL It was, indeed,
inevitable that it should be so, as the controversies
of a few years before had shown. But now the
position is changed. The danger is no longer that
of the Judaizing teacher, but rather lest the grow-
ing Gentile communities should tend to despise the
Jewish Christians in their midst {l^-^- ""^^ ; cf. V--^*).
Chs. 4-6 deal with the most constant danger of the
Gentile convert — the danger of relapse into the vices
of paganism.
But neither of these dangers has come to the
front in any special form, and the dominant note
of the Epistle is not one of warning, but one of
praise and thanksgiving. The writer's mind is
full of one great theme — the unity of the Church
in Christ, predestined from all eternity to all
eternity, bound toother in faith and love. And,
as he takes up his argument, the st3ie ri.ses in
dignity and strength until we seem to be listening
to a Eucharistic hj-mn. Against the dangers of
the hour he sets the inspiration of a great ideal,
the One Body of Christ who died for Jew and
Gentile alike, the One Church, ordered by Christ
Himself, in which every man, if he will, may lead
the life of the Spirit.
3. Analysis.— (A) Chs. 1-3. The unity of the
Church, regarded as that in which Jew and
Gentile are at last one. The whole of this section
is an expansion of the typical thanksgiving and
f»rayer with which St. Paul usually opens his
etters.
(1) 11- ". Salutation.
(2) 1*"". Thanksgiving for the priviiegira be-
stowed in Christ upon the Church. This sec-
tion falls into three strophes, marked by the
refrain ' unto the praise of his glory,' and cor-
responding to the three Persons of the Trinity.
(a) w.**. Thank^ving for the ' adoption as sons,' pre-
destined by the Father before the foundation of the
world.
(6) >T.7 13. Thanksgiving for the revelation of God's good
pleasure in Christ, in whom we have redemption frota
sin, grace to live anew, and knowledge of our place in
God's purpose to sum up all things in Him.
(e) v\-.i3- ». Thanksgiving that in the Holy Spirit both
Jew and Gentile have even here and now an earnest
of that great heritage.
(3) 1^*-^. Prayer that the readers may grow to
a fuller understanding of the work of Christ.
(o) VT. 13-19. Prayer that they may realize more folly Mm
threefold blessing of w.3-i-» — their adoption as sons,
their heritage in Christ, their new life in the Spirit.
344 EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
(6) vv. 20-23. Prayer that they may come to see Christ as
He really is, the consumiiialion of all thiii^'H in heaven
and earth, and supreme Ueadof Ilis Chnrch.
(4) 2'"^. A further thanksgiving for all that is
implied in this conception of the Cliurch,
worked out especially in relation to the position
of Jews and Gentiles therein.
(a) vv.iio. The power of God which was shown in Christ
has been shown too upon all individual Christians,
whether Gentile (vv.l'2)or .Iew(v.3), raisinsj tliem from
the death of sin (v.* ; cf. 12"), causintr them to ascend
with Christ into the heavenly sphere (v." ; cf. l'-""), and
frivinjj them a place in the Church, throu(jrh which
Ood has purpoicd to work (vv.7-lo ; cf. 121-23).
(b) vv.ii---. Thus the divisions of humanity are healed.
The Gentile who was once far off is ' made nigh in the
hlood of Christ ' (vv.Ji 13). The barriers set up by the
Jewish Law arc broken down (vv.H- 15). .Jew and
Gentile now stand tofjether in one fellowship, both
haviny; their access to the Father through Christ in one
Spirit (vv.i" IS). So is the Temple of God built, with
Cnriat as its chief corner-stone (vv.i!>--'2).
(5) 3'-2'. A further prayer that the readers may
apprehend tiie fullness of this great life in
Christ, in which all the saints join (vv.^^"),
and a doxology, closing this section of the
Epistle (VV.2W- 21).
This section is interrupted by a passage ( vv.^"^^)
in which the writer dwells upon his own posi-
tion as the ' chosen vessel ' through whom this
mystery of the Church was to be preached to
the Gentiles. The appointed time and means
had been fixed by the purpose of God, and the
revelation given in the Church affected not
only earth but also all heaven. The sufferings
of the writer are thus no cause for discourage-
ment. They too lie in the purpose of God.
(B) Chs. 4-6. The unity of the Church, regarded
as a principle of conduct, enabling all to lead the
higher life.
(1) 4^-5-'. A general appeal addressed to the
whole Church.
(a) 41-3. Exhortations to lead the life of love, which is
the life of the Spirit.
(b) vv.'i-i"'. The unity of the Church, upon its practical
side, which rests upon the unity of God (vv.'»-6). it is
by God's gfift that the organization of the Church
exists in diverse ministries (vv .''-ii). And the purpose
of it all is ' the perfecting of saints,' that each may
take his place in the living whole of the Body of
Christ.perfect in faith and knowledge andlove (vv.i2-i6).
(c) VV.17--4. The old Gentile life, based upon ignorance
and resulting in impurity, contrasted with the new
life, based upon knowledge of Christ and resulting in
' righteousness and holiness of truth.'
(d) 4--''-52i. A more detailed description of the Christian
life as it should be lived by members of the Church.
(i.) 42s. Truthfuhiess — a lie to another Christian is
a lie to oneself.
(ii.) vv.2»-27. Control of temper, for fear of the
accuser, t.e. either of the Satan in heaven, or of
calumniators on earth.
(iii.) V.28. Honesty, as the basis of right giving.
(iv.) VV.29. 30. Pure conversation, lest others be in-
jured, and the Holy Spirit be grieved.
(v.) vv. 31.32. Gentleness, as God was gentle in
Christ.
(vi.) 61-2. Love, as Christ loved.
(vii.) vv.8-14. Purity of speech and action, even to
the avoidance of the foolish word and jest, as un-
worthy of our calling (vv.s. 4), as incurring God's
wrath (vv.s. 6), as wholly foreign to the life of light
in Christ fvv.714).
(viii.) vv. 15-17. Wise use of time, since the days
are evil.
(ix.) vv.18-21. Temperance and orderly thanksgiving
in public worship, and in particular at the love-
feasts (in the spirit of 1 Co 11-14).
(2) S^-Gi^. An exhortation to members of Chris-
tian families. The writer takes the family as
the type of the Church (cf. 3"), and applies
the general principles of the unity of the
Spirit to the details of family life.
(a) 622-24. Wives are to recognize the position of the
husband as head of the family, as Christ is head of the
Church.
(6) vv.25-33. Husbandsare to love their wives, with whom
they have been made one, as Christ loves the Church,
with which He is one.
(c) (!i-3. Children mustobey their parents, as is naturally
right, and as God has commanded.
id) v.*. Parents ought to train their children wisely.
(e) vv.6-8. Slaves are to obey loyally, since their obedi-
ence is to Ood Himself.
(/) V.9. Masters must treat their slaves Justly, since they
themselves are but slaves of a Master io heaven.
(3) 6'°""*, A general exhortation to all Chris-
tians to fight God's battle in His strength (v.'")
and clad in His armour (vv."- '^'"l, seeing that
the enemy is more than man (v.'^). The sec-
tion passes into a request for prayer for the
writer in prison (vv.''-*- 2"), and thus it naturally
leads up to a commendation of Tychicus, the
bearer of the letter, and then to a final
greeting.
i. Authorship. — The above analysis will make it
clear how carefully constructed and worked out
Ephesians is. The long sentences, cumbrous and
difficult to follow as they are, are yet almost
rhythmic in their balance. Everything is con-
nected and co-ordinated with the one great idea,
and the result is a composition quite unlike any
other writing assigned to St. Paul. Yet the claim
to Pauline authorship is quite explicit. It not
only occurs in the address (P) and in the final
messages (6^*), but is woven into the very structure
of the Epistle in 3' and 4^ Either we have a
genuine work by the Apostle or else a pseudonymous
writing, composed at a very early date by a disciple
upon whom had fallen a double portion of the
Apostle's spirit. And of such a disciple we have
no other trace.
(1) Internal evidence. — The very simplicity of
the references to St. Paul is a strong argument for
the authenticity of the Epistle. Tliere is a great
contrast between Eph. and 2 Pet. in this respect.
The laboured allusions of the latter to St. Peter's
life are not convincing ; but could even a close
disciple have coined the beautiful and simple
phrase, 'I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus'?
Or would he have been likely to refer to his great
master as 'less than the least of all saints (3*)
even with 1 Co 15" before him? On the other
hand, there are one or two phrases, apart from
questions of style and doctrine, which will be dis-
cussed later, which seem to some critics to be
' watermarks of a later age ' (Moffatt, LNT, p. 386).
Such is the phrase, ' built upon the foundation of
the apostles and propliets' (2-"), an expression not
very suspicious in itself, but rendered susi)ect by
the phrase 'his holy apostles and prophets' (3').
Such language would certainly be natural at a
later date, and it is hardly like St. Paul to include
himself under the term 'holy apostles.' Two ex-
planations have been given, (a) It is suggested
that the word ayCois is not part of the original text.
It is true that Origen and Theodoret show traces
of a text which omitted the word, but this is not
very strong evidence. Yet it might easily have
been added at an early date by a reverent scribe,
or have crept in by dittography from droffriXois
(TOICAnOICAnOCT . . .), or by confusion
with Col 1^. (b) It is pointed out, e.g. by Salmond
('Ephesians' in EGT, jip. 223 and 304), that &yios
does not me.an ' holy ' in our modern sense, but
simply 'consecrated to God's service.' This is its
sense in the Pauline salutations and in 3*, and it
is thus possible to conceive St. Paul including him-
self under the phrase in 3'. But (c) it is not
obvious that he does do so. St. Paul liad always
stood apart from the original Twelve, and though
sometimes, as in Gal. and 2 Cor., he is concerned
to defend liis commission, he was fully aware of a
real difference of position (1 Co 15"). Here .some
real point seems to lie in the distinction. St. Paul
EPHESIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE
EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE 345
is argiiing that he was specially chosen of God for
this ministry. Humble though he was, he had
shareii the revelation given to the Twelve (of. St.
Peter and Cornelius), and he, and not they, had
been called to proi-laim the mystery of the Church
to the Gentiles (3*). The words in 3''-* seem to
distinguish him from the 'holy apostles' of 3',
where St. Paul is not thinking of himself at all.
If this i< so, 3', though certainly unique, is not
unnatural. In any case, whatever he the explana-
tion of 3*, 3® remains a ' watermark ' of St. Paul
himself, as indeed does the whole passage, 3-"^^, in
its abraj»t intrusion into the sequence of thought.
The passage • ^\ hereby, when ye read, ye can per-
ceive my understanding . . .' (3^) also sounds to
Moflatt characteristic of a disciple of St. Paul
rather than of St. Paul himself, but the conclusion
is not at all necessary.
(2) External evidence. — This preliminary inves-
tigation, then, rather favours the authenticity of
the Epistle than otherwise, and this result is en-
tirely borne out by the external evidence of early
\vriters. Ephesians is one of the best-attested
books of the NT. By the middle of the 2nd cent,
it was widelj- known. Both the Old Latin and the
Syriac Versions had it. The evidence of Hippolytus
shows that it was used by the Ophites {Philosophou-
mena, v. 8), the Valentinians (vi. 34, 35), and per-
haps by Basilides (vii. 25, 26). Marcion included
it in his Pauline Canon, under the title 'to the
Laodiceans' (see below). It seems to be quoted
by Hernias (cf. 4* with Sim. ix. 13). Earlier
still Polycarp quotes 2- ^ in Phil. i. 3, and, still
more definitely, 4'* in Phil. xii. 1 (Lat.). The
evidence of Ignatius is almost equally certain :
Polyc. V. 1 is a definite quotation of 5^, and allu-
sions may be seen to 1'^ and 2^® in Smym. i. 4, to
4*- » in Polyc. i. 2, to 5^ in Eph. i. 1, x. 3. The
passage in Eph. xii. ' Paul ... 8s eV rda-r} e-ritrrdk-Q
ljjrt}fu)i'€L'€i ' cannot lie translated as a definite refer-
ence to our Epistle, and is indeed evidence (see
below, § 5) that the traditional address is in error-
Traces of Eph. have been found in Clement of
Rome and in the Didache, but they cannot be called
certain.
This evidence is sufficient to throw the Epistle
into the 1st cent., and provides at least a strong
presupposition that it is Pauline.
5. Destination. — An mimediate difficulty arises
with the acceptance of Eph. as the work of St.
Paul. He was very well known in Ephesus. He
had spent over two years of his ministry there (Ac
198-io)_ j^g leaders of the Church there had been
his close friends, and had parted from him at
Miletus with every dbplay of affection (20^®),
And yet Eph. conveys no personal greetings. There
is no hint that St. Paul was known to the readers,
or they to him. All that we can gather from the
letter is that they are Gentile Christians (Eph l^*
•21. u. 03. 17 31), St. Paul has heard of their faith in
Christ (P*). He does not seem certain whether
thej- all know how definitely and specially he had
been commissioned to preach to the Gentiles (3*, and
hence the whole digression 3-"^). If the letter was
actually sent to Ephesus (so Schmidt in Meyer* ;
Alford), this is incredible. And even if the Patdine
authorship is given up it remains quite impossible
to think that a disciple of St. Paid should have
written in his master's name so cold a letter to St.
Paul's friends. The evidence of Ignatius raises
a further difficulty, since he definitely ^^-rites to
Ephesus about ' all the letters' of St. Paul (Eph.
xii.), without any hint that the most sublime of
them all had been definitely addressed to the
Ephesians themselves.
This being so, it is a relief to find that the ad-
dress is very doubtful. The title ' to the Ephesians,'
though known to TertulUan ^adv. Marc. v. 11) and
given in the Muratarian Canon, does not go far
back into the 2nd century. There is very little
doubt that the original text of V had no allusion
to Ephesus at all. The vast majority of MSS have
Toli ayloii rots otxnp iv 'Etp^ffip Kai rurrdii cv Xpum^
'IifffoO, but the words ^i- 'E^cry are absent in the
first hand of >{ and B. They are cancelled by the
corrector of 67, who had access to verj- good textual
material. The more ancient copies known to Basil
omitted the words. Origen evidently did not read
them in his text, since he translates Toisoidv ' those
that have real existence,' illustrating the meaning
from the use by Christ of the phrase 'I am.*
Jerome and others repeat this interpretation, which
Avas also known to BasiL Most important of aU,
Marcion's copy evidently lacked the words, since
he regarded the Epistle as addressed to the Laodi-
ceans. And that Tertullian's text was the same
is shown by the fact that TertulUan only abuses
Marcion for changing the title, but says nothing
about corruption of the actual text {adv. Marc. v.
11, 17).
This evidence makes it almost impossible to think
that any place-name, whether Ephesus, or Laodicea,
or another, stood in the original text of IS since
no reason is apparent for its wide-spread omission
and corruption. The evidence of Basil shows that
our present reading grew up oidy shortly before
A.D. 370. And in any case it is most unnatural
Greek. Hamack {Die Adresse des Epheserhriefs
des Paidvs, 1910) has recently argued that Eph.
was originally addressed to Laodicea, being in fact
the letter ' from Laodicea ' of Col 4^*. He conjec-
tures that the change in the address took place
about the beginning of the 2nd cent., with the de-
cline of the Church of Laodicea (Rev 3^*- ^*), on the
grounds that such a church had no claim to own a
Patdine letter. The conjecture is certainly bril-
liant, but there is no parallel for such treatment of
the NT books, and the MSS with no place-name at
all remained unexplained (see Molfatt, Expositor,
8th ser. ii. [1911] 193 f.). What then may he in-
ferred from the textual evidence? Three alterna-
tives are possible.
{a) It is suggested that the words ir 'E<f)4a(p
should be omitted, and that our present text is
then correct (so e.g. Moflatt, and the majority of
those who reject the Pauline authorship). Un-
fortunately, as indeed Origen's attempt at explana-
tion shows, the reading so obtained gives rather
poor sense. The translation ' the saints who are
also believers . . .' (Meyer) is hardly possible, and
' the saints who are also faithful . . .' (Light-
foot, Salmond) is still diffictdt. It is very hard to
suppose that St. Paid woidd make so pointed an
allusion at this stage to ' saints ' who were unfaith-
ful. The difficulty arises not so much from the
meaning of d^iotj, which here, as in 3*, has the
Jewish sense of ' consecrated,' as from the general
force of the passage.
(6) Again, omitting the words iv 'E^<r<p, we may
suppose that a blank was left after oCwti' in which
Tychicus could insert the names of dilierent
churches. This view presupposes, with Beza, that
Eph. was sent not to any one church, but to the
group of churches in Asia foimded, like Colossae,
Laodicea, and Hierapolis, not by St. Paul, but by
such agents as Epaphras. This would account for
the impersonal tone of the Epistle, and for the
absence of any clear trace of special local problems.
The view that Eph. is such a Pastoral, with a
blank left for the address, is due to Archbishop
Ussher, and has been held by most conservative
critics (e.g. Hort). In its broad outline this theory
is probably right. The whole character of the
Epistle shows that it is addressed to a wide circle of
readers, and not to any one church. That the
readers addressed lived in the neighbourhood of
346 EPHESIANS, E?lSTLE TO THE
EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
Ephesiis is sujjgested (1) by the relations, especially
in tl)ou<;ht, with Col. ; (2) by the fact tliat E\>b. is
sent by the hand of Tychicus ; and aljovc all (3) by
the tradition associating it with Enhesus, where
the original was probably preserved (Haupt and
Zahn). This view relieves the difficulty as to the
Pauline authorship due to the impersonal tone of
the letter.
It does not, however, solve the problem of P
(see Zalin, Introd. to NT, i. 479-483, 488 f.), for
(1) there is no parallel for such a method of corre-
spondence ; (2) if the blanks had been filled in with
culi'erent names in different coi>ics, we should not
have had MSS with no name at all ; (3) the order
in the Greek is unnatural. Tlie place-name should
come elsewhere (of. Col 1', Ph 1').
(c) These difficulties have driven many scholars
to think that the text of 1' is unsound, whether,
as P. Ewald suggests, through the wearing of the
papyrus or otherwise. Ewald himself suggests
Toh dyairTjroh oScriv Kal inaToh, ' those wlio are be-
loved and faitliful.' Zahn prefers to follow the
reading of D, rots ayiois oUffiv Kal iria-Tois, ' those
who are holy and faithful.' This is at least easy,
but hardly accounts for the corruptions (though
dittograpiiy miglit have brought in the second
rots). Others think that St. Paul, in accordance
with his general custom, must have mentioned
some delinite destination. The most ingenious
conjecture of this kind is that of K. Scott {The
Pauline Epistles, p. 182) — ep iOvecxiv for ec 'E0e<r<^,
i.e. 'the .saints among tlie Gentiles.' This, however,
is not free from some of the above objections, and
is wholly without supporting evidence.
Holtzmann's etibrt to explain V as a bung-
ling attempt by the writer to adapt Col V to his
more general purpose is eti'ectively refuted by
Zahn (o})- cit. p. 517 f.).
As a result of the above discussion, V remains
an unsolved problem, but it is clear that the tra-
ditional address of Eph. is no part of the text of
the Epistle. Its existence is best explained on
the hypothesis of a circular letter, sent by the
hand of Tychicus to the churches in the neighbour-
hood of Ephesus. To explain the early title ' to
Ephesians,' as does Baur, from 6^^ and 2 Ti 4'^
(' Pychicus have I sent to Ephesus') is far-fetched.
Whether, as Harnack thinks, Eph. should be
identified with the letter 'from Laodicea' to be
brought, presumably, by Tychicus to Colossce,
must remain doubtful (see art. CoLOSSIANS).
Whatever be the exact facts, no objection to the
Pauline authorsiiip of Ephesians remains on the
score of the destination of the Epistle.
This view of Ephesians as a Pauline pastoral
has been held (with varying theories of 1') by, e.g.,
Bengel, Keuss, Lightfoot, Hort, Weiss, Abbott,
Salmond, Zahn, Peake. Nevertheless, its authen-
ticity has been widely disputed since the time of
Schleiermacher, on three main grounds : (a) the
doctrinal standpoint ; (b) the vocal)nlary and
style ; (c) the connexion with Col. and with other
NT writings.
6. The doctrine of the Epistle. — Few scholars
still support the view of the Tubingen School that
Eph. sliows traces of both Montanism and 2nd
cent. Gnosticism. Sclnvegler saw Montanism in
the empiiasis on the Holy Spirit {e.g. 1" 2'*, and
especially 3' 4'*), and in the position given to the
prophets (2-" 3' 4^'). Gnosticism was said to be
the source of such terms as 'pleroma' .ind 'ajon.'
Baur argued that Eph. was not written against
Gnosticism, but that it showed signs of its early
phases. As we now know, the date (A. D. 130-140)
which he gave on this hypothesis would be much
too late. Gnosticism was fully developed before
the middle of the century. Ililgcnfeld and O.
Ptleiderer see iu both Eph. and Col. a polemic
against Gnosticism. PHeiderer, e.g., sees in ^^'
an allusion to * a Gnostic theory which separated
the Christ of speculation from the Jesus of the
evangelical tradition' {Primitive Christ ianiti/, iii.
303). He finds that the quotation of Ps 68"* in 4«-
depends on the ' Gnostic myth of the victorious de-
scent to hell and ascent to heaven of the Saviour-
god to which allusion is also made in Col 2'^ ' (p.
311). He traces the use of 'pleroma' to Gnosti-
cism, ignoring the fact that it was a good Pauline
word {e.g. Ito 11-'), and that it is certainly not
used in any Gnostic sense.
The external evidence alone is sufficient to rule
out such theories, throwing the Ejjistle back to a
date before the technicalities of V'alentinianism
had been developed. More plausible is the view
of Holtzmann, wlio regards Ephesians as written
at about the end of the 1st cent., in view of
incipient Gnosticism and of ecclesiastical needs.
He tliinks that an old letter to Colosste by St.
Paul existed and that Eph. and Col. were composed
by a single writer, in the one case using its ideas
and in tiie other expanding it. The proof, liow-
ever, that there is nothing necessarily un-Pauline
in Col. (see art. COLOSsiANS) does away with the
need for this theory, which is in any case hampered
by two difficulties : («) that of tinding a writer
capable of composing such a work and at the same
time of being so servile in his adherence to the lan-
guage of Colossians ; and {b) that of finding a his-
torical setting for the Epistle. There must surely
be a greater gulf between it and Ignatius with his
violent attacks on Judaizers and Docetists and his
emphasis on the monarchical epi8C0[)acy.
It is, therefore, more common nowadays among
those Avho find difficulties in the Pauline author-
ship to assign Eph. to a Paulinist writing quite
soon after St. Paul's death (see e.g. Motlatt, op.
cit. p. 388). It is argued that the theology of the
Epistle marks a transition stage between at. Paul
and the Johannine literature.
'This does not involve the assumption that Paul was not
original enough to advance even beyond the circle of ideas
reflected in Colossians, or that he lacked constructive and broad
(lideas of the Christian brotherhood. It is quite possible to hoi
that he was a fresh and advancing thinker, and yet to conclude,
from the internal evidence of Kpliesians, that he did not cut the
channel for this prose of the spiritual centre ' (MofFatt, op. cit.
p. 389).
Upon this view, the theology of Eph., though
quite continuous with that of St. Paul, is a later
development, under the influence of Johannine,
and possibly Lucan, ideas.
Such it view is too intangible to admit of very
easy refutation. At the same time, it should be
noted that it provides very little ground for dis-
jmting the strong and early tradition of the
Pauline authorship of tlie Epistle. A discussion
of the doctrinal standpoint of Eph. will serve to
put the matter in a clearer light.
(«) The Church. — The whole Epistle turns upon the
doctrine of the unity of the Church. This is made
the key both to the relations of Jew and Gentile
(2""^) and to the problems of the Christian life (4
and 5). Its unity is not merely that of any human
organization, but rests directly upon the unity of
God— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (4^-«). That
unity is derived from the Father (3"), by whom it
was fore-ordained in Christ (l"*- "'•)•_ It is ideally
complete in Christ and in Him is to become
actually complete (1»- '^- ^ 2i» 4'2-'6). Even now it
has as its principle of life the One Spirit (1" 2'» 3"«
4*). In some sense it is the comi)letion of the
Incarnation (1^; cf. Armitage Robinson, 'On the
meaning of xXTjpw^ua ' in Ephesians, p. 255 H'. ), for
in it Christ comes into all the saints (3") and all
the saints into Him ('2«- '^ 4"-'*). The organization
of the Church is simply the expression of this
unity, and the means, given by Christ Himself,
EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
EPHESIAKS, EPISTLE TO THE 347
whereby it is being actualized (4'""). Baptism is
the door of the Church (4* 5^), faith its bond of
union (4*), love the expression of that union
(4-5-, etc.). The unity even extends beyond this
earth into the heavenly regions (2* ; cf. 1* 3^*).
Such an emphasis upon the Church is certainly
not found elsewhere in St. Paul. Yet there is no
one feature which is specifically un-Pauline, and
no reason can be given why St. l*anl should not in
a time of leisure, undisturbed by the cla.sh of con-
troversy, have set do\\Ti for the churches he had
founded those principles which had underlain all
his ministry.
It has been urged that St. Paul dealt only with
individual churches, and that the use of the term
' church ' {^KKXrjffia) in Eph. is foreign to his writings.
But as a matter of fact the idea of one Church
Universal underlies all St. Paul's thought. Especi-
ally m 1 Cor. he appeals throughout to general
church practice {e.g. 1 Co 10» 11'* 14»-»). He
speaks of the churches as a whole (Ro 16'^ I Co
41- 71-) They are 'one body in Christ,' with an
articulated, organized membership (Ro 12*), and
this conception is expanded in 1 Co 12'^-. They
form one Church (eic/cXijo-ta, in the singular ; cf. 1
Co 12*-*, Gal V% The same conception and usage
are repeated in the later Epistles (Ph 3*, Col
11S.S4) Tijg statements in Col. are, indeed, quite
as full in idea as those in Ephesians. The con-
ception of Christ as awaiting ' fulfilment ' or com-
pletion in some sense in His Body, the Church, is
present in Col 1-*. The organic unity of Christ
with the Church as its Head is in Col 1^*. The
conception of the Church as extending into the
heavenl}- regions is directly involved in St. Paul's
answer to the Colossian heretics (Col !''• *). This
adaptation of his thought is quite natural, though
its first clear formulation in his mind may have
been due to the troubles at Colossae, leading him
to correlate his views on angelology (see art.
COLOSSIANS) with his views on Christ and the
Church. The thought is present, in an unapplied
form, in Ph 2r» (with which also cf. Eph 2"',
Ph 1=").
It is urged that it is new in St. Paul to find the
unity of the Church traced back to Christ's cosmic
position (Moflatt, op. cit. p. 393). But this is
really rather a question of Christology than of the
doctrine of the Church. Solidarity in Christ is
the most characteristic part of St. Paul's teaching.
The thought of the early chapters of Romans is
simply its application to anthropology, the problem
of sin. In Eph., with a wider purpose in view, it
is applied to the problems of humanity regarded as
a whole in its relation to God. The cosmological
form which the argument takes is doubtle-ss due in
part to the situation at Colosste. But Ro 8*- " is
a hint that there were similar elements in St.
Paul's thought at an earlier date.
The fact that in Eph. the writer seems to pose
as the defender of Je\>-ish against Gentile Chris-
tians has been regarded as proof that he is not the
St. Paul of the Galatian controversy. But it may
well have been that by A.D. 60 there was danger
that the Gentile Christians in the churches of Asia
might outnumber and tend to despise their Jewsh
brethren. St. Paul's concern was always to secure
the position of both Jew and Gentile in the Church.
His argument in Eph. is really exactly like that
in Romans. Both Jew and Gentile are brought
do^vn to one level by sin (Ro 3*"*, Eph 2>-5 : cf. Gal
3*^), and are therefore joined in one redemption
(Ro W- iF-s, Eph 2'6-"'). In Ro 11 we find the
same attitude of apology for the Jews as in Eph 2
(cf. also Ro 7" W^-). Gal ^-^^ also gives an
argument practically identical in substance with
that of Ephesians.
Some have thought that the interest in church
organization is nn-Pauline, and that the details
mentioned involve a later date. It would be
possible to argue that the very reverse is the case.
The mention of 'apostles and prophets' as fore-
most in the ministry of the Church (4") is exactly
paralleled by 1 Co l-Z**. Thus there is nothing un-
natural in the special position given to them in
2® 3*. From the earliest days the ministry of
prophets had existed in the Church, and it is very
doubtful whether by the end of St. Paul's life the
beginnings of the organization which superseded
them were not beginning to appear. By the time
the Did<iche was written the position of the prophet
was becoming equivocal, and the allusions m Eph.
could hardly have been written. The mention of
' evangelbts ' (4*') is no mark of a later date, since
no such office became definitely established. The
general interest in church order shown in Eph. is
no greater than in 1 Cor. (especially 1 Co 12).
It has been noted as curious, in the light of 1 Co
10", that the Eucharist is not mentioned in con-
nexion with church unity. The reference to 1
Cor., however, is not quite in point, since the
passage is concerned not with unity but vrith the
dangers of idolatry. And there is no other hint
either in St. Paul or in Acts that the Eucharist was
regarded as a bond of union among the churches.
(b) God the Father. — This doctrine receives no
peculiar expansion in Eph., though it is certainly
emphasized, the title ' Father ' occurring eight times
as against four in Romans. It is brought into
direct connexion with the ideal unity of the Church
(4*), which springs from the eternal purpose of the
Father acting through and in the Son (i*- s. a.s3
010. u) The unique Fatherhood of God is the
principle underlying all human or angelic solidarity
(3"), and it is for this reason that St. Paul treats
the family, in which this solidarity is exhibited on
a small scale, as an exemplar of the Church itself.
There is no real inconsistency, as has been alleged,
between the view of family life in 5**- ^ and
the personal preference for celibacy expressed in
lCo7«.
The emphasis on God's eternal purpose is also
found in Romans. Its elBFect in the ultimate re-
storation of all creation appears in Ro 8'^*, its
eflect in uniting Jew and Gentile in Ro 9-11.
(c) Christology. — The Christology of Eph. isclosely
akin to that of Colossians. In both Christ is pre-
sented as being, in the eternal purpose of God, the
bond of union for a divided creation, including
within His unity heaven and eartii alike, which
were created not only in Christ but also for Him
(1'", Col 1'®- "). ThLs consummation and restora-
tion of all things, including the .ingelic world, in
Christ is to come about through the restoration of
man in the Church, which is His Body, His fullness
(14.31-3 39-u^ Col ii»-a)) The emphasis on Christ's
pre-existence is much more clearly marked in Col.
(l'*f" **• "), though in Eph. it is perhaps implied
in God's purpose 'in him' (1*-" 3''; cf. also 2*-
4»«), and in the title 'Beloved' (1«). In this,
however, there is nothing really new, except that
the Pauline angelology, of which traces appear in
the earlier Epistles, is here clearly correlated to
the doctrine of Christ. It was at Colossae that the
angels were being exalted almost to the position
of Christ Himself, and it is in Col. that the state-
ments of Christ's eternal supremacy take their
highest form. But the restoration in Christ of the
dislocated creation appears in Ro 8^**. The share
of the angels in this is alluded to in 1 Co 6* ■• 15^.
The pre-existence of Christ finds expression in Ro
8' 9* (probably), 1 Co 10* 15*^ (and context), 2 Co
8', and is clearly connected with His relation to
the Creation in 1 Co 8*, where the emphasis on
unity closely resembles the thought of Ephesians.
At a slightly later date, almost every point in
348 EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
the Christology of Col. and Eph. is embodied in
Ph 2*"".
It has been noted as un-Pauline that tlie result
of the Cross should be seen in the reconciliation of
Jew and Gentile rather than in relation to sin.
But this objection is due to imperfect exegesis.
It is because the Cross frees all, both Jew and
Gentile, from sin that tliey are able to come into
the unitj of Christ. The emphasis on individual
redemption is just as much present in Eph 2'""' as
in Ro 1-7. The Pauline doctrine is stated directly
in V (cf. 2'^). The annulling of the Law by the
Cross (2^*) is the very point of St. Paul's argument
in the Galatian controversy (Gal 3'^, etc. ; cf. also
the parallel passage in Col 2"). The thought in
Ephesians nuiy be carried rather further, but it is
wiiolly I'auline. That there is no definite allusion
to expiation or propitiation is not of any real
significance. The idea was unnecessary to the pur-
pose of Ephesians.
Again it is said that there is in Eph. no hint of
the Parousia, the coming of Christ in the near
future, and that the idea is replaced, on Johannine
lines, by a vista of long ages before the final
iudgment (2^ 3^^). But the reference in 2'' is pro-
bably to agesffl/ifer the Second Coming, as is perhaps
shown by the parallel in 1'-' (see § 3 above), and
this may also be the meaning in 3*\ In any case,
the same language occurs in Ro P* 9' and in
Gal P, a close parallel to 3*'. References to the
Parousia may perhaps be seen in 4''*" 5^. It is true
that there is no emphasis on the doctrine, but St.
Paul was never a fanatic about it, as 2 Thess. shows
(cf. Ro U^).
Other points which are said to be rather Johan-
nine than Pauline also find parallels in the earlier
Epistles. Love is emphasized as the relation of
Christ to us (2^ 5^- ^ ; cf. (ial 2^", Ro S^s- ■^), as our
relation to Christ (6-'' ; cf. 1 Co 16") and to one
another {i^ i" S-*- -^ ; cf. 1 Th 5'3). Cf. the Hymn
to Love in 1 Co 13. The emphasis on the light of
Christ amid the darkness (5*'" ; cf. 4^^), while
typical of St. John, is found in 1 Th 5*- », 2 Co 6'*,
Ro 13".
{d) The Holy Spirit. — Great stress is laid in Eph.
upon the Holy Spirit as inspiring the life of the
Church (1»3 2's 35- « 4*-*-30 5"* 6"). This is quite
Pauline (cf. l'^*- " with 2 Co 1^, 4^- * with 1 Co
12*-» ; see also Gal S'^'^S Ro 15i3).
(e) Man and sin. — This is the special subject of
Rom. and not of Ephesians. Yet the hints in
Eph. are quite in accordance with St. Paul's earlier
teaching. The doctrine of the (xdp^, the root-idea
in the conception of original sin, appears in 2*.
The characteristic emphasis on the grace of God
which saves man by faith and not by works is
found in 2*"" (cf. 3"). Predestination to life is the
theme of 1** """, though the problem of free-will
is not raised, being unessential to the matter in
hand.
It has been suggested that there is an un-Pauline
emphasis on knowledge, more on the lines of tlie
Fourth Gospel {e.g. Jn 17^), in 1«- '' 4»». But this
does not really conflict with St. Paul's opposition
to the wisdom of this world in 1 Co 1-4, from
which tlie knowledge alluded to {iirlyvuxris ; cf.
Armitage Robinson, Ephesians, p. 248 fi.) is a very
diflerent thing. Cf. also Ro 10^, 1 Co P* 2«- \ Ph
P, Col V>- 1» 22 3'«.
This sketch of the doctrine of Eph. will serve to
show how closely it resembles in most of its details
the doctrine not only of Colossians, but of the
earlier Pauline Epistles. It is only in emphasis
and in the sustained, almost lyrical, exposition
that there is any real contrast. And this may
well be explained by a difference of circumstaiu^es
both in St. Paul's own jjosition and in the audience
to which he is writing.
7. Style and language. — (I) Language. — The
vocabulary as a wliole presents phenomena very
similar to tho.se of the other Pauline letters.
There are 37 words not used elsewhere in the NT
(as compared with 33 in Gal., 41 in Phil., 95 in 2
Cor.), and 39 which occur el.se where, but not in the
recognized Pauline writings (Holtzmann, Kritik
dcr Ephcser-und KolosHerhriefe, p. 101 f., wliose
list is critically di-scussed by Zahn, op. cit. pp. 518-
522; cf. also Mottatt, op. cit. y. 385 f.). This
number is not in itself suspicious, and Zahn's
analysis has shown that the majority of the words
are of little significance. Some are due to the
occasion and the turn of the metaphor, e.g. tliose
that occur in the account of the Christian armour.
Some — e.g. &ve/xos (4'*), C5wp (5**) — are terms for
which no synonym was readily available. Some
are cognate to forms u.sed elsewhere by St. Paul,
e.g. KarapriafiSs (4'-), irpoffKapr^prjau (6'"), dyvoia (4"*).
And against these are to be set about 20 words
found only, outside Eph., in the earlier Pauline
Epistles.
Some special cases have been thought suspicious
The phrase ' holy apostles' (3*) has been dealt with
above (§ i). The use of 5idfio\os (4" 6" ; cf. 1 Ti 3«,
2 Ti 2^") is curious, as St. Paul elsewhere employs
the name ' Satan ' (also in the Pastorals, 1 Ti I'*).
But there is no reason why he should not have
varied in his usage in this way (as happens in 1
Tim.). And, indeed, the reference in 4^ may not
be to Satan but to human calumniators ; or perhaps
both ideas may be present, and the usage here may
also have attected 6". The phrase ' in the heaven-
lies,' which occurs 5 times, is curious, but might
well have been coined by St. Paul in working out
the theme of Eph. (cf. 1 Co l5*-'»8-*«). The word
' mystery ' is difficult in 5'^ but is used in the
ordinary Pauline manner in 1* 3^- *• *. olKovop.la has
a somewhat changed sense in 3'''. The unique use
of irfpnToL-qais in l^'' is paralleled by other trans-
ferences of words from an abstract to a concrete
sense. On the whole, then, the peculiarities of
language are no more than might oe expected in
any one short document.
(2) Style. — This problem presents more difficul-
ty. The sentences are unusually long and cum-
brous, subordinate clauses being strung together
in a loose connexion which is frequently diihcult
to analyze, e.g. 1*"" 2)-''' 3^"^. Yet they are most
carefully wrought and in places are almost poetical
in form and balance (esp. P'", which falls into
three 'stanzas'). There are one or two elaborate
parentheses (2"- " 3^"^*). These features are only
partially paralleled in Col., and present a wide con-
trast to the impassioned rhetoric of the earlier
letters. In this respect Eph. stands by itself. To
many critics the general impression produced by the
style and tone of the letter is the strongest argument
against its authenticity. Yet it is very riish to
make assumptions as to the possibilities of so mobile
and powerful an intellect as that of St. Paul. In
none of his other writings is the clash of controversy
or the appeal of friendship wholly absent. At
leisure in his prison he may well have looked
back over the triumphs of his life and have sat
down to write in a mood of quiet yet profound
thanksgiving for which his earlier career had seldom
given opportunity.
8. Relation to other NT writings.— (a) Relation to
Colossians. — The relation of Eph. to Col. is, from
the point of view of literary criticism, its most
striking feature. It has been estimated that 78
out of the 155 verses of Eph. contain phraseology
which occurs in (Colossians. This is not merely
due to the connexion of ideas, which is also close
(see above), but is of a character to show that the
two Epistles are closely connected in their com-
position. The details have been elaborately worked
EPHESIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
EPHESUS
349
out by Holtzinann, De "SVette, and others (for a
good smnraary of the facts see Mofiatt, op. cit. pp.
375-381 ; Holtzniann's results are criticized by
Sandav, art. ' Colossians ' in Sinitli's DH^ and by
von S.'.den in JPTh, 1887 ; cf. his Hist, of Early
Chriitiiin Literature. The tcritings of the NT).
Results difler widely. Holtzniann's discussion went
to show that neither Epistle could l>e regarded as
wholly prior, and therefore he postulated a Pauline
Col., expanded at a later date by a writer who also
composed Eph. upon its basis. But the evidence
for the division of Colossians has very largely
broken down, with the wider view of the Pauline
angelology (see art. COLOSSIANS). The tendency
among scliolars is now to assert the authenticity
of Col. (so, among those who reject Eph., von ISoden
[in the main], Klijpper, von Dobscniitz, Clemen,
Wrede, Motiatt). This, if Holtzniann's results are
accepted, proves the authenticity of Eph. also.
The two Epistles must have been written by one
author at about the same time. The alternative
is to regard Eph., with De Wette, as a weak and
tedious compilation from Col. and the earlier
Epistles — a position which will appeal to few — or,
more sympathetically, with Mofl'att, 'as a set of
variations played by a master hand upon one or
two themes suggested by Colossians ' (op. cit. p. 375).
Bat this does no justice to the real independence
of thought in Ephesians. The two main themes —
the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in the Church,
and the fact of the Church as influencing Christian
life — do not appear in Colossians at all, or only by
allusion. The theology- is the same, the applica-
tion veiy ditterent. Further, it is hard to think
that so original a writer would have followed the
very structure of Colossians. The rules for family
life, e.g., are an integral part of Eph., but have no
very clear connexion with the rest of Colossians.
It is most natural to suppose, e.g. in Col 3'*'-^ that
the writer is summarizing what he has written in
Eph 5---6^, even at the risk of some obscurity. So,
too. Col 2'* has no clear connexion mth its context,
and must depend upon the fuller Eph 4^ '^ for its
explanation.
No parallel for the curious inter-connexion of
language is to be found in the employment of
sources by Matthew and Luke or of Jude by 2
Peter. There we have frank copying. Here
there is nothing of the kind. Again and again
phrases are used in Eph. to express or illustrate
ideas with which they are not connected at all in
Col. (cf. Eph. 2«- >« II Col 2» 1^, Eph. S'^ 4^ \\ Col
29, Eph 2"* 1^ 5" ;: Col 1^). The writer's mind is
steeped in the language and thought of Col. , but
he is ^vTiting quite independently. The only
probable psychological solution of the problem is
that one \\Titer wrote both Epistles, and at no
great interval. And if so, that writer must have
beeu St. Paul. It is quite likely, indeed, that
Col. was composed while Eph. was still unfinished,
since the latter is clearly the careful work of many
hours, perhaps of many days.
(6) Itelation to 1 Peter. — There is a considerable
amount of resemblance of thought, structure, and
language between Eph. and 1 Peter. This is
especially obvious in the directions for family life
(note the curious phrase ' your own husbands ' in 1
P 3^, which seems to depend on Eph 5-). Other
parallels quoted are 1^ ^vith 1 P 1^ 3"- with 1 P
pM. (where it is quite unnecessary to argue that
1 Pet. is prior : the two passages may be inde-
pendent), 1^ with 1 P 119-20, 2" with 1 P 2*, l^*
with 1 P 29 (the use of xeptxoi->j(rts in Eph. is not
dependent on that in 1 Pet. , being quite different ;
the former is concrete, the latter not), 1'^'- with
1 p 322 . giof. with 1 p 58. 9 . 49 with 1 P 319 4«.
These analogies are not unnatural, on the assump-
tion that St. Peter knew Eph., and certainly do
not demand the priority of 1 Pet., as Hilgenfeld
and others have argued.
(f) Relation to the Lttcan and Johannine tcrit-
ings.— Numerous analogies, mainly of thought,
have been found in Eph. to almo.st every book of
the NT, but especially to those connected with the
names of St. Luke and St. John. I'arallels of
language and idea have been seen in the farewell
address at Miletus (Ac 20»»-» ; cf. Moffatt, op. cit.
p. 384) ; and Lock (loc. cit. ) draws out the parallels
of thought with the Eucharistic prayer in Jn 17. It
is true that many of the conceptions of Eph. are
found in the Fourth Gospel, but this is not at all
unnatural. The parallels of lano:uage are by no
means striking. The connexion with Rev. , empha-
sized by Holtzmann, is very slight, and that with
Heb. is not much more definite (details in Salinond,
' Ephesians,' in EGT, p. 212 ff.).
The general impression made on the present
writer by the study of these various affinities is the
outstanding resemblance in general thought, and
even in expression, between Eph. and Romans — a
resemblance which the difference of style does not
obscure. This in itself is a strong witne.ss to the
authenticity of the Epistle.
Literature. — The following is only a small selection from a
verj- voluminous literature. I. Commentaries. — Besides the
older Commentaries, such as E. W. E. Renss (1S78X H. Alford
(^1S74), and C. J. Ellicott (31864), the most notable are those of
A. Klopper (1691), G. G. Findlay {Expos. Bible, 1S9-2), H. von
Soden (Hand-Kommentar, 1S93, also artt. in JPTh, 1SS7, and
Hist, of Early Christian Literature. TheWritingtofthe ST, Ens.
tr., 1906), T. K. Abbott {ICC, 1S97, lai^ely linguisticX E.
Hanpt (in Meyer's Krit.-exeg. Kommentar uber das XT, 1902,
very valuable exegeticallyX J. Armitagre Robinson (1903,
exegetical and philological, no introduction), S. D. F. Sal-
mond {EGT, 1903X B. F. Westcott (1906X P- Ewald (in
Zahn's Kommentar sum ST, 1910). Fundamental for modem
critical studies is H. J. Holtzmann's Kritik der Epheser-und
Kolosserbrie/e, 1872.
II. Against Pauline authorthip. — Besides Baor, Schwegrler,
Hitzig, are S. Davidson, Introd. to ST^, Ia94 ; C. v. Weiz-
sacker, The Apostolic Age, Eng. tr., 1894-95 ; E. von Dobschiitz,
Christian Life in the Primitire Church, Eng. tr., 1904 ; O.
Pfleiderer,i*nmrfi>«CAmt»aniti/, Eng.tr., 1906-11 ; R. Scott,
The Pauline EpisUes, 1909; J. Moffatt, LST^, 1912.
III. For Pauline authorship.— F. J. A. Hort, Prolegomena
to Roma nsand Ephesians, 1895 ; A. Robertson, art. ' Eidiesiaiis '
in Smith's DB», 1883; W. Lock, art. ' Ephesians' in HDB; T.
Zahn, Introd. to NT, Eng. tr., 1909 (a storehouse of facts);
A. S. Peake, Crit. Introd. to ST, 1909.
L. W. Grensted.
EPHESUS ('E0«<Toj, a graecized form of a native
Anatolian name). — The town of Ephesus was a little
south of latitude 38° N. , at the head of a gulf situ-
ated about the middle of the western coast of
Asia Minor. It lay on the left bank of the river
Cayster, at the foot of hills which slope towards
the river. In ancient times the river reached to
the city gates, but its mouth has gradually silted
up so that the city is now some four to six miles
from the sea. The effect of the rivers action has
been to raise the level of the land all over. The
ruins, the most extensive in Asia Minor, give an
idea of how large the ancient city was. The
extent of the area covered by it cannot now
be exactly estimated ; but, as the population in
St. Paul's time was probably about a third of a
million, and in ancient times open spaces were
frequent and ' sky-scrapers ' unknown, the city
must have been large, even according to our
standards. The temple of Artemis (see DiANA), the
ruins of which were discovered by Wood, lies now
about five miles from the coast, and was the most
imposing feature of the city. Its site must have
been sacred from very early times, and successive
temples were built on it. Other notable features
of the city were the fine harbour along the banks
of the Cayster, the aqueducts, and the great road
following the line of the Cayster to Sardis, with a
branch to Smyrna. The heat in summer is very
great, and fever is prevalent. The harvest rain-
350
EPHESUS
EPHESUS
storms are violent. The site was nevertheless 80
attractive tliat it must have been very early oc-
cupied. The ancients dated the settlement of
Ionian (Greeks there early in the Uth cent. B.C.,
and the city lon;^ before St. Paul's time had be-
come thorou;i;hly Greek, maintaining^ constant in-
tercourse with Corinth and the rest of Greece
proper.
The history of the city, with its changing
provernment, need not be traced here. It fell under
Roman sway, with tlie rest of tlie district, which
the Romans called 'Asia' {q.v.) by the will of
Attains III. (Philometor), the Pergamenian king,
in 133 H.C. In 88 B.C. the inhabitants sided with
Mithridates, king of i'ontus, and slaughtered all
resident Romans. They were iJunished in 84 by
Sulla, who ravaged the city. During the rule of
Augustus tiie city was embellished by a number of
new buildings.
When Ei^thesus came into contact with Christi-
anity, it still retained all its ancient glory. With
its Oriental religion, its (ireek culture, its Roman
government, and its world-wide commerce, it stood
midway between two continents, being on the one
hand tlie gateway of Asia to crowds of Western
officials and travellers, as Bombay is the portal of
India to-day, and on the other hand the rendezvous
of multitudes of Eastern pilgrims coming to wor-
shi]) at Artemis' shrine. Traversed by the great
Imperial highway of intercourse and commerce, it
had all nationalities meeting and mingling in its
streets. No wonder if it felt its ecumenical im-
portance, and believed that what was said and
done by its citizens was quickly heard and imitated
by ' all Asia and the world ' {rj oIkov/m^vt], Ac 19''").
In Ephesus a noble freedom of thought and a
vulgar su]>erstition lived side by side. The city
of Tliales and Heraclitus contained many men of
rich culture and deep philosophy, who were earnest
seekers after truth. Prominent citizens like the
Asiarchs {q.v.), who were officially bound to foster
the cultus of Rome and the Emperor, yet regarded
St. Paul and his message with markeci friendliness
(Ac 19^"). Nothing but a wide-spread receptivity
to fresh ideas can account for the wonderful success
of the lirst Christian mission in the city, and for the
reverberation of the truth ' almost throughout all
Asia' (v.-""). The best mind of the age was wist-
fully awaiting a new order of things. Having
tried eclecticism and syncretism in vain, it was
' standing between two worlds, one dead, the other
powerless to be born.' When, tlierefore, the
startling news came from Syria to Ephesus that
the Son of God had lived, died, and risen again,
it ran like wildfire ; its lirst announcement created
another Pentecost (v.^) ; and in two years ' all they
who dwelt in Asia heart! the word of the Lord, both
Jews an<l Greeks' (v.^").
Every spiritual revival has ethical issues, and
Ephesus quickly recognized that the new truth
was a new ' Way ' (v.^). The doctrine now taught
in the School of Tyrannus, formerly the home of
one knows not what subtle and futile theories, had
a direct bearing \i\>on human lives. That was why
it made 'no small stir' (v.-^). The message which
St. Paul delivered ' publicly and from house to
house ' (20-"), admonishing men ' night and day
with tears' (v.'i), was morally revolutionary. It
was a call to re])entance and faith (v.-*) ; and,
though no frontal attack was made upon the estab-
lished religion of Ephesus, and no language used
which could fairly be construed as oH'ensive (19*^),
yet it soon became apparent that the old order and
the new could not thrive peacefully side by side.
The gospel of mercy to all was a gage of battle
to many. St. Paul, therefore, found that, while
J!phesus opened ' a door wide and efl'ectual ' (fvtp-
7^j) there were 'many adversaries' (1 Co 16"). 1
This did not surprise or disappoint him. The
fanatical hatred of Ephesus wiis better than the
polite scorn of Athens. As the city of Artemis
lived largely upon the superstition of tiie multitude,
not only the priests who enjoyed the rich revenues
of the Temj)le, but also the artisans who made
' shrines ' for j)ilgrims, felt that if Christianity
triumiihed their occupation would be gone. Re-
ligion was for Ephesus a lucrative ' business '
{epyaffla, Ac 19''"- ^), and the 'craft' {r6 /xepoi, this
branch of trade) of many was in danger. Indeed,
the dispute which arose affected the whole city,
being regarded as nothing less than a duel between
Artemis and Christ. If He were enthroned in the
Ephesian heart, she would be dejK)sed from her
magnificence, and the greatest temijle in the
world 'made of no account' (PJ-''). The situation
created a drama of real life which was enacted in
and around the famous theatre of Ephesus. The
"ild of silversmiths, led by their indignant presi-
dent Demetrius (q.v.); the ignorant mob, excited
to fanatical frenzy ; the crafty Jews, quick to dis-
sociate themselves from their Christian compat-
riots ; the brave Apostle, eager to appear before
',the people ' (rbv Sij^tov) of a free city ; the friendly
Asiarchs, constraining him to temper valour with
discretion ; the calm, dignilied, eloquent Secretary
{ypafj./j.aTevs), stilling tiie angry passions of the
multitude ; and behind all, as unseen presences,
the majesty of Imperial Rome, the sensuous charm
of Artemis, the spiritual power of Christ — these
all combined to give a sudden revelation of the
soul of a city. The practical result was that a
vindication of the liberty of prophesying was
drawn from the highest municipal authority, who
evidently felt that in this matter he was interjiret-
ing the mind of Rome herself. To represent
Christianity as a religio licita was cle.arly one of
the leading aims of St. Luke as a historian.
The fidelity of St. Luke's narrative in its politi-
cal allusions and local colour has received conHrma-
tion from many sources. As the virtual capital of
a senatorial province, Ejiliesus had its proconsuls
(ivdiiraroi, Ac 19^), but here the plural is merely
used colloquially, without implying that there
could ever be more than one at a time. As the
head of a convcntus iuridicus, Ephesus was an
assize town, in which the judges were apparently
sitting at the very time of the riot (v.^). Latin
was the language of the courts, and dyopaloi dyovTai
is the translation of conventus arjimtur. As a free
city of the Empire, Ephesus had still a semblance
of ancient Ionic autonomy ; her affairs were
'settled in a regular assembly' (v.^), i.e. either at
an ordinary meeting of the Demos held in the
theatre on a lixed day, or at an extraordinary
meeting called by authority of the proconsul.
Irregular meetings of the populace were sternly
I)rohibited (v.*) ; and, indeeil, the powers of the
lawful assembly were more and more curtailed, till
at last it practically had to content itself with
registering the decrees of the Roman Senate. The
proud claim of Ephesus to be the temple-warden
\v€WK6pov, lit. ' temple-sweeper') of Artemis (v.**) is
attested by inscriptions and coins (W. M. Ramsay,
Cities and Bishoprics of Phrycf in, 1895, i, 58 ; Letters
to the Seven Churrhcs, 232). The Asiarchs who l)e-
f riended St. Paul had no official connexion with the
cultof Artemis ; they weremembersof the Commune
whose function it was to unite the Empire in a re-
ligious devotion to Rome.
St. Paul's pathetic address at Miletus to the
elders of Ephesus (Ac 20'**''), in which he recalls
the leading features of his strenuous mission in
the city — his teai-s and trials (v.'*), his i)ublic antl
private teaching (v.**), his incessjint spiritual and
manual toil (vv.'""*') — and declares himself pure
from the blood of all men (v.**), presents as Iiigh
EPICUREANS
EPICUREANS
351
an ideal of the ministerial vocation as has ever
been conceived and recorded. There is no reason
to doubt that it gives an approximate summary of
his original words (cf. J. Mott"att, LNT, p. 306).
With tlie religious history of Ephesus are also
associatiHl tiie names of Priscilla and Aqnila
(Ac IS'"), Apollos (18**, I Co 16'^), Tychicus
(Eph 6-»), Timothy (1 Til», 2 Ti 4»), and especially
John the Apostle and John the Presbyter.
After the departure of St. Paul the Ephesian
Church was injured by the activity of false
teachers (Ac 2(P- », Rev 2*), but the Fall of Jeru-
salem greatly enhancetl its importance, and the
influence of the Johannine school made it the
centre of Eastern Christianity. In the time of
Domitian it had the primsicv among the Seven
Churches of Asia (Rev 2>). 'The Letter to the
Church of Ephesus is on the whole laudatory.
The Christian community commandetl the writer's
respect by its keen scrutiny of soi-disant apostles,
by its intolerance of evil, and its hatred of the
liliertinism which is the antithesis of legalism.
But it had declined in the fervent love which alone
made a Church truly lovable to the Apostle. A
generation later, however, Ignatius in his Ep. to
the E/ihe-^ians uses the language of profound ad-
miration :
• I ouijht to be trained for the contest by you in faith, in ad-
monition, in endurance in long-suffering:' (| 3); 'for ye all live
according- to the truth and no heresy hach a home among you :
nay, ye do not so much as listen to anj- one if he speak of aught
else save concerning Jesus Christ in truth' (J 6); 'you were
ever of one mind with the Apostles in the power of Jesus Christ '
(§nx
Ephesus had a long line of bishops, .ind was the
seat of the council which condemned the doctrine
of Nestorius in A.D. 431. The ruins of the ancient
city, on Coressus and Prion, are extensive and im-
pressive. The theatre in which the riot (Ac 19)
took place is remarkably well preserved, and in
1870 the foundation of the Temple of Artemis was
discovered by J. T. Wood. The modem \'illage
lying beside the temple bears the name of Ayaso-
luk, which is a corruption of ayio% <?eo\o7oj, the
title of St. John the Divine which was given to
the Church of Justinian.
LiTKRATTRE.— W. M. RamsAy, Lettfrt to the Stem Churdut,
1904 ; Murray's Handbook to Asia Minor, 1895 ; G. A. Zim-
mermann, Ephe»os im enten ehrittL Jahrhundert, 1S74 ; art.
' Ephesus ' in Pauly-Wissowa, v. (19u5] ; J. T. Wood, Diaeoeerieg
at Ephtnu, 1876; E. L. Hicks, Ancient Greek Interiptiong in
the Brit, Muaeum, iii. 2 (1S9(J] ; D. G. Hog^arth, Excavation*
in Epkesug : the Archaic Artemisia, 2 vols., 1906.
Alexander Souter and Jame.s Strahan.
EPICURE AN 8.— The Epicurean philosophers are
mentioned only once in the NT, viz. in Ac 17*^.
During his second missionary journey St. Paul met
with them in Athens. Though he stayed there
not more than four weeks, the Apostle was deeply
moved by the sight of so large a number of statues
erected in honour of various deities. Not content
with preaching in the synagogue to Jews and prose-
lytes, he sought pagan hearers in their famous
market-place, thus imitating Socrates 400 years
before. The market-place was ' rich in noble
statues, the central seat of commercial, forensic,
and philosophic intercourse, as well as of the busy
idleness of the loungers ' (Meyer, Com. on Acts, Eng.
tr., 1877, ii. 108). As the 'Painted Porch' in
which the Stoics taught was situated in the
market-place, and the garden where the Epi-
cureans gathered for their fraternal discussions
was not far away, it is not surprising that some
members of these two schools of philosophy were
among the Apostle's listeners. Athens was tlie
home and centre of the four great philosophies
founded by Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus.
The two first, however, had at this time been
supplanted by the two last ; thus, in encountering
the Stoics and Epicureans, St. Paul was face to
face with the most influential philosophies of the
day. Unfortunately, we know but little of the
character of the interview or its results. The
discussion was jirobsibly not hostile on tlie |>art of
the philosophers, though Chevne seems to incline
to this view (EBi, vol. iL col." 1323 n.). That St.
Paul's teaching most Iiave been antagonistic to
theirs seems obvious.
1. EpicaroB and the Epienreans.— ( 1 ) Epicurus. —
Epicurus was bom in 341 B.C., probably at Samos,
an island ott' the coast of Asia Minor, and lived
about 70 years. His father Neocles was an
Athenian, who had gone to Samos as a colonist
after the Greeks had expelled a large number of
the natives. His occupation was that of a humble
schoolmaster, and his son is said to have assu^ted
him for some time. At the age of 18 Epicurus
left for Athens, returning home a year later to
Colophon, where his father now lived. Of the
beginnings of Epicurus' acquaintance with philo-
sophy our knowledge is slight and uncertain. Two
of his teachers were Nausiphanes, a disciple of
Democritus, and Pamphilus, a Platonist. But, as
the former owed much to Pyrrho, the well-known
Sceptic, it is hardly likely that Epicurus failed to
share in that obligation. He claims to have lieen
his own teacher, and this is true to the extent that
he rejected the prevalent philosophies of his rime
and turned to such predecessors as Demotrritns,
Anaxagoras, and Archelatis. It w-as at Mitylene
that he began to teach philosophy, and at Lamp-
sacus his position as the head of a school was
recognizetl. He returned to Athens in 307 B.C.,
and settled there for the remainder of his life.
There he purchased a house and garden, the latter
becoming famous as the home of a large band of
men and women who became his devoted disciples
and friends. He died in 270 B.C. He had never
enjoyed robust health, and his general feebleness
and ailments were the ground upon which his
enemies based charges of evil living.
(2) The Epicureans. — The community lived its
own separate life. The calls and claims of public
life were ignored and the usual ambitions of men
stilled. From all the political upheavals through
which Athens |>a.ssed the Epicureans held strictly
aloof, exemplifying their principles by indifference
to environment and the endeavour to extract the
maximum of tranquil gratification from life by the
prudent and unimpassioned use of it* Thev passed
their time in the study of Nature and Morality,
and their friendly intercourse with each other
supplied the necessary human elements. Most
serious charges were made from time to time
against both Epicurus himself and the community,
but the accusers were generally either disafi'ected
ex-disciples or rivals, and their motives were
malicious. One cannot but admit that the ideal
of 'pleasure' was well calculated to produce the
most disastrous results except in the case of the
noblest of men ; and it is hard to believe that the
garden contained onlj- such. Yet consideration
must be given to the extraordinary devotion of the
brotherhood towards their head, in whom they
recognized their deliverer from the worst fears and
desires of life. An example of their unceasing
allegiance to their master may be found in the
statues erected in Epicurus' honour after his death.
Simplicity was the note of the community's life.
For drink they had water with a small quantity
of wine on occasion, and for food barley bread. In
a letter Epicurus writes : ' Send me some Cynthian
cheese, so that, should I choose, I may fare sumptu-
on«ly.' And during the severe famine which
afflicted Athens, Plutarch informs us that the
Epicureans lived on beans which they shared out
from day to day {Demetrius, 34). But the bond
352
EPICUREANS
EPICUREANS
which held this remarkable company together was
the personality of Epicurus, who rej^arded his
followers not only as disciples but as friends.
2. Teaching. — hpicurus is said to iiave written
SOU l>ooks, but all have disappeared, and we are
dependent for our knowledge on writers two
centuries later. This misfortune is probably due
to the teacher's habit of summarizing his system
so that the disciples might commit it to memory.
His reputed lack of style may have contributed to
the same end. Nevertheless, the main outlines of
his teacliing are clear enough, though on import-
ant details uncertainty prevails. Epicurus had no
interest in theories, except as they aided practical
life. Mere knowledge was worthless, and culture
he despised. His theoretical teaching treated of
Man and the Universe (his Physics) ; his practical
teaching used the knowledge so gained for the
regulation of human conduct (his Ethics). Under-
lying tliese was his peculiar Logic. Real Logic of
the Aristotelian type he could not tolerate. All
he wanted was a criterion of truth, or to ascertain
the grounds on which statements of fact could be
based. This is usually called the Canonic.
(a) Canonic. — The criteria of truth or reality
according to Epicurus may be grouped under two
heads. — (1) Sensation. Every sensuous impression
received by the mind is produced by something
other than itself, and is infallibly true. When
these feeling's are clear, distinct, and vivid, the
knowledge they aflbrd is real. Even the sensations
of the dreamer and lunatic are true, since they are
caused by some other object operating on the mind.
Any error arising from sensations is due not to the
sensations themselves but to the mind's misinter-
pretation of them. But Epicurus does not make
clear what that vividness is which is reliable and
incapable of misinterpretation. (2) Conceptions or
pre-conceptions, i.e. ideas which have been left in
the mind by preceding sensations. Here memory,
which recalls past impressions, and reasoning,
which interprets them, have been active, with the
result that the mind unconsciously confronts every
new sensation with impressions which may modify
any effect it may make. These conceptions, the
repetition of earlier observations, are true. But it
is well that they should be brought from time to
time into immecliate connexion with the sensation
itself. Thus, if a distant square tower appear
round, closer examination will discover the error
and modify the impression for the future. It is
difficult to see how Epicurus would apply this
admirable criterion to his theory of the ' atoms '
and the ' void. '
(b) Physics. — Epicurus relied on the senses alone
as the true basis of knowledge, and they reveal
only matter in motion. Consequently, matter is
the only reality. The incorporeal is the same as
the non-existent, i.e. void, and this applies even to
mind. When Epicurus explains the nature of
matter, the influence of Democritus is at once
evident. The immediate impression of the senses
suggests large masses of matter, but this is not
reliable. In reality the apparent masses are com-
posed of extremely minute, invisible particles or
atoms which differ only in weight, size, and shape,
and, though near to each other, do not touch.
Around each is a void. By analogy he argues that
this is true not only of the nearer world but also of
that which is most distant. He readies this ex-
planation by the elimination of all other possible
theories. Atoms then being presumed, in what
way do they move ? Aristotle had taught that
celestial boilies move in a circular manner, and
fire upwards. But Epicurus claimed that the only
movement of which we are aware is that of the
fall of bodies to the earth — downward movement.
All atomic movement then is eternally straight
downward. But this brings us to the conception
of relative stagnation, as every body is moving in
the same direction and at the same rate. To avoid
this difficulty, Pipicurus fell back upon our in-
dividual experience of power to resist forces and
cause them to deviate from their original direction.
He then claimed for atoms something of the same
power. How, where, and when this strange i>ower
operates we are not informed ; but, by assuming
it, Epicurus arrives at an explanation of those
vast aggregates of apparently concrete combina-
tions of wlii(;li our senses are conscious. The only
difference between mind and matter is that the
former is composed of minuter and rounder particles
which pervaae the body like a warm breath. To
explain our consciousness of taste, colour, sound,
etc., Epicurus resorts to a curious theory. In
addition to the primary particles which each body
possesses, there are secondary particles which vary
in each case. These ' thin, lilmy images, exactly
copying the solid body whence they emanate,' are
continually floating away from it ; and when they
reach the various human organs, they produce with-
in the mind the sensations of which we are conscious.
This theory also accounts not only for our visions
of the ghosts of departed friends, whose secondary
E articles may float about long after their death,
ut also for our perceptions of the gods ; for,
though they are composed of much finer particles
than mortals, their ' films ' may fall with impact
upon the human organism.
Though charged with atheism, Epicurus never
questioned the existence of the gods, though he
taught their remoteness from, and indiflerence to,
human concerns. He ridiculed ancient mythology,
whose ett'ect on men had been wholly injurious,
and explained such portents as eclipses, thunder,
etc., on purely natural jjrounds. He likewise
denounced the belief in fate — a belief he con-
sidered even more hurtful than the belief in Divine
intervention. His teaching being frankly material-
istic, Epicurus naturally disbelieved in immortality.
For these reasons, he argued, man need have no
fear : the gods do not concern themselves with
him ; there is no such thing as fate ; and death
is nothing but the end of all.
(c) Ethics. — Passing by the idealism of Plato
and Aristotle, Epicurus had recourse to the doctrine
of Aristippus of Cyrene, who taught that ' pleasure '
is the supreme good and ' pain ' the solo evil.
Socrates, while admitting the importance of
pleasure, regarded the pleasures of the n)ind as
greater than those of the body. Aristi])pus pre-
ferred the latter because of their greater intensity.
His ideal was the intensest pleasure of the juissing
moment, entirely undisturbed by reason, its greatest
foe ; not merely the absence of pain, Init pleasure
that was active and positive. The difficulty he
found in attaining this ideal led him to allow some
value to prudence as an aid thereto.
Epicurus dittered from Aristippus in the follow-
ing respects : men should consider less the fleeting
pleasure of the moment and aim at that of the
whole life ; intense, throbbing ecstasy is less desir-
able than a tranquil state of mind which may
become perpetual ; indeed, at times, the highest
possible pleasure may be merely the removal of
pain ; the pleasures and pains of mind are more
important than those of body, because of the joy
or distress which may be accumulated by memory
and anticipation. Much greater emphasis is like-
wise laid on the virtue of prudence, which he calls
' a more precious thing even than philosophv.*
Prudence is in fact the chief virtue of all. By
its means rival pleasures are judged ; and even
momentary pain may be cliosen, that a tranquil
life may be fiirthered.
Epicureanism does not indulge in high moral
KPIMENIDES
ERASTUS
353
ideals or insist upon any code of duties, whetlier
public or private, save as these may minister to
ones own pleasure, but neither does it inculcate
(in theory) low, sensual delights. These have their
place, but what that place is must be decided by
prudence, with a view to securing a complete li^
of tranquil pleasure. Epicurus is to be regarded
as the founder of Hedonism.
LaTBRATtRK.— Lucretius, de Rerum Natura; Dior. Laert.
de I'ilis Philogophonun, bk. x. ; Cicero, de FinHnts,de Natura
Deoruin, Tiisculaiuv Disputationes ; Plutarch, Disputatio q^ia
docetur ne suaviter ijtiidein viripo^ne secundum Epiciiri decreta,
adc. Colotfiii ; E. Zeller, Stoics, Epieureatis and Sceptics, Ene.
tr., London, ISSO ; W. Wallace, Epicureanism, do. 1880; J.
Watson. Hedonistic Theories, Glasgow, 1895 ; artt. in EDr^^,
IJDB, EBi; Histories 0/ Philosophy, by Ritter, etc.
J. W. LiGHTLEY.
EPIMENIDES.— See Quotations.
EPISTLE. — In dealing with ancient literature
we have become accustomed to make a distinction
between the epistle and the letter. In that sphere
we frequently meet with a so-called letter, which,
from the purely external point of view, shows all
the characteristics of a genuine letter, and yet is
in no sense designed to serve as a vehicle of tidings
and ideas between one person and another, or
between one person and a definite circle of
persons, but on the contrary has been written in
the e.xpectation, and indeed with the intention,
of gaining the notice of the public. Now, in de-
signating such a document an 'epistle,' and re-
serving the term ' letter ' for a letter in the true
sense, we must remember that, while the distinc-
tion itself was quite familiar to the ancients, our
terminology is modem. By 'epistle' we mean,
accordingly, a letter expressly intended for the
general public. Yet it must be admitted that, in
the sphere of ancient literature, it is not always
easy to decide whether a particular document is a
letter or an epistle, as will appear from the follow-
ing considerations. { 1 ) In many such compositions
there is nothing to indicate whether the writer de-
sired to address the general public or. not. (2) The
art of the epistle-writer consisted very largely in
his ability to personate a true letter-writer, so
that the reader should never have the faintest
suspicion that the writing in his hands was any-
thing but a genuine letter. (3) Even in letters
properly so called the writer did not always allow
his words and thoughts to flow freely and spon-
taneously, but sometimes — and especially in the
latter part of the ancient era, when rhetoric pre-
vailed everywhere — as we find even in correspond-
ence whose private and confidential nature is
beyond doubt, invested the structure and style of
his letter with rhetorical features such as we might
expect to meet with in writings designed to in-
fluence the public mind, and therefore of necessity
far removed from the free and easy prattle of a
letter. (4) Finally, it is not easy to specify the
point of transition between the limited circle to
which the private letter may be addressed and the
general public to which the epistle makes its
appeal. In most cases, no doubt, it is possible to
decide whether an epistle is meant for the public
eye, but it is frequently far from certain whether
a particular letter addressed to a limited public, as
e.g. a church or a group of churches, or, say, the
bishops of a metropolitan province, has not lost all
claim to be regarded as a real letter. Notwith-
standing these considerations, however, the dis-
tinction between epistle and true letter has every
right to be retained. Like all such distinctions, it
doubtless fails to make due allowance for the
li\'ing current of literary development, but it
teaches us to keep an open eye for the diversities
and gradations of literature, and thus also, when
rightly used, helps us to define more accurately
VOL. 1. — 2^
the character of the epistolary writings in the
NT.
Now, as the Christian writers of the Apostolic
Age adopted the 'epistle,' and, we may even say,
made use of it with a zest that may be inferred,
in particular, from the fact that they enriched the
literary side of the Gospel and the Apocalypse by
means of the epistolary form (cf. Lk 1**-, Rev l'"^-),
it is necessary to give due weight to the following
points: (1) that in this as in other respects the
Apostolic Age was embedded in the same literary
tradition of later antiquity as we are able to trace
in various Greek and Latin prototypes of non-
Christian origin ; (2) that, nevertheless, the
structure, style, and diction of the primitive
Christian epistles nearly always carry us into a
ditterent sphere of culture from that associated
with the extant post-classical epistolary litera-
ture composed on classical models ; and, finally,
(3) that the influence of the hortatory addresses
of Christian preachers in the primitive Church is
clearly traceable in these Christian epistles.
Among the 'epistles 'of the Apostolic Age the
present writer would include the following : James,
1 Peter, Jude, Hebrews, 1 John, and Barnabas.
These for the most part ditt'er in no essential point
from hortative addresses to a congregation, and
the epistolary form, where it is present at all, or
where, as in Hebrews, it is no more than suggested,
is merely a form, which, in fact, is completely
shattered by the contents. Among these Epistles
there is not one which in virtue of a refined or
even well-schooled art could claim to be considered
a true letter. But this is itself a striking evidence
of the significant fact that the Christian writers
of the Apostolic Age, greatly as they had been
afl'ected by the stream of literary activity in the
grander style of the ancients, were now feeling
their way towards new forms in which to com-
municate their religious ideas to a wider public.
With tliis end in view, therefore, they had re-
course to the epistle, as the literary eidos at
once of the simplest character and lying closest to
their hands ; but here — even in the case of a writer
like the author of Hebrews, who has obviously
been powerfully influenced by the elements of
Greek rhetoric — the substance of the message was
for them of much greater importance than the
form. The fictitious, pseudonymous epistle is a
literary phenomenon that first makes its appear-
ance in the post- Apostolic Age.
LrrERATCRB. — R. Hercher, Epistolographi Grceei, Paris, 1873
(a collection of Greek letters) ; H. Peter, Der Brief in der
romi^chen Litteratur, Leipzig, 1901 ; E. Norden, Die antike
Eunstprosa^, do. 1909 ; G. A. Deissmann, Bibelstudien,
Marburg, 1895, pp. 187-225 (Eng. tr., 1901, pp. 1-59) ; C. F. G.
Heinrici, Der litterarische Character der neatest. Schri/ten,
Leipzig, 1908, p. 56flf. ; J. Weiss, ' Literaturgesch. des NT,' in
BOG iii. [1912] 2175-2215 ; H. Jordan, Gesch. der altchrisUiehen
Literal ur, Leipzig, 1911, p. 12o If. (containing alsoa historj- of the
Christian Epistle till a.d. 600) ; P. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-
romische Kuitur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum und
Christentum, 'Die urchristliche Literaturfomien,' Tiibingen,
1912, pp. 343-381. H. JORDAN.
ERASTUS CEpao-roj).— 1. In Ro 16^3 Erastus is
' the treasurer of the city ' (6 okovo/toj t^s iroXewi,
arcariiis civitatis) of Corinth, who sends saluta-
tions with ' Quartus the brother.' His office was
an important one. He stands almost alone in the
NT as a convert of position and influence.
2. In Ac 19^- the name is given to one of two —
Timothy being the other — who ' ministered ' to St.
Paul in Ephesus, and who were sent by him on
some errand into Macedonia.
3. In '2 Ti 4-* Erastus is a companion of St. Paul,
said to have remained in Corinth, i.e. during the
interval between the first and second imprison-
ments.
Are these three to be identified ? It is possible
354
ESAU
ESCHATOLOGY
that 2 and 3 are the same man, but on account
of the nature of the ofHce held by 1 it seeniH un-
likely that lie could have been a missionary com-
panion and messenger of the Apostle. To meet
this difficulty, it might be suggested that he had
resigned the treasurership on becoming a Christian.
Again, if 1 and 3 are identical, there would seem
to be little point in St. Paul's informing Timothy
that an important city official ' abode at Corinth.'
It is held by some scholars that the.se salutations
from Corinthian Christians in the postscript of the
' Roman ' Epistle point to an Ephesian destination
of the passage. It is easier to believe that the
members of the Cliurch at Corinth had friends at
Ephesus than at Rome ; but, as Lightfoot reminds
us, personal acquaintance was not necessary in the
Apostolic Church to create Christian sympathy.
Also, 'the descriptive addition "the steward of
the city " is much more appropriate if addressed to
those to whom his name was unknown or scarcely
known, than to those with whom he was personally
acquainted' (Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, 1893, p.
305). If we could accept the theory of the Epliesian
destination, we should be more inclined to identify
all three names. T. B. Allworthy.
ESAU {'HeraO).— (1) St. Paul (Ro Q'"-") uses the
pre-natal oracle regarding Esau and his brother
(Gn 25^*- ^) as an illustration of the principle of
Divine election. Before they were born, when
neither had any merit or demerit, the elder was
destined to serve the younger. As the prophet
Malachi (P-^) has it, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I
hated.' In both of the OT passages quoted there
was a reference not merely to the children but to
their descendants. The first part of the oracle
runs, ' Two nations are in thy womb, and two
peoples shall be separated from thy bowels '
(Gn 25^) ; and the Prophet's words are, ' Was (or
'is,' RVm) not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the
Lord : yet I (have) loved Jacob ; but Esau (have) I
hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and
gave (given) his heritagetothe jackals of the wilder-
ness. Whereas Edom saith,' etc. (Mai P-*).
St. Paul is engaged in proving that the Divine
promise has not failed though the majority of the
children of Abraham have been excluded (or have
excluded themselves by unbelief) from a share in
its fulfilment in Christ. His purpose is to sweep
away a narrow, particularistic doctrine of election,
according to which God's action ends in Israel, and
to replace it by a grand universalistic conception,
according to which the world, or all humanity, is
the end of the Divine action, and election itself
is controlled by an all-embracing purpose of love.
He accomplishes his purpose partly by a very
eflective argumentum ad hominem. The Jews so
little understood the humbling principle of election,
which ascribes all the merit of salvation to God,
that they prided themselves on having been chosen,
while their neighbours, Ishmael and Edom, had
been rejected. Since Jacob — in the prophetic
words which were so dear to them — had been
loved and Esau hated, it was clear to them that
they were the objects of a peculiar Divine favour.
To turn the edge of this argument, St. Paul had
only to remind them that many of the rejected —
erf. Esau and all his descendants — were children of
Abraham. If God could make a distinction in the
chosen family in former times, without being un-
true to His covenant. He might do so again. A
whole nation might lose its birthright like Esau.
(2) The writer of Hebrews (12'«) instances Esau
as a profane per.son, who for a single meal (avri
/3/)c6(rews /*tas) sold his birthright. ' Profane '(/Se'/STjXos),
when applied to things, means ' unconsecrated,'
'secular. The wonl occurs in the LXX of Lv lO^",
' ye shall put dillerence between the holy and the
common {tCov /3e^7j\w>').' It was the fault of Esau,
who was not without admirable qualities, that he
made no such distinction. To him the most .sacred
things were common, because he had no spiritual
discernment. He despised ' this birthright ' (Gn
25*-) as a thing of no worth. He did not de.spise
the blessing which had material advantages at-
tached to it, and he imagined he could retain it
even after he had sold tlie birthright. But the
poignant moment of disillusionment came, when
lie realized that the blessing was gone beyond re-
call. His regrets were vain : ' he found no place
for repentance.' This signifies that there was no
means of undoing what he had done ; the past was
irreparable. Jamks Strahan.
ESCHATOLOGY.—
I. TllK EAHLIKSr CiritJSTUX ESCHATOLOQT.
1. Sources.
2. The Jewish back^ound of ideas.
3. The new Oiristian niessa^^e.
4. The chief doctrines of the l>ast Things.
5. Extent and importance of the aix)caTyptic element.
6. Relation to the teaehinjj of our Lord.
7. Decline of the earliest type of Christian eschatology.
II. Tin: C'lltlSTIAN Al'OCAIAI'riC LIIEHATUKE.
1. Revelation of St. John.
2. Non-canonical Christian apocalypses.
III. The jouASNiNE ty^k of eakly CinasTiAN eschat-
Ol.OilY.
1. ' Spirituality ' of the teaching.
2. The place of the sacraments.
3. Later history of this type of eschatology.
IV. The Pauline tyi-e of hahlyCuristias eschatology.
1. Eschatology of St. Paul.
2. Eschatology of early Gentile-Christian churches.
Scope of the article. — Our subject is the eschat-
ology of the Apostolic Church down to A.D. 100.
By ' eschatology ' we understand (1) the doctrine of
a certain series of events a-ssociated with the end of
this world-era and the beginning of another ; and
(2) the destiny of the individual human soul after
death. We shall deal first with the earliest type of
Christian eschatology, as it was taught by the first
disciples of our Lord, in the primitive JudjBO-
Christian communities ; and then we shall en-
deavour to trace the various lines along which this
l)rimitive teaching was developed and modified.
1. The earliest Curistiax eschatology.
— 1. The sources. — In studying the characteristics
of the Ctarliest Christian doctrine of the Last Things,
it seems not unrea-sonable (in view of the trend of
recent scholarship) to base our conclusions with
some confidence upon the Acts of the Apostles, as a
history ' which in most points, and those es.sential
points, stands the test of reliability' (Harnack,
The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., 1909, p. 303).
The evidence from the speeches must, perhaps, be
used with a little more reserve, but even here
there appears to be a growing tendency to recog-
nize a real historical value. Evidence su^)plement-
ing that of Acts may be drawn from the Epistles of
tlie NT, particularly James, Hebrews, and 1 Pet«r,
all of which belong to a Judtvo-Christian type of
thought, though somewhat later in date than the
earliest preaching recorded in Acts (see artt. on
James, Ep. of ; Hebrews, Ep. to ; Peter, Ei'. of).
From these NT writings it is po.ssible to gain a
fairly clear and definite conception of the earliest
Christian eschatology.
2. The Jewish ' background of ideas.'— The tyj)e
of tiiought refiected in these early Christian writ-
ings is thoroughly and distinctively Jewish. Es-
jtecially is this the ca.se in the earlier chapters of
Acts, where the ideas of .Jewish apocalyptic form
the ' background ' of the i)reaching— a Viackground
so familiar that it never neetls to be explained or
expounded in detail, but yet never allows itself to
be altogether forgotten. The men who preached
the earliest Christian doctrine of the Last Tilings
had for the most part been brought up in a religious
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
365
atmosphere impregnated with eschatological ideas.
The Judaism m whicli they were living was the
Judaism which produced ai>ocalyptic A%Titing8 such
as the Book of Jubilees, the Assumption of Moses,
tlie Apocalypse of Baruch, 4 Ezra, etc. ; and
they were accustomed to think and speak of their
religious hopes in the terms of Jewish apocalyptic.
Now, although the details of apocalyptic eschat-
ology vary from book to book (see e.g. R. H.
Charle.s in HDB i. 741-749), yet a few fixed points
stand out in every case, arranged accordin;| to a
scheme which had become almost stereotyped in the
ai>ocalypses, and which is accepted as axiomatic in
the apostolic preaching. This scheme is as follows :
(1) the signs foreshadowing the end, (2) the Com-
ing of the Messiah, (3) the resurrection of the
dead, (4) the Last Judgment, (5) the inauguration of
the Kingdom of God. The NT passages in which
this 'eschatological scheme' is implied are too
numerous to be cited ; for typical examples, see
Ac 2"-» S^'- 42 10^ ISi*-!* 17*1, Ja S'"*, He 1 and 2,
1 p 4 5. 7. 17 1 xh 4 and 5, 2 Th 2^-»-, etc.
The comparative uniformity with which these
'fixed points' recur in the Jewish apocalyptic
eschatology may be traced in part to the Jewish
idea of predestination. The events were conceived
of as already fixed in the mind of God, and (in a
sense) already pre-existent in heaven ; so that the
1)rogress of history may be regarded as an ' apoca-
ypse' or unveiling of the Divine plan which is
even now ' ready to be revealed in the last times.'
It is necessary to realize this if we would under-
stand the force of the Judseo-Christian appeal to
the Old Testament. Modem writers generallj- hold
that the value of prophecy consists primarily in its
insight into spiritual truths, and only indirectly in
its foresight into the future ; but to the Jew, a co-
incidence between a prophetic prediction and a subse-
quent event was a signal proof of Di%"ine inspiration,
for it showed that God had ' unveiled ' before the
vision of His prophet some detail of that future which
was already predestined and lying spread out before
His all-seeing eyes (cf. Ac l"*^- 2»"-»* S^*"- i^^ 11»
13^-41 173.11 1328 2Q^t- etc.. He 4' 9=», and esp. 1 P
!>-«).
But, while emphasizing the background of ideas
common to primitive Christianity and Jewish
apocalyptic, we must not ignore the distinctive-
ness of the former ; and this now claims our at-
tention.
3. The new Christian message. — (1) The Messiah
h/is come, in the Person of Jesus. — The belief
that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Christ, and
that His life fulfilled the Scriptural prophecies, is
the central truth of the apostolic preaching (Ac
236 32J 54:; i72f.^ Ja 21, He 1, 1 P 3^ 4*, etc.). In the
Jewish apocalypses, two Messianic ideals are mani-
fested. On the one hand, there was the old pro-
f>hetic expectation of a warrior-king of David's
ine, raised up from among Grod's people to rule
them in righteousness and truth (Pss.-Sol. xvii.
23-51, etc.). On the other hand, there was the
purely apocalyptic conception of a heavenly Being
descending, like Daniel's Son of Man, from the
clouds of heaven, endowed with supernatural
powers, and presiding as God's viceroy at the
Great Judgment. It is to be noticed that the NT
conception of our Lord's Messiahship, while higher
than any previously set forth, is much more nearly
related to the Danielle ' Son of Man ' than to the
iwlitical type of Messiah (Ac 3-i, 1 Th 4^*, 2 Th 1^
etc.). Now, ii Jesus was the ile-ssiah, then, since
He had actually come, and had l)een rejected by
His people, several consequences seemed (to Jew-
ish minds) to foiloAv inevitably, viz. :
(2) The Last Days are now in progress. — In
Jewish apocalyptic, the coming of the Messiah is
. inv&riably associated with the end of this world
and the beginning of the New Era. So, when the
apostles proclaimed that the Messiali had come,
they thereby conveyed to their Jewish hearers the
impression that the Last Days had also come —
not merely that they were at nand, but that they
had actually begun and were in progress. And in
fact this belief is implied in many NT passages,
the full meaning of which often escapes the notice
of the casual re^er, who is full of modem ideas.
But if once this eschatological outlook is realized,
the early narratives of Acts are tilled mth new
meaning. In particular, it will be noticed that
the 'appeals to i)rophecy,' which occur so fre-
quently in Acts, are often connected with the de-
sire to prove that the Last Days have at length
come ; e.g. the outpouring of the Spirit at Pente-
cost is hailed by St. Peter as the fulfilment of
Joel's prophecy, which expressly referred to ' the
Last Days ' (Ac 2i«-» ; cf. Jl 2^-^). His argument
is that, since the propliecy has been fulfilled, it
foUows that the ' La-st Days ' foretold therein must
have come. Similarly, the charismata, and the
gifts of healing and of tongues, which were pre-
valent in the early Church, lent themselves readily
to the view that they were a part of the miraculous
' signs of the end ' foretold by prophets and apoca-
lyptists (Ac 218- a « 4»fl. 512-16 jgis jge oiS). Again,
the Death, Resurrection, and A.scension of our
Lord were proclaimed by the apostles, not merely
as interesting historical events, but as part of the
miraculous portents which were to form the ' birth-
pangs of the Kingdom of God' (Ac 2**-» 31*-* 26»).
All these things combined to deepen in the minds
of the first disciples of our Lord the conviction
that ' it was the last hour.'
(3) The Messiah is immediately to return as
Judge. — Jesus, the Messiah, has been rejected by
His people, but there remains yet another act in
the great drama of the Last Things. His life on
earth has fulfilled some of the Messianic pro-
phecies ; but others {e.g. Daniel's vision of the Son
of Man) are still awaiting fulfilment. So the
Messiah is about to come again immediately in
glory on the clouds of heaven to judge all man-
kind (Ac 1" 10*2 17" 24» Ja 5«- », 1 P 4') and to
destroy the apostate city of Jerusalem and the in-
habitsmts thereof (Ac 6"). Thus the apostolic
preaching Avas in part a stem denunciation and a
warning of judgment to come. But it did not end
here.
(4) God is granting one more opportunity. —
Herein lay the 'good tidings* of the apostolic
preaching. Although the Jews had incurred the
severest penalties of the Divine judgment by cruci-
fying the Messiah (Ac S^**-), yet another opportun-
ity is being offered, by which all men may escape
' the wrath to come,' and receive the Divine for-
giveness. The only conditions demanded by God
are (a) belief in Jesns as Lord and Messiaii (Ac
16*»^ ; cf. 2»^*-, etc.), and (6) repentance (Ac 2» 3"
20^). Those who 'believe' and 'repent' will be
saved in the Judgment from the condemnation
which is impending over all the world (Ac 2"
31s. 23-36j^ and win be forgiven by the Lord Jesus,
who, as Messianic Judge, alone has the authority
to grant such pardon (Ac 5*^ 10**). Thus it will be
seen that ' salvation ' and ' forgiveness,' as terms
of Christian theology, are in their origin eschato-
logical, though they have been found capable of
development along non-eschatological lines (see
below). And it was just because of this eschato-
logical background that the apostolic ' gospel *
was so intensely fervent and urgent; for there
was not a moment to spare ; ' the Judge was stand-
ing before the doors ' ( Ja 5» ; cf. 1 P 4*- ^- "), and
every convert was indeed a brand plucked from
the burning (Ac 2*'-*'- *^ 3^*-=*). So the apostolic
preaching was transformed from a denunciation and
356
KSCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
a warning of iin})ending judgment into an evangel
of salvation and forgiveness.
(5) The free gifts of God, — To descrilje the
apostolic gospel simply as a promise of escape from
the wrath to come would be inadei^uate; it was a
promise rich with new gifts and blessings — e.g. the
outflowing of the Divine Spirit (Ac 2*^' """• 5*^), and
the 'seasons of refreshing,' which would sustain
the elect until the return of the Messiah and tiie
'restoration of all tilings' (Ac 3'®'-^ ; see below, I.
i (5)). And these blessings were not to be labori-
ously earned, but were freely offered to all who
would 'repent 'and 'believe.'
4. The application of the apostolic message to
the chief doctrines of the Last Things. — Tlie ideas
underlying the most primitive Cliristian escliato-
logy, as we have outlined it above, are so unfamiliar
to us that tlieir bearing upon the great problems of
the future life is not at first sight evident, and
requires a brief consideration.
(1) The Second Coming of our Lord. — Most early
Christians doubtless conceived of this in tlie
traditional dramatic form, in accordance with the
teaching of Enoch and other Jewish apocalypses.
On the other hand, it should be remein leered that
(a) the 'unearthly' conception of the Messiah set
forth in the Enochic * Son of Man ' would be modi-
lied by the recollection of the historical human
personality of Jesu» the Messiah ; and (h) the
apocalyptic idea of Messiahship, though one-sided,
and therefore inadequate for a satisfactory Christo-
logy, was yet a high and transcendent ideal — one
■which needed to be supplemented and enlarged,
rather than corrected. It formed a good founda-
tion, upon which Christian thought and experience
were able to build a fuller and truer doctrine of our
Lord's Person and Second Coming.
(2) The Last Judgment. — This also was, in
primitive Christian thought, closely linked with
the Person of our Lord as Messianic Judge. It
was thought of as limited in time to a date in the
near future, and probably localized at some place
on the earth (perliaps Jerusalem ; cf. Ac 6'*, 1 P
4"). Such ideas, however crude, were capable of
being ' spiritualized ' in course of time, without
any breach in the continuity of Christian teaching.
A more serious problem is raised by the difficulty
of reconciling the doctrine of a universal Judgment
(Ac 17^S 1 r 4') with the doctrine ol forgiveness,
by which some men are ' acquitted ' beforehand in
anticipation of the Judgment. This is a hard,
perhaps an insoluble, problem ; but it is not
peculiar to eschatology ; for it confronts us wher-
ever the ideas of forgiveness and justice are placed
side by side.
(3) The Intermediate State. — So long as the
Return of the Lord was expected to occur immedi-
ately, there was little room for any speculations
with regard to the state of those wlio had ' fallen
asleep in Christ.' The ' waiting- time ' seemed so
brief that it did not invite mucli consideration.
To expect to find in the NT authoritative state-
ments either for or against prayers for the dead,
or formal distinctions between an intermediate
state of purgation and a final state of bliss, is to
forget the peculiar eschatological outlook of primi-
tive Christianity, and to look for an anachronism.
The beginnings of Christian sjieculation concerning
the Intermediate State come before us at quite an
early stiige (e.g. in 1 Thess.) ; but they do not be-
long to the earliest stage of all.
Tlie case was somewiiat different with regard
to the faithful wiio had died before Christ came.
Christians naturally wished to know how these
would be enabled to hear the 'good tidings,' and
share in tiie forgiveness and salvation now ofleretl
by Christ. Two well-known i»assages in 1 Peter
bear upon this point : the ' preaching to the spirits
in prison '(IP 3'"), and the ' jneacliing to the deatl '
(1 P 4'). A detailed discuasion is iinpo.ssible here ;
see the Commentaries ad loc. In the i)resent
wvMtir' a Primitive Christian Jisc/utlologu, p. 254 ff.,
it is contendetl that the passages should Ix; inter-
preted in accordance Avitii the methods of Jewish
apocalyptic ; and that their main purpose is to
teach tliat the ' good tidings ' have l^uen proclaimed
by Christ to those who had died before His Coming,
so that at His Return they may have the same
opportunities of repentance as those who are alive
at the time. Broadly, too, we may see in these
passages Scriptural warrant for the view that there
may be opportunities for repentance after death.
(4) The Itesurrer.tion. — Questionings with regard
to the nature and manner of the resurrection are
scarcely seen at all in the earliest eschatolo^ as
reflected in Acts and the Judajo-Christian Epistles
(see Lake, The Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, p. 91 f.).
Generally the references a])])ly to our Lord's Re-
surrection, and even where the general resurrection
is implied (Ac 238-8 24"> 26«-») no details as to the
manner thereof are forthcoming. In Ac 24'* its
universal scope ('both of the just and unjust') is
asserted ; and in He 6'* ^ dLviaraai^ veKp2iv is in-
cluded among 'the principles of Christ' which
are too well known to neecf a detailed exposition.
But we find nothing corresponding to the Pauline
discussion as to the nature of the resurrection -lxj<ly.
In the Jewish apocalypses, the doctrine fluctuates
from an extremely material conception to one
which is purely spiritual ; and probably the early
Christians inherited various views on this point.
The idea that our Lord's Resurrection was a ' first-
fruits ' of the general resurrection is imi)lied in Ac
26'", and this was destined in time to influence the
Christian doctrine of the resurrection.
(5) Final destinies. — Here again, no detailed
scheme of doctrine is yet put forward. Broadly,
it is implied that .supreme joy will be the reward
of the ' believers,' and that a dreadful fate awaits
unbelievers (Ac 3^). The phrase ' restoration of
all things' (Ac 3^") might be taken to imply a
' universalistic ' view of future destinies, or even
some idea of ' world-cycles ' by which the eras that
are past .are brought back in course of time ; but
a similar phrase is found in Mai 4' (LXX), and may
be no more than a general term for the perfection
of the Messianic Kingdom.
5. The extent and importance of the apocalyptic
element in the earliest Christian eschatology. —
Until recent years, the apocalyptic element in the
NT received but scant notice ; but of late a new
theory as to the teaching and 'tone 'of ajrostolic
Christianity has been put forward (see e.g. Lake,
Tlie Earlier Epistles of St. Paid, or Schweitzer,
Paul and his Interpreters). It is contended that
the ' gospel ' of ])riinitive Christianity was ex-
clusively fin eschatological message, foretelling,
in terms of current Jewish apocalyptic, the ap-
proaciiing end of this world-era and the beginning
of the next. If the interpretation given above be
correct, there is a measure of truth in this • Con-
sistent Eschatological' view of apostolic eschato-
logy ; for the new faith did not at once sweei) away
the old methods of thought, and we should miss
the force and full significance of NT eschatology
unless we interpreted it in the light of Jewish
apocalyptic.
On the other hand, the 'Consistent Eschato-
logists' «lo not appear to give suHicient place to
other factors: e.g. (I) the ' jwlitical' type of
•Jewi.sh thought, in which the Mes-siah is conceived
of as an eartldy Monarch, and the Kingdom of God
as an extensive Jewish Empire. Some sucli iK)litieal
ideas were clearly in the minds of the apostles at
the llrst (Ac 1*), and they may well have existed in
the primitive Church side by side with the purely
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
357
apocalyptic eschatology. And (2) the ' Consistent
Esthatologists ' under-rate the importance of the
new and distinctively Christian element in the
aixxstolic eschatology. Also (3) a study of the NT
shows that, from the very tirst, moral teaching
held a place second to none in the ajH)stolic preach-
ing. In view of these facts, it would appear to be
an exaggeration to speak of the primitive aijostolic
' gospel ' as though it were exclusively, or even
predominantly, an eschatological message.
6. The relation of the primitive apostolic
eschatology to the teaching of our Lord. — It was
from the teaching and worTc of our Lord that the
af)Ostolic preaching derived its primarj* inspiration,
and hence it is evident that the apostolic doctrine
of tlje I>ast Things was intended to be founded
upon His. And since recent study of the NT
seems to have shown that eschatology held an
inijxfrtant place in our Lord's teaching, we may
not regard the eschatological • tone ' of the primi-
tive apostolic message as an element foreign to
the mind of Christ, or one invent«tl by the apostles
merely to satisfy their own predilections. It does
not follow, however, that the apostolic teaching
coincided precisely with that of our Lord. It wa.s
only natural that the ajwstles should tend to
emphasize those aspects of His teaching which were
most full of meaning to themselves, and to lay
but little stress upon whatever appeared to them
unfamiliar or incomprehensible. And so the pro-
portions of the message undergo some modification :
for instance, in the apostolic preaching, the ex-
pectation of the Second Coming is set forth more
definitely than in the words of the Master Himself.
But in one point the community of spirit between
the eschatologj- of Christ and His followers is most
noteworthy : the close link between the eschatology
and practical morality. From the first, the call to
repentance always accompanies the eschatohjgical
message (Ac 2*, etc.) ; and the ' repentance ' of the
f)riniitive Christians involved a very real change of
ife. Herein, from the very tirst, lay a ditierence
between Jewish and Christian eschatology : the
former was often only a comfortable theorj', to give
encouragement in times of trouble ; the latter was
always an inspiring call to a new life of faith and
love. This was an essential element of the apos-
tolic eschatology, destined to survive when the
forms and phrases of Jewish apocalyptic gave way
under the trials of the long delay in the Master's
Return.
7. The decline of the earliest type of Christian
eschatology. — The form of the earliest Christian
doctrine of the Last Things, as we have estimated
it above, was congenial only to Jewish surround-
ings, and it soon began to undergo some modifica-
tion. Some of these lines of development may be
traced to the influence of Gentile thought, as
reflected, e.g., in St. Paul's Epistles ; to the deepen-
ing of the spiritual ideas underlying the dramatic
eschatology, as we see in the Johannine writings ;
and to the rise of the Christian apocalyptic litera-
ture, with its close resemblance to Jewish apocalyp-
tic. For the present, our consideration of these
may best be deferred. But in certain quarters
the primitive Judfeo-Christian eschatology appears
to have been but little modified by external in-
fluences ; only it shows a steady decline and a
gradual loss of its original >'itality and power.
The beginnings of this decline may be seen even
in the NT writings which we have already been
considering, viz. Acts, James, Hebrews, 1 Peter ;
its later stages are reflected chiefly in Jude, 2 Peter,
theDic/nche (if the early date be accepted), and
some of the Apostolic Fathers. The Johannine
and Pauline writings also indirectly throw light
upon this subject.
(1) Causes of the decline. — (a) The recollection of
our LonTs teaching.— If, as we have contended, the
eschatology of our Lord wa-s wider and deeper
than the apostolic interpretation of it, it was
natural that some of the half-understood sayings
of the Master — particularly the parting commis-
sions, Mt 28**, Ac 1^-*, which are so notably non-
eschatological — should remain in the memory of
the apostles, and that in course of time a fuller
meaning should dawn upon their minds. So it
would come to pass that the moral and spiritual
aspects of the gospel, and the world-wide scope of
its mission, would claim an increasing pre-eminence
in the apostolic preaching. (For the influence of
our Lord's teaching on St. Paul, see Kennedy, St.
PauTs Conceptions of the Last Things, pp. 96-101.)
(6) A keen sense of moral values. — ' Practical
morality' was from the first held in the highest
esteem in the Judseo-Christian communities (see,
e.g., the Epistle of James), and this tended to draw
the centre of Christian interest away from escha-
tology to morality. It is difficult to illustrate this
by detailed quotations ; perhaps the best proof may
be obtained by a rapid perusal of Acts, by means of
which the steady diminution of the eschatological
expectation as the narrative proceeds is readily
noticed. In the later speeches of St. Paul, at
Miletus (Ac 2(fi^^) or at Jerusalem (Ac 22), escha-
tology is almost ignored ; and St. Paul before Felix
reasons of ' righteousness and temperance ' as well
as of 'judgment to come' (Ac 24-'^). Also the
teachingof 1 Peter, andmost of all of James, suggests
that moral and spiritual values are far more es-
teemed than eschatological problems.
(c) The charismata. — The spiritual gifts, e.g. of
healing or of tongues, while originally regarded
by Jewish Christians as ' signs of the end ' (see
above, I. 3 (2)), soon began to acquire an intrinsic
value of their own in the eyes of the Christian
community. Men knew, as a fact of Christian
experience, that they had been freed from the power
of sin and from the sense of guilt before God ; and
so they began to use the terms ' salvation,' ' justi-
fication,' etc., to describe their own spiritual experi-
ences rather than purely eschatological hopes. (In
Ac 16^^, e.g., 'salvation' scarcely seems eschato-
logical ; and in Ac 10^ our Lord is described simply
as ' one who went about doing good and healing. )
It will be noticed that the influences we have
been considering tended to alter the proportions of
Christian teaching by emphasizing non-eschato-
logical factors at the expense of eschatology. But
there were also other influences at work, directly
tending to break up the primitive doctrine of the
Last Things.
(rf) The delay in the Return. — This was the
most potent of all the factors which changed the
' tone of Christian eschatology. As the days and
montlis passed, and the Son of Man did not appear
on the clouds of heaven, it was impossible to repeat
with the same assurance the old message : ' The
time is at hand.' Yet the old hope persisted long
in Judseo-Christian circles, not only in the earlier
writings, e.g. Ja 5*, 1 P 4^, but until the close of
the 1st cent., e.g. 1 Jn 2'*, Didache 16, and even in
the Apology of Aristides.
But we see the change of ' tone ' in St. Paul's
charge to the Ephesian elders (Ac 2(F-'*), which,
so far from anticipating an immediate Return of
the Lord, looks forward to a period of apostasy,
and to an extended ministry in the Church. TN e
see it even more plainly in 2 P 3^, where the
mocking question, 'Where is the promise of His
coming ? ' is met by the old answer ot Jewish apoca-
lyptists : ' One day is with the Lord as a thou-
sand years, and a thousand years as one day ' (2 P 3^ ;
cf. Slavonic Enoch, § 32). Such an argument vir-
tually implies that the primitive confidence in an im-
mediate Return had been surrendered. The gradual
358
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
weakening of tliat confidence will come before us
a^ain in St. Paul's Epistles [see below]. In Didcu-hr,,
16, the Return, though near, is to be preceded by
the rule of Antichrist ; and the rise ot ' Chiliasni '
in the 2nd cent, thrust the final consummation still
further into the future.
(tf) The problem of sin in the Christian commnnity.
— This, tliough not at first siglit an eschatological
question, indirectly helped to modify tfie primitive
doctrine of the Last Things. The early Christian
conception of final destinies was simple and con-
sistent : those who believed and rejjented would be
saved ; those who believed not would be condemned.
This view assumed that Christian practice would
always be in complete accord with Cliristian pro-
fession ; and, so long as this was the case, it was
not open to objection. But in practice it was soon
found that professing Christians were not always
consistent in their lives ( Ja 3' 4^- - ; cf. Ac 20^).
So the simjtle two-fold division of mankind into
'saved' and 'not-saved' became unsatisfactory to
man's sense of justice, for it did not correspond to
the facts of experience ; and similarly the two-fold
division of hnal destinies into ' eternal bliss ' and
' eternal woe ' became open to the charge that it
imputed to God a line of action not wholly just.
This ditticulty was met in two ways, (a) The
stricter minds insisted that post-baptismal sin for-
feited the right to salvation, and incurred con-
demnation (He 6*"®). By this means all Cliristians
guilty of sin were classed among the 'not-saved,'
and the two-fold division of retribution could logi-
cally be maintained. (jS) A more lenient view
admitted the possibility of a second repentance
after post-baptismal sin, at least if the sin were
atoned for by penance. Soon after the year A.D.
100 we find this view prevalent (2 Clem. 7 ; Shep-
herd of Hermas : Vis. iii., Sim. vi., etc.). Tliis
view, wliile rich in charity, surrendered the ideal
of a consistent Christian life, and is far removed
from the logical simplicity of primitive Christian
eschatology. A further application of the idea of
* penance ' to the future life resulted in the doctrine
or purgatory, whereby the primitive two-fold divi-
sion of the other world becomes three-fold. (For
the beginnings of the doctrine of purgatory, see
ShepJierd of Hermas : Vis. iii. 7 ; Clem. Alex.
Strom, vi. 14 ; and some of the Christian apoca-
lypses.)
(f) The influence of Jewish apocalyptic. — We have
already referred in general terms to this influence
under ' the Jewisli biickground of ideas ' (see above,
I. 2), and its full results will come before us at a
later stage, under II. At this point, however, it is
worth noting that a deliberate imitation of the
Jewish apocalypses in writings not themselves
apocalyptic marks the decline of the Judieo-Chris-
tian type of eschatology. Jude and 2 Peter are the
most notable instances in the NT. Although the
language is at first sight that of primitive Chris-
tianity, there is a real difference. Instead of the
bold outlines of the gootl tidings concerning Jesus
the Messiah, we find a mass of detailed revelations
about angels, and fallen stars, and cosmic convul-
sions (Jude«-i«, 2 P 2«-" 3«-'3), such as the Jewish
apocalyptists delighted to describe, but which liad
ceased to attract the first generation of Cliristians,
because of the all-absorbing interest of tlie ' good
tidings.' The general tone of these Epistles is also
far more pessimistic than that of the earliest
Christian preaching, and reflects the position of
men conscious of a reaction after a great spiritual
revival (Jude »'• "'•, 2 P 2"- S^-^). This again agrees
with the normal characteristics of Jewish ai)Oca-
lyptic. It should be noted al.so that Jude "'• is a
direct quotation from Enoch i. 9.
A still later stage in the decline of the primitive
JudsBO-Christian eschatology under apocalyptic
influence is seen in Pajiias, where the apocalyptic
details have become simply puerile, and the old
virility and strong moral a.ssociations of eschatology
have practically vanished (see, e.g., the quotation
from Papias in Iren. adv. Ha:r. V. xxxiii. .3f.).
(2) Results of the decline. — A number of causes,
some of which we have briefly considered above,
slowly but surely modified the primitive doctrine
of the Last Things, as preached in Judjeo-Christian
circles. The expectation of an immediate Return
of the Messiah, which had been its main inspira-
tion, died away ; and nothing replaced it. The
result was that this type of eschatology cea.sed
to be a living force in the Christian Church.
Where it was elaborated l)y apocalyj)tic details, it
(continued for a time (las we shall see in the case of
tiie Christian apocalypses) to enjoy some measure
of popular favour ; or again, where it was inter-
preted and re-stated by master-minds, sucli as St.
Paul and St. John, its abiding value was revealed,
and has never ceased to be recognized by thoughtful
minds. But in its original form it was not fitted
to survive, and so, unless it was transformed, it
slowly expired.
II. The Christian apocalyptic literature.
— So far, we have been considering what api>ear8
to have been the ' normal ' type of earlj' Christian
eschatology ; and we have seen tliat the ideas and
phraseology of the Jewish apocalypses often occur
in Christian literature which is not properly ' apo-
calyptic' in its literary form (e.g. Acts, 2 Peter,
etc. ). In these cases tlie apocalyptic influence may
be called indirect or incidental. But there are
other Christian writings in which the literary form
of Jewish apocalyptic is deliberately imitated in
detail ; and in these writings — especially those of
later date — we see a distinct modification of the
earliest type of Christian eschatology, such as we
have considered above.
1. The Revelation of St. John.— (1) General
scheme of the book. — This, the greatest, and per-
haps the earliest, of the Christian apocalypses,
contains such a wealth of material bearing upon
eschatology that a detailed treatment is here
impossible. If (as the majority of scholars hold)
the book belongs to the times of Nero, Vespasian,
or Domitian (c. A.D. 65-70, or 95), it is an ex-
tremely imi^ortant witness to the histoiy of early
Christian eschatology, wliatever be the final
decision with regard to its authorship.
Various attempts have fjeen made to dissect the
book into strata of diflerent dates ; but, viewed as
a whole, the book conveys a strong impres.sion of
literary unity. In particular, with regard to the
eschatology, the various parts resemble each other
in tone far more nearly than they resemble any
other known apocalypse. Also, the book, if re-
garded as a whole, otters an intelligible scheme :
(a) the Introduction (!'■*) ; (b) the letters to the
Seven Cliurches (l'-3*^), wliich show the immediate
jmrpose for which the author wrote the book ; (c)
the vision of the opening of the Sealed Book
(4'-ll"'), which enforces the general message that
' the end is at hand ' (see below) ; {d) the vision of
the Fall of Rome (12i-18^), whicli sets fortli in
detail the particular element of the last great
crisis which for the moment seemed the most
important ; (e) the vision of the Last Judgment
(19'-20"); ami (/) the vision of the new City of
God. These may be regarded as component parts
of one great apocalypse. It will be .seen that they
form, broadly, an intelligible and progres.sive
narrative, on the lines of normal Jewisli apocalyp-
tic ; and though it may be that in pnrts tiie visions
are 'concurrent rather than successive' (.Mac-
Culloch in ERE v. .387), there seems no sufficient
reason to nostulate a ' literary patchwork.'
(2) Thi book as a type of apocalyptic literature. —
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
359
The writer is steeped in apocalyptic thought and
language, to a greater extent than any other NT
writer. To the average modern reader the book
appears strange and unintelligible ; but to those
familiar with Jewish apocalyptic there is scarcely
a phrase altogether new or without parallel. From
this, two imix>rtant consequences follow, (a) The
interpretation of the details should accord with
the metho<is of interpretation applied to ajjocalyp-
tic literature in general. It should be remembered,
e.g., that the apocaly|)tists were in the habit of
' heaping up ' details in their description of the
Messianic woes and the last catastrophe, rather
with a view to creating a vivid picture of chaos
and terror than with the intention of depicting
some detinite event by each separate illustration.
So it is probable that many of the details of the
NT Apocalypse are not intended to bear a too
careful analysis or interpretation, (b) If the
author of the Apocalypse be identified with the
author of the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine
Epistles, it is clear that the primitive Christians
were able to ' put aside ' their apocalyptic language
and ideas at will, and to see behind the dramatic
imagery to the underljing spiritual truths thus
symbolized. And, conversely, in early Christian
writings which are apparently non-apocalyptic, it
is likely that eschatological ideas are never far
absent from the mind of the writer, and may
appear incidentally at any pciint.
(3) The writer's hope of an immediate Return of
the Lord. — The writer begins by claiming to reveal
•the things which shall shortly come to pass'
(Rev I'), and closes with the Divine promise : ' I
come quicJdy' (Rev 22^**). Clearly, then, the hope
of the Second Coming in the near future had not
yet faded from his mind. Indeed, the main pur-
pose of the book is similar to that of all apoca-
lypses— viz. to encourage the faithful in times of
trouble with the assurance that the hour of de-
liverance is at hand. In particular, this may
be seen in the vision of the opening of the Sealed
Book (chs. 4-11). We read that the opening of
the first five seals is followed by victory (6'- -), war
(w.*- *), famine (vv.*- ^), death (vr.^- ^), and the cry
of martyred saints (w.*-"). So far, the vision may
well be taken as describing the position of the
Church at the close of the 1st cent. A.D., when
Rome's \-ictories had brought famine, war, death,
and persecution in their train. But when we pass
to the opening of the sixth and seventh seals, we
are at once confronted with cosmic convulsions
and miraculous portents, which form the ' birth-
pangs 'of the New Era (6^" 8.9). If we inter-
pret this vision as we interpret other apocalypses,
we shall conclude that the writer was living in the
times of the breaking of the fifth seal, so that the
vision np to that point is an apocalyptic retrospect
of history, and after that point is an apocalyptic
prediction of the ' Messianic woes,' which were
about to begin immediately. This leads on to the
vision of the two witnesses, their destruction by
the Beast, their resurrection ( 1 1^^^' ; probably a
picture of the last great struggle with Antichrist),
and the inauguration of the Kingdom of God
(ll"*"'*). In other words, the gist of these chapters
is a message of encouragement, assuring the per-
secuted Christians that the time of their redemp-
tion has come.
(4) The political element in the eschatology. —
The Roman Empire was, to the mind of the writer,
the greatest enemy of Christ — almost, indeed, the
Antichrist himself. So he devotes seven chapters
(12-18) to a vision of the Fall of Rome, which
forms a kind of supplement to the vision of the
opening of the Sealed Book, and deals with the
political aspect of the Last Things. The details
offer many difficult problems for solution ; we find
a medley of ideas, mainly from Jewish apocalyptic,
blended perhaps with the popular expectation that
' Nero' would return once more as a great world-
ruler (13" "*« ; see Swete's Apocalypse, Introduction,
eh. viL). The political outlook of these chapters,
with their intense hostility to the Roman Empire,
is widely different from that of most NT writers
(e.g. St. Paul in 2 Th 2«'- or Ro 13»-*). In so far
as the spirit of opposition to Christ was at that
time bound up with the ix)licy of the Empire, the
vision is true to deep principles of Christian escha-
tology ; but some of tne passages have lent them-
selves to political or ecclesiastical bias and party-
spirit.
(5) The doctrine of the Millennium. — The vision
of the Last Judgment in chs. 19 and 20 contains a
doctrine of the Millennium. There is to be a first
resurrection of the faithful dead, who will 'reign
with Christ a thousand years,' during which time
' the rest of the dead lire not till the thousand
years are finished ' (20*- '). Then follows a second
resurrection, and a second judgment of all man-
kind, when the assignment of final destinies is
made to each soul (\'v."-^').
The idea of a Millennial reign of the Messiah on
earth is found in Jewish apocalypses (e.g. cf. 4
Ezra vii. 28-31 ; Slav. Enoch, 33) ; but there is no
authority for it in the teaching of our Lord. It
seems difficult to attach to it any meaning of per-
manent spiritual value ; moreover, in its material-
istic forms it has been a source of weakness rather
than of strength to Christian eschatology. For
the later history of ChUiasm, see Didache, 16
(closely based on Rev 19 and 20) ; Papias (quoteil
Iren. adv. H(er. V. xxxiii.); Ap. Bar. xxxix. 5;
Ep. Barnabas, 15 ; Justin, c. Tryph. 80 ; Iren.
adv. H(sr. V. xxxiv. f., etc. Justin, while hold-
ing strongly to a belief in the Millennium on
earth, admits that the belief was not held ' ubique
et ab omnibus ' in the Church.
(6) The distinctiveness of the Johannine Apoca-
lypse.— The resemblance between the NT Apoca-
lypse and other apocalypses is, as we have seen,
striking ; but not less striking are the distinctive
features of the former.
(a) Alone of all the apocalypses, Jewish or Chris-
tian, it is given under the name of the writer, and
not under an assumed name of some great hero of
the past. ThLs is most significant ; for it shows
the prophetic character of apostolic eschatology.
Unlike apocalyptists in general, the writer did
not shelter himself under the authority of the
past ; but he dared to speak boldly in his own
name, under a strong conviction that he had a
new message from God to deliver.
(b) The central position given to the Person of
Jesus the Messiah is also of importance. The
writer seems to feel that no language is too lofty
to describe the Person of our Lord. At the very
outset, the Danielle vision of the Almighty is ap-
plied to our Lord without the least hesitancy ;
and throughout the book the Chiistology, though
apocalyptic in form, implies the most exalted con-
ception of Messiahship (Rev !»-"• "^ 5'- ^^* 19"*",
etc. ). This is the more noteworthy when we re-
member that in many of the Jew ish apocalypses,
especially those contemporary with primitive Chris-
tianity (e.g. 4 Ezra and Apocalypse of Baruch), the
figure of the Messiah plays but an insignificant
part.
(c) The lofty spirituality of the book is another
distinctive feature. No tJook of the NT has given
more noble expression to the highest aspirations
of man for the future life than the Apocalyjise of
St. John. Certainly no other apocalypse otlers
anything to rival its masterly word-pictures of the
Kingdom of God (see, e.g.. Rev 7 21>-^ 2i;^-22-).
Such passages show us the heights to which the
360
ESCHATOLOGY
E8CHAT0L0GY
apocalyptic type of Christian escliatology could
attain in the mind of an inspired master-tliinker.
2. The non-canonical Christian apocalypses.
— (1) TIlo chief loritinf/s of this (i//ic. — I'lie Apo(;a-
lypse of St. John stands as tiie only representa-
tive of Christian apot;alyptic in the NT; but one
or two otiier Christian apocalypses appear to l)e-
long — at least in part — to the Ist cent. A.D. The
determination of tlieir dates ia, however, a difficult
matter, and by no means established beyond doubt.
Such are :
(a) Parts of the Sibylline Orackg (e.g. the Proasniium, bk. iv.
and bk. viii. 217-429 ; see IIDli v. CS).
(6) Parts of the A»eension of Isaiah. Charles (Introd. to
Asc. Is.) assig^ns chs. iii.-v. and vi.-xi. to the close of the Ist.
cent. A.D. ; but Armitage Robinson (///>B ii. 500>>) assigns the
Christian element in Asc. Is. to the middle of the 2nd cent. a. p.
(c) The Epistle nf Barnabas, though not strictly an apocalypse
in form, is apocalyptic in tone, and has been assigned to the
times of Vespasian (so Lightfoot), Nerva, or Hadrian. There
are also several Christian apocalypses which probably contain
elements belonging to the 2nd. cent. a.d. — e.g. the Apocalypse
of Peter, the Testament of Abraham, the Testament of Isaac,
the Vision of Paul, etc. These help us to realize more clearly
the distinctive features of the Christian apocalyptic literature,
as it developed in later times.
(2) The eschatology of these writings. — The
Christian apocalypses, like most of tiie Jewish
apocaly])ses, were proi)ably desij^ned for circula-
tion amonj^ the less educated sections of the com-
munity. The average tone is puerile and petty ;
we find a mass of trivial details and crude dram-
atic colouring, but an entire absence of deep or
illuniinating thoughts. Nearly all these books
bear the marks of Egyptian or Alexandrian origin ;
and it would seem that the religious atmosphere
of these parts was favourable to the growth of
'apocalyptic' (cf. many of the Jewish apocalypses
— Slav. Enoch, parts of Sib. Or., etc.). The most
noteworthy features of the eschatology are :
(a) The profusion of detailed 'revelations.^ —
While the normal Jewish scheme of eschatology is
retained, the broad outlines are almost obsoired
by the mass of detailed description and prophecv ;
and the result is a type of eschatology very lar
removed from that oi our Lord, or of the ma-
jority of NT books. In Asc. Is. we find graphic de-
scriptions of the Seven Heavens (Asc. Is. iii. and iv.)
and of the manner of the resurrection, which is
apparently to be bodiless (iv. 14 f.). In the later
apocalypses these details become more and more
jtrofuse : the conditions of the Intermediate State,
the punishments of the wicked, the geography of
the other world, are expounded with minute pre-
cision. But a full discussion of these does not
properly belong to 'apostolic eschatology.'
(o) The prevalence of foreign ideas. — In these
apocalynses Babylonian, Egyptian, and Zoro-
astrian legends are found strangely mingled with
Christian ideas, just as they were doubtless
mingled in the minds of the cosmopolitan populace
of Alexandria.
(c) The coming of Antichrist. — This is a feature far
more prominent in these apocalyjjses than in any
other known group of writings. The idea seems
derived from various sources : e.g. the Jewish ex-
pectation of a last leader of the hosts of evil
(Ezk 38. 39, Dn \\^, Apoc. Bar. xxxix. , 4 Ezra v. 6,
Pss.-Sol. ii. 33, etc.); the Zoroastrian 'Satan,'
chief of tlie evil spirits (of Asc. Is. ii.) ; the Baby-
lonian Dragon-myth (see Bousset, Antichrist
Legend, 1896) ; and, in particular, the expectation
of Nero's return to resume the sovereignty of the
world (see Lake, The Earlier Epistles cf St. Paul,
E. 78 ft'.). This dread of Nero's return seems to
ave been an outstanding feature of Christian
eschatology as reflected in these apocalypses — see,
e.g., Asc. Is. iii. and iv.,Sib. Or. iv. 117-122, 137 II",
V. 138-141, 413-422, viii. 88-90, 169-213, etc. For
other early Christian conceptions of Antichrist
cf. 2 Th 2^-* (see below, and article MAN OF Sin),
1 Jn 4* 2 Jn' (see below) ; Didarhe, 16 (where he
is to appear 'as Son of God,' i.e. as a i).seudo-
Messiah) ; Ep. Barn. 4. The conception (like the
corresponding one of the Messiah) varies from that
of a human momirch to that of a supernatural being,
sometimes closely akin to 'Satan.' Various titles
are used — e.g. ' Beliar ' (Asc. Is.), 'the World's
Deceiver' (Didache), 'the Black One'(^;>. Barn.),
'the Man of Sin' (2 Tlie-ss.) ; but in all cases the
destruction of Antichrist is set forth as one of the
last and greatest acts of the true Messiah. The
idea of a coming reign of Antichrist tended to
' tlirow back ' the Second Coming of the true
Messiah into a somewhat less immediate future
than it occupies in tiie earliest Christian mes.sage.
(d) The allegorical interpretation of Scripture. —
By allegorizing the narratives of Scripture, some
of the Christian apocalyptists were aule to find
prophecies of the Last Things in unpromising fields
of study. In Ep. Barn. 15, e.g., we find Gn 1 in-
terpreted as an ' apocalypse ' of the world's history,
in a manner that reminds us of both the Alexand-
rian-Jewisli apocalypses (e.g. Slav. Enoch) and the
Christian Fathers of Alexandria.
(3) Value uf the Christian apocalypses. — These
Christian writings are valuable, because they
show us one of the lines along which the primi-
tive Judieo-Christian eschatology developed and
decayed. The primitive enthusiasm for the few
great truths of the gospel faded away, and it
was replaced by a dilettante curiosity about the
things of the other world, which ran riot in ex-
travagant superstition, and eventually died — as
it deserved to die. In these writings we may also
see the beginnings of doctrines absent from primi-
tive Christian eschatology, but prevalent in later
ages of the Church, e.g. purgatory ( Vis. Pauli, 22),
or prayers for the dead (Test. Abr. 14). But
these, again, scarcely fall within our present scoj)e.
III. The Jotianmne type of early Chris-
tian ESCHATOLOGY.— The Gospel and Epistles
traditionally ascribed to St. John so far resemble
each other in their eschatological outlook that for
our purpose it seems best to consider them to-
gether, as expressing a distinctive type of escha-
tology (see A. E. Brooke, T/te Johannine Epistles
[ICC, 1912], Introd., p. xxi). As illustrations of
the history of Christian doctrine, the Johannine
Epistles are easier to interpret than the Gosjtel,
because in the latter it is often exceedingly diffi-
cult to differentiate between the purely historical
element, based upon the teaching of our Lord
Himself, and the ' Johannine' element, due to the
Evangelist. But since the eschatology in both
Gospel and Epistles partakes of the same ' tone,'
Avliich is not found (to the same extent) elsewhere
in the NT, it seems reasonable to attribute tliis
distinctive element to the writer in both cases,
although not therefore denying the likelihood that
it may be indirectly due to our Lord's own teach-
ing and influence. The chief points to note are :
1. The ' spirituality ' of the teaching.—' Spiritu-
ality ' is perhaps the l>est word to describe the dis-
tinctive cliaracteristic of tiie Johannine eschatology.
It bears the impress of a mind retentive of tradi-
tional forms of belief, but not content with the
surface-meaning of current teaching. The old
phraseology is not rejected ; but it is regarded as
a parable, "half concealing and half revealing the
deep spiritual truths over which the writer had
pondered in the hours of meditation. The signs of
foreign influence in the Johannine writings are
very slight ; the signs of the inner working of the
writer's mind are very marked indeed. Hence we
lind the following characteristics :
(a) The Jewish phraseology retained. — The ' dra-
matic setting ' of Jewish eschatology is sis vividly
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
361
displayed in the Johanniue writings as in any part
of tlie NT. Our Lord is portrayed as tlie Messianic
'Son of Man,' who has ' tleseendetl out of heaven '
(Jn 3'=* e**" 8*»*); who is the Messianic Judge
( Jn 5~ -~) ; who has returned to heaven (Jn 6*^ iO'"),
and thence as gloritied Messiah pours out the
Spirit on His disciples (Jn 1^) ; and wlio will one
day come again (Jn 21^). His Return will be pre-
ceded by the Messianic woes (Jn 15** 16--**, etc.),
by the Coming of Antichrist (1 Jn 2- 4», 2 Jn;),
and by the general Resurrection ( Jn 5^) ; and will
be followed by the Last Judgment (Jn 12«). The
^vriter of the Epistles believes he is living in ' the
last hour' — i.e. the 'interim' between the First
and Second Comings of the Lord (1 Jn 2'*). In
the Gtospel the time of the Return seems more
distant ; e.g. in Jn 14 and 15 the instructions given
do not suggest a very brief ' interim ' on earth.
(b) The inner meaning of eschatology emphasized.
— Although the Johannine eschatology so far
agrees with the normal Jewish doctrine, there is a
ditterence. The writer does not seem to regard
this ' dramatic eschatology ' merely as a prediction
of coming events, but rather as a parable or illus-
tration of great spiritual principles, which are
continuously at work in all history, albeit specially
manifest in the spiritual experiences of Christians.
In this sense, the Johannine eschatology may be
called ' timeless ' ; the Resurrection, the Judgment,
the Coming, are always taking place, though they
will attain their consummation at the Last Crisis
(cf. Brooke, The JoJuinnine Epistles, p. 37). Specu-
lations regarding the time of the Second Coming
are discouraged (Jn 21—). The gift of eternal life
in the present (Jn 3*» 11"^'- ; cf. 1 Jn 3-* 4^^) t«nds to
displace the dramatic picture of ' entering into the
Kingdom ' at the Last Day, while spiritual union
with Christ at once emlows the believer potentially
with the resurrection-privilege, which, to the Jew,
was as vet in the unexperienced future (Jn 6^'**
■pro. ii^s'i^S),
Again, while the tcord ' Antichrist ' (1 Jn 2**, etc. )
is taken from Jewish apocalyptic, the Uiea is com-
pletely ' spiritualized ' — so much so that com-
mentators have found it most difficult to be certain
what the writer himself intended to signify by the
term. Broadly, it appears here to designate the
spirit of evil in its most dangerous form, and, in
particular, the danger which came from perverted
ideas concerning the Person of our Lord ( 1 Jn 2^
4*'-, 2 Jn "). Throughout, the writer makes us
feel that, while he uses JewLsh phraseology, he is
not enslaved to it. He realizes the folly of idle
speculations regarding the future (cf. Jn 21—) ; he
feels the need for reverence and restraint ; yet he
is sure that Heaven mil not fall short of our
deepest spiritual experiences, nor of the highest
ideals we have known — ' Beloved, it is not yet made
manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he
shall be manifested, we shall be like him ; for we
shall see him even as he is.'
(c) Apparent paradoxes. — Hence the paradoxical
nature of the Johannine eschatology ; the writer
feels that the whole truth is beyond the gi-asp of
the human mind, and he sets forth first one aspect,
then another, prepared to appear inconsistent
rather than one-sided. Our Lord's First Coming,
e.g., was not for the Judgment (Jn 3"), yet it xcas
a judgment (Jn 3'^ 9^ 12") ; the hour of the general
resurrection is still to come (Jn 5-*'- 6**), yet the
resurrection is a fact of Christian experience in the
past (Jn 5-'- "), and this latter is the more important
of the two truth- Mn ll'^--*).
2. The place of the sacraments in the Johannine
doctrine of salvation. — Schweitzer has recently
maintained that in the Fourth Gospel the sacra-
ments are regarded as the normal channel ])y which
eternal life is bestowed on the believer {Paul and
his Interpreters, pp. 200-203). 'The elements of
the Lord s Sup|)or, . . . being the flesh and blood
of tlie Son of Man, ix>ssess ti>e capacity of being
vehicles of the Spirit. As a combination of matter
and Spirit which can be communicatetl to the
corporeity of men, they execute judgment. The
elect can in the sacrament become partakers of
that spiritual substance, and can thns be prepared
for the resurrection' (p. 200). And Christ, we
are told, taught 'that in the future, water, in
association with the Spirit, would be neces-sary to
life and blessetlness. . . . Jesus came into the
world to introduce the era of ettectual sacraments '
(p. 202 f.). This theory, if true, would introduce
into the scheme of Johannine eschatology a factor
which has commonly been supposed to be of later
origin in the history of the Church.
Certain passages may seem to lend themselves
conveniently to this theory : e.g. Jn 3' G*'"*, 1 Jn
5®, and the use in the Johannine Epistles of
phraseology suggestive of the Mj-steries {e.g. ■xjtlaita.
in 1 Jn 2*»- ^ ; a-yvi^b) in 1 Jn 3') ; but they are far
from conclusive. On the other hand, we find many
passages where the gift of ' eternal life ' is described
siniply as a free gift received by faith, without any
mention of a sacramental medium (Jn I'-''- 3**
6"*") ; and the idea that eternal life is normally
bestowetl by sacraments seems distinctly contrary
to such passages as Jn 3* : ' The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice there-
of, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither
it goeth ; so is every one that is bom of the Spirit ' ;
or Jn 6® : ' the tcords that I speak unto you are
spirit and are life ' (cf. 1 Jn 1^ ' the word of life ').
In these passages the gift of eternal life is con-
vej'ed through the influence of Chiist's personality
upon the human mind, either by the sjK)ken word
or by some unseen method, not through a vi.<ible
ceremonial act. And in the Johannine Epistles
'eternal life ' has a strong ethical content (1 Jn 3'^) ;
it is ' in Christ ' ( 1 Jn 5"* ^ ; cf . 2^), but no reference
is marie in this connexion to the sacraments.
Under the circumstances, it seems that Schweitz-
er's theory of ' eschatological sacraments' in the
Fourth Gospel is not supported by the evidence.
3. The later history of the Johannine type of
early Christian eschatology. — Just as there is no
real parallel in the sub-.-xpostolic literature to the
Johannine books of the NT, so there is no real
parallel to the Johannine eschatology — at least,
none worthy to be compared with it for width of
outlook and depth of feeling. Generally, the
traditional eschatology is interpreted very literally,
even prosaically. But the emphasis on the spiritual
significance of eschatology recurs wherever the
writers show .signs of deep meditation on the
problems of life. In the Pauline Epistles we shall
meet with a similar tendency in places. In the
Odes of Solomon it is very noticeable (see e.g. Odes
iii. and xv.), and in the Alexandrian Fathers an
allegorical interpretation of eschatology is found
[e.g. Clement, Exhort, ad Gentes, 9), which, though
widely diflerent from the Johannine doctrine, re-
sembles it in so far as it seeks to go behind the
purely chronological aspect of eschatology.
IV. The Paulise type of early Christian
ESCHATOLOGY, ASD THE ESCHATOLOGY OP THE
GESTiLE-CHRiSTiAy CHURCHES.— i. The escha-
tology of St. PauL— In view of the trend of recent
criticism, it seems reasonable to accept as a work-
ing hypothesis the view that all the 'Pauline'
Epistles of the NT are genuine letters of the
Apostle, though in the case of the Pastoral
Epistles the verdict can hardly be regarded as
decisive. This long series of letters is of unique
value as an illustration of the history of early
Christian doctrine, as taught by one of its greatest
exponents. Several problems of considerable im-
362
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
portance demand consideration in conne*ion with
St. Paul's eschatoloj»y.
(1) The development of thotight in St. PauVs
Epistlcf. — Several recent writers, approacliing
the subject from widely diH'erent standpoints,
have urged that the supposed change in St. Paul's
outlook as time went on is mainly a phantom
of the critical imagination (e.g. Schweitzer, I'aul
and his Interpreters, p. 75 it. ; S. N. llostron.
The Christology of St. Faid, 1912, pp. 23-28). To
the nresent writer, however, the signs of a real
development of doctrine are unmistakable, if the
Epistles are studied broadly in their generally
accepted chronological order. The divergence of
opinion regarding the date of Galatians — before or
after the Thessalonian Epistles — does not seriously
affect the problem, because Gal. is dominated by
one problem of immediate urgency, and does not
deal at length with other topics, such as eschato-
logy. In Gal. the supreme emphasis is laid on
moral virtues, faith and love (5" ; cf. 2'*' 3'''- '■*') ;
neither ' dramatic eschatology ' nor ' eschatological
sacraments' receive any detailed notice. But if
we study the rest of the Pauline Epistles under
the four main groups — («) 1 and 2 Thess. ; (6) 1 and
2 Cor., Itom. ; (c) Col., Eph., Phil. ; {d) 1 and 2
Tim., Tit. — the outlines of St. Paul's change of
standpoint seem clear beyond doubt.
(a) 1 and 2 Thessaloniuns. — In these Epistles the
outlook is as purely and consistently Juuseo-Chris-
tian as in the earlier chapters of Acts. The hope
of an immediate Second Coming of the Lord holds
the front place in the interests of both St. Paul
and his readers. The * wrath ' of the Last Crisis
is impending (i Th P" 2'") ; the Christians are
waiting for the Son of Man to descend on the
clouds of heaven, while they are yet alive on earth
( I Th P" 4»3-i8 51-"- 23, 2 Th p-'" 2i-"). The language
which St. Paul uses in these Epistles to describe the
Second Coming is such as any Jewish apocalyptist
who accepted the Messiahship of Jesus might have
used ; there is no trace of Gentile influence, and
he himself expects to be ' in the body ' at the time
of the Return (1 Th 4"; cf. 5^). Again, the
eschatological problems discussed in these Epistles
are such as would present themselves to Jewish
minds ; and St. Paul answers the difficulties as a
Jew speaking to Jews. The problem of the faith-
ful departed (1 Th 4'3-i8) was one that inevitably
arose as soon as some of the ' brethren ' had died
before the Lord returned. How would they be
enabled to share in the joy of the Parousia ? St.
Paul's answer is that tliey will be raised in time
to join in the Lord's Coming (1 Th 4'®). That
such a question should have already come to the
front is significant, because it marks perhaps the
earliest of the m<any perplexities which arose in
the minds of the faithful when the Lord did not
return at once, and when consequently the simple
scheme of the primitive Christian eschatology no
longer sufficed to solve every difficulty. The
gradual change of doctrinal outlook which resulted
from this afl'ected the whole Church, and there is
no reason to doubt that St. Paul himself was in-
fluenced by it.
In 2 Thess. the perplexity caused by the delay
has become much graver, and St. Paul counsels
patience. Again he adopts a thoroughly Jewish
line of argument : his language still implies that
the lieturn will be comparatively soon ; but he
reminds his readers that certain of the ' signs of
the end' have not yet been fulfilled; and these
must precede the final consummation. The ' signs '
which he mentions are : (a) the falling away (^7
airoffTaffla, 2 Th 2^), (ft) the revealing of the Man
of Sin (2 Th 2="- ^-»), (7) the taking away of ' the
Restrainer ' (6 KaWx'<"'» or rb Karix^"^ 2 Th 2**). St.
Paul implies that he is speaking of ideas familiar
to his rejulers (2 Th 2"-), and .similar phrases are
found in the descriptions of the signs of the eml
in the Jewish apocalypses ; e.g. an ' apostasy ' is
jiart of the Messianic woes in Jubilees, 23 ; Test.
XH. Pair. (Levi 10, Dan 5), etc. Again, the de-
scription of the 'Man of Sin' otters close parallels
to tne figure of Antichrist ((dias ' IJeliar ' or Satan)
in many of the ajjocalypses {e.g. in the contemjiorary
writings of the Ap. Bar. xxxix. and 4 Ezra v. 6, and
also in the later Christian apocalypses, notably Asc.
Is. iii. and iv., and Sib. Oracles [see above]). (For
fuller details, see article Man of Sin, and Kennedy,
St. Paul's Conceptions of the Last Things, pp. 207-
221.) For the 'taking away of the Restrainer' it
is not easy to find an exact parallel in Jewish
apocalyptic ; but from Daniel onwards we find that
the close of a dynasty is often regarded as one of
the signs of the end ; and so the use of 6 KaHx'^"
might well suggest to St. Paul's readers the idea
of Imperial Rome, whose downfall would surely
mark the close of a world-epoch. The important
point to realize is that in this passage, so obscure
to us, St. Paul is not inventing a new doctrine of
the Last Things, but is taking familiar phrases and
ideas and applying them to the problems wiiich
were then confronting the Christian community.
Thus the characteristic of 1 and 2 Thess. is tliat
the eschatology is the ' central ' theme, and is
completely Juda?o-Christian in form. At the same
time, it is closely linked with moral teaching (1
Th 3'* 43-8, etc. ) ; and this practical aspect of St.
Paul's escliatology (which in this respect is in
complete accord with that of our Lord) remains
unchanged throughout all his writings.
(I)) 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans {and perhaps
Galatians). — In these Epistles, Avhich form the
second group of Pauline writings, the Jewish form
of eschatology is still prominent, especially in 1
Corinthians. The Christians addressed are ' wait-
ing for the apocalypse of our Lord ' (1 Co 1''), which
is near at hand (Ro 13", 1 Co 7'-^-^^), and will be
associated with the Resurrection (Ro 8'-^) and the
Judgment (1 Co 4" 6-, Ro 2'"). All this resembles
1 and 2 Thess. ; yet the eschatology no longer
occupies the centre of interest in these Epistles ;
other themes receive a larger share of attention.
The spiritual gifts which tlie Christians possessed,
and the spiritual power which had transformed
their lives, begin to claim a pre-eminent place ;
and phrases originally eschatological are adoptecl
to describe spiritual experiences in the past and
present ; e.g. 2 Co 1'", ts . . . ippvaaro tj/j-S.^, Kal
p^fferai (cf. 3'* 4^*'''- 5"). And in Romans we see
how 'justification,' which is properly an eschato-
logical term (signifying the act by which the
Messianic Judge pronounces the believer ' not
guilty' at the Great Judgment [Ro 2^^-^^]), is be-
coming weaned from its old associations. For St.
Paul teaches that the believer who has faith is
pronounced ' not guilty ' here and now, in anticipa-
tion of the final verdict ; and so 'justification' be-
comes severed from eschatology, and linked with
the spiritual experience known to Christians as
'the sense of forgiveness' or 'assurance' (cf. Ro
5', etc.).
In this group of Epistles we also see signs of
Gentile influence, modifying the Jewish methods
of thought. In dealing witli the Resurrection, St.
Paul uses a distinctly non-Jewish line of argument
(see below), and his vision of the final consummation
(Ro 11-"-, etc.) is far wider than that current in
Jewish circles. Moreover, in 1 Co 15"'^ St. Paul
teaches that a 'kingdom of Christ' on earth must
precede the final consummation when ' he shall
deliver the kingdom to God, even the Father ' ( IS'^ ;
cf. the Parable of the Tares, Mt 13*'-"). Such a
conception implies that the certainty of an im-
mediate coming of the end is being abandoned.
K.^CHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
363
(c) Cofossifins, Ei'lfst'iU'i, PhUii>plitn.i. — In tliis
group of St. Paul's letters we timl the mollify-
ing teiulfiuies noted above still further developed.
The •tliainati'' '.^.li >rn!ogy, though still present
(Col P o\ l*h l.ph 4**), has receded still
further fruiii t; [losition it held in 1 and 2
Tlie.s-., arnl tii.- n-e of eschatological terms in a
non-escliatoliiuiial sen-e becomes more and more
fret]uent (Col I'-*, I'h 3'^ Eph I* 2'^-, etc.). There is
no distinct assertion that the Return is near at
hand (it may be implied, Ph 3*) ; and some passages
suggest til at a prolonged future lies before the
Church on earth (e.g. ' the building up of the body
of Christ,' Kph 4^''", and the ingathering of the
Gentiles, Eph 2 and 3). In such passages St.
Paul's thoughts seem to be far from the normal
tone of Jewish apocalyptic.
(d) The Pastoral Epistles. — Here eschatology
api>ears to rise once more into greater prominence ;
but it is not quite the same as before. The earlier
Christian e>chatolog}- had sprung from enthusiastic
hopes : ' The Last Days have come, liecause
Messiali lias appeared.' But in the Pastoral
Epistles the message is sadder, and more like that
of the Jewish apocalyptists : ' The Last Days are
at hand, because the times are e\-il' (I Ti 4^, 2 Ti
31-s 41-8). There is a note of disappointment, as
the Apostle speaks of prevalent apostasy (2 Ti 2*®),
which accords well with the supposition that these
Epistles were written in a period of spiritual re-
action, when the early hopes were being strained
by the prolonged delay. Under such circum-
stances, it was necessary to guard against one-sided
doctrines of the resurrection (2 Ti 2'^) and to em-
phasize the objectivity of the Last Things (1 Ti 6",
2 Ti 4»-8, Tit 1-).
A broad survey of the Pauline Epistles thus
shows that the Aix)stle"s eschatological teaching
underwent considerable modification in the course
of time, from the somewhat conventional Jewish
outlook of 1 and 2 Thess. to the broad and deep
spiritual teaching of Eph. ; and finally, in the
Pastoral Epistles, we see signs of a renewed em-
phasis upon old truths which were in danger of
l¥»ing obscured.
Paul's doctrine of Judgment, Interme-
'<:, Resurrectiony Final Destinies. — (a)
.,,,„,,.'. — The 'dramatic' conception of the
Judgment recirrs frequently in the Pauline Epistles
(2 Th r*-, Ro 2»-9-'«, 1 Co"4=), but there are very
few signs of the Johannine idea of a continuous
judgment-process lieing worked out in history.
The Judgment is to be universal (1 Co 6^ 2 Co 5^*^") ;
but the Christian is free fiom condemnation (Ro
8'"^), and indeed has already been 'justified' (see
above).
(b) The IntKnmdiate State.— As long as St. Paul
expected the Return in the immediate future, there
was no logical place for any thought of the Inter-
mediate State of the 'dead in Christ.' Probably
St. Paul, like many Jews, believed in a ' waiting-
place ' for the faithfnJ souls of former generations,
who had been evangelized by the ' Descent into
Hell ' (Eph 49 ; cf. 1 P 3i» 4«). But the Christian,
when he departs, will be ' with Christ' (Ph 1^) — a
phrase scarcely applicable to an ' Intermediate
State' (cf. 2 Co 5'"^"). If (as seems most probable)
Onesipiiorus was dead when 2 Ti V^ was written,
St. Paul did not scruple to pray for the dead. Yet
such a prayer is but the instinctive act of a spiritu-
ally-minded man, to whom friendship is a bond too
^trong to be severed by death ; and it would be
unwise to deduce from it that St. Paul held a
reasoned-out theory concerning the possibility of
moral change in the life to come, to say nothing of
a clear-cut doctrine of 'purgatory."
(c) The Resurnctirm. — To the Jews a doctrine of
the resurrection did not appear strange, though
the question ' In what sha{)e shall the dead rise?'
is found, e.g. in Apoc. Bnmrli, xlix. 2. But among
the (iencil.s, even where a belief in immortality
was present, a resurrection was incredible (Ac 26**),
So, as long as St. Paul ' spake as a Jew,' he simply
attimied the resurrection without comment {e.g.
I Th 41"); but, when he had to conmiend the
gospel to educated Grentiles, a new line of argument
became necessary, snob as we find in 1 and 2 Cor-
inthians. A brief outline of the famous passages
1 Co 15, 2 Co 4 and 5 is all that can be attempted
here. The chief points to note are : (a) he bases
the Christian hope on the historical fact of Christ's
Resurrection (I Co IS'^") ; (^) he argues from the
analogy of the seed (1 Co 15"''-) — an argument
which would appeal to the GentUe no less than to
the Jew ; (7) he teaches an upward movement in
history ( 1 Co 15*), implying that the resurrection-
life wUl be no mere replica of this life, but some-
thing higher and greater ; (5) the resurrection-
body will not be 'flesh and blood' (1 Co 15**), but
a 'spiritual' body (1 Co 15"). Herein St. Paul
differs alike from the materialistic conception of
the resurrection and from the Gentile idea that
the soul at death is freed from the encumbrance of
a body. In some passages St. Paul does indeed
seem to disparage the body (2 Co 5*) ; but he clearly
teaches that the highest ideal is not to be stripped
of the body, and lead a bo<liless existence (which
would ren(ier self-expression unthinkable), but
rather to be ' clothed upon ' with a higher type of
body, adapted to be the organ through which the
'ego' may fully express itself in the 'spiritual'
sphere of existence (2 Co 5-~* ; cf. 1 Co 3-'). This
' transformation ' of our mode of life is to take place
at the Last Day (1 Co 15*"*) ; yet the spiritual trans-
formation of the believer in this present life is
described in similar language (2 Co 3'") ; and indeed
the two are not irreconcilable, for the last-named
is an 'earnest' of the future resurrection (cf.
Ph 3J<'- ", 2 Ti 2^8).
The Chiliastic doctrine of a reign of Christ on
earth, in an intervening period between a ' first '
and ' second ' Resurrection (cf. Rev 20*"''), does not
appear in St. Paul ; the ' reign of Christ ' in 1 Co 15^
is far more applicable to the working of Christ
through the Church, which was in progress when
St. Paul wrote.
Whether St. Paul believed in a general resurrec-
tion of all men seems doubtful ; some passages («.^.
Ro 8'') suggest that the resurrection is 'onditional
upon the possession of the Spirit of Christ; but
since he taught that the judgment is to l>e universal,
we may perhaps infer that the scope of the resurrec-
tion will be co-extensive.
{d) Final f/<M/j/)R'.s.— Normally St. Paul adopts
the usual view that the wicked go to 'eternal
destruction ' and the believers to ' eternal life '
(2 Co 2'"-, etc. ) ; but the latter aspect receives much
greater emphasis than the former. The thought
of the ' rmendingness ' of final destinies is not pro-
minent in the Pauline Epistles ; sometimes the
word aiupios seems used to express intensity rather
than interminable duration {e.g. ' eternal destruc-
tion,' 2 Th P, or ' an eternal weight of glory,'
2 Co 4"). There are some passages where St. Patu's
words suggest the hope of the final salvation of all
men (1 Co 15-* ; cf. Ro 11^). Such a conclusion
seems naturally to follow from the infinite love of
Gotl ; but it is' hard to reconcile with the fact of
human sin.
(3) The influence of Gentile thought upon St.
PauFs eschatology. — (a) Greek influence. — On this
subject various \iews are held : some contend
that ' the eschatological views of Paul mark a
transition from purely Jewish to Hellenistic
notions' (P. Gardner, The Religions Experience of
St. Paul, 1911, p. 126) ; others will scarcely admit
364
ESCHATOLOGY
ESCHATOLOGY
the possibility of any Gentile influence, and main-
tain that St. Paul, from first to last, liveil and sjioke
and wrote as a Jew (Scinveitzer, Pdtil and his Intr.v-
pretcrs, pn. 94, 227, 240, etc.). On the whole, the
chanjje which came over St. I'aul's theology seems
explicable simply as tiie natural development of an
active mind constantly reconsiderinj^ the problems
of Christian experience. On the other hand, St.
Paul's avowed championship of the rights of (ientile
Christianity may well have led him to be favourably
inclined to CJentile ideas, and to loosen hisafl'ection
for purely Jewish methods of thought. But the
actual proofs of non-Jewish ideas are to be seen in
the gradual modilication of his teaching to which
we have referred al)()ve, rather than in the presence
of distinctively Hellenic language. The latter may
perhaps be seen in the depreciation of the body
(2 (Jo 5^'^), in the description of transformation
(2 Co 3"* 5* ; cf. Seneca, Ep. vii. 1, 'non emendari
tantum, sed transtigurari ), in the coiiiii.irison of
the body to an earthen vessel (2 Co I' .">'), uiid in
the distinction between the #$w dvOpwiros ami tht; i'cno
dvfipuiroi (2 Co 4'"; see Clemen, I'riinitii-r, IJhris-
tianity and it.t non-Jewish Sovrccs, p. (i8 fl'. ). J>uL, in
so far as Greek influence is visible in these passages,
it is rather due to unconscious than to conscious
borrowing {ib. p. 204).
(b) Influence of the Oriental cults. — Apart frpm
the Mysteries (see below), these exercised very
little influence on St. Paul's eschatology. The idea
of being ' clothed upon ' (2 Co 5^") is perhaps derived
from Parsiism (Clemen, op. cit. \>. 174), antl other
parallels have been traced ; but they may be mere
coincidences (ib. pp. 171-198).
(r) The influence of the Mysteries upon St. Paid^s
eschatolofjy . — The Mysteries claimed to make men
partakers of immortality, by means of initiatory
rites and ceremonies, through which a ' sacramental
grace' was (iojiveyed to the worshippers (see Cumont,
Oriental licligions in Roman Paganism, pp. 91 f. ,
151). It has recently been maintained [e.g. in Lake's
Earlier Epistles of St. Paid) that Christianity was
commonly regarded among the Gentiles as ' a
superior kind of Mystery-Keligion,' and that, to
them, its central message was the promise of
eternal life given through the Christian Sacra-
ments. Thus the Sacraments were intimately con-
nected with eschatology, and the Gentile-Christian
gospel, like the Jewish - Christian gospel, was
essentially eschatological. But there was this
distinction between the two types of Christianity :
' to the average Gentile Christian in, for instance,
Corinth . . . the centre of Christianity was the
Sacraments. . . . On the other hand, for a Jewish
Christian, the expectation of the Parousia was
probably quite central ' (Lake, op. cit. p. 437). Of
St. Paul's own view Lake says : ' Baptism is, for
St. Paul and his readers, universally and unques-
tioningly accepted as a "mystery" or sacrament
which works ex opere operato ' {op. cit. p. 385).
Schweitzer, in Paid and his Interpreters, adopts
a line of argument which is somewhat different ;
but his conclusions as to the substance of St.
Paul's teaching show some notable points of
resemblance to Lake's view. Though he utterly
denies the possibility that St. Paul was influenced
by Greek thought or by the Mysteries (op. cit.
{)p. 208, 240, etc.), yet he affirms that the Apostle
leld a doctrine of ' eschatological sacraments '
which, after all, would make the sacraments not
unlike the rites of a ' Mystery.' ' In Paul we find
the most prosaic conception imaginable of the opus
operatum (p. 213). ' Everywhere in the Pauline
sacraments the eschatological interest breaks
through. . . . Their power is derived from the
events of the last times. They put believers in
the same position as the Lord, in that they cause
them to experience a resurrection a few world-
moments before the time, even though this does
not in any way become nmnifest. It is a jirccursory
phenomenon of the approaching end of the worhi.
. . . The sacraments are confined to the time
between the resurrection of Jesus and His i)arousia,
when the dead shall arise ' (p. 210 f.). During this
'interim' perio<l, the present world-era and the
world to come are ' in contact,' and only while this
(iontact lasts can men i)ass by means of the sacra-
ments from one world to the other (p. 224). Simi-
larly, of St. Paul's doctrine of baptism lie says :
' The dying and rising again of Christ takes place
in him without any co-operation, or exercise of
will or thought, on his part. It is like a mechani-
cal process' (p. 225 f.). This doctrine of 'eschato-
logical sacraments' can be understood, according
to Schweitzer, ' entirely on the basis of Jewish
primitive Christianity' (p. 240). On the other
hand, Clemen (Primitive Christianity and its non-
Jewish Sources, p. 266) afhrms that ' it is simply
false to say "that bai)tism as well as the Lords
Supper already within the books of the NT iinder-
went the fateful transformation from symbolic act
to sacranientum ejficax." ' But, if St. Paul's teach-
ing is rightly interpreted either by Lake or by
Schweitzer, it would follow that the doctrine of
the sacraments was a more important factor in
early Christian eschatology — and indeed, in early
Christianity at large — than has commonly been
supposed.
An adeqiiate discussion of the problem thos
raised is impossible here ; but one or two points
may be noted :
(a) St. Paul certainly associates baptism with 'death' and
'resurrection' (Ro O^, Col 2i2), and with the reception of the
Spirit (1 Co 121-!). But, while these passages, and certain others
regardinjf the Kucharist (1 Co lOis ll''^''- ^), may be consistent
with Schweitzer's theory of ' effectual sacraments,' Ihey are
also explicable on the view that St. Paul is regarding the rite as
the symbol of grace conferred — a symbol normally linked with
the spiritual gift, but not so necessary that without the rite the
gift cannot be conveyed, nor yet mechanically conveying the
gift ex opere operato. In otic of the above passages (Col 2^-)
the context (2i'i'') is full of highly metaphorical language. From
these passages we are driven to conclude that the theory of a
Pauline doctrine of ' effectual sacraments ' is ' Not proven.'
(0) But, further, there are other passages where St. Paul's
arguments are definitely against the view that sacraments con-
vey the new life ex opere operato. In 1 Co 8»i* lO'*-^ he
clearly teaches that the effect of partaking in a communion-
feast is dependent on the state of mind of the recipient. The
partaking becomes serious if it arouses uneasy doubt in the
mind of the ' weaker brother ' who witnesses his act ; but, a(>art
from this possibilitj', and if the recipient is clear in his own
conscience, the partaking will have no effect ex opere operato.
The argument here refers to non-Christian 'sacraments,' but
it is consistent with the Apostle's general attitude towards
external rites and ceremonies : ' In Clirist Jesus neither cir-
cumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith
working through love '(Gal b*> ; cf. 6^5 3-, etc.). The omission
of any reference to the Christian sacraments in such passages
would be strange indeed, if the future salvation of the Christian
was normally conveyed to him only through baptism and the
Eucharist.
(y) The references to the sacraments in St. Paul's Epistles,
viewed as a whole, are hardly sufficient to warrant the theory
that the sacraments held a central place in his theolojjy.
Lake contends that this silence shows that the importance of
the sacraments was universally accepted in the Church, and
needed no further emi)liasis (up. cit. p. 233 n.). But we may
reasonably ask for some positive evidence that the sacraments
had already sprung into a position of central importance in the
Church, before we set aside the ' argument from silence.' 1 Co
li'*, ' I thank Ciod that I baptized none of you,' docs not suggest
that St. Paul put baptism in the place of central imjxirtance in
the gospel.
(5) When Schweitzer tells us that St. Paul 'found already
existing a baptism and a I^ord's Supper which guaranteed Ral-
vation (op. cit. p. 215 ; cf. p. 242), and that his do<;trine of the
sacraments ' is integrally, simply, and exclusively eschatologi,'al '
(p. 244), we may reasonably ask what evidence is forthcimning
from the Jewish apocalypses to justify such assertions.
Schweitzer adduces no such evidence ; nor is the present
writer acquainted with any.
We conclude, then, that the evidence does not
support tlie theory that the jirimitive Church as a
whole believed that eternal life was convej'ed
normally by the sacraments, but rather that it
ESCHATOLOGY
ESDRAS, THE SECOND BOOK OF 365
wa^i a free uift received immediately by faith. At
the ^;lIlK■ time, it i> likely enoujjh that the less
ediuuleii ( lui.-ti;ui> aid regard Christianity as a
kind of Mystery ruliuii'ti. with sacraments of a
magical character. J In .'Kscure custom of 'bap-
tism for the dead ' may luive been associated with
some sucli ideas (1 Co 15"^), but it does not appear
that they were shared by St. Paul, or by any of
the NT ^\riteIs. (Fur a careful discussion of this
subject, see Clemen, I'riniitivc Christianity audits
non-jeiosli S'iur>:t:s, y\). 2'23-250.)
2. The eschatology of the early Gentile-Chris-
tian churches. — (1) The fruit of St. Paul's teaching.
— St. Paul may fairly be regarded as the precursor
of a Gentile type of Christian escliatologj' ; for,
although the instances of detinitely Greek ideas in
his writings are but few, he was in sympathy with
non-Jewish ways of approaching the problems of
life, and he was the champion of Gentile claims
within the Church of Christ. Without his efl'orts
Gentile thought would have been debarred from
having free scope in the Church. But in the
Apostolic and sub- Apostolic Ages, as we trace the
doctrine of the Ljist Things through Clement of
Rome, Ignatius, 2 Clement, Aristides, and Justin,
down to Irenieus at the close of the 2nd cent.,
there is but little evidence of a distinctively Gentile
type of Christian eschatology. Jewish ideas and
phraseology show no signs of disappearing entirely ;
and indeed Christian eschatology is never likely to
lose all traces of its Jewish antecedents.
(2) Distinctive features of Gentile-Christian escha-
tology.— Yet the following changes may be attri-
buted in great measure to the induence of Gentile
thought, (a) The technical Jewish terms are
replaced by others of a more ' prosaic ' character :
e.g. in Clem, ad Cor. we find the Keturn described
as an e\ev<ns (17) rather than as a irapovcla or an
oToicdXi'i/'is. And in Ignatius the term 'Parousia'
is applied to the First Coming of our Lord at His
Nativity (ad Phil. 9). Such changes show that
the traditional Jewish .scheme is undergoing a
measure of ' re-statement ' at the hands of men who
were unaccustomed to the apocaljptic scheme of
the La.st Things.
(b) Occasionally we meet with clear signs of
Greek thought, e.g. Ign. ad Rom. 3, ' Nothing
visible is good.' And some thirty years later we
find the Epistle to Diognctus reflecting a thoroughly
Greek theory of the relation of the soul to the
body (7, 10).
(c) The conception of the Eucharist as a
'Mystei"y,' through which iininortulity is eonveyed
to the believer, though {as we iuive eouteiuled
above) not sanctioned bj- St. Paul himself, seems
to be implied in some of the sub-ajiostolic writings :
e.g. Ign. ad Eph. 20, ' Breaking one bread, which
is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote
that we should not die, but live for ever' ; cf. Iren.
adv. Ha'r. iv. 8, ' Our bodies, when they receive
tiie Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having
the hope of resurrection to eternity.'
(d) The idea that ■ salvation' is a future blessing,
to be gained by external acts, or by membership of
an organized societj', may also be traced to the sub-
Apostolic Age : e.g. Ign. ad Phil. 3, 'If any man
followeth one that makcth a schism, he doth not
inherit the Kingdom of God.'
As a re-ult of these and other modifications,
eiuly (In i-tian eschatology in the Gentile churches
gradually assumed a form whieh, though Jewish in
phra-seology, was sufficiently intelligible to those
who were not familiar with the presupposition of
Jewish apocalyptic. With the exception of a few
doctrinal features, such as Chiliasm, which proved
to be but temporary phases of thought, the escha-
tology of the Church of the 2nd. cent., as seen, e.g.,
in Irenaius, had discarded its distiuctively ' primi-
tive'characteii-i ;i -, and was not far from the normal
tyi)e of Cli! iiatology as it has been taught
in subseque; the Church.
LiTERATURK.— For apobtoUc eschatology in genera), see S. D.
F. Salmond's art. on 'Eschatology o{ the NT' in HDB, and
J. A. MacCulloch's art. on 'Eschatology' in the ERE; also
R. H. Charles, Eschatology : Hebrew, Jewitk, and Ckrigtian-,
1913; E. C. Dewick, PrimUivt Chrutian Esehatolom/, 1912;
S. D. F. Salmond, Christian Doctrine of JmmortatUy, 1904 ;
etc.
For the Jewish ' background of ideas,' see Charles, op. eit.,
and the same writer's editions of the Jewish apocalj-pses,
especially his Book of Enochs, 1912; V. H. Stanton, Th«
Jeicish and Chrittian Messiah, 1886.
For the eschatologj- of the N'T books,see the Comm. and Artt.
ad loe., especially H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John,
1909, and K. H. Charles, Studies in the Apoeaiypse, 1913; and
for Pauline eschatology, H. A. A. Kenn^y, St. PauTs Con-
ceptions of the Last Things, 1904 ; the same writer's artt. on
'St. Paul and the Mystery-ReUgions ' in the Expositor, 8th ser.,
iv. [1912] 60, 212, 306, 434. f>39 ; K. Lake, The Earlier EpistUs
of St. Paul, 1911 ; A. Schweitzer, Paul and his Interpreters,
Eng. tr., 1912. The two last-named works apply the 'ConaLst-
ent Eschatological theory ' to the apostolic writings.
For the influence of Gentile thought on Christian eschatology,
see C. Clemen, Primitive Christianity and its non-Jeicish
Sources, Eng. tr., 1912 ; F. Cumont, The Oriental Religions in
Roman Paganism, 1911 ; E. Hatch, The Influence of Greek
Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1890 (Hibbert
Lecture, 1SS8).
Of the Christian apocalj-pses, many are edited in TS, vols. 11.
and iii. ; The AsceTuion of Isaiah, by R. H. Charles, 1900 ; The
Sibylline Oracles, by Alexandre, 1841-56, and Rzacb, 1892.
For particular aspects of aixwtolic eschatology, see the
articles in this Dictionary on Astichrist, Heavex, "Hkix, Mam
OF Six, SpiRire is Prisos, Rescrrectiox, etc.
E. C. Dewick.
ESDRAS, THE SECOND BOOK OF.— This book
is quite difi'erent in character from 1 Es., which it
follows in the English Apocrypha. It belongs to
the apocalyptic order, and is closely related in time
and thought to the Apocalypse cf Baruch (q.v.).
Some early writers cite it as prophetical — Clement
of Alexandria {Strom, iii. 16) and Ambrose (de
Excessu Satyri, i. 6-1, 66, 68, 69) in particular ; but
Jerome speaks slightingly of it as a book he had
not read or required to read, because it was not re-
ceived in the Church (c. Vigilant, ch. 6). In the
authenticated edition of the Vulgate, it is relegated
to an appendix, along with 1 Es. and the Prayer of
Manasses. It is not reckoned canonical by the
Church of Rome, nor is it used in the English
Church.
1. Contents. — As it stands in our Apocrj-pha,
2 Es. consists of 16 chapters ; but the first two and
last two are separate works which have been added
to the original book, and have no inward connexion
with it. The prefixed chapters (1. 2), though
written in the name of Esdras, exliibit an anti-
Jewish spirit, in striking contrast to that of the
chapters that follow. Thej" .speak of the rejection
of the Jews and the call of the Gentiles as a
Western Christian of the 2nd cent, might have
done. A connexion has been suggested between
them and the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, of which
fragments are extant in Coptic. The subjoined
chapters (15. 16) make no mention of Esdras, and
their contents are colourless enough to admit of
either a Jewish or a Christian author. In imita-
tion of Jeremiah's prophecies, they predict wars
and tumults, denounce God's wrath on the wicked,
and encourage the righteous to endure. The pro-
bable quotation of 16*' in Ep. xxix. of Ambrose —
'extendit coelum sicut cameram' — would indicate
that these chapters were known in the middle of
the 4th century. Possibly they had their origin
about a century previously, in the wars of the
Arabian Odenathus and Sapor i. of Persia.
Divested of these additions, 2 Es. is a series of
seven visions, separated for the most part, in the
experience of the seer, by periods of tasting and
prayer. Their purpose is to shed light on the
mysteries of the moral world, and restore the faith
in'God and reliance on His justice which had been
shaken by the downfall of Jei-usalem. At the out-
366 ESDRAS, THE SECOND BOOK OF
ESDRAS, THE SECOND BOOK OF
set the Hcer announces himself as Salathiel, with
the parenthetical explanation that he is also Esdra.s.
In the first four visions (chs. 3-10) tlie anf,'el
Uriel api)ears, to resolve the doubts of the seer,
and comfort him with the hope of God's speedy
intervention. In tlie fifth (ens. 11. 12) a great
eagle is seen, with three heads, twelve wings, and
certain wings of smaller size. She is encountered
and annihilated by a lion, and Esdras learns that
the eagle is the fourth kingdom of Daniel, and the
lion the Messiah. The sixth vision (ch. 13) reveals
the Messiah as a wondrous man, coming out of
the sea, destroying His enemies, and gathering
the righteous and peace-loving to Himself. In the
seventii (ch. 14) Esdras is warned that the end is
near, and instructed to have ninety-four books
written, but only to publish twenty-four of them
(the usual Talmudic reckoning of the books of the
OT). On the accomplishment of his task, Esdras
is translated to heaven.
2. Text and versions. — The original text no
longer exists; but versions are extant in Latin,
Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic (two), and Armenian.
Some fragments in Sahidic have also come to light
(in 1904), and traces have been found of an old
Georgian translation. The Latin version is in
every resi)ect the most important, as well as the
only one which contains the ifour additional
chapters. It was through this version that the
booK found its way into the apj)endix of the Vul-
gate, and thence into our Apocrypha. The Oriental
versions are of value chiefly for the assistance they
ati'ord in testing? and correcting the Latin. A
curious illustration of their usefulness in this way
was given by Bensly in 1875, when he discovered a
missing fragment of the Latin text consisting of 70
verses, the existence of which had been suggested
by the presence of these verses in the Oriental
versions. This long passage has now been restored
to its place in our Apocrypha, between verses 35
and 36 of the seventh chapter. The basis of all the
existing versions, with tiie possible exception of the
Armenian, is generally acknowledged to be a Greek
text, now lost ; but some diflerence of opinion has
arisen as to whether that was the original text.
While the more prevalent view that the book was
composed in Greek has found such defenders as
Liicke, Volkmar, and Hilgenfeld, some recent
scholars, including Wellhausen, Charles, Gunkel,
and Box, contend for a Hebrew original.
Some confusion of nomenclature has been caused
by the varying titles of the versions. The Latin
MSS mostly distinguish five books of Ezra : the
first being the canonical Ezra-Neheraiah, the second
the prefixed chapters of 2 Es., the third the 1 Es.
of the Apocrypha, the fourth chs. 3-14 of 2 Es.,
and the fifth its subjoined chapters. According
to this arrangement, our book is now commonly
denominated Jf Ezra, although the title Ezra-
Apocalypse, suggested by Westcott as the prob
able form in the lost Greek text, has also come
into use.
3. Literary structure. — Of late years, the ques-
tion of tiie literary stru(!ture of the book has as-
sumed increasing prominence. Its essential unity,
as coming from tlie hand of a .single writer, who
may, however, have used and failed to assimilate
adequately material previously existing, is still
maintained by such scholars as Gunkel, Porter,
and Sanday. On this theory, its date is fixed
with some decree of unanimity between A.D. 81
and 96, the Fall of Jerusalem, which gives occasion
to it, being rightly referred to the destruction by
Titus in A.D. 70, and tiie difficult Eagle Vision
being inten)reted of the succession of Roman
Emperors ( Vesjuisian, Titus, and Domitian) after
that event. Another theory, however, ascribing a
composite character to the book, has recently been
worked out with much ingenuity by Kabisch,
Ciiarles, and Box. Tlie last-mentioned finds five
independent works in onr Apocalypse : (1) a Sala-
thiel Ajwcalypse (S = clis. 3-10), composed about
A.D, 100; (2) the Eagle Vision (A = ch.s. 11. 12),
belonging to the time of Domitian or possibly
Vespasian ; (3) the Son of Man VLsion (M=ch. 13),
written before A.D. 70 ; (4) the Ezra Legend (E*=
ch, 14), dating about A.D, 100; and (5) extracts
from an'old Ezra Apocalypse (E), interjiolated in S,
and belonging to some period before A.D. 70.
Tliese separate documents were welded into a
single book by a redactor (K), and published a)M)ut
A.D. 120. Whatever may be said for tiiis analysis,
it helps to elucidate certain features of the book
which have hitherto been puzzling and obscure :
divergent eschatological conceptions, varying his-
torical situations, breaks of thought, and linguistic
transitions.
4. Value and relation to NT.— On either theory,
the book remains of great importance, especially
for the understanding of later developments of
Judaism, and the environment of the early Chris-
tian Church. A fine expression of later Judaism,
it reveals a passionate clinging to the merciful
goodness of God, notwithstanding a measure of
disai)pointment with the Law, and the most dis-
astrous experience. Its spirit may be somewhat
narrow, its style not infrequently tedious, its later
visions lacking in imaginative power, and its solu-
tions of the moral problem disappointing; yet it
strikes a truly reflective note, and breathes through-
out an unconquerable faith in God and the vindica-
tion of His righteousness. In these characteristics,
perhaps, no less than in its unconscious admission
of the weakness of Judaism, lay the strength of its
appeal to Christian readers ; but its present-day
value is chiefly historical, as it is practically con-
temporaneous with the NT literature, and shows
points of contact with it. Direct dependence can
liardly be established, yet there are similarities of
thought and language to most of the NT Ixwks,
while, as Gunkel has clearly shown, there are
marked affinities with the Pauline letters and the
Book of Revelation.
(a) The speculations of .S^^. Paul are clo.sely
paralleled by the discussions of moral and religious
problems in the earlier part of 2 E.sdras. Our
author presumably belonged to the school in which
the great Apostle was trained ; and, especially in
his treatment of sin and the weakness of the Law
as a redemptive power, has much in common with
him. Sin is essentially transgression of the Law,
and alienates from Gocf (2 Es 9» 7*» ; cf. Ro S'*- »').
Its origin is to be found in the Fall of Adam and
the evil heart {cor maHqnum) which he has trans-
mitted to his descendants (2 Es 7»'» 3-'»---- "--"6 4* ;
cf. Ro 5'-, 1 Co 15^^'). Accordingly it is universal,
and has universally as its result not only spiritual
corrui)tion and infirmity, but physical death (2 Es
3^; cf. Ro 512- 14- IS- "• 21), In further agreement
with St, Paul, and in opposition to the usual
Rabbinical doctrine, our author despairs of the
efficacy of the Law to redeem and save the sinner
(2 Es 9^^ ; cf . Ro 3^). Its promised rewards have
little encour.agement or inspiration for beings so
constituted as to be unable to keep it (2 Es 7»«-"'),
At the best, though the world is perishing, it may
still be hoped that a few may be saved (9'*- **), It
is all a puzzle and pain to tlie ajwcalyptist. Un-
acquainted witii the great solvent ideas in which
the Ai)Ostle found .satisfaction for heart and mind,
he resigns himself to the inscruta,bleness of Goti's
ways, the limitations of human intelligence, and
the pre-determined Divine purpo.se in the history
and end of the world, while talcing what comfort
he may from the assurance of God's faitlifulnes.s
and love to His ancient people (47-'»- ^^ »-*» 5"'-*').
ESSENES
ESSENES
367
This attitude of mind may not have been uncommon
amon^' the Jews of his time.
(b) Tlie points of comparison with the Johanninc
Apocalypse are of an eschatological kind, and
appear most prominently in the later chapters of
2 E-sdras. The same visionary method of Divine
revelation is pursued ; the schemes of the Last
Thin;;s run \x\^n similar lines ; Rome is again the
hostile world-power standing in the background ;
and there are not wanting resemblances of diction
close enough to suggest a common source (cf. 2 Es
9=» and liev 6»-", 2 Es 4*^ and Kev \^). In 2 Es.,
too, especially when the earlier chapters are com-
f>ared with the later, an inconsistency of eschato-
ogical representation is revealed, which is reflected
not only in the Book of Revelation, but in other
NT books as well. Probably it attached to the
current conceptions of the time, and did not greatly
trouble the author or redactor of our book. In
the earlier chapters, the eschatolog^ is entirely of
an individual cnaracter, concerning itself with the
future of the soul, and postulating, immediately
aft«r death, a personal judgment and entrance into
an eternal world of punishment and reward (T^'^*).
The later chapters (11. 12) are prevailingly political,
and revive the old eschatology of the nation, with
its scheme of preliminary woes, world- judgment,
and earthly Messianic kingdom of indefinite dura-
tion. Some attempt is made in the book to adjust
these points of view by the introduction of a
temjwrary reign of the Messiah before the final
consummation, which ushers in the glorious
Heavenly Kingdom. This reign seems to have
been expected to compensate tiie nation for the
years of oppression in Egypt ; and, by a comparison
of Gn 15'* with Ps 90^^^ j^g length was fixed at 400
years {"*''*). By a similar process of inference
Slavonic Enoch had determined the duration of the
temporary Messianic kingdom as 1000 years, or a
millennium. On this matter the Book of Revela-
tion follows Enoch.
Withal, there are still left in 2 Es. a number of
divergent ideas. At one time the Messiah is pre-
sented as a purely human being, an earthly, tem-
poral ruler of the line of David (12*^-) ; at another
time he appears as a superhuman, pre-existent
being, to whom the title ' Son of God ' can be ap-
plied (7==^- =® 13*^ ^- 5- 14»). In some passages the
Judgment is personal and individual, and takes
place immediately after death (7^-i*i- '"• ^26) . jjj
others it is universal, and reserved for a great day
at the end of the world (7»- «- « 8^). Now the
Messiah is Judge (12*'- »), now Gotl Himself (6«).
Side by side with the old restricted view of a
resurrection of the righteous only stands the later
>new of a general resurrection (7'-^*~**), the one at
the beginning, the other at the close of the Mes-
sianic {jeriod, as in the Book of Revelation. These
discrepancies belonged to the environment of the
early Church, and it was part of her intellectual
task to combine them into a harmonious belief.
LrreRATTEE.— G. Volkmar, Das vierte Buck Esra, 1S58; A.
Hagenfeld, Mesnai Judceorum, 1869 ; F. Rosenthal, Vier
apokryphUchf Bucher, 1S85 ; R. Kabisch, Vag vierte Bueh
Etra, isiit : J. Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vomrieiten, 1899;
R. H. Charles, The Apoealjfpse of Baruch, 1896, and Etchato-
logy: Hebrew, Jewish, and Christian, 1S99 (21913); R. L.
Benslyand M. R. James, The Fourth Book of Ezra (= TS
iii. 2 [1S95]) ; H. Gankel, * Das vierte Buch Esra,' in Kautzsch's
Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des AT, 1900; Lten
Vag^anay, Le Problime egehatoloffiqite dawt le IVe livre
d'Esdra^, 1906 ; F. C. Porter, The ilesmije* of the ApoctU^p-
tieal Writerg, 1905 ; Bnino Violet, Die Esra-Apokahjpse, 1910 ;
G. H. Box, The Ezra-Apocalj/pse, 1912, and ' IV Ezra ' in R.
H. Charles's The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the OT,
1913. D. Frew.
ESSENES. — The Essenes were a Jewish monastic
order, proljably long preceding, not long surviving,
the founding of Christianity.
1. Authorities. — Essenes are not mentioned
either in the NT or in the Talmud. Our chief
authorities are (1) Joseph us {BJll. viii.. Ant. xvm.
i. 5, XIII. V. 9, XV. X. 4ff.); (2) Philo {Quod omnis
probus liber, 12, 13) ; (3) Philonic fragment in
Eusebius (Prctp. Evang. VUI. xi.); (4) Pliny (HN
V. 17, probably drawn from Alexander Polyfiistor).
Some additional details are to be found in the
Fathers (esp. Hippolytos) who deal with Judaeo-
Christian heresies. Probably there is need of
criticism of the main sources, but we may take
them as trustworthj- as to the facts adduced.
2. Name. — This occurs as Essenoi (Jos. 14 times,
Hippol., Synesius); Essaioi (Philo, Hegesippus,
Porphyry, Jos. 6 times) ; and in varying forms in
Epiphanius — Ossaioi, Ossenoi, lessaioi. For a dis-
cussion of various etymologies seeLightfoot(Co/<M-
sians, 1875, p. 115 ff.). The name is best taken
from Syr. hdse, in plur. absol. hdsen, emphat.
hasaia ; ' Essene' thus =' pious.' For our purpose
we are not concerned with giving a full account of
the Order, nor with tracing its history, and specu-
lating as to the origin of its peculiarities. We
have merely to give a brief outline of its main
features, and deal chiefly with the influence it
exerted on the development of Christianity.
3. Organization and characteristics. — The
Essenes were organized as a close Order on a
basis of celibacy and absolute communism (.Jos.
BJ II. viii. 3 f . ; Philo. in Euseb. Priep. Evang.
VIII. xi. 4). Josephus speaks of a branch who
allowed marriage (BJ II. viii. 13), but this must
have been a minority. The officials were elected,
and were implicitly obeyed (u. viii. 6). The Order
was recruited by voluntary adhesions, or by adopt-
ing children (viii. 2). Candidates passed through
a two-stage novitiate. For a year they lived under
discipline, then they were admitted to the solemn
initiatory ablution which separated them from the
world, and after other two years they received full
privileges of table-fellowship. They bound them-
selves by a fearful oath to reverence God ; to do
justice ; hurt no man voluntarily or on command ;
obey the officials ; conceal nothing from fellow-
members, and divulge nothing of their afl'airs even
at the risk of death ; be honest and humble ; com-
municate doctrines exactly as they had been re-
ceived; and preserve carefully the sacred books
and the names of the angels (II. viii. 7).
For morality the Essenes ranked high. ' In
fact, they had in many respects reached the very
highest moral elevation attained by the ancient
world' (EBr^ vs.. 780*). Their lives were ab-
stemious, humble, helpful. Sensual desires were
sinful ; passions were restrained. Their word was
as good as an oath, and they forbade swearing.
Their modesty was excessive. They condemned
slavery (BJ II. viii. 2, 5, 6 ; Philo in Euseb. Prcep.
Evang. wa. xi 11).
In devotion to the Law and in ceremonial cleans-
ings they out-Phariseed the Pharisees. The Order
was in four grades, and contact with one of a lower
grade constituted a defilement. Where the Pharisee
washed, the Essene bathed. Their food was care-
fully prepared by priests. Their Sabbatarianism
was extreme, and their reverence for Moses was
such that thej' treated any disrespect to his name
as blasphemy worthy of death (BJ II. viii. 9).
As to tcorship, they differed from normal Judaism
in two important points ; (a) they rejected animal
sacrifice, and sent to the Temple only oflerings of
incense (Jos. A nt. X\TII. I. 5) ; (b) in some sense
they worshipped the sun ; ' daily before the rising
of the sun, they address to it old traditional prayers
as though supplicating it to rise ' (BJ II. viii. 5).
In doctrine they held strongly a doctrine of
Providence, appearing to Josephus to be fatalists
(Ant. XIII. V. 9). They took a dualistic view of
man's nature. Through evil desire souls fell into
368
ESSENES
ESSKNES
uniting tlieiniselves with bodies. Free from tlie
body, the 80ul of tlio good will rise joyously, as if
delivered from long bondage, and find a resting-
place of felicity beyond the ocean, whereas for the
Dad is reserved a dark, cold region of unceasing
torment (ZiJ" II. viii. 11).
They revered certain esoteric books which nro-
bably dealt witli angclology, magic, and divination.
They were in re|)ute as nrophets {BJ II. viii. 12).
They commended speculation in theology and
cosmogony, and made re.searches into medicine
(viii. 6), proliably magical. They abhorred the
use of oil (viii. 3) ; and that they abstained from
liesh and wine has been often asserted, but is very
uncertain.
i. Relation to Christianity.— That in several
points Essenism, as described, is in agreement
with Ciiristianity, is beyond question. On the
groundofthose resemblances, some, e.r/. DeQuincey,
have held that the Essenes are but Christian monks.
This view cannot be taken seriously. Others, e.g.
Ginsburg, have made Christianity a development
of Essenism, and represented Ciirist as a member
of the holy Order. With the question as to the
relation of Jesus to Essenism we are not concerned
(Lightfoot, Colossuins, p. 158 ff., may be consulted).
We merely note that the dill'erences between the
two are as i)ronounced as the resemblances.
( 1 ) Was James an Essene ? — We may, however,
deal with an assertion, sometimes made, that
James, the writer of the canonical Epistle, was
an Essene. Those who believe so found their belief
upon the account of James given by Hegesippus
(in Euseb. HE ii. 23), who nourished about A.D. 170.
He asserts that James abstained from flesh, wine
and strong drink, and the bath ; that he allowed
no razor to touch his head, no oil to touch his body,
and that he wore only line linen (which was the
dress of the Essenes). If this account were reliable,
it would not prove that James was an Essene.
Those who believe so must hold the common, but
quite wrong, opinion that all Jews were Pharisees,
Sadducees, or Essenes, and tliat all showing asceti-
cism were Essenes. James might be an ascetic with-
out being an Essene, as one may to-day be an
abstainer without being^ a Good Temjjlar. In the
notice of Hegesippus itself we have conclusive
evidence that James could not be an Essene, for
he abstained from the bath, which to the Essenes
was of such importance. Besides, as Lightfoot
shows (Col. p. 168), Hegesippus is far from trust-
wortiiy here. There is no evidence at all for the
identitication of James with the Essenes.
(2) Did the Apostolic Church copy the Order ? —
The resemblances are striking, and we shall mention
and examine tlie most imi)ortant.
(«) The temporary communism of the early
chapters of Acts reminds us of the communism of
the Essenes. But the Christians were a brother-
hood, not an Order, and the surrender of property
was a voluntary act, not necessary for recognition as
a brother (Ac 5^). The Christian communism admits
of easy explanation from the belief in tiie almost
immediate lleturn of the Lord, (b) Celibacy is
recommended as a ' counsel of j)erfection ' in i Co
7^* *. It is clear from v.'''" that this too depends
on the belief in the nearness of the end. (c) The
Essenes substituted a sacramental for a sacrilicial
worship. The importance of this has very seldom
been ap])reciated, though it is a point which makes
the Order of great interest in the history of religion.
Apart from their multitudinous ordinary lustra-
tions, there was the solemn initiatory ablution at
the end of tlie first novitiate. It cleansed outwardly
and inwardly and made the ordinary man an
Essene (so Bousset, lielifjiondcs Jndcntitms, p. 436).
Here we have a parallel with Christian baptism
and baptismal regeneration. In their common meal
we have a parallel with the Christian love-feast,
if not with the Eucharist. We quote Josephus's
description :
'They assciiihle together in one place, and having clothed
themselves in white veils, they bathe their txtdies in cold water.
After this purillcation, they assenilile in an apartment o( Ibeir
own, into which it is not uUowed to any 8tran);er to enter. . . .
They enter as if it were some holy temjile, and sit <lown quietly.
. . . The priest prays before meat, and none may eat before
prayer is offered, and when they have made their meal, he ai;ain
l)rays over them. . . . And when they begin and when they
end, they praise God. . . . Nor is there ever any clamour or
disturbance . . . which silence appears to outsiders as some
tremendous mystery' (DJ n. viii. 6 ; of. Ant. xvin. i. 6).
As noted above, novices were not admitted to
the Table ; similarly Christian catechumens retired
Ixifore the celebration of the Eucharist. It must
be admitted that here we have a striking resem-
blance, but to conclude that the Church owed its
sacraments to the E.ssenes is a rash proceeding.
The love-feast has many other parallels elsewhere,
and could grow up independently of any of them.
Any association of men will naturally develop
something similar. Baptism, too, is no rare phe-
nomenon. We conclude that, while the parallel is
interesting, the Christian develoimient cannot be
shown to be borrowed from Essenism, and is intel-
ligible without any reference to it.
Other resemblances have been noted (a list will
be found in HDB, art. 'Essenes'), but they are
trilling and unconvincing. The fact, e.g., that
Christians are admonished to obey them that have
tlie rule over them gives a point of resemblance to
the Essenes certainly, but also to every human as-
sociation that ever was organized on principles of
common sense. It is useless to draw out laborious
parallels of this sort. We may hold that the early
Church cannot be proved to have owed anything
to Essenism, and can be explained without it. On
the other hand, Essenism, in its super-Pharisaism,
its retirement from the world, its avoidance of the
Temple (cf. Ac 3' 21-"), its views of the body, its
sun-worship and magic, is in sharpest contrast to
Christianity. Of the silence of the NT regarding
the Essenes there are only two possible explana-
tions. One is that Christianity is one with Essen-
ism— a view we have rejected. The other is that
Essenism was so uninfluential, so entirely out of re-
lation to Christianity, or any active movement of
the time, that there was no occasion to mention
it. When Ave remember that Pliny knows of
Essenes only as inhabiting the desert shore of
the Dead Sea, we are contirmed in choosing this
alternative.
5. Influence on heresies. — If it is doubtful
whether the Church in her normal development
owed anything to Essenism, it is not doubtful that
its influence is discernible in the rise of a number
of heresies. Here too, however, its influence has
sometimes been exaggerated. It is highly question-
able whether Essenes have, or possibly could have,
any connexion with the ' weaker brethren ' of
Romans or the errorists of Colossians. The
former, as seems indicated in Ro IS'', are probably
Gentiles given to the asceticism which was not un-
common in the heathen world at that time (A. C.
McGiflert, Christianity in the Aiwstol. Age, 1897,
p. 337). The latter, though scholars like Lightfoot
and Weiss regard them as clearly E.ssenic, are
really as likely to be Alexandrian as Palestinian
Jews (p. 368). According to all our autiiorities,
Essenes were confined to Palestine. We have
stated Pliny's view above ; Philo knew of them
in many towns and villages of Jud;va; Josephus
knew them all through Palestine. The hi-st two
authorities are obviously anxious to make the
most possible of the Essenes, and, had they had a
wider distribution, we may be sure we should have
been informed of it. The Essenes arrived at their
ESSENES
ETERNAL, EVERLASTING 369
peculiarities by uniting heatlien elements with
Judaism ; and wherever Jews came in touch with
like influences, similar results might be produced.
Leaving out the Roman and Colossian errorists as
doubtfully Essenic, to say the least, we proceed to
those heretical movements where, with great pro-
bability, Essenism is intluential.
(a) The Essenes are of undoubted interest for the
history of Gnosticism {q.v.). They may be called
'the Gnostics of Judaism.' Their fondness for
speculation on cosmogony, their allegorizing of
the OT, of which Philo speaks, their dualistic
views, which involve a depreciation of matter,
their magic and their esoteric books — all connect
them with Gnosticism. And they are important
as showing that in essence there was a pre-Chris-
tian Gnosticism. (6) They influenced those Jew-
ish Christians who came into contact with them
(see art. Ebioxism). The Ebionites, a.s described
by Epiphanius, sliow traces of Essenic influence in
their asceticism and frequent baptisms. The Elke-
saites are Essenized Ebionites. Epiphanius (Ucer.
xix. 2, XX. 3) identifies Elkesaites with Savipsceans
(sun-worshippers), and calls them a remnant of the
Essenes who liad adopted a debased form of Chris-
tianity, (c) The history of the Essenes after the
Fall of Jerusalem is obscure. They suffered severely,
and enduretl bravely, in the persecution, and pro-
bably their Order was broken up (Lightfoot, Col.
p. 169). Many would attacli themselves to the
neighbouring Christians, with whom they would
find several affinities, and carry elements of their
Essenism with them. In the Palestinian JudcEo-
Christian heresies, then, we may, with practical
certainty, trace Essenic influence.
6. Conclusion. — The whole subject of Essenism
is wrapped in obscuritj' : the Essenes remain, and
will remain, the 'great enigma of Jewish history.'
The obscurity is all the more tantalizing because
we know enough to perceive that for tlie history of
religion the Essenes are of surpassing interest and
importance. In tliem the Western world saw for
the first time a monastic Order and a sacramental
worship. In them, too, Gnosticism began its
career. These are three points of vast importance.
The 'regions beyond Jordan' are of special in-
terest for the syncretism of which they were the
scene. There, first Judaism and later Christianity
were unable to maintain themselves in their original
form. In a general way, we can understand the
process of this syncretism. In that region Perso-
Babylonian, and even perhaps Buddhistic, influ-
ences, pressing westward, impinged ujwn Judaism,
and Esj^enism is the most prominent of the various
amalgams that resulted. In the more obscure
Sampsfeans, Nasara?ans, Hemerobaptists, etc., we
have, no doubt, other examples. And as it was
with trans- Jordan ic Judaism, so it was with trans-
Jordanic Judaistic Christianity. It found in
Essenism and its cognates what they had found in
eastern heathenism — an influence too strong to be
resisted. But as to the precise details of both
syncretisms, we are left in ignorance, and nearly
every statement must begin with ' probably.' As
has been indicated, in estimating their influence on
Christianity, Catholic and heretical alike, we must
beware of the tendency to exaggerate it. Our
view is — the Essenes had no appreciable influence
on the development of Catholic Christianity, but
in Judseo-Christian heresies their influence is con-
siderable, while for the history of Gnosticism
they are of great interest.
LiTERATCRK. — This is very abundant. We mention only P.
E. Lucius, Der Essenisinus, 18S1 ; J. B. Ligrhtfoot, ColoMi'ang,
ISTo; E. Schiirer. HJP u. ii. [1SS5] 188 ff.; A. HUgenfeld,
Ketzergeschichte des Crehriitentums, 1884 ; W. Bousset, He-
ligion des JudenUnm im ST Zettalter, 1903 ; artt. in HD£,
EBi, J a, CE, and EBr'ii, where further Literature is mentioned.
\V. D. Nrv'EN.
VOL. I.— 24
ETERNAL, EYERLASTING.— ' Eternal ' and
' everlasting ' are employed in the AV of the NT
somewhat indiscriminately to render three Greek
word.s — dtSioj, aiwy (used adjectivally in genitive
plural), and alJiviOi. dtSioi is found only in Ro 1**
and Jude*, AV rendering ' eternal ' in the first case
and ' everlasting ' in the second. ' Eternal ' is the
translation of tup atw^wv in Eph 3", 1 Ti 1".
aiwvios is of very common occurrence ; but while
AV in most cases gives 'eternal,' it not infrequently
substitutes • everlasting,' and sometimes d!oes so,
apparently, for no other reason than to avoid the
repetition of the same English word (cf., e.g., Ac
13** with v.« ; Ro &^ with v.»). For atSiot (a con-
traction for aeiSios, fr. dei 'ever') RV properly re-
serves 'everlasting.' For tQv aiuvwv it gives the
literal meaning ' of the ages.' For aiwi'ioj (fr. auip)
it regularly gives 'eternal,' except in Philem^',
where aiwvioy is treated as an adverb and rendered
'for ever.' 'Eternal' for aiuvtos is etymologically
correct, since Lat. (sternus (for asvitemus) comes
from (evum, the digammated form of otwv, from
which aiwyioi is derived. Moreover, no better
English word can be suggested — unless the trans-
literation 'seonian' could be accepted. None the
less, ' eternal ' is misleading, inasmuch as it has
come in English to connote the idea of ' endlessly
existing,' and thus to be practically a synonym for
'everlasting.' But this is not an adequate render-
ing of aiwvioi, which varies in meaning with the
variations of the noun aiJiv, from which it comes.
The chief meanings of aiuv in classical Greek are :
(1) a lifetime ; (2) an age or period ; (3) a period of
unlimited duration. In the LXX, which is largely
determinative for NT usage, aid:v (usually repre-
sentin«^ Heb. c^iy) is employed with the same
variations as in the older Greek literature ; and
the length of time referred to must be determined
from the context. In some cases els t6v alQva.
refers to the duration of a single human life (Ex
19** 21*) ; in others it is applied to the length of a
dynasty (1 Ch 28*), the lasting natui'e of au ordin-
ance (2 Ch 2*), the national existence of Israel (2
Ch 9*), the perpetuity of the earth (Ec 1*), the en-
during character of God (Ps 9^) and of the Divine
truth and mercy (117* 118'). Similarly aluvios is
applied to the ancient gates of Zion (Ps 24^), to
certain Levitical ordinances (Lv 16^- **), to the
covenants of God with men (Gn 9'* 17^ etc.), to the
Divine mercy (Is 54*) and love (Jer 3P). Only
rarely do we find the word applied directly to God
Himself (Gn 21», Is 4(F*). Passing from the LXX,
we have to notice the bearing upon NT usage of
the distinction made in the later Jewish theology
(see Schiirer, HJF II. ii. 133) between the present
age (n'n nVij;) and the coming or Messianic age
(K^n D^iy), a distinction which reappears in the NT
in the expressions 6 aiwy o&ros and 6 cUwy 6 fiiWuv
or 6 (pxofj^evos.
Coming now to the NT with the previous history
of aiwv and aiuvios in view, we find that the terms
are still used as before with various connotations.
In 1 Co 8'*, unless St. Paul is writing by way of pure
hyperbole, cduv can refer only to his own lifetime.
In Ac 3^* it refers to the age of prophecy. Its fre-
quent employment in the plural suggests that in
the singular the word denotes something less than
unending time ; while the phrases rp6 twv aiujvuv
(1 Co 2') and to. tAi; tQ» aiwvuv (10") point to ages
that were conceived of, not as everlasting, but as
having a beginning and coming to an end. Even
the coming or Messianic alJjv, as contrasted Mith
the present time (Mk ICP, Eph 1=", etc.), is not con-
ceived of by St. Paul as endless. In 2 P 1" Christ's
Kingdom is described as a'nivioi ; but St. Paul
anticipates a time when Christ shall deliver up
His Kingdom to God the Father (1 Co 15^).
The use of the adjective is again similar to that
370
ETERNAL FIRE
irrHics
of the noun. Whether alwviov is treated as an ad-
verb or an adjective in Phileni ^"j it is evident that
the meaning must be restricted to the lifetime of
Onesimus and Pliilenion. The XP^>">'- aiwfioi of Ko
16^ are the ages during which the mystery of the
gospel was kept secret, in contrast witli the age of its
revelation. Tliose x/x^""' a-idjvioi, moreover, are not
to be thought of as stretching backwards everlast-
ingly, as is proved by the wp6 xpii^w aluvluv of 2 Ti
P, Tit 1*. The alilivia 6e6; of Ko 16"" carries with it
unquestionably the idea of everlastingness ; but it is
worth noting that this is the only occasion in the NT
when the term is applied to God, and that the dox-
ology in which it occurs is of doubtful genuineness.
It is when we come to consider the expression
fcjij aiiLvtos (cf. auT-qpla, [lie 5"], Xi;r/)W(rtj [9'"J, Kkripo-
i/o/xla [v.">]), which is of very frequent occurrence
in the Johannine and Pauline writings, together
with the contrasted conceptions trOp alibviov (Mt 18*
2o^\ Jude^), /c6\a<ris a/uiJ'tos (Mt 25''*'), dXedpoi aiwvios
(2 Th P), Kpifia alwviov (He 6'^), that we lind the
real crux of the difficulty of translating the term.
It has often been insisted that the meaning of the
word is the same in either case, and that if ' teonian
tire' is less than everlasting, 'aeonian life' must
also be less. Sometimes this argument has been
met by the objection that aiibvios is not a quantita-
tive but a spiritual and qualitative term, express-
ing a kind rather than a length of being. That
the word is frequently so used in the Johannine
writings appears evident (e.g. Jn 17*, 1 Jn S'"*- ^' 5'^) ;
and in the Pauline Epistles also we have various
examples of its employment in a sense that is in-
tensive rather than extensive — notably the equation
in I Ti 6'2- 1" (KV) between ' eternal life ' and ' the
life which is life indeed.' And yet it must be ad-
mitted that the whole history of the term points
to the underlying idea of duration, and not of
duration only, but of a duration that is permanent.
With equal clearness, however, that history shows
that the permanence affirmed is not absolute, but
relative to the nature of the subject. Whe;i ap-
plied to the loving service of a Christian slave to
a Christian master, aluvtos denotes a permanence
as lasting as the earthly relation between master
and slave will permit. VVhen used of the ages be-
fore the gospel was revealed, it means throughout
the whole length of those ages. Wlien applied to
God or to the Spirit (He 9''*), it means as ever-
lasting as the Divine nature itself. And when we
come to ' eternal life ' on the one hand and ' eternal
lire ' or ' eternal destruction ' on the other, they
also must be rendered according to our conception
of the inherent nature of the thing referred to.
And many will hold that while good, as emanat-
ing from God, is necessarily indestructible, evil, as
contrary to the Divine nature and will, must even-
tually cease to be — ' that God may be all in all '
(1 Co 15'-'''). ' iEonian lire,' therefore, may mean a
tire that goes on burning until it has burned itself
out; 'aionian destruction,' a destruction that con-
tinues until there is nothing left to destroy. But
' ieonian life,' being life in Christ Jesus our Lord
(Ro 6^ ; cf. 1 Jn 5"), must be as enduring as the
Divine immortality. If the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus dwells in us, nothing shall be able to separ-
ate us from the love of God (Ro 8-'- "• »-^-'). See,
further. Life and Death.
LiTERATDRE. — S. D. F. Salmond, Christian Doctrine of
Immortalitu, Edinburgh, 1895, p. 649 ff. ; G. B. Stevens,
Theol. of MT, do. 1S99, p. 224 ff., Christian Doctrine of Saha-
lion, do. 1905, p. 526 f. ; Expositor, 1st. ser. vii. [1878] 405-424,
.«rd. ser. vi. [1887] 274-286, viL [1888] 266-278 ; EBi ii. [1901]
1403. J, c. Lambert.
ETERNAL FIRE.-See Fire.
ETERNAL LIFE.— See Eternal and Life and
Death.
ETHICS. — It is proposed in the present article
not to discuss the vast subject of ethics in general,
but to attempt to ascertain what were the most
striking points in which the ethical ideas of the
Christians of the Apostolic Age dill'ered from those
of earlier speculators on the subject.
1. Sources of information. — All our first-hand
information is contained in the writings of the
NT and of the Apostolic Fathers. Indirectlj* the
works of later Christian authors, who treated tlie
subject more systematically, may throw some liglit
by way of inference on the conceptions of the Apos-
tolic Age : for instance, if the treatment of tl«e
cardinal virtues by St. Augustine and others shows
a marked difference from the treatment found in
pre-Christian writers, it may perhaps be rightly
inferred that the difference is due to ideas which
already prevailed in the first generation of Chris-
tians. Rut inferences of this sort are precarious,
for it is hardly possible to ascertain accurately how
far the other influences which contributed to the
thought of the later writers were operative in the
earliest age ; and in any case it is probable that
later writings would not add anything of great
importance to the general outline, which is all that
is being attempted here. Attention will therefore
be confined to the contemporary documents. And
with respect to these, critical questions may be
ignored. The accuracy of the historical narrative
is not in question, and whatever may be the
authorship or the precise date of the documents
reviewed, they are all sufficiently early to reflect
ethical ideas which belong to the Apostolic Age,
and not those which belong to a later period,
2. General characteristics of ethical thought. —
(1) Absence of systematic treatment. — Ethical ques-
tions are constantly touched upon in the NT, but
always more or less in connexion with particular
ca.ses as they arise, and never in connexion with a
complete and thought-out system. Here there is
a striking contrast with Greek philosophy. The
philosophers tried to find a rational basis for human
life in all its relations. In ethics they di.scussed
the question of the supreme good — whether it was
knowledge, or pleasure, or virtue ; they classified
the virtues, and discussed in the fullest manner
their various manifestations. There is nothing of
this sort in the NT. The morality of the Jews,
again, was very different from that of the Greeks,
for the Jews took little interest in purely philo-
sophical problems ; but thev also had a system,
and a very elaborate one, of law and of ceremonial
observance, with which their morality was closely
bound up. Although the Christians inherited so
much from the Jews, this system, after being, as
it were, raised to its highest power in the Sermon
on the Mount, was definitely set aside in the
Apostolic Age. And in the place of a system we
find an overpowering interest in certain historical
facts. The Synoptic Gospels are occupied with a
fragmentary narrative of the life of Christ, in
which a good deal of moral teaching is contained.
Rut it is such as arises incidentally from the facts
recorded in the narrative, and it is not presented
as part of a scheme of ethics. In the Fourth
Gospel there is something more nearly resembling
systematic moral discussion, but even here the
discourses arise out of a historical framework, and
the prevailing interest is not ethical but spiritual
and mystical. The Acts contains little but narra-
tive, and the teaching recorded in it centres almost
monotonously around facts. In the Epistles ethical
questions are constantly dealt with, but the pro-
blems are practical, and arise out of the circum-
stances of the time. This is not to say that in
these writings there is no new point of view, but
that ethics is nowhere treated in a complete and
systematic way, and that there appears to be no
ETHICS
ETHICS
371
consciousness on the part of the writers that they
Are in possession of a new ethical theory or philo-
sophy. The difference, therefore, between pre-
Christian and Christian ethics does not consist in a
new theory or system. The subject was treated in
the Apostolic Age from the practical point of view.
(2) The moral ideal. — A new element is, however,
introduced into ethics by that very concentration
upon a single historical life which has been noted
above. The ideal man had figured largely in
earlier ethical systems, but the ideal man of philo-
sophy had been entirelj' a creation of the imagina-
tion, and his actual existence never seems to have
been thought of as a practical possibility. Now,
liowever, an actual human life is put forward as a
model of perfection, and it is assumed without dis-
cussion that all ethical questions, as they may
happen to arise, may be, and must be, tested by
this.
(3)- The new life. — There is, moreover, in the
consciousness of the Apostolic Age something more
potent than belief in a historical example. There
is a sense which pervades every writing of this time
that a new force has come into existence. It is not
necessary to insist upon the prominence in early
Christian teaching of the belief in the Resurrection.
The continued life and activity of the Person who
is the centre of all their thought were the greatest
of all realities to the early Christians. With it
was combined the belief in the continual indwelling
and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And this seems
to explain the apparent indifierence to ethical
theory which has been noted. For to the early
Christians ' outward morality is the necessary ex-
pression of a life already infused into the soul '
(Strong, Christian Ethics, p. 69). It is in this
respect that the Christian conception presents the
most marked contrast to pre-Christian thought.
There was a note of hopelessness in the moral
speculation of the Greeks. Even a high ideal was
a thing regarded as practically out of reach for
the mass of mankind. Plato looked upon the
ideal State as a necessary condition for the exercise
of the highest virtue, and its conception was a
wonderful etlort of the philosophical imagination ;
but it was not considered possible. Even the
apparently practical conceptions of Aristotle re-
quire a complete reconstruction of society. The
Stoic philosophers abandoned this dream, and could
suggest nothing better than the withdrawal of the
wise man from all ordinary human interests. The
Neo-Platonist went further, and sought complete
severance from the world of sense. Jewish thought
was on different lines, but there was an even keener
sense of sin and failure, although this was redeemed
from despair by the hope of a Messianic Age which
would redress all the evils of the existing order.
Above all there was no sufficient solution, and
among the Greeks little attempt at a solution, of
the problem of how the human will was to be
sufficiently strengthened to do its part in the
realization of any ideal. In the writings of the
Apostolic Age, on the other hand, there is found
not only a belief in a perfect ideal historically
realized, but also a belief in an indwelling power
sufficient to restore aU that is weak and depraved
in the human will.
(4) The evangelical virtttes. — In the XT there is
no regular discussion of the nature of virtue, and
no formal classification of virtues. The Greek
philosophers, while they differed in their views
of what constituted the chief good, were agreed
in accepting what are known as the four cardinal
\T.rtues — prudence, temperance, fortitude, and
justice — as the basis of their classification. This
division, from the time of Plato onwards (and
he appears to assume it as familiar), is generally'
accepted as exhaustive, and other virtues are made
to fall under these heads. But although this classi-
fication must have been familiar to a large number
of the early Christians, and altliough it had been
adopted in the Book of Wisdom (8^j, it is not men-
tioned in the NT. The cardinal virtues reappeared
in Christian literature from Origen onwards, and
were exhaustively treated by Ambrose, Augus-
tine, Gregory, and medifeval writers, but this kind
of discussion does not make its appearance in the
Apostolic Age. Such lists of virtues as that which
occurs in Gal o"** are clearly not intended to be
exhaustive or scientific, and the nearest approach
to a system of virtues is made by St. Paul in 1 Cor.,
where he expounds what became known as the three
theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. These
three are also closely associated in Ro 5^"*, 1 Th
12*-, and Col 1*-' ; and two other NT writers (He
10^'-* and 1 P l^^'-) mention them in conjunction
in a suggestive manner. It seems that they were
generally recognized as moral or spiritual states
characteristic of the Christian life. And the reason
for this appears to be that they are regarded as the
means by which the Christian is brought into
personal relation with the historical facts, and with
the new life brought by them into the world, which
have been spoken of above as the point on which
the Christians of the first age centred their atten-
tion. The insistence on these spiritual virtues
brings out two distinct characteristics of the ethical
thought of the Apostolic Age, which are nowhere
defined or discussed in the NT, but which neverthe-
less appear to be consistently implied. These char-
acteristics are a new doctrine of the end of man,
and consequently a new criterion of good and evil,
and a new view of human nature.
(a) These three virtues all take a man outside
himself, and make it impossible for him to be merely
self-regarding. They bring him into close relation
not only with his fellow-men but with God. So
union with God becomes the highest end of man.
This union, moreover, is not absorption : whatever
may have been the case of some later Christian
mystics, the most mystical of the early writers, St.
Paul and St. John, never contemplate anything but
a conscious union with God, in which the whole in-
dividuality of man is preserved, ' From first to last
the Christian idea is social, and involves the con-
scious communion between man and man, between
man and God. And no state of things in which the
individual consciousness disappears mil satisfy this
demand ' (Strong, (^. cit. p. 88). Faith, hope, and
love all relate to a spiritual region above and beyond
this present life, but the existing world is not ex-
cluded from it. The Kingdom of God, which oc-
cupies so large a place in the thought of the
Apostolic Age, is regarded as future and as tran-
scendental, but it is also regarded as having come
already, so far as the rule of Christ has been made
effective in this life. Thus a new standard for moral
judgments is set up : those actions and events are
good which advance the coming of the Kingdom,
and those are evil which impede it.
(6) Furtlier, the evangelical virtues assume a
unity in liuman nature which pre-Christian systems
of thought failed to recognize. Greek thought
either regarded human nature as unfallen, or it
adopted more or less an Oriental view of evil as im-
manent in matter. When evil could not be ignored
it might be ascribed either to ignorance or to the
imprisonment of the soul in an alien environment.
In neither case could human nature be regarded as a
whole which in its own proper being is harmonious.
The body and the emotions which are closely con-
nected with it were looked upon as things which
must either be kept in strict subjection to the in-
tellect, or, as far as possible, be got rid of altogether.
In early Christian thought, on the other hand, hope
and love are mainly emotional, and faith is by no
372
ETHICS
ETHIOPIANS
means exclusively intellectual. In St. Paul's use
of the term it includes a strong element of emotion —
it ' worketh through love ' (Gal 5*) ; and it is almost
more an act of the will than of the intellect. And
although asceticism played a great part in some
departments of later Christian thought, in the
Apostolic Age there can be no doubt of the imjiort-
ance assigned to the body. The conspicuous Cliris-
tian belief in the resurrection of tlie body assumes
a very different point of view from that of Oriental
or even of Greek philosophy. It is clear that the
first generation of Christians regarded human
nature as fallen indeed, but as capable in all its
parts of restoration, and they believed tliat none of
its i>arts could be left out from the salvation of the
whole.
(5) The conception of sin. — Sjieaking generally,
it may be said that the non-Christian view of sin
regards it as natural, and that tlie Christian view
regards it as unnatural. This is, however, a broad
generalization, and requires further definition. No
system of ethical thought can altogetlier ignore tlie
fact of sin, though it is sometimes minimized. But
tliere are wide differences in the way in which it is
regarded. In ))re-Christian thought it was often
almost identilied with ignorance. It was assumed
that a man cannot sin willingly, because no man
desires evil for himself. Virtue is therefore know-
ledge, and the possibility of knowing what is right
and doing what is wrong need not be considered.
This was the teaching of a large section of Greek
philosophy. Again, wherever Oriental ideas had
inrtuence, the seat of evil was thought to be in
matter. Sometimes the strife between good and
evil was e-xjilained as a contest between two rival
and eveniy-bahmced powers. Sometimes a good
deity was conceived as acting upon an intractable
material. The practical conclusion was usually
some form of asceticism — an attempt to be quit of
the body and all that it implied ; and this asceti-
cism, by a process easy to be understood, not infre-
quently led to licence. These tendencies often
make their appearance in Church history, and
traces of them are to be found in the writings of
the NT, but during the Apostolic Age the ilangers
of Gnosticism and Antinomianisni were but rudi-
mentary. In modern times the view of evil which
regards it as undeveloped good, or as the survival
of instincts that are no longer necessary or bene-
ficial, has some points in common with the old
dualisms. The common feature of all these
views is that they regard evil as more or less in-
evitable and according to nature. It would not be
true to say that they altogether disregard the
human will, or deny human responsibility, but
they treat the body rather than the will as the seat
of evil, and tliey tend to look upon evil as, upon the
whole, natural and necessary. The Ciiristian view
of sin, as it ap])ears in the writings of the Apostolic
Age, is in the sharpest contrast to this. It is the
Jewish view, carried to its natural conclusion, and
its chief characteristics may be set down under
three heads.
(a) First, the freedom of the will is not considered
from the philosophical point of view at all. Tiie
metaphysical ditliculties are not even touched upon,
nor is any consciousness shown of their existence,
liut the responsibility of man is always assumed.
Nor is it for his actions alone that he is responsible.
The Sermon on the Mount brings home to him
responsibility for every thought, and for his whole
attitude towards God. And in doing so it brings to
its natural conclusion the course of ethical thougiit
among the Jews. If, however, the root of sin is
in the will, it follows that it is not in matter, or in
the body, or in anything distinct from the will of
man. The whole universe is good, because it is
created by God, and sin consists in the wilful misuse
of things naturally good. Asceticism therefore,
except in the sense of such training as may help to
restore the will to a healthy condition, is excluded.
(b) Se(rondly, the idea of the holiness of God, as
forming a test of human action and a condemna-
tion of human shortcomings, is another concej)tion.
inherited from Judaism. Early Jewish ideas
about God are anthropomorphic, but the anthropo-
morpiiism is of a very diflerent kind from that of.
the Greeks. The deities of Greek mythology who
aroused the contemptuous disgust of Plato were
constructed out of human experience with all the
evil and good qualities of actual men emphasized
and heighteneff. To the Jew God is an ideal, the
simrce of the Moral Law, rebellion against which is
sin. So in the Sermon on the Mount the perfection
of God is held up as the ideal for human perfection,
and St. Paul makes the unity of God the ground
for belief in the unity of the Church.
(c) Thirdly, sin was regarded as a thing which
ali'ects the race, and not only individuals. The
beliefs of the Apostolic Age with regard to Christ's
redemptive work imply that there is a taint in the
race, and that human nature it-self, and not only
individual men, has to be restored to communion
with God, and requires such a release from sin as
will make communion with God possible. Some
practical results of this belief in the solidarity of
mankind are conspicuous in early Christian writ-
ings. One is the exercise of discipline. It was
felt that the actions and character of individuals
compromised and affected the whole body, and
that they could not therefore be left to themselves.
The injury done by the rebellion of one injured
and imperilled the whole community. Both for
his own sake and for the sake of the Church a cor-
porate censure was required, extending if nece-ssary
to the cutting oil' of the offending member (1 Co 5,
2 Co 2, Mt 18i»-=», etc.). Another result of the
belief in solidarity is the emphasis laid upon social,
virtues in connexion with the corporate character of
the Church {e.g. Ro 12, 1 Co 12-14, Gal 5, etc.). It
partly accounts for that special prominence of
humility in Christian ethics which has been so-
often commented on froju different points of view,
for humility is regarded not only as a duty enforced
by the example of Christ, but al.so as the practical
means for preserving the unitj' and harmonious-
working of the body (Ph 28-«, etc.).
3. Conclusion. — Ethics in the Apostolic Age did
not consist in a re-statement of old experience or
in a sj'stem of purely ethical theory, but in the
recognition and acceptance in the sphere of conduct
of the practical consequences of what was believed
to be an entirely new experience of spiritual facts.
Literature. — A. Neander, ' Verhaltniss der hellen. Ethik zur
christlichen,' in H'isgenschaftliche Abhandlungen, 1851, also
GeschicfUe der christl. Ethik {=Theoloq. VorlesMugen, v. [18&4]) ;
W. Gass, Geschichte der christl. Ethik, 18S1 ; C. E. Luthardt,
Geschichte der chrintl. Ethik, 1888; H. Martensen, Christian
Ethics, Entr. tr., (General) 1885, (Individual) 1881 , (Social) 1882 ;
J. R. lUingworth, Christian Character, 1904 ; T. B. Strong,
CAr/.sfia?»£i'/jic«,lS96(to which this article isespecialljindebKHl);
H. H. ScuUard, Early ChriMian Ethics,10{)7 ; T. v. Haeringr,
Tlie Ethioi of the Christian Li/e,.Eng.Xt.-i 1909.
J. H. Maude.
ETHIOPIANS.— Ethiopians are only twice men-
tioned in the NT, and then in the same passage,
viz. Ac 8^, where Candace, queen of (the) Ethio-
pians, and her tvvovxo^ Svvdffrrii are mentioned
in connexion with Philip the Deacon (see artt.
Candace, Ethiopian Eunuch, and Philip).
The word is there doubtless, as in the OT, the
Greek equivalent of the Heb. Kmhi. It seems
probable that Aiei(»j/ (?=' Redface') is only a
tira^cized form of some native >vord, not a proi>er
description of their facial characteristic, but what
that word was can only be conjectured. ' Ethiopia '
in NT times would, appear to mean the soutliern.
ETHIOPIAN EUXUCH
EUCHAKIST
373
Eirt of Egypt, now called the Suilan, the ancient
ingdom of Meroe. In earlier days Napata, a
town on the Nile, somewhat north of Meroe, which
was likewise on the Nile, had been the capital ; bat
though Napata still retained some of its prestige
as the sacred city, yet the seat of government had
been removed to Meroe. Another kingdom, that
-of Axum in the mountain region of Abyssinia
proper, seems to have taken its rise about the
middle of the 1st cent. A.D., but that does not
come into view in our present inquiry.
ETHIOPIAN EDNUCH.— PhUip * the Deacon's
convert (Ac 8^*^-) is described as At'^to^ evvoOxK
Swanrrtfi KavSdo/s jSaciXiWiji AlOtorwy, 8i ^p iri xcwr?;?
TTJi ydiTji avT^i. Aidio\p has been briefly discussed
above, tiVoCxos implies that he was one of the
Court officials and perhaps subject to the physical
disability which the name ordinarily implies, but
not 'chamberlain ' in the strict sense of the term,
as he 'was in charge of all her treasure' (see
Caxdace). Becker (Charicles, Eng. tr., 1895, p.
-365) notes that eunuchs were prized for their re-
puted fidelity (xapa Tolffi ^apSapotai [Herod, viii.
105]), and hence were employed as treasurers
{eirifiKQi yap eiudecav eirvovxovs ^X^^" yo-iO<pi'\aKai
[Plutarch, Demetr. 25]). Sitcutttjs suggests that he
possessed unusual power and influence at Court ;
the word is not found in a similar connexion else-
where in the NT (it is used of God in 1 Ti 6^' and
of kings in Lk 1^^), but we have two good instances
in Xenophon {Anab. I. ii. § 20 : tQv wrdpxw riya
Bvvacrrrjv, and Cyrop. IV. v. § 40 : tov jSafftXewj Kai
<L\Xwi' SwcuttQiv ; cf. Herod, ii. 32 and Plato, liep. 473).
There are no means hitherto available for identify-
ing this personage who so early in the history of
the Church was admitted to her fold by holy
baptism * from the GentUe world ; but the fact
that he was returning from worship at Jemsalem,
and was reading Is 53"- * in the LXX version, which
here differs somewhat from the Hebrew text, shows
that he was acquainted with the Greek language
and had been drawn to the religion of the Jews,
although he was not very deeply versed in the
Scriptures (v."). He was not actually a proselyte,
and in any case his physical condition probably
disqualified him. C. L. Feltoe.
ETHNARCH.— This comparatively rare term is
derived from idvos, 'a race,' and ipx^iv, 'to rule';
perhaps the nearest English equivalent is 'chief.'
The word is not known before the 2nd cent. B.C.,
and appears to indicate a ruler appointed by or
over a people who were themselves part of a larger
kingdom or empire, the appointment being made
or recognized by its overlord or suzerain as valid.
The purpose of such an appointment was perhaps
primarily to safeguard the religion of a people.
The earliest instance of an ethnarch known to us
is that of Simon Maccabaeus. In 1 Mac 14*'' Simon
accepts from the people the following offices — dpxt-
fpOTfOffcw Kai elvai arpaTrjybi Kal idydpxv^ tQv 'lovSaiwp
Kai iepeuv Kai tov vpoffTarrictai. rdrruv ('to be high
priest and to be general and ethnarch of the Jews
and their priests and to rule over all ') ; and in 15^
a letter of King Antiochus of Syria is addressed to
him as iepei (j.eya\i{) Kai idvapxTJ ( ' great priest and
ethnarch'). From 15^"'' it is clear that the idvoi
was the Jews themselves, and indeed almost every-
"where where the term ' ethnarch ' occurs, it refers
to a ruler over Jews. Josephus (A nt. XTV. vii. 2)
shows us that the large Je^vish community in tlie
great city of Alexandria had an 'ethnarch' over
it, and lie defines his duties precisely thus : 5toi«r
re rb idvoi Kai 8iaiT^ Kpiffeis Kai ffvfi^oXaiuiv eTineXelrai
' The formula of faith contained in v.37 is not foand in the
■oldest MSS, but cannot be later than the 2nd cent., as it is quoted
by Irenaeus (,Ucer. m. xiL 8).
Kai rpoffray/j-dTuv, ws &» xoXiTttai dpxwc oiTorfXoCj
('he governs the race and decides trials in court
and has charge of contracts and ordinances as if
he were an absolute monarch ').
An inscription (Le Bas-Waddin^ton, Voyage
archeologique en Gr^e et en Asie Mineure, Paris,
1847-77, vol. iii. no. 2196 = W. Dittenberger,
Orientis Grceci In sen pt tones Selectee, Leipzig, 1905,
vol. ii. no. 616) from a village, El-MMikije in the
Hauran, mentions by the names ' ethnarch ' and
' general (or prretor) of nomads ' a chief of nomad
Arabs of the time of Hadrian or Antoninus Pius
who must have submitted to the Emperor.
These passages will help to illustrate the refer-
ence in 2 Co 11*^. The man there mentioned was
doubtless ruler of the Jews in Damascus and its
territory, who were ' permitted to exercise their
o^\•n religious law very freely and fully ' (Ramsay,
Pictures of the Apostolic Church, London, 1910,
p. 99). He was tinder Aretas, who has the title
^offiXei/j (' king,' i.e. of Arabia), and, indeed, as has
been said, the ethnarch was ailways lower than a
king. This fact is illustrated by interesting pas-
sages in Josephus (BJ II. vi. 3, Ant. X^TII. xi. 4),
where Caesar Augustus makes Archelans not ^aoi-
Xew, but edvdpxv^i of half of the territory that had
belonged to Herod, promising him the higher title
later, if certain conditions were fulfilled ; and in
Psendo-Lucian (Macrob. § 17, ed. Jacobitz, Leip-
zig, 1896, vol. iii. p. 198), where a man is ' pro-
claimed ^aa-iXfvs instead of idvdpxv^ of the Bosporus.'
A. SOUTER.
EUBULUS (Ei'^ouXoj).— A friend of St. Paul and
Timothy, Eubulus was present with the Apostle
in Rome during his last imprisonment, and along
with Claudia, Pndens, and Linus sent greetings
to Timothy (2 Ti 4-'). Probably he was a member
of the Church of Rome ; and, as his name is Greek,
he may have been a slave or a Roman freedman.
Nothing, however, is known regarding him.
W. F. BOYD.
EUCHARIST.— 1. Scope of article.— The scope
of this article is limited to the observance of the
Eucharist in the Apostolic Church, with especial
reference to St. Paul. The Gospels are expressly
excluded. Therefore the question as to the possi-
bility of the accounts in the Synoptic Gospels
having been influenced by Pauline ideas, and the
many questions which are raised by the Gospel
according to St. John, will not be treated in this
article. The evidence which will be used t^tII be
that which is furnished by the Acts of the Apostles
and the Pauline Epistles. Other evidence will
only be adduced in so far as it has a direct bearing
upon this.
2. The Acts of the Apostles. — In Acts we have
a description of the life of the earliest Christian
community in Jerusalem. We are told that ' they
continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and
fellowship, in the breaking of bread (rj KXdaa tov
dpTov) and the prayers' (Ac 2*^). Further, we read
that ' Day by day continuing stedfastly with one
accord in the temple, and breaking bread (/cXujjtcj
ipTov) at home, they partook of food with gladness
and singleness of heart, praising God and having
favour with all the people' (vv.**-^). The latter
passage contrasts their breaking of bread at home
with their attendance at the Temple-worship.
But the passage may be no more than a general
description of the lile of the community — that it
was cheerful and social. In the former passage,
however, it is diflBcult to resist the conclusion
that i] KXdffis ToC dpTov must have some religious
significance. It has indeed been held that it has
nothing to do with the Last Supper, that com-
munitj- of goods led to community of meals, and
that no more than that is intended by the phrase.
But the growing belief in the fact of redemption
374
EUCHARIST
EUCHARIST
tlirouf^h the Deatli of Christ, togetlier with certain
visions of tlie Risen Lonl, wlio apjieared to His
disciples, on some occasions, according to our ac-
counts, at meals, led to a connexion being estab-
lished, in the minds of Christians, between the
Last Supi)er and the common meal. Thence the
development is clear ; and there is no ditliculty
in seeing how they came to believe in some mys-
terious Presence of Jesus. Thus was evolved the
Pauline doctrine.*
It is true that it is impossible to prove any con-
nexion between the ' breaking of the bread ' of
Ac 2''- and the Last Supper, lint that there was a
religious signilicance attached to the former seems
clear from the way in which it is mentioned.
And the general course of the history is most
easily explained if we suppose that already in the
l>rimitive community at Jerusalem the connexion
existed. It does not seem probable that St. Paul's
churches diflered wholly in their usage from other
churches, and the facts are best explained by the
supposition that, from the first, Christians com-
memorated their Master at their common meal.
The suggestion, to which allusion has been made,
that visions of the Risen Christ led to the con-
nexion being established, fails to account for the
fact that it is Christ's Death that came to be com-
memorated, and that, because of this, the Euchar-
ist bore from very early times a sacrificial char-
acter. The evidence is not sufficient to lead to
any certain conclusions ; but on the whole it seems
to point to the germ of the later conception being
contained in these earliest 'breakings of bread.'
Whether the. ' breaking of bread ' denotes the
common meal, or a particular action at the common
meal, is again not clear. Batifl'ol + maintains the
latter, but his arguments are not conclusive; J
and the matter must be left doubtful.
In Ac 20''" we read that the Christians of Troas
met together on the first day of the week in the
evening to 'break bread.' That is stated to be
the jiurpose of the meeting. The writer of the
Acts is himself present, and gives an account of
the scene. There are many lights in the upper
room. St. Paul, who is leaving Troas the next
day, discourses until midnight. Then he breaks
bread, and tastes it, and, after a further long con-
versation, departs at dawn. There is no indica-
tion here of a common meal ; for the inference
drawn from the use of the word ' tasting ' (yevcd-
/Mfvos), Avhich is said by some§ to imply a meal, is
surely unjustified. The ' breaking of bread ' here
appears to denote a ceremonial action. The lan-
guage employed does not indeed exclude the pos-
sibility that this action, and the partaking by
those present of the bread so broken, may liave
taken place during a meal which was held about
midnight. But there is no hint of any such meal.
It is noteworthy that this meeting talces place on
a Sunday. There does not appear to have been
a similar one daily during St. Paul's stay. And
the whole narrative, with its mention of the ' many
lights,' suggests a solemn gathering for worship.
It must be remembered that in this passage we
have to do with a Pauline church ; and therefore
we cannot safely argue back to the passages in Ac
2. But there can be no question that the ' break-
ing of bread ' in this passage does denote a signifi-
cant religious act ; and, in the light of the evi-
dence which we possess in 1 Cor. about the customs
of St. Paul's churciies, we conclude that the ' break-
ing of the bread ' derives its significance from the
Last Supper, and is in some way a commemoration
of the l-iord's Death. Significant it certainly was ;
• Cf. M. Ooguel, L'EvuiharistU. Des origines A Justin,
martyr, Paris, 1910.
t L'Euehariilie^, Paris, 1913. J See art. Love-Fkast.
§ e.g. M. Goguel, op. cit. p. 142.
and its significance is fixed by our evidence about
the Churcli of Corinth.
3. St. Paul's doctrine. — We owe to purely ac-
cidental circumstances the preservation of an ac-
count of St. Paul's doctrine of the Eucharist, and
a description of the Eucharist in the Church of
Corinth. Di-sorders had arisen in that Church in
connexion with the attitude of Christians towards
meals in idol-temples and in connexion with the
Eucharist. St. Paul finds it necessary to deal
with these matters in 1 Corinthians. Had it not
been for this necessity, we might have supijosed
that the Pauline churches were without any si)eciiil
sacramental teaching, for in none of the other
Pauline Epistles is there any allusion to the sub-
ject. This, however, is accidental. For St. Paul's
language to the Corinthians makes it certain that
he must have given similar teaching to his con-
verts elsewhere, and indeed the account of the
' breaking of bread ' at Troas, when read in the
light of the passage in 1 Cor., makes it clear that
there too the Euciiarist was the central point of
the Christian assembly.
It appears from 1 Co 1 1^'** that from time to
time — presumably on Sundays — the members of
the Church met together ' to eat the Lord's Supper.'
This supper was a real meal, and the food was
providecl Ly those who attended it. But, whereas
it ought to have been a fraternal gathering, a
bond of unity, the selfishness and greed of the rich
made it most unsatisfactory ; for they insisted
upon keeping for themselves the food they brought,
whereas all the food brought ought to have been
put together and divided among the whole number.
The result of this was that some who attended had
not enough to eat and drink, and .some had too
much. There were even cases of drunkenness.
This conduct of the rich naturally led to divisions.
Groups were formed, and the general spirit of
fraternity was broken.
St. Paul reminds the Corinthians of the great
solemnity of the Lord's Supper. He reminds them
how he had told them before of the Last Supper
itself, and how Jesus had instituted there a rite by
which Christians were to proclaim His Death until
He should come again. He reminds them that
they came to enter into communion with the Body
and Blood of Christ ; that this is a solemn matter ;
that self-examination is necessary, and care to re-
cognize the distinction between what is received
and common bread ; that those who fail to come up
to what is required of them in this matter, those
who receive unworthily, have in many cases already
received striking punishments from God, for the-
objects to be received are so holy, that not only
does worthy reception bring great benefits, but un-
worthy reception brings stern judgment.
In 1 Co 10 St. Paul warns the Corinthians of
the dangers of idolatry. He holds up before them
the example of the Israelites, who, though they were
' baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea,'
and ate the same spiritual food and drank the
same spiritual drink, yet died in the wilderness
because of their sins (vv.^-*). There is a clear
analogy with the case of Christians, who receive
spiritual food and drink, and yet are liable
to perish, in spite of their privileges, if they too
sin. The particular sin of Avhich ne warns them
is idolatry. He affirms that those who partake
of a meal in an idol's temple really enter into
communion with the demons who are at the back
of idolatrous worship. Communion with the Body
and Blood of Christ is incompatible with communion
with demons. ' You cannot drink the Lord's cup
and the cup of demons. You cannot share the
Lords table and a table of demons' (v.*'). In his
conception the meat is offered to the idol and be-
comes the property of the demons, so that the
EUCHAKIST
EUCHARIST
375
demons are, as it were, the hosts at the sacrihcial
banquet. It is their cup which is drunk by those
who attend. It is their table at which the guests
sit. The parallel which St. Paul draws between
these demonic banquets and the Lord's Supper sug-
gests that in the same way the bread ana the cup
are offered to the Lord, so that He becomes the
host. Therefore the Supper is His Supper, and it
is His Cup and His Table. But the thought goes
further than this. For not only do the communi-
cants enter into communion with Christ by being,
as it were, His guests at Supper ; but they enter
into communion with His Body and His Blood.
The use of these expressions makes it clear that
what is meant is that the communicant enters into
communion with Christ's Death. It is the language
of saorihce which is here employed. The sacriiicial
Death of Christ is an essential part of St. Pauls
thought. The worthy communicant feeds upon
that ■sacrifice, and so appropriates the blessing won
thereby.
But while it is true that it is only the worthy
communicant who obtains the blessing, St. Paul s
language clearly implies that the bread and the
wine are not merely symbols. They are really
to the communicant the Body and Blood of
Christ — the Body broken and the Blood shed in
His sacrificial Death. They have this wonderful
character in themselves, apart from the faith of
the communicant. For the unworthy communicant
receives them at his i)eril, and the dangers of ir-
reverence are very great. The communicant must
discern the Body. The suggestion which has been
made that ' the Body ' in this phrase means Christ's
mystical Body, the Christian Church, is worthy of
very little attention. It is true that the word is
sometimes so used, but here the context makes it
necessary to understand by it the Botly of Christ
which is represented by the bread and partaken of
by the communicant.
This communion takes place at a common meal.
The Christians of the community come together,
probably on the first day of the week, to a common
meal. The question arises as to whether the whole
meal is a communion, or whether communion takes
place during or after the nieal. v.^* suggests that
the latter is the true view. ' The cup of blessing
which we bless,' 'the bread which we break,' sug-
gest that during or after the meal there was a
solemn blessing of a cup, and a solemn breaking of
bread, in virtue of which the cup becomes ' the cup of
blessing,' and both it and the bread which is broken
assume their special character. It seems clear
that the ' blessing ' is a solemn liturgical act, and
the parallelism with the breaking of bread indicates
that that has the same character. The ' cup of
blessing ' is the cup over which a blessing has been
said, or the cup which has been blessed. There is
no necessarj- reference to any cup used in the Pass-
over. St. Paul speaks of the cup which ■ we
bless,' but this does not necessarily mean that the
whole assembly blessed the cup, or broke the bread.
In fact, the language of Ac 20^', where it is said
that at Troas St. Paul himself ' broke the bread,'
suggests that the ' liturgical ' action was performed
by a single person, who was presiding. A definite
' blessing ' of a cup and ' breaking of bread ' would
seem to implj- that the supper as a whole was not
the communion, though the supper as a whole was
the Lords Supper, for the Lord was host. But dur-
ing supper, or more probably after supper (cf. 1
Co 11^), the president blessed the cup and broke the
bread ; and the cup so blessed and the bread so
broken assumed their special and sacred character.
As we have seen, the supper is a real and not a
symbolical meal. But St. Paul's suggestion that
the Corinthians' own houses are the proper places
in which to eat and drink, and his injunction that
if they are hungry they should eat at home (lI**-**>
indicate the way in which the setting of the
Eucharist came so soon to be altered. For these
injunctions lead straight to the conclusion that the
Christian assembly at which the Lord's Death is
shown forth is not a suitable occasion for the satis-
faction of bodily needs. It is therefore not surpris-
ing that we find, when next we have any evidence,
that the Eucharist has been detached from its set-
ting as part of a common meal.
There are two further points which deserve notice
before we come to consider in further detail St. Paul's
view of the effects of communion. The first is the fact
that in 10^* St. Paul puts the cup before the bread.
We find the same thmg in the Didache ; and if the
shorter text of St. Luke's Gospel be the right one,
we find it also there. This is certainly a noticeable
point. But, whatever may be the explanation in
St. Luke and in the Didache, it is not possible to
suppose that at Corinth the cup actually did precede
the bread. For the form of the narrative of the
Last Supper which St. Paul gives {ir-^**) places
the bread before the cup, and it is most unlikely
that that order was reversed in the Corinthian
Cliurch. The explanation may be, as M. Goguel
suggests,* that the parallelism between the Lord's
Cup and the cup of libation at a heathen sacrifice
was closer than that betAveen the eating of a
piece of bread and anything that took place
there. It may be for this reason that the cup
is mentioned before the bread. Or it may be
merely that the bread is put second because St.
Paul is to speak at further length about it in the
next verse. But in any case it is misleading to
regard 10'® as having any real connexion with a
tradition of the cup having preceded the bread at
the Last Supper.
The second point is the phrase in 11^: ' Ye pro-
claim the Lord's death till he come.' The addi-
tion ' till he come ' is reminiscent of Mk 14^ and
parallels, though the saying, as recorded in the
Gospels, says nothing about the Lord's return, but
speaks onlj- of the joys of the Messianic Kingdom,
to be shared by Him with Christians. The idea
implied in the phrase ' till he come ' is similar —
namely, that the Eucharist is but a provisional rite,
and looks forward to the day when communion with
Him shall be more direct in His Kingdom.
We may now consider St. Paul's view of the
effects of communion, and here the main thing to
notice is the realistic character of St. Paul's thought.
Participation in the one loaf produces a unity
among Christians. ' Because there is one bread, we
who are many are one body, because we all partake
of that one bread' (lu"). This unity is not the
cause but the effect of the commtmion. There is
a close parallel to the effect produced by participa-
tion in an idol-sacrifice, in which the worshippers
are united to one another as well as to the demon.
Besides this unity of believers which is produced
by participation, there is of course the communion
with the Body and Blood of Christ. It seems clear
that the parallel Avith the heathen sacrifices still
holds good. The communicant really enters into
communion with Christ conceived as a sacrificial
Victim. Whether this will be for his benefit or for
his undoing depends upon his own disposition ; but,
whatever his disposition may be, in no case is that
which he receives ordinary food. The bread since
it has been broken, and the cup since it has been
blessed, have assumed special characters. And it
is no light matter for anyone to partake.
Here the question must be faced whether St.
Paul's views on the subject of the Eucharist differed
from those of the Corinthians. It has been held
by W. Heitmiillert that St. Paul's conception
• Op. eit. p. 144, foUowine Heinrici.
t Taufe U7td Abendmahtbei PatUtu, Gottingen, 1903.
376
EUCHARIST
EUCHARIST
differed from theirs in that lie l>elieved that it was
the dying Christ with wliom the conininnicant
entered into communion, whereas they thoufjlit
rather of the glorilied Christ. According to una
idea, in ch. 10 St. I'aul adopts the view of tlie
Corinthians, but in ch. 11 he gives them his own
view. It is true that the behaviour of the Corinth-
ians at the supper would suggest at first sight that
their beliefs aoout it were of no very solemn charac-
ter, and it may seem strange that men who believed
that they were actually commemorating Christ's
Last Supper and Death, should treat the meal as
an opportunity for self-indulgence ; but it is by no
means impossible that this may have been so. St.
Paul's attitude throughout is that of a man who is
reminding others of what they already know rather
than of one who is giving new instruction. His
view of the nature of the Eucharist rests ultimately
upon his view of the institution, and as to this he
expressly states that he had given them instruction
before (11^). It is not an uncommon thing for men
to need to be reminded of a fact with which they
are perfectly well acquainted, nor indeed is it un-
common for men to act in a way which is quite
inconsistent with their religious beliefs, even though
these beliefs are quite honestly held. What the Cor-
inthians had learned about the Eucharist they had
learned from St. Paul. It is therefore unlikely that
their view of the Eucharist was essentially ditJerent
from his, though no doubt they may not have wholly
understood it. Some of his language suggests that
they thoufjlit that communion would benefit them
mechanically, and that their dispositions did not
much matter. This is in line with the general
view of them which we get from the Epistle as a
whole.* They laid stress on the value of yvQa-n
and attached insufficient importance to morality.
If there is any point in which their views dittered
from St. Paul's, it is probably to be found here.
It may be that when he speaks of the possibility
of eating and drinking judgment unto themselves,
he is giving them new teaching. But this does not
involve the consequence that their intellectual
belief about the Eucharist was seriously different
from his, but rather that their conscience needed
to be awakened.
i. St. Paul's account of the institution of the
Eucharist. —The investigation of the relation be-
tween the various accounts which we possess be-
longs properly to the study of the Gospels. It
will be sufficient here to notice that, in spite of
verbal differences, St. Paul's account is much the
same as that of St. Mark and St. Matthew, except
that it contains the command of reiietition, ' Do
this in remembrance of Me,' which is otherwise
found only in the longer text of St. Luke. Whether
this indicates Pauline inrtuence upon the Gospels
is a difficult question, but one whicii does not fall
within the scope of this article. St. Paul refers
the communion at Corinth back to an institution
by our Lord on the night of His betrayal — an in-
stitution at which He alluded to His Death in
sacrificial terms, and commanded the performance
of the rite in memory of Himself. This narrative
of the institution (1 Co ll^^^^) is introduced by the
words ^7(i> ycLp iraplXa^ov dir6 toO Kvpiov. It has been
supposed that by this expression St. Paul means
to claim that he had received the whole narrative
of the institution, which he goes on to give, by
direct revelation from Christ. If this were his
claim, it would very seriously affect the historic
value of St. Paul's evidence in the matter. But
his words do not necessarily bear any such mean-
ing. The theory has been put forward that we
have in these words an indication that the Euchar-
ist as a rite was invented by St. Paul, and that he
was the first to connect the social meal of the Chris-
* See art. Corinthiaks, Epistlks to tub.
tians with the Last Sui)per of the Lord. But it
seems by no means improbable that the words
imjjly merely that he had received it from the
Lord through tradition. There is no indication of
any disagreement between St. Paul and the other
apostles on this subject. And it has been pointed
out that it is most improbable that we owe to St.
Paul the mention of Christ's Body and Blood. If
he had himself been inventing his terms, he would
in all probability have spoken of Flesh and Blood.*
He seems to be following tradition, or, at any rate,
to be under the irapressicm that he is following
tradition, in his account of the Eucharist. The idea
that St. Paul's own views were much influenced by
conceptions current among Corinthian Christians
has no support in our authorities. He explicitly
states that the account of the institution is no new
teaching, but that he has taught it him.self to the
Corinthians before ; and it is on this account of
the institution that his doctrine is based.
Moreover, the theory that St. Paul's doctrine of
the Eucharist was peculiar to himself, and arose in
the first place owing to purely local causes at
Corinth, fails to account for the universality of the
Eucharist. If it was only St. Paul and some of
his converts for whom the Eucharist was a real
religious rite — if, that is to say, it was St. Paul
who gave a religious sigidficance to what was at
first merely a social meal — the universal adoption
of St. Paul's ideas constitutes a serious historical
problem. Other doctrines of St. Paul by no means
met with such wide-spread acceptance. His doc-
trine of justification was hardly understood at all
by anyone until the time of St. Augustine. But
we know of no church without a Eucharist. Even
in the Didache it is a definite rite, though its
significance is doubtful. It stands with Baptism
as one of the two rites which belong to Christianity.
Development no doubt there was. The ' breaking
of the bread' in the primitive community at
Jerusalem did not carry with it all the ideas which
were associated with the Eucharist at Corinth.
But even there it is a religious rite, and not a mere
social meal.
The Didache appears to show us a community
where the doctrine of the Eucharist had not
developed on Pauline lines. There is no clear re-
ference to its connexion with the Last Supper. It
is tempting to bring into line with this the ' break-
ing of the bread ' in the Acts, and to suppose that
there too there was no thought of the Last Supper.
And in favour of this view might be alleged the
fact that there is no mention of the Eucharistic
cup in the Acts of the Apostles, which may be sup-
posed to indicate an absence of sacrificial concep-
tions. But all this is a most dangerous form of
the argument a silentio. For the writer of the
Acts has no occasion to speak of the ideas which
Christians associated with the 'breaking of the
bread.' So his silence on the matter is absolutely
worthless as negative evidence. And, though there
is no mention of a Eucharistic cup, it is extremely
unlikely that at Troas there was no such cup, in
view of the fact that Troas was a Pauline church.
The Acts makes no mention of a cup. This is
natural enough, for the writer is not giving a full
account of the proceedings. But exactly the same
consideration applies to the/ breaking of the bread '
at Jerusalem. The fact that no cun is mentioned
is no sort of evidence tliat the meal did not include
the blessing and partaking of a cun. If it did so,
the writer of the Acts could hardly have framed
his sentence so as to include a mention of it ; and
there is no reason why he should have done so.
As has been pointed out above, if it had not been
for accidental circumstances at Corinth, we should
not have heard anything about the Eucharist in
* Heitmuller, op. cit. p. 20.
EUCHARIST
EUODIA
377
Sit. Paul's Epistles, and should have supposed that
the Pauline churches in St. Paul's time knew of
no such rite. This fact is in itself a sufficient
-warning against the danger of drawing conclusions
from the silence of a writer.
In the absence of more definite evidence, no
theory can be more than a hypothesis. But the
facts are best accounted for by the hyiwthesis that
the ' breaking of bread ' was from the beginning a
religious rite associated with a social meal, in which
Christians commemorated the Last Supper of our
Lord with His ajwstles. As Christians came in-
creasingly to realize the significance of our Lord's
Death as a sacrifice, a conception which was popu-
Jarize<i by St. Paul, but which had its roots in the
consciousness and teaching of Jesus abotit the
necessity of His Death for the coming of the King-
dom, they came to realize increasingly the signifi-
cance of this rite, and of the words which Jesus
had spoken at the Last Supper. These words could
not be understood until the sacrificial aspect of the
Lords Death was realized. But, when that was
understood, then the rite of the 'breaking of the
bread ' was bound to be seen by Christians to have
the significance which St. Paul attached to it and
which was implicit in it from the first, although
not fully understood — the significance of the parti-
cipation by the communicant in Christ, conceived
of as the sacrificial Victim. It may be supposed
that the Church represented by the Didache had
not attained to the understanding of the sacrificial
character of Christ's Death, and therefore had
failed to appreciate the meaning of the Eucharist.
5. The Greek mysteFy-religions. — The view
Avhich has been widely held, that St. Paul derived
his conceptions about the Eucharist from the Greek
mj-stery- religions, is excluded by the hypothesis
which has just been put forward. Xo doubt there
is a real sense in which Christianity is a mystery-
religion. It meets and satisfies the same needs
which are met by mystery-religions in the Gra?co-
Roman world, and it is certainly possible that St.
Paul may have been influenced by the intellectual
and religious atmosphere of the world in which he
was bom and in which he laboured. But it must
be remembered that he was educated in Jerusalem
at the feet of Gamaliel. And his Rabbinical
training certainly exercised a great influence upon
his mind. It is hardlj' conceivable that the author
of the 1st chapter of Romans would have allowed
himself to be directly influenced by any particular
heathen cult. It is true that he treats the Eucha-
rist as analogous to the heathen sacrificial feasts,
but it is only to emphasize the contrast between
them. He is certainly unconscious of any borrov\-ing
from them.
We know exceedingly little about the mystery-
religions which were current in the time of St.
Paul.* But it may be noted that Johannine
Eucharistic teaching has at first sight much more
in common with the later mysteries than that
of St. Paul. The very able argument of A.
Schweitzer, t by which St. Paul's Eucharistic doc-
trine is explained on the basis of Jewish eschato-
logj-, perhaps hardly carries conviction as a whole,
but his criticism of those who allege Greek influence
is very telling. He points out that St. Paul's
theology exercised very little influence on the
Crra?co-Roman world, and was not understood by
the Greek Fathers. This carries with it the strong
probability that St. Paul's theology was not really
Oreek, but Jewish. Schweitzer's interpretation is
that we are to look for an explanation of St. Paul's
sacramental doctrine in the condition of the world
between the Death of Jesus and His Coming, ex-
pected to be immediate. ' The Apostle asserts an
* See art. Mtstert, Mtstkries.
t Pavl and hU Interpreters, Eng. tr., London, 1912.
overlapi>ing of the still natural, and the already
supernatural, condition of the world, which becomes
real in the case of Christ and believers in the form
of an open or hidden working of the forces of death
and resurrection.'* He maintains that this is not
Greek, but Jewish. It should, however, be admitted
that the form of some of St. Paul's statements may
be due to the atmosphere in which he lived and
worked. What is here maintained is that the
general teaching of St. Paul on the subject is more
easUy explained by the hypothesis that it is not
drawn from Greek sources, but is an explication of
something that was already implicit in the ' break-
ing of bread ' of the earliest community, and was a
true interpretation of the actual intention of Jesus.
LiTiRATi'RE. — To the books mentioned in the text and foot-
notes of the article, the following mav be added : HDB, art.
' Lord's Supper ' (A. Plummer) ; EIi£, art. ' Eucharist <to end
of Middle -A^ges)' (J. H. Srawley) ; EBi, art. 'Eucharist' (J.
Armitag^e Robinson) ; PBE'^, artt. ' Abenduiahl ' (Cremer and
Loofs); F. Spitta, Zur Gtschichte und LiUeratur dea Urehrit-
tentums, i., Gottingen, 1893 ; C. Gore, Diaertation* an Subjects
connected icith the Incarnation, London, 1895, p. 308, also The
Body of ChrUt, do. 1901 ; A. Schweitzer, Das Abendmahl im
Ztuammenhang mil dem Leben Jesu und der Gegehiehte dea
Urchrigtentums, Tubingen, 1901 ; W. B. FranUand, The Eatiy
Euchari;!t, Ix>ndon, 1902; J. F. Bethune-Baker, An Jntrodtie-
tion to the Early History of Christian Doctrine, do. 1903, p. 393 ;
i J. C. Lambert, The Sacraments in the ST (Kerr Lecture),
I Edinburgh, 1903; R. M. Adamson, The Christian Doctrine of
j the Lord's Supper, do. 1905; P. N. Waggett, The Holy
Eucharist, London, 1906; J. V. Bartlet, in ilansfieid College
: Essays, do. 19ii9, p. 43 ; D. Stone, A History of the Doctrine of
I the Holy Eucharist, do. 1909 ; J. Wordsworth, The Holy Cam-
■ munion^, do. 1910 ; F. Dibelios, Das Abendmahl, Leipzig,
; 1911; P. Gardner, The Religious Experience of St. Paul,
1 London-, 1911 ; W. Heitmtiller, Taufe und Abendmahl im
j Urehristentum, Tubingen, 1911. G. H. CLAYTON'.
1 EUNICE ['EvviK-n ; the spelling Ewei/ti; of TR is
j erroneous). — Eunice, the mother of Timothy (2 Ti
I P) is referred to in Ac 16^ as a Jewess who believed.
Her husband, however, was a Greek, and we find
; that, although she was a Jewess, she had refrained
I from circumcising her son, probably out of respect
j for her husband's opinions. The grandmother of
I Timothy is alluded to as Lois (q.v.), and she was in
I all likefihood the mother of Eunice. Some have
j put forward the conjecture that, as both Lois and
Eunice are Greek names, the women were Jewish
proselytes, but this is improbable ; nor is it likely
that the father of Timothy was in any way attached
to the Jewish religion. The Apostle refers to the
i faith of both Lois and Eunice (2 Ti 1') and to their
! careful training of Timothy in the Jewish scrip-
tures (3"). As we find Eunice described as a ' Jew-
I ess who believed,' on St. Paul's second visit to
; Lj'stra (Ac 16'), she was probably converted to
I Christianity on the Apostle's first visit to the
j town. One of the cursives (25) adds the word
I x'JP*^ i" -^c 16^ ; and although this is undoubtedly
, a marginal gloss that crept into the text, it may
I refer to an early tradition that Eunice was a
widow at the date of the Ajwstle's visit to Lystra,
and would give added emphasis to the injunction
of 1 Ti 5* regarding the treatment of widows by
their children or grandchildren. W. F. BoYB.
EUNUCH.— See Chambeblaix and ETmoPlAN
EUXUCH.
EUODIA (Ei'oSia). — The AV reads Euodias.
The word in the Greek text occurs in the accusative
case, Ei'oSt'av, and the translators mistakenly re-
garded this as the accusative of a masculine form
Euo5ios, and supposed the bearer of the name to be
a man. But the word is the name of a woman
corresponding to the male form EioStoj, which is
also found in Greek literature, several early
Christian bishops being so called.
Euodia was a woman, prominent in the Church
of Philippi, who had a ditlerence of opinion with
• Op. eU. p. 244 f.
378
EUPHRATES
EUTYCHUS
Syntyche (q.v.). The Apostle exhorts them to be
'of the same mind in the Lord' (Ph 4"''), We have
no means of ascertaining the nature of the con-
troversy between tlie two women, who may have
been deaconesses, but were more probably prominent
female members of the Church, of tlie type of
Lydia of Ac 10'^- "*. In fact, it has been suggested
that one of the two may have been Lydia {q.v.)
herself, as the term ' Lydia' may not be a personal
name at all, but may mean simply ' the Lydian,'
or the native of the province of Lydia in which
Thyatira, the home of the wonmn, was situated.
This, however, cannot possibly be verilied. The
dillerence between the two was more probably of the
nature of a religious controversy than of a personal
quarrel. The Apostle in the following verse refers
to their previous services on behalf of the gospel
as a reason why they should be given every assist-
ance to come to a better state of mind. The
Synzygus (AV 'true yoke-fellow,' but probably a
proper name), whom the Apostle exhorts to help
the women towards reconciiiiition and who is re-
mintled of their previous assistance to the Apostle,
may have been the husband of one or other of the
women (see Synzygus). The theory of Baur and
the Tiibingen school that Euodia and Syntyche
are symbolical names for the Jewisli and Gentile
tendencies in the early Church is untenable, and
has fallen into disrepute. It is inconsistent with
the simple tenor of the Epistle <as a whole, and
sucli a mysterious reference would certainly not
have been understood by the first readers.
W. F. Boyd.
EUPHRATES.— The Euphrates was a famous
river of Mesopotamia. Its ciiief interest for us
in the Apostolic Age is its adoption as a term in
the allegorical apparatus of Christian j)olemic and
apologetic. In Kev 9''' the sixth angel is ordered
to release the four angels who were bound at the
river Eu])hrates, and in 16^- the sixth angel dries
up the Euphrates for the coming of the kings of
the East. We have here an allusion to the Nero-
legend which told that Nero had lied to the East,
to the Medes and Persians, beyond the river
Euphrates, and would again cross the river accom-
panied by myriads of soldiers and make war on
Kome (Sib. Or. iv. 119-122, 137-139). In accord-
ance with this legend, a second pseudo-Nero ap-
peared on the Euphrates under Titus in A.D. 80
(cf. K. H. Charles, The Ascension of Isaiah, 1900,
f)p. Iviii-lxi). In both the Apocalyptic verses,
lowever, we have more than an allusion to a
Parthian incursion. In the allegorical language of
the period, as Egypt was the type of bodily life, so
was Mesopotiimia of spiritual (cf. Hippol. Bef. v.
3 : ' Mesopotamia is the current of the great ocean
flowing from the midst of the Perfect Man '). On
the other hand, by another symbol the Euphrates
stood for the power of the earthly kingdom and the
waves of persecutors (e.g. in Bede, Explan. Apoc.
ii. 9 [Migne, Patr. Lat. xciii. 159]), or for the
human as opposing the Divine.
Thus, interpreting the mind of the apostolic
period by its legacy to subsequent ages, Rupertus
understands the waters of Euf)lirates in the Apoca-
ly[)se as the foolish reasonings of men dried up by
tne judgment of God in order that the saints of
Him who is the 'East* may destroy 'the deceits
of the magi, the vain inventions of philosophers
and the fictions of the poets' (Com. in Apoc. ix. 16
[Migne, Fair. Lat. clxix. 1123]). Also, as the
Euphrates was the boundary of Paradise and of
the realm of Solomon, it came to signify the reason
of man as the Vjoundary to be passed by the
spiritual man before he could see tne light of the
eternal day. In this way the evil condition of
Euphrates passed easily into the conception of it as
the water of baptism. Philo has yet another inter-
pretation (de Somn. ii. 255). Referring to Gn 15",
lie says that the river of Egypt represents the body
and the river Euphrates the soul, and that the^
spiritual man's jurisdiction extends from the world
of change and destruction to the world of incor-
ruption, the two terms 'river of Egypt' and 'river
Euphrates ' being thus opposed as blame and praise
arc opposed, so tliat mau may choose the one and
eschew the other. W. F. Cocu.
EURAQUILO ((i/paKv\ij)v).—'Vh\s word is found
nowhere in ancient literature except in Ac 27".
It is the name given to the tempestuous wind
(dv€/uos Tvtpu}viK6s, vorticosus, 'whirling') which,
suddenly beating down from the central mountains
of Crete, caught St. Paul's siiip in its passage from
Fair Havens to Phcenice, drove it to the Island of
Cauda, and finally wrecked it on the coast of Malta.
The word is a hybi'id, made up of Eurus (elpo^),.
the east wind — an ordinary meaning in the Latin
poets, thou<;h eCpos properly meant the south-east
— and Aquilo, the nortn-east wind, so that it de-
notes the east -north -east wind. ' Euro - auster '
( = evpdvoTOi) is an analogous compound. EuraquilO'
corresponded to the Greek KaiKtas, for which the
Latins had no specific name : ' Quem ab oriente
solstitial! excitatum Graeci KaiKidv vocant, apud
nos sine nomine est' (Seneca, Xat. Quaest. v. 16).
St. Luke avoids the correct Greek term, character-
istically preferring the vivid language which he
had doubtless heard the mariners themselves use.
His addition 6 KaXovfxevos perhaps indicates that he
knew the word to be conhned to nautical slang.
It was doubtless coined by the sailors and traders
of the Levant, whose successors at the present day
still call the dreaded wind the ' Gregalia ' — the final
form of the corruption of 'Euraquilo,' just as
' Egripou ' is of ' Euripus.'
evpoKXvdwv (TR ; ' Euroclydon,' AV) is one of a
great number of textual variants. It appears in
two 9th cent, uncials, H and L, and the majority
of the cursives. The oldest authorities, KAB,
have eupaKiiXuv ; in the Codices Bezai and Ephra;mi
the account of the voyage is wanting. A reviser
of the Vaticanus has inserted T over A and A after
K, and has altered AfiX into Ail's, but in so doing
he has left the right foot of the A visible beyond
the corner of his own A.
LiTERATUHB.— J. Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul,.
1S80, p. 119 f. ; E. Renan, St. Paul, 18G9, p. 551 ; Conybeare
and Howson, St. Paul, 1877, ii. 402.
James Strahan.
EUROCLYDON.— See Euraquilo.
EUTYCHUS (ESrvxoi). — A young man who
listened to St. Paul preaching at Troas on his final
journey to Jerusalem (Ac 20"''-). As the Apostle
was leaving the next day, he continued his speech
till midnight, evidently in a crowded and over-
heated upper room where many torches were burn-
ing. Eutychus, who was seated at the window, fell*
asleep, and, falling down from the third storey, was
' taken up dead ' (ijpOr] v€Kpd%). The narrative states
that St. Paul went down, embraced the lad, and
told the company not to trouble themselves as life
was still in liim. Then he went upstairs, broke-
bread, and continued speaking till morning. As they
were departing Eutychus was brought to them alive.
Various theories have been put forward to explain
or explain away this incident. Some suppose that
the youth was only stunned by his fall, and
appeared to the spectators to be dead ; others that
the whole story is unhistorical, and merely intended
as a parallel to the narrative of St. Peter's raising
of Dorcas (Ac 9^'*^). But the narrative leaves
little doubt of the intention of the historian U>-
relate a miracle. As Ramsay (St. Paul the^
Traveller, p. 291) points out, the passage belongs-
KVANGELIST
EVE
379
to the ' we ' sections of Acts, and Luke, as a medical i
man, uses precise medical terms, and as an eye- i
witness certainly means to state that Eutychus I
was really dead. The words ifpdr] pfKpSs can j
only bear that significance, otherwise we should
have, as in Mk 9*, ilxrd veKpbs, ' as one dead.' There
is no doubt that the incident is related as an
instance of the power of the Apostle to work
miracles, and that the historian believed him to
have done so on this occasion.
LiTKRATURB.— W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the TrateUer, 1S95,
fe•J-,«l ; E. Zeller, Acts, Eng. tr., 1S75-76, ii. p. 62 ; H. J
oltzmann, Uaiid-Komtnentar^, ' Die Apost«lgesch.,' 1S92. p.
^i.r> ; R. J. KnowUng, £GT, ' Acts.' 1900, p. 424.
W. F. Boyd.
EVANGELIST.— 'Evangelist' comes from tCayyeX-
i^e(T6ai, ' to evangelize ' or ' publish good tidings,'
a verb which is fairly common in the LXX, and
is very frequent in the writings of St. Luke and in
the Epistles, especially the four great Epistles of
St. Paul. This verb is derived from eia77fXto«',
' good tidings,' especially the good tidings of the
evangel or gospel. ' Evangelist ' is found in only
three passages in the Bible. Philip, one of the
Seven, is so called in one of the ' we ' sections of
Acts (21*), which may mean that he was the evan-
gelist out of the Seven, i.e. the only one, or far the
best. Again, St. Paul, in his list of live kinds of
ministers which have been given by Christ to His
Church (Eph 4^'), places 'evangelists' after 'apostles'
and ' prophets ' and before ' pastors ' and ' teachers ' ;
and ' evangelists ' may be classed \nth. the two
groups which precede. ' Apostles, prophets, and
evangelists' were itinerant ministers, preaching
wherever they found a door opened to them, while
' pastors and teachers ' were attached to some con-
gregation or locality. Philip was a travelling
missionary. He went from Jerusalem to preach
in Samaria, was on the road to Gaza when he
converted the eunuch, was afterwards at Azotus
(Ashdod), 'and passing through he preached the
gospel to all the cities, till he came to Caesarea '
(Ac 8'- ^ *). Pos-sibly prophets commonly preached
to believers, evangelists to unbelievers, while
apostles addressed either. This would agree with
the frequently quoted dictum, that ' every apK>stle
is an evangelist, but not every evangelist is an
apostle.' There is at any rate some evidence that
those who acted as missionaries to the heathen
were called evangelists. The word itself points to
this — 'publishers of good tidings.' It is when the
first Christians were ' scattered abroad, and went
about preaching the word ' after the martyrdom
of Stephen, that the verb ' to publish the good
tidings ' is often used bv St. Luke (Ac 8*- ^- ». ss- *)j .
and Philip ' the evangefist ' is one of these preachers.
An evangelist would know the gospel narrative
thoroughly, and would be capable of explaining
it, as Philip did to the eunuch. But we need not
suppose that Eph 4'* gives us live orders of ministers
specially appointed to discharge five diilerent kinds
of duties. No such organization existed. The
distinctions of ministry lay in the work that was
done by individual workers, and that depended on
their personal gifts, which often overlap^d (West-
cott, Ephesians, 1906, pp. 169-171). Philip was
called ' the evangelist ' because of his good work in
preaching to the heathen. The third passage is
2 Ti 4*, where Timothy is charged to ' do the work
of an evangelist ' in addition to his other duties.
He is in charge of the Church at Ephesus in place
of St. Paul ; but he is not to omit the work of en-
deavouring to convert unbelievers.
'Evangelist,' rare in the NT, is not found in the
Apostolic Fathers or in the DicUiche. The use of
the word for a writer of a Gospel is later, and the
use for one who read the gospel in public worship
is perhaps later still. When the reader (aj>ayvil}<rTr\s
or lector), an official first mentioned by Tertollian
{de Frcescr. 41), expounded what he read, he re-
sembled the evangelists of apostolic times ; but the
latter had no written gospel to expound ; they
expounded the oral gospel, which they knew by
heart. The description of them given by Eusebius
(HE iii. 37), thouglx somewhat rhetorical, is worthy
of quotation.
"They preached the zospel more and more widely and
scattered the saving see<u of the Kingdom of Heaven broadly
throughout the whole world. For, indeed, very many of the
disciples of that time (i.e. disciples of the apostlesX whose soul
had been stricken by the Divine Word with a more ardent love
for philosophy (i.e. the ascetic life), had previously fulfilled
the Saviour's injunction by distributing their poesessiona to the
needy. Then setting oat on long joomeys tbey performed the
duty of evangelists, being eager to preach Chnst to those wbc
had never yet heard anything of the word of faith, and to pasa
on to them the Scripture of the Divine Gospels. These men
were content with simply laying foundations of the faith iii
various foreign places, and then appointed others as pastors.
entrusting them with the husbandry of those newly reclaimed,
while they themselves went on again to other countries and
nations with the grace and co-operation of God.'
Harnack (3Iission and Expansion of Christi-
anity'-, 1908, i. 321 n.) thinks that 'evangelists' has
been inserted in Eph 4^^ into the usual list of
' apostles, prophets, and teachers ' because this
circular Epistle is addressed to churches which
had been founded by missionaries who were not
apostles ; also (p. 338) that ' evangelists ' were not
placed next to the ' apostles,' because the combina-
tion 'apostles and prophets' was too well estab-
lished to be disturbed. There was no such close
connexion between ' prophets ' and ' teachers.' The
shortness of the list of gifted and given persons in
Eph 4'i as compared with the three lists in 1 Co 12
may be taken as evidence that the regular exercise
of exti-aordinary gifts was already dying out. Yet
in the short list in Eph 4'^ there are two items
which are not found in any of the other lists, viz.
' evangelists ' and ' pastors.
LrrEKATCRK. — In addition to the works quoted, see J. H.
Bernard on 2 11 43 {The Faitoral EpittUs (Camb. Gr. Test.
1399]) ; R. J. Knowling on Ac 2is in EGT, 1900 ; P. BatifFol,
Primitive Catholicism, Eng. tr., 1911, p. 51; artt. in HUB,
SDB, DCG, and EBi. A. PlUMMER.
EYE (Efa).— Eve was (according to J, On 3»> 4»)
the wife of Adam (q.v.) and the mother of the
human race. (1) St. Paul recalls the story of her
fall as a warning to his young and attractive, but
weak and unstable, Corinthian Church. As God
presented Eve, a pure virgin, to Adam, so St. Paul
has espoused his Church to Christ, and hopes to
present her as His bride at His speedy return. He
fears, however, that as the serpent beguiled Eve
in his craftiness, so the Church may be corrupted
from the simplicity and purity of her devotion to
Christ. St. Paul's noun xavovpyia (craftiness) re-
presents the Heb. en;;; of Gn 3^ better than the
adjective <pp6yLfj.o$ of the LXX does. It was appar-
ently the teaching of the Rabbis that the serpent
literally seduced Eve (4 Mac 18®"® ; cf. Iran. c. Hcer.
I. XXX. 7) ; and a Church which should let herself
be drawn away from Christ, who has the right to
His bride's whole-hearted love, would be guilty of
spiritual fornication. The identification of the
serpent with the devil, which was far from the
thoughts of the writer of Gn 3, first appears in
Wis 2-^, ' But by the envy of the devil death
entered into the world' (cf. Ro 16», Rev 12» 20*).
(2) The writer of 1 Tim. (2^^^*) uses the story of
the Fall for the purpose of proving woman's natural
inferiority to man. He remarks that man was
not beguiled, but that 'the woman' — a word
spoken with the same accent of contempt as in
Gn 3^ — being beguiled, fell into transgression.
The writer appears to think, like ililton, that the
man knew better, and sinned, not under stress oi
380
EVERLASTING
EVIL
temptation, but in generous sympathy with his
frail partner, whose fate he resolved to share.
This is, of course, a man's account of the origin of
«in, and happily the original story, with all the
Rabbinical and other unwortiiy inferences that
have been drawn from it, is no longer among the
•Christian credencla. James Strahan.
EYERLASTING See Eternal.
EYIL. — This article is not a study of the word
'evil' as substantive, adjective, or adverb in the
:two senses of ' bad ' and ' Imrtful,' for which the
use of a concordance may suffice ; but of the con-
ception of evil in the apostolic writings. Three
senses of the term liave been distinguished by
Leibniz : metaphysical — the necessary imperfection
of the creature as compared with the Creator ;
physical — pain, sutlering, sorrow, death ; and moral
— sin. Although the NT does assert the ditference
between God and the world and man, and the in-
feriority of the made to the Maker, it does not
•conceive creatureliness as itself evil, but expresses
its limitation and impotence in the term 'flesh.'
For this as^^ect see art. Flesh. The art. Sin deals
with the third sense of the word 'evil.' It is thus
•with physical evil alone that we are here concerned.
Its existence in manifold forms is assumed by all
the apostolic writers ; but generally it is with the
sufferings of Christian believers, including persecu-
tion, that they are concerned, in order to encourage
patience, ofler comfort, or assure deliverance.
What these sorrows were, Paul's account of his
own experience shows (Ac 20'^-", 2 Co p-" B"*-'"
1123-33. q{ yiq 8**-^). Tliis experience is regarded
as a sharing of Christ's suflerings (2 Co 1", 1 P 4'^),
^nd even as a completion of that suffering for the
good of the Church (Col 1^^). 'Paul does not
•claim to fill up the defects in Christ's earthly suffer-
ing or in the sufferings of the Church, but in the
sufferings which he has to endure in his flesh,
which are Christ's sufferings, because he and Christ
are one ' (Peake, EGT, ' Col.,' 1903, p. 515). Sutter-
ing is a means of entering into closer fellowship
with Christ (Ph 3'"). As suffering was a condition
of perfecting Christ Himself for His work (He
oicUis 415 58.9 728)^ go also it perfects Christian
character if projierly endured (Ko 5^ 1 Th P, He
10^^, 1 P 5*"). It is to be regarded not as penal,
but as chastening (He 12^-", Ja P-« 5"). It can-
not separate from the love of God (Ro 8^"^), and it
prepares for, and secures, the glory hereafter (Eph
3", Rev 7'*), with which it is not worthy to be
compared (Ro 8'^), since the companions of Christ's
suflerings will also be the partners of His reign
(Ro 8", 2 Co P, Ph 3'<>, 2 Ti 2'i-ia, 1 P 4'^). Of all
evils death is regarded as the greatest, and in Paul
we find a painful shrinking from it (2 Co 5'"*) ; ac-
•cordingly, it is evident how precious a comfort was
the Christian hope of immortality and resurrection
"(Ro 8**"^). Since death is regarded as the penalty
of sin (Ro 512-21 621-23^ 1 Co l5-'-22. sej^ ^i^ salvation
in Christ includes deliverance from death for the
believer, and finally the abolition of death (1 Co
1524-28^ 2 Ti P») and all other evils (Rev 2P).
Behind death, sin, and all evil, the Apostolic
Church saw the devil and other jjowers of wicked-
ness (Eph 42^ 1 Th 3», He 2", Ja 4^ 1 P S*, 1 Jn S'*,
Rev 12"), and accordingly Christ's work, especially
His deatli (Col 2^'), was regarded as a victory over
all evil powers (1 Jn 3*).
This teaching is for the most part experimental
and practical, and can still minister comfort and
•encouragement to the Christian believer. There
are two speculative elements in it which modern
'Christian faith cannot unq^uestioningly accept — the
connexion of death with sm as its penalty, and the
•existence of the devil and other evil powers. As
regards the first i)oint, the Avriter ventures to re-
peat a few sentences he has written eisewiiere.
' It is generally admitted that death is a natural
necessity for animal organisms such as man's, and
that before man was in the world death prevailed.
It seems vain to justify Paul by speculations such
as these : that God anticipating sin introduced
death into the natural order as a penalty already
prepared for sin, or that, had man preserved his
innocence, he might have risen above this natural
necessity. Paul's interest is primarily in the moral
character and the religious consciousness. What
he was concerned with was man's sense of the
mystery and dread of the desolation of death,
man's looking for judgment after death. In such
totality, including what man thinks of, and feels
about, death, surely Paul's view of the connexion
between sin and death is not altogether false. It
is man's sense of guilt that invests death with its
terror (1 Co 15'^). Nor are we warranted in say-
ing that conscience here is playing tricks on man,
frightening him with illusions. If there be indeed
a moral order in the world, an antagonism of God
to sin, and if, as there is reason to believe, there is
a moral continuity between this life and the next,
such a change as death is may be conceived as
fraught with moral significance, as introducing the
soul into such conditions as have been determined
by the judgment of God on the moral character of
this life ' (Studies of Paul and his Gospel, 1911, pp.
146-7). As regards the second point, one sentence
regarding Paul will suffice. ' In his cosmology,
angelology, and demonology, as well as his eschat-
ology, he remains essentially .Jewish' (op. cit. p. 17) ;
and this is equally true of the whole Apostolic
Church. Christian faith need not burden itself
with this load of Jewish beliefs.
There are two passages in which Paul attempts
a theodicy (Ro H^^'^ and 9-11), the first dealing
with Nature and the second with human historj-.
In the first passage he attributes to Nature con-
sciousness of, and a dissatisfaction with, its present
imperfection — a desire for, and an expectation of,
its completion. He includes Nature in man's griev-
ous disaster, but also in his glorious destiny. As
by the sin he has committed he has brouglit misery,
so by the grace he will receive he will impart bless-
ing. We are unable to accept ' Paul's account of
the origin of physical evil as altogether due to man's
sin. There can, however, be no doubt that man
has a vital, organic relation to his environment.
The evolution of the world and the development of
humanity are not independent but connected pro-
cesses. If we are warranted in believing in the pro-
gress of the race, we are justified in hoping for a
correspondent and consequent transformation of
the universe. For the perfect man we may expect
the perfect home' (Romans [Century Bible, 1901],
p. 193). In the second passage we are not here con-
cerned with the argument as a whole, but only with
Paul's conclusion, that, as the unbelief of the Jews
has opened the door for the faith of the Gentiles, so
the gathering in of the Gentiles will lead to the
restoration of the Jews. ' For God hath shut up all
unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon
air (Ro 1P2). Without ascribing to Paul on the
ground of this and similar passages a dogmatic
universalism, against which tnere is contrary evi-
dence throughout the NT, we may assign to the
Apostolic Church the hope of tlie final victory of
Christ over all evil. The apostolic attitude towards
the problem of evil cannot be described smoptimistn,
for the reality of sin and pain is too seriously and
sympathetically recognized, nor as pessimism, for
the possibility of redemption is too confidently and
persuasively ur^ed, but it may be spoken of as
meliorism, for it has the faith which claims a
present salvation for every believer, and the hope
EVIL^PEAKIXG
EXCOMMUNICATION
38 L
of a tinal fultilnient of Gotl's purpose of grace, and
both aie linked with a love that sees in human
need ami pain an opjtortunity for service and sacri-
fice, in which n>an can regard himself as a fellow-
worker with God in the solution of the problem
of evil. To revert to the distinctions made in
the beginning of this article, the apostolic view
recognizes no metaphysical evil, for to be the
creature, subject, and child of God, is for man only
good ; it WnVs physical with moral evil, and makes
deliverance from pain dependent on salvation from
sin ; and it throws all the emphasis on moral evU ;
for it is concerned not with the s^ieculative intellect,
but only with the moral conscience and religious
consciousness of man.
LiTBRATrRB.— W. Beyschlag:, -Vr Tkeoloffy, Eng. tx., 1895,
i. 22S, ii. 107 ; G. B. Stevens, Theology o/ the ST, l5s99, pp. 187,
375; T. V. Haering, The Christian Faith, En^. tr., 1913, ii.
562-577 ; J. Martineau, A Stvdy of Relioion", lsa9, ii. 49-13-2 ;
A. B. Brace. Ap-jl--j^tics, 1S92, p. 63 ; A. M. Fairbairn, The
I'hiioiophij of the Cfii-istian Reliijion, 19Ce, pp. »4-168 ; G. W.
Leibniz, Enj^ais de Theodiceesur la Bontide Uieu,la Liberiede
Vhomine et COrigine du mai, 1710.
Alfred E. GAR\aE.
EYIL-SPEAKING.— In Greek, as in English,
there is a ricii vocabulary e.\pre.ssive of different
shades of this prevalent sin.
(1) Kara\a\€iy is 'to speak down,' 'to detract.'
/cardXaXoi is translated * backbiters ' (Ro 1**), and
KaraXaXiai ' backbitings' (2 Co 1"2^'), but evil-speak-
ing does not necessarily take place behind the back,
or in the absence of the person hated. *card\a\ot form
one of the many types which are the outcome of the
reprobate mind (Ko 1*), and Christian converts, as
new-born babes, must put away all KaraXaXiai (1 P
2'- * ; cf. Ja 4''). The best people in the world cannot
escape the breath of detraction, and in the Apos-
tolic Age the Christians were regarded as ' genus
hominuDi superstitionis novae et maleficae ' {Suet.
Xero, 16), accusetl of ' odium generis humani ' (Tac.
Ann. XV. 44), and suspected of committing the most
infamous crimes in their secret assemblies. In such
an atmosphere of calumny they made it their en-
deavour to live in such a manner that their detrac-
tors should not only be put to shame (1 P 3'*), but
even constrained hy their good works to glorify
God (21- ; cf . Mt 5^%
(2) ^XatripTi/xeiv (3\(3uTtl>rjftos, p\axr<f>r]/ua) is a stronger
term, including all kinds of evil-speaking against
men as well as against God. In a number of pas-
sages it is difficult to decide whether ' blaspheme '
or ' rail ' is the precise meaning of the word (Ac
13« 18« 26" etc.). St. Paul has a full share of
^\aff<pr]fua ; he is 'evil spoken of ' (1 Co lO**) and
'slanderously reported' (Ro 3*). \\Tiile the Gen-
tiles speak evil of the foUowei-s of Christ (1 P 4*),
the latter must calumniate no man (Tit 3-) ; railing
(3\a(T<pJifiia) is one of the sins of temper and tongue
which tliey are repeatedly enjoined to put away
(Eph 4'', Col 3*). At the same time tney must
strive to prevent their ' good,' or ' the word of God,'
or 'the way of truth,' or 'the name of God and
thedoctrine,' from being blasphemed, or evil spoken
of (Ro 14i«, Tit 2*, 2 P 2-^ 1 Ti 6'). St. Paul affirms
that the name of God is blasphemed among the
Gentiles because of the Jews (Ro 2'-^). The false
teachers and libertines of the sub- Apostolic Age
spoke evil of the powers of the unseen world (2 P
2'', Jude 1**) ; and their empty logomachies gave
rise to mutual railings (^SXcwr^/ua*, 1 Ti 6^). See,
fuither, art. Blasphemy.
(3) 5td/3oXos (from SiaSaWu, Lk 16'), which de-
notes, Kar e^oxvy, the ' chief slanderer,' or ' devil,' is
applied also to any ordinary calumniator. Women
who are called to the office of the diaconate must
not be slanderers (1 Ti 3*'), and the same applies to
aged women who are to influence the younger by
their words and example (Tit 2^). In grievous post-
apostolic times, which seemed the last, many bad
types of character became prominent, including
Sid^oXtH. (2 Ti 3»).
(4) XoiSopeip (a word of uncertain derivation) is
invariably translated ' revile ' in the KV, whereas,
the AV has 'rail' and 'speak reproachfully' as
variations. St. Paul says of the apostles that,
being reviled they bless (1 Co 4'*) ; that the so-
called brother who is a reviler (XoiSofxn) is to be
shunned (5") ; and that revilers shall not inherit
} the Kingdom of God (6**). For seeming to revile-
the high priest Ananias in a moment of just anger,
St. Paul was quick to make apology (Ac 24*). In,
a time of persecution St. Peter turns the minds of
his readers to the perfect example of Christ, who,
being reviled, reviled not again (I P 2"^), and bids,
them render, as He did, ' contrariwise blessing '
{3»).
(5) Analagous terms are KaKoXoytTy, ' to siteak.
evil of (Ac 19®), ayriXeyety, 'to speak against'
(28-), and SwiprjuLa, ' evil report,' which the servant
of Christ learns to accept, equally with fv<pr)fua, as-
part of his lot (2 Co 6*). ' Being defamed {Swr-
(fyrifiov/ieyoi), we bless* (1 Co 4**).
James Strahan.
EXALTATION.— See AsCEXSiox.
EXCOMMDNICATION.— Excommunication is a.
form of ecclesiastical censure involving exclusion,
from the membership of the Church. Such ex-
clusion may be temporary or permanent. It may
cut ott' the offender from all communion and every
privilege, or it may be less severe, allowing some-
intercourse and certain benefits.
1. The term. — Tlie word ' excommunication ' is
not found in AV or RV, nor are the obsolete fomi.s-
' excommunion ' (Milton), 'excommenge' (Holin-
shed), ' excommuned ' (Gayton). There are general
references to the subject, and one or two cases are
mentioned with some detail. The Greek verb.
a.<f>opi^u) signifies ' mark off' from (dT6) by a boundary
(opos).' It is used sometimes in a good sense (e.g.
Ac 13-, Ro P, Gal V^), and sometimes in a bad one
(e.g. Lk 6- ; note the three degrees of evil treat-
ment— a<popiff<i}ffiv, dyeiSiffuxriv, (K^dXuffty rb 6yofui)..
See also Mt 13« 25**, 2 Co 6^', Gal 2'*. It is em-
ployed by various Greek writers — Sophocles,.
Euripides, Plato, and others — and is found fre-
quently in the LXX. Excommunicatio is a Latim
word of later origin. It is used in the Vulgate.
2. Warrant for the practice in the Apostolic
Church. — Excommunication in apostolic times
rested upon a threefold warrant.
(1) Xatural and inherent right. — Every properly-
constituted society has the right and power to ex-
clude members not conforming to its rules. The-
Church has authority to exercise a right which
every society claims. An analogy is sometimes
drawn between the Church and the State. The
State has power to send into exile, to deprive of
ciWl rights, and even claims and exercises the
power to inflict a death-sentence. So, in spiritnali
matters, the Church may pass sentences of separa-
tion more or less complete, and though the
supreme judge alone can pronounce the sentence of
death in an absolute sense, yet the Church can
pass such a sentence in a relative sense — the
offender being regarded as dead from the stand-
point of the ecclesiastical court. Upon this ixnnt
— whether in excommunication and in ' binding
and loosing ' the power of the Church is final and
absolute — two divergent views have been held.
As typical of these two schools of thought, see
Dante, de Man. lU. viii. 36 if., and Tarquini,
Juris eccl. Inst.*, Rome. 1875, p. 98. The former
declares it is not absolute, ' sed respective ad
aUquid. . . . Posset [enim] solvere me non poeni-
tentem, quod etiam facere ipse Deus non posset ' ;l
the latter states that St. Peter (Mt le"') is invested.
382
EXCOMMUNICATIOX
EXCOMMUNICATION
with 'potestas claviuni, quae est aUsoluta et
monarcliica. '
(2) The example of the Jewish nation and
Church. — In the l*entateucli it is stated that certain
heinous sins cannot be forgiven. lij- some form of
excommunication or by death itself (lie siniuT is
to be '(lit oil." Thus the sanctity of tlir nation
is resturcil mid ])r<>s(!rv<_Hi. In the laLcr ihiys of
.Indai^ni I he pinialtics lu'caiiH! somewhat milder as
a L;t'ii(ji'ai rule. Tiic loundat iinis of Jewish «'\c()m-
munication are J-v i:;'', N\i "r- ^ 12'*' ^^ 16, Jg 5'-^
Ezr 7-*', Nell 13-'. Tlic flints are described in
Ezr 7-" 10-^. The Tahinid luintioiis three kinds of
excommunication, tln' tii>t two diisciplinary, the
third complete and tlnal expulsion. There was
Reparation, si'paration with a curse, and final
separation with a t(rril)]e anathema. For Gospel
references .se(> Lk (i--, .In 9'-^- SJ. » 12« 16-. The
sentence mi^dit he jnouounced on twenty-four
difl'erent j^idiiiids.
(3) The antlmrifii of Jesus Christ. — The main
basis of authority for the Christian Church is the
teaching of its Founder. The passages of most
importance on the subject under consideration are
Mt 16"* 18'*, Jn 20^. Excommunication must be
preceded by private and public exhortation, con-
ducted in the spirit of love, with caution, wisdom,
and patience. Only as a last resort, and when all
else lias failed, must the sentence of banishment be
pronounced (see Mt 13"-^"- 36-«- *^-^). From Christ
Himself the Church received authority, not only to
'bind' the impenitent and unbelieving and to
' loose ' the penitent believer, but also, in its
properly constituted courts, to condemn and expel
gross offenders and to forgive and re-instate them
if truly penitent.
3. Legislation in the Apostolic Church. —
The general methods of procedure are made clear
by St. Paul's method of dealing with the case of
the incestuous person at Corinth (1 Co 5, 2 Co 2s-'i).
The excommunication of the offender was a solemn,
deliberate, judicial act of the members of the Church
specially gathered together ' in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ ' for the purpose, and equipped with
the authority and ' power of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
The act of exclusion was that of the Church itself
and not of the Apostle Paul. The power was not
in the hands of an official, or body of officials.
Wherever it has become the prerogative of a
!)riesthood it has led to great abuse and the results
lave been disastrous both to priests and people.
The object of this act of discipline was to reform
the sinner (1 Co 5'), and to preserve the purity of
the Church. Where a difference of opinion existed
as to the course to be pursued, the verdict was
decided by the majority (2 Co 2*). Tiie sentence
might be modified or rescinded according to sub-
sequent events (2*"*). 'To deliver such a one unto
Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus '
(1 Co 5'), is an obscure passage. Perhaps St. Paul
thought that a sin of the flesh was more likely to
be cured by bodily suffering than in any other
way. In his opinion certain afflictions of the body
were due to the operations of Satan (2 Co 2" 12^,
1 Ti I'"'). Probably he thought that, in accordance
with the sentence of the Church, God would allow
Satan to inflict some physical malady that would
lead the oft'ender to repentance. If we may take
2 Co 2*'" to refer to the same case, the desired
result was reached.
' It cannot have been unknown to Paul that he was hero
using a fonn of words similar to the curses by which the
Corinthians had formerly been accustomed to consign their
personal enemies to destruction by the powers of tlie world of
death. It seems not open to doubt that the Corinthians would
understand by this phrase that the offender was to suffer
disease and even death as a punishment for sin ; and Paul goes
on to add that this punishment of the flesh is intended to bring
salvation ultimately to his soul (i't'o to irvtvixa a-ot^fj) : by
jihysical suffering he is to atone for his sin. . . . The whole
thought stands in the closest relation to the theory of the
confession-inscriptions, in which those who have been punished
bv the god thanlc and bless him for the chastisement' (Ramsay
in i!;.r/>5' X. [1898-99] 59).
For cases in which physical ill followed ecclesi-
astical censure see Ac 5' 8"" 13'". Some hold that
the ' delivery to Satan ' was by virtue of the special
authi)rity of St. Paul himself, while the Cnurch
iiad ]H>wiT t<i (.'xjnd oidy. Tliere is nothing in the
text to supjjort such a view. This punishment
must not be confounded with the anatliema of Ro
9^ 1 Co 16*2, Gal 1«". 'The attempt to explain
the word (ivdOefia) to mean "excommunication"
from the society — a later use of the Hebrew in
ltabbini(;al writers and the Greek in ecclesiastical
— arose from a desire to take away the apparent
profanity of the wish' (Sanday-Heaulam, Romans^
[ICC, llioii], p. 228). Calvin and some other re-
formers thought the expression dvdde/ia. MapAv
dOd (1 Co 16'^-) was a formula of excommunication.
Buxtorf (Lex. Chald., Basel, 16.39, pp. 827, 2466)
says it was part of a Jewisli cursing lormula from
the Prophecy of Enoch {i\uW^). iiicre is no reason
for such an opinion. It was not held until the
meaning of the words was lost or partially so.
They are neither connected nor synonymous as
some have supposed, and are rightly separated in
RV — ' If any man lovetli not the Lord, let him be
anathema. Maran atha ' (cf. Ph 4').
In addition to the specific case at Corinth and
general references in such passages as 1 Th 5",
2 Th 31^ (cf. Ro 16", Ja 5'«), we find more precise
directions in later books — the Pastoral Epistles
and General Epistles of St. John (see 1 Ti S'*- ^ 6»,
Tit 3'", 1 Jn 18'- 51*, 2 Jni", 3 Jn*-"). Heresy,
schism, insubordination, usurpation of the auth-
ority of the Church by a section, Ijecame grounds
of excommunication. The morals, doctrine, and
government of the Church were all imperilled at
times and could be preserved only by strict dis-
cipline and severe penalties upon wrong-doers. As
in the Jewish community, the sentence of excom-
munication might be lighter or heavier, the ex-
clusion being more or less complete. It might
mean only expulsion from the Lord's Table,
but not from tiie Lord's House ; or it might be
utter banishment from the Lord's House and an
interdict against all social intercourse witii it>
members.
It is beyond the scope of this article to trace
the history of excommunication in the Christian
Church. 'Suffice it to say that the distinction be-
tween the minor (d<popt(Jtil>s) and major (TravreXTj?
dtpopiff/j-bs dvdOefia) forms of it, which existed from
very early times, if not from the Apostolic xVge it-
self, were continued for centuries with a Avealf h of
elaborate detail as to the exact penalties involved
in each, and as to the attitude of tlio.-c wit Ida tlie
Church to those without its pale. Unfortunately,
excommunication often became an instrument of
oppression in the hands of unworthy men. In
mediieval days it frequently entailLul outlawry
and sometimes death.
' The censures of the Church, reserved in her early days (or
the gravest moral and spiritual offences, soon lost their salutary
terrors when excommunications became incidents in territorial
squabbles, or were issued on the most trivial pretext ; and when
the unchristian penalty of the interdict sought to coerce the
guUty by robbing the" innocent of the privilege of Christian
worship and even of burial itself ' (A. Roberteon, Rej/nuin Dei
[Bampton Lectures, 1901], p. 257).
See also Anathema, Chastisemfxt, Disd
PLiNE, Restoration of Offenders.
LiTEUATURK.— Artt. ' Di'Jciplinf ' in TIDE, DCG, 'Discipline
(Christian)' in KliE, ' Kxcoiiiniuiiication ' in DCG, Smith's
Dlf\ .//•-', CK, ' n.inn (kin-hlic-her) ' in PIlK-i; E. v. Dob-
schiitz.C/in'stiaii Life in tlf l'rimitire('hMrch,VA\^. tr.,l.<>rnl.in,
litlU; H. M. Gwatkin, Kadn Church Histnrij, <ln. r.Xf.t; E.
Schiirer, lUP, Edinburgh, 1S85-1800; C. v. Weizsacker,
EXHORTATION
EXORCISM
383
Da* apostolitche ZeUalter^, Tubingen, 1903 (Eng. tr. of 2nd ed.,
London, lS»t-9o); A. Edersheim. LT*. London, 1S87 ; J.
SmgYiaja. Orifjinet EceUnaiitictr, do. 1706-1722; H. Hallam,
Vieic of the State of Europe during the MidcUe Age*^^, do.
1»53. H. CaRISS J. SiDNELL.
EXHORTATION. — Exhortation (xopd/cXi7<r«)
played an imj>ortant part in the apostolic ministry.
Asa technicai term for a specitic kind of Christian
teachinj;, it first emerges in Acts and in the Epistles.
No mention of it (as such) appears in the Gospels,
They record the facts and teaching of Christ upon
which the later exhortations were founded. Ex-
hortation, or Taptt<c\Tj<ris, may be described as a
summons to the will, an appeal — urgent, per-
suasive, and even authoritative — which was based
.sometimes on Scripture (Ac 13'*) or apostolic
teaching (1 Ti 6^ 2 Ti 4^), but more especially on
Christian prophecy (Ac 15^-, 1 Co 14*- '^). It was
what we call in modern sermons the ' application.'
Prophesying and exhorting naturally went to-
gether in the proclamation of salvation. Cremer
holds that exhortation belongs ' to the domain of
prophecy, and is like this a special charisma (Ro
12*), though it does not appear to have manifested
itself 5«/>a;-a^f/y as such' (Bibl.-Theol. Lex. of ST
Greek^, p. 337). Generally, no doubt, it was given
by the Apostle or prophet himself, e.g. by St.
Peter (Ac 2**), by Barnabas (Ac 11=), by St. Paul
(Ac 13""^-), but at times, so it would appear from
Ro 12*, the one who did the ' exhorting' might be
a different speaker from the one who gave the
'prophecy" or 'teaching.' Frequently, indeed,
especially in times of persecution or unrest, it con-
sisted in a mutual exchange of encouragement or
warning among believers (1 Th 4^* 5", He 3** 1(P).
As the word irapd/cXijtrtj has many shades of
meaning, so the ' exhortations ' referred to in the
NT have many tones of emotional stimulus. In
fact, the character of the exhortation was deter-
mined by the circumstances which called it forth.
In times of threatened apostasy it was admonitory ;
amid persecution and danger it promoted comfort.
Often TapdA.X77<rij can only mean 'comfort' (q.v.),
and in all such instances it is so translated in botli
AV and RV (Ac ^\ Ro 15^ 2 Co P*) ; but in all
cases where the AV renders it ' exhortation ' the
RV does the same (except in 1 Co 14', where it
might with advantage be retained instead of
' comfort '). Similarly the verb xopoicaX^w is often
appropriately translated ' comfort ' in both versions,
but, again, wherever in AV the sense requires
'exhort' it so appears in the text of RV (except
in Ac 18^ ' encourage ' and 2 Co 9^ ' intreat '). To
grasp the meaning of 'exhort' and ' exhortation,'
as technical terms, it should be noticed that the
verb rapaKoKiu is, in many cases, translated ' pray '
or ' desire ' in AV, and ' beseech ' or ' intreat ' in
RV when, however, the appeal so expressed springs
from some personal wish or judgment, whereas
the terms ' exhort ' and ' exhortation ' are retained
for instances where the basis of appeal is some
Divinely-given truth or revelation (cf. xape/rdXow,
' besought,' Ac 13*^, and irapaKoKovvris, 'exhorting,'
Ac 14"). Exhortation proper (j.e. as part of the
apostolic ministry-), while it contained elements of
personal entreaty ('we beseech and exhort' [1 Th
4^]), partook more of the nature of a spiritually
authoritative message ('as though God were in-
treating, or exhorting [deov rapaKoKodtrroi], by us,'
2 Co 5=» ; cf. 1 Th •^■), reproving (Tit 2»j, en-
couraging (1 Th 2"), commanding (2 Th S^'),
strengthening (Ac 14**, Ib^-), edifying (1 Th 5"),
and, where successful, leading the hearers to a
proper state of mind or to right conduct (Tit 2**-
1 P SI*-).
It might be given to individuals, e.g. to Titus
(2 Co 8"), to Timothy (1 Ti 1'), to Euodia and
Syntyche (Ph 4*) ; or it was a message addressed
to the con^egations, generally in their meetings
for edification, either verbal (Ac 13" 20*, 1 Co 14»)
or epistolary (Ac 15^""-, He 13^, 1 P 5", Jude').
Naturally exhortation was prominent at a time
when a speedy Second Coming of Christ was ex-
pectecl ('exhorting ... so much the more as ye
see the day drawing nigh,' He ICP ; cf. 1 Th 4").
The power of exhortation was regarded as one of
the charismata, or ' gifts ' bestowed by the Holy
Spirit, for the edification of believers (Ro 12*, 1 Co
14'). Barnabas, or 'son of exhortation,' was so
sumamed bj- the apostles (Ac 4" RVm) because
he was endowed with a large measure of this gift
(Ac 11=3). Bm jt ^.j^g g^ gj£{. (^jjj^j could be culti-
vated. Its intensity and jwwer could be increased
by proper attention, and so St. Paul urged Timothy
to ' give heed to exhortation ' as well as to reading
and teaching (1 Ti 4").
Lttbrati-re.— H. Cremer, Bibl.-Theol. Lex. of ST Greets,
1880, ».v. KapdjcXTfvii ; O. Pfleiderer, Paulinitm-, Eng. tr.,
1881, ToL L ch. vi. p. 236 ; see also Literature under art. COM-
«>"• M. ScoTT Fletcher.
EXORCISM. — 1. Origin and definition.— It is
pointed out in the art. Divixation that man, at a
very early period, came to think of himself as sur-
rounded by innumerable spirits, many of whom
could enter into and influence him. He realized
that it was his duty, and for his advantage, to
cultivate friendly relations with these spirits, and
one of the forms Avhich this eflbrt took developed
into divination. The coming of a spirit into ch)se
relations with a man brought on him either calami-
ties or blessings, and from these opposite restilts
the spirits came to be grouped into good and bad.
The entrance of a good spirit — a spirit of purity or
truth — caused health of body or clearness of mind.
Such indwelling in its highest form is inspiration
(Job 32®). The entrance of a bad spirit — a dumb,
unclean, or evil spirit — caused disease of body or
disorder of mind. In its most decided form this is
possession (q.v.). The spirits, and the divinities
into which some of them developed, were free to
enter into or leave a person, but tneir freedom was
limited. As ' the spirits of the prophets are sub-
ject to the prophets ' (1 Co 14^), so certain persons
came to know now, bj' a proper use of special words
and acts, to make the spirits, within certain limits,
obedient to them. (1) Such experts were able to
bring a person into such close contact with a spirit,
or the thing in which a spirit or divinity dwelt,
that the spirit could deal etl'ectively with the person.
Such bringing into contact developed, (a) where
the person was able or willing, into administering
to him an oath ; (b) where unable or unwilling, into
solemnly adjuring him. (2) An expert could call
up, call upon, or permit a spirit to enter another
person, to work his will in him ; or enter into him-
self to work with him or reveal secrets to him. (3)
He could compel a spirit to come out of a person
or thing into which it had entered ; ^rith the result,
if the spirit was an evU one, that the baneful con-
sequences of possession immediately ceased. The
expert who could do this was an exorcist, and his
work was exorcism.
2. Derivation. — The word opjtoj seems primarily
to have referred to a spirit, or an object made
sacred by the indwelling of a spirit, and so came
to mean the thing that brought a spirit into efiec-
tive touch with a person, hence 'an oath.' opKiiew,
in the same way, came to mean to bring these two
together, hence (a) ' to administer or cause to take
an oath ' (Gn 50^, Nu 5*") ; or (6) ' to adjure ' (Jos 6-*,
1 K 22»«, 2 Ch 18", Ac 19i3), When the high priest
said to Jesus opKi^w * ae icot4 rod deov toO ftDrros
(Mt 26*^), he thereby brought the prisoner into
* This, not e^ict^w, is the reading of D L. The reading in
Gn 243 is c jbpcutf.
384
EXORCISM
EXORCISM
such eflective touch with Jalivveh that tlie latter
could ))unish him if he did not speak the trutli.
i^opKl^nv, on tlie otlier hand, meant the separatinj;
of the spirit from the person, and from it comes
^^opKifffids, the Latin exorcismus, and the Englisli
'exorcism.'
'The formula (fopKi^w is of Oriental origin. It is absolutely
unknown in Greek and Italian tabellio froiu the fifth century
B.C. to the second century A.u. ; and, when it does anpear. it
appears only in tablets which make mention of Oriental deities'
(F. B. Jevons, ' Defixioimm Tabellfe,' in Transactions uf the
Third International Coiujress/or the lligtory of Religions, 1908,
vol. ii. p. 138). A heathen amulet has the inscription (fopxi'^co
vy.ai Kara, ToO ayi'ou ot'o/xaros Btpantvaat, tov ^lovvaiov ; and ' the
adjective is of constant occurrence in the ma^ric pai)yri ' (Moulton
and Milli^fan, ' TiCxicAl Notes from the Papyri' in Expositor,
Vtliser. \ii. (19()9J 370).
3. History.— As the cause of disease was the
incoming of an evil spirit, so the cure of the dis-
ease consisted in its expulsion. All exorcists were
not equally clever at their work ; but, thougii a
patient might, like an old Babylonian, complain
that ' the exorcist has not handled my illness suc-
cessfully' (F. B. Jevons, Comparative Religion,
1913, p. 7), still failures were overlooked and for-
gotten, and exorcism prevailed among all the
nations of antiquity, and prevails among all un-
civilized peoples to-day (G. T. Bettany, Primitive
Religions, 1891, pp. 20. 113, 128; The Book of Ser
Marco Polo, tr. ii. Yule, 1871, vol. ii. pp. 71, 78).*
.Sometimes, as in the lustratio of the Komans (W.
Warde Fowler, The Religious Experience of the
Roituin People, 1911, p. 209) and the Anthestcria
of the Greeks (Gilbert Murray, Four Stages of
Greek Religion, 1912, p. 30), the exorcism was
national and periodic.
In private life, when a person became ill ('was
possessed '), an exorcist was at once called in who
by various means attempted a cure. David by
music expelled the evil spirit from Saul (1 S 16'*"^),
though, when the spirit came migiitily, he failed
(19"; Jos. Ant. VI. viii. 2 and xi. 3). Embracing
(another form of exorcism) is mentioned in 1 K 17'"'^,
2 K 4^^, Ac 20"*. Solomon, according to tradition,
acquired a great reputation as an expert prac-
titioner of the art — ' a science,' says Josephus [Ant.
VIII. ii. 5), ' useful and sanative to man.' He com-
posed incantations by which cures were effected,
and also formulas by which demons could be ex-
pelled. These were used as late as the time of
Vespasian, a notable instance being recorded by
Josephus [loc. cit. ; see al.so his account of the root
of Baaras [.BJ Vll. vi. 3]). In the OT Apocrypha
there are such references to the art as that in
To 6i»-" 8-^- 3. Our Lord t accepted the beliefs of His
time on this as on other matters. His words and
deeds show us the evil spirits going out of a patient
(Mt IV*>, Mk 5», Lk S--^, Mk 92»-««) ; entering into
lower animals (Mt S*^, Mk 5^^, Lk 8^3) ; Avandering
through waterless places (Mt 12*^, Lk ir-*^) ; co-
operating with other spirits (Mt 12''^, Lk IP") ; and
re-entering the patients from whom they had been
expelled (Mt 12**, Lk 11»*). In contrast to the
exorcists of His time (Mt 12=", Lk W^), our Lord
exhibited exceptional skill and unbroken success
in the expulsion of evil spirits. He healed ' all
who were tyrannized over by the devil ' (Ac 10^).*
Exorcism, it must be observed, is not nearly so
prominent in the First Gospel as in the Third, and
all instances of its use are omitted in the Fourth
(J. Motratt,rAc Theology of the Gospels,\912, pp. 13,
* Fora psychological explanation of exorcism see W.M"^Dou(raII,
Psycholofjy , 1912, p. 196 ; Andrew Lannf, Makincf of Reli'iion-,
p. 129 ; T. J. Hudson, The Law of Psychic Phenouiena,
1893.
t P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, 1909, p. 146 ; T. J. Hudson,
op. cit., chs. xxiii., xxiv. ; G. J. Romanes, Thoughts on Re-
ligion*', 1S!»C, p. 180 and Gore's note.
J KaraSwaaTtimtiivovf. The word here emi>loyed is used in
the papyri thus : ' I am being harshly treated in prison, perish-
ing with hunger,' and indicates the physical sufferinK arising
from possession (Moulton and Milligan, loc. cit. p. 477).
120; J. M. Thompson, Miracles in the NT, 1911,.
p. 63). It is especially noteworthy that our Lord in
exi)elling evil spirits employed no outward means
(except once, the spittle [Jn 9*]) ; He simply com-
manded and it was done.* Perhaps the secret of
His i>ower. His triumphant and universal success,
and of the failure of others, is revealed in His
words, ' this kind cometh not out except by prayer '
(Mk 9^).t Prayer is the complete opening up of
one's entire jiersonality to the incoming of the
entire personality of God. Jesus was able to do
this and did it ; others failed and fail.
The Twelve, after being chosen, were ordained to
be with Jesus in order that they might go forth
(rt) to preach, (6) to have power to heal diseases,
and (c) iK^iXXfif to. Sai/x6via (Mk 3'*-", Mt 10').
When He did send them fortii. He gave them power
to castoutall unclean spirits (Mt 10', MkG^ Lk 9').
St. John reported to Jes^usthathe and other di.sciples
saw one casting out diemons in His name (Mk 9**,
Lk 9^") ; while, on the other hand, tiie disciples
sometimes failed in their efforts at expulsion (Mt
17^"). Our Lord sent out the Seventy (a) to heal,
(6) to proclaim thenearnessof the Kingdom (Lk 10").
When they returned, they reported tliat the spirits
were subject to them in His namelj: (Lk 10'^).
Finally, Jesus bequeathed to those who should
believe power in His name+ to cast out daemons
(Mk 16"). After the death of Jesus the apostles
continued to cure those troubled (or ' roused,' (5x-
Xovixivovs, Lk 6"*) with unclean spirits (Ac 5'"), and
a similar power was exercised by other Christians
over spirits wliich came out ' shouting with a loud
cry ' (Ac 8^).
When the Christian missionaries penetrated into
the Roman Empire, they met the victims of pos-
session, and had to deal with them. At Philippi,
St. Paul and Silas encountered a young girl, tne
slave of a group of masters, who was possessed by
a spirit — a Python,§ which enabled her to utter
predictions.il The girl so forced herself upon the
missionaries' attention that at last St. Paul, ' in
the name:^ of Jesus Christ,' commanded the spirit
to come out of her, which it immediately did (Ac
jgi6-i8) Again, at Ephesus, a city in which exor-
cism flourished, St. Paul seems to have cast out
spirits in the name:): of Jesus. Further cures of
a somewhat uncommon [ov ras ruxovaai) character
were ett'ected, for on certain articles of dress which
had been in immediate contact with the body (dird
TOV xpwToyll) of St. Paul being applied to those
afflicted, the evil spirits came out of them (Ac
19'"-)-
Such success roused a competitive spirit in the
minds of other exorcists and revealed to them the
power which lay in the use of the name of Jesus.
Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest, who
formed a company of strolling exorcists, determined
to utilize the new power. Over a man afflicted
with an evil spirit they pronounced this formula :
bpKl^u i'iJ.a$ TOV 'lr]aovv Sv llaOXos Krjpvffffei. The
ettbrt proved more than futile, for the recitation of
tlie formula, instead of bringing Jesus into such,
effective touch with the man that the evil spirit
had to yield possession to Him, roused the spirit
to stir into activity that abnormal muscular
strength often possessed by those mentally de-
ranged (cf. Lk 8--'), and, leaping on the e.xorcists,
tlie man assaulted them and drove them out of the
house stripped and wounded (Ac 19'^"'*). The men
* Dearmer, op. cit., p. 108.
t K and 15 omit xal iTjo-rft'o and along with A the whole of
Mt 17-1.
I See art. Name.
§ The correct reading, according to KAB, is »rv*u»'a ; see art.
Pytiio.v.
II liayrtvo^imr) ; see art. .Sootiisaviso.
^ Xpi'f, literally ' the skin.' See Nestle in ExpT, vol. xiii.
[1901-02] p. 2S2, and art. Al-RO.v.
EXPEDIE^XY
EXPEDIE^XY
385
who had become Christians realized the incompati-
bility of loyalty to Jesus and the practice of such
magical arts, and they publicly burned their copies
of the famous 'Eipfffus. ypdfifiara (v.^*).
That this did not mean the absolute abandonment
of exorcism the subsequent history of the Church
all too clearly proves. The reference to ' doctrines
of da?mons' (I Ti 4^) and 'the spirits of daemons
performing signs' (Rev 16'*) shows how exorcism
still lingered in the Church. The words which
shed light on the struggle from the higher Chris-
tian standpoint are those in Ja 4^ : ' resist the devil,
and he will flee from you ' — w^ords which were an
exhortation to the Christians not to resort to exor-
cism, but to rely on the successful resistance
which sprang from a strong exertion of their
sanctified wills aided by the power of God. The
means employed by exorcists ditier in different
times and countries. Four only are referred to
in the Apostolic Age — hands, cloths, the name of
Jesus, and shadowing.
When we pass to the literature of the Fathers,
we cannot help being struck with the almost total
absence of references to exorcism. This is possibly
to be accounted for by the fact that the work of
these writers forced them to think more of evan-
gelism and apologetic than of combating the evils
of the heathen world. In the spurious Ignatian
Epistle to the Philippians (ch. v.) Christ is by way
of honour called ' this magician ' {fjuiyoi o5tos), ancl
in the spurious Epistle to the Anfim'hians (ch. xii.)
we find 'the exorcists ' {iiropKurTds) mentioned among
the Church officials.
The pi-actice of exorcism continued in the Church.
The ordinary Christian practised it, Gregory
Thaumaturgus even casting out devils by sending
letters to the person possessed. As a rule, how-
ever, the practice was confined to the clergy, and by
A.D. 340 the e-iropKUTTTis constituted a special order,
some of whom were ordained, others merely recog-
nized. The rescripts of the Emperors granted to
them, as well as to the other ordersof clergy, exemp-
tion from civil offices. Their work was the care of
the possessed, the evepr^ovfuvoi, the catechists, here-
tics, and schismatics, the exorcism being in each
case connected with the rites of exsiifftntion and
insiiJ/lation(seeJ. Bingham, Oriqines Eii:lesiastir(p,
1843, vol. i. p. 362 tl". and vol. iii. p. 277 tf. ; Smith
and Cheetham, DC A, 1875, vol. i. p. 650; ERE,
art. ' Abrenuntio,' vol. i. p. 38). The office of ex-
orcist continued to be important : we read, e.g., of
St. Patrick landing in Ireland with a number of
officials among whom were skilled exorcists (A. K.
Macewan. Histary of the Church of Scotland, vol. L,
1913, p. 36).
LrrERATTRE. — See the Literature mentioned in the foot-notes
of art. DiTiSATios, and in addition W. M. Alexander, Demonic
Potgegiion in the ST, 1902 ; H. A. Dallas, Gospel Records in-
terpreted by Human Experience, 1903, p. 201 ; Andrew Lang,
Thi Making of Reliriion^, 1900, p. 12S ; R. C. Thompson, The
Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, 1903-04, vol. i. p. liii ; J.
G. Frazer, The Golden Bmiahi, ' The Magic Art," 1911, i. 174 ff. ;
E. B. Tylor, Primitice Cultures, 1891, ii. 124ff. ; artt. in DCG,
i. 439 ff., and ERE, iv. 565, 578, 612, with the Literature there
mentioned. P. A. GORDON CL-VRK.
EXPEDIENCY.— In the XT 'expedient ' is several
times used in translating the Gr. ffv/j.<p(p€i, or neut.
ffvtupepov (2 Co 12'). Other translations of the word
are 'it is profitable,' 'it were better,' 'it is good.'
It will be seen when we come to consider some
of the passages in which ffvpuptpei occurs that it is
always used in its better sense, or, we may say,
in its original sense, i.e. without that element of
selfishness, or the attainment of personal advan-
tage at the expense of genuine principle, in which
sense the word ' expedient ' is now generally
employed. It is never found in the sense of what
is convenient, as against what is right ; nor has
VOL. I. — 25
it the meaning of ' expeditioos,' as e.g. in Shake-
speare :
* Expedient mana^^ must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure jield them further means '
(fiicAard //.,Liv.3»X
We shall first of all refer briefly to some of the
passages in the Gospels and the Acts where (rvfup^fxi
occurs, and then examine the general question of
Christian expediency as it is treated in the Epistles.
1. The Gospels.— (1) In Mt 5^ we have what may
be called the expediency of self-denial. Here Christ
deals with the question of adultery, and shows how
certain members of the body, such as the eye and
the hand, which are in themselves serviceable and
necessary, may become the occasion of sin for us,
and, therefore, it is expedient (o-i'^i^'pei) for a man
that one of his members should perish and not his
whole body be cast into hell. There is no need to
ask here how far these words of Christ are to be
understood literally (cf. A. Tholuck, Sermon on the
Mount, 1860, p. 211 tf.). They certainly mean that
whatever may bring temptation to a man, it is
expedient — it is the best and wisest course — for
him to resign ; that it is better to live a maimed
life, than with all our faculties about us to be
destined to moral death. Christ here grounds His
precept of the most rigid and decisive self-denial
on considerations of the truest self-interest.
(2) In Mt 19^** we have a reference to the ex-
pediency of celibacy. The teaching of Christ con-
cerning divorce led His disciples to the conclusion
that, without freedom to divorce, 'it is not good
(RV 'expedient') to marry.' Jesus then refers to
three classes of persons for whom marriage is in-
expedient : {a) eunuchs * which were so bom from
their mothers womb,' i.e. those whose physical
constitution unfitted them for marriage ; (b) eunuchs
' which were made eunuchs of men,' i.e. those who
by actual physical deprivation or compulsion from
men are prevented from marrying ; (c) eunuchs
' which made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom
of heaven's sake,' i.e. those who voluntarily al^tain
from marriage, not for their own sake only, but
also for the sake of all that the Kingdom of Heaven
implies. In the case of these three classes it is
expedient that they live a celibate life (cf. 1 Co 7").
(3) In Jn 11** we have the expediency of
Christ's death spoken of by Caiaphas. Here we
have ' a good principle basely applied, not in the
interests of self-sacrifice, but to cover a violation
of justice and truth ' (J. A. McClymont, St. John
[Cent. Bible, 1901], p. 245). For the preservation of
his power and influence, together with that of his
confederates, Caiaphas says that it was expedient
to put Jesus to death, the falsity of this state-
ment, says F. W. Robertson {Sermons, 1st ser., 1875,
p. 132 tt".), lies in its injustice. Expediency can-
not obliterate right and wrong. Expediency may
choose the best possible when the conceivable best
is not obtainable ; but in right and wrong there
is no better and best. Better that the whole Jewish
nation should perish than that a Jewish legislature
should steep its hand in the blood of one innocent.
That tlus saying of Caiaphas has made a deep
impression upon St. John is evident from his refer-
ence to it again in 18". He regards the words
as having an origin higher than him who spoke
them. It was an unconscious prophecy.
(4) In Jn 16" Christ refers to the expediency of
His Ascension. ' Nevertheless I tell you the truth;
it is expedient for you that I go away,' etc. How-
ever much the disciples might regret their Master's
departure from them, this was not onlj' necessary,
but would also be to their advantage, inasmuch
as the glorified Christ working in them would be
better than the visible Jesus present among them
(cf. 14i«-).
2. The Acts. — In Ac 20* we have the expediency
386
EXPEDIENCY
EXPEDIENCY
of discrimination in teaching. Here St. Paul re-
minds the elders of Ephesus that lie had kept back
nothing that was profitable (tQv avix<p€p6vTuv) unto
them. As in the case of the Corinthians (1 Co 3"-)
the Apostle confined his statement to the things
that were profitable or expedient. In each case he
considered what was required by the capacity of
his disciples. It is the question of expediency in
the matter of truth to be declared. The teacher
must discriminate. He must, on the one hand,
not cast his pearls before swine, must not give to
men what they are incapable of appreciating (Pr 9'"- ,
Mt 7*) ; nor must he, on the other hand, give strong
food to the weak (He 5'"'-). He must consider what
is expedient, jirofitable.
3. The Epistles.— (I) St. PauVs general attitude in
1 Corinthians. — Here we shall have to deal chiefly
with the Epistles to the Corinthians, more especially
1 Corinthians. These Epistles represent the cam-
paign and slow victory of the new Christian spirit
over the debasing influence of the Corinthian ideal,
which was the relentless pursuit of his own life by
each individual. In 1 Cor. the question of expedi-
ency is treated in connexion with several matters
relating to Christian conduct. This Epistle has
been aptly called ' the Epistle of the doctrine of the
cross in application' (Findlay, The Epistles of Paul
the Apostle, p. 83). Social and other questions
are discussed in their bearing on the relationship of
men to Christ, and upon principles deduced from
the word of the Cross. And so the keynote of the
Epistle is found in 16^* 'Let all you do be done in
love.' The first direct reference to expediency is
found in 6'- ' All things are lawful unto me, but
all things are not expedient ' (dW ov irdvra avfitp^pet).
It is probable that St. Paul here refers to some
saying of his, which was subsequently drawn out
of its limiting context by some members of the
Corinthian Church who were inclined to exaggerate
Christian liberty, so that they could please them-
selves in the matter of food, drink, etc. ; or, still
worse, that with an easy conscience they might
satisfy their own sinful lusts. Consequently, the
Apostle shows that, while he still held to what he
had said, the words have by no means an unlimited
application. It was necessary to show the Cor-
inthians that there is an essential contrast between
things in themselves indifferent and things in
their very nature evil. The latter can be neither
lawful nor expedient to the Christian, since
they are grossly inconsistent with his union
with Christ.
It must be remembered that pag^n sentiment viewed ordinary-
sexual laxity in anythin;? but a serious light : in fact, it was a
prevalent belief among the heathen in apostolic times that for-
nication was no sin. Hence the need for its prohibition by the
Council of Jerusalem (Ac 15).
On the other hand, there are many things lawful
which are not always expedient. Meyer (ad loc.)
describes expediency as ' moral profitableness
generally in every respect, as conditioned by the
special circumstances of each case as it arises.' In
all things must the Christian ask not only, Is it
lawful? or Does it lie within the range of my
liberty ? but also. Is it calculated to promote the
general welfare of those around me ? There is no
place for individualism in the Christian life. One
must ask not merely, What does my liberty permit ?
but. How will my conduct help or hinder my
brother ? While all things that are in themselves
indifl'erent (a.5ia.<(>opa), i.e. not anti-Christian, are
lawful, still it must be remembered that this liberty
is the minister of love. For example, although in
itself one kind of meat is neither better nor worse
than another, the law of Christian love imposes
restraint where indulgence would cause offence or
lead to a violation of conscience. This love enables
the Christian to take the right attitude to what is
allowed ; he will solve the questionable (ca-suistic)
cases and collisions, not by rules wliich only lead
into endless reflexions about their applicability or
inapplicability, but by immediate tact, and by the
I)Ower of the personality.
Again, this limited freedom is also in truth the
highest freedom. 'All things are lawful for me,
l)ut I will not be brought under the power of any'
(6'^). St. Paul's was not a freedom to destroy
freedom. That some at Corinth exposed them-
selves to this danger is quite evident. By indul-
ging in impurity of life, as though that were as
legitimate as eating and drinking, they tended to
alienate their liberty, and bring their soul into
bondage to sin. It is when one recognizes those
limits within which freedom is to be exercised that
one enjoys that perfect freedom which knows no
subjection save to Christ alone.
Christian freedom, then, is a freedom which
must not be applied to the injury of others or of
oneself. In the exercise of liberty one must have
regard to expediency ; one must consider what
course is the most likely to promote the best
interests of oneself and others. In this section
(chs. 6-10) in I Cor. St. Paul tells us again and
again how in all things indifferent he thought of
others. All his actions were founded on the ground
of the higher expediency. Being free from all
men, yet he made liimself servant unto all, that he
might gain the more (9"). He became all things
to all men (9"). He pleased all men in all things,
not seeking his own profit (t6 dfiavroO <rvfitp^poi>), but
the profit of many (1(P).
By some modern critics St. Paul is described as
hard and inflexible, and as incapable of anything
like compromise and accommoaation under any
circumstances. But the above passages, as well
as many others which could be quoted, by no
means confirm this judgment. That he could be
as firm and as inflexible as a rock where a question
of principle was at stake is amply proved by his
statement in Gal 2*, e.g., in the matter of the
attempt to compel Titus to be circumcised : ' to
whom we gave place in the way of subjection, no,
not for an hour.' In his teaching of principles he
was from first to last most resolute and uncom-
promising. But in things indifferent he was ever
ready to go any length in order to avoid giving
offence to others. In such matters it was with
him always a question of expediency, not of rights ;
what was profitable, not what was lawful. To the
Romans he says (Ro 15'): 'We then that are
strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak,
and not to please ourselves.' And again, he tells
the Corinthians (1 Co 8'^): 'Wherefore, if meat
make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh
while the world standeth, lest I make my brother
to offend.' While he held tenaciously to great
principles, and was even ready to sacrifice life
itself in their defence, yet in practical conduct he
was willing to submit to any privation and suffer-
ing to meet the scruples and prejudices of the
weak. And in this mode of conduct he claims
to be following the example of Christ (Ro 15'*-,
1 Co 11').
It will be seen that consideration must be had,
not only for the weak members of the Church of
Christ, but also for those who are without the pale
of the Church. Cf. 1 Co 10*-, where the sphere of
moral obligation is enlarged. Jew and Greek, as
well as the Christian Church, are to be objects of
our Christian solicitude.
(2) The dangers of expediency. — (a) As regards
what is immoral, and so, strictly prohibitive. The
question of expediency involves that of accom-
modation and compromise. Hence in an endeavour
to win men over one must always guard against
allowing oneself to countenance what is unlawful.
EXPEDIEXCT
EYE
387
It is evident that some at Corinth had taken SL
Paul's words ' All things are lawfol unto me ' as a
general maxim. Such persons are always inclined
to have regard to the lawfulness of an action rather
than to its expediency, and so require, for their
An good, to be hrmly treated. 'A great many
innot be pleased unless thou cocker their lust ; so
that if thou wilt be gracious with a many, thou
must not so much regard their salvation as satisfy
their foUy ; neither mayest thou respect what is
expedient, but what they covet to their own
destruction. Thou must not, therefore, study to
please such as like nothing but that is evil ' (Calvin
on Ko 15- [ed. Beveridge, 1S44, p. 396]).
{b) As regards what is indifferent, (i.) It is
possible for the Church to show itself over-
scmpuloos — a thing which would lead to govern-
ment by the weak, and legislation by the unin-
telligent. And so, while the law of love calls upon
the strong not to use their liberty in a reckless
manner, and demands that in certain cases they
should abstain from certain disputed modes of
action, in order not to shock the weak members,
and thus to break down the Church instead of
building it up. still this love requires that this
submission shall not be unlimited. For then the
eak would only be confirmed in their mistake,
hilst the strong would be hindered in their pro-
gress. It is for the strong, therefore, to seek to
lead the weak to a clearer knowledge, and to show
them that the matters in dispute may be contem-
plated from another point of view than the merely
worldly and unethical. Thus accommodation is to
be combined with correction.
(ii.) But perhaps there is less danger of this than
of over-assertiveness, i.e. a strong and persistent
maintaining of one's rights, a^inst which St. Paul
again and again w^ams his readers. By inditference
to external observances we may injure another
man's conscience. To ourselves it is perfectly in-
difi'erent whether we conform to a certain obser-
vance or not. But we are called upon to conform for
the sake of our weak brother. SttU, this call to sub-
mission is not to be always or in all circumstances.
(iii.) Another danger to which a man who always
■nsiders the expediency of his actions is exposed
- '■ -^.r of being misjudged. A mode of conduct
V regulated by consideration for others is
• s open to misconception. And that St. Paul
did not escape the charge of being a mere obsequious
time-server, with no steadfast principle, aiming only
at pleasing men, is eWdent from his writings. TV e
can easily understand how readily such accusations
would be set on foot, and how plausible they could
be made to appear. That they painfully affected
the Apostle's mind is evident from the frequency
of the references he makes to them, and from the
earnestness and deep pathos of feeling which not
infrequently mark these references. It is to such
sinister criticism that he alludes when in 2 Co 5",
after saying ' we persuade men,' he adds, ' but we
are become manifest unto God ' ; i.e. although he
did make a habit of aiming at persuading ( = making
friends of » men, still the unselfishness and sincerity
of his action were known to God. Another refer-
ence to this matter is found in Gal P* ' For am I
now persuading men, or God ? or am I seeking to
please men ? if I were still pleasing men, I shotdd
not be a servant of Christ.' Possibly the reference
here is to his action in the matter of the Jerusalem
Decree (Ac 15) and the circumcision of Timothy
<Ac 16»).
It will be obeerred that the case of TSmothy and that of Titos
<Gal 2*) j^re totally different. The former being by birth ' a aon
■M the law' on tus mother's side, miirht naturally omifonn to
- .16 nsages of what was so far his national reliKiaa. Titos, on
".e other hand, was a pure Gentile, and his circniDdsion was
urged as necesaary, on princiide, and not as a rotxtntmrr sacrifice
to expcAency for the greater good of otben. Hence it is clear
that St. Paul acted with perfect rtmmttmcj. There a no
betrayal of principle, no unwortby mimnat to win tlw
approval of men.
To sum up, we see that expediency in its XT
sense is quite consistent with loyalty to principle.
It denotes the noble aim of one seeking 'the
greatest good of the greatest number.' It is not
the action of a trimmer ever seeking the applause
of men, but rather of a strong man willing to curb
his own personal inclinations for the sake of others.
And it may be said that the more steadfast one is
when principles are at stake the more ready one is
to give way on non-essentials.
LnnunniB.— Newman Smjrth, Ckrittiam SMes, 18BS; H.
Martensen, Chriitian BUuet (SoeuU and Indimdval^ ISSl-SS ;
G. G. FindUy. The MpUOu tf PmU th» ApoMe^ 18B&. See
also the mioiw NT Commwitarins
RoBEET Roberts.
EXPIATIOH.— See Atoxemiixt, Pbopitiatiok,
S-\CBIFICE.
ETE. — In the analogy drawn by St. Paul be-
tween the htunan body and the Church, the eye
(6<l>6a.\fi.os) is named as a member superior in rank
to either the ear or the hand (1 Co 12'*- *^), though
dependent on the co-operation of both. In virtue
of this superiority, the eye becomes proverbial for
that which is precious (Ep. Bam. xix. 9), and St.
Paul writes of the affection of the Galatian Chris-
tians, ' ye would have plucked out your eyes and
given them to me ' (Gal 4'*). Partly in view of
those words, many have argued that St, Paul's
' stake in the flesh ' (2 Co 12") was ophthalmia {e.g.
Creighton, EBi ii col. 1456; Macalister, HDB
iiL p. 331 ; against this view, see the weight v argu-
ments of Lightfoot, Galatians^'*, 1892, p. 191 n.).
The blindness with which St. Paul was seized on
the way to Damascus has been medically described
as ' a temporary amaurosis, such as that which has
been caused by injudiciously looking at the sun'
(Macalister, loc. cit.); the reference to the re-
moval of ' scales ' in the account of his recovery is
a comparison, not a pathological detail (Ac 9*- ^-).
Elymas was smitten with temporary blindness as
a punishment for his opposition to St. Paul (13").
The account of the miraculous restoration of Dorcas
to life (9**) shows that it was customary in Pales-
tine, as elsewhere, to close the eyes of a corpse.
The eyes are frequently named by ap<»tolic
writers in connexion with spiritual blindness or
sight. St. Paul sees the fulfilment of prophecy in
the closed eyes of the Jews in Rome (Ac 28*^ ; cf.
Ro 11*- *•), and is sent to open the eyes of the Gen-
tiles (Ac 26*"). Hatred of a brother is a darkness
blinding the eyes (1 Jn 2"). Christ says to the
Laodicean Church, ' buy eye-salve to anoint thine
eyes, that thou mayest see' (Rev S**). On the
other hand, he who knows Christ has the eyes of
his heart enlightened (Eph !•* ; cf. 1 Clem, xxxvi.
2, lix. 3 ; also the reference in Mart. Folyc. ii. 3
to tortured martjrs, who, ' with the eyes of their
heart,' ga^e upon the good things reserved for
them). The realities revealed by the Spirit of
God are ' things that eye saw not ' (1 Co 2* ; cf.
Ep. ad Diognetum, ii. 1). But these spiritual
realities are built upon historic facts ; the basis
of the Christian gospel was that which apostles
had seen with their eyes (1 Jn 1'). As a cloud hid
Jesus from their eyes at His Ascension (Ac 1*), so,
when He comes with clouds, every eye shall see
Him (Rev 1"). When He is seen in vision. His
eyes are (searching) as a tlame of fire (Rev 1" 2^
19**) ; so, to the eves of Grod, all things are naked
and laid open (He 4»; cf. 1 P 3"). The many
eyes of the ' living creatures ' and of the Lamb of
the Apocalypse symbolically denote vigilance and
range of vision (Rev 4*- * 5*).
There are several references to the psychical and
388
FABLE
FACTION
moral qualities of the eye, according to that ' peri-
pheral consciousness' of Hebrew psycholofnr (see
art. Ear), which is so amply illustrated in the OT
(examples in Mansfield tollene Essays, 1909, p.
275). No doubt, • the lust of the eyes' (1 Jn 2'«)
can be satisfactorily explained to a modern mind
as ' all personal vicious indulj^ence represented by
seeing' (Westcott, ad loc), but a deeper meaning,
corresponding to St. Paul's idea of sin in the flesii
(see art. Man), underlies this phrase, as also that
referring to 'eyes full of adultery' (2 P 2'^; read
fioix^lai with Bigg, ad loc). The most striking
apostolic reference to the eye is that in which St.
Paul rebukes the Gaiatians for letting themselves
be bewitched by (the 'evil eye' of envious) false
teachers, when ne had already ' placarded ' Christ
crucified before their eyes, who should have arrested
their gaze and averted peril (Gal 3' ; cf. Lightfoot,.
ad loc). This expresses the characteristic em-
phasis in apostolic teaching on the positive side
of truth, the expulsion of the false by the true.
Those whose eyes are turned to Christ are trans-
formed into the same image, from glory to glory
(2 Co 3"* ; cf. Odes of Solomon, xiii. 1) ; those who
look at things unseen find their inward man re-
newed day by day, even in the midst of visible
affliction (2 Co 41"-").
H. Wheeler Robinson.
F
FABLE.— In the NT (AV and RV) ' fable ' is the
translation of ixvdo%. But it is not the myth
charged with high moral teaching as in Plato, for
both word and thing have degenerated into the
expression of fantastic, false, and profitless opinions.
/iC^oj is opposed to the historic story (\670s) or to
actual fact (dXiJ^eta) ; cf. art. ' Pable' in HDB, vol. i.
This is seen in the references : 1 Ti !•* ' Neither
to give heed to fables . . . the which minister
questionings rather than a dispensation of God '
[RV] ; 1 Ti 4P ' profane and old wives' fables ' ; 2
Ti 4* ' turn aside unto fables ' ; Tit 1" ' not giving
heed to Jewisli fables ' ; 2 P 1'* * We did not follow
cunningly devised fables.'
The Pastoral Epistles give a vivid picture of the
state of religious feeling in Ephesus, and the
Roman Province of Asia generally, in the years
A.D. 60-70. It was a favourable soil for the rank
growth of the fables and curiously wrought em-
bellishments of OT history, mention of which we
find in the Pastorals. There is no diflerence of
opinion as to their origin. They were Jewish, and
the Gnosticism supposed to be found in them is as
yet incipient and hardly conscious of itself.
For an explanation of the origin of these fables
we must turn to the accretions of legend and
allegory that grew up in the Jewish mind round
the great scenes and personages of the OT. It
was said that an oral law, ' the law that is on the
lip,' supplementary to the written law, had also
been given on Sinai, and handed down by teachers
from Moses through the centuries. This was added
to and illustrated by the teaching of the Rabbis,
and in course of time became a supplement to the
written law of the Pentateuch — a supplement so
ponderous that often the text was overlaid and
almost buried in the commentary. To this our
Lord made reference when He asked ' Why do ye
also transgress the commandment of God because
of your traditions ? ' (Mt 15^). These rank growths,
in deference to which they 'paid tithes of mint
and anise and cummin and left undone mercy and
faith,' had run riot in the Asian Church. Men
were turning back from the worship of ' the King,
eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God,' to
old wives' fables, the profane and senile curiosities
of people in their dotage. Jewish and heathen
speculations had seduced their minds from the
essential parts of the Christian faith.
We have specimens of these ' feigned words ' in
the numerous legends of the Talmud, the far-
fetched subtleties of Rabbinical teaching, and in
the allegorizing of Philo. Timothy, therefore,
was sent to recall the Church to the pure milk of
the word, and to nourish it on ' the words of the
faith.' 'Such,' says J. H. Newman, 'was the
conflict of Christianity with the old established
Paganism ; with the Oriental Mysteries, Hitting
wildly to and fro like spectres' (Develomiicnt of
Christian Doctrine, 1878, p. 358). In 2 P l'« the
writer is replying to a taunt by which the opponents
of Christianity tried to turn the tables on the
teachers of the Faith. These had denounced the
religious fables with which men were deluding
themselves, and to that the reply was a ' tu quoque.'
The Christian doctrine, they .said, was also built
upon fable, and its preachers were fraudulent and
sophistical persons (o-eo-o^tcr/u^j'oO who for ambition
or filthy lucre's sake were exploiting the churches.
To this the author of 2 Peter replies : ' We did not
follow cunningly devised fables.' In proof of his
religious certainty — certitiido veritatis — he writes,.
* we were eye-Avitness of his majesty ' ; and for
certitiido salutis he adds, 'we have the day-star
rising in our hearts.' The answer is still valid.
Against the charge of following sophistical fables
the modern apologetic turns to ' the fact of Christ,'
and the heart stands up and answers, ' I have felt.'
W. M. Grant.
FACTION. — Among the works of the Hesh are ipit
and ipideiai, 'strife' and 'factions' (Gal 5^). ipidda. is
selfish intriguing for office (Aristotle, Pol. v. 2, 3),
partisanship, party-spirit.
(1) P'action was rampant in the free cities of
Greece. Personalities were frequently exalted
above principles, and the public good was sacrificetl
to private ends. Men were partisans before they
were patriots. The same spirit penetrated the
Church. While St. Paul, Apollos, and Cephas,
differing only»in personal idiosyncrasies, preached
essentially the same gospel, their names quickly
became the party-cries of wrangling sects in the
Corinthian Church. ' There are contentions (fpiStf,
' rivalries ') among j'ou ' (1 Co 1") ; ' there is among
you jealousy and strife ' (^pis, 3'), wrote St. Paul Uy
these typical Hellenes. He had to use all his re-
sources of reason and appeal to overcome their
'strife, jealousy, wraths, factions' (2 Co 12*').
(2) St. Paul's arrival in Rome awoke another,
stranger kind of partisanship in the Roman Church
(Ph V^^^). His presence moved the preachers of
the city ; it quickened the evangelical pulse ; but,
while some began to preach Christ in good-will to
him {81 fi'doKLay), others did it through envy and
strife (Sik pddvov /cai Hpiv), out of faction (^{ tpiOtiai),
not purely or sincerely {ayvQi). They emulated
his labours in the hope of robbing him of his
laurels ; then actually imagined that their brilliant
succe-sses would 'add affliction to his bonds.' But
the Paul wljose amour propre might have beea
FAIR HAVENS
FAITH
389
-wounded by shafts of that kind had long ago Iseen
"'crucitied with Christ." The Paul who lived, or
rather in whom Christ lived (Gal 2*'), only rejoiced
if there were indeed greater preachers than himself
in Rome. Among true apostles and evangelists
there is no room for jealous contention, ignoble
rivalry, in the publication of the gospel. Only one
thing matters— that Christ be preached and His
name glorified. St. Paul's great-mindedness is
similar to that expressed in Browning's Paracelsus :
' Lo, I forget my ruin, and rejoice
In thy success," as thou '. Let our God's praise
Go bravely through the world at last '. What care
Through me or thee ? '
James Stbahax.
FAIR HAYENS (KaXol AtM^vei).— Fair Havens is
& small bay in the S. coast of Crete, where St.
Paul's ship, after working slowly westward under
the lee of the island, found shelter in rough weather
(Ac 27*). It is not referred to in any other ancient
writing besides Acts, but its name is still preserved
in the modem dialect — Aijuewvas KaXoi/j. While
exposed to the E., it was protected on the S.W.
by two small islands. In this roadstead the
Apostle's ship remained 'a considerable time'
{'ucaifov xpovov) weather-bound, strong N.W. winds
apparentlj' continuing to blow. Two leagues west-
ward is Cape Matala, where the coast abruptly
trends to the N., so that if an attempt were
made to round the point the ship would certainly
be exposed to the full force of the wind. But as
it was feared that Fair Havens was not commodious
enough to winter in, a council was held, the ac-
count of which atlbrds a vivid and instructive
glimpse into life on an ancient government trans-
port. While the captain and ship-master (6 vav-
■kXtipos) thought it better to make a dash for Port
Phoenix {q.v.), St. Paul considered it more pru-
dent to remain where they were. The Roman
centurion naturally ' gave more heed ' to the
nautical experts than to the landsman, as did the
majority {ol vXeiovs); but, as Smith remarks, 'the
event justified St. Paul's advice.'
* It now appears . . . that Fair Havens is so well protected by
islands, that though not equal to Lutro, it mast be a very fair
winter harbour; and that considering the suddenness, the fre-
quency, and the ^-iolence with which gales of northerly wind
spring up, and the certainty that, if such a gale sprang up in
the passage from Fair Havens to Lutro, the ship must be driven
off to sea, the prudence of the advice given by the master and
owner was extremely questionable, and that the advice given by
St. Paul may probablv be supported even on nautical grounds '
<J. Smith, Voyage and Shipic'reek of St. PavU, 18S0, p. S5X
LiTKiLiTrRK.— W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Trartllerand the
Roman Citizen, 1S95, p. S20 f. See also artt. in Bible Diction-
aries, esp. HDB i. S26 (W. Muir).
James Strahax,
FAITH.— 1. In the Acts of the Apostles.— In the
Acts faith is spoken of as (1) inspired by Christ,
(2) directed to Christ, (3) corresponding to Christian
teaching.
(1) After St. Peter had healed the lame man, he
explained that the miracle had been wrought by
the power of God by faith in the name of the
' Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead ' ;
"• yea, the faith which is through him (^ 5i' aih-oC)
hath given him this perfect soundness in the pre-
sence of you all ' (3^*). The health-bringing faith
both in the apostles and the cripple had been in-
spired by Jesus, the Holy One.
(2) More frequently the faith is directed to Jesus
Christ. Thus the general statement is made :
' Many believed on (Ivl) the Lord ' (^). St. Paul
enjoins the Philippian jailer : ' Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ' (16^^). Similarly Crispus, the ruler
of the synagogue, ' believed in the Lord with all
his house ' (IS** ; iirirrexxTev T(fi #ci;pt<^= ' believed the
Lord'). In all these cases the faith is directed to
the Lord Jesus Christ.
(3) In several passages ' the faith ' is equivalent
to the Christian faith or Christian religion. In
describing the multipl5-ing of the disciples in Jeru-
salem it is said : ' A ijreat company of the priests
were obedient to the taith ' (6^). In C3'prus Elymas
opposed the apostles, 'seeking to turn aside the
proconsul from the faith' (13*). St. Paul returned
to the towns in Asia, ' confirming the souls of the
disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith'
(H*"-). In each of these cases 'the faith' has
already become the phrase to express all that is
implied by believing m Christ.
We can see the transition from (2) to (3) in the
expression used by St. Peter when speaking of the
work of God among the Gentiles. He says that
God made no distinction, 'cleansing their hearts
by faith ' or ' by the faith ' (15®).
This leads us to note that in Acts faith is made
the medium for healing, cleansing, and salvation.
The largest result of faith is announced by St. Paul
when he promises to the jailer salvation for him-
self and his household as the blessing ^ven to
faith in Jesus Christ. The gift of the HoTj- Spirit
is associated Avith faith in Christ, as in the case of
Cornelius and his friends who welcomed the preach-
ing of the gospel by St. Peter, so that ' while Peter
yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all
them which heard the word ' ( 10"). More generally
the gift of the Holy Spirit follows baptism and
the laying on of hands, as in the case of the disciples
of John the Baptist (19^) and the Samaritans whom
Philip had led to believe in Jesus Christ {8'').
It is noteworthy that in describing both Stephen
and Barnabas it is said of each that he was ' full of
faith and of the Holy Spirit ' (6* 11*^), and probably
it is implied that each had received not only the
permanent gift of the Spirit (Stapedp, 2^) but also
the graces {xapifffuiTa, 1 Co 12^) imparted by Him
through a full and obedient faith.
2. In the Epistle of St. James.- This Epistle must
have been writteueither in the very earliest apostolic
times or in a period that is almost post -apostolic.
The whole Epistle is practical and undogmatic,
and lays the chief emphasis on ethical observance.
The writer appreciates the value of faith when he
refers to those who are ' rich in faith ' (2^) and to
the ' prayer of faith ' (5^') ; but in the section of
the Epistle which deals with faith and works, it is
not too much to say that he looks upon faith with
a measure of suspicion. In this argument (2^*"*)
the writer evidently defines ' faith ' in his own
mind as intellectual assent to DiWne truth, and
with his undogmatic prepossessions he becomes
almost antidogmatic in tendency. The Apostle
describes this faith not as false or feigned, but as
having such reality only as the faith of demons in
the oneness of God. To him 'faith' is far from
being an enthusiastic acceptance of a Divine Re-
deemer.
If the Epistle was written in very early times,
the argument must move more on Judaic than on
Christian grounds, and a certain corroboration of
this is found in the fact that the illustrations are
taken from OT examples like Abraham and Rahab,
and that the typical example chosen is belief in the
unity of God, which was the war-cry of the Jew as
it became in later days that of the Muhammadan.
If the later date is chosen, then time must be left
for a general acceptance of Christian truth so that
' faith ' had become assent to Christian dogma. In
either case the argument of the Epistle cannot be
regarded as a direct polemic against the teaching
of St. Paul. The two writers move in different
-spheres of thought, so that, while words and
phrases are alike, theii- definitions are as the
IX)les asunder. An instance of this is found in the
words with which St. James closes the section on
'faith.' The Apostle has already declared : 'Faith,
if it have not works, is dead in itself ' (2"), so now
390
FAITH
FAITH
he Slims up : ' As the body apart from tlic -pirit is
dead, even so faitli apart from works is iK-ail (2-*).
Here we find that so far from faitii being the in-
spiration of works, as St. Paul miglit suggest, St.
James teaches that works are tlie inspiration of
faith. Faith may be a mere dead body unless
works prove to be an inner spirit to make it alive.
This declaration agrees with the writer's whole
attitude, for throughout this letter he insists that
the practical carrying out of ' the faith of our Lord
Jesus Christ' is found in obedience to ' the royal
law ' : ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'
This practice of the will of Christ makes faith to
be alive.
3. In the Epistles of St. Paul. — In the writings
of St. Paul ' faith ' and ' grace ' are the human and
the Divine sides of the great experience tliat revolu-
tionized his own life and the lives of many to whom
the gospel was brought. Occasionally faith is
spoken of as being directed to God, but commonly
it is directed to Jesus Christ. Thus in Gal 2'* St.
Paul writes : ' Knowing tliat a man is not justified
by the worksof the law, save (butonly,^ai'/u^) through
faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Christ
Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ.'
Here the reiteration is singular, but the insistence
on ' faith in Christ ' is characteristically Pauline.
To St. Paul the only faith that is of value is the
faitli that rests on Jesus Christ our Lord, who was
made in the likeness of men, died for our sins, and
rose again from the dead. The Death of Christ
occupies so large a place in his thought that he is
determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and
Him cruciHed (1 Co 2-), while he insists so strongly
on tlie Resurrection as to declare : ' If Christ hatn
not been raised, your faith is vain ' (15^'').
Tliis revolutionizing faith is awakened by the
preaching of the gospel : ' Belief cometh of hearing,
and hearing by the word of Christ ' (Ro 10"), i.e. by
the word concerning Christ, or, as it is called earlier
(Ro 10"), ' the word of faith,' i.e. the word that deals
with justifying faith. This faith, according to St.
Paul, brings salvation. Thus in Eph V^ ' the word
of the truth ' is the medium by which faith comes,
and through faith comes salvation. So in Eph 2^ it
is said : ' By grace have ye been saved through faith'
{SiciTrjs Tr/ffrewy, not 5(d ttjv irLariv, i.e. through faith as
a means, not on account of faith as a ground of
salvation). Hearing and faith are associated in a
similar way in the Epistle to the Galatians, as the
means by which the gift of the Spirit came. ' Re-
ceived ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by
the hearing of faith?' (Gal 3*), and the meaning
varies little whether we conceive of faith as the
accompaniment of hearing or as its product. It is
possible to infer from Eph P^'- that the gift of the
opirit was received after, not contemporjineously
with, the act of faith. ' Having also believed, ye
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.' The
sealing with the Spirit is j^osterior to the act of
faitli and may be associated with the rite of baptism,
which came to be known as a sealing ordinance.
St. Paul dwells frequently upon faith as a definite
act in his own life and in the lives of Christian
converts. Two instances only need be given. In
Gal 2'* he says : ' We believed on Christ Jesus,'
where the verb iTrKrTevffa/itv denotes one definite
act in the past when they turned in faith to (e/s)
Christ Jesus. Even more marked is the sentence
in Ro 13" : 'Now is salvation nearer to us (ij Sre
€7rt(rTei;(rayaei')than when we believed,' i.e. than when
we by a definite act of faith became Christians.
In St. Paul's experience and teaching this act of
faith leads to a life of faith, so tliat he can write of
himself : ' That life whicli I now live in the flesh I
live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God,
wlio loved me and gave himself for me' (Gal 2**).
Faith is not a solitary act but a continuous attitude
of the inner life towards Christ Jesus. But this
does not iniply tliat either at the beginning or
during its course this faith is perfect ; it may be
halting even when real, and when livin<i it grows
ever stronger ' by faith unto faith ' (Ro 1"). Faith
is weak in the experience of many, .sometimes in
opi)Osition to the enticing [Mjwer of evil when flesh
lusts against spirit, sometimes in opiHJsition to law
as a ground of salvation, and sometimes in failing to
appreciate what Christian truth implies. This la.8t
form of weakness is discussed by St. Paul towards
tlie close of the Epistle to the Romans (14), where
those weak in faith do not understand the extent
of their freedom in Christ, and find themselves
bound in conscience by irritating non-Christian
customs. St. Paul commends a faith that is stronger
find freer, but he declares that none must act in
defiance of their faith. They must be clear in
mind and conscience before they break even these
customs. ' Whatsoever isnot of faith is sin' (RoH'*').
Even when Christians are perfect {r^Xeioi, Ph 3"),
possessors of a mature faithas well as full knowledge,
they have not reached the goal, but they must
still press on toward the goal unto the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus (v.^*).
For St. Paul faith was an experience that
touched the inmost part of his nature, but it had
perforce to find outward expression. Faith and
profession are necessarily united. The believer in
Christ must be a witness for Christ. The state-
ment of Ro 10*° puts succinctly what St. Paul con-
stantly implies : ' With the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation.' These are not so much
independent acts as two sides of the same act.
Internally faith in Christ brings a change of heart,
externally it implies confession of the Lord. This
confession finds its formal expression in baptism,
and the Apostle expected that in this way as well
as in more homely ways this public confession
would be made. In St. Paul's view the believer
in Christ must be a professing Christian.
If faith must be associated with such outward
testimony it must be even more intimately associ-
ated with many Christian graces, and especially
with love or charity. St. Paul in his eulogy of
love (1 Co 13) declares tliat among the great abid-
ing virtues love is the chief. ' If I have all faith
so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I
am nothing' (1 Co 13"). This exalted praise of
love is the more remarkable because St. Paul is
the champion of faith in the great controversy of
which we get his own statement in the Epistles to
Galatians and Romans (Gal 2 and 3, Ro 1-5). St.
Paul's experience on the way to Damascus when
he was convinced of the Messiahship and Lordship
of Jesus of Nazareth became the dominant factor
in all his life, and led to his abandonment of al-
legiance to law and to the strenuous vindication
of the place of faith in the religious life. Before
his conversion St. Paul had sought iustification
with God by a religious obedience to the Law, but
faith in Jesus Christ changed his whole attitude
and revolutionized his whole thought. Faith in
Christ was not conceived by him primarily as
bringing a new power in attaining the end that
he had previously kept in view, for now he be-
lieved that justification had been attained at once
tlirough faith in Christ by the grace of God.
Justification was the beginning of true life, not a
blessing to be attained at the end (Gal 2'*).
The faith which receives this blessint; is faith in
Christ Jesus. This faith is conceived by St. Paul
not as a mere intellectual a.ssent or as a recogni-
tion of the unseen world, but as an enthusiastic
trust in Christ as Saviour, and as a complete devo-
tion to Him as Lord. The whole inner nature,
including mind, heart, and will, is committed to
FAITH
FAITH
391
Him in trust and devotion. In receiving Jesus as
Christ, St. Paul gave himself to Jesus as Lord.
This'saving faith became the medium of all Divine
blessing to St. Paul, and, drawing upon his own
experience, he taught that it would be and must
be the medium of blessing to all. Hence he gloried
in the gospel, ' for therein is revealed a righteous-
ness of God by faith unto faith' (Ro 1"). The
gospel could thus become a universal message for
mankind, for it dealt with all men alike as sinners,
and ottered to all who believed in Christ the
righteousness of God, * being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus' (3^).
After this illuminating experience of the grace
of God came to St. Paul he turned back to the OT
and found in its pages that in the religious experi-
ence there narrated the blessings of God had come
also through faith. Thus ' to Abraham his faith
was reckoned for righteousness' (Ro 4®, Gal 3').
So David pronounced blessing upon the man unto
whom Gou reckoneth righteousness apart from
works (Ro 4*). He found that Gods method had
always been the same. His grace had reached its
end when a human heart had responded in faith.
Tliis truth is utterlj- opposed to St. Paul's former
belief that righteousness came by the Law, and
both in Rom. and Gal. he labours to prove that,
whatever the work of the Law was, it was not
to gain a right standing with (rod. It had a
mission even concerning faith, but it was the
mission of an attendant slave to bring those who
were in ward unto Christ ; but when that mission
was fulfilled, they were no longer under law, but
were all sons of God, through faith in Christ
Jesus (Gal 3-^*). Thus the Christian life is re-
garded as a free, loving, spiritual ser\-ice, of which
faith in Christ is the prime origin and the constant
inspiration.
In the Pastoral Epistles that are usually associ-
ated with the name of St. Paul we find ' the faith '
frequently used as equivalent to the Christian
faith or teaching. Thus in 1 Tim. we find :
'Some made shipwreck concerning the faith' (P').
Deacons must hold the ' mystery of the faith in a
pure conscience ' (3®). ' In later times some shall
fall away from the faith' (4^). 'If any provideth
not for his own, and specially his own household,
he hath denied the faith ' (5*). It is inferred by
some that the use of ' the faith ' in this sense im-
plies a late date for this Epistle, possibly consider-
ably after St. Paul's death ; but it is significant
that in Gal., Avhich is among the very earliest of
the Pauline Epistles, there is found the expres
sion : ' Before the faith came, we were kept in
ward under the law, shut up unto the faith which
should afterwards be revealed ' (Gal S'-*^). Here
the Apostle describes the early period not as the
time before faith came, for faith was found already
in the OT. but as the time before the faith came,
I.e. the faith of Christ. Thus in this early Epistle
we have the starting-point for the later use.
4. In the Epistle to the Hebrews. — In this
Epistle faith has not the content that has been
foTind in the Epistles of St. Paul. It is true that
when the writer is speaking of ' the first principles
of Christ ' he mentions first, in a manner sug-
gestive of St. Paul's phrases, the ' foundation of
repentance from dead works, and of faith toward
God ' (firl 6f6v, 6^). But even here ' dead works '
is not used in the Pauline sense as works done
apart from Christ or as works of themselves, and
' faith ' is not the enthusiastic trust in Christ
which St. Paul enshrines as the central feature
of experience and dogma. In Heb., faith may be
defined in general terms as the human response to
the word of God. When man refuses to respond,
he is guilty of unbelief and of hardness of heart ;
when he responds to God speaking to him, then he
believes. God sent His word through agents, such
as angels (2"-) and prophets (1^), but especially in
the last times He has spoken through His Son, and
has borne witness to this message by 'signs and
wonders, by manifold powers, and by gifts of the
Holy Ghost' (2*- *). Faith is the obedient response
to this word of God, and has been found in all
those who have become ' the cloud of witnesses '
(12^). The secret of the assurance, devotion, and
endurance of the OT saints is found in their
unceasing confidence in the God who revealed
Himself to them (1^). The greatest example of
this faith was Jesus Himself, 'the author and
perfecter of faith ' (12-), who led the way in the
career of faith and embodied in His own life its full
realization. This believing response to the word
of God produces within the mind certain activities,
the chief of which the MTiter describes when he
^ves faith its well-known definition (11*) : 'Faith
is the assurance of things hoped for (or it gives
substance to things hoped for), the proving of
things not seen (or the conviction of unseen
realities.)' Faith is the conviction of the reality
of things not made known through the senses, and,
so far as religion is concerned, it is produced by
the word of God.
It ought to be observed that throughout this
Epistle there is also implied a fjuth in the work
of God by Christ, the great High Priest and
Mediator of a new covenant. Possibly this work
ought to be regarded as a part of the word of
God, for the writer conceives of God's word coming
in the OT through such works as the arrangements
of the tabernacle (9*), as weU as by spoken message,
and the work of Christ may be conceived as in its
entiretj' the message of God to men. On the
other hand, it is possible that the writer, having
described the complete priestly work done by
Christ, regards faith as the response to the call
then made by God to enter into His immediate
fellowship. Those who respond will draw near
to God 'in full assurance of faith' (eV r\i}po<fH>piq.
Turrews, 10~).
5. In the Epistles of St. Peter.— There is little
that is distinctive in the doctrinal teaching of
these Epistles, and analogies may be found with
both St. Paul and St. James. The writer of 1
Pet. makes Christ the object of faith. ' on whom {els
of), though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye
rejoice with joy unspeakable ' (1*). He also makes
Christ the means of faith in God : Christ ' was
manifested at the end of the times for your sake,
who through him (5i' airrov) are believers in God '
(eis dedv, 1^ *^). Similarly those who are suffering
greatly are called upon to ' commit their souls in
well-doing unto a faithful Creator' (4^), where in
a tinique phrase God as Creator is presented as the
object of trust. Throughout 1 Pet. salvation is
regarded as future, certainly near at hand, but
still as an inheritance to which Christians are to
look fonvard. Hence those who are begotten unto
this living hope must look upon the trials they are
undergoing as tests of their faith (1®), and must
recall that, as Christ suflered in the flesh, they
must arm themselves with the same mind (4*).
But the real defence is the power of God, by wliich
they are guarded through laith (1'). Faith brings
under the power of God those who are tried, so
that at last they will receive the end of their faith,
even the salvation of their souls (1').
6. In the Epistles of St. John.— 'Faith' is not
the dominant conception in these Epistles, but
' light,' ' knowledge,' ' love.' Faith and love are pre-
sented as twin commands : ' This is his command-
ment, that we should believe in the name of his
Son Jesus Christ, and love one another' (1 Jn 3**).
The thought is somewhat varied when the writer
392
FAITHFULNESS
FAITHFULNESS
says that a believer in Christ receives new life
from God, and one si<jn of that new life is that he
loves God who bejjat nim, and also every other one
who is begotten in the same way (5^). True faith
includes genuine love. The knowledge of God, of
Christ, and of ourselves leads to faith. • We know
and have believed tlie love which God hath in us'
(4") ; but faith also develops into a deeper and
surer knowledge : ' These things have I written
unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal
life, even unto you that believe on the name of the
Son of God ' {5'3).
Through faith there comes also victory over the
world and all the i)owers of the world. ' This is
the victory that hath overcome the world, even our
faith ' (5*). Thus he that believes that Jesus is the
Son of God passes by the way of forgiveness, know-
ledge, and love into an assured confidence and a
great victory over the world and the things that
are in the world.
7. In the Apocalypse.— It is unnecessary to
examine the Apocalypse in detail, for it does not
deal with either the nature or the defence of faith.
In some respects it rises to a higher level as poetic
and prophetic expression is given in it to the
energy of the deep religious faith that abounds in
the heart of the writer. In the Apocalypse we
have described for us in words and pictures the
unity and power of God, the dominion of Christ
over the Church and the world, and the triumphant
victory of the Kingdom of God over all the powers
of evil. With all its problems and mysteries, this
book has proved in times of despair the means of
begetting and sustaining faith in Jesus Christ as
' the ruler of the kings of the earth ' (1").
8. Conclusion. — In whatever ways the apostles
differ in their method of regarding faith, they
agree in the underlying thouj^ht that in and by
it there is oneness with Jesus Christ. This union
is dwelt upon by St. Paul especially in passages
that deal with the ' unio mjrstica ' (Eph I^^, 1 Co 12'-,
etc.), but it appears also in the argument of 1 Jn.
(2^). To make this oneness real, there is required
less mere intellectual discernment than willingness
of heart to commit soul and life to God in Christ.
This faith is the answer of the heart to the grace
of God, and is associated always with repentance
and is accompanied by love and other Christian
graces. Tims the writer of 2 Pet. is at one with
all the apostles in saying to Christians that when
they become partakers of the Divine nature ( 1*) they
are bound to add to the faith — that is funda-
mental— virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience,
godliness, love of the brethren, love. Faith, that
makes a believer a sharer in Christ's salvation,
makes him also a sharer in Christ's mind and char-
acter.
LiTERATURB.— H. BushncU, The New Life, 1860, p. 44 ; J. C.
Hare, The Victory of Faith\ 1874 ; J. T. O'Brien, The Nature
and the Ejects of Faith*, 1S77 ; N. Smyth, The Reality of
Faith, 1888, also The Religiou-i Feeling — a Study for Faith,
n.d. ; J. Kaftan, Glaube und Dogina^, 1889 ; C. Gore, in Lux
Muiwiii'i, 1891, p. 1 ; J. W. Diggrle, Religious Doubt, 1895, p.
28; J. Haussleiter, 'Was versteht Paulus unter christlichem
Olauben?' in Greifsioalder Stiidien, 1895, p. 159 flf.; G. B.
Stevens, Doctrine and Life, 1895, p. 191 ; A. Schlatter, Der
Glaube im NT'-, 1890 ; J. Martineau, Faith a7id Self-Surrender,
1897; W. Herrmann, Faith and MuraU, 1904; G. Ferries,
The Growth of Christian Faith, 1905 ; E. GrifBth-Jones, Faith
and Verilication, 1907 ; W. R. Inge, Faith, 1909 ; H. C. G.
Moule, Paith, 1909 ; P. Charles, La Foi, 1910 ; P. Gardner,
The Religious Experience of St. Paul, 191l/x>. 206 ; H. Marten-
sen-Larsen, Zweifel und Glaube, 1911 ; D. L. Ihmels, Fides
irnplicita und der evangelitche Ueilsglaxibe, 1912 ; A. Nairne,
The Kpistle of Priesthood, 1913, p. 386 ff. ; W. M. Ramsay,
The Teaching of Paul, 1913, pp. 56, 163, 170, 182.
D. Macrae Tod.
FAITHFULNESS.— 1. Faithfulness of God.— The
apostolic writers agree with the general biblical
teaching in ascribing faithfulness to God as ' keep-
ing covenant and mercy with them that love him
and keep his commandments to a thousand gener-
ations' (Dt 7"). Two general examples may l)e
given. (I) Among the faithful sayings in the NT
letters, there is found one in 2 Ti 2"'", where the
writer speaks of the sufferings that he gladly en-
dures, for ' if we died with him, we shall also live
with him ... if we are faithless, he abideth
faithful ; for he cannot deny himself.' God's faith-
fulness rested ujxm His own nature and not ui>on
any human contingencies.
(2) The writer or Hebrews elaborated this truth
when he dealt with the blessings that were to come
in and through Abraham. In order that he and
all believers might have greater assurance, God
not only made gracious promises, but also inter-
posed with an oath so that He might show more
abundantly unto the heirs of the iiromise the im-
mutability of His counsel. God's faithfulness was
assured both by promise and by oath (He 6'*'^).
This Divine faithfulness was made by the apostles
the ground of forgiveness and cleansing to those
who confessed their sins (1 Jn P), of deliverance in
temptation from the power of evil (I Co 6'^, 2 Th 3*),
and of confidence in the final salvation of tho.se
who were called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ
(1 Co P, 1 Th 5'''').
2. Faithfulness of Christ. — It is noteworthy that
in the Apocalypse, where Christians are being en-
couraged to endure, the faithfulness of Christ is
made prominent. Thus He is called tiie faithful
witness (Rev P 3'^), and victory is ascribed to Him
who is 'faithful and true' (19"). But it is in
Hebrews again that we find this faithfulness en-
larged upon. In the earlier sections of that Epistle,
where the writer is comparing the work of Christ
with tliat wrought by angels and prophets, he
shows that both Moses and Christ were examples
of faithfulness, but Christ excelled, insomuch as a
son's faithfulness over God's house excels in quality
that of a servant in the house. ' He hath been
counted of more glory than Moses, by so much as
he that built the house hath more honour than the
house' (He 3i-«).
3. Faithfulness of Christians. — In the back-
ground of every Christian life the apostles placed
the example of Christ and the attributes of God,
and thus the faithfulness they sought to practise
and instil was linked with the faithfulness of God.
For this reason St. Paul repelled with heat the
charge of fickleness that had been brought against
him by critics in Corinth (2 Co P*--^). He acknow-
ledged that there had been an alteration in certain
details of his plans, but he asserted that this was
due not to any passing inconsistency in his mind,
but to greater faithfulness to his unchangeable
desire to help them. He had not changed his plans
capriciously, sajnng ' Yes ' to-day and ' No ' to-
morrow, but he' had adhered to principles as un-
changeable as the gospel he preached. As God
was faithful to His promise, so the Ajjostle did not
vacillate ; as Christ was unchangeable, .so was St.
Paul. The steadfastness of St. Paul and of all
Christians found its source in the Divine stablish-
ing in Christ. This is only one example of the
apostolic belief that constant faithfulness in Ciiris-
tian life came from faith in Christ, ' the faitliful
and true,' while apostatizing from the living God
came from an evil heart of unbelief (He 3'*).
The faithfulness urged by the apostles covered
the whole of life. It must be shown by Christians
in their ordinary callings. When many Mere in-
clined, in view of the near approacli of the Day of
the Lord, to abandon their ordinary occupations,
St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that all must
work with quietness and eat their own l)read, and
that none must leave their common work antl live
in idleness (2 Th 3). In like manner St. Paul wrote
more than once that those who were called to be
Christians must abide faithfully in their callings
FAITHFULNESS
FALL
393
and perfonii their duties. Masters must put a new
spirit into tlieir oversight ; slaves must become
only the more diligent and faitliful in their service ;
husbands and wives must remain faithful to their
marriage vows, even when the new bond to Christ
has l)een fashioned.
Within the Christian Church those called to any
■duty were required to exercise their gifts faith-
fully. He who was called to be a minister of God
was reminded that a steward must be found faith-
ful (1 Co 4-). Each one must be faithful to the
graces given by the Spirit, whether of prophecy,
teaching, giving, or ruling: (Ro 1"2*). St. Paul
■claimed that he exhibited his faithfulness in teach-
ing when he was dealing vrith the case of fathers
and their unmarried daughters (1 Co 7*). ^^^len
he was expressing his judgment on this matter he
said that he had no ' command ' {(nrayi^y) to con-
vey, but he gave his settled 'opinion' {yvufiTf/w),
conscious that in so doing he was faithful to his
stewardship under Christ.
As apostles were expected to be faithful in their
teaching, so all Christians were expected to be
faithful to the teaching they had received. As
some of them were in danger of being ' carried
about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight
of men, in craitiness, after the wiles of error'
( Eph 4" ; cf . He IS**), they must all be on their guard
to hold fast the faith of Christ, and, in spite of all
anti-Christian influences, they must hold the tradi-
tions which they were taught, whether by word or
by Epistle of the Apostle (2 Th 2^*). Indeed, in the
Epistle to the Hebrews faith itself is almost iden-
titied Arith steadfast loyalty to the Unseen God,
and thus passes into faithfulness, which marks the
believer under manifold trials.
In the apostolic life faithfulness to friends, and
especially to those who were fellow-workers, was
greatly prized. The first necessity for a Christian
worker is that he should be, like Lydia, ' faithful
to Christ ' {ricr-rriv ry Kvpitfi, Ac 16^') ; but he should
be also, like Timothy, ' faithful in Christ ' {narov ev
Kvpii^j, 1 Co 4^"), i.e. faithful in the sphere of Chris-
tian duty. This faithfulness is required to be
shown not only to those for whom work is done,
but also to those with whom it is done. Thus when
St. Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Colossians of
Tychicus his messenger as ' the beloved brother
and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the
Lord' (Col 4"), and of Onesimus as 'the faithful
and beloved brother ' (4^), he has before his mind
chiefly the fidelity of these two brethren to himself
the apostle and prisoner of the Lord. In 2 Tim.
we have represented the unfaithfulness of Demas,
who had forsaken the Apostle, ' having loved this
present world ' ; the faithfulness of St. Luke his
companion — the beloved physician, who had re-
mained true to him to the end ; and the renewed
faithfulness of John Mark, who had deserted St.
Paul at one time, but who in later years was a
proved and faithful servant (2 Ti 4"*- ").
Christian faithfulness was to be observed through-
out the whole of life, and especially through the
many trials and tribulations of Christian experi-
ence. In the Epistles of St. Paul we find the
Apostle on no fewer than six ditlerent occasions
calling upon his readers to ' stand fast ' : ' Stand
fast in the faith' (rrriKeTe, ' stand firmly and faith-
fully,' 1 Co 161*) . . stand fast in the liberty ' (Gal
5') ; ' in one spirit' (Ph l^^) ; 'in the Lord' (Ph 4^,
1 Th 3*) ; ' and hold the traditions which ye were
taught ' (2 Th 2^=). St. Paul was urgent that be-
lievers should be faithfxil to the highest in all
their varied experiences. In the Apocalypse we
find the same insistence. The Church at Smyrna
was exhorted to be ' faithful unto death ' (Rev 2'*),
and the Church at Pergamum was commended
for faithfulness even in the days when ' witness-
ing ' for Christ became * martyrdom ' in the later
meaning of that word (v."). This extreme faith-
fulness was founded on faith in God and love
to Christ, but it was glorified still further by the
expectation of 'receiving the promise' (He lO**),
of enjoying the 'great recompense of reward'
(v.'*), and of being awarded 'tne crown of life'
(Rev 2^*'). Even when faithfulness meant for apos-
tolic Christians their resisting unto blood, they
were sustained by the thought of the Master, who
after enduring the Cross had entered into His
joy and was set do\^Ti at the right hand of the
throne of God (He 12*).
LiTBRATTRB.— W. A- Bntler, Sermotu^, Ist »er., 1S52, p.
155 ; H. Bashnell, The Xfic Life, ISeO, p. 191 ; J. L. Jones,
FaiU^ful^lM*, 1890, p. 2 ; A. Shepherd, The Re^pongOnlity oj
Gud, 1906; W. H. G. Thomas, in Wegtmimter BibU Coi^er-
enee, Mondeeley, 1912, p. 143.
D. Macrae Tod.
FALL. — It is now generally recognized by
scholars that the story of the Fall in Genesis is to
be regarded neither as literal history, as Irenaeus,
Tertullian, and Augustine taught, nor as allegory,
as Clement and Origen, following Philo, held ; but
as a myth, common to the Semitic group of re-
ligions, in which an attempt is made to explain
the origin of the evils from which mankind sutters.
This myth has, however, been transformed to bring
it into accord with the ' ethical monotheism ' of
the Hebrew religion. For the present purpose,
the exposition of the apostolic (in this case exclu-
sively the Pauline) doctrine, it is not necessary to
examine any alleged similar myth in other re-
ligions, to cite any of the supposed Babylonian
parallels, to enter into the details of the narrative
in Genesis, or to exhibit the truth under the mytho-
logical form, which expositors have found in the
story (for all these particulars the artt. in UDB i.
839, SDB p. 257, and DCG i. 571 may be con-
sulted).
There is no evidence that the teaching of the
OT as a whole on the subject of sin was in the
slightest degree aflected by the narrative in Gn 3,
as the instances cited to the contrary disappear on
closer scrutiny ; but the universality of man's sin-
fulness is asserted as a fact, although no reason for
it is ofiered. It is only when we come to the
apocryphal Jewish literature that the story is given
the significance of doctrine. Although, as the
evidence from this source shows, Jewish theology
in the time of Jesus had taken up the question of
the origin of sin and death, yet in the teaching
of Jesus there is not the faintest echo of Jewish
thought upon the subject. His standpoint is that
of the OT, although His revelation of God's Father-
hood and man's sonship gives to the sin which
separates God and man a more tragic import. St.
Paul, however, has given a place in his theology to
this contemporary Jewish doctrine, and, on account
of the light it throws upon his teaching, it will be
necessary to examine it more closely.
1. The connexion of St. Paul's doctrine with
Jewish teaching. — (a) "WhUe in the OT we have
the Ijeginnings, but only the beginnings, of the
later doctrine of Satan (Job l*-^ 2'-^, the unbeliever
in, and slanderer of, man's goodness and godliness ;
Zee 3^ the adversary of man to hinder God's grace ;
1 Ch 21\ the tempter ; cf. 2 S 24^ where it is the
Lord who moves David to number the people), yet
it is not till we come to "Wis 2--* that he is identi-
fied with the serpent who tempted Eve : " But bv
the en\-y of the devil death entered into the world,
and they that are of his portion make trial thereof. '
This identification is assumed in Ro 16'* and Rev
12* 2(P and is also implied in Jn 8« (cf. 1 Jn S^-").
(b) Woman's share in this tragedy for the race is
mentioned in Sir 25^ : ' From a woman was the be-
ginning of sin ; and because of her we all die.' Of
394
FALL
FALL
this detail of the narrative St. Paul also makes use
by way of warning : ' But I fear, lest by any
means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his crafti-
ness, your minds should be corrupted from the
simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ'
(2 Co 1 P). It is not impossible that in this allusion
St. Paul has in view the opinion of apocalyptic and
Rabbinic writers that the temptation was to un-
chastity.
' The thought which pervades this passage is that of conjugal
loyalty and fidelity to one husband, and it is dittlcult to resist
the conclusion to which Everling 0ie PaxUinUche Angelologie
u. Ddmonologie, 61-57) comes in his able discussion o( the pas-
sage, that the mention of Eve in this connexion in a clause in-
troduced by an, makes it necessary to understand the sin into
which she was betrayed as similar to that into which the Cor-
inthian Church is, figuratively speakinj,', in danger of falling,
namely, unchastity and infidelity to her husband ' (H. St. J.
Thackeray, The Relation of St. Paul to Conteinporarj/ Jeicish
Thought, 1900, p. 52; cf. Tennant, T/w Fall and Original Sin,
1903, p. 251).
If this was St. Paul's belief, it adds force to his
argument for woman's subordination in 1 Ti 2'''
'Adam was not beguiled, but tlie woman being be-
guiled hath fallen into transgression.' Here again
St. Paul is either echoing, or in accord with, Jewish
thought, for in the Slavonic Secrets of Enoch, xxxi.
6, we read : ' And on this account he [Satan] con-
ceived designs against Adam ; in such a manner he
entered [into Paradise] and deceived Eve. But lie
did not touch Adam' (cf. Thackeray, op. cit. pp. 51,
52). Such an opinion would explain the harshness
of his tone and the hardness oi his dealing with
women.
(c) These are, however, subordinate features of
the narrative ; but St. Paul is, in his assertion of
human depravity, not only in accord with some
of the sayings in the OT, but with such explicit
teaching as is found in 2 Es 4" ' How can he that
is already worn out with the corrupted world
understand incorruption,' and 7** ' For all that are
born are defiled with iniquities, and are full of sins
and laden with offences.' But such a view does
not seem to have been imiversal, for Edersheim
says expressly of the teaching of the Talmud : ' So
far as their opinions can be gathered from their
writings, the great doctrines of Original Sin, and
of the sinfulness of our whole nature, were not
held by the ancient Rabbis' (LT*, 1887, i. 165; cf.
Sanday-Headlam, Bonmns^ [ICC, 1902], p. 137).
(d) Man's present racial condition is traced back
to Adam's fall (irapdirrufj.a ; Wis 10^ ' Wisdom
guarded' to the end the first formed father of the
world, tliat was created alone, and delivered him
out of his own transgression '). The teaching in
Ro 5'2-2i is very fully anticipated in 2 Es S^i- ^- :
' For the lirst Adam bearing a wicked heart trans-
gressed, and was overcome ; and not he only, but
all they also that are born of him. Thus disease
was made permanent ; and the law was in the
heart of the people along with the wickedness of
tlie root ; so the good departed away, and that
which was wicked abode still ' ; 4^ ' For a grain of
evil seed was sown in the heart of Adam from the
beginning, and how much wickedness hath it
brought forth tinto this time ! and how much shall
it yet bring forth until the time of threshing come ! ' ;
7"* 'O thou Adam, what hast thou done? for
though it was thou that sinned, the evil is not
fallen on thee alone, but upon all of us that come of
thee.' While it is generally assumed that in these
passages man's moral corruption in the sense of
inherited depravity is traced to Adam's trans-
gression as its cause, yet Tennant maintains that
the available evidence does not support the view.
'The only parallels adduced by Sanday and Headlam from
approximately contemporary literature are the passages of 4
Ezra [the passages given above] relating to the cor maliijnum.
But the cor macignum is certainly the ptzer hara of the Kabbis,
regarded by Pseudo-Ezra, as well as by talmudic writers, as in-
herent in Adam from the first, and as the cause, not the con-
sequence, of his falL St. Paul, curiously enough, nowhere
appears to make use of the current doctrine of the evil yezer ;
certainly not in connexion with the Fall. There would seem to
be no evidence that St. Paul held, even in germ, the doctrine ol
an inherited corruption derived from Adam ' (op. cit. p. 264 f.).
To the explicit challenge of a common under-
standing of St. Paul's doctrine we must return
when dealing with it in detail in the next section ;
but meanwhile it may be made clear that it is not
the assertion of a connexion between Adam's fall
and man's sinfulness which is denied in these
passages, but the inference from them that Adam's
tall is regarded as the cause of moral depravity,
and not merely as its first instance.
Support is given to this interpretation of the evidence by
Weber's sunmiary of the teaching of the Talmud (Altsi/n. Theol.
p. 216, quoted by Sanday-Headlam, op. cit. p. 137) : ' liy the
Fall man came under a curse, is guilty of death, and his right
relation to God is rendered difficult. Slore than this cannot be
said. Sin, to which the bent and leaning had already been
planted in man by creation, had become a fact ; the "evil im-
pulse" (=--cor rnalignum) gained the mastery over mankind,
who can only resist it by the greatest efforts ; before the Fall it
had had power over him, but no such ascendancy (Ceberrnacht).'
After this quotation Sanday-Headlam continue the discussion
in the words : ' Hence when the writer says a little further on
that according to the Rabbis "there is such a thing as trans-
mission of guilt, but not such a thing as transmission of sin (Es
gibt eine Erbschuld, aber keine Eriisiinde)," the negative pro-
position is due chiefly to the clearness with which the Kabbis
(like Apoc. Daruch) insist upon free-will and direct individual
responsibility ' (op. cit. p. 137 f.).
The conclusion to which one is led is that a
common doctrine cannot be confidently affirmed ;
and that if St. Paul does teach that man's moral
nature was changed for the worse by the Fall, he
is not following a clearly expressed and generally
accepted Jewish doctrine on the subject. The
bearing of his distinctive doctrine of the flesh on,
and the meaning of, 1 Co 15^'-'''' in relation to the
Jewish doctrine of the cor malignum must be re-
served for subsequent discussion, while the feature
referred to in the above quotation may here be
illustrated.
(c) There can be no doubt of the distinctness and
emphasis with which Jewish thought insists on
man's individual responsibility, sometimes even, it
would seem, in opposition to the view of a moral
solidarity of the race, as the following passages
show : 2 Es 3-® ' In all things doing even as Adam
and all his generation had done : for they also
bare a wicked heart' ; 8'9-«« 'The Most Hi"h willed
not that man should come to nought : but they
which be created h<ave themselves deliled the name
of him that made them, and were unthankful unto
him whicli prepared life for them ' ; 9"- '^ ' As
many as have scorned my law, while they had yet
liberty, and, when as yet place of repentance was
open unto them, understood not, but despised it ;
the same must know it after death by torment.'
The strongest assertion of tlie exclusion of the
derivation of any guilt from Adam is found, how-
ever, in Apoc. liar. liv. 15, 19 : ' For though Adam
first sinned and brought untimely death uijon all,
yet of those who were born from him each one of
them has pre^iared for his own soul torment t«
come, and again each of them has chosen for him-
self glories to come. . . . Adam is therefore not
the cause, save only of his own soul, but each one
of us has been the Adam of his own soul ' (Charles's
translation in Apoc. and Pseudepig. of the OT,
1913, ii. 511 f.). While St. Paul is constant in his
assertion of individual liberty, yet he does not
think of opposing it to, or trying to harmonize it
with, the common sin of the race, sprung from
Adam. Either he was not conscious of any con-
tradiction, or regarded it as a problem insoluble by
man's wisdom.
(f) On the connexion between Adam's sin and
the introduction of death there is no such un-
certainty in the evidence. The curse that rests on
FALL
FALL
395
man since the Fall is mentioned in Sir 40' : ' Great
travail is creat€<i for many men, and a heavy yoke
is upon the sons of Adam.' The connexion between
death and the woman's sin stated in 25^ and
between death and the devil's en^-y aiBrmed in
Wis 2-'* has already been referred to. More ex-
plicit is the reference to the narrative of Genesis
m 2 Es 3" : ' And unto him thou gavest thy one
commandment : which he transgressed, and im-
mediately thou appointedst death for him and in
his generation.' So also the Apoc. Bar. xvii. 3:
' Adam . . . brought death and cut oti" the years
of those who were bom from him' (cf. xxiii. 4).
There are two passages, however, that seem to
teach that man was by nature mortal, and that
the Fall only ha.*tened the process : ' Adam hrst
sinned and brought untimely death {mortem im-
maturam) upon all' (liv. 15); and 'Owing to hLs
transgression untimely death (mors ^uae non erat
tempore eius) came into being' (Ivi. 6). Apart
from the two classical passages in St. Paul's letter
on the relation of Christ and Adam in Ko 5 and 1
Co 15, which must be discussed in detail, death is
connected with sin as its penalty in Ro 6^ ' The
wages of sin is death,' and in Ja 1*' ' Sin, when it
is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.' We must now-
pass to the discussion of St. Paul's doctrine of the
Fall.
2. St. Paal's doctrine of the Fall.— Although
the classical passage on the subject is Ro 5^"",
yet there are references to Adam in 1 Co lo^- 22- «• «
which may be briefly examined in so far as they
present doctrine supplementary to that in Ro 5.
(a) 1 Co 15-^- ^ states the same doctrine. The
contrast is emphasized in v.** by the description of
the first Adam, in accordance with the account of
his creation in Gn 2^, as living soul, while Christ,
the last Adam, is a life-giving spirit. Adam was
given life by the breath or spirit of God, but could
not impart any ; Christ not only has life, but
gives it. The psychic order of the first Adam
necessarily preceded the pneumatic order of the
last (1 Co 15*): so far there is no moral censure
of the first Adam implied, and the Apostle's
statement corrects an eiTor into which theological
speculation on man's primitive condition oft€n
fell. 'The Apostle,' says Godet (ad loc.), 'does
not share the notion, long regarded as orthodox,
that humanity was created in a state of moral
and physical perfection. . . . Independently of the
Fall, there must have been progress from an in-
ferior state, the psj-chic, which he posits as man's
point of departure, to a superior state, the spiritual,
foreseen and determined as man's goal from the
first' (quoted by Findlay, EGT, ' 1 Cor.,' 1900, p.
938). This inferior state did not include for St.
Paul the cor maligmim, which Jewish thought
assigned to Adam. It is not so certain that the
next statement, 'The first man is of the earth,
earthy : the second man is of heaven ' (v.*"), refei-s
ly to physical origin, and does not indicate
loral character.
Xo'Ckoz, as Ph 3'*, Col 3^ suggest, seems to have
a moral connotation. But even if this be so, it
does not make certain that St. Paul assigned the
yezer hara to the unfallen Adam, as, since the
reference in the ' second man from heaven ' is not
to the pre-existent Word, but to the Risen Lord,
the contrast is between Adam fallen as the source
of death to mankind and Christ risen as the foun-
tain of its eternal life. If v.** be not merely a
prediction, but an exhortation, as many ancient
authorities attest (see RVm), this moral reference
becomes certain. This whole passage, accordingly,
does disprove the view that man's primitive con-
dition was one of such perfection that there was
no need of progress ; but it otters no support to
the assumption that St. Paul regarded Adam's
position as so inferior morally that the FaU would
to him appear as inevitable. As Ro 5" shows, he
assigns to Adam a greater moral culpability than
to his descendants before the Law was given, for
he transgressed a definite commandment of God.
Nor does St. Paul's doctrine of the flesh (q.v.)
justify any such assumption about the moral de-
fect of man's state before the Fall, as it is not a
physical, but an ethical, conception, and relates
to mankind as it is for man's present experience,
not to any previous state of man. If we cannot,
therefore, identify the flesh with the yezer hara
of unfallen man, unless we leave in St. Paul's
system the antinomy of a two-fold origin of sinful-
ness, one individual, the other racial, we are forced
to conclude that in some way he did connect the
presence of the flesh in sinful mankind with the
entrance of sin at the Fall.
(b) The further discussion of this topic brings ti»
to the closer consideration of Ro 5*-'^. (o) The
purpose of the passage must be clearly kept in
view. St. Paul is not proving man's universal
sinfulness — he has done that by an empirical
Eroof, a historical induction, in chs. 1-3 ; nor is
e concerned to explain the origin of sin. He
assumes as not needing any proof that man's sin-
fulness is the result of Adam's fall. From that
fact he deduces the conclusion that one person can
be so related to the race as to be the author to it
of both sin and death. If that be so in the case
of Adam, it can be and is so in the case of Christ
as the Author of righteousness and life, and even
so much more as Christ is superior to Adam. The
purpose of the passage is to show that Christ can
and does bring more blessing to man than Adam
has brought curse. We go beyond what St. Paul's
own intention warrants in asserting that his doc-
trine of salvation in Christ rests on, and faUs to
the ground without, his teaching on the Fall. As.
his proof of the sinfulness of mankind is empirical,
so ms certainty of salvation in Christ is rooted in
his experience, and not in the opinions he shared
with his contemporaries regarding the origin of
sin. It is important at the outset of this discus-
sion to assert this consideration, as it will relieve
us of the painful anxiety, wliich many exponents
of this passage hitherto have felt and shown, to
justify in some sense or another this story of the
Fall, in spite of the origin criticism now assigns
to it, as an essential constituent of Christian theo-
logy.
(^) In V." St. Paul aflirms the entrance of sin
into the world, and death as its penalty, as the
result of Adam's transgression, and the diffusion
of death among mankind in consequence either of
Adam's sin alone, or of the spread of sin among
all his descendants. There is this ambiguity
about the meaning in the clause ' for that all
sinned,' which is not only grammatically irregular,
but seems even to be logically inconsistent. To
fix his meaning we must examine his language
very closely. The connective phrase €<^ v has
been variously interpreted. It is improbable that
(f) is masculine and the antecedent either Adam or
death ; taking it as neuter, the rendering ' because ''
is more probable than 'in like manner as' or 'in
so far as.' In what sense did 'all .sin' (xdjrres
(I) The Greek commentators take the obvious.
sense of the words, regarded apart from the con-
text : ' all as a matter of fact by their own choice
committed sin.' To this interpretation two objec-
tions from the context may be urged. Firstly, if
individual death is the penalty of individual sin,
Adam is not responsible for the sin or the death,
and so there is no parallelism with Christ as the
source of righteousness and life to all ; but the
purpose of the whole argument is to prove a con-
396
FALL
FALL
nexion between Adam and tlie race similar to that
between Clirist and redeemed humanity. Secondlj',
in the next verse St. Paul goes on to show tliat
till the time of Moses, in the absence of law, the
descendants of Adam could not be held as blame-
worthy as Adam himself was ; while sin was in
the world it could not be imputed as personal
guilt, incurring of itself, apart from the connexion
with Adam, the penalty of death.
(2) Some connexion with Adam must be asserted ;
but of what kind ? An exjjlanation accepted by
many cominentators, while on grammatical grounds
not rendering i<l> i} ' in whom ' but ' because,' yet
treats the sentence as conveying the equivalent
meaning. Bengel presents this view in its classi-
cal expression: om7ies peccarnnt, Adamo peccante.
If St. rani had meant this, Avhy did he not supply
the words? it is often asked. But when we
observe the irregularity of the structure of the
veiy sentence, introducing such ambiguity into
St. Paul's meaning, we do not seem entitled to
expect him to express himself with such logical
precision. On this ground alone we must not set
aside the explanation. But even if we accept it,
what sense are we to attach to the statement that
in Adam's sin all sinned ?
(i. ) Firstly, there is the realistic explanation :
that as Adam was the ancestor of the race, so all
his descendants were physically included in him,
even as Levi is represented to have paid tithes to
Melchizedek 'in the loins' of Abraham (He T**'^").
But such a physical explanation only increases the
difficulty of understanding the connexion.
(ii.) Secondly, there is the lefjal explanation, so
prominent in the federal theology of the Reformed
<I!hurch. Adam acted, not for himself alone, but
as representative of the race, and so the race shares
the responsibility of his act. But to this explana-
tion there is the obvious objection that a repre-
sentative must be chosen by those for whom he
acts, if they are to be in any sense responsible for
his acts ; and the race had no voice in the choice
■of its first ancestor. If the objection is met by
appealing to a Divine appointment, the plea of in-
justice is not answered, but the will of God is re-
presented as overriding the rights of man. In a
Calvinistic theology alone could such an explana-
tion carry conviction.
(iii.) Thirdly, the explanation more generally
accepted is that from Adam all mankind has in-
herited a tendency to evil, which, while not
abolishing individual liberty and responsibility so
as to make individual transgression inevitable,
yet as a fact of experience has resulted in the uni-
versal sinfulness of the race. This is the view of
Sanday-Headlam {op. cit. p. 134), and they support
it with the references to Jewish literature already
noted. The writer of this article in his Com-
mentary on Romans (Century Bible, 1901) accepted
this conclusion. * Without expressly stating it,
Paul assumes the doctrine of original sin in the
sense of an inherited tendency to sin, for what he
affirms beyond all doubt here is that both the sin
and the death of the human race are the ettects of
Adam's transgression' (p. 154). A further study
of the problem has led him, however, to recognize
at least the possibility of another explanation.
Tennant, who of modern writers has made this
subject specially his own, in his three books. The
Origin and Propagation of Sin (1902), The Sources
of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin
(1903), and The Concept of Sin (1912), has not only
•contended against the doctrine of such an inherited
tendency, but has also maintained that this idea
is not present in St. Paul's mind in this pass-
age. Referring to S.anday-Headlam's objection to
Bengel's explanation that the words 'in Adam'
would have been given had St. Paul intended I
that meaning, he presses a similar objection to
their view.
'That suggested by Dr. Sanday and Mr. Headlam, from whose
weighty opinion it is here vetilured to diverge, is an equally
important element to be "supplied." Indeed, it may be asked
whflher the idea of inherited sinfulness, as the cause of death
to all who come between Adam and Moses, does not call at
least as loudly for explicit mention, if St. Paul's full meaning
be expressible in terms of it, as that signified by Bengel's ad-
dition of "in Adam"? Would it not be e<|ually novel to the
reader, so far as our knowledge of the tliought of that age goes,
and more remote from the actual language of the verse and it8
context ? ' {The Fall and Original Sin, p. 261).
Reserving for subsequent treatment the wider
issue of whether this is or is not an inherited ten-
dency to evil, we must meanwhile look at the ex-
planation Tennant himself oilers of this verse.
(iv.) Though he rejects the realistic explana-
tion in any form, either as already mentioned or
as presented in Augustine's theory ' which makes
human nature a certain quantum of being and
treats descent from Adam as a division of this mass
of human nature into parts ' (Stevens, The Pauline
Theology, 1892, p. 136 f.), he accepts the following
explanation :
' Much more probable, in the opinion of the present writer, is
the suggestion that, in his identification of the race and Adam,
St Paul was using a form of thought occurring by no means ex-
clusively in the particular verse of his writings with which we
are here concerned. Stevens has appropriately named it
"mystical realism." "It is characteristic of Paul's mind," says
this writer, " to conceive religious truth under forms which are
determined by personal relationshiji. These relations, espyecially
the two just specilied (that of unregenerate humanity to Adam,
and of spiritual humanity to Christ), may be termed myiticalva
the sense of being unique, vital, and inscrutable ; they are real
in the sense that sinful humanity is conceived as being actually
present and participant in Adam's sin . . ." (op. eit. p. 32 f.,
and elsewhere). This mystical realism is a style of thought, a
rhetorical mode ; it is not a philosophy : the realism is only figu-
rative. St. Paul identifies the race, as sinners, with Adam in
the same sense that he identifies the believer with Christ. " The
moral defilement of man is represented as contracted in and
with the sin of Adam " (op. cit. p. 37). . . . This attractive in-
terpretation of St. Paul's meaning has the great virtue of ex-
plaining his words, which involve so many difficulties when
taken, as they generally have been, with too much literalness,
as only a particular case of a mode of speech which is character-
istic of the apostle. And so long as it is not so far pressed as
to lose sight of the undeniable connexion between the apostle's
teaching and the somewhat indefinite belief which he inherited
from Jewish doctors as to the connexion between the Fall and
human sin and death, it would seem to supply the best key to
the thought of this difficult passage ' (TAe Fall and Original Sin,
pp. 262-3).
If it be the case that, as Tennant maintains,
Jewish thought assigned the cor malignum or the
yezer hara to Adam even before his Fall as well as
to his descendants, and so did not teach a moral
corruption of man's action as a result of the Fall (see
op. cit. pp. 264-5), it does appear more likely that
St. Paul did not hold the doctrine, and that ac-
cordingly it cannot be here introduced to explain
his meaning. If this alternative must be excluded,
although the writer is not finally convinced tiiat it
must, the explanation Tennant accepts does appear
the most probable among all the others already
mentioned. It must be frankly admitted that we
cannot reach certainty on this matter, and it does
not seem at all necessary for a modern reconstruc-
tion of Christian doctrine that we should. What-
ever St. Paul's view of the Fall and its consequences
may have been, seeing that it rests ultimately on a
narrative which modern scholarship compels us to
regard as a myth, however purilied and elevated
in the new context given to it in the record of the
Divine revelation, and is influenced directly by
contemporary Jewish thought, it cannot be regarded
as authoritative for our Christian faith, however
great may be its historical interest as an instance
of the endeavour of a great mind to find a solution
for a great jjroblem.
3. The doctrine of the Fall and modern Chrii-
tian thought.— Although the writer holds the con-
FALL
FA^HLY
39r
viclion that it is not necessary for the Christian
theologian to try and save as much as he dare of
the wreckage of the doctrine of the Fall, after the
siomi of literary and historical criticism lias passed
over it, a few sentences may be added in closing
this article as to the relation of modem Christian
thought to the doctrine.
(o) What has already been nrged must be re-
peated : that the teaching of the UT regarding sin
and salvation does not rest at all on the narrative
in Gn 3, but on the reality of human experience
and the testimony of human conscience ; that the
teaching of Jesus about man as the child of God,
though lost, has not this doctrine as its foundation,
but comes from the moral insight and spiritual dis-
cernment of the sinlei^s Son of God and Brother of
men ; that, apart from a few casual allusions in
the rest of the NT, the two passages which have
been considered in Ro 5 and 1 Co 15 are the only
express statements of the connexion of sin and
death with the Fall ; and that when we look more
closely at the mode in which the classical passage
in Ko 5 is introduced we find that its primary in-
tention is not to prove either man's sinfulness or
to otter an explanation of its origin, but to demon-
strate the greater etticacy of Christ's obedience
than of Adam's transgression in their consequences
for the race. These are surely weighty reasons
why modem Christian thought should no longer
assign to the doctrine of the Fall the prominence
hitherto accorded to it.
(b) It is with the presence, guilt, and power of
sin in individual experience and racial history, as
the human need which the Divine grace in Christ
meets, that Christian theology is alone concerned,
and all other questions of the origin of sin or death
are speculative, and not practical, and should be
assigned the secondary place that properly belongs
to them.
(c) Guided by these two considerations, we may
lastly ask the question. How much remains of this
doctrine for our modern Christian thought? (1)
While the unity of the human race has not been
demonstrated by science, this theory is not at all
improbable, and so descent from one pair of an-
cestors is not incredible. (2) While death as
physical dissolution is proved by science to have
been antecedent to man's appearance on earth, and
while death seems a natural necessity for man as a
physical organism, we need not try to justify St.
Paul by assuming either that God, anticipating
human sin, introduced death as its penalty into the
very structure of the world at the Creation, or that,
haa man not sinned, he would so have developed
morally and spiritually as to have transcended the
natural necessitj' of death, and have attained im-
mortality (because these speculations have no con-
tact ^^•ith experience). But we may recognize that
for him death was not physical dissolution merely,
but death in its totality as it is for the human con-
sciousness, and may press the question, Can it be
denied that the terror and darkness of death for
the mind and heart of man are due in large measure
to his sense of guilt, and the ettects of sin on his
reason, conscience, and spirit ? Between death as
such an experience and sin we can even to-day
_admit that there is a connexion. (3) While the
jmmon assumption that the savage represents
imitive man is unwarranted, and we may infer
'?bat, since man's mental, moral, and spiritual de-
velopment in history proves the great distinction
between him in his natural endowments and all the
lower animals, man was »ven at the earliest stage
of that development already far removed from the
brute, yet all speculation as to what he originally
was is precarious, as it rests on no solid foundation
of assured knowledge. (4) While the dispute as
regards the inheritance of acquired characters does
not directly atl'ect Christian thought (as it has yet.
to be proved that the laws of physical and mental
or moral inheritance must be identical), yet t he-
Christian theologian is bound to admit that th&
resemblances we do find between parents and
children may be explained by social as much as by
physical heredity, by the influence of the moral
environment in youth as much as by the inheritance
at birth of the moral characteristics of parents.
While the writer is not convinced that Tennant has,
proved his contention, that the appetites and im-
pulses of the child are entirely natural, and that
the factor of heredity may be excluded from the
origin of sin in the indi\'idual, he has at least com-
pelled a reconsideration of the whole question..
The sin in the race does atiect the development of
each member of it whether by social or by physical,
heredity ; but when, where, or how sin first entered
we do not know, for that neither caa wan discover-
nor has God revealed.
LiTERATrRB.— In addition to the aathorities cited throughout,
the art., see J. S. Cajidlish, The Biblical Doctrine of Sin, 1893;.
J. Laidlaw, The Bible Doctrine of Man, new ed., l69o ; H.
Wheeler Robijison, The Christian Doctrine of Man, 1911 ;"
J. OiT, God's Image m Man and its De/aeement in the Light of
Modem Denial*, 1905; W. E. Orchard, Modem Theories 6/
Sin, 1909 ; F. J. Hall, Evolution and the PaU, 1910.
Alfred E. Gar\te.
FALLING AWAY.— See Apostasy and Axxi--
CHKIST.
FALSE PROPHET.— See Apocalypse.
FAMILY.— 1. The idea of 'family' is repre-
sented in the XT by -ra-rpid, oikos, and oIkio. — (a)
rarpid is used in Lk 2* for ' lineage,' ' descendants '
(of David); in Ac 3^ (in plural) for 'races' of
mankind ; and in Eph 3^, where there is a play on.
words between ya-Hip and its derivative rarpia:
'the Father, from whom all fatherhood (RV text :.
'every family,' AV wrongly : 'the whole family'),
in heaven and earth is named.' Though 'family'
is here the literal translation, yet, since the
English word ' family ' is not derived from ' father,'
the above paraphrase suggested by J. Armitage
Robinson (Com. in loc.), who here follows the
Syriac and the Latin Vulgate, is best, and over-
comes the ditticnlty presented to the English
reader by the existence of 'families' in heaven,
in opposition to Mt 22*. Fatherhood, in a real,-
sense, there must be in heaven, and it is ' named '
from God the Father. Thackeray, indeed, suggests
(The Relation of St. Paul to Contemporary Jewish
Thought, 1900, p. 148 f.) that orders of angels are
meant, and he quotes a Rabbinical phrase, ' His
family the angels'; but 'families' (plural) of
angels are not mentioned, and the suggestion is
hardly necessar>% Another way out of the diffi-
culty is seen in the i'.^. tparpia ( = tppdrpa), i.e. ' tribe,'
but this is an obvious gloss which spoils the sense.
Cf. -rarpidpxii^ in He 7* : Abraham the ' father of
the whole family of faith' (Westcott) ; the word is
used of David and of the sons of Jacob in Ac 2=* 7*.
(b) (HKos, besides being used for 'house' in.
the sense of a structure, represents (like domus)
familia, the 'family' in its widest sense (see also
Home). It is used (1) for all living under one roof
— father, mother, near relations, and dependents—
frequently in the NT : Ac 7'"» (Pharaoh), 10* and
11" (Cornelius), 16*' (Philippian jailer: so v.**
Tavotjct 'with all his house,' here only in NT), 18*
(Crispus), 1 Co li« (Stephanas), 1 Ti »«• (the
bishop), o* (the widow), 2 Ti l'* and 4" (Onesi-
E horns, who apparently was dead, and whose
ousehold is nevertheless named after him : see
j below, 2 (d)). He 11" (Noah), and, in plural, 1 Ti S'-
j (deacons). Tit 1" (Christians generally) ; (2) for
I descendants, Lk 1=^2*; (3) for God: s family, the-
I house of God (see below, 3).
398
FAMILY
FAlVnLY
(c) oiKla is similarly used for a ' household ' in Ph
422 (Ciesar), Mt 10" 12-», Jn 4'» (the Capernaum
royal officer), 1 Co 16^* (Stephanas) ; and therefore
for 'possessions' in the phrase 'widows' houses,'
Mk 12^», Lk 20«, and inferior MSS of Mt23'«.
2. Members of the family. — (a) Father. — The
father, if alive, is the head of the family {pater-
familias), and exercises authority over all its
members.* He is the 'master' or 'goodman' of
the house (olKodeair&Tti^), Mt 24«, Mk 14" (in Lk
22'^ olKoSeair&Ttji t^j oi/ciaj), aJid the ' lord ' (Kvpioi)
of the household (oUfTtla), Mt 24**. That in some
sense he is the priest of his own family appears
from He 10"^ where the spiritual family, the house
of God, has our Lord as 'a great priest over' it
<see below, 3). The subordination of the family to
the father is a favourite subject with St. Paul,
■who, though the Apostle of liberty, carefully
ffuards against anarchy. His liberty is that of the
Latin collect : ' Deus . . . cui servire regnare est '
(paraphrased :' O God . . . whose service is perfect
freedom'). He lays down the general principle of
subordination for all Christians in Eph 5-^ (cf. Ro
13>, 1 Co IS'*, and 1 P 5»), and then an))lies it to
Christian families. The husband is the head of
the wife as Christ is Head of the Church ; husbands
must love and honour their wives, for they are one
flesh, and wives must be in subjection to their
husbands and reverence them (Eph 5-'-"''' ^^"^, Col
3i«'-, Tit 2«- ; cf. 1 P 3'-^). For children and de-
pendents see below, and for the relation of husband
and wife, see Marriage.
(i) Mother. — On the other hand, the position of
the mother in the family is a very important one ;
to this day in Muhammadan countries, where the
women are more in the background than among
the Oriental Christians (for even there Christianity
has greatly raised the position of women), the
influence of the mother is immense. We find
many traces of this in the NT. In 1 Ti 5" even
young mothers are said to ' rule the household '
{olKode(7iroT ftv). In 1 P 3' the heathen husband is
gained by the influence of the wife. The house-
hold at Lystra in which Timothy was brought up
was profoundly influenced by the ' unfeigned faith '
of his mother and grandmother, Eunice and Lois
(2 Ti 1« ; cf. 3"), and the influence of the former
over her Greek husband (Ac 16') may have been
in St. Peter's mind. In Mt 20^ ' the mother of
the sons of Zebedee'(a curious phrase) is put
forward to make petition for her children.
Further, if the mother was a widow, she, rather
^han one of the sons, seems, at least in some cases,
to have been the head of the household. Thus we
read of the house of Mary, the mother of John
Mark, not of the house of Mark (Ac 12i=*) ; and of
the house of Lydia (Ac 16'"), who was probably a
widow, trading between Philippi and Thyatira, a
city famous for dyeing, witn a gild of dyers
evidenced by inscriptions (the supposition that
Lydia was the ' true yokefellow ' of Ph 4^* rests on
no solid basis). It was Lydia who entertained St.
Paul and his companions, not her sons or brothers.
A similar case is perhaps that of Chloe ; she seems
to have been a widow whose household ('they of
Chloe,' 1 Co 1'') traded between Ephesus and
Corinth. Other prominent women in the apostolic
writings are Damaris (Ac 17**), whom Kamsay
thinks not to have been of noble birth, as the
regulations at Athens with regard to the seclusion
of women were more strict than in some other
places, and a well-born lady would hardly have
been likely there to come to hear St. Paul preach
{St. Paul the Traveller, 1895, p. 252); Phoebe, a
deaconess who had been a 'succourer of many'
• Ramsay points out (Galatiaiu, 1899, p. 343) that pater has
a wider sense than our ' father' ; he was the chief, the lord, the
master, the leader.
(Ro 16"') ; Euodia and Syntyche, who were pro-
minent church workers at Philippi (Ph 4^'- ). It has
often been noticed that the position of mothers of
families was especially strong in Macedonia and in
Asia Minor, and particularly in the less civilized
parts of the latter. Of this there are some traces
in the NT. Thus the influential women at
Pisidian Antioch, the ' devout women of honour-
able estate,' are, with the chief men {irpQroi) of the
city, urged by the Jews to arouse feeling against
St. Paul and Barnabas (Ac 13***), and the 'chief
women' are specially mentioned at The.ssalonica
(IT*) and Beru;a (17'*). There are even instances
(not in the NT) of women holding public offices,
and of descent being reckoned through the mother
(see further J. B. Lightfoot, Philijjpians, 1903 ed.,
p. 55 f. ; Ramsay, The Church in the Roman
Empire, 1893, pp. 67, 160-2), It is curious that
Codex Bezae (U) waters down the references to
noteworthy women : e.g. in Ac 17*^ it omits
Damaris ; it seems to reflect a dislike to the
prominence of women which is found in Christian
circles in the 2nd century.
(c) Children. — The duty of obedience to parents
is insisted on by St. Paul in Eph 6'"*, Col S**'-,
where the two-edged injunction of the Fifth Com-
mandment is referred to as involving duties of
parents to children as well as of children to
parents. The relation of the younger to the elder
in the family must have been greatly simplified by
the spread of monogamy in the OT (see MARRIAGE),
and in Christian times there would have been very
few complications in this respect. Yet it was often
the case, as it still is in Eastern lands, that
several families in the narrower sense made up a
' family ' in the wider sense, and lived under one
roof : thus a son would ordinarily bring his bride
to his father's house, as Tobias brought Sarah to
that of Tobit, so that his parents became her
parents, and the Fifth Commandment applied to
her relationship with them (To 10""'"-). So we note
in Mt 103"-, Lk 12»2'- that the mother-in-law and
daughter-in-law are of one family or household
{oUiaKol Mt., 'in one house' Lk.). The brethren
of our Lord (whatever their exact relationship to
Jesus) appear during His ministry to have formed
one household with Mary (Jn 2'"-', Mt 12«'- IS"'-,
Mk 6^ ; Joseph was probably dead), notwithstand-
ing that they themselves, or some of them, were
married (1 Oo 9'). It is because of this custom
that [nn {hdthdn, ' bridegroom ') and n'?^ {kalldh,
' bride ') and their equivalents in cognate languages
represent the relationship of a married man and
woman to all their near relations by affinity. In
the case of a composite ' family ' of this nature,
the father still retained some authority over his
married sons.
{d) Slaves and dependents. — These formed a large
portion of the more important families ; the ' de-
pendents ' would be chiefly freedmen. On the other
hand, it appears that liired servants were not
reckoned as part of the family {HDB iv. 461).
Among the Israelites the slaves were comparatively
few, -w-liile in Greek and Roman families they were
extremely numerous. In Athens the slaves were
reckoned as numbering four times the free citizens,
and elsewhere the proportion was even greater.
Some Roman landowners had ten or twenty thou-
sand slaves, or more (Lightfoot, Colossians, 1900ed.,
p. 3178".). Theseslaveswereentirelyattheirmaster's
disposal, and under a bad master their condition
must have been terrible (see Lightfoot, p. 319, for
details). Yet their inclusion in the ' family ' some-
what mitigated the rigours of slavery even among
the heathen in NT times ; and this mitigation was
much greater in Christian households. The Church
accepted existing institutions, and did not proclaim
a revolutionary slave-war, which would only have
FAMILY
FAMILY
399
produced untold miserj' ; but it set to work
Sadually to ameliorate the condition of slaves,
n the one hand, slaves are enjoined by St. Paul to
obey and be honest to their masters, whether Chris-
tian or not, as in Eph 6'"", Col 3-^- (where the great
detail was doubtless suggested by the Onesimus
incident), 1 Ti 6^^, Tit 2«- ; cf. 1 P 2'"-. These
exhortations were probably intended to take away
any misapprehension that might have arisen from
such passages as Gal 3^, 1 Co 7^'*, which assert
that in Chnst there is neither bond nor free. Chris-
tianity did not at once liberate slaves, and St. Paul
does not claim Onesimus' freedom, though he in-
directly suggests it (Philem "'•). On the contrarj-,
it taught those ' under the yoke ' to render true
service. At the same time, St. Paul points out that
the Fifth Commandment lays a duty on masters as
well as on slaves (Eph 6', where the double duty is
referred to just after the application of this Com-
mandment to fathers as well as to children). The
Christian head of the house must proWde for his
own household, or be w-orse than an unbeliever (1
Ti 5*). By Christianity masters and slaves become
brethren (1 Ti 6-). In Philem^' Onesimus is said
to be ' no longer a slave, but more than a slave,
a brother beloved.' We cannot doubt that we have
here a reminiscence of such words of our Lord,
orally handed down, as 'no longer slaves but friends'
(Jn 15" ; cf. He 2'^ ' not ashamed to call them
brethren '). It was owing to the good example set
by Christian slaves to their heathen masters that
Cnristianity, Avhich at first took root in the lower
social circles of society (1 Co I'*), spread rapidly
upwards.
The domestic servants of the family are called
' they of the house ' — oUerai, Ac 10" ; or oUfioi, 1 Ti
58 (cf. Eph 219 fig.) . oj. oiKiaKoi, Mt 10»- « (this in-
cludes near relations) ; or 'the household,' otK^reia,
Mt 24« RV ( = Offxtireia, Lk l->»2). They included in
their number, in the case of great families, many
who would now be of theprofessionalclasses, but who
then were upper slaves, such as stewards or agents,
librarians, doctors, surgeons, oculists, tutors, etc.
(for a long list, see Lightfoot, Philipjjians, p. 172).
Thus in the NT we find (I) the steward, olKovofios,
Lk 12*^ (cf. Mt 24**) ; such were the unjust steward
of the parable (Lk 16'*^* ; the word oUopofjLfiv is used
for ' to be a steward ' in v.^), and the stewards of
1 Co 4', Gal 4-. The ' steward ' of a child was the
guardian of his property (Ramsay, Gal. p. 392).
Metaphorically oiKovofws is used of Christian minis-
ters (1 Co 41 ; of ' bishops,' Tit V), of Christians
generally (1 P 4i*>) — the idea is doubtless taken
from our Lord's words about the 'wise slave
whom his lord had set over his household to give
them their food in due season ' (Mt 24«). (2) The
guardian of a child, eriTpoiros, was concerned with
his education (Gal 4-) ; perhaps this is the same as
the following. (3) The pedagogue or tutor (roiSa-
7ciry6s, Gal 3-*'-, 1 Co 4") was a slave deputed to
take the child to school (not a teacher or school-
master, as the AY) ; this was a Greek institution
adopted by the Romans, for in education Greece led
the way. (4) Thephysician (I'arpds, Col 4^*) was also
regarded as an upper slave. It has been pointed
out by Ramsay (6'#. Paul the Traveller, p. 316) that
a prisoner of distinction, such as St. Paul un-
doubtedly was {ib. p. 310 f.), would be allowed
slaves, but not friends or relations, to accompany
him, and that St. Luke, who (as the pronoun ' we'
shows) accompanied Mm on his voyage to Italy, as
also did AristarchiLS (Ac 27-, C0I41*), must have
done so in the capacity of a slave, taking this office
on himself in order to follow his master.
Under this head we may notice four households
mentioned in the NT : the ' household of Caesar' (17
Kat(raposoiicio),Ph4^ ; 'theyof Aristobulus.'Roie'*;
' they of Narcissus,' Ro 16'* ; and ' they of Chloe,' 1
Co VK For the last see above (6) ; but the first
three households were probably all part of the
Imperial * family * at Rome. That ' Caesar's house-
hold ' does not necessarily or even probably mean
near relations of the Emperor is shown by Light-
foot (Philippian^, p. 171 H'.); the meaning seems
to be ' the slaves and freedmen of Caesar.' Light-
foot with much ingenuity and probability identities
several of the names mentioned in Ro 16 with the
household. The curious phrases in Ro 16'*'- are
probably due to the fact that Aristobulus and
Narcissus were dead (for their identification with
well-known characters see Lightfoot, and Sanday-
Headlam, Roman^ {ICC, 1902], p. 425), and that
their households were absorbed in that of Csesar,
but still retained their old names. • They of
Aristobulus' would be equivalent to ' Aristobuliani,'
and ' they of Narcissus ' to ' Narcissiani.' (If
the Wew that Ro 16 is not a real part of the
Epistle be correct, this argument fails ; but its veri-
similitude is some ground for rejecting that view.)
3. The Christian Church as a family. — In the
NT the word ' house ' (ol/cos) is used figuratively of
the Christian community, as in He 3^ * (Christians
successors to the house [of God] in the Old Cove-
nant), 10^1 (see above, 2 («)), 1 Ti 3** (where oZicoi is
explicitly defined as ' the Church of the living
God ' ; the phrase follows the instructions as to the
homes of bishops and deacons ; see Home), 1 P 2*
(a 'spiritual house'), 4". The metaphor is further
elaborated in Eph 2^"^ where the foundation,
comer-stone, and each several stone that is laid
(such is tlie best paraphrase of raff a oiKoSofi-q) to-
gether result in a noly temple, of which Christians
are stones, ' builded together for a habitation of
God.'
The conception is based on the Fatherhood of
God and on our position as His children. It is
carried out by various analogous metaphors. The
Church is the Bride of Christ — this is the outcome
of Eph 5=^- ; cf. Rev 19" 21»- » 22i'— and He is the
Bridegroom, Mt 9'' 2-2^- 25«, Mk 2i», Jn 3^, 2 Co
11^ ; Christians are the oiKeloi, members of the
household, of the faith, Gal e'"; Christ is their
brother. He 2i"- ; the Church is a brotherhood, 1 P
21", filled with brotherly love (^tXaSeX^m), Ro 12",
1 Th 4», He 131, 2 P 1" ; cf. 1 Jn 5*. The most
usual designation of Christians among themselves is
' the brethren ' (Acts, passim) ; even heretics are
'false brethren,' 2 Co 11», Gal 2*. 'A brother,'
' brethren,' denote Christians as opposed to un-
believers in Pliilem **, 1 Ti 6- ; and so in 1 Co 9*
' a sister, a wife ' means ' a Christian wife ' (the
' apostle ' may have a Christian wife ; cf. 7** ' only
in the Lord'); in 1 Co 7'* 'the brother or the
sister ' means the Christian spouse of an unbeliever
(cf. V." and 5"); in Ro 16^ RY ('Quartus the
brother') the definite article seems to distinguish
this Christian from some unbelie\'ing Quartus. Cf.
also 2 Co 8*^ ('the brother whose praise in the
gospel is spread through all the churches ' : but
some translate 'his brother' — i.e. the brother of
Titus, and interpret the phrase as applying to St.
Luke) 8^-, Philem ", Ro 16', Ja 2^', 2 Jn ^, and 1
Th 4*, where see Milligan's note.
In this connexion also we may note the sym-
bolical use of words denoting family relationships.
The Israelites of old were ' the fathers ' (Ro 15®),
just as early Christian writers are called by us.
Abraham is father of spiritual descendants, believ-
ing Jews and Gentiles alike (Ro 4i"- 1«-, Gal 3^ ; in
Ac 7"^, Ro 41, and probably in Ja 2-i, physical descent
is referred to). The teacher is father of his dis-
ciples (1 Th 2"), though sometimes he calls himself
' brother ' (Rev P, ' I John your brother ' ; cf. Ac
15'^ RY, ' elder brethren'). Also ' father' is used
of any old man (1 Ti 5') ; in this verse (unlike v.")
Tptff^iTepoi cannot refer to a presbyter. So ' mother'
400
FAMILY
FAMILY
is used of any old woman in v.'' ; younfjer men and
women are ' brothers ' and ' sisters ' (v. "'•). Jeru-
salem is called 'our mother' in Gal 4'*, just as
Babylon in Rev 17* is called 'the mother of the
harlots.' In Ro 16'^ ' mother' is a term of aHection
(' Rufus and his mother and mine '). Similarly the
expressions ' without father,' ' without mother,' in
He 7* must be taken figuratively. Melchizedek's
parentage is not recorded in Holy Scripture : ' he
IS not connected with any known line : his life has
no recorded beginning or dose' (B. F. Westcott,
Hebrews, 1889, p. 172). Disciples, likewise, are
called ' sons ' or ' ciiildren ' of their master, as in 1
P 5'» (Mark), Gal 4i» (the Galatians), 1 Ti 1^ 2 Ti I''
2» and Ph 2"^ (Timothy), 1 Co 4'«- (the Corinthians),
Phileni i" (Onesimus),'l Jn 2* etc., 3 Jn *.
4. The Christian family as a church. — We often
read in the NT of families or households becoming
Christian as a body ; e.g. those of Cornelius (Ac
10- 1 1'''), Lydia (16'* : the first in St. Paul's history),
the jailer at Philippi (16»i-33), Crispus (18^). So in
Jn 4*^ it is recorded that the king's officer (^a<riXiK6s)
at Capernaum believed 'and his whole house.'
Hence, in the absence of public churches, which
fiersecution made impossible till a later date, a
amily became a centre of Christian worship, in
which not only the household itself but also the
Christian neighbours assembled. Thus, probably
the house of Lydia was the beginning from which
the Church at Philippi developed ; those of Steph-
anas, whose family was ' the firstfruits of Achaia '
(1 Co I" oIkos, 16'* oMa), Titus Justus (Ac IS'),
Crispus (18* oIkos), and Gaius (Ro 16'^) perhaps
became centres of worship at Corinth. Such, again,
was Philemon's house nt Colosste (Philem^) ; pro-
bably Apphia was liiswife, and possibly Archippus
his son ( Philem -, Col 4'^). Arcliippus was clearly
a church official ; lie had received the ministry
(SiaKovia.) in the Lord, and was in some way con-
nected with Philemon ; we are led to think of him
as ' bishop' of the Church at CoIosspr, or, less pro-
bably, with Lightfoot, of the neighbouring Church
at Laodicea (so Apost. Const, vii. 46, which makes
Philemon bishop of Colossa? ; but it is more likely
that Philemon was a layman). At Laodicea we
read of Nymphas or Nympha (Col 4" ; the gender
is uncertain), and 'the church that is in their house'
(RV) — i.e. probably all who met to worship there
are regarded as one family. Lightfoot thinks
(Colossians, p. 241) that there were perhaps more
than one such ' church ' at Laodicea, as there
certainly were in Rome (see below).
In Jerusalem such a private house was at first
used for the Eucharist (Ac 2^ : /car' oIkov, ' at
home,' as opposed to 'in the Temple'), and so
doubtless at Troas (20^). For preaching to out-
siders, the apostles made use of the synagogues
(17"" : 'as his custom was'), or the Temple at
Jerusalem, or the ' school of Tyrannus ' at Epiiesus,
which was probably open to all (19*), or other
public i)laces ; but for the instruction of the faith-
ful the Christians gathered in a private house (5'"^
' every day in the Temple and at nome' ; cf. 20^") ;
in Jerusalem probably in that of Mary the mother
of John Mark (12'^), for her family was certainly
such a centre of worship. As St. James the Lord's
brother was not present in the house where the
people were assembled to pray for St. Peter (v."),
it has been suggested that there were more than
one such iKKXt^ala. in Jerusalem ; but this is uncer-
tain. At Ca-sarea we are tempted to think of
Philip's household as such a centre (21*') ; at
Cenchreaj of that of Phoebe the deaconess (Ro 16').
For Ephesus we have mention of Aquila and I'risca
(or Priscilla), .and 'the church that is in their
house' — their 'family' formed a Christian com
munity (1 Co 16'"). Here we have a remarkable
feature, for about a year later we find these two
workers credited with another ' church ' in Rome
(Ro 16**), and this has been adduced as disproving
the integrity of Romans as regards the last chapter.
But it is not an improbable sui)position that they
gathered the Christians together in their own
household wherever they were ; and as Sanday-
Headlam remark {op. cit. p. 418 f.), they were, like
many Jews of the day, great travellers. We read
of Aquila in Pontus, then of him and his wife in
Rome A.D. 52, when they were expelled from the
capital with their fellow-countrymen (Ac 18"*) ;
then we read of them at Corinth, where they met
St. Paul (Ac 18"-), and of their going with him to
Ephesus (v.'*'*), where they remained some time.
Thence, probably, the old decree of expulsion having
become obsolete, they returned to Rome, between
the writing of 1 Cor. and Rom., and the 'church in
their house ' in Rome was then founded. Its site
has been identified with that of the old church of
St. Prisca on the Aventine, and this is quite pos-
sible, though there is no evidence of importance to
support the identification. Hort suggests (Prole-
gomena to Romans and Ephesians, 1895, p. 12 ft'.)
that Prisca was a Roman lady of distinction,
superior in birth to her husband ; and this would
lend probability to the supposition that their home
was a centre of Christian worship ; but Sanday-
Headlam think that they were both freed members
of a great Roman family.
There are traces of other centres of worship in
Rome. In Ro 16 both v.'* and v.'* indicate com-
munities or ' families ' of Christians at Rome in
addition to that of A(|uila and Prisca in v.*. In
v.'* only men are mentioned, and yet they form a
community; cf. 'the brethren that are with them.*
In V.'* Philologus and Julia were probably husband
and wife ; Nereus and his sister, and also Olj'mpas,
would be near relations, living with them, but
hardly their children, for it would not be likely
that Philologus' daughter should be referred to
here as ' the sister of Nereus.' This household
seems to have been a large Christian centre : ' all
the saints that are with them ' are mentioned.
The multiplying of centres in one city at a time
when persecution was present or imminent may be
illustrated by the account of the trial of Justin
Martyr before the prefect in Rome (T. Ruinart,
Acta Prim. Mart.^, 1713, p. 59). Justin tells the
prefect that the Christians in the city do not all
assemble at one place, for ' the God of the Chris-
tians is not circumscribed in place, but, being
invisible, fills heaven and earth, and everywhere
is adored by the faithful and His glory praised.'
Justin is pressed to say where he and his disciples
assemble, and he replies that hitherto he has lived
in the house of one Martin. The Acta may prob-
ably be said at least to contain the traditions
current in the 3rd cent, as to Justin's death (see
Smith's DCB iii. [1882] 562).
Another Christian family in Rome has left a
relic of its house as a centre of worship in the
church of San Clemente. This now consists of
three structures, one above the other ; the highest,
now level with the ground, is meditcval, but con-
tains the Byzantine furniture (ambones, rails, etc.) ;
the middle one is of the 4th cent. (?) and used to
contain this furniture ; while underneath is the old
house, now inaccessible through the invasion of
water. This last building, there is little rejison to
doubt, was the meeting-place of the Christians of
the 1st cent., and though now far beneath the sur-
face, was once level with the ground. Local tradi-
tion makes it the house of St. Clement the Bishop,
anil it is highly probable that he worshipped in it ;
but it is not unlikely, as Lightfoot suggests, that
it was the house of Flavins Clemens the Consul,
whom tradition declares to have been buried in it,
and who was perhaps 'patron' to his namesake
FAMIXE
FAST, THE
401
the Bishop (Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt. i. :
• Clement /l890, vol. i. p. 91 If. ). The Consul was a
near relative of the Emperor Domitian, and was
gut to death by him, perhaps because he was a
hristian ; at least his wife Domitilla was a be-
liever (ib. p. 53), and it is quite probable that their
household became a Christian «KXi7cr:a.
A further illustration of the ' family ' as a Chris-
tian community is furnished by the Church of SS.
Giovanni e Paolo, in Rome. The present church
is built above the house of the martyrs so named,
wlio perished, according to tradition, in the reign
of Julian the Apostate. The house was probably
used at that time for worship.
On the other hand, Ro 16*® does not refer to a
number of iKKXrifflai at Ephesus. St.Paulherespeaks
on behalf of the whole of the communities of Chris-
tians which he had evangelized, or perhaps of all
throughout the world, as in 16*, 1 Co 7". It
should be noticed that the word ejcjtXijffia is not
used for a church building till a much later date.
In two places we read of private prayers at fixed
hours in houses: Ac 10* (Peter at the sixth hour,
on the flat roof : see House) and 10*'- * (Cornelius
keeping the ninth hour of prayer in his house).
But these were private prayers, not family worship.
Before public daily worship became generally
customary, in the 4th cent, after the cessation of
persecution, these and other hours of prayer, taken
over from the Jews, were frequently observed by
Christians, apparently in their families. See the
present writer's Ancient Church Orders, 1910, p.
59 tf.
LiTBRATTRE. — This is given in the course of the art., but
special reference is due tothe Prolegomena to J. B. Uehtfoot's
(Motiians and Philemon (19U0 ed.) and Philippians (1903 ed.X
For other aspects of the subject see artt. on ' Familv ' bv W. H.
Bennett in HDB and E. G. Romanes in SDB (these both
deal almost exclusively %vith the OT) ; by C. T. Dimont in
DCG (especially for the teachinar of our Lord in the Gospels)
and J. Straiian in ERE (' Family, Biblical and Christian,'
dealing chiefly with the OT). There are several articles on
the ' Family ' in ERE from ttie point of view of other nations
of the world. A. J. ilACLEAX.
FAMINE. — ' Famine ' is used throughout in the
RV to translate \ifi6i, having taken the place of
'dearth' in Ac 7" and 11^ (AV). The remaining
pas.«ages are Ro 8**, Rev 6* 18*. The most im-
portant of these references is Ac 1 1^, where neydXtjv,
followed by ^rts, the reading of the best MSS, pro-
claims the noun as feminine. In Lk 15^^ it is of
the same gender, but in 4^ it is masculine. In
Josephus, Ant. XX. v. 2, rbv fUycw Xt/iw appears.
We deal first with the great famine which seems
to be common to Josephus and the Book of Acts.
As it is spoken of in both places in the same terms,
so both passages are taken to refer to one and the
same event. Uncertainty attaches to the scope of
the famine, which, according to St. Luke, was
spread over the whole world as then knowTi, but
which, according to Josephus. was restricted to
Judaea. Schiirer {GJV i. [1901] 567) is inclined
to regard the statement of Acts as unhistorical
generalization, and for this he compares Lk 2'.
The Bible historian is defended by W. M. Ramsay
(St. Paid the Traveller, 1S95, p. 49): 'he merely
says that famine occurred over the whole (civilized)
world in the time of Claudius : of course the year
varied in different lands.' As a matter of Jact,
local famines did frequently occur during that
reign (see Schiirer, loc. c'it., and HDB, s.v.
' Claudius ') in lands other than Judaea. The date
of the Judpean famine may be approximately
determined by Herod Agrippa I.'s death, which
took place in a.d. 44 (cf. Ac U^-^o and 12'^--^).
The dates assigned by chronologists range from
that year up to A.D.'46 (see HDB v. 480, and
Ramsay, op. cit. 68, 254). For the actual situation
in Palestine compare Josephus, Ant, m. xv. 3, XX.
VOL. I. — 26
ii. 5, V. 2 ; in the last two paragraphs the succour
given by Queen Helena is detailed.
St. Luke, while careful to maintain the position
of Agabus as a prophet, here in the sense of one
foretelling the future (cf. Ac 21"), himself reWews
the situation from a point outside the reign of
Claudius, which terminated in a.d. 54. He there-
fore could sur\-ey the general feature of that reign,
viz. as being an age of famine, and at the same
time give particular attention to the local famine
in Judaea, which involved Barnabas and SauL
The whole position during the Apostolic Age
may be regarded as perilous to the food supply.
It was so for the Empire, owing to State policy,
and for Palestine because of the insecurity of the
times, culminating in the siege of Jerusalem,
during which famine was extreme. Natural causes
may have added to the straits, as the allusions of
classical ^vriters show. This matter has been con-
sidered from a novel point of view, viz. the relation
between famine and the rainfall, by Ellsworth
Huntington, who concludes that 'the second half
of the first century may have been slightly drier
than the first half, for at that time famines pre-
vailed to an unusual extent' (Palestine and its
Transformation, 1911, p. 327). He supports his
main theory of pulsatory changes in cHmate by
calling in the evidence of inscriptions, and he finds
that the decades a.d. 61-70, 91-lOJ, are without
inscriptions (true for Syria), and these are taken
to be intervals of desiccation and consequent
scarcity. While illuminating the general situation,
this does not bring us nearer than the historians
do to fixing the date of specific famines.
The condition pictured in Rev 6*-' is one of
scarcity, when wheat and barley are to be weighed
out with care to prevent a worse condition arising.
In the next vision (v.*) this worse condition is
described, when death results from famine, among
other evTls.
In the rhetorical appeal addressed by St. Paul
to the Christians in Rome famine appears in the
catalogue of afflictions (Ro 8*^). Assuming that
Babj;lon the Great is to be identified >vith Rome, it
is a fitting sequel to the probable experience of the
Christians there, that famine should be one of the
plagues by whicli the Imperial city is to be finally
overtaken (Rev 18*).
Famines of OT times are recalled : (1) in Egypt
and Canaan (Ac 7") ; (2) in Israel ( Ja 5"- *", the
absence of rain implying lack of earth's fruit ; cf.
Lk 4®, where famine is named).
LiTKB^TrRE.— £rZ)B, art. 'CHaudius'; £Bt, art, ' C!hronol<WT '
(f 76) ; E. Schurer. GJ I's L [1901] 667, HJP i. iL [1890] 169 n. ;
W. M. Ramsay. St. Pard the Traveller, 1895, pp. 48-51 ; J.
B. Li£:htfoot. BiUieal Etta^t, 1893, p. 216 f. ; A. Hansrath,
A History 0/ ST Times. iL [1896] 186 £f.; O. Pfleiderer, Primi-
Kve Christianity, iL [1909] 227 f. ; G. A. Smith. Jerusalem, ii.
[1906] 563. W. CEUICKSHASK.
FAST, THE (Ac 27").— The passage in which the
reference occurs is part of the account of the
voyage of St. Paul. It reads : ixofoS 5^ xptwov
diayevoiierov Kal orroi ^17 €TuT<pa\o\h toS rXoin Sia rb
Kai TTiv rT)<rreiav ijSij rapeXjjXvff^pai, rapigrei 6 IIol'Xoj,
ktX. (• Seeing that a considerable time had elapsed,
and that already sailing was dangerous, and also
the Fast was by this time over, Patd exhorted,'
etc.). St. Ltikeisanxioustoemphasizethefactthat
the period when, according to ancient custom, navi-
gation mtist cease, was imminent. The Romans
reckoned the period of mare clcitisum from 11 Nov.
to 10 March (Vegetius, de Re Milit. iv. 39 ; Pliny,
i HX ii. 47). Previous to this was a period (24 Sept.
I [the autumnal equinox]-ll Nov.) when sailing
i was regarded as attended with great risk (Caesar,
I Bell. Gall. iv. 36, v. 23). For the Jew, navigation
I was possible only from the Feast of Pentecost to
i the Feast of Tabernacles (Lewin, Life and Epp. of
u
402
FAST, THE
FEAR
f>t. Paul, 1875, ii. 192 n., quoting Scliott^en, JIorcB
Heb. i. 482). By general consent tlie 'P'ast'
referred to by St. Luke is regarded as the great
Day of Atonement (Lv 16-'« 23-'«-^2 . jy^ ^„^ xiv.
xvi. 4), although unsuccessful attempts have been
made to refer it to the third day of the Athenian
Thesmophoria, or to some nautical mo<le of ex-
pression ( —exh-emum autumni) (cf. Knowling, EGT,
1900, iji loco). This Fast occurred live days before
the Feast of Tabernacles, when, according to
Jewish reckoning, sailing was no longer possible.
The problem to be solved is to account for the
emphatic May in which the language is heaped up,
so as to imply that the situation for those on board
was really critical, and to explain the advice given
by St. Paul to remain where they were, which was
disregarded (Ac 27^"- -'). The sailing-master and
captain were anxious to reach Phcenix, a Cretan
port further on, not only because they thought it
a safer port to winter in, but also, no doubt, that
thej' might lose less time, and perhaps gain the
glory that accrued to the bringing in of the first
corn-ship to Rome in the sjiring (cf. W. M. Ramsay,
4Sf. Paul the Traveller, 1895, p. 322 ff., where the
whole situation as between St. Paul and the re-
sponsible authorities is clearly explained). St. Paul
snowed himself not only the more prudent sailor,
but as having the greater regard not merely for
human life, but also for the guidance of God.
This i)urpose in St. Luke's mind is revealed in his
use of Kai before rrjv vija-reiav, ' also the Y&st was
now gone by.' In other words, less than five days
remained from the date (Feast of Tabernacles)
when to sail would be contrary to the will of God.
The implication is that they actually did set sail
within these five days.
Two questions of critical interest emerge from a
careful consideration of the use of vq(XTela in this
passage.
1. Chronological. — The word seems to .afford an
important clue to the exact year in which the
voyage of St. Paul to Rome took place. In this
connexion we must note that, in all probability,
the phrase fivros i^Stj eiri<T<pa\ods toO irXoSi refers to
the Roman mode of reckoning, and tliat there is
a studied contrast (implied in KaL) in the verse
between the Roman and the Jewish Calendar.
The KaL reproduces vividly the note of apprehen-
siveness. ' It seems to follow, therefore, that Luke
is writing of a year in Avhich the Great Fast is
subsequent to the Autumnal Equinox, or is at
all events very late indeed' (W. P. Workman, in
ExpT xi. [1899-1900] 317). Workman deduces,
after a careful examination of the various dates
proposed, especially of A.D. 56, 58, 59, that A.D. 59
18 the one tliat fits in best with St. Luke's state-
ment. The Fast took place on Tishri 10, which is
calculated by adding 173 days to Nisan 14 ; the
calculation of the latter date presenting some
difficulty only in A.D. 56, which for other reasons
is unsuitable, although championed by Blass and
Harnack. Turner in HDB i. 862, art. ' Chrono-
logy,' argues for A.D. 58, but in that year Tishri
10 IS 16 Sept., eight days previous to the equinox.
If Workman's interpretation of the contrast in St.
Luke's mind between the two modes of reckoning
is correct, A.D. 58 is therefore unsuitable, and the
only possible year is A.D. 59, in which Tishri 10
falls on 5 October. This is the year contended for
on other grounds by Ramsaj' and others. Anotlier
advantage is that, by this means, the chronological
difficulty created by the ' three months' ' stay in
Malta (Ac 28") is somewhat alleviated ; for the
party could not possibly set sail again until the
very beginning of February at the earliest. The
s|)ring equinox occurred on 9 Feb. (cf. Turner,
JIDli i. 422"; Zahn, Introd, iii. 454). St. Paul
would of course reckon after the Jewish Calendar
(1 Co 16"), and it is quite natural that St. Luke,
a Gentile Christian, should also do so (Harnack,
The Acts of the Apostles [XT Stndies iii.], p. 21
[ = Beitrage zur Einleltung in das NT, iii. (19U8)]).
2. Authorship of Acts. — Does the mention of the
Fast imply that St. Paul observed it? This ques-
tion can be answered adequately only in connexion
with a full investijjation of his attitude towards
Judaism. Such an investigation has a very inii>ort-
ant bearing on the question of the Lucan author-
ship, and cannot be entered upon here (see art.
Acts of thk Apcstles). It may, however, lie
pointed out that, on the most probable supi>osi-
tion that St. Paul, along with his companions
Aristarchus and Luke, did observe the Fast, the
fact is illuminative for the question of his attitude
to Judaism generally, notwithstanding his principle
that the Law is abrogated. Waiving the general
question as to whether such conformity on the
Apostle's part is inconsistent with the doctrine of
the Epistles (cf. Ac 2r''"^- 23« 26«), and the assump-
tion that on this account the portrait of St. Paul in
Acts is therefore a Tc/u/cjis-prodnct, we may find
in this passage an important confirmation of Har-
nack's position that a mere theory of accommodation
to Jewish customs for the sake of peace on St.
Paul's part is neither worthy nor satisfjung. No
such motive could be in place under such circum-
stances. He observed the Fast because he was a
Jew, who at the .same time did not seek to bind
such observances on Gentile Christians. His one
aim was to promote a sense of brotherhood ' in
Christ ' between Jew and Gentile. ' St. Paul,
indeed, took up a position even then no longer
tenable when he regarded "Judaism" as still pos-
sible within the Christian fold, while he himself,
by his mission to the Gentiles, had actually severed
Judaism inside Christianity from its roots' (Har-
nack, Date of Acts and Synoptic Gospels [AT
Studies, iv.], p. 76 [ = Beitrage, iv. (1911)]).
LiTERATDRB. — For Chronology, see Literature mentioned in
the article ; and for tiie whole discussion of St. Paul's relation
to Judaism, see A. Harnack, Pate of the Acts and of the
Synoptic Gospels, Eng. tr., 1911, p. 07 ff., also his Acts of the
Apostles, Eng. tr., 1909, p. 281 ff. ; T. Zahn, Introd. to the XT,
Eng. tr., 1909, iii. l.')2 ; E. von Dobschiitz, Prohleme des
apostol. Zeitalters, 1904, p. 81 ff. ; J. Weiss, Vber die Ahsirht
unddenlilerar. Charahicr der Apostclieachiehte, 1897. v- 36ff. ;
A. JUlicher, Neue Linienind. Kritikd. ermine/. I'brrhefemng,
1906, p. 59 f. R, H. STRACHAN.
FASTING.— See Abstinence.
FATHER.— See Family.
FATHERHOOD OF GOD.-See GOD.
FATHOM.— The only instance of this measure-
ment is found in Ac 27^, where by successive
soundings a depth of 20 and 15 fathoms is obtained.
The word employed (dfyyvid ; cf. Herod, ii. 149. 4)
denotes the length from finger tip to finger tip of
the outstretched arms, measuring across the breast.
In tables of length it appears = 4 cubits = 6 feet.
The actual measurement thus depends on the
length of the cubit or foot. According to recent
authorities, the Roman-Attic ft. is given as equiva-
lent to -971 English ft., which yields 70 in. (aji-
proximately) as the length of the fathom. This is
slightly under our jnesent-day measure of 6 feet.
For the fathom of Julian of Ascalon (74*49 in.) see
EBi, art. ' Weights and Measures.'
W. CnUICK.SHANK.
FEAR {tf>6^oi, tpopelaeai, (po^fp6s ; d(t>6^ui, ' without
fear ' ; fK<po^oi, ' exceedingly afraid '). — While there
is a natural fear in the presence of danger— c.*/.
in a hurricane at sea (Ac 27'")— which is not si>eci-
fically human, spiritual fear is distinctive of man,
whose motives and actions lack their finest quality
FEAE
FEASTING
403
anless they are influenced by it. The last count
in the indictment which St. Paul draws up against
both Jew and Gentile — comprehensive and explana-
tory of all the rest — is that there is no fear of God
before their eyes (Ro 3^^). This is the stupid, un-
thinking fearlessness of men who are blind to the
realities of the spiritual world to which they be-
long. If they but knew God, they could not but
fear Him, supposing they are guilty of even a frac-
tion of the sins which are here laid to their charge.
So soon as their eyes are opened, and their con-
sciences quickened, they discover that it is a fear-
ful thing {(po^epov) to tall into the hands of the
li\-ing God (He 10"). But if, conscious of demerit,
they cry to Him for mercy, their sins are forgiven,
and henceforth they live as in His sight, recogniz-
ing that to fear God and keep His commandments
is the whole duty of man.
This was the religion of the devout Jew, and
whenthe Gentile, dissatisfied alike with the old
gods of Olympus and the cold abstractions of philo-
sophy, came to the synagogues of the ' dispersion '
in search of a higher taith and a purer morality, he
was taught to ' fear God.' He became a ^o^oOpLevos
(or fft^ofjievoi) rbv deov, though he might never com-
pletely judaize himself by accepting the mark of
the covenant. The God-fearer is very frequently
referred to in the Apostolic Age (Ac 10^— ^ 13^®- -**
etc. ), and many of the earliest GentUe converts to
Christianity were men and women whose fear of
God had prepared them for the reception of the
gospel. The Torah was thus a tutor to bring them
to Christ. The religion of law, in which God was
a Sovereign to be obeyed and a Judge to be dreaded,
was consummated by the religion of love, in which
Goti is a Father and Christ a Saviour-Brother. It
is the distinctive message of Christianity that God
wills men to serve Him without fear (di^6,3ws, Lk 1"*),
with a love which casts out fear (1 Jn -t'*), with a
boldness which seeks His immediate presence (He
10^), with a freedom and familiarity which prompt
the cry ' Abba, Father ' (Ro 8^*). ' Ye have not re-
ceived the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye
have received the spirit of sonship.' 'EXevdepia, vap-
pT/ffia, and dydrr} — dominant notes in the gospel of
St. Paul, the writer of Hebrews, and St. John — are
all antipodal to fear. The atmosphere of the house-
hold of God is filial trust, not servile suspicion and
dread.
In the Christian life, nevertheless, there is a new
{•lace for the old instinct of fear. Wearing a fresh
ivery, it is transformed into a guardian of the be-
liever's dear-bought possessions. Godly repentance
has wrought — what fear ! (2 Co 7"). Thus there
is an ethical fear which accompanies a great re-
sponsibility, a passionate love, and a noble heroism.
There is a fear which is the opposite of high-minded-
ness (Ro 11^), and without which no man can work
out his salvation (Ph 2^-) or perfect his holiness
(2 Co 7^). There is a fear of personally coming
short and permittin^^ others to come short (wrepij-
Kivai, He 4^. There is the paranymph's jealous fear
lest the Bridegroom should lose His bride (2 Co IP),
the Apostle's anxious fear lest his converts should
be found unworthy (12^). There is the scrupulous
fear of Bunyan's Mr. Fearing, who ' was, above
many, tender of sin ; he was so afraid of doing
injuries to others, that he often would deny himself
of that which was lawful, because he would not
offend ' (cf. 1 Co 8"). There is a fear, like that of
the angels in Sodom, animating those who snatch
erring ones as brands from the burning, while they
hate even the garment spotted by the flesh ( Jude ^).
From the natural fear which listens either to the
whispers of inward weakness or the threats of out-
ward despotism, Christianity suffices to deliver
men. For the sensitive human spirit, which often
pathetically confesses its ' weakness and fear and
much trembling ' ( 1 Co 2* ; cf. 2 Co 7'), Christ indeed
shows the utmost tenderness, and again and again
St. Paul received night-visions in which his Lord
bade him 'Be not afraid' (ait; <po^ov, Ac 18», 27-'').
But for the timidity which sacrifices principles and
shirks duties Christianity has no mercy. To this
fear it gives a special name, calling it not <l>6^ot
but deiXia (2 Ti 1"), a fearfulness which is synonym-
ous with cowardice, and the fearful {duXoi, Rev 2P),
who prove apostates in the hour of danger, denying
Christ and worshipping Caesar, stand first in the
black list of those who go down to the second
death.
The NT shrinks from attributing ^/3o$ to Christ,
yet something would have been lacking in His
matchless character if He had not given the best
illustration of the presence of fear in even the
most filial life. In the hour of His agony, when
His Father's will was the one certainty which
nothing could obscure. His godly fear of swerving
an inch from the line of duty gave Him the su-
preme moral victory. He was heard for His euXd^Seto,
that perfect reverence which dictated a perfect
submission : ' exauditus pro sua reverentia ' ( >'ulg. ).
James Strahan\
FEASTING. — 1. Pagan feastings. — These are
dealt with in this article only in so far as they are
alluded to in the apostolic literature. The allu-
sions are incidental, and no attempt is made at
minute description.
(1) We find KwfjLOi or drinking-bouts mentioned
(Ro 13^, Gal 5^, 1 P 4^), and the licentious con-
duct of those who participated in these orgies
may have suggested to St. Paid the famous pas-
sages in which he speaks of the works of dark-
ness (cf. Eph 5^^'", 1 Th 5"-), for these bouts took
place at night as distinguished from the tempest iva
convivia which ended in daylight: 'those that be
drunken are drunken in the night ' (1 Th 5").
' When night
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine '
(Milton, Paradise Lott, L 500ff.X
To Plato also they suggested a picture of the
licentious tyrannical soul {Rep. ix. 573) : ' there
will be feasts and carousals and revellings and
courtezans, and aU that sort of thing; Love
("Ep<iK) is the lord of the house within him, and
orders all the concerns of his soul.'
Flagrant, shameless immorality was the invari-
able result of such feasts, and so we find associ-
ated with them dffeXyeia, fieOai, olvo<p\iryia, dfficria.
' Wine, women, and song ' went together. Plato
speaks of detrva xal airv aiiXrirpUri KUfwi {Thecet.
173 D), and it may be that, when St. Paul exhorts
Christians to use psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs, he is contrasting the grand reverent music
of Christian meetings with the ribald songs of
pagan feasts. One may compare the phrase in
Pliny's correspondence {Epp. x. 97) : ' carmen
Christo quasi Deo secum invicem.' A favourite
topic of conversation at such gatherings was fpws,
which is interesting when one thinks of the Chris-
tian Agape.
Although philosophers might be able to discuss
this topic on a high moral plane (cf. Plato, Sym-
posiuvi), yet ordinarily the 'love' spoken of was
simply ' lust. '
St. Paul knew that just as Judaism conld de-
scend to this worldly, sensual plane of living when
God was forgotten, so also could Christianity.
The motto of this kind of life was ' Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die ' — perhaps the philo-
sophic creed of a few, but certainly the practice of
many. Hence St. Peter calls it the ' will of the
Gentiles' (1 P 4^), and St. Paul contrasts it with
the ' will of the Lord ' 'Eph 5^"). The great moral-
ists of paganism condemned these bouts, and St.
404
FEASTING
FEASTING
Paul (1 Co 15^) quotes Menander (ace. to Jerome
on Gal 4-'*) — himself an Epicurean — against the
view of life summed up in the aphorism, ' Let us
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.' The Cor-
inthians, doubting the resurrection-life, must
wake up from drunkenness in a righteous fashion.
Such deeds of darkness as were associated with
these kQihoi were to be utterly left alone (cf. lio 13'*'*,
a passage for ever associated with the conversion
of St. Auf^stine). Christians were to be filled
with the Spirit, not with wine, which leads to
proHijjfacy (do-on-ia). Profligacy is associated with
drinking-bouts in 2 Mac 6^ and Test. Jicd. xvi. 1:
* There are four evil demons in wine — lust, burn-
in^sensual desire, profligacy, base greed of gain.'
Disregard of a future life easily led to sensualism
(see Meyer's Kommentar on 1 Co 15*^ for in-
scriptions on drinking-cups recently discovered).
Clinstians would of course be looked on by their
former pagan associates as austere, gloomy Puritans
for leaving aside these practices. So St. Peter
declares, and Tertullian later on says : ' What a
jolly boon companion that young man was, and
now he is good for nothing; he has become a
Christian. What a gay woman tliat was, how
agieeably wanton, and now one dare not utter the
least indecency in her presence ' (Apol. 3).
(2) It was not simply gross, licentious, heathen
feasts that came into conflict with the moral
earnestness of Christianity, but also feasts con-
nected with religious cults. These cults were
everywhere, and the cult of the Emperor was some-
times associated with them. They constituted a
grave danger owing to the religious sanction they
gave to immorality and the easy path they opened
up towards virtual apostasy. To participate in
tliese religious feasts was distinctly forbidden, al-
though, according to St. Paul at least, the meat
oflered for sale in the open markets could be
bought.
Christian converts had been brought up in an
atmosphere Avhere the belief in the influence of
demons was taken for granted, and indeed tlie
common belief of Judaism Avas similar. The
Jew incurred pollution through partaking of food
ofl'ered to idols. It was believed that the evil spirit
entered the food and resided even in those portions
sold in public ; ' lying hid tliere for a long time,
they (i.e. demons) blend with your souls' (Clem.
Horn. ix. 9). An extreme form of this view is found
in Eusebius {Pi-cep. Evang, iv. 23 — a quotation from
Porphyry) : ' Bodies are full of demons ; for they
particularly delight in foods of various kinds. So
wlien we eat they seize upon the body.' It was
therefore absolutely imperative to abstain from
festivals connected with idol-worship.
' Where the feast is held under the auspices of a heathen
L'od and as a sequel to his sacrifice,' then abstinence must
follow ; ' participation under these circumstances becomes an
act of apostasy, and the feaster identifies himself with the idol
as distinctly as in the Lord's Supper he identifies himself with
Christ' (G. G. Findlay in EGT ii. [19UU] 732).
(3) It was not as easy, however, to decide the
right Christian attitude in the case of civic and
business festivities. Trade-gilds and social clubs
were numerous and gave their members many
social and commercial advantages. They could
hold property, and they gave relief in cases of need
to their members. These gilds were under tlie
patronage of some deity who was honoured in
feasts — common meals of a sacramental kind at
which members ate and drank reclining on couches.
Tliese meals were often scenes of revelry (see
Kamsay in HDB iv. 758-9), and it required great
constancy on the part of Christian members of
such gilds to keep their faith. St. I'aul recognizes
the impossibility of absolute aloofness from these
and from social gatherings ; but while he maintains
the nonentity of idols, he recognizes the practical
power of demonic influence. He allows freedom
of intercourse to the strong Christian — provided he
keeps from idolatry and fornication — but he recog-
nizes the danger. This was threefold. The weak
brotlier mightbe made to stumble, the strong Chris-
tian might himself be enticed, and the lieatheu
might conclude that the Christianity of the Chris-
tian participant meant little. There were three
dangers the Apostle had to face in settling this
question. Tliere was the danger of asceticism,
the danger of a relapse into Judaistic rites, and
the danger of aiitinomian laxity. The danger of
asceticism is met in the Colossian Epistle. St.
Paul combats abstinence (see art. Abstinence).
From his mention of angel-worship and aroLxela. it
seems clear that the demonic influences referred to
above were believed in by the errorists of Colossa?.
Judaistic influence is also discernible (see art.
CoLOSSlANS) The Judaistic errors are met in the
Galatian Epistle. It is the libertine antinomian
error that seemed most likely to overcome the
Gentile Church. St. Paul meets it in 1 Corintli-
ians. The letters to Pergamos and Thyatira meet
it with forcible denunciation and threatening (see
such artt. as BALAAM, JEZEBEL, NiCOLAlTAXS),
and in 2 Peter and Jude we have an attitude simi-
lar to that of St. John (Revelation).
2. Christian feasts (for the Jewish feasts men-
tioned in the NT see artt. New Moon, Pas,sover,
Pentecost, Sabbath, etc.). We have the Lord's
Supper as a distinctively Christian feast (see
Eucharist), and at least once Agape occurs (.see
Love-F"east). The well-known Church festivals
are of later origin. St. Paul once ( 1 Co 5**) uses the
term ' feast ' in a metaphorical sense of the whole
life of the Christian community. Philo had inter-
preted in this fashion before him (de Migr. Abruh.
16). This is sug>^ested to St. Paul by the Lord's
Supper, and the tnought is found recurring in later
writers. Clement of Alexandria speaks of the
whole Christian life of the true Gnostic as a holy
panegyric (joyful assembly) (Strom, vii. 7). Chry-
sostom also says that for Christians their whole
life is a feast owing to the superabundance of the
good gifts bestowed on them (quoted by Findlay,
EGT, on 1 Co 5"). This feast, says St. taul, must
be held in sincerity and truth.
In 2 P 2^^, Jude ^- we have an account of liber-
tines who frequent the Christian feasts, but who
turn them into occasions of pleasure. The textual
questions involved need not be raised here. Even
if we read dTrdrats in 2 Pet. for a.-y6.irai% (as in Jude '*),
the reference seems in both places to be to the
Christian love-feasts (the term ein^ixla is used of
the love-feast by Clem. Alex. Pad. ii. 1. 6). and a
class of men is brought before us who live immoral
lives while yet claiming the right to participate in
the Christian love-feasts.
These Christian feasts were early misunderstood
by pagans. Christians were accused of atheism, of
immorality, and of cannibalism. Pliny, by speaking
of the innocence of Christian feasts, implies that he
had heard these accusations. Similar charges are
repudiated by Justin Martyr {Apol. i. 26), and later
by Tertullian (Apol. 7, 8). The Christians defended
themselves on tlie ground that such accusations
were baseless, or else that they could only be brought
against heretics (cf. Iren. I. xxv. 3, and Justin
Martj'r, Apol. i. 26). For a later defence see Euse-
bius, HE 4, 7. That there was some ground for the
charge of immoralitj', even Peter and Jude l)ear
witness, but they testify also to the stern morality
of true Christianity.
LiTBRATURB.— For icujitoc see Classical Dictionaries; E. H -■"-''
The Organization of the Earlu Christian Churcl,'
Lecture ii. (jrives references to asso<-'iations) ; W. M. R
artt. mllDBon 'Pergamus,' 'Thyatira,' etc., also 7'/.
FEET
FELLOWSHIP
405
in the Roman Empire, 1S93, Index, <i.f. • Sodalitates." Refer-
ence must also be made to XT IntroductiODS like Zahn's (Eng.
tr., :*») and works on the Apostolic Age.
Donald Mackexzie.
FEET. — The tendency to individual detail, which
gives so much vividness to Semitic narrative,
accounts for some of the references to the feet
(t65€s) in apostolic writings, as, for example, the
reference in St. Peter's judgment on Sapphira:
• the feet of those wlio buried thy husband are at the
door ' (Ac 59 ; cf. 7«, He l•2=^ Rev 1'* 2>8 lOM- The
sinner's feet are 'swift to shed blood' (Ro 3"), but
the Christian's are to be ' sandalled ' with readiness
to proclaim the gospel of peace (Eph 6^'), and are
made beautiful by that mission (Ro 10"). Behind
such allusions, however, there is something more
than the love of graphic detail. The whole body
enters much more into biblical ideas of personality
than the modem reader usually recognizes (see artt.
Ear, ^Iead). In St. Paul's analogy- between the
human body and the Church, the head needs the
service of the feet, and the foot must not refuse
its ministry because its service is humbler than
that of the hand (1 Co 12'5- ^i ; cf. 1 Clem, xxxvii. 5).
In the mystical body of the Odes of Solomon (xlii. 18)
the feet represent the saints.
Other references to the feet are derived from
Oriental customs. The sandals are removed in
holy places (Ac 7^), as before entering the mosque
of to-day. The removal of the master's sandals is
a slave's work (13^). To wash the dusty feet of
guests is a rite of hospitality (cf. Lk 7**, Jn IS'"-),
and the habit of rendering such sendee to the
'saints' is mentioned amongst the qualifications
of 'widows' (1 Ti 5^"; see art. Widow). Since
the Jewish teacher taught whilst sitting, with his
scholars at a lower level around him, St. Paul can
say literally that he was ' brought up at the feet of
Gamaliel ' (Ac 22*). Contributions to the common
fund are laid at the feet of the apostles, who are
thus represented sitting as teachers (4^ ; see Holtz-
mann, ad loc. ). The clothes of the ' witnesses ' who
stoned Stephen were laid at the feet of Saul,
already prominent against the new sect (7^*). The
Oriental habit of prostration before the feet of a
superior, in fear or reverence, is illustrated by
Sapphira (5^»), Cornelius ( 10=^), John (Rev li^ 19'" 22» ;
cf. 3^ ; Hennas, Vis. III. ii. 3). The ancient custom
according to which the victor literally trampled
the conquered under his feet (Jos \^* and the
monuments), to register and confirm the conquest,
accounts for the frequent phrase ' under the feet,'
to denote subjugation (1 Co 15^", Eph l^^, He 2«,
Ro 16^ ; cf. Rev lO^ 12'). In the spirit of dramatic
symbolism, Agabus (q.v.) bound his hands and feet
with St. Paul's girdle, to prophesy the Apostle's
coming bondage (Ac 21"). St. Paid and Barnabas
shook oft' the dust of their feet against Pisidian
Antioch (13*' ; cf. Mt 10") in token of complete
separation from its doom.
H. Wheeler Robixsox.
FELIX (Ac 23-<ff-).— A freedman, and a brother
of Pallas, Felix was the favourite of the Emperor
Claudius. Tacitus (Hist. v. 9) calls him ' Antonius
Felix.' Of his public life prior to his appoint-
ment to his procuratorship in Palestine, nothing
is known ; of his private life, only that he had
married a granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra,
whom Tacitus (loc. cit.) calls Drusilla, confusing
her, no doubt, ^vith the Jewish princess with whom
Felix allied himself later. Suetonius knows of
yet another marriage — also to a princess (C7a«rf. 28).
Josephus and Tacitus are at variance as to the
time and circumstance of the sending of Felix
to Palestine. According to Josephus (BJ ii. 12 ;
Ant. XX. 6f.), Felix was appointed to succeed the
procurator Cumanus, when the latter was con-
demned and banished for his misrule. According
to Tacitus (Ann. xii. 54), Cumanus and Felix were
contemporaneously procurators, the one of Galilee,
the other of Samaria. It seems reasonable to follow
Schiirer (HJP I. iL [1890] 174) in giving preference
in this matter to 'the very detailed narrative of
Josephus.' This fixes the arrival of Felix in
Palestine in A.D. 52, or early in the follovting
year.
The historians are entirely at one in their esti-
mate of Felix and of the manner in which he
exercised his functions. His countryman Tacitus
(Hist. V. 9) describes him as using ' the powers of a
king with the disposition of a slave,' and says
(Ann. xii. 54) ' he deemed that he might perpetrate
any ill deeds with impunity.' Under his govern-
ment the state of Palestine grew rapidly worse.
If there had been occasional disorders under
Cumanus, 'imder Felix rebellion became perma-
nent.' The boundless cruelty with wMch he re-
pressed the more open opposition of the ' Zealots *
to the Roman rule stimulated the formation of the
secret associations of the 'Assassins ' (Sicarii), whose
hand was against all — Jew not less than Roman
— who did not further their designs. Not less
significant of the misery of the people was their
readiness to answer the call of religious fanatics
like ' the Egyptian ' mentioned in Ac 21^, whom
Josephus (BJ II. xiii. 5) credits with a following
of thirty thousand. In any such movement Felix
suspected ' the beginning of a revolt,' and adopted
measures which only served to increase the popular
disaffection. For the intrigue by which he pos-
sessed himself of the youngest daughter of Herod
Agrippa I. — the newly wedded wife of King Azizus
of Emesa — see art. Drusilla.
The cynical disregard of Felix for justice, and
his inordinate greed are alike brought to view
in his treatment of the Apostle Paul. Although
possessed of information 'concerning the Way,*
which would have justified him in releasing the
prisoner when he was first brought before him, he
decided to adjourn the case indefinitely (Ac 24-),
partly to curry favour with the Jews, and partly
to sene his own rapacious ends. The interview
with the Apostle recorded in Ac 24^ was probably
intended by the procurator and his wife to be
somewhat of a diversion — it ended for Felix in
terror. He had frequent communings with St.
Paul during the time he detained him as his
prisoner at Ciesarea ; but seemingly on these later
occasions Felix kept control of the conversation
and directed it, though unavailingly, towards his
mercenary aim.
Two years after St. Paul was brought to Caesarea,
Felix was recalled to Rome in connexion with a
strife which had broken out at Caesarea between
the Jews and the Syrians in that town — the Jews
asserting for themselves certain exclusive rights,
which the others denied. The matter was referred
to the Emperor. The investigation proved so
damaging to Felix that 'he had certainly been
brought to punishment, unless Nero had yielded to
the importunate solicitations of his brother Pallas '
(Jos. Ant. XX. viii. 9).
Of the subsequent life of Felix, nothing is known.
LrrBRATCKB.— H. M. Lnckock, Footprints of the Apostles at
traced by St. Lvke, 1905, pt. ii. p. 243 ; A. Madaren, Exposir
turns : 'Acts, ch. xiii.-€nd,' 1907, pp. 2S1. 2S7 ; G. H. Morrison,
The FooUttps of the Floek, 1904, p. 362 ; M. Jones, SL Pajd
the Orator, 1910, p. 202 ; J. S. Howson, The CampoKiont of St.
Paxd, 1874, p. 145 ; H. Goodwin, Parish Sermons, Snd ser.S.
1S61, p. 179 ; W. H. M. H. Aitken, The Glory of the GotpO,
n.d., pp. 193, 208, 223; C. H. Turner, 'Eusebins' Chronology
of Felix and Festns' in JThSt, iu. a901-02] 120; S. Boss.
Roman Late and History in the ST, 1901, p. 373.
G. P. Gould.
FELLOWSHIP. — Nothing is so prominent in
early Christianity as its sense of fellowship. The
Corinthians, with their extreme individualistic
406
FELLOWSHIP
FESTUS
tendencies, are an exception among the Panline
communities. It This fellowship is primarily a
reli<,'ious fact : it is fellowship with the heavenly
Lord, who, though hidden in heaven (Ac 3-'), is
yet sensibly present to His followers (Mt IS-" 28^"),
Even the individual believer knows that he is in
fellowship witli Christ. St. Paul, using a mystical
form of expression, says that it is Christ and not
himself who lives and acts in him (Gal 2**). He
speaks also of 'the fellowship of his sufferings'
(rh 3'"), which allows his own sufferings to par-
ticipate in the saving power of Clirist's afflictions
for His Church (Col 1", Eph 3^»). The fellowship
with Christ to which God has called Christians
(1 Co P) has not yet been fully realized, but is
still to be hoped for. Tolbe witli Christ for ever
is tlie whole desire of the Apostle (1 Th 4", Ph l^^) ;
in the present time he has but a foretaste of the
joy to come. St. John emphasizes the fact that
this present fellowship with Clirist (1 Jn 1*) is
fellowship with the Father and with the Son (P).
Since it is the Holy Ghost who mediates between
Christ and His believers, St. Paul speaks of
•fellowship of the Spirit' (Ph 2^) as well as of
' communion of the Holy Ghost ' (2 Co 13"), the
same Greek word {Koivuvla) being used in both
passages. Fellowship with the heavenly Lord,
■who sits at the right hand of God, and makes in-
tercession for His followers (Ro 8^* ; cf. 1 Jn 2^,
He 2'^ 4'* 7^ etc. ), is realized in prayers which are
heard (2 Co 12«'-), and in revelations (2 Co 12', Gal
22 ; cf. 1 Th 4i«). Fellowship with the Holy Ghost
is realized in certainty of salvation and boldness
in prayer (Ro S'*'- '^ ; cf. He 4><'), in moral strength
(Ro 8'^'-, Gal 5^*^-). and miraculous gifts of every
kind — the ecstatic gifts of prophecy and speaking
with tongues, and the natural gifts bestowed by
the Spirit, such as governing and helping in the
Church (1 Co 12^«-"^^^-).
2. Fellowship of the faith (Philem ') is fellowship
of the faithful. This is an exclusive fellowship :
' what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity ?
or what communion hath light with darkness?'
(2 Co 6'*). St. Paul, and still more St. John, strive
hard to maintain thisexclusiveness in their churches
— not for reasons of utility, as in the case of the
Greek clubs ; not from national prejudice, as in
the case of the Jewish synagogues ; but from the
standpoint of Christian morals : the fulfilment of
the high ordinances of the gospel is only possible
in the midst of a Christian congregation (1 Co 6^'").
The separation of the members of the Church from
social relationship with the heathen world, which
St. Paul endeavoured to effect (cf. his scruples re-
garding invitations to heathen houses or temjiles,
1 Co 10"), was carried out in later times (1 P 4^
3 Jn ^) ; and the leaders in the Church even began
to insist on avoiding all fellowship with Chris-
tians of doubtful character (2 Jn'*"-, 1 Jn 4'^-, Rev
ouff. m.^ Jude'Sff-).
To this exclusiveness in externals there corre-
sponds an inward intensity : to be of one accord, to
have the same mind (1 Co l^', 2 Co 13", Ph 2-, Ro
12'«), to love tiie brethren (Ro 12i", 1 Th 4», etc.),
are of t-repeated commands. 'Bear ye one another's
burdens' is a law of the Church (Gal 6-); all are
members of one body (1 Co 12'-'^-), and so all have
joy and sorrow in common (1 Co 12^, Ro 12'^).
One sign of this fellowship is mutual intercession
(2 Co 1", Col 4», 2 Th 3'), another is the ki.ss of
peace (2 Co 13'2, 1 Th 5'^). At tlie so-called Apos-
tolic Council, James, Peter, and John gave Paul
and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship in
token of their mutual recoj^nition of one another
as fellow- workers in their different mission fields
(Gal 2"). Later on it became customary to send
messengers and letters from one church to another.
St. Paul mentions not only his fellow-workers (Ro
16-') but also his fellow-prisoners (Ro 16' Col 4'*).
Christianity is called a brotherhood (1 P 2" 5«, 1
C'em. ii. 4).
3. Fellowship — and this is the main point — is to
be exercised actively towards all members of the
community. In this sense fellowship is one of the
chief characteristics of the primitive Church of
Jerusalem (Ac 2*-) ; it is characteristic, too, of the
relationship between the Pauline communities.
St. Paul praises the Philippians for their fellow-
ship in furthering the gos[)el (Ph 1"), i.e. takins
part in the Apostle's missionary work by personal
activity, prayers, and contributions of money. In
this way they had fellowship with his afffictions
(Ph 4"). The churches of Macedonia besought
the Apostle ' with much intreaty in regard of . . .
the fellowship in the ministering to the saints ' (2
Co 8*), i.e. that they might be allowed to join in
the collection for the poor of Jerusalem. Thus
the word Koivuvia acquires a meaning wliich the
EW have tried to express by the rendering ' con-
tribution'(Ro 15=», 2 Co 9"; AV 'distribution')
or ' communicate ' (He 13"), He that is taught in
the word is advised by St. Paul to communicate
unto him that teacheth in all good things (Gal 6').
Fellowship, then, becomes a system of mutual help
— the care of the poor and the sick, the feeding
of widows and orphans, the visiting of prisoners,
hospitality, the procuring of labour for travelling
workmen (Didache, xii. 3ff.), are some of the
proofs of fellowship. By these means early Chris-
tianity showed itself to be a social power far sur-
passing all rival organizations and religions.
Literature. — E. von Dobschutz, Christian Life in the Primi-
tive Church, Eng. tr., 1904 ; A. Harnack, Die Mission uni
Aushreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei Jahrhun-
derten"^, 1906, i. 127-171 (Enfj. tr., Mission and Expansion^,
1908, i. 147-198). Of. also the Literature at the end of the art.
Communion. E. VOX DOBSCHtJTZ.
FESTUS. — No information is forthcoming con-
cerning Porcius Festus, who succeeded Felix in
the procuratorship of Judaea, other than that
supplied by Ac 24-^ 26*- and by Josephus, Ant. XX.
viii. 9f., ix. 1, and BJ ll. xiv. 1. According to
Josephus, Festus set himself with vigour and
success to restore order to his province, which he
found distracted with sedition and overrun by
bands of robbers. ' He caught the greatest part of
the robbers, and destroyed a great many of them.'
More particularly it is added that he ' sent forces,
both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that
had been seduced by a certain impostor, who pro-
mised them deliverance and freedom from the
miseries they w ere under, if they would but follow
him as far as the wilderness. Accordingly, those
forces that were sent destroyed both him tliat had
deluded them and those that were his followers
also.' The only other incident in the administra-
tion of Festus which Josephus relates shows hira, in
association with King Agrippa li., withstanding
'the chief men of Jerusalem {A7it. XX. viii. 11),
and permitting an appeal to Cresar — an interesting
combination in view of the narrative in Acts. The
circumstances, as stated by Josephus, were these :
Agrippa had made an addition to his palace at
Jerusalem, which enabled him to observe from his
dining-hall what was done in the Temple. There-
upon ' the chief men of Jerusalem ' erected a wall
to obstruct the view from the palace. Festus sup-
ported Agrippa in demanding the removal of this
wall, but yielded to the request of the Jews that
the whole matter might be referred to Nero, who
upheld the appeal and reversed the judgment of
his procurator.
Josephus evidently regards Festus as a wise and
righteous official, affording an agreeable contrast
to Albinus, his successor, of whom he says that
' there was not any sort of wickedness that could
FEVER
FIRE
407
be named but he had a hand in it' (BJ U.
xiv. 1).
Turning to the Book of Acts, Ave find that there,
•while justice is done to the promptness \i\t\\ which
Festus addressed himself to his duties and to the
lip -honia<:e he was ready to pay to ' the custom of
tlie Komans,' he appears in a less favourable light,
and the outstanding fact meets us of the estimate
which St. Paul formed of him. St. Paul preferred
to take his chance with Nero to leaving his cause
to be disposed of by this fussy, plausible official.
'I api>eal unto Cresar,' is the lasting condemna-
tion of Festus. He was persuaded that the Apostle
was innocent of the ' many and grievous charges '
brought against him, yet he Avas quite prepared
to sacrifice him, if thereby he ' could gain favour
with the Jews ' ; hence the preposterous proposal of
a re-trial at Jerusalem. The noble use which St.
Paul made shortly after of the opportunity given
him- by Festus to speak for himself before Agrippa
and Berenice should not blind us to the callousness
of the man who planned that scene with all its
pomp and circumstance, and deliberately exploited
a prisoner in bonds for the entertainment of his
Heroilian giiests. Festus died after holding his
office for a brief term — ' scarcely two years '
(Schiirer, HJP I. ii. [1890] 185). See art. Dates for
discussion of the chronology of the procuratorship
of Festus.
Lttbraturb.— S. Bass, Roman Law and History in the NT,
1901, p. 390 ; C. H. Tmuer, ' Eusebins' Chronology of Felix
•nd Festus' in JThSt iu. [1901-02] 120; G. H. Morrison, The
Footsteps of the Flock, 1904, p. 362 ; M. Jones, St. Paul the
Orator, 1910, p. 212 ; A. Maclaren, Expogitions : ' Acts, ch.
xiii.-end,' 1907, p. 322. G. P. GOULD.
FEYER.— In the single passage (Ac 28^) in which
the word occurs, it is associated with dysentery
(q. V. ). Fever is a rise in bodily temperature above
the normal of 98 "4° F. It may be caused by physio-
logical conditions — a mechanical interference with
the nervous system which prevents heat-elimina-
tion, as in sunstroke. It is also a symptom of the
reaction of the body to infection by micro-organisms
or other poisons by which the heat-regulation
apparatus Ls disturbed. The effects of this are
evident in further derangements in the digestive
glands, the liver and kidneys, the alimentary
canal, the nervous organism, and the blood. The
name is given to many diseases of which fever is
the leading symptom, as e.g. typhoid fever. At a
time when it was not possible to explain diseases
by reference to a single cause, it was very natural
to describe the derangement by two or more of the
princijjal symptoms, as in the instance under con-
sideration. C. A. Beckwith.
FIELD OF BLOOD.— See Akeldama.
FIG, FIG-TREE {ffvid}, avKov, iXvi-flos).— Apart
from the three references in the Gospels (Mt 7^S
Mk 1 1'*, Lk 6*^), figs are mentioned onlj' twice in
the NT ( Ja 3'-, Rev Q^). In James the ordinary
words cvKrj, ' fig-tree,' and cfvkov, ' fig,' are used,
but in Rev. CXwdos is the Avord employed to denote
the fruit. The latter term designates a fig which
grows during the Avinter under the leaves, but
seldom ripens.
The meaning of Ja 3^* is clear : a tree is knoAvn
by its fruits ; a fig-tree cannot bring forth oUa-cs,
neither can an oliAe-tree bring forth figs ; a man's
'Avorks' are, in short, an infallible index to his
'faith' (Ja 2^% In Rev 6'* figs form part of the
imagery in the vision of the Opening of the First
Six Seals. The Seer beholds the stars of heaven
falling to the earth ' as a fig-tree casteth her un-
ripe tigs, when she is shaken of a great gale.' In
the ordinary way these AAinter fio^s (S\\jv6oi) did not
ripen, so here the judgment predicted is not about
to cut off prematurely those who if spared aa-ouM
develop into matured and useful fruit, but those
Avho are 'without hope and without God in the
AA'orld ' — in short, the ' cumberers of the ground.'
The fig-tree is native to Palestine and is found
either cultivated or Avild all OA-er the countrj-.
Those Avhich are Avild are usually barren or at all
CA'ents bear no edible fruit, and they are known
as ' male ' fig-trees. There are many varieties of
fig-trees cultivated, some of which yield a sharp,
bitter fruit, and others a sweet, mellow one. It
is noticeable that in the description of the Pro-
mised Land (Dt 8*) fig-trees are mentioned as one
of its leading natural characteristics. They are of
moderate size, though sometimes attaining a height
of 25 ft., while the stem is sometimes over 3 ft. in
diameter. The bark is smooth, and the size and
thickness of the leaves readily explain the point of
the JeAvish proverb — ' to sit under one's oAvn vine
and one's oaati tig-tree '(IK 4^, Mic 4*, Zee 3^").
As a matter of fact, its foliage affords better shade
and protection than any other tree in Palestine.
It is one of the earliest trees to shoot, and its first
fruit-buds appear before its leaves (of. Mt 24**,
Mk 13^, Lk 21»- »). The fruit is an enlarged suc-
culent hollow receptacle, containing the imperfect
flowers in its interior ; consequently the flowers
are invisible till the receptacle has been opened.
The figs are eaten both fresh and dried, and they
are often compressed into a cake (cf. 1 S 25^^ 30^,
1 Ch 12^). The time the tree comes into leaf and
fruiting varies according to the situation, and is
later in the hill-country than in the plains. On
the hUls, the branches which have remained bare
and naked all through the Avinter put forth their
early leaf-buds about the end of March, and at
the same time diminutive figs begin to appear
where the young leaves join the branches. Tliese
tiny figs continue to grow with the leaves until
they reach about the size of a cherry, then the
majority of them fall to the ground or are bloAvn
doAATi by the Avind. These are the S\v»6oi of Rev
gi3 |ggg aboA'e).
LrTERATTRK.— H. B. TristraiJi , J'ofunif £f wtofy o/fA« Biftfcio,
1911, p. 350 f. ; H. B. Swete, Apoealvpu of St. Jokn^. 1907, p.
93 ; W. M. Thomson. The Land and the Book, 1910 ed., p.
333 ; J. C. Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, 1903 ed..
pp. 66, 74. Cf. also SDB, p. 262 f. ; HDB iL 5, 6 ; EBi ii. 1519-
1522. P. S. P. HaXDCOCK.
FINISHER.— See Author and Finishkh.
FIRE.— The term ' fire ' is used literally to denote
the familiar process of combustion, Avith its ac-
companiments of light and heat. In nearly all
the passages in Avhich it occurs from Acts to Revela-
tion, it is used in a figurative sense. (1) A fcAv of
these have affinity Avith passages in the OT in
Avhich fire, as one of the most impressive of natural
phenomena, is a form of the DiATue manifestation.
In some of the theophanies, in which fire is a
prominent feature, it seems to express the concep-
tion of God as He is in Himself and in His nature
{e.g. Ezk !*• ^) ; in others it is a manifestation
of Him in His character as Avenger or Judge
(Ex W- ^^ Ps 18^ 50^, Is SCP). The NT furnishes
some analogous cases in which the theophanic fire
is simply a manifestation of the Divine presence or
attributes (Ac 2^, Rev 1^**- 4'), and others in Avhich
i it is an accompaniment of the DiA-ine judgment
(2 Th 1*, 2 P y^^-). (2) The use of fire as a testing
and purifying agent has led to its figurative appli-
cation as a criterion for distinguishing between
Avhat possesses genuine moral worth and what does
not, and as a means of purifying human character
(iCo 3*^-, 1 P 1"). (3) One of the most patent
characteristics of fire is its destructiveness, AA-ith
the inevitable effect of suttering in the case of all
forms of organic being. The vivid and forcible
408
FIRE
FIRE
upjii'.'il Aviiicli it iiKilcos to till! iinajxinatioii is due
to (lie acute ,st'nsali(jn.s it ]ii()(hices in tlic pliysieai
or;^aiiism hy tiie coiul)inati<)ii of intciisc l)iiL;litue8s
with intense iieat. l''ire is llius lilted to x r\e as
an ai)i)i-opriate synitioi ol' tin- Divine juii^nient
upon sin. Tiie ( ) T triMiueniiy applies imagery
borrowed from tiiis source to denote the punitive
aspects of God's nature, or punitive instruments
employed by Him, and tlius lays the basis for the
use of similar imagery in the NT.
1. Fire as a form of Divine manifestation.— (a)
In tliis section may be groujted paftsar/es in which
Jirc is .s'intpl// (Ol ijidicadon of the Divine pj'esence,
or symbol of Divine attributes other than tliose
sp<Mi,illy di-|ilay(il in the punishment of sin. (a)
In Ac J' one ol iIk; two outward manifestations
att<'iidiiig the descent of the Spirit on tiie disciples
seated in the upper room is compared with lire.
The appearance of fire (ucrel irvpds) assumed by the
tongues referred to the Divine presence, which, in
this instance, conferred on those assembled together
the 'gift of tongues,' symbolized by the tongne-
lilce flames that sat on the head of each. The
reality corresponding to the appearance was the
miraculous power of ecstatic utterance, now dis-
])layetl for the lirst time, but afterwards a familiar
feature in the worship of the Apostolic Church
(v.^ ; ef. 10^'-, 1 Co 14 jmssim). That the gift thus
imparted had a Divine origin was certified by the
visible accompaniment of iiery tongues.
(j8) The Cluistophany described in Rev 1^'"^' de-
picts the Risen Christ in the midst of the churches
with eyes like a flame of fire (cf. Dn 10^, ' his eyes
as lamps of fire'). The ilame-lilce eyes (Rev 2'^
19'^) are emblematic of the glance of omniscience,
which penetrates the depth of the soul with its
radiance, and reads the true meaning of the
tiioughts and actions. 'All things,' it is implied,
' are naked and laiil open before the eyes of him
with whom we have to do' (He 4'^; cf. Ps 11^,
Pr 153).
(7) ' The seven torches (AV and RV ' lamps ') of
fire burning before the throne' (Rev 4'') describe
the Spirit of God in His manifold powers, 'the
plenitude of the Godhead in all its attributes and
energies' (Alford, ad loc), under the emblem of
fire. ' Fulness, intensity, energy, are implied in
the figure, which reflects the traditional association
(in the primitive mind) of fire and flame with the
divinity, and especially with the divine purity or
holiness' (J. Moflatt, EGT, 'Rev.,' 1910, p. 379).
There appears to be a reference also to the illumi-
nating power of the Spirit, by which the prophets,
with whom the apocalyptic writer identifies him-
self, were qualified for bearing their testimony,
especially with regard to the future (Rev 2^ 4- ;
cf. 191").
(b) Passages in which Jire is an accompaniment of
the Parousia. — (a) According to the rendering of
2 Th I"' in AV, fire is the instrument with which
Christ, at His Second Advent, executes vengeance
on Gentile and Jewish enemies of the Gospel. The
RV, more accurately, separates the first clause of
V.*, 'in flaming lire,' from what follows, and con-
nects it with V.''. The ' flame of fire,' an expression
containing a reminiscence of OT theophanies of
judgment, is the element or medium by which the
glory of Christ is revealed at His Return, not the
means by wliicli He inflicts punishment on the
wicked. Like the liuhtuiri'j. wiiich is overywliere
visible at the same time iMt •_'(-'>, iliis feature i>
fitted to arrest the attention and iini))ess the mind
of all beholders.
(jS) Literal fire is associntod in 2 P S^o-'^ witli the
Parousia (' tlie da y of the l,<Ji-,l 'i a-. t!h' mean- liy
which the visililc uTii\cr~c i> \n !"■ doiroveii.
Once temporarily' deslioyed hy the watius of tlie
deluge, the earth and the heavens iiave been
' stored up for fire' (v.". and now at tin; Ciiiiin- of
the Lord 'the iieav(.'n> heiii;^' on lire siiall i,<- dis-
.solved, and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat' (v.'-). The old creation is to be dissolved,
and pu.ss away in the final world-conflagration
which prepares the w fiy for the advent of new
heavens and a new earth. Other passages of
Scripture anticipate thai the present material
order, having had a )«■;: inning, is de-tiiietl to come
to an end. They also foreshadow the emergence
of a new order, free from the defects of the old,
which is to be the futur(> aliode of the redeemed
(Is 65'^ 66^2, He I-- -\ \U-x i.'t»" -21'). In the NT
these great cosmic clianges are associated with the
last Advent. In 2 Pet. alone are the means de-
scribed by which tiie transition destined to result
in a renovated uiii\erse ' I. It is to be
by fire, which is the onl\ liequate to the
accomplishment of a destrucuon so tiiorough and
complete. Science maintains that the end of the
universe, as at present const itutcd, is to be brought
about by the gradual loss of radiant heat. The
steady reduction of lemperature is to render the
continuance of life on the planet impossible.
Mayor {Ep. of St. Jude and Second Er>. of St.
Peter, 1907, p. 209) suggests that this theory re-
quires revision, in view of ' the stores of energy in
the chemical elements, and of the varieties of
radiant energy to which attention has been promi-
nently directed by the discovery of radium. Rut
assuming the reasonableness of this conjecture,
the passage under discussion sheds no light on the
constitution of the new environment in which a
spiritual body takes the place of a natural Ix>dy
(1 Co lo«).
2. Fire as a testing and purifying agent.— Fire
and water are the two elements used for purifica-
tion, and of the two, fire is the more drastic and
searching. In the process of refining, fire is the
means of separating the precious metals from dross
or alloys (Zee 13*). In the art of assaying, the
same agent is employed for testing the quantity of
gold or silver in ore or alloys.
(a) The use of fire for these purposes has led to
the Avord being figuratively applied to the trials,
especially in the form of severe persecutions, which
the early Christians Avere called on to endure at
the hands of their heathen oppressors (1 P V).
From the searching ordeal by fire, it was the
Divine design that their faith might emerge, more
precious than gold, thoroughly tested and approved
as genuine. In a later passage (4'^) the extremity
of their sufferings, arising from the same cause, is
compared to a burning or conflagration {irvpiaffn)
by which character is tested and purified ; and the
sfiarp discipline they are undergoing is spoken of
appropriately, considering its extreme severit}', as
judgment (Kplfia) already begun, from which the
righteous escape with 'difficulty (v.^"'- ; cf. 1 Co 3'*).
(b) The figure is used in a somewhat similar
manner to describe the judgment by wliicli flu-
work of Christian teachers is to be testeil at the
Parousia. ' The day (of Christ's Second Coming)
is to be revealed in fire' (cf. 2 Th 1"'-), 'and the
fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort
it is '( 1 Co 31S-1S RV). The fire in which t he whole
fabric built on the One I'oundation is involved,
detects and exposes the llinisy and worthless
materials by consuming them, but leaves uninjured
the solid and durable materials that are lire-proof.
In liie one instance, the skilful builder has the
gratilication of seeing his work survive, and him-
self rewarded. In the other, the unskilful builder
has the niortifienfion of seeing his work de-tr(>\ed
and liis labour lo^-t : and althou '
csca]ies. it is \\ith dilliciijty. as onr .
burning house — 'sa\('(!. yet so as (
The picture presente<l i- that of a
:h lire.'
ral con-
FIRE
FIRE
409
I
I
flagration. It may have been suggested by * the con-
flagration of Corinth under Mummius ; the stately
temples sta.nding amidst the universal destruction
of the meaner buildings ' (A. P. Stanley, Epistles to
the Corinthians'^, 1858, p. 67). The main pomt of the
illustration is not the purification of character, but
the decisive testing of the diflerence between solid
and Avorthless achievement. The fire is not dis-
ciplinary, and, needless to say, it contains no
allusion to ' purgatorial fire, whether in this or in
a future life^ (J. B. Mayor, ' The General Epistle
of Jnde,' in EGT, 1910, p. 276).
3. Fire as an instroment of Diyine ponishment.
-' ' In this section may be grouped together
ics in ichichfire is a symbol of GocFs temporal
J . ,.:i':nts on human sin. Such passages have a
close affinity with frequent references in the OT,
in which God is represented ' as surrounded by, or
manifested in, tire, the most immaterial of elements,
and' at the same time the.agency best suited to re-
present symbolically His power to destroy all that
i-; ^iinul or unholy' (S. R. Driver, Daniel [Cambridge
Bible for Schools, 1900], p. 85 ; cf. Gn 15", Nu 16*5, Ps
50», Is 30'^ 33'^ Jer 4* 21i-, Ezk 2P\ Dn 7^-, Am 5^ 7*).
(a) In accordance with this usage, fire is employed
in Jude^ to represent the present judgment which
overtakes the second of the three classes enticed
into licentious living by the antinomian teachers
(cf. V.*), There is no reference here to the fire of
future judgment. There is an evident allusion in
the phrase, 'snatching them out of the fire' (RV),
to Am 4^^ where persons who had just escaped
Mith their lives from the earthquake, are referred
to ; and to Zee 3^ where the high priest Joshua is
describe<l as a brand plucked out of the Babylonian
captivity. Fleshly indulgence exposes those ad-
dicted to it to present penalties as well as to future
ones, and it is from tliis perilous position that their
rescuers are to snatch them hastily, and almost
violently.
(j3) Fire, as an image of Good's temporal judg-
ments, appears in tlie symbolism of the Apocalypse.
When the Church was engaged in a life-and-death
struggle with Imperial Rome, her members re-
garded terrible visitations, in the shape of the three
historic scourges, war, famine, and pestilence, as
signs of the approaching end of the age and Christ's
Return. The 1ST Apocalyptist heightens the effect
of the lurid pictures in which he forecasts the
judgments impending on the enemies of Christ and
His Church, by the introduction of fire, in one
case literal, material fire, as a token of those
judgments. In answer to the prayers of suffering
saints, the angel fills the censer with fire from the
altar, and casts the burning contents on the earth,
as a sign that the Divine vengeance is about to
descend upon it (Rev 8^ ; cf. Ezk 10^). The horror
which the countless host of horsemen is fitted to
inspire, is intensified by the circumstance that fire
and smoke and brimstone issue out of their mouths
(9"^-). In 14^* it is the angel w^ho has power over
the fire — in this instance the symbol of Divine
wrath — that brings the angel with the sickle the
message that the vintage is to begin, becanse the
world is ripe for judgment. The sea of glass before
the Throne, by the side of which stand the victors
in the conflict with the Beast, is flushed red with
the fire of impending judgments — the seven last
plagues which are the precursors of the downfall
of Babylon (15"- ; cf. 17^).
{-/) Literal, material fire is the means by which
the total and final destruction of the harlot-city,
mystic Babylon, is efiected (IS passim). Nero
Redivivus and his Parthian allies, to whom the
burning of the city is attributed, are only the
lumian instruments in God's hand for executing
His judgment upon her (18^- ^* 19-).
(5) Supernatural fire is the agent by which the
nations, Gog and Magog, are consumed, and tlieir
attempt to capture ' the l^loved city ' frustrated (20*).
(6) Fire is the symbol of God's future and final
judgment on the uricked. — (o) In view of the near
approach of the Parousia (He 10*^), these in danger
of the wilful sin of apostasy from the Christian
faith are reminded of the terrible consequences
which await those succumbing to the great tempta-
tion— 'a fierceness of fire which shall devour the
adversaries' (v.^ RV). The solemn reminder is
repeated in connexion with the declaration that
the present transient order of things must give
place to the new and eternal order (12"). In con-
trast with the material fire that manifested His
presence at Sinai, God is Himself in His very
essence what that consuming fire denoted — im-
maculate purity which destroys everything in-
compatible with it (v.2> ; cf. Dt 4^^).
(;3) Outside the Synoptic Gospels, there is only
one explicit reference to the penal fire of the future
world as the fire of hell (Gehenna). The Epistle
of James traces to it as the ultimate cause the
wide-spread mischief caused by the tongue, which
is compared to a spark setting fire to a great
forest (3«).
(7) The only parallel to the expression Eternal
Fire, used in the Synoptic Gk)spels to denote the
futtire punishment of the wicked, is found in
Jude'', where the writer declares that the cities of
the Plain are 'set forth as an example, suffering
the vengeance (RV 'punishment') of eternal fire'
(rOp aluvtov). According to the renderings of AV
and RV, which regard rvpds as grammatically de-
pending on SiKTjv, the burning of these cities is
spoken of as still persisting. In favour of this idea
Wis 10" is cited, and appeal is made to the volcanic
phenomena in the region of the Dead Sea as likely
to suggest the continued existence of subterranean
fire. Ftirther confirmation of the idea is sought in
the Book of Enoch (Ixvii. 6f.), where it is said
that ' the valley of the angels burned continually
under the earth.' An alternative rendering to
that of the AV and RV, takes oeiyfia with wvpos in
the sense of 'an example (or 'testimony") of
eternal fire,' the pimishment which began with the
destruction of the cities, and stUl continues, fitting
them to serve as such example. Whichever view
be taken, it is evident that the example, in order
to be eti'ective, must point to the fate which awaits
the wicked after the Last Judgment. Whatever
may be the condition of the impenitent between
death and the Judgment, it is implied by the
uniform teaching of the NT on the Last Things
that the decisive sentence which determines their
ultimate condition is not pronounced till the Last
Judgment. The vOp alwviov would have little
relevancy to the warning which the passage seeks
to enforce if that expression had no relation to
future retribution. That being so, the much-
debated question as to the meaning of aiiivLos arises.
' This verse,' remarks Charles (Eschatology-, 1913,
p. 413), ' shows how Christians at the close of the
first century A.D. read their own ideas into the OT
records of the past. Thus the temporal destruc-
tion by fire of Sodom and Gomonah is interpreted
as an eternal punishment by fire beyond the grave.'
The attempts made to substitute the expression
'age-lasting' for 'eternal' as the meaning of the
Greek adjective, so as to prove that it does not
imply the idea of unlimited duration, are not
particularly convincing. ' It is surely obvious,'
says Mottatt (British Weekly, 28 Sept. 1905), ' that
the NT writers assumed that the soul of man was
immortal and that its existence beyond death, in
weal or woe, was endless, when they used this
term (ou'wi'ios) or spoke of this subject. How else
could they have conveyed what corresponded in
their minds to the itiea of "eternal''?'. It
410
FIRE
FIRST-BORN, FIRST-BEGOTTEN
S
must be admitted, at the same time, that the term
takes us out into a region where the categories of
time and space do not apply, and where ' objects
are presented in their relation to some eternal
aspect of the Divine nature' (A. Bisset, art.
'Eternal Fire,' in DCG vol. i. [1906] p. 537''; see
the whole article for a thoughtful and temperate
discussion of the expression ' eternal tire ' in its
eschatological bearings).
(5) In the Apocalypse the Lake of Fire is the
place of final punishment to which are consigned
(1) the Beast and the False Prophet (IQ-*"), (2.)
Satan (20>*'), (3) Death and Hades (20'^), (4) the
dupes of Satan, whose names are not written in
tlie Book of Life (20'^ ; cf. IS* 14«'- 19«' 20»). The
figure of ' the lake of fire,' otherwise described as
' the lake of lire burning with brimstone,' seems to
have been suggested by a shallow pool (Klixvit) of
blazing sulphur such as is sometimes found in
volcanic districts. Nothing is said as to its locality.
• Volcanic forces, indicating the existence of sub-
terranean tire, might well lead the ancients to place
their Tartarus and Gehenna in the under-world '
(W. Boyd Carpenter, 'Rev.' in EUicott's NT Com.
iii. [1884] 622). Swete (Apoc. of St. John-, 1907,
258) remarks that the conception of ' the lake of
re ' may have already been familiar to the Asian
Churches, and that ' possibly it was a local expres-
sion for the 'yievva. tov wvp6s which was familiar to
Palestinian Christians.' The expression does not
occur in the apocalyptic writings, but in the Book of
Enoch ' the abyss or fire ' is the doom in store for
the fallen angels in the Day of Judgment (x. 13 ; cf.
xxi. 7-10), and in the Secrets of Enoch (x. 2), among
the torments of ' the place prepared for those who
do not know God ' is * a fiery river.' The terse out-
line in the Apocalypse referring to the place of
woe, appears in these writings as a finished
picture filled in with elaborate details. The refer-
ence in the imagery to ' fire and brimstone ' is
evidently derived from the historical account of
the destruction of Sodom in Gn 19-'', mediated by
passages such as Is 30^*, in which Topheth is a
symbol of God's burning judgments, and Is 66-'*,
in which the valley of Hinnom, with its fire con-
tinually burning, is the scene of final judgment on
God's enemies. In the interval between the close
of OT prophecy and the time of Christ, the idea of
penal tire, confined in the OT to the present world,
was projected into the unseen world as an image
of endless retribution. During this period tlie
writers of the apocalypses sought relief from the
glaring anomaly presented by tlie contrast between
character and condition in the present life, by
transferring the scene of rewards and punishments
to the world beyond the grave. In accordan(!e with
this view — the view recognized throughout the NT
— the enemies of God and Christ, who often escape
His righteous judgments here, are reserved for the
severer penalties of the world to come. There,
deceivers and deceived together share one common
doom in ' the lake of fire,' Avhich is identified in
20'^ with ' the second death,' ' the nearest analogue
[in the new order] of Deatli as we know it here '
(Swete, op. cit. p. 274). ' It is not certain,' says
Swete again, in his commentary on v.'" (p. 270),
' that these terrible words can be pressed into tlie
service of the doctrine of the Last Things. ... It
is safer to regard them as belonging to the scenery
of the vision lather than to its eschatological teach-
ing. But beyond a doubt St. John intends at
least to teach that the forces, personal or imper-
sonal, which have inspired mankind with false
views of life and antagoni.-m to God and to Christ
will in the end be completely subjugated, and, if not
annihilated, will at least t)e prevented from causing
further trouble. From the Lake of Fire there is no
release, unless evil itself should be ultimately con-
sumed; and over that possibility there lies a veil
which our writer does not help us to lift or pierce.'
LiTKRATURB.— Artt. ' Eachatology of NT' (S. D. F. Salmond)
ill IIDB, ' Eternal Fire' (A. Bisset), 'Eternal Puiiishinent" (W.
H. Dyson) in DCG, ' Eschatology ' (R. H. Charles), 'Fire'
(T. K. Cheyne), ' Theophaiiy ' (G. B. Gray) in J-JJJi; Com-
uieiitiiriuxon the relevant passa^'CH. Fertile ineaniii^'ofauui'tot,
and for the eschatoloji-ical beartii(f of the passajjes, see H.
Cremer, Bib.-Tluoi. Lex. of ST Greek\ l»sO ; F. W. Farrar,
Ktrrnal Uope, 1878, ilercy and Judgment, IsSl ; J. A. Beet,
The Last Things, new ed. 1!)05 ; C. A. Row, Future I.
tion, 18S7 ; J. Stephen, Ksmijjb in EeclcKiasttcal Li
1907, Epilogue; A. Jukes, The Second Death and thi ;,
tionojAUThings'i-i.lVAT. \V. S. MOXTGOMEUY.
FIRST AND LAST.— See Alpha and Omeoa.
FIRST-BORN, FIRST-BEGOTTEN ( Trpwrciroxoi ;
Vulg. primoqenitus in the NT except in He 11*"
12**).— 1. The privilege of the first-born: the
birthright (ra vpuTordKia, Vnlg. primitivu) is spoken
of once in the NT, in He 12'*, which refers to Esau's
act in selling it (Gn 25^^) ; the act was profanity,
for the sacred privilege was despised. The first-
born was the heir to the headship of the family,
and received a double portion of liis father's pro-
perty (Dt 2P^); this was always the case unless
for some special cause the birthright was taken
from him, as in the cases of Esau, Keuben (1 Ch 5'),
and Manasseh (Gn 48'^'"*). Ishmael, the eldest
son of Abraham, had not the birthright because
he was the son of a slave woman (Gn 21'"), though
he was not, according to Hebrew ideas, a slave
(see Roman Law),
2. Usage in the NT.— The word 'firstborn' is
used in the NT both literally and figuratively. In
Lk 2^ our Lord is spoken of as Clary's ' firstlxirn ' ;
in Mt 1^ the word, though found in CD and some
versions, is clearly an interpolation. It implies in
Lk. the privilege of the birthright ; but neitlier
there nor in the OT does it necessarily imply other
children, and therefore it has no bearing on the
identity of the ' brethren ' of our Lord. Another,
and still more important, deduction from this fact
is that there is no contradiction between ' Only-
begotten ' and ' Firstborn ' applied to the pre-
existent Christ (see below). The latter title does
not imply that there are other sons in the same
Divine sense. — For the 'redemption of the first-
born ' at the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple see
DCG i. 596 f. The word wpwrbTOKa (Vulg. priinitivu)
is used literally in He 11-", of men and animals,
with reference to the Egyptians.
The title ' Firstborn ' is given figuratively to
our Lord in three difierent aspects. — (n) It refers
to His pre-existence in Col 1" ('firstborn of all
creation,' irpurdroKos Trdo-Jjs KrLffews ; see Liglitfoot's
exhaustive note in Colossianfr\ 1879, p. 144). and
in He 1", Avhere it is used absolutelj' : ' the First-
born.' This interpretation of Col 1"* is required
by the context : ' the im.age (eUuv) of the invisible
God ... in him were all things created ... all
things have been created through him, and unto
him, and he is before all things, and in him all
things consist (cohere).' This is also the exegesis
of all the earlier Fathers ; but, as the Arians used
the text to show that our Lord was a creiiture,
several (but not all) of the Nicene and post-Nicciic
Fathers interpreted it of the Incarnate Christ,
while the later Greek Fathers went back to the
earlier interpretation (see the references in Light-
foot, p. 146 f.). The jihrase denotes that the Son
was before all creation ; to the Arians it was
pointed out that the word used is not irpuiroKTuTToi,
which would have had the meaning thej' a--^si;jn('<i
to irpuriroKOs. The phrase further denotes ihat
He is the Lord of all creation, for He has the right
of the Firstborn. Tiie title ' Firstborn ' was used
figuratively by the Jews of Messiah, from Ps 89-''
(which they generally interpreted in a Messianic
FIRST-FEUIT
FLESH
411
I
sense), and of Israel in Ex 4-^ ; this paved the way
for the NT usage. Lightfoot (p. 144) remarks also
that both vpwr&TOKo^ and tUuiv were taken from the
Alexandrian doctrine of the Logos (see also OXLY-
Begotten).
(6) In Col 1'® Jesus is called ' firstborn from the
dead,' because He was the lirst to rise ; for Lazarus
and others only rose to die again. So also in Kev
1* : ' firstborn of the dead.' The phrase is parallel
with ' the firstfruits (6.vapxfi) of them that are
asleep ' in 1 Co lo**.
(c) In Ro 8'^ the relation of the first-bom to his
brethren is spoken of. Here, as in Col 1'^, eUiliv
occurs, but it is the image of the Son, not of the
Father : ' whom he foreknew (took note of), he also
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might
be the firstborn among many brethren.' The
conformity of the Christian to the image of the
Son is parallel with the fact that the Son is the
image of the Father ; and the result of it is that
all Christians become members of the family of
God the Father, in which Jesus is the First-l)om,
and brother of them all (He 2'^).
The title is used in the plural of Christians in
He 12^: 'the church of the firstborn' (Vulg.
primitivortim). Here we have an extension of the
priWlege ; there is not only one first-bom in the
family, but many. We may, with Lightfoot, take
the reference to be to all Christians as being first-
bom because all are kings (Rev 1^) ; the idea of
ruling is so closely attached to the title that it can
be thus extended, though the metaphor becomes
confused — indeed, it was used by some Rabbis of
God Himself (Lightfoot, p. 145). Some, however,
interpret the phrase of the faithful departed who
have gone before, and so are in a sense the first-
bora of the dead (cf. Grimm, Lex. in libros NT,
Leipzig, 1879, s. v. vpurdroKos). For some modifica-
tion of these views see Westcott on He 12^. In
any case the ' firstborn ' are men, not angels, to
whom the word would be inapplicable, and who
could not be described as 'enrolled in heaven'
(Westcott). A. J. Maclean.
FIRST-FRUIT (dirapxi?, class. Gr. usually dTrapxai,
from dTrdpxofjiM.1, 'ofler firstlings or first-fruits').
— The word occurs six times in the Pauline
Epistles, once in James, and once in Revelation.
Its siofnificance depends largely on the belief, which
the Hebrews shared with many ancient nations,
that first-fruits were peculiarly sacred, and on the
custom which prescribed them for the services of
Jahweh. The oflering of first-fruits made the rest
of the crop lawful. In LXX airapxr) is the usual
equivalent of r-c^Ki. On the Jewish institution of
first-fruits, see HDB ii. 10 f . ; EEE vi. 46 f. ; and
Schurer, HJP ii. i. [1885] 237-242.
The reference to this institution is best seen in
Ro IV^ : 'and if the firstfruit is holy, so is the
lump,' where the allusion is to the heave-ottering
mentioned in Nu 15^^-*. The Paidine argument is
what Jowett has called ' an argument from tend-
encies'— 'as the beginning is, so shall the comple-
tion be ; as the cause is, so shall the effect be ; as
the part, so the whole' {Epp. of St. Paul to Thess.,
Gal., Earn., 1855, ii. 273). There is exegetical
difliculty here, for dxapx^? and ptfa seem to denote
difi'erent phases of the argument ; but there is little
doubt that St. Paul refers to the future when
mankind shall be redeemed, a future that is fore-
shadowed by the present conversion of individuals.
In the same manner other passages are to be
interpreted, though they have not obvious refer-
ences to Hebrew customs. In Ja 1^^ Christians of
apostolic times are called dvapx-h ''«, 'a kind of
firstfruits.' From Clement of Rome's Ep. ad Cor.
xlii. , we learn that the apostles, during their mis-
sionary journeys, appointed their ' firstfruits,' when
they had approved them, to be bishops and deacons ;
and it is interesting to find that St. Paul mentions
two men who were outstanding in their helpful-
ness— Stephanas and Epjenetus. Thus 1 Co 16" :
'Ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the
firstfraits of Achaia, and that they have set them-
selves to minister unto the saints.' In Ro 16' the
same words are used, though here ' Achaia ' should
be 'Asia,' i.e. proconsular Asia, with the addition
of et's XpiffTbv. These men, with all likeminded,
were the first-fruits of a new creation achieved by
the spirit of Christianity, and they were the pledge
of others who would follow their inspiring example.
In Rev 14'* the reference is to a specially favoured
class who have been ' purchased from among men,
the firstfruits unto God and unto the Lamb.'
Ro 8^ speaks of Christians who have already been
blessed by the Spirit, and who have the sure hope
of a greater harvest of blessing when mankind shall
be fully sanctified.
The most notable passage is 1 Co 15^- ^, where
Christ is called the 'Firstfruits.' There maj' be in
v.^" a reference to the ottering of a sheaf of ripe
corn on the second day of the Feast of Passover
(cf. Lv 23^'^- ^^) ; but even without that reference
the exegesis is plain. Just as the first-fruits are
the earnest of later harvesting, so the Resurrection
of Christ is the guarantee of our resurrection.
' Christ is risen ! We are risen ! ', and we shall rise.
In the early Church the custom and doctrine of
first-fruits were used to support the practice of
levies on behalf of the priesthood (see Didacke, § 13).
Aechibald Main.
FLESH (adf^, Kpias). — Of the two words rendered
' flesh ' in the EV of the XT, Kpias is found only
twice (Ro 14"^, 1 Co 8^), and in both cases applies
to the flesh of slaughtered animals eaten as food,
<rdp^ occurs very frequently and in various signifi-
cations, of which the following are the most im-
portant.
1. Its most literal and primary meaning is the soft
tissues of the living body, whether of men or beasts
(1 Co 15*^, Rev 19'"*), as distinguished from both the
blood (1 Co 15^^) and the bones (Eph b^ TR; cf.
Lk 2439).
2. As the chief constituent of the body, and that
which gives it its visible form, ' flesh ' frequently
indicates the whole body (Gal 4^^), which it desig-
nates, however, not as an organism (aQfia, 1 Co 12^),
but with reference to its characteristic material
substance (2 Co 12^).
3. It is further employed, just as in the OT (Gn
29^^ 37'^), to denote relationship due to natural
origin through the physical fact of generation.
Thus St. Paul describes Jesus Christ as ' born of
the seed of David according to the flesh ' (Ro 1'),
and refers to the Jewish people as ' my kinsmen
according to the flesh ' (9^), or even as ' my flesh '
(11"). Similarly he calls Abraham ' our forefather
according to the flesh ' (4^), and the author of Heb.
characterizes natural fathers as ' the fathers of our
flesh ' in contrast with God as ' the Father of
spirits' (He 12^).
i. Again <rdp| is used, in the same way as aQ/fta.,
to designate the Imcer part of human nature in
contrast with the higher part, without any depre-
ciation of the corporeal element being thereby
intended. Thus ' flesh ' is combined or contrasted
with ' spirit ' (Ro 2»- ^, 1 Co 5«, 1 P Z^^), as ' body '
is with 'sour (Mt 10^) or 'spirit' (1 Co &^, Ja
2^), apart from any idea of disparagement, and
only by way of indicating the fact that man is a
unity of matter and spirit, of a lower part which
links him to the outer world of Nature and a higher
part which brings him into relation with God, both
of them being essential to the completeness of his
personality (1 Co 6is- -^^ 2 Co o^-*).
5. In many instances 'flesh' assumes a broader
k
412
FLESH
FLOOD
meaning, being employed to denote human nature
generally, usually, however, with a suggestion of
its creaturely frailty and weakness in contrast with
God Himself, or His Spirit, or His word. 'AH
flesii ' (Ac 2", 1 P I'") is equivalent to all mankind ;
' no flesh ' (Ro S^", 1 Co 1», Gal 2'«) has tiie force of
' no mortal man.' Similar to this is the use of the
fuller expression 'flesh and blood,' as when St.
Paul says that he 'conferred not witli llesh and
blood ' (Gal 1^*), and that ' our wrestling is not
against flesh and blood' (Eph 6'^). That this use
of 'flesh,' although pointing to human weakness,
is free from any idea of moral taint, is sufficiently
shown by the tact that it is employed to describe
the human nature of Christ Himself (Jn 1'^, Ro 1'
9', 1 Ti 3'«, He 2") by writers who are absolutely
convinced of His sinlessness ( Jn 8**, 1 Jn 3', 2 Co 5*',
He 4^' 7^).
6. In Heb. we have a special use of ' flesh ' to
designate earthly existence — a use which must be
distinguished from those that have been already
dealt with. ' In the days of his flesh ' (He 5^) does
not mean in the days Avhen He possessed a body,
or in the days when He bore our human nature ;
for the autlior firmly believes in the continued and
complete humanity of our heavenly High Priest
(4"'-)' It evidently means in the days when He
lived upon earth as a man amongst men. Simi-
larly, ' through the veil, that is to say, his flesh '
(10^) points to His life in those same ' days of his
flesh ' — the whole period of His sutl'ering humanity ;
and when the writer describes the rites of the OT
Law as ' ordinances of flesh ' (diKaicb/xara <rapK6s, EV
'carnal ordinances,' 9^") and contrasts these with
the blood of Christ in respect of atoning efficacy,
the antithesis in his mind, as the context shows, is
not so much between the material and the spiritual
as between the earthly and the heavenly, the pass-
ing and the permanent, the temporal and the
eternal. In the same way he draws a contrast be-
tween ' the law of a carnal {crapKlvTjs) commandment '
and ' the power of an endless life ' (7").
7. In addition to the foregoing, which may all be
characterized as natural meanings of 'flesh,' we
find the word used by St. Paul in a distinctly theo-
logical and ethical sense to denote the seat and
instrument of sin in fallen humanity , as opposed to
the ' mind,' or higher nature of man, which accepts
the Law of God (Ro 7^), and the 'spirit,' which is
the principle of life in the regenerate (S^"'-, Gal
5i6tr. g8j jjj precisely the same way he employs the
adi. 'fleshly' or 'carnal' in contrast with 'spirit-
ual ' (Ro 7", 1 Co 3\ etc. ; see, further, Caknal).
Pfleiderer and others have sought to explain this
peculiar usage by supposing that in the Pauline
anthropology there was a fundamental dualism be-
tween ' flesh ' and ' spirit,' and that the Apostle saw
in the physical or sensuous part of man the very
source and principle of sin. Such a view, however,
is contraiy to St. Paul's thoroughly Hebrew con-
ception of the unity of body and soul in the human
personality (see 4), and is expressly negatived by
his teaching on such subjects as the sinlessness of
Jesus (2 Co 5-^) and the sanctification of the body
(1 Co 6"-'^), and by his application of the epithet
' carnal ' (3^) and of the expression ' works of the
flesh' (Gal 5^®"'-) to sins in which any sensuous or
physical elements are entirely wanting. The most
probable explanation of this Pauline antithesis of
' flesh ' and ' spirit ' is that it amounts to a contrast
between the natural and the supernatural. Sin in
St. Paul's presentation of it comes in the case of
fallen man through natural inheritance — all man-
kind descending from Adam ' by ordinary genera-
tion ' — and is therefore characterized as ' flesh ' ;
while the life of holiness, as a gift of the Divine
Spirit, is described as ' spirit ' with reference to its
source.
LiTKRATURE.— H. CttxMr,Lex. of A'TGreek^, Edinburjrh, 1880,
s.v. (rdp(, and art. ' Fleisch ' in PRJi^ ; H. H. Wendt, Die Be-
griffe Fleisch u. GeiU im hibl. Spraehgebrauch, Gotha, 1878
J. Laidlaw, B^U Doet. of 3lan, new ed., Edinburgh, 1805, p
109 ff., and BDB li. 14 ; W. P. Dickson, St. J'aulS Use of tk
Terms ' Flesh ' and ' Spirit,' Gla8j,'ow, 1883 ; A. B. Bruce, St
Paul's Conception of Christianity, Edinburgh, 1894, ch. xiv.
J. C. Lambert.
FLOGK. — One of the most familiar pictures in
the OT is that of the Church or people of God as a
flock. In Gn 48" the correlative figure is found in
' the shepherding God,' and is repeated in the Bless-
ing of the Tribes (' the Shephercl of Israel,' Gn 49" ;
cf. also Pa 23 and Ezk 343'). !„ ig 4911 the figure is
directly employed : ' He shall feed his flock like a
shepherd' (in tne OT generally voifUvei XaQv meant
'civil rulers,' as in Homer, but in the NT the phrase
stands for 'spiritual guides and teachers').
The OT metaphor is carried over into the NT,
where t6 iroLfiviov is used exclusively in the figura-
tive sense of ' church ' or ' congregation.' It appears
thus in the tender address of our Lord : ixit ipo^od,
Tb fUKpbv ■n-oi/j.viov, ' Fear not, little flock '(Lk 12*-).
The words continued to beat like a pulse in the
breast of the Church, and are renewed again and
again.
(1) St. Paul says to the elders of Ephesus: irpoffi-
X^re iavTo'is Kal -rravri t<^ voiuviifi . . . iroifiaiveiv ttjv
iKK\-r}aiav rod deov, ' Take heed unto yourselves and
to all the flock ... to feed the Church of God'
(Ac 20^'^"). The overseers are themselves part
of the flock {ev y), and this suggests the insigiit,
sympathy, closeness of intimacy, and the personal
knowledge with which the flock is to be superin-
tended. ' The bishop is and remains a sheep of the
flock, and must thus exercise his oversight both
on himself and the whole flock' (Stier, The Words
of the Apostles, 1869, p. 328). ' Feed' and 'guide,'
therefore, include the two great tasks of the
ministry.
(2) Jesus had said to Peter : ^oa-Ke ra. dpvia fiov . . .
irot/xaive tcl irpb^ard /jlov, ' Feed my lambs • . . tend
my sheep' (Jn 21"-'^). Accordingly the Apostle,
'in a personal reminiscence' (W. H. Bennett, The
General Epistles [Cent. Bible, 1901], p. 36) and, in
' unobtrusive allusions to Christ's life which har-
monize with his discipleship' (Moflatt, LNT, 1911,
p. 335), says as a fellow-elder : woiixavaTe rb iv vfun
TToi/xviov ToD deov . . . ti/ttoi yivbfievoi. toD troip-vlov,
' Tend the flock of God which is among you . . .
making yourselves ensaniples to the flock '(IPS***;
cf, Pss.-Sol. xvii. 45). ' To feed the flock ' takes in
the whole varied duties of the pastoral office. ' It
is not right that a man should only preach a sermon
every Sunday, and after that pay no regard to the
people ' (Stier, op. cit., 328, quoting Gossner). ' All
moaes of watchfulness and help are to be displayed.
Fold as well as feed them ; guide and guard and
heal them ' (Hastings, Great Texts of the Bible, ' St.
John,' 1912, p. 422). In the AV of 1 P 5» the flock
is called ' God's heritage,' but deoD is not in the text,
and it is better to read with RV ' the charge allotted
to you ' (cf. Tindale's Version : ' be not as lordes
over the parrishes '). ' The charge allotted to you '
is therefore parallel to ' the flock of God which is
among you, i.e. the particular Christian society
committed to your care. ' Each separate eKKXrjala
was thought of as the "portion" (xX^pos) of the
presbyter who watched over it'(E. H. Plumptre,
Camb. Bible, ' St. Peter and St. Jude,' 1880, p. 154).
It is evidence of how completely the thought of
the shepherd and the flock possessed the mind of
the early Church, that in the Catacombs the figure
of a shepherd with a sheep on his shoulder and
a crook in his hand is the most frequent of all
symbols. W. M. Grant.
FLOOD {KaraKXvjubs, which is used in the LXX
for '??ac).~In exhibiting faith as the principle
FLUTE
FOREKNOWLEDGE
413
w hich has all through history ruled the lives of
the saints, the writer of Heb. [IV) instances
the faith of Noah, who, warned of things not j^et
seen, i.e. of the coming flood, prepared an ark for
the saving of his house. 1 ret. (3^) alludes to
the ark in which eight souls were saved through
•water. 2 Pet. (2*) Slustrates the retributive jus-
tice of God by the fact that He brought a flood
upon the world of the ungodly, and (3'- '') contrasts
with the world which was overflowed with water
the heavens and the earth which are stored up for
lire. The wTiters of these Epistles, being apostles
and evangelists, not men of science, had no
thought of verifying historical documents or
investigating natural phenomena, their sole desire
being to awaken or strengthen the faith, to purify
and ennoble the lives, of their readers. Like the
writers and compilers of the deluge stories in Gen.
(6-9'"), they doubtless believed — as most Christians
did until a comparatively recent period — in a
universal flood which destroyed all men and
animals except those preserved in the ark. In
the light of science and criticism, the Gen. narra-
tives of the deluge are now regarded as a part of
the folk-lore of Babylonian or Accadian peoples,
from whom it was borrowed by the Canaanites.
LiTKRATrRE. — The discussion of the problems connected with
the istor.v of the flood — whether, e.g., it is a highly coloured
legend based on actual occurrences or a Xature-myth which
ta^ assumed the form of a history — is relevant to the interpreta-
tion of the narratives in Genesis, but would cast little or no
light upon the literature of Aix)stolic Christianity. It is there-
lore enough to refer to F. H. Woods' art. 'Flood 'in HDB
and ' Deluge ' in ERE, and T. K. Cheyne's artt. ' Deluge ' in
the EBi and EBr^ ; R. Andree, DU Flutsagen, Brunswick,
1691 ; C. J. Ball, Light from the East, London, 1899 ; Elwood
Worcester, Geneiii in the Light qf Modem KruncUdge, Xew
York, 1901. James Stbahax.
FLUTE See Pipe.
FOOL. — The diversity in the conceptions of
folly is strikingly illustrated by the use in the
writings of the Apostolic Church of the terms
* fool ' and ' foolish,' translating the Greek words
6.<(>(mv, fiwpos, ifffxpoi., dvoT/Tos, davveros, and related
forms.
1. There appears to be a reference to folly as
intentional clownishness in Eph 5*. The Christian
must avoid ' foolish talking or jesting ' {/uopoXoyia
xai eirrpaTeXia).
2. Unseemly and undignified conduct is folly.
Thus St. Pam, vindicating his apostleship, is re-
luctantly led to a self-commendation, such as, in
other circumstances, only a fool in the folly of
boasting would offer (2 Co Hie- is- 21 12"; cf. 5'^).
There is, however, a deeper folly— unwarranteid
boasting (12*). Twice in these 2 Cor. passages a
certain play on the idea of foUy is presented. St.
Paul in selt-defence is compelled to speak as a fool,
yet are not the real fools the Corinthians, ironi-
cally (pp6vifxoi, for tolerating fools, namely the
false teachers? (11"- !»• ■^■'). Again the Apostle,
having acknowledged ' I speak as a fool ' (m my
boasting), presently comes to the mere supposition
that these false teachers are servants of Christ —
the sense of the parenthesis changes — ' Xow in-
deed, I do speak out of my mind ' (vv.-i- ^).
3. The term ' fool ' {d<}>puv), signifying mental
stupidity, is applied to the imaginary controver-
sialist of 1 Co 15^, who finds unnecessary diffi-
culties in the Kesurrection (cf. the 'foolii^ con-
troversies" of 1 Ti 6*, 2 Ti 2^, Tit 3*).
4. The ' foolish Galatians ' (ayorjrot) appear to be
rebuked for bad judgment, rather than for moral
perverseness. They must be ' bewitched ' to have
so readily accepted another teaching (Gal 3'**).
5. Instances of moral folly are provided by those
who live without regard to the chief end of life.
These are Suao<t>oi and dL<f>pove% (Eph 5^^"). Foolish
are the lusts of the rich (1 Ti 6»), and the unre-
generate life is one of foolishness (Tit 3').
6. Heathenism supplied a conspicuous and
illuminating case of moral and intellectual folly
(Ro 1»8^; cf. 2»). To St. Paul, the worship of
wood and stone indicated an underlying moral
defect of liking for the unreal rather tnan for
the real— for make-belief rather than for belief
(v. 25), which found expression in morality as well
as in worship (v.*"-). This moral folly led to
intellectual foolisliness, which ' learned disputa-
tions' disguised and fostered. There must be a
moral element in sane intellectual judgment (cf.
2 Th 2"*"^*, and Carlyle's comment upon Napoleon :
' He did not know true from false now when he
looked at them, — the fearfulest penalty a man
pays for yielding to untruth of heart ' [Heroes and
Hero-worship, 1872, 'The Hero as King,' p. 221]).
7. In the judgment of the critical Greek in-
teUectualists, the preaching of ' Christ crucified '
was foUy (1 Co 1"** ="• ^ **). A gospel centred in the
person of an ignominiously executed criminal, and
finding indeed a mystic value in that death, Mas
likely to provoke the contempt of a highly philo-
sophical community. In contrast, St. Paul pre-
sents, as the true norm whereby wisdom and folly
are to be judged, a mystic yvwffK : to the un-
spiritual, foolishness (2"), but to the initiated, the
power and wisdom of God (2^ 1* 1^ **) — a presenta-
tion which invites comparison with the yvQxm
of the Mysteries. Probably the distinction here
suggested is that between the intuitional, mystic
experience of God and His power, and the in-
tellectual theorizing a 6(m< God and His dealings
with the world. Religious 'wisdom' must be
judged primarily in terms of spiritual experience
rather than of theology. At the same time. St.
Paul had no love for obscurantism (1 Co 14).
8. The evil of the intellectualism within the
Church, indicated in 1 Cor., was not that it
challenged the distinctive forms of Christian
faith, but that it gave rise to the bitterness of
religious controversy — sacrificed the love which
never failed in value for the sake of the more
forms of knowledge, which at the best necessarily
passed away in the coming of greater light (1 Co
13"). Let these childishly (1 Co S^-^) '^ise'
become ' fools ' that they may gain the •wisdom of
the childlike {y\.^^^).
9. 'Fools for Christ's sake' — so St. Paul de-
scribes himself and his feUow-evangeUsts in 1 Co
41". The epithet may have been applied on
account of the ' foolishness ' of the preaching (7) ;
the contrast, however, ^ith the (ppofifioi ir X/hot^j,
prudentes in Christo, suggests that the reference
is to the worldly-wiseman's view of the sanctified
'abandon' of St. Paul and his kindred spirits,
their flinging aside of policy and cunning, their
counting as nought the things which the world
deems precious. The Apostle is actually regarded
by Festus as out of his mind (Ac 26**).
H. BULCOCK.
FORBEARANCE.— See Loxgsuffering.
FOREIGNER.— See Stranger.
FOREKNOWLEDGE.— ' Foreknowledge ■ is the
rendering of a Greek word (-rpoyvuKjn, Ac 2=^, 1 P 1*,
the cognate verb being rpoyiydxTKeiv, Ac 26'', Ro 8^
11-, 1 P 1"*, 2 P 3^') which occurs nowhere in the LXX
and not very often in the NT. In the apocryphal
book of Wis. it occurs three times {6^ 8* 18*), always
in the plain sense of ' kno^\"ing beforehand.' In
this sense St. Paul uses the verb in his speech be-
fore Agrippa, when he tells him how his manner of
life was known to all the Jews, ' having knowledge
of me from the first, if they be Milling to testify '
(Ac 26*) ; and in this sense also St, Peter uses it in
414
FOREKNOWLEDGE
FORGIVENESS
the concluding warning of his Second Epistle when
he reminds his readers of their ' knowing these
things beforehand ' (3").
In the remainder of the references given above it
is the Divine foreknowledge wliich is in the mind of
the Apostle, the object or objects being not facts or
things but persons — these persons being objects of
favourable regard — and tlie tlieme under considera-
tion being some aspect of the Divine purpose of
grace towards men. When St. Peter, in addressing
the Jewish multitudes on the day of Pentecost,
describes them as having by the hand of lawless men
crucilied and slain Jesus or Nazareth, he speaks of
Him as ' delivered up by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God ' (Ac 2P). That death
had been designed and planned in tlie counsels of
eternal love, and the ' foreknowledge of God ' had
rested with satisfaction upon the Divine sufferer
who had undertaken, by the sacrifice of Himself,
to win redemption for men. Of the same purport
is the expression used by St. Peter when in his
First Epistle he speaks of the blood of Christ, a
Lamb without blemisli and without spot, ' who
Avas foreknown indeed before the foundation of the
world, but was manifested at the end of the times
for your sake' (1-"). Mere prescience in the sense
of previous knowledge does not exhaust the mean-
ing in either of the foregoing passages. Hort {I'he
First Epistle of Peter, 1898, ad loc.) sees in the
latter reference ' previous designation to a position
or function.' And he notes the pregnant sense of
' know ' in such passages as Jer 1', ' Before I formed
thee in the belly I knew thee' ; Is 49^, 'The Lord
hath called me from the womb ; from the bowels
of my mother hath he made mention of my name ' ;
and Ex 33^^ (spoken of Moses), ' I know thee by
name, and thou hast found grace in my sight ' (cf.
2 Ti 2^^). The pregnant sense belonging to * know-
ledge ' may well belong also to ' foreknowledge '
(1 P P, Kara, irpoyvuaiv deov irarpoi).
'This knowledge,' says Hort in his note on the expression, 'is
not a knowledge of facts respecting a person, but a knowledge
of himself ; it is, so to speak, a contemplation of him in his ih-
dividualily, yet not as an indifferent object but as standing in
personal relations to Him who thus " foreknows " him. It must
not therefore be identified with mere foreknowledge of existence
or acts (prescience) ; or again, strictly speaking, with destination
or predestination (opinio, npoopCiui), even in the biblical sense, that
is, in relation to a Providential order, much less in the philo-
sophical sense of antecedent constraint.'
When we turn to St. Paul's more exact and precise
exposition of doctrine we see that 'foreknowledge'
is still directed to persons as its object, and also
that ' prescience,' ' knowing beforehand,' is inade-
quate to the expression of the mysterious thought
conveyed. Witli St. Paul ' forelinowledge ' is the
first link in the chain of the Divine purpose of
grace, the first step in the spiritual history of tlie
believer (Ro 8^, oOs irpoiyvu}), ' foreordination ' the
second, 'effectual calling' the third, 'justification'
the fourth, 'glory' the fifth and last.
' Mere prescience [on God's part] of human volition,' saj-s C. J.
Vaughan, 'leaves man the originator of his own salvation, in
utter contradiction to Scripture here and everywhere. That
iTp6yvo>iji<s which is made the lirst step in the spiritual history
seems to express, not indeed so nmch as predetermination (which
would confuse -npoeyvm with irpooipio-ev), but yet a resting of the
mind of God beforehand upon a person with approval (cf. Ex 3312,
Ps 16), which can only be mentally and doctrinally severed from
the second step, irpowpio-ti' ' (,St. PauVs EpistU to the Romans^,
1870, adloc).
That the expression is used also of Israel by St.
Paul is quite in keeping with this pregnant sense :
' God did not cast away his people which he fore-
knew ' (Ro IP). It is 'the chosen people,' 'the
covenant people ' (6 Xao'j), of whom the Apostle de-
clares that God ' foreknew ' them. Here, again,
' foreknowledge ' is thought of as directed not to a
person or a people simply, but to a person or a
people in relation to a function, for Israel Mas
'designated afore' to fill that place in the purpose
of God which has been theirs among the nations.
There is no ground in tlie teaching of St, Paul
for tlie view that because God foreknew that certain
persons would respond to the gospel call, and remain
true to their first faith to the end, He therefore
foreordained them to salvation. Those whom God
foreknew as His own of sovereign grace. He also
foreordained to be conformed to the image of His
Son ; but St. Paul makes this conformity to be the
result, not the foreseen condition, of God's fore-
ordination. * Foreknew' points backward to God's
loving thoughtof them before time began; their con-
formity to the image of His Son points to the realiza-
tion of this thought of God and its being carried to its
furthest goal in the course of time. Of any ' fore-
knowledge ' by God of others than those who are
eliectually called according to the Divine purpose
neither St. Paul nor any other NT writer has any-
thing to say. According to the teaching of the two
apostles already referred to, the Divine foreknow-
ledge represents the first step in the scheme of
redemption, marking out the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world which taketh away the sin
of the world, and the first movement of grace in
the heart of God towards those who shall be saved.
The Patristic usage of the word takes no notice
of its theological significance as we find it in St.
Peter and St. Paul. Clement speaks of the first
apostles being endowed with ' perfect foreknow-
ledge ' to enable them to hand on to approved suc-
cessors the ministry and service they had fulfilled
(1 Clem. xliv. 2). Hernias attributes to tlie Lord
the power of reading the heart, and with foreknow-
ledge knowing all things, even the weakness of
men and the wiles of the devil (Mand. iv. iii. 4).
Literature.— F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter,
I. l-II. 17, 1898, pp. 18, 80 ; Commentaries on Ro 829-30 by C. J.
VauRhan (31870), Sanday-Headlam (?ICC, 1902), J. Dennejr
{KGT, 1900), and T. Zahn (Introd. to AT, Eng. tr., 1909); C.
Hodge, Systematic Theology, i. [1872] 397-400, 545 ; A. Stewart,
art. ' Foreknowledge ' in jErHJB. THOMAS NiCOL.
FOREORDINATION.— See Pkedestinatiox.
FORERUNNER.— This word occurs only in He
6-", where it is used of our Lord, who has entered
within the veil as the Forerunner of redeemed
mankind. It is a military term {irp65poixos) used of
the troops which were sent in advance of an army
as scouts (Herod, i. 60, iv. 121, 122; Thuc. ii. 22,
etc.). Again, a forerunner was sent in advance
of a king to prepare the way for him (Is 4(F). In
the NT the Baptist becomes tlie forerunner of the
Christ (Mt ll'"). The author of the Epistle shows
that the promise made to Abraham still awaits
its complete fulfilment — a promise which is made
doubly sure, being confirmed by an oath. This
promise has been fulfilled by Christ, so that hope
may now enter where Jesus, the Son of Man, has
already entered to make atonement for us.
The use of this term Trp6Spofj.os emphasizes the
fact that Jesus has entered heaven, not as the
Jewish high priest entered the Holy of Holies, to
return again, but to open a way by which His
people may follow, and to jnepare a place for
them (Jn 14*). Mohley Stevensox.
FORGIVENESS.— The purpose of this article is
not to discuss the large tlieological problems
involved (see Atonement), but to consider tlie
l)assages in which the term actually occurs in the
Acts and the Epistles. The general word i.-^
of very common occurrence in the NT, e.'^i
in the Gospels, meaning 'send away from uin -v..
(Mt 13^), 'let go' (4-^), 'turn away from' (19=*,
1 Co 7"), ' pass over' or 'neglect' (He 6', Mt 'iS"),
' relinquish one's prey' (used of robbers [Lk 10*'1or
a disease [Mt 8", Mk P', Lk 4^, Jn 4«=»]), or simply
FORGIYEXESS
FORM
415
• leave a i)erson free ' (Mk W* 14«, Jn 11*^, Ac 5^),
or treat hiiu as if one had no more concern with
hiui. Hence it is used of remitting a debt (Mt 18"
gis. H)^ equivalent to oii \oyiifff0ai (2 Co 5'" ; see also
Sanday-Headlam, ^w«a»^»[/CC, 1902], 100); the
creditor tears up the bill, so to speak, or never
enters the debt in his ledger. The verb, however,
is rare outside the Gospels in the sense of ' forgive.'
It occurs in Ac 8'^ (the forgiveness of the thought
of Simons heart), Ja 5''^ 1 Jn 1" 2'^ (in each case
witli ' sins'), and, as a quotation, in Ro 4^ (the for-
giveness of ' lawlessnesses,' ayofuai).
Side by side with these instances, however, we
must put the noun, Htpean. This is very rare in
the Gospels tit is never attributed to Christ Him-
self, save in quotations and in the institution of
the Eucharist in Mt 26'^ — not in the parallels). It
is more frequent in the Acts — 2^ (baptism for for-
giveness of sins in the name of Christ), 5'* (repent-
ance and forgiveness of sins), 10** (forgiveness of
sins through His name), 13** (through Him the
forgiveness of sins is preached), 26'* (forgiveness of
sins ... by faith that is in Christ). Here, the
object is always ' sins ' ; forgiveness is sometimes
explicitly joined to rei)entance and baptism ; but
more particularly connected with Christ, Christ's
name, or faith in Christ. The procedure suggested
by these passages is simple : preaching Christ,
belief in Christ, and the resultant acceptance of
the new position of freedom from sin. This might
be all that was explicit in the experience of the
early believers ; it is ob\'iously not the last word
for the preaclier, the theologian, or the believer
himself. Hence, the fuller expression of St. Paul
in Eph 1", 'in whom we have our redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of our
transgressions' (cf. Col V^). Here, the figure of
the cancelling of a debt is joined to another — rescue
from some usurping power ; and this (in the passage
in Eph. , not in Col. ) is definitely connected with
the shedding of the blood of Christ at His death ;
so in He 9^' (•' apart from shedding of blood there is
no remission of sins '). The only other passage in
the Epistles where the word occurs is He 10'^
where forgiveness of sins and lawlessnesses is re-
garded as equivalent to their being remembered no
more (Jer 31^), and so needing no further sacrifice.
At first sight, it would seem strange that a<piT)fu
is not used oftener ; it does not occur at all in
Rom. in the sense of forgiveness, save in a
quotation (Ro 4", from Ps 32'). But the reason is
not far to seek. The conception, as already said,
was not final ; it was a figure, and one of several
possible figures ; and it was a single term applied
to a mysterious and far-reaching experience which
required further analysis. The writers of the
Epistles do not neglect the experience, but they
pass beyond the expression. In the primitive
apostolic teaching of the Acts, it was enough to
announce that Jesus was the Messiah, that He had
risen from the death to which the rulers of the Jews
had condemned Him, and that in Him the old
promises of forgiveness of sins were fulfilled — for-
giveness even for the sin of putting Him to death.
The cardinal notes of the apostles' early preaching
are the facts of the Resurrection and 5lessiahship
of Jesus, and the necessity of belie\ang in Him for
the promised spiritual change. But it was in-
evitable that further questions should arise. How
can this forgiveness be reconciled with God's un-
changing abhorrence of sin ? What is the con-
nexion between the death of Christ and the change
in me? To answer these, St. Paul takes up the
suggestion implied in the word fi^ecris, ' a cancelled
debt,' already familiar to Pharisaic thought, and
develops it into his doctrine of justification : there
is a debt — all men owe it — caused by the non-
performance of the necessary works ; judgment
must therefore be given against us ; but with the
Judge who would pronounce the sentence there is
also grace. Christ the Son of God dies for our sin ;
and this same death we also die, by faith, to sin ;
hence, we are justified before God — that is, we are
like men who have never contracted a debt ; and
there is nothing for us but acguittaL This forensic
figure is worketl out by St. Paul more fully than
any other; but he lays equal stress on the more
mystical conceptions of reoemption (see above) and
death to sin (Ro 6^^ 'estimate yourselves to be
mere corijses with regard to sin '). The importance
of faith, however, is never left unexpres.sed, faith
being at once surrender to, reliance on, and
identification with its object. Here, St. Paul
brings us to the circle of the thought of St. John,
which only once refers to forgiveness (see above),
but moves round the act of l^lieving which joins
man to God.
As kindred expressions we may notice the words
Xaptffatfew — properly, ' do a favour to a person,' or,
with the accusative of the thing, ' make a present
of ' — sometimes in the sense of making a j^resent
of an act of wrong-doing, i.e., not insisting on the
penalty for it (2 Co 12i', Col 2^) ; rdptffis (Ro 3=^),
' a temporary suspension of punishment which may
be one day inflicted,' and therefore entirely distinct
from forgiveness (see R. C. Trench, XT Synonym^,
1876, p. 110 ff.) ; KoK&rTfiv, ' to conceal, cover over '
(cf. the Hebrew kipper) (Ro 4^ [quoting from Ps
32^], 1 P 48) ; and \veii>, ' to loose ' (Rev l^).
LrraRATTRB. — Forgiveness has very little modem literature
devoted to it ; but ir is discussed in all literature dealing with
Atonement and ReconciUation, and, at least indirectly, in that
referring to Sin and Conversion. See the artt. Atoxkm'est, Cox-
VBRSiOK, JrsTincATios, Eepkstaxce, Sk, with the Literature
there cited. Reference may also be made to G. B. Stevens,
Tlieoiogy 0/ the ST, 1S99 ; A. Ritschl. The Christian Doctrine
of Jvttijieation and Reeaneiliatum, Eng. tr., 1900; W. E.
Orchard, Modem Tkeorie* of Sin, 1909 ; W. L. Walker, The
Gospel of ReetmeOiatum, 1909 ; P. T. Forsyth, The Work of
Christ, 1910; R. Mackintosh, Christianitjf and Sin, 1913.
W. F. LOFTHOUSE.
FORM. — The first occurrence of this word in the
Epistles is in Ro 2*', where St. Paul speaks of the
Jew as ' ha^Tng in the law the form of knowledge
and of the truth.' The word he uses is fi&fxfxMris,
which is found again only in 2 Ti 3' ('having the
form of godliness '), where it clearly has a dispar-
aging sense and may be taken to mean an afiecta-
tion of or an aiming at the au)/>^ of godliness.
fLOfxpri) itself is that which manifests the essence or
inward nature of a thing, ' outward form as deter-
mined by inward substance,' in contrast with axvf^
which means ' outward form as opposed to inward
substance.' fiofxfHoffis occupies an intermediate
position between these Avords; the Apostle hesi-
tates to use <rx^Ma, yet he will not use nofxpr/. The
term happily expresses his meaning in Ro 2'-* — the
Law, so far as it went, was an expression, one
might even say an embodiment, of Divine truth.
It did not go far enough to be called /top^, yet it
was more than mere outward fashion {ffxvf"^)-
There is not the same note of disparagement about
the word here as in 2 Ti 3* ; it is rather one of in-
completeness.
We may turn now to the Avell-known use of the
word fiofxpri itself in Ph 2**-, where Christ is said to
have been in the form of God and to have taken
the form of a slave. The first thing to bear in
mind is that St. Paul used the common speech of
liis day, and this word, like many others, had
wandered far from the accurate metaphysical sense
in which it was used by Plato and Aristotle. The
lengthy and thorough discussions of the word and
its relation to oixrla, tpvais, elSos, and similar terms
by Lightfoot {Philippians*, 1878, p. 127 tt'.) and E.
H. Gilford (The Incarnation, 1897, p. 22 fi.) remain
as examples of fine scholarship, out it is now
generally recognized that St. Paul uses iiofxpv here
U
416
FORMALISM
FORMALISM
in an easy, popular sense, much as we use the word
'nature.' Several passages in the LXX (c.^. Job
4'«, Dn 5«, Wis 18^-^ 4 Mac 15*) witness to the
same tendency — iJ.op(j>i] is the ap))earance or look of
some one, that by which onlookers judge. But,
while St. Paul avoids metaphysical speculations
on the relation of the Son to tlie Father, he implies
here, as elsewhere, that Christ has, as it were, the
same kind of existence as God. The closest
parallels are dK^v rov Oeov (Col P') and v\oij<tios uv
(2 Co 8"), the latter passage reminding us of the
great antithesis in Ph 2*- '' between the fiop(f>r) OeoC
and the /J.op<pr} Sov\ov. dovXos stands for man in
opposition to God and must not be pressed literally.
It IS worth noting that St. Paul insists on Christ's
direct exchange of the one form for the other, in
contrast to Gnostic views wliich represented Him
as passing through a series of transformations.
To return to fiop^Tj, which here denotes, as it usu-
ally does, an ade(]uate and accurate expression of
the underlying being, and so points to the Divinity
of the pre-existing Christ, one may, without any
detraction from this honour, point out that St.
Paul always regards the Death and Resurrection of
Christ as adding something to it. It is after the
return to glory that Christ is declared the Son of
God ' with power' (Ro P- *), and becomes Lord (Ph
2'*'"). It only remains to point out that Christ's
assumption oi the ' form ' or ' nature ' of a servant
does not imply that His ' Ego,' tlie basis of His per-
sonality, was changed. (See further art. Christ,
Christology, p. 193 f.)
Before leaving this word, we may notice the use
of the verb fiopcpdu in a beautifully expressive pas-
sage. Gal 4^^, where tlie Apostle adopts the figure
of a child-bearing mother ; he is in travail for tlie
spiritual birth of Christ within his Galatian friends,
straining every power to shape their inner man
afresh into the image of Christ. The use of the
word ' form ' in Ro 9"" and 1 Ti 2^^ (in each case
translating irXdcro-w) calls for no remark.
Two other passages in the Epistles demand con-
sideration. In Ro 6" St. Paul is glad that the
Romans have become sincerely obedient ' to tliat
form of teaching' to which they were delivered;
and in 2 Ti V^ there is an exhortation to ' hold the
form (RV 'pattern') of sound words which thou
hast heard from me.' The word used in Rom.
is Tviros, which must be taken in its usual Pauline
sense of ' pattern,' ' standard.' No special type of
doctrine is meant (see F. J. A. Hort, Prolegomena
to Romans and Ephesians, 1895, p. 32) ; the refer-
ence is to a course of simple instruction, like that
in the first part of the Didache ('The Two Ways'),
whicii precedetl baptism. In 2 Tim. we have the
compound vwordiruai.'s, lit. an ' outline sketch,' and
so a 'pattern' or 'examiJJe.' It is the emphatic
word in the sentence, and the meaning is best
brought out by the translation, ' Hold as a pattern
of healthy teaching, in faith and love, what you
heard from me.' A. J, Grieve.
FORMALISM. — As thought needs language and
soul needs body, so the spirit of religion can main-
tain, manifest and propagate itself, can relate
itself to its environment, only as it is embodied in
external form. It takes intellectual form in
doctrines and creeds ; its emotional necessities
create forms of worship ; its social instincts express
themselves in ecclesiastical organization and sacra-
mental i-ites, in all its instruments and symbols
of corporate action. Hence arises inevitably the
danger of formalism : the ' form of godliness '
(2 Ti 3") may persist after the power which origin-
ally created it has evaporated, and it may be in-
herited or adopted by those who have never had
experience of the inward reality. Formalism in
this proper sense of the word is to be distinguished
from hypocrisy (the consciously fraudulent assump-
tion of the externals of religion), and other varieties
of unreality in religion. The typical formalist is
the angel of the church in Sartlis, of whom it is
written : ' Thou hast a name that thou livest, and
thou art dead' (Rev 3^). Unlike his Laodicean
neighbour, who is ' neither cold nor hot,' he sets a
high value upon the Christian name, and firmly
believes that to do so is to be earnestly Cliristian.
He mistakes ze<alous performance of acts of worship
for real devotion, and punctilious orthodoxy for
living conviction. He sincerely respects the badges
and expressions of spiritual life, believes them to
be necessary and eflectual unto salvation, while he
is ignorant of, and without desire for, the reality
which they express. He is a ' well without water'
(2 P 2").
In the apostolic writings formalism of various
kinds is detected and rebuked.
1. The substitution of religious observances for
religious reality. — (a) Such observances may be
sacramental, belonging to the prescribed ritual ;
and to these the danger of formalism always
attaches in a high degree, the performance of tlic
ritual act being always regarded by the unspiritual
man as setting him in a right relation to God.
Thus St. Paul accuses the Jews of formalism witli
regard to circumcision (Ro 2'^'^), admonishing
them that ' he is not a Jew who is one outwardly
. . . circumcision is that of the heart, in the
spirit, not in the letter.' Otherwise it is become
' uncircumcision,' a falsehood against which the
virtue of the unprivileged Gentile will rise up in
judgment. In St. Paul's controversy with the
Judaizers, the issue was between a legal and a
spiritual conception of religion rather than Ijetween
formalism and reality. Yet the latter element
also was involved, and is emphasized by his re-
peatedly contrasting both circumcision and un-
circumcision with the inward essence and ethical
manifestation of Christianity — ' a new creature '
(Gal 6^*), 'faith that worketh bvlove' (5"), 'kee]>-
ing the commandments of God (1 Co 7'®). Here
with deep insight St. Paul places ' uncircumcision
on the same footing with 'circumcision.' If thi'
advocates of freedom supposed that there was any
virtue in uncircumcision per se, they were only sub-
stituting one fetish for another. As there arc
persons who make a convention of unconventional-
ity, so in religion repudiation of form maj' become
only a difi'erent species of formalism.
(o) Not only ritual or sacramental acts, but all
observances which are labelled 'religious,' even
those which are most directly designed for instruc-
tion and edification, are exposed to the same
danger. Having exhorted his readers to ' receive
with meekness the implanted word,' St. James
(121-25) hastens to preclude the notion that such
' hearing,' as a mere opus opcratum, has any re-
ligious value. Without ' doing ' it is no less barren
of good result than a cursory glance at one's own
image in a mirror (cf. Ro 2'*). Closely akin to
tins formalism of 'hearing' is that Avhich substi-
tutes fluent religious talk for religious conduct
(Ja pfi-"). The pure undeliled OpttaKcia, the true
Christian cultvs, is to ' visit the widows and the
fatherless in their affliction, and to keep oneself
unspotted from the world.'
2. The formalism of intellectual orthodoxy.—
The classical passage is Ja 2'''-^. Si'Tiifying by
' faith ' not the vital spiritual act, but tlie orthodox
confession whicli is its proper ' form,' the writer
vigorously declares that such faith, 'if it have not
works,' is dead in itself (v."*), a liodv uninliabited
by the quickening sjiirit (v.-*). St. Paul advances
even beyond this position when (1 Co 13-) he asserts
that one may have 'all faith, so as to remove
mountains,' yet if it be 'witliout charity, he is
FORNICATION
FORNICATION
417
nothing.' The First Epistle of St. John is occupied
with the exposure of intellectual formalisni (for
though the Gnostic tenets, against which it is
directed, are regarded as the rankest heterodoxy,
the principle is the same). To imagine that we
'know God,' while not keeping His commandments
(2*-*), or that we are ' in the light,' while hating
our brother (2") ; to credit ourselves with ' knowing
Christ' in whom is no sin, while continuing in the
practice of sin (S*), is to stand convicted of being a
' liar.' Only he who loves can know God, who is
Love (48).
3. Formalism within the ethical domain. —
While religious observances and credal orthodoxy
are always to be submitted to the test of ethics, the
last hiding-place of formalism is within the ethical
domain itself. There is the formalism to which
the possession of a high moral ideal stands for high
morality. This is scathingly rebuked by St. Paul
in Ro 2i'-". The typical Jew gloried in the lofty
moral standards of nis race, ' resting upon the law,'
' approving the things that are excellent ' ; but ac-
cording to the Apostle's indictment he too often
regarded an enlightened sense of duty as the goal
rather than as the starting-point of moral life. It
is a still subtler formalism when the ethical impulse
exhausts itself in lofty and generous sentiment, or
in clothing such emotion with appropriate verbiage
(Ja 2^'-^®). This possibility is suggested, with a
touch of delicate irony, in 1 Jn 3^^^*, where the law
of self-sacrificing brotherhood is first stated in its
highest terms — ' We ought to lay down our lives
for the brethren,' and then, lest any one should
mistake the emotion awakened by such magnificent
expressions of duty for the discharge of duty itself,
the issue is brought down to the pedestrian level
of the everyday use of ' the world's goods ' for the
relief of the need that is before one's eyes. Here,
again, St. Paul is still bolder (1 Co 13^), pointing
out that conduct may fill out to the utmost the
' form' of self-sacrifice ('If I give all my goods to
feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned '),
and yet lack the inward reality. Ethical reality
is attested not by the sensational exploit, but by
that 'walking in love' which is so inimitably
described in the following verses.
LiTKRATUBK.— A. Whyte, Bunyan Charaeten, i. [1895] 132,
271, Bible Charaeten: 'Chir Lord's Characters,' 1902, pp. 150,
284 ; Stopford A. Brooke, The Finht of Faith, 1877, p. 51 ;
John Foster, Lectures^, 1853, i. 131 ff. ; J. H. Newman,
Parochial and Plain Sermons, new ed., Is68, L 21, 124, iv. 66 ;
A. Madaren, Christ in the Heart, 1&S6, p. 226 ; J. B. Mayor,
The Epistle of St. JaiMi^, 1910; Robert Law, TesU of Life,
1909, pp. 208 ft., 231 ft., 279 fit. ROBERT LAW.
FORNICATION {vopvela, and cognates). — 1.
Heaning of term. — (1) vopveia is used sometimes in
the strict sense of ' prostitution ' or ' fornication' (1
Co 6^^). It is thus difterent tioTtxpioixela, or 'adul-
tery ' (He 13^ [cf. Mk 7-^] Didache, 2 f.). This strict
sense, however, can be retained with certainty
only when the two words occur side by side. In
the pagan world, while notxeia was regarded as
sinful on a woman's part mainly on the ground
that it infringed the husband's rights, fornication
or sexual intercourse outside the marriage bond or
even by husbands was allowable. St. Paul (1 Th
43ff.) demands chastity from married men. The
wife (interpreting ffKevos as 'wife' [see Milligan's
Thess.y London, 1908, for opposite view]) is to be
had in holiness and honour. Christian morality
is contrasted with pagan in this respect. Illicit
sexual intercourse with a married woman is not
only an infringement of the husband's rights, but
violence done to the Holy Ghost. Christianity
regards fornication and adultery alike as sinful,
Cato looked on fornication as a preventive against
libidinous intrigues with married women (Horace,
Sat. i. 2). Cicero says it was always practised
VOL. I. — 27
and allowed {pro Ccelio, xx). It was defended not
only as customary but as a necessity of nature.
Alexander Severus furnished governors with con-
cubines. The Cynic and early Stoic philosophers
excused it on the ground that ' naturalia non sunt
tnrpia.' This St. Paul combats (1 Co 6^^). It
is not a natural thing like food ; for, while the
nutritive system of man belongs to the perishing
schema of this world, the body is the organ of the
spirit and the temple of the Holy Ghost, bought by
Christ for His own service. To unite it to a
harlot is an act of sacrilege, of self - violation,
and it breaks the union between Christ and the
believer.
How different this is from the lame censure of
Epictetus (Enchir. 33) and the practice of Marcus
Aurelius, who had his concubine (see Lecky, Histonf
of European Morale, London, 1888, ii. 314 fi".).
(2) ropveia is used also in a generic sense, fioixein
being specific. In Pauline terminology /xotxei^w ia
found in quotations from the LXX (seventh com-
mandment), while vopveia is used for immorality in
general (cf. Theophylact on Ro !*•: vSuraif dxXws
rrjv iKa0ap<xiap t<^ rrjs ropveias 6v6ftari TepteXa/3ei').
This is probably the meaning in Ac lo'-^, though
some interpret it of marriage within the prohibited
degrees (Lv 18-^). The Jews allowed proselytes
to marry even with their nearest relatives, and,
according to John Lightfoot (Hor. Heb., new. ed.,
Oxford, 1859, iv. 132), the case of incest in Corinth
(1 Co 5"-), where a Christian had married his
father's wife, while the father was possibly stiU
alive, arose out of this custom. Tins is highly
doubtful. In Ac 15^ ® iropvda is used in the
general sense of immorality. We are not con-
cerned in this article with the vexed question of
what constituted fornication in the case of re-mar-
riage after divorce. Our Lord's teaching on this
point is doubtful, owing to the absence of the
qualifying expression in Mark, although the exist-
ence of the qualification in Matthew indicates
that in the early Church re-marriage was allowed
to the guiltless party. Whether, again, marriage
within the prohibited degrees constituted vopweia.
is not discussed in the NT.
But from the richness of the phraseology for
sensual sins we can gather how wide-spread and
multiform this evil was. We find uncleanness
(aKadapffia.), licentiousness (d<reX7«a) often side by
side with vopvda (2 Co 12^1, Gal 5", Eph 4^*). So
often is x\eov€^ia found alongside -ropveia that
many are inclined to regard the former as itself a
form of sensuality. But it is best to regard both
as characteristic sins of heathendom. Others as-
sociate them psychologically, sa3dng that forget-
fulness of God compels the creature to either one
or other (Bengel and Trench). The NT seems to
have a genetic account of this sin (fornication) in
more than one place. Our Lord (Mk 7) deduces it
from evil thoughts ; St. Paul from the desire of
evil things (1 Co l&), from the lusts of the flesh
(Gal 5"), and from dSiKia (1 Co 6^^), The lists of
vices, however, are not arranged in groups follow-
ing a psychologic€il order. They have their coun-
terparts in pagan literatnre (see Dobschiitz, Chris-
tian Life in the Primitive Church, p. 406 tf. ; and
Deissmann, Licht vcm Osten^, Tubingen, 1909, pw
238 f.). They vary in difierent places. The con-
nexion between drunkenness and vice is also re-
cognized (Eph 5^* ; cf. Te^it. Jud, xvi, 1). Group-
ings of vices and virtues early arose, arranged rn
connected lists for catechetical and homUetic pur-
poses, but the order is variable (cf. Hermas, Vis.
3). There was no public opinion in paganism to
suppress fornication. Hetairai moved about the
streets freely, and often played a large r61e in
public affairs. One thinks of Phryne and others.
Religious associations sanctioned vice. The temples
418
FORNICATION
FOUNDATION
hnd their courtesans (iep6dov\oi ; see Ramsay, Cities
and Bishoprics of Phrygia, i. [Oxford, 1895], 94 f.).
The cult of Aphrodite Pandemos at Corinth may
be mentioned, as well as smaller cults like that of
the Cabiri at Thessalonica and the Chaldiean
Sybil at Thyatira. Trade-gilds (ipyaaiai), which
were numerous, afforded means of corruption.
Almost everywliere the air was tainted, so tiiat
to have no intercourse with fornicators was like
going out of the world. Christianity never formed
itself into a ghetto, and so the danger of moral
pollution was always present. The very fact that
the pagan gods were represented as prone to sen-
suality had a degrading influence on ordinary
morality, iiowever much the stories of the gods
may have been ridiculed or allegorized in en-
lightened coteries. ' If a god does so, why should
not I a man ? ' (Terence, Eunuch, ill. v. 42).
Ancient custom, the callosity of public feeling, the
€ontaminiition of commerce and religion, the sanc-
tions of libertine enlightenment — all these had to be
combateil and overcome in the interests of purity.
(3) TTopveia is sometimes used also to indicate
apostasy from God — so often in Revelation. This
meaning lies very near the surface whenever the
word occurs in conjunction with idol-worship or
meats offered to idols. In the Apostolic Decree
this thought is latent. To buy meat in the open
market was dangerous— forbidden in Ac IS-"*, Kev
2'''-2«>, though by St. Paul it was allowed. He
bases the right on the law of expediency, but he
recommends regard for the weak brother's con-
science (1 Co 8^-»» 10'8, Ro 14'^"'-). The Greek
Church still regards this law of meats as binding,
though tlie Western Church followed St. Paul
from early times. But everywhere fornication is
prohibited. At Thyatira, as at Corinth, some de-
fended fornication on Gnostic grounds, as Jezebel ;
but not only fornication but idol-meats also are
prohibited by the seer. The Christians had to
break away from their trade-gilds to avoid con-
tamination ; and this involved serious sacrifice.
The example of Israel tempted by Moabitish
women to apostasy and lust at Balaam's instiga-
tion was a warning (Rev 2", 1 Co 10). See art.
NicoLAlTANS. It is probable that we can under-
stand the conjunction of fornication and idol-meats
in Rev 2'^-" and 1 Cor. only on the early Christian
view of demonic influence acting through food and
thus teni}tting to lust (see B. \V. Bacon in Exposi-
tor, 8th ser. vii. [1914] 40 ff.).
2. Attitude of Christianity towards fornication.
— Christianity opposed fornication in every form,
not only overt acts but even lustful thoughts.
There were tilings that should not even be named
among Christians. It saw in marriage a preven-
tive against fornication ; St. Paul, though desir-
ing the unmarried to remain as they were, yet,
rather than run the risk of incontinence or the
fire of lust, allowed them to marry. So strong
was the reaction against impurity that St. John
regards the chaste unmarried {irapdivoi) as a select
group (Rev 14''). Fornication is a sin against the
body ; it is a defilement of (Jod's temple ; it is a
violation of the self in a special sense ; for it the
wrath of God comes on men, ami God's judgment
awaits it. The very beginning of sanctification is
incompatible with fornication. St. Paul condenses
into one sentence the Christian attitude : ' Flee
from fornication ' (1 Co 6^'^). It is directly opposed
to God's righteousness, and St. John brands forni-
cators with the opprobrious terms Kvvei,* 'dogs,'
'defiled' (Rev 17* 18^ etc.). These cannot enter
tlie city of God. St. Paul's dealing with the Cor-
inthian case indicates that fornication excludes
from church fellowship.
* Perhaps he has in mind sodomy (irai.io<t>9opia or pnderasty
of Ro 127, 1 Ti 110, 1 Co 9», Didache, 2 f.).
LiTBRATL'RB. — See Commentaries on relevant passages; W.
M. Ramsay, Letters to the Seven Churches, London, 1904 ; E.
V. Dobschiitz, Christian Li/e in the Primitive Church, Enjj
tr., do. 1004 ; J. G. W. Uhlhorn, The Condiet of Christiamty,
Eng. tr., New York, 1879; O. Zdckler, Askeseund ilOnchtum^,
Frankfurt am M., 1897; and for literature on A{>08tolic Age
(fenerally see Dobschiitz, p. 380.
Donald Mackenzie,
FORTUNATUS.— Fortunatus was one of three
deputies from the Church in Corintli who visited
St. Paul in Ephesus, perhaps bearing letters, and
to whom he refers in 1 Co 16"* ^^ Nothing more
is known of him. It seems unlikely tliat ail the
deputies would belong to one housenold, as Weiz-
siicker (Apostol. Age, Eng. tr., i.*[1897] 305) sug-
gests, or that all were .slaves (so T. C. Edwards,
ad loc. ). Clement refers to a Fortunatus (in Ep. ad
Cor. § 65) as accompanying his mes-sengers from
Rome to Corinth, but distinguislies him from them ;
the name, however, is too common for identification
(see AcHAicus and Stephanas).
FOUNDATION.— In the NT, ''foundation' re-
presents two different Greek words : (a) /cara/3o\^
(active, except in He IP', and always in the niirase
Kara^oXi] KOff/x-ov) ; (b) de/j.d\ios, -ov (pass.), with both
a literal and a figurative meaning (HDB, art.
'Foundation'). Cheyne (ii'jyi, art. 'Foundations,'
1558) says ' "corner-stone" and "foundation-stone"
are synonymous terms in the Hebrew Scriptures.'
The metapliorical sense of the word chiefiy has
religious importance for students of the Nl, and
will be noted as it occurs in the apostolic writings.
The figurative use of defi^Xios goes back to our
Lord's Parable of the Wise Builder — 8s l<rKa\pe Kal
i^ddvpe, Kai (dr)Ke dei^AXiov iirl rrjv irirpav — ' wiio
digged and Avent deep and laid a foundation upon
therock'(Lk6«).
The significance of the word in the Epistles will
be found in an exegesis of the passages, viz. : (1)
in Ro 15-" St. Paul expresses his determination not
to build upon another man's foundation : IVa /htj iv
aWoTpiov dejxiXiov oiKodofiCb. He covets tlie work of
a pioneer on new ground, for in the wide field of
evangelization {evayyeXif^ecdaL), with so much to
do and so little done, all narrow jealousies are
senseless and to be avoided. He is not desirous to
preach in occupied fields ; his ambition is to spread
the gospel and not to make it the subject of rivalrj'.
The rivalries of the Christian Church in heathen
lands, while whole tracts are lying unevangelized,
are a sad sight.
(2) To the Church of Christian Corinth, St. Paul
writes : (is ffo<p6s apxt-riKToiv deiUXiov fdrjKa, ' as a
wise master-builder, I laid a foundation' (1 Co 3'*),
and again : ^e/xeXtof yap &XXov ovSeU SOvarai Oeivat
Tapa rbv KeLfifvov, cis ^<tti.v 'IvjeroCs Xpt<rr6s, ' for otlier
foundation can no man lay than tliat wliicli is laid,
which is Jesus Clirist' (1 Co 3'i RV). J. E.
McFadyen {The Epistles to the Corinthians, London,
1911, p. 50) translates the phrase 'alongside of
(Trapd with ace.) the one laid' and comments:
' Jesus is the foundation : the church is founded
upon a Person, not upon a system of truths . . .
so that this name is a confession, — the earliest,
simplest, profoundest of the church.' So F. W.
Robertson {Expos. Lectures on St Paul's Epp. to
the Corinthians, London, 1873, pp. 48, 49): 'Chris-
tianity is Christ. . . . Christianity is a Life, a
Spirit' — '"That I may know Him, and the
power of His resurrection, and the fellowshij) of
His sufferings, being made conformable unto His
death".' Thus St. Paul lays down once for all
' tlie absolute religious significance of Jesus, in all
the relations of God and man ' (J. Denney, Jesus
and the Gospel, London, 1908, p. 23). Denney (p.
380 ff.), in the interests of faith and Christian unity,
t leads for such a simplification of creeds as will
ind men to Christ in the light of St. Pauls
FOUNDATION
FOUNDATION
419
declaration that the building is related to the
foundation-stone alone, and not to anything laid
alongside : ' We remain loyal to our Lord and
Saviour only because He has apprehended us, and
His hand is strong' (p. 411).
(3) In Eph 2-"" St. Paul describes believers as
4roiKoSonT)6^vTfs ^rl ry defifXUfi tQv aico<rr6\wv koX
TfKxp-nriliv, ' Being built upon the foundation of the
apostles and prophets.' The latter are of course
^T teachers and exhorters (the omission of the
Article before prophets indicates members of the
same class). They had a special message and
function to the Church already gathered out of
paganism, in contrast to the missionary and
pioneer work of the apostles.
Considerable variety of opinion has been ex-
pressed as to the meaning of ' the foundation of
the apostles and prophets.' A careful summary is
given J>ySalmond(£(;r, 'Ephes.,' 1903, p. 299) of
the possible interpretations of the article : (a) gen.
of apposition =the foundation which consists of
apostles and prophets ; (6) gen. of originating cause
= the foundation laid by them; (c) gen. oi posses-
sion = the apostles' foundation on which they them-
selves were built. Ellicott (Ephesian^, 1864, in
loc.) favours (a), so that St. Paul by a change of
metaphor (1 Co 3") presents the apostles and pro-
phets as themselves the foundation, and Christ as
the comer-stone ' binding together both the walls
and the foundations.' But the consensus of inter-
pretations tends to (6), the gospel of the apostles
and prophets {HDB, ii.), the doctrines which they
preached (H. C. G. Moule, Cambridge Bible, 1886,
%n loc., also Appendix F, 168 f.). G, G. Findlay
{Expositor's Bible, ' Ephes.,' 1892, p. 152) combines
(a) and (6) — 'These men have laid the foundation
— Peter and Paul, John and James, Barnabas and
Silas, and the rest. They are our spiritual pro-
genitors, the fathers of our faith. We see Jesus
Christ through their eyes ; we read His teaching,
and catch His Spirit in their words. . . . Nor was
it their word alone, but the men themselves — their
character, their life and work — laid for the Church
its historical foundation. This " glorious company
of the apostles " formed the first course in the new
building. . . . They have fixed the standard of
C^hristian doctrine and the type of Christian char-
acter.' In a lesser degree this is true of aU re-
ligious founders and teachers. For generations
the churches bear the impress of the men who
gave them their beginning.
(4) The figure of ' the foimdation ' is used in an
•unusual form (condensed metaphor) in 1 Ti 6'^ :
drod-rjcavpii'ovTas eavrois df/JLeXiov KaXby els t6 fj-eWov,
' laying up in store for themselves a good founda-
tion against the time to come ' (cf. Sir P' : /cai fiera
tLvOpdnriov Oefji^Xiov alQyos ivocaevee, ' and with men
she [Wisdom] built a foimdation of everlasting-
ness '). The somewhat involved metaphor is per-
haps due to a reminiscence of our Lord's Parable
(Lk 16"), but specially of Mt 6" where the verb is
the same and also the duty enjoined : dyjcavpL^eTe
3^ vfxlv driffavpovs iv ovpavt^, ' lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven.' Bengel (Gnom., in loc.)
with a happy illustration gives the sense ' Mercator
naufragio salvus, thesauros domum praemissos
invenit.' Chejme {loc. cit.) favours the emenda-
tion KeLfxriXiov, ' gift ' or ' valued memorial,' which
straightens out the metaphor but at the expense
of the text. If there were any authority for the
reading, one might agree that this ' must surely
be right.'
(5) In 2 Ti 2^ 6 /leyroi ffreptin 0€fti\toi rov 0em)
icmiKfv, ' Howbeit the firm foundation of God
standeth' (RV), the Church itself is described as
the foundation of a still greater building — 'the holy
temple in the Lord in whom ye also are builded
together for a habitation of God in the Spirit'
(Eph 2-'-*'). 'The term "foundation," here used
for the Church of God on earth, is remarkable, and
points to a great truth : that, after all, this life is
but a beginning, and that "His Church" here is
but a foundation — is only the first and early storey
of that glorious Church the Divine Architect has
ftlanned, and will complete in heaven' (Ellicott, in
oc; cf. also He 11^°). This 'foundation,' in re-
miniscence of ancient custom as to foundation-
stones, bears a two-fold inscription, e.xpressing
both its origin and purpose : ' The Lord knoweth
them that are his' ('the Lord will show who are
his, and who is holy' [Nu 16']) and 'let every
one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from
unrighteousness. '
(6) In He 6* there occurs the warning /uij xiXtv
defjL(\ioy Kara^aWo/xevoi, 'not laying again (and
again) a foundation.' The meaning Ls apparent
from the opening words of the chapter : ' wherefore
let us cease to speak of the first principles of Christ,
and press on unto perfection (fall growth).' ' Let
us be borne on to perfection ' in ' personal surrender
to an active influence' (Westcott, Hebrews, 1892,
p. 143). The subject is the duty of progress, and
the contrast is between the elementary (x^ios [5^^])
and the full grown (rAetoj) in the Christian life.
The difterent elements that constitute the founda-
tion, which is not to be laid again, are three, taken
in pairs : (i) personal attitudes of heart and mind :
repentance from dead works and faith toward God ;
(ii) church ordinances : baptism and laying on of
hands ; (iii) leading beliefs : resurrection and judg-
ment. These are to be accepted once for all — they
are the foundation. In the subjects alluded to as
foundation facts there is perhaps a reference to
some well-known formula for the instruction of the
catechumen ; perhaps the allusion is to the usual
evangelistic presentation of the gospel. ' The phrase
implies that certain things have been done and
certain teaching has been given to the readers at
the outset of their Christian life as a basis on which
more advanced teaching may be buUt ' (A. S. Peake,
'Hebrews' in Century Bible, 1902, p. 141). But
such a foundation needs to be laid only once, and
the use of it is for suljsequent building ; therefore
progress not only in knowledge, but towards the
full maturity of Christian character, is incumbent
on all believers.
He 6^ has, it may be fearetl, been but a counsel
of perfection in certain church circles, while ' to
preach the gospel ' has often meant a formal and
dry presentation of a few elementary truths, that
by wearisome repetition have had all their fresh-
ness rubl>ed away. Yet this has been called 'dwell-
ing on fundamentals.' But we do not dwell on
a foundation ; we build upon it. Many modem
evangelistic eflbrts split upon this rock, and the
falling away of professed converts has often arisen
from the refusal of them or their spiritual guides
' to have done with the elementary doctrines and
to go on towards full growth.' The complaint is
sometimes heard that the first fresh and joyful
emotions are so soon lost ; and to revive and re-
cover these, men are tempted, or invited, to go back
in thought and desire to some former visitation of
the Spirit. But the remedy is not back, but for-
ward. We cannot recover the emotions that are
behind, but we can have other emotions and more
joyful experiences new-bom, by going forward to
explore more deeply the great thmgs of God. There-
fore the Apostle says: let us surrender ourselves to
the influence which will carry us on. ' The influ-
ence and the surrender are continuous {(pepwfj^da)
and not concentrated in one momentary crisis'
(Westcott, op. cit. p. 143).
LiTBRATUEE. — In addition to the works cited throughout the
article, reference mav be made to W. N. Clarke. What ghall
tee think of Christiahit]/ } 1S99, pp. 56-105; Phillips Brooks,
420
FOUR
FREEDOM OF THE WILL
The Candle of the Lord, 1892, pp. 68, 69 ; S. A. Cook, The
Foumlatiom of Religion, in The People's Books ; J. Alcorn, The
Sure Foundation, 1893, p. 3; W. E. Chadwick, Soc iai /ie^aeiort-
ships in the Light ofChrixtianity, 1910, p. 154.
W. M. Grant.
FOUR.— See Numbers.
FRANKINCENSE (X/^Sapoy).— Frankincense, M-liich
is mentioned (Kev 18'^) as part of the vast merclian-
dise of Imperial Rome, is a gum-resin yielded by
certain species of trees of the genus Boswdlia. In
ancient times the most famous of these grew in
Hadramant, S. Arabia. To obtain the frankin-
cense a deep incision is made in the trunk of the
tree, and below the incision a narrow strip of bark
is peeled oil". As the Heb. rtp) (from which the
Gr. is derived) signifies, the resiii exudes as a milk-
like juice {spuma pinguis, Pliny, xii. 14), which
in about three months attains the necessary degree
of consistency. Frankincense was sold in semi-
opaque, round, or ovate tears or irregular lumps,
which were covered with a white dust as the result
of their friction against one another. It was valued
for its sweet odour when burned, and it often served
for illumination in place of oil lamps. As it was one
of the ingredients of incense, great quantities of it
were required for the sacrificial ritual. As a per-
fume it was used for the care of the body and for
the flavouring of wine. It was also in high repute
as a medicine. James Stkahan.
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 1. Introduction.—
Properly speaking, the phrase ' the freedom of the
will ' is a misnomer. As Locke pointed out, the
question is not whether the will is free, but whether
man is free. Either the will is in the same psycho-
logical category as the desires, in which case it is
obviously limited by a man's mental universe and
his powers of concentration, or it is identical with
the man's self. It is quite evident that a man is
not determined always by external force, and that
neither others nor he himself can always predict
what he will do. But this alone does not make
him free. On the other hand, set any two men
among the same alternatives, and their attitude
M'ill be different ; in each case it Avill be conditioned
by education, tastes, habits, range of perceptions —
in fact, by the whole previous life, by all that goes
to make up what we call character. Yet the
consciousness of freedom persists ; we feel that
between given alternatives we have the power of
efi'ective choice. Hence, the antinomy has often
been solved by the word ' self-determination ' ;
but this only moves the difficulty further back.
What of the self which determines ? Is that dis-
tinct from the other self ? If so, what is its rela-
tion to environment and character? And if not,
how can anything be the agent of its own deter-
mination ?
The interest of the question is great, but it is
speculative or else merely juristic ; that is, what-
ever the answer may be, men will continue to form
their own ends and pur.sue them, and to ' weight
the alternative' in trying to influence the conduct
of others. It is not determinism, but fatalism,
which has any power to influence conduct, and
fatalism is something entirely diflerent. The only
result of determinism in practical life is in the
formation of judgments with regard to personal
responsibility and the infliction of punislnnent.
Punishment would become, what it is indeed at
present often held to be, non-retributive ; it would
be only disciplinary and deterrent. But this too
would leave a man's way of conducting his own life
untouched.
The theoretical problem is hardly noticed in the
NT. The interest of the NT writers is predomin-
antly practical. All that does not directly or
indirectly aflect a man's relation to his univer^se is
ignored. At the same time, the intellectual world
of the NT is identical with that of the OT, but
invaded and fertilized by the conceptions of the
Incarnation and Redemption of Christ. For the
thought of the OT, the problem of freedom did not
exist. Not only were there no practical considera-
tions to call attention to it ; it was excluded by
the heartiness with which the Hebrew mind ac-
cepted the two convictions of the responsibility
of man and the omnipotence of God. Even for
Ezekiel, who came nearest to realizing the anti-
nomy, the problem was one of individual and social
responsibility rather than of freedom and necessity
(see 14,18, 33). On the other hand, God can always
intervene, though man may still be answerable
(1 K 2223'-, Am 3«, 2 S 2i\ compared with I €h 21»).
2. The attitude in Acts.— '1 he same ingenuous
yet serviceable attitude (to pass over instances in
the Gospels) is found in the Acts of the Apostles.
While actions are regularly spoken of (as in all
normal literature) as originated by their agents,
yet new powers, unattainable otherwise, are be-
stowed by tlie Spirit (e.g. 2*), whose coming, how-
ever, may be hastened or caused by prayer (8'*).
Men may be frustrated in some purpose by the
Spirit of Jesus (16'), constrained by the Word (18"),
or bound in the spirit (20*"-). So, too, they may
act in ignorance (3'^) ; or sin may even be the re-
sult of Satan's ' fllling their heart ' (5^, but contrast
V.*). But this interference with normal powers of
choice is neither felt to limit man's freedom, nor
does it aflect the writer's faith therein. Tlie con-
ception of some Divine power as temporarily dis-
placing a man's control over his speech or thought
was by no means strange to the Hebrews, or to the
Greeks and Romans, who had not learnt to think
in terms of the sub-conscious ; and when we, for-
getting or improving on our philosophy, say ' he
was not himself,' they would have said ' God, or
some evil spirit, entered into him' (1 S 16**; of.
Verg, jEn. vi. 77 ft".). But while cases of more or
less permanent possession by demons were familiar,
the entrance of the Spirit of God was felt chiefly
on special occasions (Ac IQ**"^- ; cf. 4^ 6^).
This persistence of familiar categories of thought
in the presence of new experiences is seen especially
in references to the Holy Spirit. He ' falls upon '
the disciples ; he gives them to speak with ' other
tongues' (cf. also 18' 20^); but from the Acts
alone it is impossible to say how far this is regarded
as permanent ; we must go to the Epistles for
descriptions of the power of the Spirit in renewed
lives, quickened hopes, and abiding impulses of
joy ; and although the choicest graces of the Chris-
tian life are set down as the fruit of the Spirit (as
opposed to the works of the flesh, Gal S'"- -), yet
they are all subjects of exhortation as well (e.g.
Ro 1218, ph 218).
3. St. Paul's view of the problem. — But when
we turn to St. Paul, we And a dehnite recognition
and discussion of the problem of freedom. Yet it
is not the freedom of the will or even of the self.
It appears in two forms, each arising from St.
Paul's own experience or observation, and each,
approaclied only when necessitated by some un-
avoidable antagonism. First, the actual experi-
ence of slavery to sin, or (what to St. Paul himself
was involved in this) to the Law. Second, the
apparent inability of an individual or groups of
individuals (Esau, Pharaoh, Israel) to will what is
right because of some dealing of God with them.
A third aspect is also suggested, thougli St. Paul
seems to otter a formula for its solution without
recognizing its difficulty. What is the relation of
the redeemed soul to God's indwelling and inwork-
ing? Yet a fourth form of the problem apjiears,
which is predominantly ethical. What actions am
I as a Christian man at liberty to perform ? What
FREEDOM OF THE WILL
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 421
restraints, if any, am I bound to observe? This,
however, springs naturally out of the first form of
the problem. It 'will be advisable to consider these
in order.
(1) The problem of freedom from sin and from
4he Late. — To St. Paul, as a Hebrew sprung from
Hebrews, the great end of man is righteousness.
It was to him more than an end : it was a passion.
iBut he felt it to be unattainable: a mountain
height which he had no strength to scale. His
Jife was one long fruitless struggle towards it. He
could only describe that life as a bondage, as if he
had been sold like a slave to a master who would
always prevent him from following his own wishes
(Ro T'''), or as if he were actually tied to a weight
which kept him from moving — the weight of a
■dead body (v.**). This master was sin ; but as in
a fevered dream the patient sometimes imagines
Ms own pain to be external to himself and tortur-
ing liim, so St. Paul speaks of sin as something
external, exercising an alien and hateful tyranny
over him which can only end in death (5^^). It is
not that his will is not free ; it is not that he can-
not will in a particular way ; it is that he cannot
act as he wills. The compulsion is external. And
this tyranny further makes a tyrant of what should
have been a guide, namely, the Law. The term
* law,' it must be remembered, is used by St. Paul
in at least three ways : for the Law of Moses, for
the natural law, written 'on the heart' of the
Gentiles, and for the Law of Moses considered as a
system of law in general. Now the Law, either as
tnown to the Gentiles, or revealed more fully to
the Jews, with its lists of forbidden acts, should
have helped man to righteoxisness ; but, enslaved
as he was. it only pointed out in detail what he
had no power to do, thus making his tjTant doubly
hateful, and himself doubly a slave (2'^ 3-*).
Now, it will be observed that there is no meta-
physics here, and no psychology, though it may be
thatSt. Paul is giving us data for both. Heissimply
stating his own experience — an experience which
in his case was happily only temporary, and which,
as he believed, was intended to be only temporary
for others. No conclusions could be drawn from it
as to the will in general. For what happened ? In
this hopeless extremity a solution was found in
Ghrist. St. Paul could not free himself ; but
Christ, as the Son of God, was free ; and through
His reconciliation the spirit of freedom, of sonship,
of life, was sent forth (8"- ", Gal 4*). To exercise
faith in Christ was to be placed, so to speak, where
Christ was, i.e. in the position of one to whom
complete righteonsness was possible and actual.
We cannot consider here the rationale of St. Paul's
conception of the Atonement (see art. Atoxemext) ;
but just as his active and untiring mind worked
out into a Divine drama what to most of his con-
temporaries was the simple experience of the con-
sciousness of forgiveness of sins through Christ,
so, to him, abUity to do right was imaged forth
as the change from being the slave of a tyrant to
being a son in the house of his father. He is no
longer kept from doing what he longs to do ; he
does it as if he had been bom to do it. And this
is what has happened : he has been bom anew, he
is a new creature.
Yet we must be careful not to drive the figure
too far ; or rather, we must be prepared to go far
enough. The change has not simply been wrought
for him, but in him. It is not merely a change
from a master to a father ; but from the spirit of a
slave to that of a son, by the spirit of sonship.
Cowed and overpowered before, acquiescing, with a
true slave's mind, in the very things he hated, now
he is confident, self-controlled as a son ; not an
■emancipated slave, apt to mistake a broken chain
for a charter of licence ; his freedom from sin is
freedom for righteousness. He can thus speak of
the old Law as replaced by a new one. He is actually
a slave once more ; but a slave to Christ. He has
gained his freedom, only to surrender it ; or rather,
he has surrendered it, only to find it in a form which
is entirely stable and absolutely satisfying (2 Co 3*',
no more ' veils, reservations, inconsistencies ' now
[A. Menzies, Second Ep. to Cor., 1912, ad loe.\ 5",
Ro 7*, Gal 5^ ; Christians are even slaves to one
another, because slaves to Him whose law is love :
Ro 8- 6'8 ; cf. 1 P 2'«, Jn S**"-).
This experience St. Paul regarded as normal for
all Christians. But in the Galatian church he was
confronted with a return to the Jewish Law by those
who ought to have learnt that circumcision could
profit nothing. This raised once more the question
of freedom. To go back to the Law was to go back to
bondage ; not,however,to the exact type of bondage
from which St. Paul himself had been delivered at
his conversion. There, the real tyrant had been
sin, and the Law, coming in upon it, had made it
appear in its true character (Ro 5^ 7**). But at the
same time its hold upon its prisoner was tightened.
Here the Law is regarded in its other aspect, as a
vaiSa-fbr/os, a boy's slave-attendant ; and thus as
an integral part of the Divine plan (Gal 3^). Man
is intended to live as a son in his father's house,
with a son's freedom ; but before this is possible,
he must obey ; he has to submit himself to at-
tendants (who, in a Hellenic or Roman household,
would themselves generally be slaves). Only as he
grows up and ' puts away childish things ' does he
leave behind him this regime, and become a son in
actuality. But, having once left this state of things
behind, to return to it is preposterous. It is like
preferring the state of the handmaid to that of the
wife, Hagar to Sarah ; or leaving Jerusalem, our
mother, for the barren heights of Sinai (4^**). It
is not simply refusing to live as a son ; it is reject-
ing the spirit of sonship, bestowed on him. Which
made such a life possible.
This is what the Galatians were doing in listen-
ing to their Judaizing teachers. It was more than
a relapse from freedom to bondage ; it was a relapse
from Spirit to flesh. Instead of the free impmse
of the Spirit within them, or of Christ's lining in
them, they were being guided by rules which de-
manded a merely external obedience and appealed
to merely selfish desires, aptly symbolized by an
operation on the external surface of the body.
The case might not be so serious if entire obedience
to these rules could ever be given. But even if this
were possible, the spirit of a life so lived would
still be hopelessly wTong. Freedom is life ; and
its absence is nothing less than death.
This is not the place to discuss St. Paul's whole
view of the relation of the Law and the works of
the Law to grace. But the bearing of the question
on freedom \vill be best seen by comparing the
position of St. Paul with that ot Kant. At first
sight, the two might seem to be absolutely opposed.
Kant finds freedom just where St. Paul denies its
f)resence — in strict oliedience to the Moral Law. But
aw has a very difl'erent meaning for Kant and for
St. Paul. Law to Kant is essentially that which
does not speak from without but from within. It
appeals to no interested motives, either of hope or
fear ; it promises no rewards, threatens no punish-
ments. It speaks with the sole authority of reason ;
its voice is the voice of the man himself. It is the
experience of histrue and proper rational self. 'The
will is not subject simply to the law, but so subject
that it must be regarded as itself giving the law,
and on this ground only subject to the law' (Kant,
' Metaph. of Morals,' in Theory ofEth ics, ed. Abbott,
1879, p. 70f.). Hence, only by obedience to it is free-
dom possible ; for freedom is not determination by
oneself; it is obedience to oneself. To be influenced by
422 FEEEDOM OF THE WILL
FREEDOM OF THE WILL
anything else is to recognize the right of an external
authority, to relate oneself, as a Stoic would say, to
things outside one's power. But this recognition of
external authority is just what St. Paul means by
the Law ; whether he thinks of it as the assessor of a
tyrant, as in Komans, or the slave-attendant in tlie
fatliers house, as in Galatians. And wiiat Kant
calls law, St. Paul calls sonship. The difference —
for of course there is a ditterence — is that Kant
is barely a theist, St. Paul is wholly a Christian.
Where Kant is conscious only of an imperative
within his emancipated breast, St. Paul is conscious
of a Divine Power who has sent forth the spirit of
sonship into him, and a Saviour who has lifted him
clean out of the sweep of ever^ influence of heter-
onomy. Freedom, for Kant, is obedience to self ;
for St. Paul, obedience to a Person in whose will he
acquiesces with enthusiasm. Both systems, how-
ever, are definitely opposed to Butler's expedient
of placing 'reasonable self-love' on a level with
conscience. In so far as Butler's conception of
conscience corresponds witli Kant's categorical im-
perative, reasonable self-love leads to sheer heter-
onomy ; and if we may compare obedience to con-
science with the new life of freedom which, in St.
Paul's view, is enjoyed by the Christian, self-love
is nothing more than obedience to the flesh whicli
the Christian has crucified with the passions and
lusts thereof (Gal 5^^).
One word, however, may usefully be added at
this point with reference to Spinoza, as enthusi-
astic an exponent of freedom as Kant or St. Paul.
Human freedom Spinoza defines as 'a form of
reality which our understanding acquires through
direct union Avith God, so that it can bring forth
ideas in itself, and ettects outside itself, in complete
harmony with its nature, without, however, its
efliects being subjected to any external causes, so
as to be capable of being changed or transformed
by them ' (Short Treatise on God, Man, and Human
Welfare, ch. xxvi.). In the moral system of Spin-
oza, God is as central as in tliat of Kant He is peri-
pheral ; and since God alone has freedom, the soul
can be really free only through union with God.
Such a view lays every pantlieist open to one re-
tort : if God is substance, or the All, and therefore
universally immanent, how can union with Him
be a thing which the soul may possess or lack?
Spinoza does not attempt to grapple with this
difliculty. St. Paul, on the other hand, does not
habitually think in terms of union with God, either
in the sense of Spinoza or of the Fourth Gospel.
The centre of his system is not God, as a Divinely
immanent Being, so much as the will of God, with
which his own will has been brought to move in
entire conformity. With St. Paul, freedom im-
plies no merging in a wider Being ; the man who
IS a Christian is like the son who not only lives in
his father's house, but moves in the atmosphere of
perfect sympathy and understanding, confidence
and obedience (cf . also He 3"). The thought under-
lying the references to freedom in Jn S'^^"^ is sub-
stantially the same. There is no mention of law,
but sin is felt to mean slavery ; and freedom is
only attained through the gift of the Son. Through
Him we know the truth, and recognize and receive
the message which the Son brings of the Fatlier's
love and of His purpose that men through faith in
the Son should be, as He is, members of the Divine
family (cf. 15'"). This breaks the slavery : to be-
lieve m the Son makes the believer himself a son.
(2) Relation of individual will to purpose of
God. — We now pass to the second question, which
seems to touch more closely the familiar questions
of modem philosophy. Two things, however, are
here to be noticed. The discussion is not philo-
sophical, but religious : it deals with the relation
of the human will to the purpose of an omnipotent
God. And it is not general but specific : how can
we explain the fact that the Jews have been re-
jected? And this leads to a third point, namely,
that the question of freedom is raised only by ac-
cident. The real question is approached thus.
In Bo 8 the Apostle's thought has reached the vic-
torious love of Christ. But the Jews are outside.
Is then God's promise to them broken by the re-
jection of His people? No : to suppose this would
be to limit God's power ; for He was supreme
enough to put conditions on that promise (I^^sac
was chosen, and notlshmael ; Jacob, and not Esau).
Thus, St. Paul carries the supremacy of God further
than his opponents ; his argument is similar to
that of the prophets, who had to oppose the rooted
Israelite belief that Jahweh must save His people.
But the argument does not stop here. God's will
is not capricious. His real purpose is to secure
* the righteousness which is of faith ' (9**), which
the Jews rejected. Hence, a new element enters
into the discussion : human responsibility. As
far as the Jews themselves are concerned, laith is
open to all (10*), and preaching can be heard by
all (10^^). Thus, the Jews have only themselves
to thank for their fate. Then, St. Paul returns to
his original question. Are God's people rejected?
(IP). No, tneir revolt was their own sin; the
salvation of the remnant is His grace. But if
there is revolt, God confirms, yet only so as to
over-rule ; it is all the better for the Gentiles, and,
in the end, for the Jews also. Next, St. Paul
turns to the Gentiles : ' You too will find that re-
sistance is followed by severity. But, behind all,
is goodness. If there has been blindness, it is in
part ; the gifts and calling of God are without re-
pentance'( ll-i--"-*).
A contradiction between chs. 9 and 10 has often
been felt. This is because St. Paul in ch. 9 is
looking at only one side, viz. God's power to shut
out or reject. But we must remember that he is
arguing about Isaac, not Ishmael ; Jacob, not
Esau. It is the same with his reference to Pharaoh
(9"). He is Avriting as a Jew, and his purpose in
mentioning Pharaoh is to show the sweep of God's
power, not the limitations of Pharaoh's freedom.
Otherwise, he would doubtless have written in
accordance with the general principle which we
find in ch. 1 : ' God gave them up (vv.-''- 2* ; cf.
also Ac IS-i^, ' we turn to the Gentiles,' IS**). Two
analogies will illustrate St. Paul's thought : that
of a disease, in which morbid conditions and acts,
if persisted in, become hopeless ; and that of family
life, wherein conditions are laid down by a father
to fulfil his desire of mutual love — if the son re-
fuses to accept these conditions, he is rejected.
These are not analogies .simply ; they show the
working of the same universal law. St. Paul's
view of freedom is not atomic. Are we free at
any given moment? No, we are conditioned by
our past, and by our environment. To St. Paul,
the past can be made up for ; and the environ-
ment is one of love. Hence, St. Paul's conclusion :
mercy is the supreme law. All are ' shut up ' unto
disobedience, in order to come under the scope of
mercy ; i.e. all are allowed to sufi'er the inevitable
results, both of ignorance and of rejection, so that
God's mercy may have its way with them (Ro IP-).
If, however, there were any inclination to press
ch. 9 as identifying St. Paul with a specific specu-
lative opinion, it would be enough to point out
that his whole attitude, to both Jews and Gentiles,
belies it. Practice even went beyond theory :
men mifjht be ' given up ' ; but this did not pre-
vent a single appeal to them. If St. Paul turned
to the Gentiles in one town, he would go straight
to the synagogue in the next. Thus the two ques-
tions, though apparently unrelated in St. Paul's
mind, reaJily point to the same general view. The
FREEDOM OF THE WILL
FREEDOM OF THE WILL 423
spiritual, like the natural, world rests on certain
sequences : if A takes place, then li follows. We
are responsible for choosing or not choosing A,
and so for the consequent presence or absence of
B. The only motl ideations are that (a), if we may
judge from the practice of St. Patil and of all early
Christian evangelists, we are never justified in
acting as if the consequences of evil were finally
fixed ; and (6) even when the time for choice seems
to have gone by, and man, racially or individually,
is dead in trespasses and sins, the atoning death of
Christ provides means for another appeal to the
will (see art. Atonemext). In reality, therefore,
freedom and necessity are not exclusive states. If
psychology, in common with all observation, would
point out that choice is never unconditioned, re-
ligious insight shows that it is never to be treated
as non-existent.
(3) Relation of redeemed soul to God's indwelling
and Jnworking. — The third form of the question
of freedom arises when St. Paul is analyzing the
distinctively Christian experience. Here also
puzzling antinomies are met with. The Christian
IS in Christ, saved ; he shows the fruit of the Spirit ;
all things are his. Yet he must watch and pray,
and 'buffet his body' (1 Co 9'^): his salvation is
not complete ; it needs working out. Each Epistle
ends with practical exhortations, often quite ele-
mentary. Here St. Paul takes refuge in what
seems a contradiction in terms : ' work out your
own salvation . . . for it is God that worketh in
yon' (Ph 2'-). The meaning here is, however,
'you must no longer be dependent on me; you
must live your life yourselves as Christians ; and
you need not be apprehensive ; for it is God that
worketh in you.' The exact question of the rela-
tion of the human to the Divine will is not raised
here (see art. WILL) ; but a conception is implied
which is of the first importance. When a man is
freed, i.e. made a son instead of a slave, he is not
simply transferred to a new kind of obedience ; he
is entered by a new spirit ; his freedom is the free-
dom of the Father Himself ; he suffers no cancel-
ling of personality ; nor is he really subjected
again to law in any full sense ; he attains the only
freedom which is complete. But this is ob\'iously
not freeflora of choice ; nor can God's freedom be
so described : it is rather freedom of unimpeded
activity ; not self-determination, but self-manifes-
tation (see artt. GoD, UxiON with God).
(4) What actions is a Christian at liberty to per-
form?— The fourth form is practical and ethical,
raised by a community which, newly rescued from
the licence of heathenism, recognizes the need of
laws for its guidance as well as of guidance for
its attitude to law. This was particularly necessary
for a community of Gentile converts, at once con-
taining a JeA\-ish leaven which held to the whole
body of Mos.aic restrictions (cf. the discu-sions in
the Aboda Zara), and, apart from this, liable to
various puzzles, e.g. about food which, offered for
sale in heathen markets, had been contaminated by
connexion with idolatry. On such points ' strong '
and ' weak ' brethren would easily differ. ' We are
free from the Jewish Law ; but how far does that
freedom take us?' St. Paul is unhesitating; he
does not even refer to the Jerusalem Decree (Ac
15^) ; he replies : ' all things are lawful ; freedom is
absolute ; but not all things are expedient ; and the
inexpedient must be avoided' (I Co 6^- ICP). "Was
this a back-stairs way for the return of law ? Not
in realit)'. The contrast is expressed later in ' all
things do not build up' (v.^). There is for the
Christian no body of Jewish regulations ; but the
Christian is not therefore left to do as he likes.
That woiild, in the end, involve falling under the
old tyrannj- of desire and passion. He gained his
freedom from law by coming into the family of God.
Tlie new relation to God means a new relation to
men. HLs freedom is that of a member of a free
society. Obviously this means that he will always
act in full recognition of his fellow-members. To
deny their claims would be to deny his own exist-
ence. It would destroy freedom and everything
else. He can no more do that which will hinder his
brother's life than he can take the limbs of Christ
and join them to a harlot. But is not this, then,
after all, simply exchanging one law for another ?
Yes ; the difference is that under the old Law there
could be no acquiescence, and hence there was
always a stimulus to disobedience and sin. The
essence of the new Law is that the Christian sees in
it the expression of the life that he has chosen. It
becomes once more the embodiment of the real
Torah ('law,' properly and by derivation 'instruc-
tion') as we meet it, e.g., in Ps 119, the actuaJ out-
working in detail of the experience of the grace of
God in the heart.
4. Other NT books. — The remaining NT writings
call for little notice. The weU-kBo\vn passage in
St. James (1^) speaks of the law of freedom into
which the doer of the word looks, as opposed to
the careless glance at the reflexion of himself in a
mirror, as it were, which is cast by the man who
is only a hearer. There is nothing except propin-
quity to suggest that St. James is here referring to
what a few verses lat«r he calls the royal law :
'thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (2*);
and he says nothing further in explanation of a
phrase which would have aptly summarized St.
Paul's argument. But a metaphor which he had
just used (1^), though with no direct reference to
freedom, may be referred to at the close of this
article, as summing up one aspect of NT teaching :
' of his own will he brought us forth by the word
of truth.' The paragraph begins with a call to
resist temptation ; it goes on to show the inevitable
results of attending to the suggestions of evil ; it
ends with the assertion that God brought us forth to
be first-fruits, as it were, of His own creation — that
is, around man's freedom of choice lies God's pur-
pose of blessing and salvation ; and we complete
the NT view if we add that the fulfilment of this
purpose means a freedom which is no more of
choice but of absolute oneness with the great orbital
movement of God's love.
5. Apostolic Fathers. — These two views — of St.
Paul and St. James — are implied, sometimes more,
sometimes less clearly, in the Apostolic Fathers.
But they are only implied ; and in general, we find
the two opposite convictions, of man's choice and
God's omnipotence, held with hardly a suspicion
that they might be opposed. Here, as elsewhere,
the sub-Apostolic Age is far nearer to the OT, or
to the early chapters of Acts, than to the Pauline
and Johannine writings. In 1 Clem, the Corinth-
ians are said to have conflict for all the brother-
hood, that the number of God's elect might be
saved (2). We are not justified through ourselves,
but through faith (32). None can be found in love,
save those to whom God shall vouchsafe it (50).
A similar paradox is found in Ignatius, Ep. ad
Ephes, 8 : 'let none deceive you, as indeed ye are
not deceived, seeing ye belong wholly to God.'
Ignatius himself dies of his own free-will {eKdv), yet
as a f reedman (dreXeiOepos) of Christ ; and he wiU
rise free in Him {ad Rom. 4). So in the Ej). Bam. :
'Before faith, the heart is given up to evil' (16);
and even now, accurate knowledge of salvation is
necessary lest the Evil One should enter and fling
us away from our life (2).
LiTERATCRK — For an exposition of the relevant passwes, see
the Commentaries, especially Sanday-Headlam on Bmnans
(^ICC, 1902), and Lis:fatfoot on Galatians (=1S76). For the
theory of Freedom as a part of Christian Ethics, see J. A.
Domer, Si/item of Christian Ethics, Eng. tr.,l&s7, pp. 253-2S3 ;
T. B. Strong, Chriitian Ethics, 1896, pp. 245-251, pp. 35-46 ;
424 FRIENDS, FRIENDSHIP
FRUIT
G. F. Barbour, A Philosophical Stud.!/ "/ Christian Ethics,
1911, pp. 326-354. For fuller discussions of the Pauline doc-
trine, see J. B. Mozley, A Treatise on the Aiigustinian Doc-
trine of Predestination"^, 1878; D. Somerville, St. Paul's
Conception of Christ, 1897 ; F. R. Tennant, The Origin and
Propagation of Stn^, 1806 ; E. Weber, Das Problem der
Heusgeschichte naeh Riim. 9-11, 1911 ; see also artt. (in addi-
tion to those referred to above) on Qracb, Law, Libbrty, Sin.
W. F, LOFTHOUSE.
FRIENDS, FRIENDSHIP. — The terms them-
selves are rarely found in the apostolic writinj^s.
Ac 10"* mentions the friends of Cornelius, 19^^ the
Asiarchs as friendly to St. Paul in an hour of peril
at Ephesus, 27' friends of the same Apostle at
Sidon ; 12^ reveals Blastus in the character of ' a
friend at court.' Ja 2^* reminds us that Abraham
was called the friend of God.and no doubt inculcates
the lesson that those Avho walk in the patriarch's
footsteps may attain the patriarch's bfessing ; 4*
that 'the friendship of the world is enmity with
God,' and that * whosoever would be a friend of the
world maketh himself an enemy of God.' The only
other reference is 3 Jn ^*, ' The friends salute thee.
Salute the friends by name.'
It has often been pointed out that friendship
occupies an apparently much smaller place in the
NT than in the OT or than in tlie writings of
pagan antiquity. But this is only a superficial
view. The name may not be conspicuous, but the
reality is there. There are some Avho hesitate to
speak of the relationship of Jesus to the Twelve
and to the wider circle of disciples which included
the household at Bethany, the goodman of Jeru-
salem at Avhose house the Last Supper was eaten,
and the women who so affectionately ministered to
the Master, as one of friendship. To do this is to
deny the humanity of Jesus — a loss that nothing
can compensate. That there were elements in
this relationship that transcended friendship as
ordinarily conceived and experienced all will
admit ; but friendship as we know it was none the
less there, and Jesus was not only giver but receiver.
When, for example, ^lartha was feverishly busy
with domestic cares, Mary Avas with Jesus, not
saying much perhaps, nor even listening in that
hour to parable or precept, but ministering to Him
the ' one thing needful ' — the quiet, loving, sympa-
thetic response to One who eased a heavy spirit to
her as He could not do to His uncomprehending
apostles.
When we pass from the Gospels to the passages
enumerated at the beginning of this article there
are only tAvo that need even a brief comment.
The 'friends' at Sidon whom St. Paul was per-
mitted to visit probably mean Christians in that
city ; the move usual term would be ' brethren '
(AdeX^oi). In 3 Jn ^* the word may liave the same
force, but there is probably behind it an allusion
to a more intimate and personal relationship. But
' friends ' {ol <l>L\oi) did not become a technical name
for Christians in these early days. As Harnack
puts it {Mission and Expansion of Christianity-,
1908, i. 421), ' the term ol <t>l\oL did not gain cunency
in the catholic church owing to the fact that ol
d8€\<pol was preferred as being still more inward
and warm.' The Gnostics of the 2nd cent., on the
other hand, were more addicted to its use, and
Valentinus wrote a homily ' On Friends,' while
Epiphanius, the son of Carpocrates, founded a gild
of friends on the Pythagorean model. Among tlie
first generation of Christians the glow of love was
cast over all the old relationships of life, and family
and friendly associations alike were sublimated in
the sense of belonging to the household of God.
The bond that held tlie soul to Clirist held also all
who were thus bound ; and that which had hitherto
been called friendship was so enriched and quick-
ened that the old term was felt to be inadequate
for its newly reinforced con tent. Thus instead
of 'friends' and ' fiicndshij) ' we read much of
'brothers' and ' fel!<j\\>liii) ' {KOLvui>ia).
As has been said, tlie reality was there — the
kinship of spirit, the association in service, the
giving and taking, the mutual self-sacrifice, the
oneness of aim and purpose, the reciprocal opening
of the heart — all that we associate witli true friend-
ship. The greatest of that generation might in-
deed have said of himself, as Myers has said of
him in his St. Paul :
' I'luil has no honour and no friend but Christ,"
and that :
•Lone on the land and homeless on the water
Pass I in patience till the work be done.'
But he would be quick to auid :
' Yet not in solitude if Christ anear me
Waketh him workers for the great employ,
Oh not in solitude, if souls that hear nie
Catch from my joyaunce the surprise of joy.
Hearts I have won of sister or of brother
Quick on the earth or hidden in the sod,
Lo every heart awaiteth me, another
Friend in the blameless family of God.'
We have only to think of the travelling comrades
of the Apostle — of Barnabas and Silas, of Timotliy
and Mark, of Luke and Titus, of Pri.scilla and
Aquila — to realize that, so far from being friendless,
he enjoyed the ricliest resources of that relationship
that were to be had in that age. So far as we
know, he never laboured alone, except in Athens.
In his letters he nearly always associates with
himself one or more of his colleagues as joint
authors, and those who have been named above
were the ablest Christian thinkers and workers of
the time. And when he speaks of others, like
Urban, Epaphroditus, Clement, and Philemon, as
his fellow- workers, or, like Andronicus, Junias,
and Aristarchus, as his fellow-prisoners, or, like
Archippus, as his fellow-soldiers, it would be very
puerile criticism to say that because he does not
term tliem technically his friends there was no
friendship between him and them. In the vicissi-
tudes of travel, in the new campaigns that were
undertaken, in the different problems that each
province and city presented, in the failures and
successes that attended his mission, there must have
been that close-knit sympathy and entire fellow-
ship that mark the intercourse of friends. Nor
can we hesitate to apply the word to the intimacy
that existed between the Apostle and those wlio
became responsible for the work of Christ and the
guidance of the Church in every place where it
was established. Wherever he worked there were
those who delighted to be known as the friends of
St. Paul and \vliom he was well pleased to call his
friends.
In the churches themselves the term ' brethren '
would be held to include all that was involved in
friendship. Despite tlie shadows of the Apostolic
Age and llie imperfections of a nascent infantile
Christianity, it is not hard to discern the signs of
true friendship. The records of the 2nd cent, con-
tinue the tale, and the affectionate loyalty of
Christians to each other in times of peril deeply
impressed their enemies and persecutors. In some
cases, as in earlier days with Peter and John,
Andrew and Philip, tlie friendship preceiled and
was sanctified by the Christian tie, in othri^ it
grew out of that bond. A. J. c;ki!.\ ::.
FRUIT.— 1. The word in its literal sense.—
Before considering the use of this term in spirii ual
metaphor it will be convenient to enumerate those
passages in the apostolic writings wliere it is em-
ployed in its natural si'iisc. ('0 (> nirra I. —Thi'se
are Ja S^-'" (in illustration of ]i.uirn(t> and juayer),
Ac 14''^ (God's LMft of lain nn<l fruitful >ca>on>). 1
Co 9'' (in sui'i'ou oi \Uv apost Ic.-' ri-lit to Mi>tt'naiK'e;
FRUIT
FULNESS
425
«f. 2 Ti 2^), Rev 18" 22- — passages which, like some I
of the others, are on the borderland between the
literal and the symbolic. Jude '* compares the ' un-
godly ' of the day with ' trees in late autumn when
the miit is past. In Ac 2* the word is used in its
physiological sense.
(6) Spccijic. — References to specific fruits are not
numerous. Ja 3" asks whether a fig-tree can yield
olives or a vine tigs. St. Paul in Ro ll^'*- uses the
curious idea of grafting a wild olive on to a good
olive tree ('contrary to nature,' v.**) to illustrate
the participation ot the Gentiles in the promises
made to Israel. Rev 11* identifies the 'two wit-
nesses' (perhaps St. Peter and St. Paul) with the
' two olive trees ' of Zee 4 ; and Rev 6^ in its
mention of a fig-tree casting her unripe figs in the
spring tempests recalls Is 34^ Rev 14"'^ is a
vision of the harvest and vintage of the earth when
the grain and the grapes are fully ripe. St. Paul's
use of the grain of wheat in the great Resurrection
argument of 1 Co 15 is familiar to all, and is an
eciio of Christ's word in Jn 12-^^.
2. The term in spiritual metaphor. — We may
begin our study of the spiritual lessons inculcated
under the image of fruit with another passage from
Corinthians. In 1 Co 3' the Apostle reminds his
readers that they are 'God's husbandry',' i.e. His
'tilth' or 'tilled land.' This recalls the Parable
of the Vineyard spoken by Jesus (Mt 21, Lk 20) ;
Christian cliiurches and lives are fields and gardens
from which the owner who has spent love and time
and care over them may reasonably expect good
results, ' fiuit unto God' (Ro 1*). And those too
who are His overseers, those who plant and water,
naturally look for produce and the reward of their
toil. Thus the Apostle hopes, as he looks forward
to his visit to Rome, that he may ' have some fruit
among' the people of that city as he had in Corinth
and Ephesus (Ro 1^). Two passages in Phil, may
be glanced at here : (a) the difficult reference in 1-,
which probably means that, though death would
be gain, yet if continuance in living means fruitful
labour ('fruit of work ' = fruit which follows and
issues from toU), St. Paul is quite ready to waive
his own preference ; (6) 4", where, thanking the
Philippians for their kindly gift, he says he wel-
comes it not so much for himself as on their behalf ;
it is a token that they are not unfruitful in love,
and it will, like all such evidences of Christian
thought and ministry, enrich the givers as much as
the recipient (cf. 2 Co 9«).
(1) The way is now clear for a brief survey of
the main topic — the fruits of the netv life in Christ
Jesus. The 'fruit of the light,' says St. Paul
<Eph 5'), 'is in all goodness and righteousness and
truth,' and the more familiar passage in Gal 5'^
speaks of the 'fruit of the Spirit' as 'love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithful-
ness, meekness, self-control.' Trees are known by
their fruit, and the existence of these virtues in an
indiWdual or a community are the surest, if not
the sole, signs that the life is rooted with Christ in
God, that the branches are abiding in the True
Vine. It was the Apostle's greatest joy when he
could congratulate a church like that at Colossae
on its shave in the fruit-bearing which the gospel
was accomplishing wherever it was proclaimed and
accepted (Col 1*), when it bore fruit in every good
work (v.^*). The fruit of the new life is re-
garded in Ro 6" as sanctification. On the other
hand, St. .James (3") gives it as one of the character-
istics of the ' wisdom that is from above ' — which is
perhaps liis way of speaking of the Spirit — that it
is ' full of . . . good fruits, by which he no doubt
means 'good works.' In the next verse he says
that ' the fruit (i.e. the seed which bears the fruit)
of righteousness is sown in peace for them that
make peace.' The 'fruit of righteousness' is an
OT phrase, and meets us again in Ph 1" and He 12",
where ' righteousness,' or conformity to the liighest
moral standard, is described as the * peaceful fruit '
of discipline patiently endured.
Returning to the loctis classictis, Gal 5^, it is
worth noticing that St. Paul introduces the nine
virtues Avhich he enumerates as one ' fruit.' Like
the chain of graces in 2 P 1*-", they are all linked
together as though to suggest that the absence of
any one means the nullity of all. We need not
press too heavily the suggestion that the nine fall
into three groups describing (a) the soul in relation
to God ; (b) its attitude to others (this Ls to make
' faith ' = faithfulness, and though St. Paul usually
thinks of faith as the basis of Christian character,
he was not so rigidly systematic as not to see in it,
or at least in an increase of it, a, fruit of the Spirit) ;
(c) principles of daily conduct. There is more
perhaps in the antithesis between the ' works ' of
the liesh (v.") and the 'fruit' of the Spirit. Yet
the dispositions enumerated show themselves in
good works, though these are not expressly specified,
being infinitelj- varied and adaptable to cliauging
conditions. The list may be supplemented, for
example, by He 13^', where ' praise ' is the fruit of
a thankful heart expressed by the lips, and Ro 15^,
where the generosity of the Gentile Christians to-
wards the Judaean poor is the fruit of the spiritual
blessing which St. Pauls converts had received.
(2) The unfruitful. — The other side of the picture
can be briefly dismissed. Those who walk in dark-
ness are spoken of as unfruitful (Eph 5"). ' What
fruit had you then in those things of which you
are ashamed ? ' asks St. Paul in Ro 6^^ though we
might possibly translate, 'What fruit had you
then? — Things (gratifications of sense) of which
you are now ashamed.' In Ro 7* the Apostle
describes the unregenerate life as producing fruit
' unto death,' and if we desire an enumeration of
these poisonous products we shall find them in Gal
5^9-21 (cf. Col 35-9). For the final harvesting we
have the picture of Rev 14.
(3) The time of fruit-bearing. — It is the will of
Jesus that His disciples should bear ' much fruit ' ;
in His words on this theme (Jn 15) He does not
seem to contemplate the possibility of bearing a
little. It is much or none. The trouble is that
churches and individuals only too often look like
orchards stricken by a blight, and where a little
fruit Ls found it is not so mellow as it might be.
We need not be in too great a hurry to see the full
fruit in young lives. There is a time for blossom
and a time for ripe fruit, and the intervening stage
is not attractive though it is necessary. There is
a time for the blade and a time for the full com
in the ear, but before we get this harvest there is
the period of the green and unsatisfying ear. We
sometimes speak of a harvest of souls following on
a series of revival or mission services ; but it is
only the blade pushing up into the light — the
harvest is still far distant.
A day now and a^ain with a fruit-grower on his farm will
have much to teach the preacher as to natural law in the
spiritual world. He will learn amongst other things how vital
is the process of pruning, and how no stroke is made at random.
He will learn how to guard the nascent life against frosts and
chills, ita need of nutriment from soil and sun and rain. The
wonderful exploits of the Californian fniit-grower, Luther
Burbank, will open up a whole universe of possibilities ; the
story of what irrigation and scientific culture have done in
Australia will show how deserts may become orchards. And
as palm trees are said to bear their heaviest clusters in old age,
the life that abides in Christ may be confident of escaping the
reproach of crabbed and withered senility — it shall bring forth
fruit in old ase. But it need not wait for old age — it shall be
like the tree of life that bears its fruit every month — fruit that
is for the delectation and the healing of the world.
A. J. Grieve.
FULNESS. — The word to be considered is
pleroma (v\T}pwjxa). Nouns of the -fia termination
properly denote the result of the action signified
426
FULNESS
FUTURE LIFE
by the cof^imte verb; and therefore wXripufia (frona
Tr\r]povi' = ' to fill,' or, metaphorically, ' to fulfil ')
primarily means that which possesses its full con-
tent, an entire set or series, a completed whole re-
garded in its relation to its component parts, or in
contrast with a previous deficiency of any of these
parts. The full crew of a ship or 'strength' of a
regiment is a pleroma ; the soul becomes a
' pleroma of virtues by means of those three excel-
lent things, nature, learning, and practice' (Philo,
de Prccmiis et Pcenis, 11).
This is the sense in Gal 4* : ' when the fulness of
the time came,' i.e. when the entire mea.sure of
the ap^tointed period had been filled up by the
lapse of successive ages. So the 'fulness' of the
Jews (Ko 1112) and of the Gentiles (Ko ll^*) is the
full complement, the entire number contemplated
(however determined — by predestination or other-
wise). Lightfoot in his classical discussion of the
word (see Literature) denies any other than this
passive sense ; but his argiiment is far from con-
vincing. When we think of a pitcherful of water,
we may regard tlie water as a completed entity,
which by successive additions has reached its full
quantity and become a pleroma of water ; but
much more naturally we think of it as that which
fills the pitcher, and is its pleroma. This active
sense must be accepted in Mt 9^*, Mk 2^^ where
t6 wXrjpufia can only mean the patch that fills the
hole in the worn-out garment ; in Mk 8^°, where
airvpldiov Tr\7jpu}fji.aTa inevitably means ' basketfuls ' ;
in 1 Co 10'-", where ' the earth and the pleroma
thereof ' cannot be made to signify anythmg else
tlian 'the earth and all that it contains,' the
abundance that fills it. So also in Ro 13^°, ' love
is the pleroma of the law,' the context (' he that
loveth his neighbour has fulfilled the law ') shows
that pleroma is not to be taken passiv'ely, as the
law in its completeness ; but actively, as that which
fills up the whole measure of the law's demands.
The use of the word as a theological term is con-
fined in the NT to those closely related writings,
( 'olossians, Ephesians, and the Fourth Gospel. In
Col V^ it is predicated of Christ that 'it pleased
the Father that in him the whole pleroma should
dwell,' and in 2^, with greater precision of state-
ment, ' in him dwelleth the whole pleroma of the
Godhead in a bodily fashion' (cf. Jn P'*). Here
the meaning of the word is beyond dispute. All
that God is is in Christ; the organic whole of
Divine attributes and powers that constitute Deity
{deoTTji) dwells permanently in Him.
The term with such an application is a startling
novelty in NT phraseology, and is an instructive
example of the hospitality of early Christian
thought, of the promptitude with which it appro-
priated from its complex intellectual and religious
environment such categories as it could convert to
its own use. Since the connotation of the word is
assumed to be familiar to the Apostle's readers, it
is evident that it must have played an important
part in the speculations of the Colossian lieresy,
as it did also in the Hermetic theology (R. Reitzen-
stein, Poimandres, 1904, p. 26). In the developed
Gnostic systems of the 2nd cent., and especially in
the scheme of Valentinus, the conception of the
Pleroma became increasingly prominent, as signi-
fying the totality of the Divine emanations. But
for a full account of the Gnostic usage, the reader
is referred to Lightfoot's exhaustive note (see
Literature) or, in briefer compass, to the artt.
' Pleroma' in HDB and ' Fulness ' in DC'G.
The problem witii which religious thought was
wrestling, as for centuries it hatl done and was still
to do, was how to relate the transcendent God to the
existent universe, to effect a transition from eternal
spirit to the material or phenomenal, from the
aosolutely good to the imperfect and evil. And in
Colossae the solution was sought not in a Gnostic
series of emanations, but, on the lines of Judai.stic
speculation, in a hierarchy of ' princii)alities,'
' dominions,' and 'powers,' the ffroixeta wno ruled
the physical elements and the lower world, among
whom the Divine Pleroma was, as it were, dis-
tributed, and to whose generally hostile rule men
were continually subject. Against this doctrine,
without denying the existence and activity of such
beings, St. Paul lifts up his magnificent truth of
the ' Cosmic Christ ' and his vision of a ' Christian-
ized universe.' Christ is not one of a series of
mediators ; in Him the whole Pleroma dwells.
He is not only Head of the Church, but Head over
all things, delivering His people from bondage to
the hostile elements, and translating them into
His own Kingdom, that new cosmic order in which
God will finally reconcile all things unto Himself.
In Ephesians the emphasis is not so much upon
Christ's possession of the Divine Pleroma as upon
His communication of it to the Church. The
Church is His Body, ' the pleroma of him that
filleth all in all' (l''^; for exegetical details, see
Armitage Robinson in loc). Whether irXifipufia be
understood in an active sense (the Church is Christ's
complement, that by which He is completed as the
head is by the body) or in a passive sense (the
Church is Christ's fulness, because His fulness is
imparted to it and dwells in it), the result is prac-
tically the same — the one sense implies the other.
The Church is the living receptacle and instrument
of all that is in Christ, all grace and truth, all
purpose and power. But the ideal character thus
claimed for the Church is yet to be achieved in
the sphere of human aspiration and ettbrt. Its
rich diversity of gifts and ministries is bestowed
for this very end, that ' we all ' may be brought to
that unity and many-sided completeness of spirit-
ual life in which we shall collectively form a ' per-
fect man,' attaining thus to the * measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ' (4''*). And, as in
the Apostle's thought the fulness of the Godhead
descends through the One Mediator to the Church,
so again it ascends through Him to the first crea-
tive source. The end of all prayer and of all at-
tainment is ' that we may be filled unto all the
fulness of God' (3^"). The Church, redeemed
humanity in its vital spiritual unity, grown at
last to a ' perfect man,' to the ' fulness of Christ,'
which is the ' fulness of God ' ; God thus possess-
ing in man the fulfilment of His eternal purpose,
His perfect image, the consumnicate organ ot His
Spirit — even this is possible to Him who is able to
do exceeding abundantly above aU that we ask or
think (3'">).
LiTRRATi-RE. — Artt. 'Pleroma' in HDB, 'Fulness' in DCG;
C. P. A. FrJtzsclie, Pauli ad Romanos Epistnla, 1830-43, ii.
469Pf. ; J. B. Lightfoot, ColossiansS, 1879, p. 257 ff. ; J. Armi-
tage Robinson, Ephesians, 1903, p. 265 0. ; H. A. W. Meyer,
Commentary on the A'7', ' Philippians and Colossians.' 1*75,
' Ephesians and Philemon,' 1880 ; £rich Haupt, Die (Jefaiiijen-
nchaftsbriefe'! in Meyer's Kommentar turn iiT, 1902 ; D.
Somerville, St. Paul's Conception of Christ, 1897, p. 156 ff. ;
J. Denney, Jesus and the Gospel, 1908, p. 29 ff. ; M. Dibelius,
Die Gcisterwelt im Glavben des Pauitu, 1909 ; W. Bousset,
Eauptptobleme der Gnosis, 1907, p. 267.
Robert Law.
FUTURE LIFE.— See Eschatoloqy.
GAD
GALATIA
427
6
GAD.— See Tribes.
GAIUS (r(iios=Caius, a Latin name, very common
as a Roman praenomen).— 1. In 1 Co 1'*, a member
of the Churcli of Corinth, baptized by St. Paul,
who pK)ints out that in his case, as in the case of
Crispus and in that of ' the household of Stephanas,'
he thus deviated from his usual practice. Crispus
was 'the ruler of tlie synagogue' (Ac 18*), and
Gaius was presumably also a convert of some
importance.
2. In Ko 16^, a member of the Church of Corinth,
whom St. Paul in the postscript to Romans calls
his ' host' and the host of ' the whole church,' and
whose salutations are sent to the readers of the
letter. He was evidently a man of position and
means (the greeting from him immediately pre-
cedes that from Erastus, ' the treasurer of the city '),
whether his hospitality took the form of keeping
open house for Christians and Christian \-isitors
like the Apostle at Corinth or of allowing the
Christians to meet for common worship and edifica-
tion under his roof.
Everything points to the identification of 1 and
2. The same Gaius who was converted and bap-
tized on St. Paul's first visit to Corintii entertained
him on his second visit. Now it is perhaps easier
to believe that this Corinthian would have friends,
whom he would wisli to salute, at Ephesus rather
than at Rome, and these salutations in Ro 16^ are
thought by some scholars to point to an Ephesian
destination of the passage. But as Lightfoot re-
marks, in the Apostolic Church personal acquaint-
ance was not necessary to create Christian sympathy
{Biblical Essays, 1893, p. 305).
3. In Ac 19^, a companion of St. Paul, who with
Aristarchus was seized at Ephesus. They are
described as ' men of Macedonia ' (MaiceSocas), there
being very little support for another reading, ' a
man of Macedonia,' referring to Aristarchus only.
4. In Ac 20^, a companion of St. Paul, who
accompanied him from Greece to Asia Minor. He
is described as 'of Derbe' (Aep/Satos), possibly in-
tentionally to distinguish him from 3.
Attempts have been made to identify 3 and 4.
It is natural to do so, as the passages stand so close
together. Emendations of the text have been
suggested by which ' of Derbe ' is taken -with
' Timothy,' but these are purely conjectural, and
Timothy was apparently a Lystran (Ac 16^- ^).
See W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the
Roman Citizen, 1895, p. 280.
5. In 3 Jn^ the person to whom 3 John is ad-
dressed. He is described as ' the beloved ' (6 iya-
TTfrbs), and is commended for his hospitality (v.*).
Nothing is known of this Gaius, and there is no
reason to suppose him to have been any one of
those of the same name associated with St. Paul.
T. B. Allworthy.
GALATIA (FaXaWa). — Galatia was the name
given by Greek-speaking peoples to that part of
the central plateau of Asia Minor which was occu-
fied by Celtic tribes from the 3rd cent. B.C. onwards,
t corresponded to the Roman Gallogrcecia, or land
of the Gallograeci { = 'E\\TivoyaXdTai [Diodorus, V.
xxxii. 5]), who were so named in distinction from
the Galli of Western Europe. Manlius in Livy
(xxxviii. 17) professes to despise them — ' Hi jam
degeneres sunt : mixti, et Gallogrteci vere, quod
appellantur.'
About 280 B.C., the barbarians who had been
menacing Italy for a centurj' began to move east-
ward. A great Celtic wave swept over Macedonia
and Thessaly. Under the leadership of Leonorios
and Lutarios a body of 20,000 invaders — half of
them fighting men, the rest women and children —
crossed into Asia at the invitation of Nicomedes,
king of Bithynia, who desired their help in his
struggle with his brother (Livy, xxxviii. 16). His
success, however, proved costly both to himself and
to his neighbours, for his new barbaric allies
established themselves as a robber-State and be-
came the scourge of Asia Minor, exacting tribute
from all the rulers north and west of Taurus, some
of whom were fain to purchase exemption from their
degradations by employing them as mercenary
soldiers.
Attains I. of Pergamos (241-197) was the first to
check the fierce barbarians. Defeating them in a
series of battles, which are commemorated in the
famous Pergamene sculptures, he compelled tliem
to form a permanent settlement with definite
boundaries in north-eastern Phrygia. The Gala-
tian country, an irregular rectangle 200 miles long
from E. to W. and about 100 miles wide, became
' in language and manners a Celtic island amidst
the waves of eastern peoples, and remained so in
internal organization even under the empire'
(T. Mommsen, The Provinces of the Boman Empire^,
1909, i. 338).
Like Ctsar's Gaul, the country was divided into
three parts, formed by the rivers Halys and Sanga-
rius. The Tectosages settled round Ancyra, the
Tolistobogii round Pessinus, and the Trocmi round
Tavium. According to Strabo (XII. v. 1), the
three tribes ' spoke the same language and in no
respect ditt'ered from one another. Each of them
was divided into four cantons called tetrarchies,
each of which had its own tetrarch [or chief], its
judge, and its general. . . . The Council ot the
twelve tetrarchies consisted of 300 men who as-
sembled at a place called the Drynemetum.'
The term ' Galatians,' which at first denoted
only the Gaulish invaders, was in course of time
extended to their Phrygian subjects, and the
'Galatian' slaves who were .sold in the ancient
markets had really no Celtic blood in their veins.
For two centuries the proud conquerors formed a
comparatively small ruling caste in the country,
like the Normans among the Saxons of England.
As a military aristocrac}-, whose only trade was
Avar, they left agriculture, commerce, and all the
peaceful crafts to the Phrygian natives. Averse
to the life of towns and cities, the chieftains
established themselves in hill-forts {(ppovpia [Strabo,
XII. V. 2]), where they kept up a barbaric state, sur-
rounded by retainers who shared witn them the
vast wealth they had acquired by their many con-
quests. For siding with Antioclius the Great in
his war with Rome, and frequently breaking their
promise to refrain from raiding the lands of their
neighbours, the Galatians ultimately brought on
themselves a severe castigation at the hands of Cn.
Manlius Vulso in 189 B.C. (Li\-y, xxx^aii. 12-27,
Polyb. xxii. 16-22). About 160 B.C. they obtained
a large accession of territory in Lycaonia, includ-
ing the towns of Iconium and Lystra. Thereafter
they came under the influence of the kings of
Pontus, but Mithridates the Great (120-63 B.C.),
doubting their loyalty, ordered a massacre of all
their chiefs, and this savage and stupid act at once
drove the whole nation over to the Roman side.
Their new alliance proved greatly to their advan-
tage, and at the settlement of the aflfairs of Asia
428
GALATIA
GALATIA
Minor by Pompey in 64 B.C., Galatia was made a
Roman client-State. Three chiefs (tetrarchs) were
Appointed, one for each tribe, of whom the ablest
and most ambitious, Deiotarus, tlie friend of Cicero
(ad Fam. viii. 10, ix. 12, xv. 1, 2, 4), contrived to
seize the territories of the others, and, in spite of
the hostility of Julius Csesar, ultimately got him-
self reco>j;nized as king of all Cialatia. He died in
40 B.C., and four years later his dominions were
bestowed by Mark Antony on Amyntas, the Roman
client-king of Pisidia, who had formerly been the
secretary of Deiotarus. This brave and sagacious
Oaul, ' whose career was in many points parallel
to that of Herod in Palestine' (H. von Soden, Hist,
of Early Christian Lit., Eng. tr., 1906, p. 69 f.),
transferred his allegiance from Antony to Augustus
after Actium, and became the chief mstrument in
■establishing the Pax Romana in southern Asia
Minor. Having overthrown Antipater the robber-
chief, he added Derbe and Laraiula to his do-
minions, but lost his life in an attempt to subdue
the Homanades of Isauria. Galatia then ceased
to be a sovereign State, and was incorporated in the
Roman Empii-e (in 25 B.C.).
Cresar [Bell. Gall. vi. 16) says of the Western
Gauls, ' Natio est omnis Gallorum admodum dedita
religionibus.' But the faith which the invaders of
Asia brought with them did not live long in the
new environment. The un warlike Phrygians whom
they subdued were in one respect intiexible, and,
as in so many instances, ' victi victoribus leges
■dederunt.' If the Phrygian religion, with its
frenzy of devotion, its weird music, its orgiastic
dances, its sensuous rites, made a profound impres-
sion even upon the cultured Greeks, one need not
wonder that the simple Gallic barbarians were
fascinated by the cult of Cybele, and that their
chiefs were soon found by the side of the native
rulers in the great temple of Pessinus. There ' the
priests were a sort of sovereigns and derived a large
revenue from their office' (Strabo, Xll. v. 3).
When the old warlike spirit of the Gauls languished,
as it naturally did after the establishment of a
peaceful provincial government, the two races
gradually approximated in other things than re-
ligion, but a long time was needed for their com-
plete amalgamation. ' In spite of their sojourn of
several hundred years in Asia Minor, a deep gulf
still separated these Occidentals from the Asiatics '
<Mommsen, op. cit. i. 338). Even in the 4th cent,
the far-travelled Jerome found at Ancyra, along-
side of Greek, a Celtic dialect differing little from
what he had heard in Treves (Preface to Comment-
ary on Galatians).
The province Galatia included the greater part
of the wide territory once ruled by Amyntas, viz.
Galatia proper (the country of the three Galatian
tribes), part of Phrygia (including Antioch and
Iconium), Pisidia, Isauria, and part of Lycaonia
(with Lystra and Derbe). For nearly a century
Galatia was the eastern frontier province, and
every fresh annexation to it marked the progress
of the Empire in that direction.
Paphlagonia was added in ."i B.C., Aniasia and Gazelonitis in 2
B.C., Komana Pontica (forming with Amasia the district of
Pontus Galaticus [Ptolemy, v. vi. 3]) in a.d. 34, and Pontus
Polenioniacus (the king^dom of Polemon ii. [Ptolemi', v. vi. 4)) in
A.D. C3. The south-eastern part of the province was somewliat
contracted in a.d. 41 by the jfift of a slice of Lycaonia, including
Laranda, to Antiochus of Commayrene (called .-ifter him Lycaonia
Antiochiana), so that Derbe became the frontier town and
customs' station. Ptolemy defines the province in his Geog.
V. 4, and Pliny in his HJf v. 146, 147.
Antioch and Lystra (qq.v.) were made Roman
colonies by Augustus ; Iconium and Derhe (qq. v.)
were remodelled in Roman style by Claudius, and
named Claud-Iconium and Claudio-Derbe. In
these cities, planted in the most civilized and pro-
gressive part of central Asia Minor — the region
traversed by the great route of trallic and inter-
course between Ephesus and Syrijin Antiocli —
many Greeks, Romans, and Jews swelled the native
Phrygian and Lycaonian populace.
The meaning of ' Galatia ' is one of the questionea
vexatce of NT exegesis. Are 'the churches of
Galatia' (Gal P; cf. 1 Co 16') to be sought in the
comparatively small district occupied by tiie Gauls,
about Ancyra, Pessinus, and Tavium, or in the
great Roman province of Galatia, which included
Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe? In the
absence of definite information, we liave to make
probability our guide, and to the ))resent writer
the balance of evidence appears to favour the Soutli
Galatian hypothesis. The chief difficulty is createtl
by the simultaneous use of a Roman and a non-
Roman nomenclature. It was the policy of the
Imperial government to stamp an artificial unity
upon all tlie diverse parts of a province, often with
but little regard to historical traditions and local
sentiments. The old territorial designations were
of course still popularly used, but among all who
looked at things from the Imperial standpoint —
e.g. the Roman governor, the coloni of cities
founded by the Romans, the incolce of semi- Roman
towns, and the Roman historians — such terms as
Galatia and Galata3, Asia and Asiani, Africa and
Afri, denoted the province and the people of the
province.
Tacitus (Hist. ii. 9) mentions 'Oalatiam ac Pamphyliam pro-
vincias' ; in Ann. xiii. 35 he says, ' et habiti per Oalatiam Cap-
padociamque dilectus' ; and in Ann. xv. 6 he has ' Galatirum
Oappadocumque auxilia.' An Iconian inscription to an Imperial
officer (CIG 3991) designates his administrative district ToAa-
TtKij e-irapxtCa, or ' Galatic province'. Pliny frequently uses
' Galatia ' as designating the province (//A' v. 27, 95, etc.). For
other instances see T. Zahn, Introd. to the NT, 1909, i. 184 f .
The crucial question is whether St. Paul assumed
the Imperial standpoint and wrote like a Roman.
Zahn {op. cit. i. 175) holds that ' he never uses any
but the provincial name for districts under Roman
rule, and never employs territorial names wliicli
are not also names of Roman provinces.' Tho
Apostle's employment of the terms Achaia, Mace-
donia, Dalmatia, Judoea, Arabia, Syria, and Cilicia
is regarded as consistently Imperial. Of the divi-
sions of Asia Minor he names only Asia and Galatia,
and ' it is unlikely that he meant by these anytliing
else than the Roman provinces so called, for the
very reason that he mentions no districts of Asia
Minor whose names do not at the same time denote
such provinces ' {op. cit. i. 186). Ramsay similarly
maintains that St. Paul always thinks and speaks
with his eye on the Roman divisions of the Empire,
i.e. the Provinces, in accordance with his station
as a Roman citizen and with his invariable and oft-
announced principle of accepting and obeying the
existing government. Tins view is contested by
the South Galatian theorists. Mommsen, e.g., held
that 'it is inadmissible to take the "(ialatians"
of Paul in anything except the distinct and narrower
sense of the term ' (quoted in Moffatt, LNT, p. 96),
and P. W. Schmiedel contends that 'it is quite un-
permissible to say of Paul that he invariably con-
fined himself to the official usage ' {EBi ii. 1604).
Both the old, or North Galatian, hyjwthesis and
the new, or South Galatian, are championed by an
apparently equal number of distinguished scholars.*
It is certain that St. Paul's first mission north of
Taurus was conducted in the Greek-speaking cities
of Antioch and Iconium (which were Phrygian),
• Among the North Galatian theorists are Lightfont. .Inwott.
H. J. Holtzmann, Wendt.Oodet, Blass, Holsten, Lir
Zockler, Schiirer, von l)ohsohiitz, Jiilichor, Bon
Gilbert, Findlay, Chase, Moffatt, Stcinmann ; ami'i^^
Galatians are Perrot (who first popularized the theory in li:>
de Galatia Provincia Romana, 1S67), Renan, HauTath,
I*fleiderer, Weizsiicker, O. Holtzmann, von Soden, J. Weiss.
Clemen, Belser, Gififord, Bartlet, Bacon, Askwith, Kendall,
Weber.
GALATIA
GALATIA
42d
Lystra and Derbe (which were Lycaonian) — all in
ihe Proi-incia Galatia, but far from Galatia proper.
The historian gives a graphic account of the found-
ing of churches in these four cities (Ac 13'-»-14®),
and from these churches St. Paul got some of his
fellow-workers (16' 20*). What more natural, ask
the South Galatian theorists, than that this much-
frequented district should liecome the storm-centre
of a Judaistic controversy, and that the Apostle
should write the most militant and impassioned of
all his letters in defence of the spiritual liberty of
the converts of his pioneer mission ? On the North
Galatian theory, the founding of churches, sav in
Pessinus, Ancyra, and Tavium, and their subse-
quent development, had much more to do with the
extension and triumph of apostolic Christianity
among the Gentiles — which was St. Luke's theme —
than the planting of the South Galatian churches,
and the historian who manifests no interest in
North Galatia stands convicted of shifting the
centre of gravity to the wrong place. It is diffi-
cult, however, to believe that the mission in which
the Apostle was welcomed ' as an angel from heaven,
as Christ Jesus ' (Gal ■i)-*), and the thrilling experi-
ences which must have filled his mind and heart
at the moment when he joined St. Luke in Troas
(Ac 16"), are alluded to in no more than a single
ambiguous sentence (16^), which Ramsay character-
izes as 'perhaps the most difficult (certainly the
most disputed) passage' in the whole of Acts (Church
in the Roman Empire, 1893, p. 74 ff.).
The North Galatian school accounts for the his-
torian's neglect of Galatia proper, and for the curt-
ness of his narrative at this vital point (Ac 16*^), by
his desire 'to get Paul across to Europe' (Motfatt,
LXT, p. 94) ; but another explanation seems more
natural.
' I would rather say that the writer passed on rapidly, becaase
the joaniey itself was direct, and iiDintemipted by any import-
ant incident such as the supposed preatduag and founding of
churches in Xorthern Galatia. St Paul's mission to Europe
was, according to the indications given in the narrative, the
di^"inely appointed purpose of the whole joomey. Twice he is
forbidden to turn aside from the direct route between Antioch
and Troas. " To speak the word in Asia," " to go into Bithynia,"
would each have been a cause of much delay ; and in each case
the Apostle found himself constrained by the Spirit's guidance
to go straight forward on his appointed way. One of these
Dirme interpositions occurred before, and one after the
supposed digression into Northern Galatia. Do they not make
an intermecBate sojourn in that district, which must have been
of long duration, and of which the writer gives no hint whatever,
quite inconceivable?' (E. H. Gi£ford, in Expogitor, 4th ser., i.
[ls&4] 15).
Similarly Kenan {Saint Paul, 1869, p. 12S) : ' The apostolic
group thusmade almost at one stretch a journey of more than one
hundred leagues, across |a little-known country, which, from an
absence of Boman colonies and Jewish synagogues, did not offer
them any of the facilities which they bad met with up to that
time.'
It is sometimes confidently asserted that the
South Galatian theory ' is shipwrecked on the rock
of Greek grammar' (F. H. Chase, in Expositor,
4th ser., viii. [1893] 411, ix. [1894] 342). On the
second missionary tour St. Paul and Silas ' went
through the region of Phrvgia and Galatia (ttji»
4>pir/tai' Kal TdXariKT^v xiipa;'), having been forbidden
oif the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia'
(Ac 16^), and in the third tour ' they went through
the region of Galatia and Phrygia (tt;i» TaXaTiKrjv
Xuipav Ktti <I>pi'7iay) in order, stablishing all the
churches' (18^). Ramsay interprets both the
Greek phrases as ' the Phrygo-Galatian country,'
i.e. the regie which is ethnically Phrygian and
politically Galatian, accounting for the variation
by the fact that in the one instance the district
was traversed from west to east, and in the other
from east to west. He takes the phrases to denote,
in part or in whole (here his exegesis wavers), tlie
South Galatian country which St. Paul had already
evangelized in his first tour. Now it must be
admitted that if the modem theory, which Ramsay
has so long and strenuously advocated, were bound
up with this interpretation, there would be no little
difficulty in accepting it. For the natural reference
of the words 'they went through {SifiXdof) the
Phrygo-Galatic region, having been forbidden (kuXv-
dirrti) ... to speak the word in Asia' is to a
district east of Asia and north of Iconium and
Antioch, South Galatia being now left behind.
Ramsay, however, contends that Kukvdiyrfs is not
antecedent to, but synchronous with, the verb
diij\6op, and translates ' they went through the
Phrygo-Galatic region forbidden ... to speak the
word in Asia.' The grammatical point is fully
discussed by E. H. Askwith {The Epistle to the
Gal., 1899, p. 34 IF.), who produces a number of
more or less similar constructions (of. Gifibrd, loc.
eit. 16 fi'.). (LrTaffd^tci'ot in Ac 25^ would be the most
striking parallel, but here Hort thinks that some
primitive error has crept into the text. And ab
the best the proposed exegesis, admittedly unusual,
is very precarious, while the South Galatian theory
is really independent of it. Many advocates of this
theory prefer the alternative offered by GifTord,
who holds (loc. cit. p. 19) that in the present con-
text ' the region of Phrygia and Galatia ' can only
mean ' the borderlancl of Phry^a and Galatia
northward of Antioch, through which the travellers
passed after "having been forbidden to speak the^
word in Asia."' This is substantially the view of
Zahn (op. eit. i. 176 ; cf . 189 f. ), who is willing to
make a further concession. * It could be taken for
granted, therefore, in spite of the silence of Acts,
which in 16® mentions merely a journey of the
missionaries through these regions, that Paul and
SUas on this occasion preached in Phrygia and a
portion of North Galatia; and that the disciples
. . . whom Paul met on the third missionary
journey to several places of the same regions
(Ac 18**) had been converted by the preaching of
Paul and Silas on the second journey.' Only, as
Zahn himself is the first to admit, ' everyone feels
the uncertainty of these combinations.'
The present tendency of the North Galatian
theorists is greatly to restrict the field of the
Apostle's activity in Galatia proper. Lightfoot's
assumption that he carried his mission through the
whole of North Galaria is felt to be ' as gratuitous
as it is embarrassing' (Schniiedel, EBi, ii. 1606).
Tivium and Ancyra are now left out of account,
and only ' a few churches, none of them very far
apart,' are supposed to have been planted in the
west of North Galatia (ib. ) ; but the more the sphere
of operations is thus limited, the more difficult
does it become to believe that 'the churches of
Galatia' are to be sought exclusively in this small
and hypothetical mission-field, while the great and
flourishing churches of South Galatia are heard of
no more.
The following points, though severally indecisive,
all favour the South Galatian theory. (1) The
baneful activity of Judaizers in Galatia suggests
the presence of Jews and Jewish Christians in the
newly planted churches, and there is abundant
evidence of the strength and prominence of the
Jews in Antioch (Ac 13'*-" 14"), Iconium (14»), and
Lystra (16'-' ; cf. 2 Ti 1' 3"), whereas even Philo's
I inflated list of coimtries where Jews were to be
; found in his time (Leg. ad Gaium, xxxvi.) does
not include Galatia proper, and among the Jews
who made the journey to Jerusalem at Pentecost
there were Asians and Phrygians but apparently
no Galatians (Ac 2*). (2) The writer of Acts, who
in general uses ethnographic rather than political
terms, avoids 'Galatia,' which would have been
taken to mean Old Galatia, and twice employs the
phrase ' Galatic region.' Ramsay's view is that
the term ' Galatic ' excludes Galatia in the narrow
sense, and that 16*, in the light of contemporary.
430
GALATIA
GALATIAXS, EPISTLP: TO THE
usage, implies that St. Paul did not traverse
North Galatia {Church in the Roman Emp.,
p. 81). The evidence for a definite usa<,'e, however,
IS scanty, ' Pontus Galaticus' (which occurs in
Ptolemy and insori])tions) not being quite a parallel
case ; and other explanations of tlie phrase ' Galatic
region ' are certainly admissible (Motlatt, LNT, p.
93). (3) The pronoun v/tay in Gal 2* seems to imply
tliat the Galatian churches existed when St. Paul
was contending for the spiritual freedom of the
Gentiles at the Jerusalem Council, which was held
before the journey on wliich, according to the old
theory, he preached in North Galatia. Some tliink
that St. Paul here merely claims to have been
figliting the battle of the Gentiles, or the Gentile
Christians, generally ; but in that case he would
probably have said ' you Gentiles ' (Eph 2^' 3^). (4)
it is possible to make too mucli of the parallel
between Gal 4'*, ' ye received me as an angel of
God, as Christ Jesus,' and the account of the
Apostle's remarkable experience at Lystra, where
the people regarded him and Barnabas as gods (Ac
14ii-i4j st,iii tije coincidence, as Zahn says {op.
cit.,p. 180), is probably more than 'a tantalising
accident.' The pagans who acclaimed the coming
of Jupiter and Mercury would be likely enough,
when partially Christianized, to think tnemselves
recipients of a visit of angels. Even Lightfoot
(Galatians^, 1876, p. 18) admits that here is one
of the ' considerations in favour of the Roman
province.' (5) The charge which the Judaizers ap-
parentlj' made against the self-constituted Apostle
of freedom of being still a preacher of circumcision
(Gal 5^^) is best explained by a reference to the
case of Timothy (Ac 16'"*), in which the South
Galatian churches had a special interest, Timothy
being a native of Lystra. (6) The repeated allusion
to Barnabas (Gal 2'* **• '^), who was one of the
founders of the South Galatian Church, would
have much less appositeness in an Epistle addressed
to North Galatia, where that apostle w^as not
personally known. It is true that he is referred
to once in each of two other letters (1 Co 9^, Col 4"^),
but in both cases there were special reasons for tlie
mention of his name (Zahn, op. cit., p. 179). (7)
While some of St. Paul's helpers came from South
Galatia (Ac 16^ 20*), and while Gains and Timothy
■mai/ have been delegated by 'the churches of
Galatia' (1 Co 16') to carry their otierings to the
saints at Jerusalem (a somewhat doubtful inference
from Ac 20*), North Galatia did not, as far as is
known, provide a single person ' for the work of
ministering.' (8) There is evidence that Christi-
a,nity penetriited North Galatia much more slowly
than South Galatia. ' Ancyra and the Bithynian
city Juliopolis (which was attached to Galatia
about 297) are the only Galatian bishoprics men-
tioned earlier than 325 : tliey alone appear at the
Ancyran Council held about 314' (Ramsay, Hist.
Com. on Gal., 1899, p. 165).
The Roman character of the nomenclature in
1 P P is rarely questioned. It is evidently the
writer's purpose to enumerate all the jirovinces of
Asia Minor, with the excention of Lycia- Paraphilia,
where ' the elect' were still few (as may be inferred
from Ac 13'* 14^*), and Cilicia, which was reckoned
with Syria (15^- *'). And just as he includes the
Phrygian churches of the Lycus valley — Colossae,
Laodicea, and Hierapolis (Col 1*2') — the Church of
Troas (Ac 20*"'^), and the Churches of the Apoca-
lypse (Rev 1"), in the province of 'Asia,' so he
reckons the Churches founded by St. Paul in
Lycaonia and Eastern Phrygia as belonging to the
province of 'Galatia.'
In 2 Ti 4'" the RV has ' Gaul ' as a marginal
alternative to 'Galatia.' N and C actually read
TaWla instead of FaXar/a, and, besides, the latter
word was often applied bj' Greek writers to Euro-
pean Gaul. If it could be assumed that St. Paul
was able to carry out his purpose of going westward
to evangelize Spain, he might be supposed to have
visited Southern Gaul en route, and Crescens might
afterwards have gone to this region. Eusebius
{HE'ui. 4), Epiplianius(//<Er. li. II), and Theodoret
{in loco) certainly understand that Gaul Ls meant ;
and the early Christian inhabitants of that country
naturally liked to believe that their Church had
been founded by an apostolic emissary, if not by
an apostle. But they had notliing better to base
their belief upon than conjecture, and it is mucli
more likely that the reference is here to Asiatic
Galatia, since the other places named in the con-
text— Thessalonica and Dalmatia — are both east,
not west, of Rome.
The meaning of Takdrai in 1 Mac 8* is disputable.
The RV says that Judas Maccabseus (c. 162 B.C.)
' heard of the fame of the Romans, that they are
valiant men. . . . And they told him of their wars
and exploits whicli they do among the Gauls,' etc.
A reference to Spain in the next verse might
suggest European Gauls, but on the wliole it is
much more likely that reports of Manlius's victories
over the Celtic invaders of Asia Minor had come
to the ear of the Jewish leader.
Literature.— J. Weiss, art. ' Kleinasien ' in PRE^ ; W. M.
Ramsay, art. ' Galatia ' in HDB ; P. W. Schmiedel, art.
' Galatia ' in EJii. The chief contributions to both Hides of the
Galatian controversy are given by J. Moffatt, LMT, 1911, pp.
90-92. The important nionoCTaphs of V. Weber — Die Abfans-
ung des Galaterbrie/s vor dem Apostelkonzil (1900) and Der
heilige Paulus vom Apostelubereinkoininen bis mm Apostel-
konzil (1901)— are South Galatian, while those of A. Steinmann
— Die AbfasxuiKjszeit de3 Galaterlrrie/es (1906), and Der Leser-
kreis des Galaterbrie/es (1908)— are North Galatian.
James Strahan.
GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE. — 1. The
Apostle, the Galatians, and the Judaizers. — The
'churches of Galatia' to which the Epistle is ad-
dressed (1-) owed their Christianity to the preach-
ing of St. Paul (P). Humanly speaking, one may
say that their conversion was due to an accident.
Apparently the Apostle had set out with some
other goal in view, but he was led to visit Galatia,
or was detained there, because of some bodily ail-
ment (4'*). The nature of his malady was such as
made him painful to behold (4''*), but in spite of
it the Galatians welcomed him ' as an angel from
heaven,' and listened eagerly while he proclaimed
to them Christ crucified as the only way of salva-
tion (3'). They accepted his glad tidings and
were baptized (3^). They had made a good start
in the Christian race (5^), strengthened by the gift
of the Holy Spirit, wliose presence within them
was visibly manifested in works of power (3*"*).
Once again * St. Paul visited the Galatian
churches. A little plain speaking was necessaiy
concerning certain matters of doctrine ami con-
duct (1* 5^^ 4'*), yet on the whole it would seem
that he found no grave cause for alarm.
Subsequently, liowever, the steadfastness of the
Galatian Christians was greatly disturbed by the
appearance of Judaistic opponents of St. Paul {V
3' 5'"), who denied both his apostolic authority
and the sufficiency of the gospel which he preached.
From the form in which the Apostle cast his de-
fence of himself and of his teaching (Gal 1-2, 3-5),
it is not difficult to deduce the doctrinal position
of these disturbers and the ai uuimiits by whicli
they bewitched the Galatians (;; ).
•~'The promise of salvation,' said they, ' is given
to the seed of Abraham alone (3'- "• **). Gentiles
like tlie Galatians, who wish to be included in its
scope, must first be incorporated into the family of
* The implied antithesis to to nportpov (413) is not rh hrvrtpov
but rb vOi'. The contrast is not between the first and the
second of two visits, but between the former happy state of
things and the changed circumstances at the time of writing.
The expression to nfMrepov has no bearing on the number of St.
Paul's visits to Galatia (Askwith, Gaiatiang, p. 73 f.).
GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
GALATIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE 431
Abraham. This means, not only that thev must
i)e circiimciseii, but also tliat they must undertake
to keep the whole of the Mosaic Law (4'*- ^' 5- 6'-).
•Only on these conditions, by exact performance of
-all the works of the Law, can a Gentile \%'in his
M-ay to membersliip in the Christian Church (2'*-**).
St. Paul was silent about tliese conditions because
he wished to curry favour with you (1'*), yet on
occasion even he has declared by his action that
■circumcision is binding upon Gentile Christians
•{5"). But it must be remembered that he is not
an apostle in the same sense as our teachers, the
great apostles of the circumcision, Peter, James,
and John. Tliey received their authority directly
from Jesus Christ ; his was derived from them.
They preach the whole truth, he withholds a part '
(l»-2").
The eflect of this insidious reasoning was like
that of leaven in a lump of dough (5*). St. Paul's
authority was undermined, and it seemed likely
that Tiis labour would prove to have been wasted
(4"). With amazing rapidity (o&rws rax^ws [1*])
the Galatians were turning aside from the gospel
of Christ to the perverted gospel of the Judaizers
(1"). They were minded to give up the freedom
■Christ had won (5'), and to take upon them the
yoke of the Law with all its burdens (4'").
At the time when St. Paul first heard of their
defection, he was for some reason unable to pay a
visit to Galatia (4-'^). To meet the needs of the
moment, therefore, he wrote a letter to the Gala-
tians, denj'ing the insinuations of his opponents
with respect to his subordination to the apostles
at Jerusalem, and pointing out the fatal conse-
■quences of the error into which the Galatians were
being le<l — an error which, pressed to its logical i
conclusion, was equivalent to the statement that
Christ's death was gratuitous and unnecessary (2^).
To the attack on his personal authority lie re-
plies by stating the facts of his immediate Divine
call to apostleship, and of his relations with the
apostles of the circumcision (l''-2^*). In answer to
the Judaizers' insistence on the necessity of cir-
cumcision and the observance of the Law, he sets
forth the true position of the Law in God's scheme
of redemption. It was a temporary provision,
inserted parenthetically between the promise to
Abraham and its fulfilment in Christ. The Law
itself bears witness of its own impotence * to jus-
tify ' (3*^"), and now that its purpose is ser»-ed it
has become a dead letter. The gospel of Christ
declares that we are ' justified by faith and not by
works of law ' (2^'').
Finally, the Apostle meets the charge of pleasing
men by exposing the motives of the Judaizers,
whose main object was to escape persecution and
to gain applause (6^ ^* 4") ; with this he contrasts
his own self-sacrificing love for his converts (4^*)
and the hardships he has sutiered for his fearless
proclamation of the truth o'' 6'").
2. Summary of the Epistle. — The Epistle falls
into three main divisions.
A. Chirjly historical (Ii-2»*).
1^*'. The customary salutation is so framed,
■with its insistence on the writers apostolic author-
ity, as to lead up to the main subject of the Epistle.
l«-io fjjg tisual thanksgiving for past good pro-
gress is displaced by an expression of astonishment
at the Galatians' sudden apostasy, a denunciation
of the false teachers, and a declaration of the
eternal truth of St. Paul's gospel.
l"-2". This gospel was derived from no human
source, but was directly revealed by Jesus Christ.
Obviously it could not have been suggested by the
Apostles early training, which was based on prin-
ciples diametrically opposed to the gospel freedom
(!"""). Nor could he have learnt it from the
earlier apostles, for he did not meet them till
some time after his conversion (l**"'^. When at
length he did visit Jerusalem, he saw none of tlie
apostles save Cephas and James, and them only
for a short time. Finally, he left Jerusalem un-
known even by sight to the great majority of
Christians (I»»-=»«).
When he visited Jerusalem again, fourteen years
later, he asserted the freedom of the Gentiles from
the Law by refusing to circumcise Titus.* On this
visit he conferred privately with the apostles of
the circumcision, on terms of absolute equality.
They on their side commended the work ne had
already done amongst Gentiles, and treated him as
a feUow-apostle (2^""). His independent apostolic
authority was further demonstrated at Antioch,
where he jpublicly rebuked St. Peter for virtually
denying the gospel by refusing to eat with Gen-
tiles (2"""). The particular argument used by St.
Paul against St. Peter gradually expands into the
general argument which forms the second section
of the Epistle.
B. Principally doctrinal (2«-4«).
2"*-*^. St. Peter himself and all Jewish Chris-
tians, by seeking justification through faith in
Jesus Christ, tacitly admitted the impossibility of
attaining salvation through works of the Law.
St. Paul's own experience had taught him that
only after realizing this impossibility, which the
Law itself brought home to him, had he come to
know Christ as a vital power within. If salvation
were attainable by obedience to the Law, then
would the Cross be superfluous.
3'"*. The Galatians must be bewitched, after
having experienced the reality of justification by
faith, to turn to works of law as a more perfect
way of salvation. Faith, not works of law, makes
men true children of Abraham and inheritors of the
blessing bestowed on him.
310-18^ The Law brings no blessing but a curse,
to free us from which Christ died a death which
the Law describes as accursed. Through faith in
Him we receive the fulfilment of the promise
made to Abraham — a promise which is older than
the Law and cannot be annulled by it.
3i9_4ii_ The Law was a temporary provision to
develop man's sense of sin, and to make him feel
the need of salvation. It was the mark of a state
of bondage, not contrary to, but preparing for, the
gospel. Under the LaAV we were in our spiritual
minority. Now, as members of Christ, we have
reached the status of full-grown men. Being one
with Him, we are the true promised seed of
Abraham. We have outgrown the limitations of
childhood and come to the full freedom of spiritual
manhood as sons and heirs of God. How then can
the Galatians desire to return to the former state
of bondage ?
412-20 "Tjjg Apostle begs them to pause, appeal-
ing to their recollection of his personal intercourse
with them, which he contrasts with the self-in-
terested motives of the false teachers.
421-a^ The witness of the taw against itself is
illustrated bv an allegorical interpretation of the
story of Sarali and Haga4 Hagar, the bondwoman,
and her descendants stand for the old covenant
and its followers, who are in bondage to the Law.
These are thrust out from the promised inheritance
and remain in bondage. But Isaac, the child of
promise, bom of a free woman, represents the true
seed of Abraham, namely, Clirist, and them who
are united to Him by faith. These possess the in-
heritance, for they are free.
C. Mainly hortatory (S'-S**).
5*-^. The Galatians should therefore cling to the
* The ' Western Text,' which omits oTs avU (25), implies that
TitU3 xcai circumcised. This is also a possible interpretation
of the generally accepted reading-. On the whole question
see K. Lake, Tlu Earlier EpigtlettJ St. Paul, p. 2T5ff.
432 GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
freedom Avhich Christ has won for them. To follow
the Judaizers and accept circumcision is to break
away from Christ and return to bondage under the
yoke of the Law.
513-26 Yg(; liberty must not be confused with
licence. The fundamental Christian law of love
declares tliat true freedom is freedom to serve
others. The works whicli result from the indwell-
ing of Christ's Spirit cannot possibly be mistaken,
nor can those of the ilesh.
gi-io -pijg freedom of Christian service must be
practically manifested, in forbearance and brotherly
love and liberality.
gn-j8 Peroration, summing up the main points
of the Epistle, and the final benediction. The
Apostle calls attention to the fact that at any rate
for these closing verses he has dispensed witii the
services of the customary amanuensis, and written
his message in his own large handwriting (6").
Possibly the words (ypafa rp ifi^ x^V^ ^^^Y refer to
the whole Epistle.
3. Leading ideas. — (a) Righteousness and justi-
fication.— St. Paul and his Judaistic opponents
alike expressed their teaching in conventional Jew-
ish terminology. Both agreed that the object of
all religion is the attainment of 'righteousness'
(oi.K<uo(Tiv7} [2^^' 3"^ 5"]). The metaphor underlying
the Mord ' righteousness ' is forensic, and has its
roots far back in the usage of the OT. In its most
primitive sense the word * righteous ' (5/Kaios, Heb.
p^%) is used to describe that one of two litigants
whom the judge pronounces to be 'in the riglit.'
'Righteousness' (SiKaioai/j'jj, Heb. pn^or nijis) is the
status of one who is in the right. The verb which
denotes the action of the judge in pronouncing him
' righteous ' (Heb. P'^sri) is represented by the Greek
word SiKmovv and the Englisn ' to justify ' (Lk 7^').
Used in the religious sense, ' righteousness' means
the status of one who is in a riglit relation towards
God, in a state of acceptance with God. 'To
justify' (biKaiovv) is to declare one to be in a state
of righteousness (of. Sanday-Headlam, Boman^, p.
28 ff.).
(b) WorJcs and faith. — The fundamental differ-
ence between St. Paul and his opponents was not
concerning the nature of righteousness, but con-
cerning the way in which it may be attained. The
Judaizers maintained that righteousness is the
reward of man's own effort. It is the fruit of
perfect obedience to the will of God. The Law of
Moses is the most complete expression of the Divine
will for man. Whether for Jew or Gentile, there-
fore, righteousness, the condition of salvation,
depends upon an exact performance of all the
Mosaic ordinances. We are ' justilied by works of
the law ' (216- "i 5%
St. Pavil exposes the fundamental defect of this
position. The doctrine of ' justification by works '
takes no account of the inborn weakness of human
nature. If righteousness be attainable by perfect
obedience to the Law, then the Incarnation was
unnecessary. Christ's death was superfluous and
meaningless (2^^), for men can save themselves.
But experience shows that human nature is so con-
stituted as to be incapable of perfect obedience.
The search for justification by works has been
tried and has failed. Those who sought most
eagerly have been most acutely conscious of their
failure (2'®-^^). The Law could not help thein.
All it could do was to make clear the Divine com-
mands, and pronounce sentence on such as failed
to keep them (3'*). From its sentence no man
escapes. The actual result of the giving of the
Law was to teach man by bitter experience that ' by
works of the law shall lio flesh be justilied ' (2^*).
But that righteousness which man cannot win
by his own individual efforts he can now receive
as a free gift won for him by Christ (1' 3'*'").
On man's side the one condition of justification
is ' faith.' Faith is much more than mere intellec-
tual belief. It is an entire surrender of the whole
self to Christ, the conscious &ct of entering into,
vital union with Him. This union is no mere meta-
phor, but a living personal reality. At baptism
the believer ' puts on Christ ' (3"). Thenceforward
he is ' in Christ,' ' Christ is formed in him ' (4^*),
until he can say, ' I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me ' (2i»-=»). Thus ' tiiey that are of faith '
(3*) are justified, not, as by a legal fiction, by the
imputation to them of a righteousness which is not
really their own, but because, as members of Christ,
they have become living parts of that perfect
human nature which alone is conipletely righteous,
i.e.\\D. complete union with God. Christ s righteous-
ness is theirs because they are one with Him (3**).
But there can be no justification without the
faith which is absolute self-surrender. Christ
must be everything or nothing. If men persist in
relying on their own unaided power to obtain
righteousness by works, they cut themselves off
from Christ and have no share in the righteousnesa
which human nature has achieved in Him (5*).
(c) The Law and the promise. — God made a
promise to Abraham, that in him and in his seed
all nations should be blessed (3^). That promise is
fulfilled in Christ. He is the true seed of Abraham
(3^''^), and the blessing received by the human
race is the gift of the Spirit (3"), which is the
evidence of man's justification. But, when the
promise was given, no mention was made of works
or law. The Scripture speaks only of the ' faith'
of Abraham (3"). The promise given to Abraham
was of the nature of a covenant signed and sealed.
The Law, therefore, which came more than 400
years later, cannot annul it or add to it a new
clause insisting on the necessity of works (3"- ").
The promise came first ; the Law came later. The
promise is absolute, the Law conditional. The
promise was spoken directly by God ; the Law was
issued through mediators, human and angelic (3").
These facts prove that the Law is subordinate and
inferior to the promise, though it would be impious
to imagine a contradiction between the two, since
one God gave both (3^'). The Law had a real
purpose to serve. By its exact definition of trans-
gressions and the consequent deepening of man's
sense of sin and helplessness (S*'*), it prejjared the
way for his acceptance of the fulfilment of the
Eromise, the offer of justification by faith in Christ.
>ut now that the promise is fulfilled the Law is no
longer necessary {^^- ^).
(5) Christology. — The Divinity of Christ is taken
for granted (4*). The reality of His human nature
is indicated by references to His birth of a woman
(4*), His nationality (S^% His Crucifixion (S^), and
His Resurrection {V). That He is man not individ-
ually but inclusively (i.e. not 'a man ' but ' man'),
is shown by the whole argument of the Epistle,
which rests on the conviction that ' by faith ' all
men may share the power of His perfect humaa
nature (2i»- 20 4'9).
His redemptive work centres in His death. He
'gave himself for our sins,' thereby 'delivering us
from the present age with all its'evils' (1*). He
' redeemed ' us from the curse pronounced by the
Law, by Himself ' becoming a curse for us ' (3"- " 4*),
i.e. hj dying a death which the Law describes as
accursed (Dt 21»).*
(e) T/ie Holy Spirit.— The indwelling of the Holy
•Dt 2113 »?'?:ti D'n^K n^^p means not that ' a curse restson him
who is impaled,' but that 'his unburied corpse is an insult
to the Goa of the land which by its presence it defiles." St.
Paul quotes the LXX, which takes CV-7X wronRly as subjectlre
genitive. St. Paul means simply 'Christ died a death in con-
nexion with the outward circumstances of which the Law-
mentions a curse.'
GALATIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE
GALATIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE 433
Spirit is the e\-idence of our adoption into the familj-
of God (4*- *). His presence is manifested in the in-
ward sense of sonship (4**), and outwardly in works
of power (3') and in the manifold Christian graces
(o-*-). He is personally distinct from the lather
and the Son, yet the three act as one. ' The Father
sends the Spirit of the Son ' (4«).
4. Relation to other books of the NT.— (a) Gala-
tians and Acts. — The autobiofrraphical details given
by St. Paul in Gal l^.ou cover a period of which a
second account is provided by the writer of Acts.
The task of reconciling the two narrati%-es is beset
by many difficulties, most of which centre round St.
Paul's two ^Tsits to Jerusalem.
(1) Tlie Epistle asserts that St. Paul's conversion
was followed by a visit to Arabia, a 'return' to
Damascus, and then, 'after three years,' a visit to
Jerusalem. This visit is described as being of a
purely private nature. St. Paul saw none of the
apostles except St. Peter and St. James, and de-
parted to Syria and Cilicia unknown even by sight
to the faithfvil in Judaea (l^*-^).
Acts, on the other hand, seems to imply that after
his conversion St. Paul returned directly from
Damascus to Jerusalem (9^'*"^). The expression wj
Se ir\r]povvTO rjfiepai iKaral (9^) sugjiests that the
Apostle spent a considerable time at Damascus, but
nothing is said concerning any visit to Arabia,
Moreover, the description in Acts of his visit to
Jerusalem differs considerably from that in the
Epistle. It speaks of a period of public preaching
sufficiently widely known to give rise to Jewish
plots against his life (9^-)- H this be true, it is
difficult to believe that St. Paul's stay in the city
was limited to fifteen days (Gal 1^^), or that he was
unknown by sight to the Christians of Judjea, un-
less it be assumed that ' Judtea ' means the outlying
districts exclusive of Jerusalem (cf. Zee 12® 14^^).
Yet it is clear that both accounts refer to the
same visit, for both place it between St. Paul's
return from Damascus and his departure to Cilicia
(Ac 9*^, Gal 1^). Nor do the two narratives appear
irreconcilable, when the different objects with which
they were written are borne in mind. St. Paul's
purpose was to give a complete account of his move-
ments so far as they brought him into contact with
the apostles. Consequently, in connexion with
his visit to Jerusalem, he omits everything except
his intercourse with Cephas and James. The
object of the Avriter of Acts was to trace the growth
of the Church. He might well omit, as irrelevant
to his purpose, all mention of St. Paul's visit to
Arabia, which the Apostle himself describes as a
temporary absence in the course of a long stay in
Damascus {vriarpf^a [Gal 1'']).
(2) Gal 2^"^* describes a second occasion, when St.
Paul visited Jerusalem in company with Bamabjis,
and interviewed the apostles of the circumcision.
According to Acts, St. Paul and Barnabas went up
to Jerusalem together twice :* {a] during the famine
of A.D. 46 (Ac 11** 12^) ; {b) at the time of the so-
called Council of Jerusalem (Ac 15-) some years
later. By Kamsay, Lake, Emmet, and other
scholars, the \-isit of Gal 2i-^*' is identified with (a);
by Lightfoot, Zahn, and the majority of modem
critics with (b).
In favour of the former identification it is urged :
(i.)Thatthenaturaiinference from the language of
the Epistle is that St. Paul's second interview with
the other apostles occurred during his second visit
to Jerusalem, and Acts places his second visit in
the time of the famine ; (ii.) that, in three details at
least, the circumstances of Gal 2^"^" agree with the
account of Ac ll-^"** : the journey was suggested
' by revelation ' (Gal 2^ Ac 11^); St. Paul's com-
* McGiffert (History of Chrigtianity in the Apoitolie Affe, p.
lT2ff.) is almost alone in argtiing that the ivro visits oJ Ac 15
and Ac 11 are really one and the same.
VOL. I. — 28
panion is Barnabas (Gal 2', Ac 11**); each account
mentions the relief of the poor (Gal 2*", Ac 11-*).
In support of the alternative ^-iew it is argued :
(i. ) That in Ac 15 and Gal 2'*^" the chief persons are
the same — St. Paul and Barnabas on the one hand,
St. Peter and St. James on the other ; (iL) the sub-
ject of discussion is the same, i.e. the circumcision
of Gentile converts ; (iii.) the result is the same, i.e.
the exemption of Gentile converts from the enact-
ments of the Law, and the recognition by St. Peter,
St. James, and St. John of the apostleship of St,
Paul and Barnabas (Lightfoot, Ga?.», p. 123 ff,).
The acceptance of either view involves diffictilties.
Against the former it has been objected :
(L) That Acts does not mention any meeting be-
tween St. Paul and the three in connexion with the
' famine visit,' but rather suggests that they were
absent from Jerusalem at the time. This is not a
serious difficulty. The argument from silence is
always precarious, and the only passage which
suggests that the apostles were not in Jerusalem is
the statement that, from the house of John Mark's
mother, St. Peter went eis Irepov rorov (Ac 12^^,
which need not necessarily mean that he left the
city.
(ii.) That the language of Gal 2* (rp^w ij fSpajxov)
implies that St. Paul had already done much mis-
sionary work amongst Gentiles, whereas the events
of Ac 1 1^-^ took place before his first missionary
journey. It is doubtful, however, if this objection
has any weight, in view of the fact that at any rate
fourteen years had elapsed since the Apostle first
realized his special vocation to preach to the Gen-
tUes (Ac 222').
(ilL) That it is chronologically impossible. The
date of the famine (and therefore of St. Paul's
visit to Jerusalem) is fixed by the independent
evidence of Josephus between .\.D. 46 and 48. On
this theory, therefore, the date of St. Paul's con-
version would be not later than A.D. 33, even if
the fourteen years of Gal 2^ are reckoned from that
event, and as early as A.D. 30, if they are reckoned
from his first visit to Jerusalem (Gal 1^*). Most
recent students of NT chronology, however (except
Hamack, who accepts the date A.D. 30), place St.
Paul's conversion between A,D. 33 and 37. The
difficulty is real but not fatal. All chronological
schemes for the period a.d. 29-46 are merely tenta-
tive, and those who argue for the later date usually
take their stand on the assumption that the visit
of Gal 2 is the same as that of Ac 15.
The alternative theory, that Gal 2 and Ac 15
refer to the same occasion, presents special difficul-
ties of its own.
(i.) St. Paul's account of his dealings with the
mother church is incomplete. He is guilty of con-
cealing his second visit to Jerusalem, and thereby
his personal defence against the Judaizers is in-
validated. The usual answers to this objection are :
(o) St. Paul omits his second visit because he did
not meet the apostles on that occasion (see above),
or 03) St. Paul refers only to those visits of which
his adversaries had given a distorted accoxmt.
(ii.) The most obvious inference from the narrative
of Gail 2 is that St. Paul's dispute with Cephas at
Antioch (2") took place after the apostolic meeting
at Jerusalem* (2^-^*). But such a dispute is quite
incomprehensible if the relation between Jewish
and Gentile converts had already been settled. It
is just possible, however, that the quarrel occurred
be/ore the meeting. It may be that the absence
from 2" of the fretra of the earlier sections (l^*-"
2^) indicates that the writer is no longer follo¥ring
strict chronological order.
(iii.) Ac 15 states that the Council of Jerusalem
* ' Gal 211-16 forms the climax, from St. Paul's point of view,
in his triumphant assertion of the free Christian rights belong-
ing to Gentile converts ' (Moffatt, LST, p. 101).
434 GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
dealt with and settled the very question which St.
Paul discusses in tlie Epistle. It is incredible that
tlie Apostle should describe a private interview
with tne three wliich occurred at the time of the
Council without alludinj? either to the Council
itself or to its decrees, although tlie official decision,
that Gentiles need not be circumcised, would have
provided a conclusive argument against the Juda-
izers. Again, St. Paul could not truthfully have
said oidiv irpoaaviOevTo (Gal 2"), after accepting the
* Gentile food restrictions ' * passed by the Council
(Ac 15*'). These objections are as weighty as any
argument from silence can be. They are satis-
factorily met only by the assumption that the
Acts' account of the Council is wholly or partly
unhistorical.
The identity of the visit of Gal 2'-'<' must be left
uncertain. If it be that of Ac 11, the narrative of
Galatians is free from difficulties, but some altera-
tion is necessary in the generally accepted chrono-
logy of the primitive Apostolic Age. If it be that
of Ac 15, doubt arises as to the historicity of the
Acts' account of the Council, and the reason for
St. Paul's silence concerning his second visit to
Jerusalem must be left to conjecture.
See, further, Acts of the Apostles, II. 2 (b).
{b) Galatians and Romans. — ' Almost every
thought and argument in the Epistle to the Gala-
tians may be matched from the other Epistle ' {se.
Rom. [Lightfoot, Gal.^, p. 45]). A detailed com-
parison of the parallel passages shows that this
agreement exists not only in general ideas, but
also in unusual turns of expression and argument
such as would not arise inevitably from the nature
of the subject {ib.). More or less consciously the
writer must have had the one Epistle in mind when
he wrote the other, and there can be no doubt as
to which is the earlier t of the two. 'The Epistle
to the Galatians stands in relation to the Roman
letter, as the rough model to the iinished statue '
(ib. p. 49). Yet it cannot be argued from the close
connexion between the two Epistles that they must
have been written about the same time. Even
after the lapse of several years, it would be quite
natural for a writer returning to an old topic to
slip into the old arguments and the old expressions.
(c) Galatians and St. James. — The subject of
' faith and works ' is treated in the Epistle of St.
James (2i^-2«). The same OT illustration (Gn 15")
is used as in Gal., but the conclusion — 'faith is
vain apart from works' (2-'*) — seems to be a direct
contradiction of St. Paul's teaching. Yet the con-
tradiction is only apparent, for the two writers use
the terms ' faith ' and ' works ' in totally different
senses. To St. James ' faith ' means intellectual
assent to a proposition (2"), ' works ' are the mani-
fold Christian virtues. To St. Paul ' works ' are
acts of obedience to the Law considered as the
ground of salvation, ' faith ' is a personal relation
to Christ. The statement that ' faith is made com-
[ilete by works' (Ja 2--) is almost exactly equiva-
ent to the assertion, * by the hearing of faitli ye
received the Spirit . . . the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace,' etc. (Gal 3- 5").
S. The locality of the Galatian churches. — The
question of the identity of the Galatian Christians
is the centre of a fierce controversy. The point at
issue is the meaning of 'Galatia' in 1^ (1 Co 16').
Two rival theories hold the field :
(1) The North Galatian theory — i.e. that 'Galatia'
means the old kingdom of Galatia, the region in-
habited by the descendants of the Gauls who settled
* This difficultj' would dis.appear if we could accept as
original the ' Western ' text of Ac 1.5-', which hy oiniltiiii; the
words icai jTviicTili/ transforms the ' food law ' into a ' moral law '
(see K. Lake, op. cit. p. 48 ff.).
t The only modern scholar of repute who places Romans
before Galatians is C. Clemen (Chroiwl. der patilin. Brieft,
Halle, 1893).
in Asia Minor in the 3rd cent. B.C. (see Lightfoot,
Salmon, Chase, Jiilicher, Schmiedel, etc.).
(2) The South Galatian theory — i.e. that ' Galatia '
si<^ifie8 the larger Roman province of that name,
which includea, together M-itli Galatia proi)er,
those portions of the old kingdoms of Phrygia and
Lycaonia in which lay Antioch, Derbe, Lystra,
and Iconium. The Epistle to the Galatians was
addressed to the Christian communities of these
cities (see Ramsay, Zahn, Rendall, liartlet. Bacon,
Askwith, Lake, etc.).
In itself either meaning of ' Galatia 'is admissible.
Which one is intended by St. Paul must be decide»l
by the internal evidence of the Epistle itself, and
the information supplied by the account given in
Acts of St. Paul's travels.
{a) Evidence of Acts. — The Apostle undoubtedly
visited the cities of S. Galatia more than once (Ac
13. 14. 16). Have we any grounds for supposing
that he ever visited Galatia proper? This is the
first question to be faced, 'flie only evidence for
such a visit is derived from two phrases of doubtful
meaning, which occur in the narrative of the second
and third missionary journeys (Ac 16* 18^).
(a) The meaniny of t7)v ^pvyiap Kal TaXariKrjv
X^po.i' (Ac 16*). — The crucial point is the exact signi-
iicance of Ac 16*. The preceding verses tell how the
Apostle passed through Syria and Cilicia (IS*') to
Derbe and Lystra (16'). Thence, it seems to be
implied, he went on to Iconium (IQ'^"-). His next
undisputed stopping-place was somewhere on the
borders of Bithynia 'over against Mysia.' The
route by which he travelled thither is concealed
in the words, SiijXdov 5^ ttjv ^pvyiav Kal TaXaTiKrjv
X^pO''', KuXvOivTCS virh tov aylov wvevfiaTos XaX^<rai rbv
\b-yov iv rfi ' kalq.. What is the district described as
Tr)v ^pvyiav Kal FaXariKT/v X'^P"-^ '
(i.) It is argued that the participle KuKvdivrts
must be retrospective. The missionaries went
through TTjv ^pvyiav Kal VaXariKriv x'^P"-" because
they had received the prohibition against preaching
in Asia, and consecjuently after they had received it.
But such a prohibition was not likely to be given
before they had actually entered Asia, or were on
the point of doing so. It follows, therefore, that
the journey through rrjv ^pvylav Kal FaXaTi/cTjv x'^P"-"
began only when the cities of S. Galatia were left
behind. Since, then, the 'Galatic region' is dis-
tinguished from S. Galatia, it can only be Galatia
proper, ^pvyiav must be a noun (cf. Ac 2'" 18^),
and the whole phrase ttjj' 4>pvyiav Kal TaXariKriv
xd}pav must mean ' Phrygia (Asiana) and (some
North) Galatic region.' The strength of this ex-
planation is that it needs no serious straining of
grammar or syntax. Its weakness is firstly that
it involves an inconsistency : dUpx((r&cLi in Acts
seems to have the special sense of ' making a
preaching journey,' and Phrygia Asiana, where ex
hypothesi such a journey was maile, lay in the
region where preaching was forbidden ; secondly,
it gives no ex]uanation of the absence of the article
before Ta\aTiK7)v x^P^*") "or any real rea-son for the
use of TaXariKTjv x^P"-^ instead of VaXaTiav.
(ii.) The alternative explanation rests on the
conviction that the single article in the ])hrase Trjv
^pvyiav Kal VaXaTLKTjv x'^p'iv proves conclusively
that one single district is in view. -Hiv ^pi^^iav Kal
TaXartKriv x'^P^-" nieans that region wliich is both
Phrygian an<l Galatian,' the Phrygo-Galaticregion.'
The only district which really answers to this de-
scription is that part of the old kingdom of Phrygia
which was included in the Roman province of
Galatia, i.e. the country which extended westward
from Iconium to Antioch and beyond, south of the
Sultan Dagh.
That St. Paul had passed through the whole
of S. Galatia before he was forbidden to preach
in Asia is a mere a.ssunii)tion. At Iconium two
GALATIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE
GALATIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE 435
roads lay before him — one to the north, leading via
Laodieea into Phrygia Asiana, the other to the
west, leading to Phrygia Galatica. It is j>emiissible
to suppose that Iconium was the point at which he
became conscious of the Divine command not to
preach in Asia, and that, because of it, he chose
the western rather than the northern road. Sooner
or later he was bound to enter Asia ; but, by tak-
ing the western road, he was enabled to travel as
long as possible through a region where missionary
work was allowed.*
The chief objections to this interpretation of the
phrase are : (a) in the NT ^pvyiay is elsewhere
useti only as a noun (Ac 2^" 18®) ; (b) it is straining
language to give /tat the force of 'or' : kcu suggests
two districts, not one (cf. ttjf MaKeSwlap kcu 'Axatiw
[19^Und 275]).
(;3) The meaning of rijr TaXariK^r xtipay xai
ipvyiav (Ac 18*^). — Of this phrase, which indi-
cates the route by which St. Paul started on his
third journey, only one translation is possible,
i.e. ' the Galatic region and Phrygia.' The
exact meaning attached to the expression will
depend on the interpretation given to the words
of Ac 16*. It can be adapted to either of the
alternatives.
(i.) On the first hypothesis, rijp TdkaruciiP x'^fx^"
will mean ' Galatia proper ' as in 16®, and Phrygia
will be ' Phrygia Asiana.'
(ii.) On the second, ttjj* TaXaTiKriv ^wpav signifies
that part of the province of Galatia in which were
Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium (Lycaonia Galatica).
'Phrygia' means either 'Phrygia Galatica' (i.e.
the district described in 16* as rrjy ^pvyiap xal TaXa-
TiKTji' x'^P^") or ' Phrygia Galatica and Phrygia
Asiana,' for the Apostle would have to pass through
both regions in order to reach Ephesus by way of
t4 dvo-TepiKo. fieprj (Ac 19^). The absence of any
further definition of Phrygia in Ac IS'^ is naturally
explained by the fact that on this occasion preach-
ing in Asia was not forbidden.
The impartial critic must admit that the evi-
dence of these two passages is not sufficient to
prove conclusively whether St. Paul ever visited
N. Galatia or not. In favour of the X. Galatian
interpretation, it must be granted that it represents
the most straightforward and obvious reading of
the verses, and that it gives a uniform meaning to
the phrases ttji' TaXaTiKTjy X'^P"-" ^^^ ^pvyiay. Yet
it fails to explain some things — e.g. why the writer
of Acts should say rriv roXortr^i' xw/w" where FaXa-
Ttav would be sufficient, and why he should state
in the same verse that («) preaching in Asia was
forbidden, (b) therefore the Apostle preached in Asia.
Again, the Acts usuallj- tells its story at greater
length when the gospel is being taken into a new
district for the first time, but passes over as briefly
as possible second visits to places already evangel-
ized. The extreme brevitj- of the reference to ttiv
^pvyiay xai TaXaTiicriv x'^W" (16*) suggests that it is
not new ground to the missionaries.
The S. Galatian interpretation avoids these
special difficulties, but only at the cost of some
forcing of interpretation and straining of grammar.
The great stumbling-block to its acceptance is the ,
fact that when Acts is actually speaking of the S. j
Galatian cities, it does not describe them politically
as 'Galatian,' but ethnographically — 'Antioch in '
Pisidia'iia^^), ' Lystra and Derbe, citiesof Lycaonia' 1
(14*). The contribution of Acts towards the dis- i
covery of the destination of the Galatian Epistle
is simply this. St. Paul certainly visited the cities
of S. Galatia ; he may or may not have visited N.
Galatia.
* The contention that KuXvOtrm may be predicative, and
therefore that the prohibition may have been given at the close
of the journey through rny <tpvyiav icai roAartioji' X"P<i»' (Ask-
»"ith, p. 35 ff.), cannot be regarded as proved.
{b) Evidence of the Epistle itself.— This eNddence
is slight, and is claimed by both sides.
(a) For the N. Galatian theory it is claimed that :
(i.) St. Paul addresses his readers as VaXdrcu (3»).
This term applies only to the people of N. Galatia.
The inhabitants of Antioch, Derbe, and Lystra
were Phrygians and Lycaonians. But it is diffi-
cult to see what other general term could be used
to include the inhabitants of all these cities. It
was true politically if not ethnographically.
(ii.) Assuming that Gal 2'-" refers to the time
of the Council, we should expect, on the S. Galatian
theory, that some reference to the evangelizing of
Antioch, Derbe, and Lystra would follow Gal 1".
It would also be natural to look for some mention
in Ac 13. 14 of the Apostle's illness (Gal 4").
(^) Far the S. Galatian theory it is urged that :
(i.) The circumstances of the conversion of the
Galatians (4*^-^') correspond closely to the account
of the evangelizing of S. Galatia given by Ac
13"-14^. The arguments of St. Paul's sermon at
Antioch in Pisidia reappear in Galatians (Ram-
say, Gal., pp. 399-401).
(ii.) The repeated mention of Barnabas (2^- *• ")
implies that he was personally known to the
readers. But Barnabas was no longer with St.
Paul on his second journey.
(iii.) The reference to the circumcision of
Timothy, supposed to lie behind Gal 5", is more
naturally understood if St. Paul was writing to
Timothy's native place.
None of these arguments taken singly or com-
bined are strong enough to bear the weight of
either theory.*
(c) A priori arguments. — Zahn [Introd. to NT,
i. 177), who accepts the S. Galatian view of Ac
16* 18^, brings against the N. Galatian theory of
the Epistle's destination two a priori arguments.
(a) It is not likely that the churches of N.
Galatia would have been dismissed so briefly in
Acts if they had been the centre of a fierce con-
troversy ; nor is it probable that the important
churches of S. Galatia should be left with scarcely
a trace of their subsequent development in the NT.
(P) It is strange that Judaistie teachers from
Jerusalem, setting out to oppose St. Paul's in-
fluence, should have passed by the cities of S.
Galatia without starting any considerable anti-
Pauline movement, and begun their campaign in
the imimportant churches of a remote district.
The only force such arguments could have
would be to strengthen a theory proved independ-
ently. By themselves they have little weight.
Svinniary. — The equal division of opinion even
amongst critics of the same school suggests that
the e^ndence is insufficient. Absolute impartiality
demands an open verdict. If St. Paul did actually
found churches in N. Galatia, it is the most natural
— though not inevitable — conclusion that the
Epistle was addressed to them. The Apostle un-
doubtedly founded the churches of S. Galatia, but
the arguments which have been advanced prove
no more than the possibility that they were the
recipients of the letter.
6. Date and place of vriting. — It is generally
agreed that St. Paul ^^Tote his letter to the Bomans
from Corinth on the eve of his departure to Jeru-
salem at the close of his third missionary journey.
Most scholars fix the actual date + a.d. 58. This
gives the terminus ad quern for dating the Galatian
Epistle (see above, i).
The terminus a quo is not so easily determined.
• Argruments which have been used, but which are now
abandoned, are : (a) that the fickle temperament of the Gala-
tians of the Epistle points to the X. Galatians, who were partly
of Celtic descent (lightfoot) ; (fc) that X. Galatia was not likely
to be visited by a sick man (Gal 4i3), owing to the difficulty of the
journey ; (e) that the legal terms used in the Epistle would be
intelligible to S. Galatians but not to N. Galatians (Bamsay).
436 GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE
The Epistle itself supplies but few hints. These
are : {a) More than fourteen — perhaps more than
seventeen — years have elapsed since St. Paul's
conversion, (Turing which he has paid at least two
visits to Jerusalem (l'*-2'*). (b) St. Paul has paid
at least two visits to his readers before writing the
Epistle (19 5" 4'«).
As to the place of writing, one suggestion alone
is given. St. Paul implies that some reason pre-
vented him from visitmg Galatia when he wrote
the Epistle, though he longed for a personal inter-
view with his converts (4^).
(a) Date on the N. Galatian theory. — If the N.
Galatian theory be accepted, the choice of dates
is limited. The Epistle must have been written
during St. Paul's third missionary Journey, after
his second visit to Galatia (Ac 18^), and before
the end of his sojourn at Corinth — i.e. either (i.)
while the Apostle was on his way from Galatia
to Ephesus, or (ii.) during his stay at Ephesus
(Ac 19'- '"), or (iii.) during his journey through
Macedonia, or (iv.) early in his stay at Corinth
(Ac 20"f).
There is little to choose between these sugges-
tions. The objection brought against (i.) and (li.),
that from Ephesus it would be easy to pay a visit
to Galatia, is not serious. The obstacle in St.
Paul's way (Gal 4^) need not necessarily have been
the length of the journey. On the other hand,
Lightfoot's attempt to prove by a comparison of
the thought and language of the two letters that
Galatians must be later than 2 Cor. cannot be
regarded as convincing (Gal.'^, p. 49).
(^) On t/t£ S. Galatian tlieory. — Some supporters
of the S. Galatian hypothesis are willing to agree
with their opponents as to the date of the Epistle
(e.g. Askwith, p. 99 fl'.). Others avail themselves
of the opportunity given by this theory of placing
the Epistle earlier in St. Paul's career.
(i.) Ramsay suggests that it was sent from
Syrian Antioch just before the beginning of St.
Paul's third missionary journey {^t. Paul the
Traveller, p. 189 ff.). A serious objection to this
date is the fact that the Epistle does not suggest
that St. Paul is planning a visit to Galatia, but
rather the reverse (4-").
(ii.) Various points in the course of the second
missionary journey have been suggested : (a) Mace-
donia (Hausrath), or (b) Athens (L. Albrecht,
Paulus, Munich, 1903, pp. 114 f.; C. Clemen,
Paulus, Giessen, 1904, i. 396 f.), or (c) Corinth (Zahn,
Bacon, Rendall). The arguments used in favour
of (fi) and (c) are that the Epistle must be placed
as soon as possible after St. Paul's second visit
to Galatia, and at a time which will explain the ^
absence of any mention of Silas and Timothy.
Silas and Timothy were not with St. Paul at
Athens or at the time of his arrival in Corinth.
(iii.) But any date subsequent to the Council of
Jeruf<alem makes it very difficult to explain the
silence of the Epistle with regard to the Council
itself and to its decrees. To some scholars this
argument alono seems sufficient to prove conclu-
sively that the Epistle was written before the
Council (see Calvin, Beza, Bartlet, Round, Emmet,
Lake). Consequently, it is suggested that St. Paul
wrote from Antioch just before going up to the
Council of Jerusalem (W. A. Shedd, ExpT xii.
[1900-01] 568 ; Round, Date of Galatians), or in the
course of his journey from Antioch to Jerusalem
(C. W. Emmet, Expositor, 7th ser., ix. [1910]
242 ff. ; Lake). This theory would be very at-
tra-ctive if the absolute historicity of Ac 15 could
be established, but grave doubts exist on this
point (cf. EBi, art. 'Council of Jerusalem').
Summary. — The date of the Epistle is almost as
difficult to determine as its destination. To a
large extent the two questions are intertwined.
If it can be proved, on independent grounds, that
the Epistle must have been written l>efore the
events which lie behind the narrative of Ac 15,
then the S. Galatian theory must be accepted, and
the visit of Gal 2'-»» identified with that of Ac 11,
or with some visit unrecorded in the Acts. On the
other hand, if the N. Galatian theory can be es-
tablished on independent grounds, the date of
the Epistle is confined within narrow limits, and
is in any case later than the Council. Unfortu*
nately, conclusive proof of either position cannot
be obtained.
7. Authenticity and permanent value. — (a)
Authenticity. — That Galatians is a genuine
Epistle written by St. Paul to his converts has
never been questioned except by those eccentric
critics who deny the existence of anj^ authentic
Pauline Epistles {e.g. EBi, art. ' Paul '). Such a
theory scarcely needs refutation. Its supporters
cut away the ground from beneath their own feet.
If no genuine works of St. Paul have survived, no
standard of comparison exists by which to decide
what is genuinely 'Pauline' anil what is not (cf.
Knowling, The Witnessof the Epistles,^]}. 133-243).
External testimony to the genuineness of Gala-
tians is as strong as can be expected in view of
the scantiness of the records of the sub-Apostolic
Age. It is quoted as Pauline by Irenaeus (c. a.l>.
180) and Clem. Alex. (c. A.D. 200) ; it is cited by
Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 150) and Athenagoras (r.
A.D. 170) ; it is included in the canon of Marcion,
(c. A.D. 140) and in the old Latin version of the
NT. Earlier still, clear references to its phrase-
ology are found in Polycarp {Phil. iii. 5 [c. A.D,
110]).
The internal evidence of the Epistle is irresist-
ible. It is unmistakably the work of a real man
combating real opponents. It contains nothing
which would explain its motive if it were a forgery,
and much that no forger would be likely to liave
written. The question with which it deals belongs
to a very early stage in the history of the Church.
The existence before A.D. 70 of large churches of
Gentiles who had not been compelled to accept
circumcision, proves conclusively that by that time
the controversy about Gentile circumcision was
a thing of the past. Consequently the Epistle
must have been written within St. Paul's lifetime,
and no valid reason remains for denying the tra-
ditional belief that he wrote it.
{b) Permanent value. — The value of the Epistle
is unaffected by uncertainties concerning its date
and destination. It is the most concise and vigor-
ous, as Romans is the most systematic, expression-
of St. Paul's evangel. It displays the Apostle's
power of penetrating to the heart of things. H«^
passes beyond the immediate question of circum-
cision and the observance of the Jewish Law to the
ultimate principle which lies beneath.
Universal experience has shown that men cannot
by their own efforts attain perfect righteousness.
The power to overcome the inherent weakness of
human nature is God's free gift to man in Christ.
But man must receive it on God's own terms, ' by
faith' — that is, by the complete self-suri'ender Mhicn
brings him into vital union with Christ's perfect
humanity. Such self-surrender is possible to all who
realize their own utter helplessness (cf. Mt. 18') ;
but if 'life eternal' (6*) were dependent on the
complete obedience to God's will of unaided human
nature, it would be for ever bej'ond man's reach.
The truth on which St. Paul so strongly insists lies
at the very heart of the Christian faith, and is a
living message to all ages.
In pressing home his point, the Apostle u-ses the
dialectic methods of the Rabbinic school in ^yhich
both he and his opponents received their training
— e.g. the play on the word Kardpa (3'*) ; the argu-
GALEA
GALILEE
437
nientof 3"', which is based on the use of the singular
ffTep,ua, although the noun is collective and in this
sense has no plural ; the allegorical use of the story
of Hagar and Ishmael (i^'").
This stj-leof reasoning no longerappeals to us with
any force, but it must be rememljered that these
are not the real arguments on which the Apostle's
teaching rests. He uses the OT in the manner
most natural to a Jew of the 1st cent, to support
and illustrate a conclusion really reached on in-
dependent grounds. The ultimate basis of the
Apostle's doctrine of 'justification by faith' is his
own personal experience, both of the hopelessness
of the search for righteousness by works, and of
the sense of peace and new power which came to
him when he could say, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me' (2*^; cf. Sanday-Headlam, Roman^,
p. 26 f.).
LiiKRATTRK.— L CosDnKTABns : Ligrhtfoots (1376); G. G.
Findlay {Expotitoi'i BibU, 188S) ; W. M. Ramsay (1S99 ; also
Traveller, 1895, and The Church in the Roman
) ; F. RendaU(JSGr, 1903) ; T. Zahn(1905) ; A. L.
:amb. Gr. Test., 1910); C. W. Emmet (fi«ad*r'»
C »; .;-' .i'7 r'j, 1912). Valuable notes on ' Righteousness,' ' Faith,'
etc., will be found in Sanday-Headlam, AwMai»«5(/CC, 1902).
IT. Gexeral IxTBODrcnoss to XT : G. Salmon^ (1904) ; A.
Jiilicher(Eiiz. tr., 1901): B. W. Bacon (1900; also rA« Story
of St. Paul, 19"}o): Zahn(Eng. tr., 1909); J. Mo&tt(1911 ; also
the Historical ST^, 1901).
m. Special Studies: E. H. Askwitb, The £pistle to the
Galatian.^ : its Destination and Date, London, 1S99 ; Dongrlass
Round, The Date of St. PauVs Epistle to the Gaiatians, Cam-
bridge, WJ^.
IV. Moke Gexeral SruBixs : A C. McGiffert, A History of
Christianity in the Apostolie Age, Edinburgh, 1S97 ; J. V. Bart-
let. The Apostolie Age, do. 1900 ; R. J. Knowling:, The Witness
c ftheBpiitles, London, 1892, The Testimony of St. Paul to Christ^,
do. 1906 ; Kirsopp Lake, The Earlier Epp. of St. Paul, do. 191L
V. Articles : ' Galatia,' ' Gaiatians, Epistle to the,' ' Chrono-
logy of NT,' in HDB; 'Galatia,' 'Gaiatians (the Epistle),'
'Council of Jerusalem,' in EBi.
A more complete bibliography will be found in J. MofiEatt,
LST, Edinbur-h, 1911. F. S. MARSH.
GALBA. — Seruius Sulpicius Galba (after his
elevation to the purple, Seruitis Galba Imperator
Ciesar Augustus), son of Seruius Sulpicius Galba
and Mnmmia Achaica, and great-grandson of
Quintus Lutatius Catulus, was bom on 24 Dec. 5
B.C. and died in his seventy-third year (15 Jan.
A.D. 69). His native place was near Tarracina
(modem Terracina) on the Appian Way by the
sea. He was adopted by his stepmother, and took
the names of Lucius Liuius Ocella in consequence.
Both Augustus and Tiberius are said to have
predicted that he would become Emperor. He
attained the dress of manhood in A.D. 14 and
married .^Elmilia Lepida. After her death and
that of their two sons he remained unmarried.
His friendship with Liuia, the widow of Augustus,
gave him great influence from the start. On her
death (A.D. 29) he inherited largely, but his in-
heritance was reduced by the Emperor Tiberius,
Liuia's son. He was, however, permitted to hold
senatorial offices before the legal age. It is re-
corded that when as prsetor he gave exhibitions to
the people, he showed elephants walking on tight-
ropes, a sight up to that time unknown in Rome.
About A.D. 31 or 32 he was for one year legatus
proprcEtorc (governor) of the province of Aquitania
(S.W. Gaul). He held oflBce as consul for six
months of a.d. 33. Having been thereafter ap-
pointed legatus pro prcetore prouincitB Germanue
Superioris (governor of S. Germany), he held in
check the barbarians who had already invaded
Gaul. As legatus in 41 he conquered the Chatti
and gained a great reputation as a general. He
attended the Emperor Claudius on his expedition
to Britain (see under CLAUDIUS), and attained the
proconsulship of Africa, the blue ribbon of a sena-
torial career. Besides being awarded triumphal
ornaments, he was elected to various ))riesthoods.
His last ordinary promotion was to the governor-
ship of the province of Hispania Tarraconensis,
which he held for eight years, from a.d. 60 to 68.
In the latter year, as the result of long dissatisfac-
tion with the Neronian government, C. lulius
Vindex, legatus pro prwtore prouincice Gallue
Lugudunensis, revolted from Nero, and GallMt
gave him hb support. Vindex, however, was de-
feated by the legions in Germany, and committed
suicide. Galba was then himself saluted Imperator
by his soldiers. Though he declared himself repre-
sentative of the Senate and People of Rome, the
Senate adjudged him a public enemy. When the
news of the death of Nero reached him, he acceptCMl
the title of Caesar from his soldiers, and marched
to Rome. Elected consul for the second time for
A.D. 69, he was put to death on 15 Jan. 69, and
buried in his suburban villa near the Via Auxelia.
As Galba's rule lasted only seven months, there
is little to say about it. That he was an able
general there can be no doubt whatever. He is
credited also with other virtues, which, like those
of Vespasian, serve to recall the old Roman type.
He was the earliest of all the Emperors not of
Cfesarian blood, and he first manitested clearly
that the election to the principate lay in the han(&
of the army. Supported by the praetorian guards,
the ' household troops ' at Rome, he was recognized
by the Senate, a deputation from which met him
at Narbo Martins (5*arbonne). A number of pre-
tenders arose about the same time, but were merci-
lessly crushed. What ruined Galba was on the
one hand his lack of the genius for rule, and on
the other his parsimony. One of Tacitus' immortal
phrases has reference to him : ' omnium consensu
capax imperii, nisi imperasset' {Hist. i. 49). He
used severity where it was uncalled for, and thus
alienated many who would have settled down
quietly under the new regime. He stirred up
against himself one of his supporters, M. Saluius
Otho (see Otho), who expected to be adopted by
Gralba as his successor in the Empire. The soldiers
declared him Imperator and put Galba to death.
LrrxRATCRE. — The chief authorities are Tacitns, Historiat
bk. i. ; Plutarch, Gaiba (ed. E. G. Hardy. London, 1890);
Suetonius, Galba ; Die Cassins, Lxiii.-bdv., etc., and inscrip-
tions. The facts are given most succinctly in P. de Rohdoi
and H. Dessau, Prost^ographia Imperii Roman* seee. i. ii. HL,
pars iii., Berlin, 1898, p. SSlfF. (no. 723). See also the relevant
parts of the modem Histories of the Roman Empire (V. Dnmy
(Eng. tr., London, 188S-86}, J. B. Bury [do. 1883], etc.); A. von
Domaszewski, Geseh. dsr romischen Kaiser, Leipzig, 1909, IL
79-85 ; E. G. Hardy, Studies in Roman History, London, 1906,
pp. 295-3S4 (a valuable comparison of the leading ancient
authorities^ also 2nd aeries of the same work, do. 1909, pp.
130-157. A. SOUTEB.
GALILEE. — Galilee is seldom mentioned in the
NT outside the Gospels. The only references are
in the early chapters of Acts (1" 5" ^ 10" 13").
Most of the apostles belonged to this northern
province (1" 13*^). Judas, the leader of an agita-
tion in the days of the enrolment of Quirinius, is
described as 'of Galilee' (5^). After Satil's con-
version, peace descended upon the Christians in
Galilee, as well as in Judaea and Samaria (9^^).
Walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of
the Holy Spirit, their numbers greatly increased.
1. The name. — The name ' Galilee ' is derived
from the Heb. '^-h% {Galil), through the Gr. Ta\i\aia
and the Lat. Galilcea. The Hebrew word, denot-
ing • ring ' or ' circle,' was tised geographically to
describe a 'circuit' of towns and villages. As
applied to this partictdar district in north-western
Palestine, the form used is either 'j'^jji, ' the district '
(Jos 20^ 2F-, 1 K 9", 2 K \^, 1 Ch 6«), or nvsn h-%
' district of the nations ' (Is 9^). Given originally
to the highlands on the extreme northern border,
this name gradually extended itself southwards
over the hill-countr>- tiU it reached and eventually
included the Plain of Esdraelon (G. A. Smith,
438
GALILEE
GALILEE
HGHL*, pp. 379 and 415). For the most part,
however, Esdraelon seems to have been a frontier
or arena of battle, ratlier than an actual part of
Galilee.
2. The boundaries. — The natural Iwundaries of
Galilee never agreed with its political frontiers.
The natural limits are Esdraelon, the Mediterranean
Sea, the Jordan valley, and the gorge of the river
Litany. But the actual borders have shifted from
time to time. At the period of widest extension,
they may be set down as the Kasimiyeh or Litany
gorge on the N., the southern edge of Esdraelon
on the S., Phojnicia (which always belonged to
Gentiles) on the W., and the Upper Jordan (with
its two lakes) on the E. These boundaries, exclud-
ing Carmel and the area of the lakes, enclosed a
province about 50 miles long by 25 to 35 miles broad
— an area of about 1600 square miles. Within these
limits lay 'a region of mountain, hill, and plain,
the most diversified and attractive in Palestine'
(Masterman, Studies in Galilee, p. 4).
3. The divisions.— J osephus (BJ iii. iii. 1) gives
the divisions, in his time, as two, called the Upper
Galilee and the Lower. The Mishna (Shebuth ix. 12)
states that the province contained ' the upper, the
lower, and the valley.' The latter are certainly
the natural divisions. The mountains separate
very clearly into a higher northern and a lower
southern group, and the ' valley ' is the valley of
the Upper Jordan.
(a) Upper Galilee is less easily characterized
physically than Lower. ' It appears to the casual
observer a confused mass of tumbled mountains,
to which not even the map can give an orderly
view ' (Masterman, p. 11). It is in reality * a series
of plateaus, with a double water-parting, and sur-
rounded by hills from 2000 to 4000 feet' (G. A.
Smith, HGHL*, p. 416). The central point is Jebel
Jermak (3934 ft.), the highest mountain in western
Palestine. The scantier water supply of Upper
Galilee is compensated for by the copiousness of
the dew-fall throughout the later summer months.
{b) Lower Galilee is easier to describe. It con-
sists of parallel ranges of hills, all below 2000 ft. ,
running from W. to E., with broad fertile valleys
between. The whole region is of great natural
fertility, owing to abundance of water, rich volcanic
soil, the gentleness of the slopes, and the openness
of the plains. The great roads of the province
cross this lower hill-country. The dividing-line
between Upper and Lower Galilee is the ran^e of
mountains running right across the country along
the northern edge of the Plain of Rameh.
(c) The Valley consists of the Upper Jordan and
its two lakes, Huleh and Gennesaret. The river,
taking its rise from springs and streams in the
neighbourhood of Banias and Tel-el-Kadi, flows
south in a steadily deepening channel, through
Huleh, till it empties itself into the Sea of Genne-
saret, at a depth of 689 ft. below sea-level. It has
fallen to this depth in about 19 miles. Six miles
north of the lake, the river is crossed by the ' Bridge
of the daughters of Jacob,' on the famous Via Maris
of the Middle Ages, the principal tiioroughfare be-
tween Damascus and the Mediterranean ports. The
Lake of Galilee could never be sutticiently praised
by the Jewish Rabbis. They said that Jahweh
had created seven seas, and of these had chosen
the Sea of Gennesaret as His special delight. It
had rich alluvial plains on the north and south, a
belt of populous and flourishing cities round its
border, aoundance of fish in its depths, and a climate
that attracted both workers and pleasure-seekers
to its shores. At the beginning of the Christian
era, it presented a reproduction in miniature of the
rich life and varied activities of the province as a j
whole. j
4. The physical characteristics. — These are i
principally two : (a) abundance of water, and (b)
fertility of soil. As to (a), the words of the ancient
promise, • for the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a
good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains
and depths springing forth in valleys and hills'
(Dt 8^), are literally true of Galilee, particularly in
its southern half. Large quantities of water are
collected during the rainy season among the higher
slopes and plateaus, and are thence dispersed by
the rivers and streams over the lower-lying tracts,
where they become stored in springs and wells.
There are the two lakes already mentioned — Huleh,
3J miles long by 3 miles wicie (the Sameclionitis
of Josephus, but probably not the Waters of Merom
of Jos IP-'' [cf. Masterman, Studies in Galilee, p.
26 f., and EBi iii. 3038]); the Lake of Galilee
(Gennesaret), 13 miles long by 8 miles broad at its
widest point. Round its shores are the ruins of
at least nine ancient cities or towns. These are
Chorazin, Capernaum, Magdala, Tiberias, Tari-
chete. Hippos, Gamala, Gergesa, and Betlisaida.
The principal rivers of the province are the Jordan,
the Litany, the Kishon, and the Belus. In addi-
tion to these lakes and rivers, there are many
greater streams and innumerable springs and wells.
These waters, together with the copious dews of
the summer, give Galilee the advantage over
Samaria and set it in marked contrast to Judsea.
As to (6), all authorities unite in celebrating the
natural wealth of Galilee. The other half of the
promise made to the Hebrews was also true of this
highly favoured province. It Avas ' a land of wheat
and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegran-
ates ; a land of oil olives and honey ; a land wherein
thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt
not lack any thing in it ' (Dt 8** ®). Josephus bears
witness that the soil was universally rich and fruit-
ful, and that it invited even the most slothful to
take pains in its cultivation (Jos. BJ III. iii. 2).
Even to-day, when such large tracts lie unculti-
vated, no part of Palestine is more productive. The
chief products were oil, wine, wheat, and fisii. * In
Aslier, oil flows like a river,' said the Rabbis, who
also held that it was ' easier to raise a legion of
olive trees in Galilee than to raise one child in
Judtea.' Gischala was the chief place of manufac-
ture. There were also large stores at Jotapata
during the Roman W^ar. Considerable quantities
were sent to Tyre and to Egypt. Made from the
olive trees, the oil was used principally for exter-
nal application, for illumination, and in connexion
with religious ritual. Wine was made in many
quarters of the province, the best qualities coming
from Sigona ; while tvheat and other grains were
plentifully raised all over Lower Galilee, especially
round about Sepphoris and in the fields of the Plain
of Gennesaret. The fish, for which the province was
always noted in ancient times, was caught in the
inland lakes, particularly in the Lake of Galilee. It
formed a large part of the food of the lake-side
dwellers, and a considerable trade was carried on
by the fish-catchers and lish-curers of the large
towns on the shore. The best fishing-grounds were,
and still are, at el-Bataiha in the north, and in the
bay of Tabigha, at the N.W. corner. Taricheae,
in the south, was another centre of the industry.
In addition to the above-mentioned commodities,
Galilee produced flax from which fine linen fabrics
were woven, pottery, and a ricii dj-e made from the
indigo plant. The prosperity of the province was
eniianced by its proximity to the Phanician ports,
and by the network of highways which crossed it
in all directions.
5. The inhabitants.— To-day Galilee possesses a
remarkably mixed population, and its inhabitants
are physically finer than those of the southern pro-
vinces (cf. Masterman, pp. 17-20). In apostolic
times, the same was true. Along the western and
GALILEE
GALLIC
439
northern borders were the Syrophocnicians(Mk7*),
or Tyrians (as Josephus calls them), while from
the east nomadic Bedouins were continually press-
ing in ui)on the lower-lying tracts. But besides
these Semitic elements, Greeks and Graecizetl
Syrians were distributed over parts of the land
(Masterman, p. 120), and Komans made their in-
fluence felt throughout a large area of the province.
Only in the more secluded towns among the hills
would Jewish lite be preserved in its characteristic
purity. In spite, however, of the mingling of
nationalities, the Galilivans were thoroughly and
Jiatrioticaliy Jewish during the 1st cent, of the
Christian era. Wherever a true Jew settled abroad,
he kept himself distinct from his neighbours, cling-
ing tenaciously to his reli^on and to his racial
customs. And the same thing happened with the
Jew at home, when Gentile immigrants settled
within his borders. His contempt for foreigners
and foreign ways helped him to keep his own
character and traditions intact. The Galilaeans
-were industrious workers — the bulk of them being
cultivators of the soil or tenders of the fruit-
trees. They were brave soldiers too, as may be
learned from the chronicles of Josephus.
' The GalUxans are inured to war from their infancy, and
have been always very numerous ; nor has their country ever
been destitute of men of courage ' (Jos. BJ m. iii. 2).
There does not seem to be any suflBcient ground
for the dislike and contempt in which the Galilseans
were held by their religiously stricter brethren of
Judjea. Possibly they were less exact in their ob-
servance of tradition. But they were devoted to
the Law, and their country was well supplied with
synagogues, schools, and teachers. If they were
less orthodox, from the Pharisaic standpoint, the
Messianic hope burned brightly in their souls, and
they crowded to the ministry of Jesus. They were
certainly more tolerant and open-minded than the
Judfeans, and it was from them that Jesus chose
most of the men who were to give His teaching to
the world.
The population of Galilee in apostolic times
was considerably greater than it is to-day. At the
present time, it is estimated to be somewhere about
250,000 (including children), spread over an area of
1341 square miles and inhabiting some 312 towns
and villages. This gives 186 to the square mile.
Josephus' figures mean that the population in his
day amounted to something like three millions.
He speaks of 204 cities and villages ( Vita, 45), the
smallest of which contained above 15,000 inhabit-
ants (BJ III. iii. 2). Tliis estimate, in spite of
the arguments of Merrill (Galilee in the Time of
Christ, pp. 62-67), can hardly be correct. Good
reasons have been given for believing that 400,000
is a much more likeh* figure, which means a popu-
lation of 440 to the square mile. A village of 1,500
inhabitants is reckoned to be a very large one to-
da\', and the largest towns (with the exception
of Safed) contain fewer than 15,000 people. See
Masterman, pp. 131-134.
6. History and goYemment. — At the partition
of west Palestine among the twelve tribes, Galilee
fell to the lot of Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, and
Naphtali, who did not drive out the original in-
habitants. The population, therefore, continued
to be a mixed one, and the borders of the province
were constantly being pressed upon by foreigners.
In 734 B.C., Tiglath-Pileser iii. carried away most
of the inliabitants, and after this depopulation
very few Jews re-settled in the district till the ex-
tension of the Jewish State under John Hyrcanus
(135-104 B.C.). At this time, or a little later,
Galilee became thoroughly judaized. The settlers
were placed under the Law. and quickly developed
a warm patriotism, which made them ever after-
wards zealous and persistent champions of their
national rights and traditions. Later on, the pro-
vince was the principal scene of our Lord's life and
ministry. Later still, it succeeded Judaea as ' the
sanctuary of the race and the home of their theo-
logical schools ' (G. A. Smith, HGHL*, p. 425).
From 4 B.C. to a.d. 39, Herod Antipas was
tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, by appointment of
the Roman Emi)eror. Antipas api>ears to have
been a capable ruler on the whole. Li ke his father,
he was fond of building and embellishing cities.
He re-built and fortified Sepphoris, his first capital,
and a little later erected a new capital city on the
west shore of the lake, calling it Tiberias, after
the Emperor whose favour he enjoyed. Having
.secured the banbhment of Antipas in .\.D. 39,
Herod Agrippa I. received the tetrarchy of Galilee,
in addition to the territories of Philip and of
Lysanias which he had previously obtained. From
Claudius (in A.D. 41) he also obtained Judaea and
Samaria, thus establishing dominion over all the
land formerly ruled by Herod the Great. After
Agrippa's death, in A.D. 44, Claudius reverted to
the method of government by procurator — a change
which greatly displeased the Jews as a whole and
especiadly stirred the animosity of the zealots.
Under the administration of the new procurators,
the people's patience became exhausted, and in the
time of Gessius Florus (A.D. 64-66) the revolt began
which endetl in the destruction of the Jewish State.
In the spring of A.D. 67 Vespasian assembled his
army at Ptolemais and began the reduction of
Galilee. This was accomplished in the course of
the first campaign, despite the courage and per-
sistence of the inhabitants. But it was not till
after the lapse of another three years that
Jerusalem fell (A.D. 70) and the Jewish State was
dissolved.
Though the general administration of Galilaean
civil attairs lay (tUl a.d. 44) with the tetrarchs,
the details of daUy life were regtilated by the Jews'
o^vn religious laws {DCG i. 633). The Sanhedrin
at Jerusalem exercised the chief authority, but
there were also local 'councils' (Mt 5— 10^') which
had limited jurisdiction. But, throughout ihe
whole period, over all and influencing all, was the
firm rule of Rome.
LrrKRATTBK.— Artt. in HDB u. 9S-102 (S. Merrill^, DCG i.
632-634 (G. W. Thatcher), and PBr^ (Gnthe); G. A. Smith,
HGHL*, 1897, chs. xx.-xxi. ; S. Merrill, GaliUe in tht Time of
ChrUt, Boston, 1881, London, 1S&5 ; V. Gn^rin, Description
. . .dela PaUttine, pt. iii. : ' Galilee,' Paris, 1880 ; F. Buhl, GAP,
Freiburg and Leipzig, 1S96, §§ lS-19, 66, 113-123 ; E. Schurer,
HJP, 1885-91 (index); E. W. G. Masterman, Studies in
Galilee, Chicago, 1909; A. Neubaner, La Gioa. du Talmud,
Paris, 1868, §§ 188-240 ; SWP i. [1861]. A. W. C(X)KE.
GALLIO.— GaUio governed Achaia as a proconsul
of pnetorian rank. His name was Marcus Anna?us
Novatus ; but he was adopted by L. Junius Gallio,
a Roman orator, and took his name. He was the
elder brother of Seneca the philosopher, to whose
influence at court he may have owed his governor-
ship. There is no other direct evidence that Gallio
governed Achaia than St. Luke's statement (Ac
IS'-). But Seneca's reference to Gallio's catching
fever in Achaia and taking a voyage for a change
of air so far corroborates St. Luke. Gallio came
to Corinth, the residence of the governor, during
the time of St. Paul's labours there (c. A.D. 50-53).*
Angered by the conversion of prominent members
of the synagogue, the Jews took advantage of the
new governor's arrival to lay a charge against St.
Paul which they tried to put in such a serious light
as to merit a severe penalty. But Gallio was not
so complaisant or inexperienced as they hoped.
He elicited the true nature of their complaint, and,
cutting short the trial, he abruptly dismissed the
* On the exact date of Gallio's proconsulship see art. Dates,
IU.3-
440
GAMALIEL
GAMALIEL
case as referring only to interpretations of Jewisli
law, not to any civil wrong or any moral outrage
of which Roman law took cognizance.
Two eflleots of this decision are noted, (a) It
was a snub which gave the Greek bystanders
grounds for venting their animus against the Jews,
by seizing and beating Sosthenes, the ruler of the
synagogue. This seems the true interpretation of
a scene which has been supposed to describe Jews
beating a Christian — or even their own leader — in
revenge for their defeat. But such a savage and
illegal protest against Gallio's decision could not
have passed unnoticed by him ; on the other hand,
a public demonstration against the unpopular and
disputatious Jews whom he had just dismissed
might appear to him a rough sort or justice which
he could alibrd to overlook, especially as it put
the seal of popular approval on his action (see
Sosthenes).
(b) The decision seems to have influenced St.
Paul in another direction. Gallic being governor
of Achaia, his judgment would become a precedent
and would have tar-reaching influence. It gave
St. Paxil a new idea of the protection he could gain
from the Roman law. Although Judaism was a
rcligio licita, evidently the Imperial Government
did not consider Christian preaching illegal. This
amounted to a declaration of freedom in religion
of immense value to Christians. From this point
of view Gallio's treatment of the Jewish complaint
Avas a landmark in St. Paul's missionary labour,
and did a great deal to confirm his confidence in
Roman protection for his preaching.
Gallio's private character is eulogized by Seneca
in glowing terms. He was very lovable and fasci-
nating ; amiable, virtuous, just, and witty. The
casual glimpse we get of him in Ac 18^^"^^ shows
him in a favourable light as governor. The clause
' Gallio cared for none of these things ' does not
bear in the least the interpretation put upon it by
proverbial Christian philosophy. No doubt he had
more than a touch ot the Roman aristocrat's con-
tempt for religious quarrels and for all Jews. But
he appears as an astute judge, seeing quickly into
the heart of things, firm in his decisions, and not
too pompous or punctilious to turn a blind eye to
a bit of rough popular horseplay. He seems to
have shared the fortunes of his more famous
brother, and was put to death by Nero.
Literature.— flDi?, art. ' Gallio,' t6. art. 'Corinth,' i. 481;
W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 1895, pp. 257-261, The
Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, pp. 250, 346-349 ; R. J.
Knowlingr, EGT, 'Acts,' 1900, ad loc. ; F. W. Farrar, Seekers
after God, ed. 1879, pp. 16-21.
J. E. Roberts.
GAMALIEL {^^'hm, TafiaXf^X, 'reward of God').
— 1. Son of Simon and grandson of Hill el, a
' pharisee, a doctor of the law, had in honour of
all the people,' and a member of the Sanhedrin,
Avho intervened in the trial of St. Peter and the
other apostles (Ac 5^*"'*^). He is also represented
by the Apostle Paul as his early teacher (Ac 22^).
Gamaliel was a representative of a broader and
more liberal school among the Pharisees, the school
of Hillel as opposed to that of Shammai. He was
interested in Greek literature and encouraged his
students to study it. His teaching tended towards
a broader and more spiritual interpretation of the
Mosaic Law, and encouraged the Jews to friendly
intercourse with foreigners, allowing poor strangers
equal rights along Avith Jews to the gleanings of
the corn, while he exerted himself for the relief of
wives from the abuses of the law of divorce and
for the protection of widows from the greed of
children (Gittin 32, 34). He was held in such es-
teem that it is related in the Mishna (Sota ix. 15),
' with the death of Gamaliel the reverence for the
law ceased and purity and abstinence died away.'
Gamaliel's attitude towards the apostles has
been variously estimated. His advice to let them
alone is supported by the reason ' if this counsel or
work be or men, it will come to naught : but if it
be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be
found even to fight against God' (Ac 5^ ""•'). Some
see in this the mark of a humane, tolerant, gener-
ous, liberal-minded man (C. D. Ginsburg in Kitto's
Bibl. Cycl., s.v. ' Gamaliel I. ') ; others regard it as
the statement of a time-server without definite
convictions, and incline to compare him unfavour-
ably not only with the apostles, but with his col-
leagues in the council, who were consistent and
convinced traditionalists. Perhaps the view of
Milligan (in IIDB ii. 106) is the most satisfactory.
He is of the opinion that Gamaliel's conduct is
to be attributed rather to a ' prudential dread of
violent measures than to a spirit of systematic
tolerance.' The persecuting zeal of his pupil Saul
of Tarsus does not seem to indicate that universal
tolerance w<as part of the systematic teaching of
Gamaliel, though a pupil may depart from the
views he has been taught.
The influence which Gamaliel on this occasion
exercised in the Sanhedrin has been explained by
the acceptance of a Rabbinic tradition to the efl'ect
that he was j)resident of the Sanhedrin ; but not
until after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the
priesthood had lost its importance, do we find a
Rabbi occupying this position (cf. A. Edersheim,
History of the Jeivish Nation, 1896, Appendix iii.,
p. 522 ft'. ; also Schiirer, GJV* ii. 257, 431). The
influence of Gamaliel is better accounted for by
the predominating influence of the Pharisaic party,
which was represented in the Sanhedrin (Ac 23* ;
Jos. BJ II. xvii. 3, Vita, 38, 39), and also by
the personal influence of the man himself. The
importance of this latter factor is borne out by
unanimous Rabbinic tradition and is attested by
the fact that Gamaliel was the first among the
seven teachers who received the title Rabl)an — a
higher form of Rabbi, which in the form Rabboni
is applied to the risen Jesus by Mary Magdalene
(Jn 20^**). Another incident bearing upon his com-
manding position in the Sanhedrin is related in
the Mishna (Edajoth vii. 7). The council had re-
cognized the need for appointing a leap-year, but,
as Gamaliel was absent, resolved that theirdecision
should take efl'ect only if it received the subse-
quent sanction of their leading man.
The tradition that Gamaliel was a secret Chris-
tian and was baptized by St. Peter and St. Paul
is purely legendary (cf. A. Neander, Hist, of the
Planting and Training of the Christian Church,
ed. Bohn, i. [1880] 46 ft'.). He died c. A.D. 57-58.
The historical events referred to in the speech
ascribed to Gamaliel in Ac 5^'^- have given rise to
much discussion. According to St. Luke's narra-
tive, he speaks of a rising under Theudas as tak-
ing place before the rising of Judas of Galilee
(A.D. 6). Josephus {Ant. XX. v. 1) refers to a rising
under a certain Theudas which was put down by
the procurator Cuspius Fadus (c. A.D. 46). Is the
Theudas of St. Luke identical with the Theudas
of Josephus ? Has one or other historian erred as
to his facts, or were there two risings under two
men of the same name, one in A.D. 6 and the other
in 46? Or are we to suppose that the whole
speech of Gamaliel in Acts is unhistorical ? For
further discussion of these questions see art.
Theudas.
2. Gamaliel II., grandson of the former and the
third teacher to receive the title Rabban, the most
outstanding Jewish scholar at the end of the 1st
century. He presided over the court of Jabne,
recognized as the higiiest Jewish authority of the
day. He is often confused with 1 (Schiirer, GJV*
ii. 35).
GAMES
GAMES
441
3. Gamaliel III., son of R. Juda-ha-Nasi {Aboth
ii. -1), the fifth scholar to receive the title Rabban.
He is credited with having expressly recommended
the combining of the study of the Law Avith manual
labour or business activity (Schiirer, GJV* ii. 379).
i. The last Ethnarch or Patriarch of the Jews,
deposed by the Emperor Theodosian II. in the year
415(Schurer, GJV*ni. 121).
LiTERATTRE.— G. MiUigTan, in UDB ii. flS99] 106 ; C. D.
Ginsburg, in Kitto's C'lclopcedia of Biblical Literature^, ii.
[IStMl 6'J-Ol; E. Schurer, GJV*, 1901-11; R. J. Knowling:,
EGT, 'Acts,' 1900, p. 156. W, F. BOYD.
GAMES. — The M-ord 'games,' which is not found
in the AV, appears twice in the RV, viz. in 1 Co
9'-^ and 2 Ti 2'. In the former passage aywvi.^6ixevoi,
'striving,' is the Greek term employed, and in the
latter d^X^ (and d^X^o-j), ' contend.' It will be seen
that in each case 'in the games' is supplied in ac-
cordance with the obvious sense of the verb. This
provides a starting-point for the discussion of the
mimerous references to games that are found in
the NT, the Gospels being left out of account.
1. Metaphors of St. Paul.— dyo;'^, with derivatives,
both simple and compound, supplies most of the
material. This word is itself derived from fiyw,
'gather,' which reveals the spectacular nature of
the games of antiquity. While private games of
many kinds were Known and practised, either as
simple pastimes, or for the exhibition of skill, or
to satisfy the gambling instinct, games of a public
order predominated, and this was more than ever
the rule in the Apostolic Age. The ditference re-
marked by Gibbon {Decline and Fall of tlie Roman
Empire, ch. xl. § ii. [ed. Bury, vol. iv.^, 1908, p.
218]) between the games of Greece and Rome was
now very pronounced : ' the most eminent of the
Greeks were actors, the Romans were merely spec-
tators.' "While the demand of the age was for
spectacles, a supply of competitors had still to be
found ; wliich means that professional athletes
existed, who in the case of Rome seem to have
been mostly imported from Greece. It is perhaps
significant of the spirit of the times that the strictly
Professional term (d^X^w) is but rarely used in the
:T (2 Ti 2' ; cf. Ph 1=^ 4?, He W-). Degeneracy
had set in, and the onlookers were out of all pro-
portion to the trained athletes who provided the
sport.
This being the case, it is all the more surprising
to find that metaphors and similes drawn from the
sphere of athletics should enter so largely into the
language of the NT, in particular into the letters
of St. Paul. It has been customary to explain this
feature of the Apostle's writings as the outcome of
his experience and from his actual presence at
great athletic assemblies, but now the idea is gain-
ing ground that he drew rather upon the word-
treasury of past generations, and used such figures
of speech because they had become stereotyped in
language and arose naturally to the mind. The
same fondness for the imagery of the athletic
ground has been remarked in Philo {HDB v. 206'' ;
W. M. Ramsay, Lxike the Physician, 1908, p. 294),
and the opinion is widely entertained that St. Paul
owed the particular metaphor of the race {e.g. 1 Co
9^^-) to the Stoics, with whom it was a favourite
idea (C. Clemen, Primitive Christianity and its
Non-Jewish Sources, Eng. tr., 1912, p. 67). Light-
foot has called attention to the striking similarity
in this respect, as in many others, between the
language of St. Paul and that of Seneca (Philip-
pians*, 1878, pp. 288 and 290).
Modern exegesis has brought to view the full
scope of the imagery from games, obscured in the
renderings of the AV, wliich are retained for the
sake of euphony in the RV {e.g. I Ti 6'- and 2 Ti 4^,
-literallj', ' strive the good strife,' ' I have striven
the good strife'). It is not apparent that in 2 Ti
4^ the figure of speech in the first two clauses La
uniform and drawn from the athletic gi-ound (con-
trast 2**). An improved reading of 1 Ti 4", in-
corporated in the RV, gives dyuvi^6fit0a, 'strive,'
instead of dveidi^dfj-eda, ' suffer reproach ' (AV). The
same idea of contest or striving, with the same
basal form ayniv, appears in Ro 15**, 1 Co 9^, Ph 1**,
Col 129 21 4« 1 Th 22, He 12'-*, Jude=«. Specific
features of the athletic contest are found in ' course'
{8p6fjios ; Ac IS^^ 20-^ 2 Ti 4'), 'run' (rp^xw ; Ro 9'*,
Gal 22 5^ Ph 2J«, 2 Th 3\ 1 P 4<), ' press on ' (SwVw ;
Ph3'2ff-), 'stretching forth' {iireKTeivd/j-evos ; Ph 3").
Kord (TKoirdv ('mark,' AV, ' goal,' RV ; Ph3"), while
relevant, is not technical to racing {HDB iii. 244).
Thus far the language is suggestive of the stad-
ium, particularly of the foot-race, although it is
not forbidden to think of the hippodrome and of
chariot-racing. Another event in the games is
recalled by the expressive term -irvKTevu (1 Co 9^),
rendered by ' fight,' ' box ' (RVm), and the no less
expressive dipup (v.^), ' beating,' and viruirtd^o} (v.'-^),
' buffet ' or ' bruise ' (under the eye), y/xly ij iriXr},
'our wrestling ' (Eph 6^^)^ seems like an intrusion of
the imagery of the athletic ground into the meta-
phor of the complete warrior.
Not the least interesting part of the Pauline
figures of speech now being considered is related
to the laws and regulations governing the public
games, both beforehand and during the actual con-
test (1 Co 9^^-), and the conditions attending the
giving of the prize {crTe<pavoi, ' crown ' or ' wreath ').
The reward to the victor follows upon the decision
of the umpires {^pa^evrai), and the herald's an-
nouncement {KTipvcTffeiv ; cf. 1 Co 9^). ^pa^etow
(Ph 3") is the word used for the prize bestowed
according to the laws of the games (compare /3/)a-
^everci}. Col 3^', ' rule,' 'arbitrate,' RVm, and ^cara-
^pa^everw, 2^^, 'rob you of your prize'). The
immediate prize in the shape of a wreath suggests
the idea of something better than itself, not only
in connexion A\-ith the actual contest, where further
honours were afterwards bestowed upon the victor,
but also in the Christian thought of St. Paul
(I Co 925, Ph 4\ 1 Th 2-9, 2 Ti 4=*) and other NT
writers (Ja l^^, 1 P 5^ Rev 2i» 3" 4-' etc.). Some
reluctance has been felt to admit the use by Jewish
writers of this figure drawn from the ceremonial of
the heathen games (R. C. Trench, Synonyms of
the iVr, 1865, p. 76 f.), but it is probable that they
were indirectly indebted to this outstanding phase
of ancient life {EDB iv. o5b^ ; cf. Ramsay, op. cit.,
p. 290 f.).
WhUe Ave are willing to believe that the profitable
aspect of bodily training (1 Ti 4^) was not altogether
in abeyance during the Apostolic Age, we are
chiefly impressed by the historical evidence for the
gross degeneracy of the public games during the
1st cent. A.D. For this deterioration the Romans
must be held responsible. It is not necessary to
dwell on the details of the lust for blood, both
human and animal, which disfigured the public
displays of the Imperial city and to a less extent
of tne provinces. The motto of the age Avas ' bread
and races ' (panis et circense.'i), and coupled Avith
tliis Avas the cry : ' The Christians to the lions ! '
{C'hristiani ad leones). The Christians thus had a
tragic interest in the ludi circenses, especially in
the cruel displays of the amphitheatre. St. Paul's
experience at Ephesus may be taken as typical.
There he fought with beasts (ediipiofjLdxv<ra; 1 Co
15^), an expression Avhich is generally understood
figuratively (see art. Beast), but Avhich is considered
by McGiffert {Apostolic Age, 1897, p. 280) and %on
Weizsacker {Apostolic Age, i." [1S97] 385) as setting
forth actual fact. In the same city the Apostle
and his friends Gains and Aristarehus came near
experiencing the violence of the mob in the theatre
442
GAMES
GARLANDS
(Ac IQ^"^')) which was the recognized place of as-
sembly, and even of execution foUowinj,' judgment
(Jos. BJ VII. iii. 3). Originally designed for
scenic exhibitions of a bloodless type, the theatre
had developed, or rather had deteriorated, into the
iimplutlieatre with its wholesale biitcheries.
'1 lie theatre supplies NT writers with two similes :
d^arpov = diafia, 'a spectacle," 1 Co 4", and OecTpL^o-
nevoi (He 1(P), translated by 'gazingstock.' In ad-
dition to this the atrocities of the amphitheatre
doubtless underlie many of the references to perse-
cutions, being most patent in 1 Co IS*'' and 2 Ti 4'^ :
' I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.' It
should be noted that this last-named experience
has also been refined into a proverb (C. Clemen,
u/i. cit., p. 134 ; EBi\\. 5090 n.). Considerable un-
certainty attaches to the language of He 12^ : * Ye
have not yet resisted unto blood,' in which it is
tempting to see a repetition of St. Paul's metaphor
from boxing (1 Co 9-*'-), or even a reference to the
extreme penalty of martyrdom suffered by some,
after the example of ' the author and perfecter of
our faith.' The blood may have been shed in sight
of the circle of spectators in the amphitheatre (cf.
TTepiKfi/xevov, He 12').
2, History and archaeology.— The Jews Avere not
exempt from the current treatment of those who
had incurred the wrath of the State. At Caesarea
Titus caused more than 2,500 Jews to be slain in a
day, fighting with the beasts and with one another
(Jos. BJ VII. iii. 1 ; cf. VII. ii. 1). Under this same
monarch a commencement was made to the build-
ing of the Colosseum, which was dedicated and
first used for gladiatorial and other exhibitions
(e.g. venationes) in the reign of Vesjiasian (a.d. 80).
The provinces soon learned to copy the evil example
of the mother country (W. M. Ramsay, TAe Church
in the Uoman Empire, 1893, p. 317 fl'.).
Already in the East, under Hellenic influence,
ample provision had been made to satisfy the
craze for public amusements. In the cities of the
Decapolis there were in some instances two amphi-
theatres, while some possessed a vavnaxl^o. ; and
annual llayKpAria or games of all kinds were held
(G. A. Smith, HGHL\ 1897, p. 604). King Agrippa 1.
continued the policy of Herod the Great, building
at Berytus a theatre and an amphitheatre, ami
giving exhibitions both there and at Ctesarea (Jos.
Ant. XIX. vii. 5, viii. 2; cf. Ac 12'^^-^). When
lloman influence fully pervaded the East, the zest
for sports and for blood became still more pro-
nounced. Nero himself lent patronage, but not
lustre, to the Grecian games, and took a personal
part in them (A.D. 67). In the Roman province of
Asia festivals with games were held, probably
under the presidency of the Asiarchs {HDB i. 172).
The climax was reached in the 2nd cent. A.D. (see
Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, p.
317 f.). Confirmation of the wide-spread love of
sport at this time is found in the well-preserved
ruins of trans-Jordanic towns — e.g. (xerasa, Phila-
delphia, and elsewhere (G. A. Smith, op. cit., p.
698 fi'. ; E. Huntington, Palestine and its Trans-
formation, 1911, pp. 280 f., 295).
Such facilities for games even on the verge of
the Empire speak for the universal practice of
heathendom. The Christians stood aloof from
these displays, and became steeled against them
more and more with the lapse of time. In the 3rd
cent. ' no member of the Christian Church was
allowed to be an actor or gladiator, to teach acting,
or to attend the theatre' (A. Harnack, The Mission
and Expansion of Christianity-, 1908, i. 301).
According to the Talmud, the religious leaders
of the Jews were only slightly less rigid, although
they could not altogether prevent attendance at
the theatre and jiarticipation in games of chance
(E. Schiirer, HJP ll. i. [1885] 32 f., 36).
Literature.— Art. 'Games' in ///>/>, SDB, Imperial liibU
Diet., Smith's Diet, of Class. Antiiiuitits, Se.vffert'b Diet, of
ClnsM. Antiijuities (ed. Nettlcshij) and Sandyk) ; 'Games,
Classical,' in EBr^'^; 'Games and .S|)ort8' in JK, 'Games
(Hebrew and Jewish)' in ERK\ E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall
('/ the Roman Kinvire, ch. xii. (ed. Uury, vol. i.-*, 1906, j).
343 ff.) ; W. E. H. Lecky, IliUoiy of European MoraUfi, ISM,
i. 271 ff.; E. Renan, Les Ap6tres, 1806. ch. xvii. ; S. Dill,
Jiornan Societi/ from Sero to Marcus Aurelius, 1904, pp. 'i3-»-
•244 ; F. W. Farrar, The Life and Work of ^t. Paul, 1897,
Excursus iii., p. 698 f. ; W. Warde Fowler, Social Life at
Home in the Age of Cicero, l!M)s, i)p. 28.5-318 ; L. Friedlander,
Roman Life and Manners under the Etirlii Emjiire, tr. J. H.
Freese and L. A. Mag'nus, ii. 1-130; T. G. Tucker, Life in the
Roman World of Sero and St. /'(H/;, 1910, p. 200 flf. ; S. Krauss,
Talmudische Archiioloqie, iii. (1912) 102-121 ; E. Schiirer, <JJ V*
il. [1907] 47-52, 00 f., 67 (Enj{. tr., IJJP n. i. 23-28, etc.).
W. Cruick-shank.
GANGRENE (Gr. ydyypaiva, ' an eating, spreading
sore,' from ypaiveip, 'to gnaw,' AV 'canker.' Two
very early translations of 2 Ti 2'^ niay Ije cited :
' Ase holi writ seiS, " hore speche .spret ase
cauncre " ' [A ncr. Rules, 98, ann. 1225 ; see ' canker '
in OED] ; ' The word of hem crepith as a kankir '
[Wyclif, Bible, ed. 1382; changed to 'canker' in
1388 ed. The Vulgate has ' ut cancer ']). — Until
about A.D. 1600, ' canker ' si<rnilied corroding ulcera-
tions generally, and was earlier derived from Italian
and medical Latin cancrena. ' Gangrene ' is the
term ai)plied to necrosis or mortification of a part
of the animal body, attacking especially the ex-
tremities, which, as it moves upward, unless ar-
rested, involves more and more healthy tissue, and
finally results in death. In its figurative use it
symbolizes anything that slowly but surely and
malignantly corrupts, depraves, and consumes
what is good. The cause of the ' gangrene ' re-
ferred to in 2 Ti 2''' is incii)ient Gnosticism, which
subverted the Christian teaching concerning the
resurrection, alleging tliat it had occurred already,
in opposition to tlie belief of the apostles that tlie
resurrection was future, being not merely spiritual
but involving the whole man. In Ja 5* ' cankered '
in the AV is in the RV translated ' rusted.'
C. A. liECKwrrH.
GARLANDS (Gr. <rr^yu/xaTa).— This word is found
only once in the NT, and it is used in connexion
with heathen sacrifices. In the temples of the
ancient world it was customary to make large
use of floral decoration, and especially of wreaths
or garlands, on the occasion of religious festivals.
Often the priests, the worshippers, and, in particu-
lar, the sacrificial victims, were adorned with such
wreaths of flowers or leaves at the time of sacrifice.
The Romans had a specific name for the wreath or
garland worn by the priest and worshii)pers when
taking part insacriticial worship — the corona sacer-
dotalis, or 'priestly garland.' We have repeated
references in classical writers of both Greece and
Rome to the practice of adornin" the sacrificial
beasts with garlands or fillets of flowers or leaves
(cf. Virgil, Aincid, v. 366 ; Euripides, Heracleidce,
529). This association of garlands with heathen
worship led the early Christians to object to their
use altogether (cf. TertuUian, de Corona Militis).
In Ac 14*-"* we are told that, on the healing
of a lame man by the Apostles i'aul and Barna-
bas at Lystra in Asia Minor, the i)eople imagined
the wonder-workers to be incarnations of the gods
Jupiter and Mercury, and declared, ' The gods are
come down to us in the likeness of men' (v.^'). In
accordance with this idea, and probably also with
a view to reaping the fruits of the religious excite-
ment that had been aroused, the priest of Jupiter
brought forth oxen and garlands to the gates of the
city for sacrifice (v.'^). The garlands here were
wreaths or chaplets of flowers or leaves intended
for the victims and probably also for those taking
part in the service.
The Gr. word <TT4<pavos, which is usually trans-
lated ' crown ' in the English version, is more cor-
GAEMENT
GENEALOGIES
443
rectly rendered 'wreath' or 'garland,' and, like
the ffTenfiara (tillets) of Ac 14", consisted of leaves
or flowers, and was not only used in sacritices but
awarded as a prize to victors in war or at the games
(cf. art. Crowx). W. F. Boyd.
GARMENT.— See Clothes.
GATE. — Two terms, tvXtj and rvXui', are rendered
'gate' in EV, but in certain cases the latter is
diflerentiated by 'porch,' 'portals' (Mt 26'', Rev
21, RYni passim). The distinction between the
two seems to turn upon architectural features.
Where the entrance alone is contemplated, rvXrj is
used ; but where the whole complex of buildings
bound up Avith the entrance is present to view,
xi'Xwj' is the term employed. The pylon is associ-
ated mainly with Egyptian Temples, and consists
of the imposing towers flanking the gate by which
access was given to the court. When the space
between these towers was filled in above, the en-
trance became a portal, and in this sense the term
is employed for private houses as well. An inter-
esting example falling within this period is Ac 12",
where mention is made of rijy dvpav tov xi/XcDvoj.
This shows that the portal or gateway was closed
by means of a door placed at the end fronting
the street. The passage may have been closed in
similar fashion at the other end, which opened on
the court (see, further, DoOR). A similar use with
reference to a private house occurs in Ac 10'^. In
each case the singular is used. With these we
have to contrast Ac 14", where the plural is found.
Opinion is divided as to whether a private entrance,
or the city gate, or the sanctuary precincts should
here be understood. The most reasonable inter-
pretation is that the xiXwves go together Vi-ith the
Temple buildings outside the city (Lystra), being
near the point where sacrifice was wont to be
made. Barnabas and Paul 'sprang forth,' or
' rushed out,' as probably from the city gate as from
a private house. The remaining instances may be
classed together (Rev 21^ "• "• "• ^ 22>^), where
the marginal reading ' portals ' gives the best con-
ception of what is represented.
In cases where the gate of a city is referred to,
■wv\i) is the usual term. It is used thus of Damas-
cus (Ac 9^^) and Philippi (Ac 16" — here AV ren-
ders 'city' — a not unnatural substitution). With
these instances may be ranked He 13^- — Christ
suflering without tlie gate (of Jerusalem). We
remark the singular form in all but one instance
(Ac 9-*, where the plural is waiTanted). There is
one example to be classed alone, which shows how
an entrance was filled up. It is found in Ac 12'",
where the epithet ' iron ' applied to gate is attached
t« ri\r} (it would not suit wXiJov). Modem struc-
tures lead us to think of iron throughout, but it is
more likely the gate was of wood and faced with
iron. That the more solid form was not impossible
we gather from the Temple doors (Jos. BJ VL v.
3 ; cf. discoveries at Pompeii, and Vergil, .-En. vL
552-4). If we accept the addition of Cod. Bezae,
seven steps led down from this gate to the level of
the street.
The Beautiful Gate of the Temple (Ac 3-- ">) has
been treated under art. Door. Although it is
spoken of as a gate (xi'X'?*, we have reason to think
this was a portal of a very elaborate type (SDB,
art. 'Temple'). W. Ckuickshaxk.
GAUL.— See Galatia.
GAZA (rdfa). — Gaza, the most southern of the
five chief cities of PhUistia, was important as the
last place of call on the road to Egypt. It was
' the frontier city of Syria and the Desert, on
the south-west, as Damascus on the north-east '
(Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, London, 1877, p. 259).
Writing about the beginning of the Christian era,
Stxabo (XVI. iL 30) describes it as ' once famous,
but razed by Alexander [the Great] and remain-
ing deserted ' (itai fUvovca ipTi/ios). The last clause
can scarcely be correct, for Gaza was a strong city
in the time of Jonathan the Maccabee (1 Mac
11*"-). *nd it stood a years siege before it was
destroyed by Alexander Jannseus in 96 B.C. (Jos.
Ant. XIU. xiii. 3). Tliis was Old Gaza (^ xaXotd
rdfa), so called by Diodorus and Porphjry (see
the references in Schiirer, HJF ii. i. [EdinCurgh,
1885] 70). New Gaza (17 via Tdfa) was built by
Gabinius, Governor of Syria (Jos. Ant. xiv. v. 3),
apparently at some distance from the former site
(Jerome, Onomast., ed. Lagarde, Gottingen, 1870,
p. 125). In the time of Claudius, Mela describes
it as ' ingens et munita admodum' (i. 11). It is
said to have been destroyed by the Jews in A.D.
65 (Jos. BJ II. xviii. 1), but the ruin cannot have
been more than partisil. In the time of Eusebius
and Jerome it was still a notable Greek city,
where paganism stoutly resisted Christianity ; and
it played an important part in the time of the
Crusades. To-day it is a nourishing town of 16,000
inhabitants, built on and around a hiU rising 100
ft. above the plain, and separated from the sea by
three miles of yellow sand-dunes. Well watered,
with broad gardens, and a great olive grove stretch-
ing northwards, it drives a considerable trade with
the nomadic Arabs.
Gaza is mentioned once in the NT (Ac 8*) :
'Arise,' said the angel of the Lord to Philip, 'and
go toward the south (marg., at noon) unto the
way that goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza :
the same is desert ' {aunj e<rrip tpnrinoi). It is a
much-disputed point whether ' the same ' refers to
the way or to Gaza. (1) If the former interpreta-
tion, which is the ordinary one, is right, the tract
which the road traversed was 'desert' only in
a qualified sense, for the writer expressly states
that in passing through it Philip came upon water,
in M'hich he baptized the eunuch. The guiding
angel's words may refer merely to the solitariness
of the road, being spoken ' to bring out Philip's
trustful obedience, where he could not foresee the
end in view ' (J. V. Bartlet, Acts [Century Bible,
1901], p. 214), or simply to prepare him for the
uninterrupted interview which he enjoys with the
eunuch. It is always possible that * the same is
desert ' is a remark added by the narrator himself.
(2) G. A. Smith (jyGZrZ, London, 1897, p. 186 ff.)
and Cheyne {EBi, 1650) hold that ' the same '
{avrri) refers to Gaza. The former, to whom it
seems impossible to describe any route from Jeru-
salem to Gaza as desert, suggests that while New
Gaza was built by the seashore, the road to
Egypt passed the inland and at least comparatively
deserted Old Gaza. This view, however, puts a
strained meaning upon ' the same,' while Schiirer
(II. L 71) holds that the new city, to which af-nj
would naturally refer, also lay inland, probably a
little distance to the south of the old. Some scholars
(Beza, HUgenfeld, Schmiedel, and others) have con-
tended that ' the same is desert ' is an explanatory
gloss. Schmiedel suggests that it was set down in
the margin by a reader who had been misled by
Strabo, and then incorporated in the text.
LrrsRATURE. — See, in addition to the works mentioned above,
E. Robinson, Biblical Re*earehe» in FaUstine, London, 1S41, p.
373 ff. ; V. Gcerin. Description giographique . . . de la Pales-
tine, pt. L : 'Jad6e,' Paris, 1869; L- Gantier, Soucenirg de
Terre-Sainte, Lausanne, 1S97, p. U6ff. ; T. Zaim, Introd. to
the yr, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1909, iL 43S.
Jajies Steahax.
GEHENNA.— See Hell.
GENEALOGIES. — The value attached by the
Hebrew people to genealogies is seen in the long
444
GENEALOGIES
GENERATION
and, to modern readers, somewhat wearisome, lists
of Scripture. Their exaggerated importance was
in some measure due to family pride, which loved
an old descent ; and therefore it was considered a
laudable ambition to build up legendary pedigrees
of heroes and founders such as are met witn, e.g. , in
the Book of Jubilees. As Judaism became politi-
cally impotent, it took to dreaming of the glories
of the past, and there sprang up a ' rank growth of
legend respecting the patriaixhs and other heroes '
(Hort, Judaistic Christianity, Cambridge and
London, 1894, p, 136). Tliis genealogical matter
is found in Hebrew and in Greek, and appears in
both Philo and Josephns,
In the genealogies a religious interest is also
apparent. We know from the NT how obstinately
the later Judaism clung to the merely positive and
perishable precepts of the Law, and how at the
same time, under a narrow and literal doctrine of
inspiration, the attempt was made to extract
nourishment for the spiritual life from every part
of the OT, The most fantastic doctrines were
drawn, even from the names in the genealogical
lists, in the interests of a supposed ediiication.
For a time Judaism bitterly opposed the Church ;
then, entering it as Judaistic Christianity, it sought
to capture the new movement, in the interests of
a sect, by binding upon it the yoke of the Law,
which Peter, in the Jerusalem Council, said ' neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear' (Ac 15^").
' Lastly, it becomes a fantastic heresy inside the
Church, and sinks into profane frivolity. " Pre-
tended revelations are given as to the names and
»enealogy of angels ; absurd ascetic rules are laid
down as ' counsels of perfection,' while daring im-
morality defaces the actual life " ' (Plummer, The
Pastoral Epp. [Expos. Bib., London, 1888], p. 34;
also Expositor, 3rd ser., viii. [1888] 42) ; cf. Rev 2»
' I know the blasphemy of them which say they are
Jews and they are not.'
With this ' unwholesome stuff' (Hort, p. 137)
there was combined the doctrine of seons of the
Jewish philosopher Philo — the incipient Gnosti-
cism of the Colossian heresy. The 'yvCi(xi.% of the
NT is the special lore of those who interpreted
mystically the OT, especially the Law (cf. Hort,
pp. 139-144). This so-called Gnosticism may be
traced through Philo, the Book of Wisdom, and
Sirach, ' back to the Persian speculations with
which the Jews became familiar during the Cap-
tivity' (Dods, Introd. to NT, London, 1888, p.
141 f . ). This is the situation, atmosphere, and
tendency lying behind the stern rebukes of the
Pastoral Epistles.
In 1 Ti l* the warning is given, fi-qU irpoa-ix^iv
fxvOois Kal yeveoKoylais dtrepavrois, alnves iK^7)Ti)cr€i.s
■irap^Xov<^h 'neither to give heed to fables and
endless genealogies, the wldch minister question-
ings.' These genealogies are ' legendary pedigrees
of Jewish heroes ' and ' haggadic embroidery of
Jewish biographies' (Moftatt, LNT, Edinburgh,
1911, pp. 406, 408). They are called diripavToi
{dira^ \ey. in NT) — ' endless,' because they led
nowhere, and, where all meanings were equally
possible and equally worthless, one interpretation
was as good as another. ' They minister question-
ings ' — that was their end. ' Fanciful tales merely
tickle the ears and loosen the tongue. They have
no relation to the serious business of life. . . .
They end in conversation, not conversion ' (J.
Strachan, The Captivity and the Pastoral Epistles
[Westminster NT, London, 1910], p. 203, where
Kohler is quoted [p. 205] : ' the author can think of
no more striking contrast than that between the
endless prattle of the false teachers and the gospel
of the glory of the blessed God ' [1 Ti 1"]). Life is
a stewardsiiip of God (ohovoixia deov), but this
' trashy and unwholesome stuti",' which occupied
' men's minds to the exclusion of solid and life-
giving nutriment' (Hort, p. 137), hinders the fulfil-
ment of the trust of life. It is contrary to sound
doctrine. It does not belong to the healthy (iryiaj-
voijffr]) mind. In Tit 3* the warning is repeated :
'shun foolish questions and genealogies.'
The scornful method adopted by the Pastoral
Epistles of dealing with these 'silly questions and
genealogies' has been objected to as un-Pauline,
and is cited as an argument for the late date of the
Epistles. Without raising the question of author-
ship, one may feel, on general considerations, that,
in the interests of the Church, the question was a
vital one — should Christianity be allowed to de-
generate into a blend of Mosaism and Gentile
philosophy or theosophy ? Even in religious con-
troversy, rank growths are not to be eradicated
with a pair of tweezers. Mollatt's rejoinder (EBi
5083) to McGiffcrt {Ajwstolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897,
f>. 402) may be regarded as justified and satis-
actory : * This movement [represented by fables,
genealogies, etc.] is met by . . . methods, which
seem denunciatory merely because we no longer
possess any statement of the other side, and are,
therefore, prone to forget that such rough and
decisive ways are at times the soundest method of
conserving truth. . . . Firmness and even ridicule
have their own place as ethical weapons of defence.'
See Fable. W. M. Grant.
GENERATION (ytved, 1 P 2^ : 'a chosen genera-
tion,' AV=7^;'os iK\€KT6v = 's,n elect race,' KV). —
The use of yeved in the NT closely reproduces, as
in the LXX it translates, the Hebrew nn. The two
words, however, reach their common significance
from different directions. Etymologically, yeved
expresses the idea of kinship. It signifies de-
scent, or the descendants, from the same ancestral
stock ; then those of the same lineage who are born
about the same time ; then the lifetime of such
(measured from birth of parent to birth of child),
or, more generally, an 'age' or lengthened period
of time. The root-idea of nn, on the other hand, is
a period of time : hence it comes to mean the people
whose lifetime falls approximately within a given
period, and finally acquires the genealogical sense
of a ' generation ' (see Liddell and Scott and Oxford
Hebrew Lexicon, s.v. ).
In the apostolic writings, the primary meaning
of the word is (a) the body of individuals of the
same race who are born about the same time (He 3'",
Ac 13^, AV and RVm) ; but this sense usually
passes into that of (b), the period covered by the
lifetime of such (Ac 13^ RV, 14'« IS^i, Eph 3») ; and
thus the plural, yeveal, comes to mean (c) all time,
past or future, as consisting in the succession of
such periods. In Col 1^, ' the mystery hath been
hid from the ages and from the generations,' the
'generation' is a subdivision of the 'age' and is
added for the sake of emphasis, and in Eph 3" the
Apostle, struggling to express the idea of the
Eternal Future, not only describes it as ' the age
of ages ' (the age whose component parts are them-
selves ages), but adds to the picture the endless
succession of ' generations ' which constitute each
' age ' — ' unto all the generations of the age of ages '
(cf. Ps 102-^ Enoch ix. 4). Finally {d) the word is
used, as often in the OT (Dt 32«-2o, Ps 12' 248 etc.),
with a moral connotation, as in Ph 2" and Ac 2*.
In the latter passage the term has an eschatological
colouring. 'This crooked generation' is the pre-
sent, swiftly transient period of the world's histor>',
which is leading up to the Day of Judgment and
the New Age.
LiTBRATiRE.— H. Cremer, Bibl.-Theol. Lexicon of NT Gr«tt^,
1880; Grimm-Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the NT^,
1830: Theodor Ke'im, Jes^uof Aazara, Eng. tr., 18S1. vol. v.
p. 245 n. Robert Law.
GENTILES
GENTILES
445
GENTILES (to. idv-q, ' the natiuns,' as opposed to
Lsrael, 6 Xaot. The opposition comes out clearly in
Lk 23-, Ac 26^"- ■■^, Ko 15'". Cf. 'am and cioytm in
T)t 2618- 1" 32«, Is 42«. In Ko lli' 15^7 16^ Gal 2'«- ",
ilph 31 ?0j'r7 = Gentile Christians; but in 1 Co 12-,
Eph 2" 4", 1 Th 4' St. Paul lays stress upon the
moral separation of such from the idvt^ [cf. Harnack,
Expansion, i. 67, n. 1]. The Vulg. has gentes for
fOvri, but nearly always Gentilis for"EX\i;v['EX\7;vi5].
This may have led our translators to render "EXX17J'
six times by 'Gentile' [uniformly 'Greek,' how-
ever, in RV]. When the Koine [vernacular and
business Greek] became the international language,
those Jews who spoke it began to apply the handy
designation of ' Greeks ' to all non-Jews in order
to distinguish them from themselves ; hence the
{)hrase 'lovSaioi re Kal "EXXtjccj came to be the col-
oquial equivalent of 6 Xads /cat to. idvrj. But there
are passages in the NT where '%\\ytves appears to re-
tain its proper national sense [Ac 16'* ^ 21^, Ro 1^"*,
1 Co 1", Gal 2^, Col 311 ; cf. Zahn, Introd. to NT, i.
373 ; Harnack, Acts of the Apostles, p. 51]). — Intro-
ductory.— The account of what occurred at Pisidian
Antioch when St. Paul and Barnabas preached
there the second time (Ac 13^'*) may be taken as a
short outline of the principal part of the history of
the Apostolic Age. The Jews, filled with jealousy,
contradict and rail at the preaching of the gospel.
The two apostles then speak out boldly, and say :
' It was necessary that the word of God should first
be spoken to you. Seeing ye thrust it from you
. , . lo, we turn to the Gentiles.' The Gentiles
receive the word with joy, and many of them be-
lieve. The history of the Apostolic Age is mainly
the history of how Christ was brought to the
Gentile world, and how the Jewish nation ' hardened
its heart more and more against the appeal of
Christianity' (Harnack, op. cit. p. xxx). Add another
important feature to the history of this period —
that the door which was set wide open for the ad-
mission of the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God
was kept wide open in spite of the attempt of a
large section of the Judaeo-Christian Church to
shut it — and the outline is complete.
1. The Gentiles and the purpose of God. — When
we speak of God's revealing Himself, we mean His
opening man's eyes to such a sight of His nature
and will as meets a universal want of man's spirit.
We believe that, since man's history began, there
has never been an age or a country in which ' the
Father of spirits ' has not entered into close relation
with His spiritual children. We agree with Justin
Martyr when he says that the wise heathen lived
in company with ' The Word,' and that all that
they have truly said is part of Christianity (Apol.
i. 46, ii. 13). The revelation which most concerns
us is the special one contained in the Holy Scrip-
tures. In the OT, it disclosed certain fundamental
principles which, when we study them in the light
of Christianity, we perceive to have been also
promises of a purpose of mercy for the whole world.
One is the Unity of God. This implied that God
should be the one object of worship to the whole
human race. Another is His entering into succes-
sive covenants loith men of various periods. This
pointed to a progressive purpose which should
finally be realized in His drawing all men unto
Himself. Further, the announcement of His design
of blessing all the families of the earth through
that family which He chose to be the special de-
positary of His revealed will, was virtually His
calling Abraham and his descendants to be fellow-
workers with Himself in bringing all nations to
love and obey Him. Those principles and promises,
understood now in the light of the gospel, convey
to us the assurance that the cause of the salvation
of the Gentiles is to be found ' in the bosom and
counsel of God.'
2. The OT and the Gentiles. — When we turn our
attention to the OT on its human side, we meet
with a confusing variety of opinions respecting the
Gentiles. There is no consistency of view, no
authoritative standard of judgment whereby con-
flicting utterances may be reconciled; and the
effect of this is often depressing to those readers
who do not bear in mind that ' we have the treasure
in earthen vessels,' or that the instruments whom
God employed in revealing His will were imperfect
men. OT writers often speak of the Gentiles in
the language of reprobation. In Ps 9" the goyini
are synonymous with the r'shd'tm, ' the wicked '
(cf. Dt 9*) ; they are the ' am-ndbhdl, 'the foolish
people,' in Ps 74'^ (cf. Sir 5(P) ; they are the b'ne-
nekhdr, ' the strangers ' (in a hostile sense), ' whose
mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a
right hand of falsehood,' in Ps 144" (ct. Zeph 3'^).
Israel is strictly prohibited from * walking in their
statutes,' or following their idolatrous practices
{hukkCth hag-goytm [Lv 18* 20^=^, 2 K 17»]).
The virtues of individual Gentiles, it is true, are
often referred to with approval. The native chiefs
of Canaan treat Abraham with respect ; the
Pharaoh who makes Joseph lord of his house calls
him ' a man in whom the spirit of God is ' ; the
daughter of the Pharaoh of the oppression is moved
with compassion at the sight of the child Moses,
and brings him up as her son ; Jethro receives
Moses when an exile into his family, guides him
in the desert, and instructs him in the art of
governing ; Kahab and Ruth ' take refuge under
the wings of the God of Israel,' and their names
are in the regal genealogy ; Ittai the Gittite cleaves
to David, when almost all have forsaken him ; the
Queen of Sheba comes to hear the wisdom of
Solomon ; the Tyrian Hiram supplies him with
materials when building the Temple, having been
' ever a lover of David ' ; the widow of Zarephath,
nearly destitute herself, feeds the famishing Elijah ;
and Naaman, the Syrian general, confesses his
faith in the God of Elisha as the one true God ;
Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian slave, rescues Jeremiah
from death, and is rewarded with a promise of
personal immunity from danger ; Job, an Arabian
shaikh, is the lofty teacher of how ' to suffer
and be strong ' ; Cyrus the Persian is the Lord's
anointed, and the deliverer of His people.
Nor is the fundamental principle of the unity of
the human race (Gn 1-11), or of God's ha\'ing ' made
of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the
face of the earth ' (Ac 17^), ever lost sight of by
OT writers. He who brought up Israel from Egypt,
Amos says (9''), is the same God who brought the
Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir.
But neither in this saying nor m the later one
about ' all the nations over whom my name has
been called ' (cf. Driver on Am 9^^) does the prophet
voice the belief that He who made all ' loveth all,'
or wiU admit all into the covenant of His grace.
Very little is taught by the pre-Exilic prophets
as to the world being Israel's mission-field, but
much is said about God's chastising the nations.
In the great post-Exilic book of national consolation
the proof of Jahweh's Godhead is followed by the
proclamation of salvation to all mankind : ' Look
unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth '
(Is 45^^). When we read those words, and 'the
Servant of the Lord Songs,' with their bright out-
look on the Gentile world, the expectation is raised
that the missionary calling of Israel is about to be
fulfilled. It is true that a beginning was made,
but only by the Jews of the Dispersion. The
home-Jews, led by Nehemiah, took the course of
setting up an impenetrable fence between them and
their nearest neighbours. E. G. Hirsch says that
the necessities of the situation justified the narrower
policy in this case {JE v. 616*). But we cannot
446
GENTILES
GENTILES
fall in with this view, when we think of the books
of Job, Jonah, and Kuth — of the larger hope of the
later Psalmists (Ps 67, 87, 100, 117, 145), and the
remarkable assertion of Malachi (1") that the name
of God is honoured by the sincere worshin otl'ered
to Him among the Gentiles from East to West.
From the Wisdom Literature the national feeling
against Gentiles is almost entirely absent. But it
is far otherwise with Jewish apocalyptic, the Book
of Daniel and its numerous extra-canonical suc-
cessors— far inferior to it in religious value — in
which much true spiritual insiglit is mixed with
carnal views and human passion. The noble Mac-
cabaean struggle, which was contemporaneous with
the rise of this class of literature, saved Israel from
becoming hellenized ; but it had the result also of
intensifying the exclusiveness and intolerance of
which Tacitus speaks {Hist. v. 5 : ' adversus omnes
alios hostile odium ').
The teaching of the OT respecting the Gentiles
may be characterized as hostile, hesitating, and
hopeful by turns. It is to be observed that in
many of its most liberal utterances a position of
supei"iority is assigned to Israel. The Gentiles are
still servants, not equals. In Is 60^* they come
and bend at Israel's feet as suppliants and vassals.
Even in Is 19^^'^, while Egypt and Assyria are
admitted into covenant with God, Israel is still
distinguished as His inheritance, His peculiar
possession. ' His house shall be called a house of
prayer for all peoples' (Is 56^), but it is Jewish
feasts that the nations shall keep there (Zee 14^®'^"),
and they shall be joined to Israel by absorption,
not by co-ordination (Is 45^-^, Jer 12i«, Zeph 3»,
Zee 8-"'^). A great concession in the direction of
equality is made in Is 66^^ if it be Gentiles whom
God is to take to minister in His sanctuary ; but
the promise may relate to Jews of the Dispersion.
In the magnificent prophecy of Is 2-"^, Mic 4^-* the
Temple-mountain is still the centre from which
the laws of God go forth to the subjects of a king-
dom of universal peace. But the material and
spiritual elements in this prophecy are combined
in a way that the Christian Church will not fully
comprehend before the coming of a glory that shall
be revealed.
3. Christ and the Gentiles. — Was there present
to the mind of Clirist, while accomplishing the
work of Him that sent Him, a purpose of salvation
that included the Gentiles ? Did He look beyond
' the lost sheep of the house of Israel ' to other
sheep far ott" from the mountains of Canaan, who
had also to be sought and found ? When Satan
showed Him the kingdoms of the world, did He
turn away from tlie sight of the world with the
repugnance of a Jew of His time, or did the sight
move Him to compassion, and enkindle a great
hope in His heart ? It is not easy to see how the
Christian Church can cease believing that Christ
had a purpose of mercy for the world, and the ex-
pectation of subduing it unto Himself, unless she
IS to revise her whole doctrine of the Person of her
Lord. ' The day and the hour ' may be unknown
to Christ as the Son, but the Father's purpose of
love for the world cannot be unknown ; if He be
the Son, He must have made that purpose His own.
It has been contended that although His preach-
ing contained ' a vital love of God and men, which
may be described as "implicit universalism," the
Gentile mission cannot have lain within the horizon
of Jesus.' It was the Spirit of Jesus that led His
disciples to the universal mission, but He issued
no positive command to them to undertake it
(Harnack, Expansion, i. 40 H".). This conclusion
is based upon an exhaustive, but biased, exposition
of the relevant texts in the Synoptic Gospels, the
Fourth being set aside with the frank avowal that
it 'is saturated with statements of a directly uni-
versalistic character' (p. 47). It is to be admitted
that the view in question largely owes its air of
credibility to that perplexing feature of the narra-
tive of Acts — the delay of the original ajiostles in
undertaking the Gentile mission. On this delay,
which is one of the imsolved problems of Apostolic
Christianity, something will be said later. At
present, let us endeavour to appreciate the strength
of our position by surveying its defences.
(1) As the funoamental principle of the unity of
God implied that He was the God of all nations
upon earth, so our Saviour's calling Himself 'the
Son of man' expres.sed His universal relation to
the human race. And if a reference to Dn 7''"" Ihj
admitted. His using the title also pointed to His
coming Lordship over the world. There is thus
an antecedent probability tliat Mt 28"*'*'', which so
well agrees with the meaning of the title, is a
genuine utterance of the Risen Lord.
(2) He accepted the confession at Caesarea
Philippi, 'Thou art the Christ,' with an emotion
of which we feel the glow every time we read Mt
lgi6. 17 n follows that, from the time when the
Voice from heaven had proclaimed Him to be
God's Beloved Son, and from the beginning of His
* training of the Twelve,' Jesus had been conscious
of His right to ' the name in which all the hopes
of the OT were gathered up ' {EBi iii. 3063). The
announcement of His Death and Resurrection
which immediately followed showed what His
being the true Messiah meant for Him, althougli
His disciples were ' slow of heart to believe ' that
it could mean what He said. The OT picture of
the sufiering Saviour, placed as it was side by side
with that of the ruling descendant of David, be-
came, as Ed. Konig says (Expositor, 8th ser., iv.
[1912] 113, 118), dimmed in the centuries preceding
His Advent. Christ relumined the whole picture
by His sutt'ering, and then by His being 'the first
by the resurrection of the dead to proclaim light
both to the people and to the Gentiles ' (Ac 26^).
(3) To His limiting the mission of the Twelve to
Galilee and Judnea on His first sending them forth
(Mt 10'- ^), we may apply the words of Is 28^" : ' He
that believeth shall not make haste.' It was con-
sistent with the highest wisdom not to propel them
into a wider field than the one in which, with the
training they had hitherto received, they could
labour with profit. His words, ' Go not into any
way of the Gentiles,' reveal His wisdom in another
way. By giving His disciples this charge. He
abstained from needlessly offending His fellow-
countrymen, to whom it was His first object to
commend the gospel. His heart's desire for tliem
was that they might be saved ; He called the
season of His earthly activity among them ' the
acceptable year of tiie Lord ' (Lk 4^"), and, after His
departure to heaven, extended their opportunity
of ' knowing the things which belonged unto their
peace ' (cf. Lk Vd*^) for forty years (cf. He 3»- "). In
the story of the Syrophoenician, we iiear Jesus first
telling His disciples that He limited His own
mission of healing, as He had previously limited
theirs, to the afflicted in Israel; but in another
moment we see Him recognizing in tiie illustrious
faitli with which a poor Gentile woman met His
refusal of her petition the indication of His Father's
will that those limits should l)e transcended, and
that His saving mercy should go forth to all, with-
out distinction of race, who had faith like hers to
receive it. The words reported by St. Mark (7"),
' Let the children first be filled,' also suggest that
Jesus had in view, when He spoke them, the
Gentiles, who should not have long to wait before
they too could come to His full table.
(4) If the Gospel of Mark was written 'at the
latest in the sixth decade of the lirst century '
(Harnack, Date ofttie Acts, p. 126), and ' M-as known
GENTILES
GENTILES
447
to both the other Sj-noptists in the same form and
with the same contents as we have it now ' (Well-
hausen, Einleitung, p. 57, quoted in Burkitt, Gospel
Hist, and its Traiisniission, p. 64), it follows that
the sayings, 'The gospel must first be preached
unto all tlie nations ' and ' Wlieresoever the gospel
~liall be preached throughout the whole world'
13'* 14*), were put on record in little more than
twenty years after they were spoken. 'The
Kingtloni of God shall be taken away from you
and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof,' is, as Burkitt says {op. cit., p. 188), the
motto, the special doctrine, of St. Matthew's
(..i-j.el. This sentence occurs in one of the last
jiarables of judgment (21*), but other sayings re-
oorted before lead up to it, as : ' Many shall come
?rom the east and west ' ; ' The field is the world ' ;
' The last shall be first, and the first last ' (8" 13»
•3)^*). From St. Luke's account of our Lord's dis-
course at Nazareth it is clear that His hearers
understomi the references to the ministries of
Elijah and Elisha as pointing to the admission of
Gentiles into the Kingdom (4^). In Luke, too,
Samaritans are exhibited as excelling Jews in
compassionate and grateful love (10** 17*'). The
value of his report of the commission given by our
Lord to His disciples in the upper room (24'*^"*),
and repeated at the Ascension (Ac 1*), is height-
ened by the fact that ' it seems now to be estab-
lishetl beyond question that both books of this
[Luke's] great historical work were written while
St. Paul was still alive' (Hamack, Date of the
Acts, p. 124).
(5) Finally, as a historical account of certain
incidents and crises in the life of Christ which
showed Him to be the Son of God (Jn 2(F), the
Fourth Gospel claims to have the authority of an
eye-witness behind it. The truth of this claim
has never been disproved. This Gospel is the
crowning proof that there was present to the mind
of our Lord from the beginning a purpose of salva-
tion which comprehended the Gentile world. It
clinches the argument, it is the keystone of the
arch. For here Jesus calls Himself ' the light of
the world,' speaks of 'giving his flesh for the life
of the world,' and of ' sending his disciples into
the world in like manner as the Father sent him
into the world ' ; to the woman at the well He
si)eaks of the hour when, not the coming to God at
theaneientsanctuaries.butthecomingtothe Father
' in spirit and truth.' will be the mark of the sin-
cere worshipper ; He resides two days with the
Samaritans ; He proclaims to the leaders of the
Jewish Church that He has 'other sheep, not of
this fold,' whom He must bring, and who will re-
cognize in His voice that of their Shepherd ; above
all, on the eve of those sufferings whereby He was
to enter into His glory, He beholds in certain
Greeks desiring to see Him a prospect so satisf jing
to His heart that, in the exultation of His sa%'ing
love. He cries : ' And I, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto me.' The preserva-
tion of such sayings as these made the work of
this Evangelist a gospel of consolation to the Gen-
tile churches of Asia Minor at the close of the 1st
cent. ; and the assurance of the members of St.
John's immediate circle is now ours : ' We know
that his witness is true' (21*^).
4. Preparation of the Gentile world for Christ.
— That Christ came into a world which God had
slowly been preparing in the course of ages for His
appearing was perceived by St. Paul and St. John,
each from his own special point of view. St. Paul
is thinking of Christ as the Kedeemer from sin
and its curse when he says that ' God sent forth
his Son in the fulness of the time,' and again, that
•Christ died for the ungodly in due season' (Gal
4*, Ko 5*). St. John is thinking of Christ as the
Incarnate Word when he says : ' There was the
true light, even the light wnich lighteth every
man coming into the world' (1* RV ; cf. 6" tr. by
Gwatkin : ' [The Bread] is ever coming down, ana
ever giving life unto the world'). This fascinat-
ing subject also engaged the attention of many
early Christian Avriters. Its interest has been
heightened in our day by the fuller knowledge
brought us by archax)logical research and the
study of comparative religion. Thus it is now more
clearly seen that Christianity, as Plieiderer said,
came as ' the rii)e fruit of ages of development in
a soil that was already prepared ' (Early VkrUtian
Conception of Christ, 19<J5, p. 152).
(1) Philosophy. — The early Fathers often spoke
of Greek philosophy as a rparapoffKev^ or -rpovaxbtia
for Christ. Plato, whose Timceus marks the trans-
ition from the poljtheism of early Greek ages to
monotheistic belief, exercised a profound influence
on religious thought and speculation during the
two or three centuries preceding our Saviours
birth ; and his teaching was still a living force,
although, when St. Paul visited Athens, 'its
Acropolis was stDl as full of idols as it could hold '
(Ac 17** [Gwatkin]). The Epicureans and Stoics
who encountered the Apostle on that occasion
(v.**) represented the two chief Schools of the
period ; and lx)th Schools, the one by the gentle
humanity of its teaching, the other "by its moral
earnestness, are justly regarded as having a place
in the preparation for the Christian faith. The
Stoic philosophy, with its watchwords ' Endure '
and 'Refrain,' was that with which the Roman
mind had most affinity ; and its great teacher
Seneca (t a.d. 65) commended self -discipline and
self-renunciation as the true healing of the dis-
eases of the soul, with a passion approaching that
of the Christian preacher (Dill, Roman Society,
298, 321 ; cf. TertuUian, de Anitna, xx : ' Seneca
sape noster : ...').
(2) Eeligion. — 'The world,' says Dill, 'was in
the throes of a religiotis revolution, and eagerly in
quest of some fresh vision of the Divine ' ; and he
has traced in his great work the rise and progress
of that 'moral and spiritual movement which was
setting steadily, and with growing momentum,
towards purer conceptions of God, of man's rela-
tions to Him, and of the Life to come' {op. cit., pp.
82, 585). The old Roman religion, which from the
Second Punic War had been falling into decay,
was revive<l by Augustus as the formal religion of
the State, but could not retard the progress of this
movement. People sought satisfaction for their
religious cravings and emotions in the rites and
mysteries of Eastern lands, which had little in
common with old Roman religious sentiment ;
especiallj" in the worship of Mithra, which, as
recent investigation has shown, contained a moral
element that made it a real help to a truer and
purer life, till in the light of the higher and more
efl'ectual help to sanctification held out in Christ
it too faded away and was forgotten.
(3) The Empire and social life. — The most signal
illustration of the historical preparation of the
GentUe world for Christ is seen in the vast extent
and wonderful cohesion of the Roman Empire.
Its political unity, though not of such a nature as
to lead in any marked degree to the recognition
of human brotherhood, yet materially heli>ed the
diflusion of the message of the Cross and the
Resurrection which made men conscious of a new
fellowship wi"th each other. Communication be-
tween the Imperial city and her officials at a dis-
tance was easy and rapid : sandj- wastes, trackless
mountains, and broad rivers presenting no barriers
which she had not been able to overcome. The
subject peoples enjoyed imder the Romans peace,
prosperity, and freedom ; and ' just and upright
448
GENTILES
GENTILES
governors were the rule and not the exception '
(Dill, p. 3). The good treatment which St. Paul
received from Roman officials has often been com-
mented upon ; less frequently has it been noted
that his missionary journeys were never impeded
by military movements or interrupted by an out-
break of hostilities in any part of the Empire.
As to the state of society in Kome and the pro-
vinces, attention has been so concentrated ujion its
darker side, that what there was in it of ' virtue
and praise' (Ph 4^) has been unduly lost sight of.
The lines of Arnold's well-known poem {Obermann
Once More), in which he depicts the ennui, hardness,
and impiety of the old Roman world (cf. Seneca,
de Brcv. Vit. xvi. ' tarde ire horas queruntur . . .
transilire diesvolunt'), are oftener quoted than those
in which he also does justice to the sense of void and
unslaked thirst which led it to the gospel whereby
hope lived again. The intense indignation at cor-
ruption and baseness that barbs the pen of a
Juvenal or a Tacitus bears witness that in a con-
siderable part of society a high standjird of virtue
still existed. Roman inscriptions, though they
hold out no hope of a life beyond, testify to the
aliectionate regai'd in which family life was held.
Household slavery had its compensations : masters
often treated their slaves as humble friends, and
felt that they had a moral duty towards them apart
from the legal conventions of Rome (for instances,
see Dill, p. 181 f.). Many manumitted slaves rose
to honourable positions in the service of the State
(ib. p. 100). Still another kind of preparation for
Christianity is found in the institution of the
sodalitia or collegia, which were ' nurseries . . .
of the gentle charities and brotherliness ' which
' the young Church ' was able to teach with greater
etlect and with more Divine sanctions (ib. p. 271).
Enough has been said to indicate the moral re-
sources that lay still undeveloped in Roman society,
waiting to be changed into the spiritual wealth of
the Kingdom of God (Is 60'- '^ RV).
5. The Gentile mission. — The call of Jesus, • Lift
up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are
wliite already unto harvest ' ( Jn 4^^ ; cf. Mt 9^''- ^),
was not addressed to the disciples with reference
to the coming to Him of the men of Sychar only.
It had a wider bearing. At the great harvest
festival of Pentecost, which followed the forty days
during wliich He had manifested Himself to them
as the Risen Lord, the Twelve made their first
day's ingathering of about 3,000 souls ; and it was
clearly foreshown to them by word and sign that
those that were far oft' were to be made nigh (Ac
23.5.11.17.39), We should have expected that the
apostles, after having been so amply endowed and
encouraged for the work of 'making disciples of
all the nations,' would have proceeded to adopt
measures for entering upon that work. Their
delay in undertaking the Gentile mission has been
accounted for on the ground tliat the giving witness
at .Jerusalem of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and the piloting of the newly launched vessel of
the Church, engrossed their attention. But when
we study carefully the history of how the Gentile
mission was started, we perceive that the Twelve,
bold and resolute as the Spirit of Jesus had made
them in the face of Jewish opposition, were far
from being well qualified for immediately under-
taking it. Their question at the Ascension (Ac 1*)
showed that they did not share the wide outlook
of Jesus ; their mental horizon was still limited by
their national feelings. They had, as the event
proved, to count but loss much that at present ap-
peared gain to them, before they could go out into
the world and build a Church in which there
should be no middle wall of partition. The terms
on which Gentiles were to be received had not been
explicitly laid down by Jesus in His parting com-
mission : that He had given the apostles other
important directions besides those M'hich are re-
corded is an idea that we cannot entertain. Ho
had made them fully acquainted with the nature
of the work to be done, and had promised them
the guidance of His Spirit. But the guidance of
tlie Holy Spirit was not intended to sui)ersede the
use of their own understanding, or the knowledge
that they were to gather from the teaching of
events, as to the practical form which this new
departure shoukl take.
This is best illustrated by the case of Peter.
The first thing that seeins to have shaken his Jew-
ish prejudices was the sight of what tiie grace of
God efl'ected among the Samaritans through the
gospel (Ac 8"'") ; the next, the miraculous conver-
sion of Saul the persecutor (9-'' ^). We may con-
jecture that to have time for meditation upon what
the latter event meant for the Church was one
purpose of Peter's residence at Joppa ; and there,
while he gazed from the house-top over the waters
of the Mediterranean, he received his singular
vision, and heard the Voice that interpreted it,
' What God hath cleansed, that call not thou com-
mon.' But, having baptized Cornelius and other
Gentiles, he did not proceed a step further in the
direction pointed out by the Voice wiiich he had
heard ; the discouraging reception which his admit-
ting a Gentile met with at Jerusalem may i)artly
explain this. Philip the evangelist's baptism of a
Gentile had preceded Peter's ; we cannot help won-
dering whether some connecting link existed be-
tween Peter's visit to Cornelius of Coisarea and
Philip's residence there (Ac 8^"*" 21*).
As far as we can make out, it was not till eight
years after Peter's vision that some unknown
Cypriote and Cyrenian Jews of the Dispersion took
the momentous step of ' preaching the Lord Jesus'
to the Gentiles at Antioch (Ac 11-", where "EXXijvaj
is the true reading). The Gentile mission is thus
for ever bound up with the veiy name of ' Chris-
tians'; for 'the disciples were called Christians
lirst in Antioch ' (11-*). We hear the decisive hour
of this mission strike in Ac 13'"* : these four verses
are among the most important that St. Luke ever
M'rote.
The work in ' the third city of the Empire' had
been greatly blessed. The question was, Could it
be extended ? Ought the Christians of Antioch to
make a serious etlbrt to propagate the gospel in
the lands beyond Syria, in Asia Minor and the
islands ? Barnabas and Saul were well aware that
the Lord designed them for a wider mission than
that in which they were now engaged ; had the time
for it arrived? They referred the matter to the
congregation, hoping that an expression of tiie
Divine will would be given through one of their
gifted prophets. This hope was fulfilled. The
Holy Ghost said : • Separate unto me Barnabas
and Saul for the Avork whereunto I have called
them.' The way was then clear ; uncertainty was
at an end. Another meeting of the congregation
was held, probably on the next Lord's day, at
which, with fasting and prayer, and by ' the laying
on of hands ' — the already ' familiar and expres-
sive sign of benediction' — the two apostles were
solemnly set apart for the mission ; and, having been
' let go, or ' bidden God speed,' by the whole con-
gregation (airiXvaav ; Ramsaj", St. Piiul, p. 67), they
immediately set forth on their new enterprise.
' So they, "being sent forth by the Holy Ghost,
went down to Seleucia, and from thence they sailed
to Cyprus' (Barnabas's island, to which he would
naturally feel that niissionarv work was first of all
due). The Creator-Spirit, who with His Divine
breath called the Church into being at Pentecost,
thus proclaimed Himself to be tlio Author of
missions and the Patron of missionaries, signifying
GENTLENESS
GIFTS
449
that their work of showing the things of Christ to
all the nations upon earth was His work, and
making their preaching of them effectual unto
salvation in every part of the Empire. After this,
St. Lukes principal object is to describe the
triumphant progress of the gospel from Antioch to
Rome.
It does not fall within the scope of this article to
trace the liistory of the attempt made by a large
section of the adherents of Judaistic Christianity
to obstruct and even to ^vreck the Gentile mission.
Before St. Paul's missionary labours were ended, it
was evident that this attempt had completely failed.
The energetic remonstrance which he had addressed
to St. Peter at Antioch on his withdraving himself
from table-fellowship with the Gentiles, and of
which we may infer from 1 Co 3— that St. Peter had
acknowledged the justice, probably had an import-
ant effect in settling the question of Gentile rights.
Fourteen or fifteen years later, St. Paul had the
happiness of testifying to what his eyes had seen
of ' the mystery of God * now revealed, ' that the
Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of
the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in
Christ Jesus through the gospel ' (Eph 3*). While
Gentile Christianity increased, Judaistic Christian-
ity decreased, and, after losing its local centre at
Jerusalem, it became ' the shadow of a shade.' In
the striking words of Gnthe (EBi 23^1), * When
Ciiristianity and Judaism gradually separated, it
was as if a mighty river had changed its bed : a
feeble current still crept along the old channel, but
the main, the perennial stream flowed elsewhere.'
(For the cotintries in which the GentUe mission
had gained a footing before the close of the Apos-
tolic Age, see Gwatkin, Early Church Hist. i. 113.)
LrmtATCRK. — ^J. Adam, The Rel. Teachers of Greece, Edin-
burgh, 1908, pp. 2, 298, 373, The Vitality of PUUonigm, Cam-
bridsre, 1911, pp. 179, 136, 228; W. H. Bennett, EBi 1679 fC;
A. Bonns, DCG L 641 f. ; F. C. Bnrkitt, The Gospel History
and its Transmission, £dinbaisfa, 1906, p. 188 ; S. DtU, Roman
Society from Nero to Marcus Aurdius, London, 19(H ; S. R.
Driver, Joel and Amos, Cambridge, 1897, p. 223 ; EzpT xx.
[1908-09] 304 ; A. E. Garvie, HDB ▼. 32S ; Grimm-Thayer,
s.m. tffwK, Anos ; H. Gnthe, EBi 23TI ; H. M . Gwatkin, EaHy
Church Historv to AD. SIS, London, 1909, L 1-114 ; A. Harnack,
Expansion ofChriHianity, Eng. tr., do. 1904-05, i. 1-85, The Act*
of the AposUes, do. 1909, pp. xxx, 51, Date of the Acts, do. 1911,
pp. 124, 128; W. J. Henderson, DCG ii. 193; E. G. Hirscb,
JB V. 615 ff. ; F. J. A. Hort, JndaisUe Christianity, Oambri<^
and London, 1S&4, p. 35; J. Kelman, DCG ii. 296ff. ; R. H.
Kennett. The 'Servant of the Lord,' London, 1911, pp. U-28,
55 ; E. Koaig, ' The Consommation of the OT in Jesos Christ,'
Expositor, 8th aer., iv. [1912] 1, 97 ; A- C McGifFert, ERE L
62«ff. ; J. Orr, HDB ii. 850fl. ; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the
TraxeOer, London, 1895, p. 67, and ' llie Thought of Paul,' Ex-
positor, 8th ser., ii. [1911] 289 ff. ; J. Reid, DCG iL 194; H.
Schnhz, OT Theoloov, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1892, iL 13, 373 ;
J. A. Selbie, HDB ii. 149 ; H. Sidgwick, History of Ethics,
London, lsS6, pp. 96, 9S ; J. Skinner, Isaiah, Cambridsre, 1896-
OS, ii. -230 ; W. R. Smith, EBi iiL 3063 ; H. B. Swete, The Holy
Spirit in the ST, London, 1909, pp. 78, 104 ; T. Zahn, Introd.
to ST, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1909, L 373.
James Donald.
GENTLENESS.— See Meekness.
GHOST — See Holy Spirit.
GIDEON {Tcdediv). — Gideon was a man of valour
who, according to Jg 6-8, received a visit from
Jahweh's messenger, overturned the altar of Baal,
saved Israel from the hand of Midian, chastised
the men of Succoth, and finally refused a crown.
He is merely named in Hebrews ( 1 1*^) among the
ancients who Avronght great deeds by faith, time
failing the author to recount the achievements of
all his heroes. James Strahan.
GIFTS. — We may distinguish for the purpose of
this article between gifts and giving generally,
and the particular endowments which are connoted
by the term xapt<''A'«Ta> translated in AV and RV
' gifts.'
VOL. I. — 29
1. General. — It is clear that in the Apostolic
Age the Church had learnt the implications of the
fact of the Incarnation. From the literature of
the time we note the connexion between the gift
of Giod's grace in Christ, the 'unspeakable gift'
(2 Co 9^'), and the ethical practice of Christ's
followers. The Greek verbs SLSufii and dupio/uu.
are hallowed by new associations and duties to-
which both the theology and ethic of Christianity
give notable contributions. Specific deeds of
charity and kindness (see Alms) enter naturally,
as the result of our Lord's teaching, into Christian
practice (see art. Chkistian Life for the appoint-
ment of deacons and systematic giving in the
Church). The generosity of Stephanas (1 Co 16**),
which impelled him at his own expense to journey
to the Apostle with Fortunatus and Achaicus (his-
slaves), is singled out by St. Paul for special men-
tion, as setting forth a new duty to the Church on
the lines of the old Greek Xeirovpyla or service done
to the State. The same Epistle (1 Co 16*) empha-
sizes the duty of the Christian community in the'
matter of the collection {q.v.) : St. Paul insists on-
the duty of supporting not only the Church and
its ministry but also poorer churches at a distance
(2 Co 8*"* '9^'") and of supplying a portion for
the communion-meal, while nis eulogy of cheer-
ful giving (2 Co 9') in general sets the standard
and model of Christian liberality and of systematic
gifts to spiritual objects, to the support of the
poor and helpless (cf. Aristides, Apol. xv. ), as well
as to the furtherance of the gospel. Philanthropy
is bound up with the Christian life and can never
be dissociated from it.
The group of words translated ' gift ' {SQpor, duped,
86fta, 86<ris, Suprj/ui) forms an interesting study,
upon which see note on Ja 1^ in J. B. Mayors
Commentary (* London, 1910). Supnuia (Ja 1", Bo-
s'*) is used of a gift of God, and so is bupea. wher-
ever we find it in the XT ; 8u>pow is used of offer-
ings to God ; 56.ua (except in Eph 4*, a quotation
from LXX) is used of human gifts ; while blxns
may refer to either a human or a Divine gift.
The use of Swped as the * free gift ' of God, spring-
ing from His x<ip«> or ' grace,' is found in Ac 2" 8*
10** 11", Ro 5»5- ", 2 Co 9**, Eph Z* 4', He 6*, and
is also used by apostolic writers like Clement (cf.
1 Clem. xix. 2, xxiiL 2, xxxiL 1) and Ignatius
(Smyrn. vii. 1).
Christ is pre-eminently the gift of God's volun-
tary favour to the race, and is at once the type
and source, along with the Holy Spirit, of all"
spiritual impartations and endowments. It re-
mains to add that all gifts of love are gifts to God
in the apostolic teacMng. Gifts of the sacrificial
order are mentioned by the author of Heb. in con-
nexion with the Jewish priesthood only to be ele-
vated into the region of Christian thought and to
be liberated from the extemalism and legalism of
the Mosaic system. The gifts of the one High
Priest, 'the mediator of a better covenant,' are
inward ; the new law is written on the heart, and
the covenant is one of forgiveness and grace
(He 5* 8*"-). Like\^-ise, the approach to God by
the believer is ' a new and living way ' in that it
is by the medium of the soul and conscience, un-
accompanied by outward gift or sacrifice, except
that, like his Lord, the believer offers himself, at
rather his body (cf. Ro 12*). This is the fotmda-
rion of all gi^'ing, as St. Paul hints in 2 Co 8', the
giving up of self to God being the act that hallows
all other gifts. The sanctions of Christian mag-
nanimity, practical sympathy, and liberality are
rooted in Christian doctrine, and especially its
doctrine of God as the eternal love eternally im-
parting itself and historically manifest in the gift
of His Son. The grace of God and His kindness
{(piXapepwria) have both appeared (Tit 2" 3^; ; and
450
GIFTS
GIFTS
the Apostle asks elsewhere * shall he not with him
also freely give (x^-plfferai) us all tilings?' (Ro S''-).
2. Special. — The quotation last given reminds
us that xap'O'Attt ('charism'), formed from the verb
Xaplj^ofiai, means a ' free gift,' not of right but of
bounty. Unlike duptd, which has a similar mean-
ing, x'ip'<''Ma comes to be used almost in a technical
sense in Christian terminology, of gifts or qualifi-
cations for spiritual service. F. J. A. Hort(rAc
Christian Ecclesia, London, 1897, p. 153 f.) thus
defines xa/«<''Ma as used by St. Paul and by one
other writer only in the NT, namely St. Peter :
' In these instances it is used to designate either what we
call " natural advantages " independent of any human process
of acquisition, or advantages freshly received in the course
of Providence ; both alike being regarded as so many various
free gifts from the Lord of men, and as designed by llim to be
distinctive qualifications for rendering distinctive 'services to
men or to communities of men.'
Even in the passages in the Pastoral Epistles
which refer to the charism of Timothy (1 Ti 4^^,
2 Ti 1*) Hort does not regard the specific gift of
the young Apostle as a supernatural endowment
suddenly or oy miraculous means vouchsafed for
a special mission or service : ' it was a special gift
of God, a special fitness bestowed by Him to en-
able Timothy to fulfil a distinctive function' (p.
185) ; but also an original gift, capable of being
wakened into fresh life * by his own initiative ; it
was so distinctive as to mark Timothy out as a
fit colleague of St. Paul himself, the htness being
authenticated to the Apostle by a prophetic oracle
or message, and consecrated by a solemn act of
benediction — the laying on of the hands of the
body of elders. Schmiedel (EBi, s.v. 'Spiritual
Gifts ') distinguishes between the non-technical
use of x«/"<''M« ill such pas.sages as Ro S^'^ (where
the term means ' the whole aggregate of God's
benevolent operation in the universe ' ; cf. Ro 1"
g23 1129^ 2 Co P'), and its technical use elsewhere,
where ' charism ' and ' charisms ' denote distinc-
tive aptitudes on the part of Christians ; cf. Ro 12^
(where ' tlie grace of God ' is mentioned as the
source of the several capacities designated), 1 Co T
124. 9. 28. 31^ 1 p 4io_ In the great passage of Eph 4"
(with which Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph. xxxix.
is to be read) the term x'^P^'^f^"- is not mentioned,
but it is implied in the words ' He gave ' (avrbs
IduKev) with which the specihcation of functions or
services commences. The term is not found in the
Apostolic Fathers ; in the Did. i. 5 it is used only
once, and then of temporal blessings in the general
sense.
The locus classicus for charisms is 1 Co 12*''^ ^^d
V.28, which has to be studied along with Eph 4".
The latter, which specilies the ministries of apostles,
prophets (see Prophecy, Prophet), evangelists,
pastors, and teachers, indicates the types of Chris-
tian service which tended to become permanent in
the life of the Church. The Corinthian passage,
on the other hand, in addition to the more stable
and authorized modes of ministry, mentions several
others of a special order, perhaps peculiar to the
Corinthian Church with its exuberant manifesta-
tions of spiritual energy, and certainly, as the
evidence of later Church history shows, of a
temporary character, and exhausting themselves
(cf. H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the NT,
London, 1909, p. 320) in the Apostolic or sub-
Apostolic Age. The Apostle mentions ' diversities
of gifts,' 'diversities of ministrations' (diaKoviwu),
and 'diversities of workings' (ivepyr)/j.dTO)v) ; these
are but diflerent aspects of the same function ; but,
whereas the two last are approi)riately related to
the Lord Christ and God the Father, xaptCAiaTa are
regarded as the graces bestowed by the Holy Spirit
* Cf. 1 Co 1231, where the two-fold idea of the Divine oriain of
charisms and the necessity of human effort to attain them is
suggested.
(cf. a similar three-fold relationship with the three
Persons of the Trinity in Eph 4*). St. Paul
mentions, first, charisms of the intellectual order,
' the word of wisdom ' and ' the word of knowledge' ;
second, miraculous gifts: (a) 'faith,' (b) 'gifts of
healing,' (c) 'workings of miracles'; third, 'pro-
phecy,' or the gift of spiritual instruction ; fourth,
' discerning of si)irits,' or the gift of discrimination,
the discerning between the true and the false ;
and finally, ' tongues ' and ' the interpretation of
tongues ' (see Tongues), or ecstatic powers and the
power of interpreting them. Then in 1 Co 12-* we
have the following classification : ' God hath set
some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets,
thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of^ heal-
ings, helps (dcrtX^/x^eis), governments (Kv^epvifaui,
literally * pilotings '), divers kinds of tongues ' ; this
is a classification of charisms in order of spiritual
rank and dignity. It has l>een suggested that
'helps' and 'governments' indicate the services
rendered respectively by ' deacons ' and ' bishops,'
in which case we have here ' the faint beginnings
of the separation of offices ' (T. C. Edwards, Com.
on 1 Cor.^, London, 1885, in loc). The absence
of any reference to officials later designated as
' bishops,' ' presbyters,' ' deacons,* ' pastors ' (in
Eph 4"), suggests a rudimentary church organiza-
tion, or rather a purely democratic government in
the Christian community at Corinth ; and it may
be that the profusion of services and functions witlx
the accompanying perils of spiritual pride and dis-
order suggested to the Apostle the necessity of the
more disciplined and edifying forms of service and
administration which afterwards prevailed in the
apostolic churches. In fact, this is the burden of
the Apostle's teaching in 1 Co 14, following on the
exhortation to ' covet earnestly "the greater char-
isms'" (1 Co 12=*i), and the noble hymn (1 Co 13)
which sets forth love as 'a still more excellent
way ' in that it transcends all the x^p^MiTa and
is the real foundation of the Church. It is love
that is to regulate the use of tiie spiritual gifts,
inasmuch as under its influence the individual will
subordinate himself to another, will avoid ostenta-
tion and self-advertisement, and will do all thin;,'s
' decently and in order ' — that is, he will keep his
own place and exercise his particular functions, so
that unity may be attained in variety, and each
several capacity may be subordinated to the good,
of the Church as a whole.
As to the meaning and nature of the charisms,
guidance must be sought in the particular articles
which deal specifically with them ; nor can we
enter into a detailed examination of the problems
which such a classification as 'faith,' 'gifts of
healing,' ' workings of miracles ' creates. Suffice
it to say that, though love is the charism par ex-
cellence, the fount and source of all others, faith is
second only to it in the order of ethical dignity.
It is a charism out of which spring others described
in 1 Co 12» as 'charisms of healing,' where the
l)lural appears to indicate diflerent powers for
healing diflerent forms of disease, and 'workings
of powers or miracles.' The relation of faith and
its offspring prayer to healing and miracles gener-
ally is clearly seen in the Gospels which record our
Lord's cures and in His declaration that faitii is
the sole condition of miracle-working (cf. Mt 17''",
INIk 1128-24) ; while the use of physical means such
as oil (see the notable passage in Ja 5") in com-
bination with prayer is paralleled not only by our
Lord's method, but by the method employed by
the Twelve in Mk 6'*. The charisms of miracle-
working lasted down to the 2nd cent., if we may
trust the evidence of Justin Martyr (Apol. ii. 6) ;
they never were intended, as the extreme faith-
healer of to-day contends, to supersede the eflbrts
of the skilled physician ; they represent the creative
GIFTS
gift, the power of initiating new departures in the
normal world of phenomena, which is rooted in
faith (see A. G. Hogg, Christ's Message of the
Kingdom, Edinburgh, 1911, Dp. 62-70) ; and as such
reveal a principle Mhich holds good for all time.
To sum up, an examination of the passages in
apostolic literature which treat of spiritual gifts
inevitably brings us to the conclusion that the life
■of the early Church was characterized by glowing
enthusiasm, simple faith, and intensity of spLritnal
joy and wonder, all resulting from the consciousness
of the power of the Holy Spirit; also that this
phase of Splrit-eflected ministries and ser\'ices was
temporary, as such ' tides of the Spirit ' have since
often proved, and gave wa]^ to a more rigid and
•disciplmed Church Order, in which the official
tended more and more to supersede the charismatic
ministries. At first, as E. v. Dobschiitz remarks
{Christian Life in the Primitive Church, Eng. tr.,
London, 1904, p. 283), this strikes us as ' a limita-
tion and a moral retrogression ' ; but on reflexion
we see that while the principle of spiritual gifts as
originating in the individual with the immediate
Action of the Holy Spirit is a permanent truth for
the Christian consciousness, the transient character
of many of the charismatic gifts is due largely to
the abuses to which they were liable. The growing
ethical standard of the Church rejected all self-
chosen teachers or ministers who were proved by
the test of character to be without a Divine calf.
By their fruits they were known; and the x<^^f^>
which, however admirable in itself, was not associ-
ated with personal worth and holy influence, could
not in the nature of things be recognized as making
for editication and order in the Church life. The
particular injunctions in the Pastoral Epistles as
to the character of bishops and deacons point to a
developing sense of Christian fitness in the official
life of the Church and a growing feeling for the
honour of Christianity. Thus, sooner or later, the
true charismatic was sifted from the false charis-
matic, whose personal vanity and self-seeking
nullified all usefulness. The increase of discipline
of course had its own perils. Sometimes, as in
Jn 3, we detect the narrow intolerance which re-
sented any new influence or development in the
Church liie, Diotrephes being a type of mind
which is ecclesiastically conser\-ative and ' so loses
impulses of the greatest value' (E. v. Dobschiitz,
op. cit., p. 221 f.). To Diotrephes the Ephesian
John is a charismatic itinerant preacher, whose
letters must be withheld from tne Church and
whose messengers must not be welcomed. Here
-we see the seed of conflict, which was afterwards
to germinate into the Montanist controversy. But
the authority of St. Paul determined once for all
the inner character of Christian community life.
His symbol of the single bodj- with many members
<Ro 12^, 1 Co 12^-'-'^) shows that he aimed at a unity
in which the vsdtness of the individual should have
free play and yet be subordinated to the welfare
of the community. The Christian Church gave
full scope to the individual x<i/"<''A'a ; nevertheless,
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit the impulse
towards association, so far from being overpowered,
was most powerfully intensified by the encourage-
ment which St. Paul (cf. Hamack, Mission and Ex-
pansion, Eng. tr.*, i. 433) gave to the development
of spiritual capacitj' in the indiHdual. While
pointing to errors of unregulated spiritual enthusi-
asm, he none the less pleads mth his converts to
* quench not the Spirit' and ' despise not prophesy-
ings'dThoi*).
LiTERATUKB. — On the general subject of Christian giring^ the
following works may be consulted: G. Uhlhorn, Chrittian
Charity in the Ancient Church, Eng. tr., Edinbui^h, 1883 ; A.
Haniack, Misaitm and Expansion '•/ Chrittianity , Elng. tr.-,
London, 19CI«, vol. i. ch. 4. For spiritual srifts (xopwrMara), in
■addition to the works quoted above, the following authorities
GLORY
451
may be consulted : R. Sohm, Kirehenrteht, Leipzig, 1882 ; H.
Weinel, Die Wirkungen de* Geittet, Freiburgr L B., 1889 ; H.
Gankel. Die Wirkungm detHeUigen GtitUifi, Gdttingen, 1909 ;
T. M. Lindsay, The Church and Ute MiniHry in the Early
Centwriefi, London, 1903; together with »rtt. by Cremer on
'Geistesgkben ' in PRE^ (Leipsig, 180^ and Gayford in HDB
on 'Church.' ^ MaKTIX POPE.
GIRDLE.— The references to girdle (fcinj), the
article itself being either expressed or implied,
admit of a three-fold classification : (1) The girdle
in everyday use, which (a) was put on before one
went forth (Ac 12*), and (6) was laid aside indoors
(Ac 21"). From the fact that such a girdle could
be used to bind hands and feet, we may infer that
it was of soft material, such as linen. (2) The
girdle as an article of military wear, which enters
into the metaphor of Eph 6"*-. This transfers
us to quite another environment, and to a girdle
whose materials were stiSer, e.g. leather or metal,
or a combination of these. Presumably (1) and
(2) were worn upon the loins, and their use was
such as to give rise to the figure of speech which is
found in 1 P 1^' (cf. Lk 12**), viz. girding up the
loins (of the mind). (3) The girdle in its orna-
mental aspect, as appearing in Rev 1^ 15*. The
epithet 'golden' is to be taken as applicable to
cloth and not metal, i.e. the gold was inv\Tonght
in a girdle of linen material (cf. Dn 10*, a similar
passage, where 'pure gold of Uphaz' [Heb.] is
rendered ^maiixp in LXX). A noteworthy difl"er-
ence emerges in the location of the girdle, loins
(Dan.) being replaced by breasts in Rev. (xpd$ rdis
fiaurrois [1"], Trepi t4 trr^dri [15*]). The girdle is
thus an ' upper ' girdle, and is suggestive of Greek
and Roman custom. See also the description in
Josephus, Ant. m. vii. 2. Cf. art. ApROX.
W. Cruickshaxk.
GLASS.— See House, Mikeor, Sea of Glass.
GLORT. — It is not proposed to embrace in this
article all the words which our English versions
render by ' glory ' ; it is confined to the most im-
portant of these— Sdfo.
As applied to men and things, So^a has two
principal meanings : (1) honour, praise, good repute
(2 Co 68, I Th 2«) ; (2) that which by exciting
admiration brings honour or renown ; a natural
perfection (1 P 1** : ' the glory of flesh ' ; 1 Co
J540. 41. ' glory of the celestial . . . the terrestrial,'
etc. ; 1 Co 11^ : ' long hair is a glory to a woman ') ;
or a circumstance which reflects glory upon one
(1 Th 2^ : St. Paul's converts are a ' glory ' to him ;
Eph 3" : St. Paul's suflerings are a ' glory ' to his
converts ; 2 Co 8** : worthy Christians are the ' ^lory '
of Christ ; Rev 21**- ^ : the kings of the eartli and
the nations bring their ' glory ' into the New Jeru-
salem. Cf. Hag 2'-3).
Minor significations are (a) that which is falsely
regarded as bringing honour to oneself (Ph 3^),
and (6) persons endued with glory (Jude*, 2 P 2'*=
' dignities ' in both AV and RY, the reference prob-
ably being to angelic powers).
I In the numerous and important passages where
! the idea of ' glory ' is associated with God and the
i heavenly world, with Christ, Christians, and the
j Christian life here and hereafter, we find the same
i two principal meanings. There is the glory which
belongs to the Divine Being in itself, in which
! God manifests Himself to His creatures, so far as
such manifestation is possible, and the glory which
He receives back from His creatures ; the out-
shining (Erscheinungsform) of the Divine nature,
and the reflexion ot that outshining in the trust,
adoration, and thanksgiving of men and angels, as
also in the silent testimony of His works, and
especially by the results of the Divine redemption
in the character and destiny of the redeemed.
I. 1. The glory vhich isnatiye to the Being of
452
GLORY
GLORY
God. — To the modem mind the chief difficulty of
this conception, as presented in the NT, is due to
that fusion in it of the physical, the rational, and
the ethical, -which is characteristic of biblical
psychology throughout. In biblical thought these
elements are conceived not abstractly, as if con-
stituting separate spheres of being, but as they are
given in experience, as inter-dependent and integral
to tlie unity of life. Thus, whatever ethical con-
tent comes to be associated with the Glory of God,
the basis of the conception is physical — the splen-
dour which is inseparable from the Divine Presence
in tlie celestial world. In the OT, when Jahweh
lifts the veil that hides Him from mortal eyes, the
medium of theophany is always Light, a supra-
mundane but actually visible radiance (whicli is
localized and assumes a definite uniformity in the
Shekinah-glory).
For later Judaistic developments, see Weber's JMische Theo-
logic, ]>p. 162 ff., 275 ff. In apocalyptic the ' glory ' is definitely
associated with the sovereignty of Qod in tlie heavenly world
(1 En. XXV. 3), and is especially connected with the Divine
Throne (ib. ix. 4, xiv. 20). In the Ateengion of Igaiah (x. 16,
xi. 32) it is equivalent to the Person of God ; God is 17 fieyoAT)
6ofa. Sofa in this sense of ' radiance ' is unknown to ordinary
Greek literature. Deissniann's suggestion, that this may have
been an ancient meaning which survived in the vernacular and
so passed into the dialect of the LXX, seems more probable
than Reitzenstein's, who, on the ground of certain magical
papyri, claims for it an origin in Egyptian-Hellenistic mysticism.
In the NT the same idea lies behind the use of
the concept b6^a. AVherever the celestial world is
projected into the terrestrial, it is in a radiance of
supernatural light (Mt 17», Ac 26'^^ Mt 283, Ac 127,
etc.); and this is ultimately the radiance that
emanates from the presence of God, who dwells in
'light unapproachable' (1 Ti 6i«). To this the
term 5(5fa is frequently applied — at Betlilehem
(Lk 28), and at the Transfiguration (2 P 1") ; the
' glory ' of God is the liglit of the New Jerusalem ;
Stephen looking up saw the ' glory of God ' (Ac 7^*) ;
and the redeemed are at last presented faultless
before the presence of His glory ( Jude ^ ; cf. i En.
xxxix. 12).
With St. Paul the conception is less pictorial ;
the rational and ethical elements implicit in it
come clearly into view. With him also the 56^a is
fundamentally associated with the idea of celestial
splendour, to which, indeed, his vision of the glori-
fied Christ gave a new and vivid reality ; but tlie
idea of revelation, of the Glory as God's self-
manifestation, becomes prominent. St. Paul's
thought does not rest in tlie symbol, but passes
to the reality which it signifies — the transcendent
majesty and sovereignty that belong to God as
God ; and for St. Paul the most sovereign thing in
God, divinest in the Divine, is the sacrificial sin-
bearing love revealed in the Cross. God's glory is
displayed in His mercy (Ro 9-^), in the ' grace
which he freely bestowed upon us in the Beloved '
(Eph 1*) ; its perfect living reflexion is in the face
of Jesus Christ (2 Co 4*). Yet it is the glory, not
of an ethical ideal, but of thelLiving God, God upon
the Throne, self-existent, supreme over all being.
It is especially associated Avith the Divine Kpdros
(Col 1", Eph 3'«) and irXoDros (Ro O^s, Ph 4'», Eph
3^®) by which the Apostle expresses the irresistible
sovereign power and the inexhaustible fullness of
God in His heavenly dominion. Believers are
' strengthened with all power, according to the Kpdroi
of his glory,' i.e. in a measure corresponding with
the illimitable spiritual power signified by the
glory which manifests the Divine King in His
supra-mundane Kingdom. Every need of oelievers
is supplied 'according to his riches in glory, in
Christ Jesus ' (Ph 4"*), i.e. according to the bound-
less resources which belong to God as Sovereign
of the spiritual universe, and are made available
through Christ as Mediator. Christ is raised from
the dead through 'the glory of the Father'
(Ro 6^). The precise sense of this expression has
not yet been elucidated (in Pss.-Sol. xi. 9 there is
what seems to be a parallel to it : dvaarriaai Kupios
Tbv 'l(Tpai]\ iv dv6/jMTi rrjs Sd^r/s airrov), but it would
seem tiiat the ' glory of the Father ' is practically
equivalent to the Kpdros, the sovereign act of Him
who is the ' Father of glorv ' (Eph 1"). To formu-
late is hazardous ; but perhajjs we may say that for
St. Paul the S6^a is the self-revelation of the tran-
scendent God, given through Christ, here to faith,
in the heavenly world to that more direct mode of
perce[)tion which we try to express by saying that
laith is changed to sight.
2. The Divine glory as communicated.— (a) As
originally given to man, it has been lost (Ro 3*^).
According to Rabbinic doctrine, when Adam was created in
the image of God, a ray (Vt) of the Divine glory shone upon his
countenance, but among the six things lost by the Fall wns the
VJ, which went back to heaven (Weber, JiidUche Theologie,
p. 222). At Sinai the VI was restored to the children of Israel,
but was immediately lost again by their unfaithfulness {ib. p.
275). There can be little doubt tliat this pictorial rendering of
spiritual truth lies behind the Apostle's peculiar mode of ex-
pressing the fact of man's universal failure to represent the
Divine ideal (see Sanday-Headlam in loc). The same allusion
may possibly serve to explain the obscure passage, 1 Co 117.
(6) But the departed glory is more than restored
in Christ, the second Adam, to whom as the Image
of God it belongs (2 Co 4^), who is the Lord of
Glory (1 Co 2"), and in whose face it shines forth
in the darkened hearts of men, as at the Creation
light first shone upon the face of the earth (2 Co
4'). Here the conception is emphatically ethical ;
it is above all the glory of Divine character that
shines from the face of Christ and in the hearts of
believers. Yet here again the glory is not that of
an ethical ideal merely ; it is the full, indivisible
glory of the Living God of which Christ is the
eflulgence (d7rai>yo(r/oca [He F]).
(c) By Christ as Mediator the Divine glory is
communicated, not only to believers, but to every
agency by which He acts: the Spirit (1 P 4'^, Epn
31*), the gospel (2 Co 4^ 1 Ti 1"), the ' mystery —
God's long-hidden secret, now revealed, the eternal
salvation of men by Christ (Col 1^). The whole
Christian dispensation is characterized by ' glory '
(2 Co 3''"'^). As the inferior and temporary nature
of the old dispensation is typified in the veiled and
fading splendour of Moses, its mediator, the per-
fection and permanence of the new are witnessed
in the unveiled and eternal glory of Christ, which
is reflected partly here, more fully hereafter, on
His people (a merely figurative interpretation is
excluded by the very terms eUuiv and 5<5f a). Their
transfiguration is in process — already the 'Spirit
of glory and the Spirit of God' rests upon them
(1 P A^*) ; at His appearing it will be consummated
(Ph ^'\ Jn 3=*).
(rf) In the majority of cases in which 'glory' is
predicated of Christ, of Christians, and of the en-
vironment of their life, the sense is distinctly
eschatological. The sufferings of Christ are con-
trasted with their after-glories (1 P I''-"); also
those of believers (1 P 4i», 2 Th 2", Ph 3"). As
already in Jewish eschatology, 5(ifa is a technical
term for the state of final salvation, the Heavenly
Messianic Kingdom in which Christ now lives and
Avhich is to be brought to men by His Parousia.
This is the 'coming glory' (Ro 8"*), 'about to be
revealed' (1 P 5'), the 'inheritance of God in his
saints' (Eph 1"*) unto which they are prepared
beforehand (Ro 9=8), called (1 P 5'"), led by Christ
(He 2'<') ; it is their unwithering crown (1 P 5"),
the manifestation of their true nature (Col 3*),
their emancipation from all evil limitations (Ro
8'^') ; in the iiope of it they rejoice (Ro 5-) ; for it
they are made meet by the indwelling of Christ
(Col r-"^) and by the discipline of the present (2 Co-
4").
GNOSTICISM
GNOSTICISM
453
II. — The second chief sense in which 'glory 'is
pretiicated of (Jod or Christ is that which may be
termed ascriptional in contrast with essential.
Passing over the strictly doxological passages, we
note that ' glory ' is given to God (or to Christ)
(a) by the character or conduct of men : by the
strength of their trust (Ro 4**), in eating, drinking,
and ^ that they do (1 Co 10*'), by thanksgiving
(2 Co 4"), brotherly charity (2 Co 8>»), the fruits
of righteousness (Ph 1"), repentance and confes-
sion of sin (Rev 16*) ; (b) by the results of God's
own saving work, the Exaltation of Christ (Ph 2"),
the faithful fulfilment of His promises in Christ
<2 Co 1*), the reception of both Jews and Gentiles
into the Church (Ro 15"), the predestination of
believers to the adoption of children (Eph 1*), the
whole accomplishment of that predestination, by
faith, the sealing of the Spirit, and final redemp-
tion (Eph 1"), by the marriage of the Lamb, the
final and eternal union of Christ with the re-
deemed, sanctified, and glorified Church (Rev 19').
LiTZRATniK.— There is, so Ur as known to the present writer,
no satisfactory monograph on the snbject, either in l&igliidi or
in German. W. Caspar!, Die Bedeutimgen der Worts^pe
133 im Hebraitehen, Leipzig, 190S, is not witboat valoe for the
student of the NT. H. A. A. Kennedy, St Pavft ConeeptMn
of the Last Things, London, 1904 ; P. VoU, Judiaeke Btehato-
iogie, Tubingen, 1903 ; F. Weber, Juditehe Theotogie"*, Leipzig,
1887 ; B. Weiss, BxbL TheoL of ST, Eng. tr.3, Edinburgh,
1882-S3, L 396, ii. 1S7; O. Pfleiderer, PauUnism, Eng. tr.,
London. 1S7T, i. 135. Conunentaries : Sanday-Headlkm (91903X
and Godet (1S«6-ST) on Bomaru ; Erich Hanpt, Die Gefangen-
iehaftsbri^fe', in ilever's KriL-Exeget. Kommentar, 1902; J.
B. Mayor' on James (31910X Jvde, wad Second Peter (1907);
artt. ' Glory ' in EDB. ROBEKT LAW.
GNOSTICISM. — Gnosticism (Gr. yvGxris, 'know-
ledge ') is the name of a syncretistic religion and
philosophy which flourished more or less for four
■centuries alongside Christianity, by which it was
considerably influenced, under which it sheltered,
by which at last it was overcome. Gnosis is first
Uied in the relevant specific sense in 1 Ti 6** : ypwau
\l/€iSiI}vi'fjios — 'science falsely so-called.' By Chris-
tian writers the word 'Gnostics' was at first
applied mainly to one branch : the Ophites or
!Naasenes (Hippol. Philos. v. 2 : ' Xaasenes who call
themselves Gnostics'; cf. Iren. L xL 1 ; Epiphan.
Hfer. xxvi.). But already in Irenseus the term
has a wider application to the whole movement.
Gnosticism rose to prominence early in the 2nd
cent, though it is much older than that, and reached
its height before the 3rd century. By the end of
the latter century it was waning.
The above description will require justification.
What may be termed the popular view of Gnosti-
cism has been to regard it as a growth out of
Christianity, an overdone theologizing on the part
of Christians, who under foreign influences simply
carried to extreme lengths what had been begun
by apostles. Meantime it may be said that, in the
view of the present writer, such a theory is an
entire misconception, and historically untenable.
Gnosticism and Christianity are two movements
originally quite independent, so much so that it
would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that, had
there been no Christianity, there could still have
been Gnosticism, in all essentials the Gnosticism
we know.
1. Authorities. — Of the vast literature produced
by Gnostics little has survived, and what has sur-
vived is almost entirely from the last stages of the
movement. We may mention as survivals Pistis
Sophia, the Coptic -Gnostic texts of the Codex
Brucianus, the two Books of Jeu, and an unnamed
third book described by C. Schmidt, 'Gnost. Schrift-
en in kopt. Sprache aus dem Codex Brucianus'
(TU viii. [ISSfe]). Then we know something of
works deeply tinged with Gnosticism, such as the
Acts of Thomas. But our chief sources of know-
ledge are the writings of those Fathers who oppose
Gnosticism, and who often give lengthy quotations
from Gnostic works. These fragments have been
carefully collected by Hilgenfeld in his Kctzer-
geschichte. Most important of the Fathers for our
purpose are Irenieus {adv. Ucer. L 4), Hippolytus
(Philosopkoumena), Clement of Alexandria {Stro-
mateis, Exeerpta ex Theodoto), Tertnllian (adv.
Marcionem, adv. Hermogenem, adv. Valentini-
anas), Epiphanius {PaTiarion).
2. Main features of Gnosticism. — Gnosticism has
often been described as a hopelessly tangled mass
of unintelligible fantastic speculations, the product
of imagination in unrestrained riot, irreducible
to order. In its various, and especially its later
forms, it shows a wealth of details which are
fantastic, but, if we do not lose ourselves in too
keen a search for minutiie, we shall fiind in it an
imposing and quite intelligible system. Prolxibly
Gnostics themselves regarded as unessential those
details which to us seem so fantastic (cf. Rainy,
Ancient Catholic Church, p. 119). Gnostic schools
generally were at one in holding a system the main
features of which were as foUows.
(1) A special revelation. — The word yrOais has
misled many into thinking that Gnosrics are essen-
tially those who prize intellectual knowledge as
superior to faith. By gnosis, however, we have to
tinderstand not knowledge g^ned by the use of the
intellect, but knowledge given in a special revela-
tion. Not greater intellectual power than the
Christians possessetl, but a fuller and better revela-
tion, was what the Gnostics claimed to have. They
took no personal credit for it ; it had been handed
down to them. Its author was Christ or one of
His apostles, or at least one of their friends. In
several cases they professed to be able to give the
history of its transmission. Thus Basilides claims
Glaukias, an interpreter of St. Peter {Strom, ^-ii. 17
[766], 106 f.), or Matthias (Hipp. vii. 20). Valen-
tinus claims Theodas, an acquaintance of St. Paul's
{Strom, loc. eit.). The Ophites claim Mariarane
and James (Hipp. t. 7). Or they appealed to a
secret tradition imparted to a few by Jesus Him-
self (so Irenseus frequently).
(2) Dualism. — This is the foundation principle of
all Gnostic systems, and from it all else foUows. In
the ancient world we meet two kinds of dualism,
one in Greek philosophy, the other in Eastern
religion. Greek dualism was between ipcuwonera.
and vovfieva, between the world of sense-appearance
and the realm of real being. The lower was but
a shadow of the higher ; still it Avas a copy of it.
I The contrast was not, to any great extent at least,
between the good and the evil, but between the
real and the empty, formless, unreal. Eastern dual-
ism, on the other hand, drew a sharp distinction be-
tween the world of light and the world of darkne^,
two eternal antagonistic principles in unceasing
conflict. In Gnosticism we have a primarily East-
em dualism combined with the Greek form. The
world of goodness and light is the Pleroma {' full-
ness '), i.e. the realm of reality in the Greek sense ;
the kingdom of evil and darkness is the Kenoma
( ' emptiness '), the phenomenal w orld of Greek philo-
sophy. Hence the Gnostic dualism comes to be
between God and matter, two eternal entities, and
the CXj; (* matter ') is essentially eviL
(3) Demiurge. — As the Gnosric surveyed the
world of matter, he found patent traces of law and
order ruling it. How did matter, in itself eril and
lawless, come to be so orderly ? The Gnostic took
the view of Nature which J. S. Mill took, and
argued that either the Creator was not all-good or
He was not aU-powerful. The Gnostic reasoned
that the world which with all its order is yet so
imperfect cannot be the work of God who is wholly
i good and all- wise ; it must be the production or
454
GNOSTICISM
GNOSTICISM
some far inferior being. The world, then, it was
taught, was the work of aDemiurce — a being distinct
from God. The character of this Demiurge was
variously conceived by ditterent schools ; some, e.g.
Cerinthus, made him a being simply ignorant of
the higliest God. The tendency became strong,
however, to make him hostile to God, an enemy of
Light and Truth (the blasphemia Creatoris). The
God of the Jews was identified with this Demiurge.
As to the origin of the Demiurge, some held him to
belong ab initio to the realm of evil. But the char-
acteristic view was that he was a much-removed em-
anation from the Pleroma. This theory of emana-
tions is a prominent feature of most of the systems,
and it is here that Gnosticism ran into those wild
fancies that to some make the whole system so
phantasmagoric. The view was that from God
there emanated a series of beings called 'i^ions,'
each step in the genealogy meaning a diminution
of purity ; and the Demiurge was the creation of
an Mon far down, indeed the very lowest in the
scale. Nature and human nature, then, are produc-
tions of a Demiurge either ignorant of, or positively
hostile to, the true God. While in a few schools
there was only one Demiurge, most spoke of seven
as concerned in cosmogony. The origin of this
is clear. The seven are the seven astronomical
deities of Perso- Babylonian religion. The fusion
of Persian and Babylonian views resulted in those
deities, originally beneficent, being conceived of
as evil (Orig. c. Cels. vi. 22; Zimmern, KA'P ii.
620 ff.).
(4) Eedemption. — Christian and Gnostic agree in
finding in this world goodness fettered and thwarted
by evil. They differ entirely in their conception of
the conflict. The familiar Christian view is that
into a world of perfect order and goodness a fallen
angel brought confusion and evil. The common
Gnostic view is that into a world of evil a fallen
JEon brought a spark of life and goodness. The
fall of this JEon is variously explained in different
systems, as due to weakness (the ^on furthest
from God was unable to maintain itself in the
Pleroma), or to a sinful passion which induced the
/Eon to plunge into the Kenoma. Howsoever the
/Eon fell, it is imprisoned in the Kenoma, and
longs for emancipation and return to the Pleroma.
With this longing the world of /Eons sympathizes,
and the most perfect yEon becomes a Redeemer.
The Saviour descends, and after innumerable suffer-
ings is able to lead back the fallen /Eon to the
Pleroma, where He unites with her in a spiritual
marriage. Redemption is thus primarily a cosmical
thing. But in redeeming the fallen JEon from
darkness, the Saviour has made possible a redemp-
tion of individual souls. To the Gnostic, the
initiated, the Saviour imparts clear knowledge of
the ideal world to be striven after, and prompts
him so to strive. The soul at all points, before and
after death, was opposed by hostile spirits, and a
great part of Gnostic teaching consisted in instruct-
ing the soul as to how those enemies could be over-
come. Here comes in the tangle of magico-mystical
teaching, so large an element of the later schools.
All sorts of rites, baptisms, stigmatizings, sealing,
piercing the ears, holy foods and drinks, etc., were
enjoined. It was important also to know the names
of the spirits, and the words by which they could
be mastered. Some systems taught a mmtitude
of such 'words of power'; in other systems one
master word was given, e.g. caulacau (Iren. i.
xxiv. 5).
(5) Christology. — Gnosticism in union with
Christianity identified its Saviour, of course, with
Jesus. As to the connexion see below. All Chris-
tianized Gnostics held a peculiar Christology.
Jesus was a pure Spirit, and it was abhorrent to
thought that He should come into close contact
with matter, the root of all evil. He had no true
body, then, but an appearance which He assumed
only to reveal Himself to the sensuous nature of
man. Some, like Cerinthus, held that the Saviour
united Himself with the man Jesus at the Baptism,
and left him again before the Death. Others held
that the body was a pure phantom. All agreed
that the Divine Saviour was neither born nor
capable of death. Such a view of Christ's Person
is Docetism, the antithesis of Ebionism.
(6) Anthropology. — Man is regarded as a micro-
cosm. His tripartite nature (some had only &
bipartism) — spirit, soul, body — reflects God, Demi-
urge, matter. There are also three classes of man-
kind— carnal (v\iKoi), psychic (\pvxi-Kol), spiritual
(irvevfiaTiKol). Heathen are hylic, Jews psychic,
and Christians spiritual. But within the Christian
religion itself tne same three classes are found ;
the majority are only psychic, the truly spiritual
are the Gnostics. They alone are the true Church.
(7) Eschatology. — While Gnostics alone were
certain of return to the Kingdom of Light, some
at least were disposed to think charitably of the
destiny of the psychics, Avho might attain a measure
of felicity. Gnostics denied a resurrection of the
body, as we should expect. The whole world of
matter was to be at last destroyed by fires spring-
ing from its own bosom.
(8) Old Testament. — While there existed a Juda-
istic Gnosticism, represented by Essenes, Gnostic
Ebionites, and Cerinthus (qq.v.), who with various
modifications accepted the OT, the great mass of
Gnostics were anti-Judaistic, and rejected the OT.
This followed logically from their identification of
the God of the Jews with the Demiurge, an ignor-
ant, and in some cases an evil, Being. No doubt
they found also some plausible support in Pauline
anti-legalism. We can see here what ground some
schools could have for making heroes of the char-
acters represented as wicked in the OT. If it was
inspired by an ignorant or wicked Being, truth
would be found by inverting its estimates.
Such in outline is Gnosticism as a system, though
schools varied in detail under every heading (cf.
Harnack, Dogmengeschichte ; P. A\ ernle, Begin-
nings of Christianity, Eng. tr., London, 1903-04 j
Schaff, Church History, ' xVnte - Nicene Christi-
anity').
(9) Gnostic cultus and ethic. — The full develop-
ment of these (as of the whole system), of course,
lies outside our period, but of the latter Ave see the
tendencies in the NT itself ; and it is desirable to
say something of the former, to make our sketch
of the main features of Gnosticism complete.
(a) As to ctdtxis. Gnosticism produced two oppo-
site movements which ai-e comparable with puri-
tanism and ritualism respectively. The abhorrence
of matter led some consistently to the utmost
simplicity of worship. Some rejected all sacrament*
and other outward means of grace, and the Prodi-
cians rejected even prayer (Epiphan. Ha;r. xxvi. j
Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 15 [304], vii. 7 [722]). On the
other hand, many groups, especially the ^lareosians,
went to the opposite extreme with a symbolic and
mystic pomp in worship. This, while inconsistent
with the Gnostic views of matter, is in line with
the ideas of magico-mj'stical salvation indicated
above. Sacraments were numerous, rites many
and varied. It seems clear that they led the way
in introducing features which became characteristic
of the Catholic Church. They were distinguished
as hymn-writers (Bardesanes, Ophites, Valentin-
ians). The Basilideans seem to have been the first
to celebrate the festival of Epiphany. The Simon-
ians and Carpocratians first used images of Christ
and others (see Church Histories of Schaft, Kurtz,
etc. ).
(6) The ethic also took two directions— one to-
GNOSTICIS>[
GNOSTICISM
455
wards an unbridled antinomianisni, the other to-
M'ards a gloomy asceticism. Antinoniian Gnostics
{e.g. Nicolaitans, Ophites) held that sensuality is to
be overcome by indulging it to exhaustion, and they
practised the foulest debaucheries. The Ascetics
{e.g. Satuminus, Tatian) abhorred matter, and
strove to avoid all contact 'with flesh as far as
possible. This let! them to forbid marriage and
indulgence in certain kinds of food. This ethic in
both branches is the unfailing outcome of the
primary dualism characteristic of Gnosticism.
Wherever dualistic notions are influential, we find
this twin development of antinomianisni and asceti-
cism. In the rsT we find both kinds of error
referred to (see below). It is to be remembered
that neither by itself is sufficient to indicate
Gnosticism. There are many sources conceivable,
for asceticism especially.
3. Origins. — The older view was that Gnostics are
Christian heretics, i.e. errorists \\-itliin the Church
who gradually diverged from normal Christianity,
uhder an impulse to make a philosophy of their
religion. To fill up the blanks of the Christian
revelation, they adopted heathen (mainly Greek)
speculations. Mosheim was among the first to
perceive that the roots of what is peculiar in Gnos-
ticism are to be sought in Eastern rather than in
Greek speculation. In recent times there has
taken place a thorough examination of all Gnostic
remains, and knowledge of Eastern speculation
has advanced. The result of the two-fold investi-
gation has been to show that Gnosticism is far
more closely in aflinity with Eastern thought than
had been imagined, not only in its deviations from
Christianity, but as a whole.
It is well known that the age with which we
deal wsis marked by nothing more strongly than
by its syncretism. All the faiths and philosophies
of the world met, and became fluid, so to say.
Strange combinations resulted, and were dissolved
again for lack of something round which they
might crystalli2e. Alike in philosophy and re-
ligion, attempts were made to establish by syn-
cretism a universal system out of the confusion.
Gnosticism owes its being to that syncretism. In
view of the lack of definite information, any
attempt to trace or reconstruct its actual historj-
mtist be made with diffidence. Probably we should
regard its primary impulse as philosophical rather
than religious. It was an answer to the problem.
Whence comes evil ? (Tert. de Prcesc. Ecer. vii. ;
Euseb. HE v. 27 ; Epiphan. Hcer. xxiv. 6). This
led to the other question. What is the origin of the
world ? Oriental thought identified the two ques-
tions. In the origin of the world was involved the
existence of exW. A full explanation of the one
included an explanation of the other.
In Perso-Ba by Ionian sj-ncretism, we take it,
Gnosticism has it^ primary root, and from that
alone many of its features may be plausibly derived.
To this is to be added some influence of Judaism.
There was a syncretistic Judaism of varied char-
acter. We know definitely of three forms : (1)
Essenic (see art. EssEXES)-; (2) Samaritan, which
had been going on for centuries B.C., and from
which sprang the system of Simon Magus (with
his predecessor Dositheus, and his successor Men-
ander), who is distinguished by the Fathers as the
parent of Gnosticism ; (3) Alexandrian, represented
mainly by Philo, who produced an amalgam of
Judaism with Greek philosophy. Probably it
would be justifiable to add as a fourth example the
Jewisli ^abbala. It is a body of writings unfold-
ing a traditional and, partly at least, esoteric
doctrine. Its most characteristic doctrines are
found also in the two Gnostic leaders, Basilides
and Valentinus (A. Franck, La Kabbah, Paris,
1S43, p. 350 fl'.). It is difficult, however, to prove
that the Ij^abbala is not later than Gnosticism,
though there is practical certainty that it« history
was a long one before it took final shape.
A third and very important element manifest
in the fully developed Gnostic systems is Greek
philosophy. Genetically, then. Gnosticism may be
defined as largely a syncretistic system rising from
Perso- Babylonian religion, modified to some extent,
difficult to estimate, by Judaism, and in some
particulars borrowing from, and as a whole clarified
by contact with, Greek philosophy. These ele-
ments might be efl"ective in very varied degrees,
and produced varied systems as this or that element
predominated. But from those three sources, apart
altogether from Christianity, Gnosticism in all
essentials may be derived. And all three were in
active interaction before the appearance of Chris-
tianity. An important consideration follows, viz.
that it is absolutely no proof of a late date for any
NT writing that it contains allusions to even a
comparatively well-developed Gnosticism.
4. Connexion with Christianity. — How is this
connexion to be conceived or explained? What
did Gnosticism owe to Christianity ? Before Chris-
tianity we picture Gnosticism as vague, fluid, un-
stable. When Christianity was thrown into the
mass of floating opinions in the ancient world, it
afforded the vague Gnostic movements a point
round which they could crystallize and attain a
measure of permanence and definiteness, so that
out of more or less loose speculations systems could
be built. Men imbued with Gnostic views (the
loose elements of the system described) would easily
find points of resemblance between themselves and
Christianity. It dealt in a way with the very
problems that interested the Gnostic. And in
apostolic teaching, especially in St. Paul, there
were many points which it took Uttle ingenuity to
transform into Gnostic views. The world was to
be overcome ; it lay in wickedness ; the flesh was
to be mortified ; there was a law in the members
warring against the spirit. Divorced from the
general teaching of the apostles, this could be
claimed as just the Gnostic position. It is, we
take it, a misconception to regard such apostolic
teaching as the starting-point of Gnosticism. In
our view Gnosticism had already a considerable
history, and had attained a considerable develop-
ment as a system, before Christianity appeared.
But in such teaching Gnosticism found points of
attachment to Christianity, and other points might
be adduced. Gnosticism then came to shelter
within the Church, never learning her essential
spirit, but going on its own evolution. Growing
at first from distinct roots of its own, it twined
itself about the Church and became a parasite.
It is not easy to answer the question, Is the
soteriology of Gnosticism borrow^ from Christi-
anity, or is it too an independent thing? Some
points are quite plain which may justify our
accepting the latter alternative. It is clear that
between the Gnostic Zorr^p (Saviour) and the his-
torical Jesus there is no discernible likeness. The
redemption of the fallen .Eon by the Soter has
nothing to do >vith a historical appearance on earth
and in time. The Gnostic redemption-story is a
myth, an allegory, not a historical narrative. But
under the influence of Christianity, laborious at-
tempts were made to bring this soteriology into
union with the Christian account of the historical
Jesus. The attempt was not a success. ' In this
patchwork the joins are everywhere stiU clearly to
be recognized' (EBr^ xii. [1910] 157»). Indeed
some Gnostics made no secret of the difference
between their Soter and the Christ of ordinary
Christians — the Soter was for Gnostics alone, Jesus
Christ for 'Psychics' (Iren. I. vi. 1). The fact
that one school required its members to curse Jesus
456
GNOSTICISM
GNOSTICISM
is not without significance in the same direction.
The most probable view is that Gnosticism in all
its elements was independent of Christianity, but
strove to put over itself a Christian guise, and re-
present itself as a fuller Christianity. But even
the master minds which fornuilated the great
systems of the 2nd cent, were baJUed to conceal
effectively what could not be hidden, the essenti-
ally alien nature and origin of their speculative
flights.
S. Allusions in the NT.— In the NT there are
several clear indications that the invasion of
Christianity by Gnosticism is already in progress.
(1) We note regarding Simon Magus (Ac 8^'-)
only this, that in the narrative we have an allegory
of what we conceive the relation of Gnosticism to
Christianity to have been. He was attracted to the
apostles, was baptized, and still remained in the
' bond of iniquity.' For this alone he may well be
named the father of the Gnostics (see art. SiMON
Magus).
(2) There are some passages which seem not only
to be designed to state the Christian position, but to
be directed against errors characteristic of Gnosti-
cism : (a) against Docetism ; most striking is He
214-18 , (J) against the demiurgic idea (Jn 1*, He 1^
Col li««-).
(3) A definite polemic against errorists who are
almost certainly Gnostics is found in the following
passages :
(a) Colossians. — The errorists in question claim
a superior knowledge (2^*^'*), pay great regard to
angels — beings intermediate between God and man
<v.^*) — teach asceticism (vv.-^-^s) ; and probably their
demiurgic notion is refuted in 1^^. These are the
«lements of Gnosticism, and most likely the Colos-
sian errorists are Judaistic Gnostics of the same
type as Cerinthus.
(6) Pastoral Epistles. — The references to Gnosti-
cism are so clear here that some find in them
a main ground for assigning a late date to the
Epistles. Gnosticism has already appropriated
the name yvOxn^ (1 Ti 5^"). The errorists profess
a superior knowledge (Tit P^ 2 Ti 3''). Their pro-
fane and vain babblings (2 Ti 2^'), old wives' fables
(1 Ti 4^), foolish questions and genealogies (Tit 3®),
denial of the resurrection of the body (2 Ti 2^^),
asceticism and depreciation of 'creatures' (1 Ti
4*-*), and in other cases their antinomianism (2 Ti
5*, Tit P®)— all are tokens of Gnosticism.
(c) Peter and Jude. — The gross errorists de-
nounced in 2 P 2 and Jude show close affinity with
the Ophite sect, the Cainites (q.v.) (Hippol. viii.
20; Strom, vii. 17 [767]; Epiph. Hcer. xxxviii.).
They made Cain their first hero ; and, regarding
the God of the Jews as an evil being, and the
Scriptures as, in consequence, a perversion of truth,
honoured all infamous characters from Cain to
Iscariot, who alone of the apostles had the secret
of true knowledge. Naturally, they practised the
wildest antinomianism, holding it necessary for
perfect knowledge to have practical experience of
all sins. The ' filthy dreamers,' who ' speak evil of
dignities ' and ' go in the way of Cain,' are cer-
tainly closely allied to this position.
(d) 1 John. — There is throughout a contrast be-
tween true knowledge and false. Beyond reason-
able doubt the Epistle has mainly, if not exclu-
sively, Cerinthus in view. He is interesting in the
history of heresy for his combination of Ebionite
Christology with a Gnostic idea of thfe Creator
<see art. CERINTHUS). It is mainly the former
that is in view in 1 John (2^" 4^^-), but 2'''* are
directed against Gnostic antinomianism.
(e) Pcevdation. — Here we have definite mention
of a Gnostic sect, by name the Nicolaitans (2"- '*).
They derived their name from Nicolas of Ac 6'.
' They lead lives of unrestrained indulgence, . . .
teaching that it is a matter of indifierence to
practise adultery, and to eat things sacrificed to
idols' (Iren. Hcer. I. xxvi. 3). Clem. Alex. (Strom.
iii. 4 [436 f.]) sajy^s that the followers of Nicolas
misunderstood his saying that 'we must fight
against the flesh and abuse it.' What Nicolas
meant to be an ascetic principle, they took to be
an antinomian one.
We have notice of another branch of antinomian
Gnosticism in 2-", where the ' prophetess Jezebel ' in
Thyatira is ' teaching and seducing ' the faithful.
Gnosticism thus plays no inconsiderable part in
the NT itself. It is, however, to exaggerate that,
to find references to Gnosticism in verses where
terms occur that afterwards became technical terms
in Gnostic systems, viz. pleronia (e.g. Eph 1**),
won (e.g. Eph 2^), gliosis (frequently). These had
meaning before Gnostic systems made them pecu-
liarly their own, and the passages in question may
be understood without any reference to Gnosticism.
6. Concluding remarks. — If it be difficult to in-
dicate accurately what Gnosticism owed to Chris-
tianity, it is no less difficult to determine to what
extent Christianity was permanently influenced by
Gnosticism. Theological preiudice will always
afiect the answer, and some will find in the Christo-
logical and other definitions of (Ecumenical
Councils a fruit of what Gnostics began. It is
easy to see what indirect service Gnosticism
rendered Christianity. In opposition to Gnosticism
the Church was compelled (a) to develop into
clear system her own creed ; the true yvQcrti had
to be opposed to the false ; (b) to determine what
writings were to be regarded as authoritative ;
against the Gnostic schools, each with its own
pretended special revelation, the Church formed a
Canon of what were generally regarded as authentic
apostolic writings ; (c) to seek for a just view of
the relation of Judaism to Christianity, and of the
permanent value of the OT which Gnostics re-
jected. This is, it may be said, an unsolved prob-
lem still. In opposition to Gnosticism the Church
was perhaps betrayed into the other extreme, as,
to secure permanent authority for every part
of the OT, a fanciful system of allegorizing was
adopted.
As to direct influence, we have indicated above
that Gnostics led the way in some developments of
worship which found a permanent place in the
Catholic Church. Probably also they led the way
to the magical conception of Sacraments whicli
became so prominent. The clearness with which
the false character of Gnosticism was perceived,
and the successful struggle against it, are among
the most remarkable and praiseworthy things in
the history of the early Church. It remains to be
said that the various phenomena which constitute
Gnosticism have appeared again and again in the
history of the Church since then. Its speculative
flights into regions where revelation does not guide
and reason cannot follow ; its special new revela-
tions ; its view of the world as essentially evil in
itself ; its stern asceticism or antinomian excess — all
have appeared repeatedly.
Literature.— J. A. W. Neander, Die genetUche F.nlxciekeU
U7ig der vomehmsten gnostisehen Systeme, Berlin, 1818; F._ C.
Baur, Die chrisUiche Gnotis, Tiibintren, lb35 ; R. A. Lipsius,
Gnosticismm, Leipzig, 1860 ; H. L. Mansel, Gnostic Heresies
of the Ist and Snd Centuries, London, 1875 ; A. Hilgrenfeld, Die
ketzergeschichte des Urehristenthums, Leipzig;, 1884 ; W. Anz,
Ursprung des Gnostizismus, do. 1897 ; R. Liechtenhahn, Die
Offenbarung im Gnosticismru, Gottingen, 1901 ; E. de Faye,
Introduction d V6tude du qnosticisme au ii' et au lii^' sii'clf,
Paris, 1903 ; W. Bousset, Uauptprobleme der Gnosis, Gotting-
en, 1907 ; A. Harnack, History of Dogma, Eng. tr., London,
1894-99 ; F. Loofs, Leitf. zum Sttidiiim der D-"''"--"'-"->- ''-hte^,
Halle, 1893; R. Seeberg, Uhrbuch der 1 hte,
Leipzig, 1895-98; Church Histories ot P. Sc ;rgh,
lS8;MKi), W. Moeller (Eng. tr., I/jndon, 1 . - .. G. P.
Fisher (do. 1894), R. Rainy (Ancient Catholic Chxirch. Edin-
burgh, 1902). W. D. NiVEN.
GOAD
GOD
457
GOAD {Kiirrpov). — This was a pole about 8 ft. in
lenf^th, carried by Eastern plouglinien. Armed at
one end with a spike and at the other with a
chisel-shaped blade, it was used now to urge the
yoked beasts to move faster, now to clean the
share. Only one hand being required to hold and
guide the light plough, the other was free to wield
the goad. The kicking of oxen against the goad
(AV the pricks) suggested a popular metaphor for
futile and painful resistance — cKX-npop <t<h vpin xiv-
Tpa XaKTii^ew (Ac 26" ; all uncials omit these words
in 9*). The same figure is found in Pind. Pi/th.
ii. 173 ; .<Esch. From. 323 ; Eurip. Bacch. 795 ;
Terence, Phorm. L iL 28. James Strahan.
GOAT (T/xl-yoj). — ^The Greek word signifies a ' he-
goat ' (Lat. hireus), and is used in the LXX as the
equivalent of the Heb. words twe, Tjy, r:B {all=
* he-goat '). The only NT references to the ' goat '
outside the Gospels are in the Epistle to the Heb-
rews (9^ "• " liH). In 9^- *» it is associated with
calves (i.e. bullocks), and there is doubtless an
allusion in these two passages to the sacrificial
rites of the Day of Atonement. On this occasion,
the high priest oflered up a bullock as a sin-oftering
for himself (Lv 16^^), and a goat as a sin-offering
for the people (Lv 16"). The usual phrase to de-
signate sacrifices in general is used in 9" 10*, * bulls
and goats ' or 'goats and buUs.'
The general meaning of 9^^*^ is quite clear.
The writer says: 'if — and you admit this — the
blood of goats and bullocks, as on the Day of
Atonement, cotild sanctify unto the cleanness of
the flesh, how much more could the Blood of
•Christ, the Divine-Human sacrifice, cleanse the
■conscience from dead works to serve the living God ! '
In 10* the -n-riter abandons his rhetorical style
and categorically asserts that ' it is impossible for
the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.'
He here uses the general term for sacrifices, and
thereby denies that any of the sacrifices of the old
Xaw ever did or ever could ' take away sins.'
Many difi'erent breeds of domesticated goats are
-known in Syria, the most common of which is the
^mamber or ordinary black goat. These animals
attain a large size, and pendent ears about a foot
long are their most characteristic feature. Their
peculiar ears are apparently alluded to in Am 3^.
They generally have horns and short beards. An-
other breed found in N. Palestine is the angora,
which has very long hair. Goats supplied most of
the mUk of Palestine (cf. Pr 27^, and the young
were often killed for food, being regarded as specif
-delicacies, as they are to-day (cf. Gn 27^ Lk 15'^).
Their long sUky hair was woven into curtains,
•coverings of tents, etc (cf. Ex 35*, Nu 31^), and
as goat's-hair cloth, called cilicium, was maide in
the province of which Tarsus, the birth-place of
St. Paul, was the capital, and was exported thence
to be used in tent-making, it is reasonable to sup-
pose that the Apostle was engaged in this very
trade (Ac IS*). Their skins were sometimes used
as clothing, and doubtless the hairy mantle of the
prophets (cf. Zee 13*) was made of this material
(cf. also He 11^), but they were more often con-
verted into bottles. The early inhabitants of
Palestine (cf. Gn 21i9, Jos 9*, 1 S 25»», Mt 9^^ Mk
2^, Lk 3^), just like the modem Bedouins, utilized
the skins of their cattle and their docks for the
piirpose of storing oil, wine, milk, or water, as
the case might be. The animals whose skins were
generally chosen for the purpose were the sheep
and the goat as at the present day, while the skin
of the ox was used for very large bottles. The
legs, or at all events the lower part of the legs, to-
gether with the head, are first removed, the animal
is next skinned from the neck downwards, great
•care being taken to avoid tearing the skin ; all
apertures aie then carefully closed, and the neck
is fitted with a leather thong which ser\'es as a
cork.
In view of the numerous uses which the goat
has been made to subserve, it is not surprising to
find that it was highly valued in ancient times
even as it is now. A large part of the wealth of
Laban and of the wages he paid to Jacob consisted
of goats, while ' a thousand goats * is mentioned
as one of the principal items in Nabal's property
(1 S 25'). They thrive in hilly and scantily
watered districts, where they are much more
abundant than sheep, and pasture where there is
much brush-wood, the luxuriant grasses of the
plains being ' too succulent for their taste ' (Tris-
tram in Smith s DB' 1200"). They are largely
responsible for the barrenness of the hills, and the
general absence of trees in Palestine.
LiTEKATUSE. — H. B. Tristram, Natural History of tJie Biblei'>,
1911, p. 88ff. ; Smith's DB, ».c. ; SffP viL 6; E. C Wick-
ham, 2%« J^piiOe to t^ ^ebrmet, 1910, p. 68 ; B.F. Westcott,
TheEputUtotheHebrem^.lBS&yf. 258 fl.; R. Lyddeker, in
Mmray's DB, «.«. ; HDBu. 196 1 ; SDB, p. 298 1. ; EBiii. 17-I-2 ff. ;
J. C. Geikie,2Vtego^XaiMt and flte .Bafe.l903,jnp. 40, 80-S3, 113.
P. S. P. Handcock.
GOD. — 1. General aspects of the apostolic doc-
trine.— The object of this article is to investigate
the doctrine of Grod as it is presented in the Chris-
tian writings of the apostolic period ; but, in view
of the scope of this Dictionary, the teaching of our
Lord Himself and the witness of the Gospel records
will be somewhat lightly passed over.
The existence of God is universally assumed in the
NT. The arguments that can be adduced, e.g. from
the consent of mankind and from the existence
of the world, are only intended to show that, the
belief that God is is reasonable, not to prove it as
a mathematical proposition. But undoubtedly the
fact that the doctrine ia by such arguments sho\\-n
to be probable will lead man to receive with more
readiness the revealed doctrine of Gods existence.
The biblical writers, however, did not, in either
dispensation, concern themselves to prove a fact
which no one doubted- Ps 10' 14^ 53^ are no excep-
tions to this general consent. The tmgodly man
(the ' fool ') who said in his heart ' There is no GJod,'
did not deny God's existence, but His interfering
in the aflairs of men. 'The wicked . . . saith.
He ^\"ill not require it. All his thoughts are.
There is no God.*
The apostolic doctrine of God as we have it in
Acts, Revelation, and the Epistles does not come
direct from the OT. It presupposes a teaching of
our Lord. At first this teaching was in the main
handed down by the oral method, and the Epistles,
or at least most of them, do not depend on any of
our four Gospels, though it is quite likely that
there were some written evangelic records in exist-
ence even when the earliest of the Epistles were
written (Lk 1^). St. Paul, writing on certain points
of Christian teaching, tells us that he handed on
what he himself had received (1 Co II'- ^ 15* ; the
expression dxd rod Kvpiov in 11" probably does not
mean ' from the Lord without human mediation ' :
it was tradition handed on from Christ).
In approaching the apostolic \*'ritings we must
bear in mind two points, (a) The XT was not
intended to be a compendium of theology. The
Epistles, for example, were written for the imme-
diate needs of the time and place, doubtless without
any thought arising in their writers' minds of their
being in the future canonical writings of a new
volume of the Scriptures. We should not, therefore,
a priori expect to find in them any formulated state-
ment of doctrine, (b) There is a^considerable differ-
ence between the Epistles on the one hand and the
Gospels on the other in the presentation of doctrine.
The Gospels are narratives of historical events, and
in them, therefore, the giadual unfolding of Jesus'
458
GOD
GOD
teaching, as in fact it was given, is duly set forth.
This is especially the case with the Synoptics,
though even in the Fourth Gospel there is a certain
amount of progress of doctrine. At the lirst the
doctrines taught by our Lord are set forth, so to
speak, in their infancy, adapted to the comprehen-
sion of V)eginners ; and they are gradually unfolded
as the Gospel story proceeds. In the Epistles, on
the other hand, the writer treats his correspondents
■ as convinced Christians, and therefore, though he
instructs them, he plunges at once in medias res.
There is no progress of doctrine from the first
chapter of an Epistle to the last.
The question we have to ask ourselves is, What
did the apostles teach about God ? Or rather, in
order not to beg any question (since it is obviously
impossible in this article to discuss problems of
date and authorship), we must ask, What do the
books of tiie NT teach about God ?
2. Christian development of the OT doctrine of
God. — It is an essential doctrine of the NT writers
that a new and fuller revelation was given by the
Incarnation and by the fresh outpouring of the
Holy Ghost.
(a) The revelation by the Incarnate. — That the
Son had made a revelation of old by the part which
He took in creation (see below, 6 (e)) is not explicitly
stated, but is implied by lio l'^, which says that
creation is a revelation of God's everlasting power
and Divinity (^etdrijs,' Divine nature and properties,'
whereas OeoTTj^ is ' Divine Personality ' [see Sanday-
Headlam, ICC, 1902, in loc.]). But the Incarnate
reveals God in a fuller sense than ever before :
'God . . . hath at the end of these days spoken
unto us in [his] Son' (He 1"'). The revelation by
the Incarnation is a conception specially emphasized
in the Johannine writings, not only in the Gospel,
but also in the First Epistle and the Apocalypse.
The Prologue of the Gospel says that ' God only
begotten ' (or ' the only begotten Son ' [see below,
6 (c)]) ' which is in the bosom of the Father, hath
declared him ' (Jn P*). ' What he hath seen and
heard, of that he beareth witness ' (3*-). The reve-
lation of the Son is the revelation of the Father
(14^-"). The 'life which was with the Father'
was manifested and gave a message about God
(1 Jn 1^'^). The revelation of eternal life which is
in the Son was made when God bore witness con-
cerning His Son (S^"'-)- This new and fuller revela-
tion is that with which the Apocalyptist begins
his book (Rev V) : ' the revelation (apocalypse) of
Jesus Christ, which God gave him to shew unto
his seivants ' (see Swete, Com. in loc, who gives
good reasons for thinking that the revelation made
by Jesus, rather than that made about Jesus, is
meant ; cf. Gal P"),
We find the same teaching, though in a some-
what less explicit form, in the Pauline Epistles.
Christ is ' the power of God and the wisdom of
God. . . made unto uswisdom from God' (1 Col-*- 2").
In Him ' are all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge hidden ' (Col 2^). In the new ' dispensa-
tion of the fulness of the times' God has 'made
known unto us the mystery of his will ' (Eph 1*'-,
a passage where 'mystery specially conveys the
idea of a hidden thing revealed, rather than one
kept secret). To St. Paul personally Jesus made
a revelation (Gal l''*; see above). That our Lord
made a new revelation is also stated in the Synop-
tics : ' Neither doth any know the Father, save
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to
reveal [him] ' (Mt ll-"^; cf. Lk 10~). So in Acts,
Jesus bids the disciples 'wait for the promise of
the Father, which [said he] ye heard from me ' (1*) ;
and St. Peter (10^") calls tne new revelation ' the
word which [God] sent unto the children of Israel,
preaching good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ
(he is Lord of all).' Sanday {HDB ii. 212) points
out that the pa.ssages about our Lord being the
' image ' of God, and ' in the form of God (see
below, 6 (c)), express the fact that He brings to-
men's minds the essential nature of God.
(b) The revelation by the Holy Ghost. — The new
revelation of the nature of God by the full out-
pouring of the Spirit, in a manner unknown even
m the old days of prophetical inspirati<jn, is also,
as far as the promise is concerned, a favourite
Johannine conception (see especially Jn 14-16).
The promise is, however, alluded to by St. Luke
(Lk 24*", Ac 1*), and its fulfilment is dwelt on at
great length in Acts, which may be called the
'Gospel of the Holy Spirit,' and in which the
action of the Third Person in guiding the disciples
into all the truth (Jn 16"*) is described very fully.
Jesus gave commandment to the apostles ' through
the Holy Ghost' (Ac 1*). The guidance of the
Spirit is described, e.gr., in2i"- 8* 10'» 11" 13n6«'- 20»
2P', though these passages speak rather of the
{)ractical leading of the disciples in the conduct of
ife rather than of the teaching of the truth. St.
Paul says that ' tlie things which eye saw not ' (he
seems to be paraphrasing Is 64'*) have been revealed
by God ' unto us ' (riM'«' is emphatic here) ' through
the Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea,
the deep things of God ' ( 1 Co 2»'- ; so v. '»), It is the
Holy Spirit only who can teach us that ' Jesus is
Lord' (123).
3. Attributes of God in the NT. — Before consider-
ing the great advance on the OT ideas made by the
Christian doctrine of God, we may notice certain
Divine attributes which are emphasized in the NT,.
but which are also found in the OT.
(a) God is Almighty. — The word used in the NT
(as in the Eastern creeds) for this attribute is vavro-
Kpdrup, chiefly in the Apocalypse (P 4'^ 11" 15' 16"- ^*
196.15 2122)^ but also in 2 Co 6^8, as it is used in
the LXX, where it renders fbhd'Oth and Shaddai.
We notice in each instance in Rev. how emphati-
cally it stands at the end : ' the Lord God, which
is and which Avas . . . the Almighty,' 'the Lord
God, the Almighty' ; not ' Lord God Almighty' as
AV (the AV translates the word by * omnipotent ' in
Rev 19^ only). The word omnipotens occurs in the
earliest Roman creed. — But what does ' Almighty '
imply ? To the modern reader it is apt to convey
the idea of omnipotence, as if it were iravTodvvano%,
i.e. ' able to do everything,' on account of the Latin
translation omnipotens. So Augustine under-
stands the word in the Creed {de Symbolo ad Cate-
chumenos, 2 [ed. Ben. vi. 547]), explaining it, * He
does whatever He wills' (Swete, Apostles' Creed,
p. 22). Undoubtedly God is omnipotent, though
this does not mean that He can act against the
conditions which He Himself makes — He cannot
sin. He cannot lie (Tit l^, He 6^8 ; so 2 Ti 2i« of our
Lord). As Augustine says (loc. cit.), if He could
do these things He would not be onini{)otent. But
this is not the meaning of ' Almighty.' As we see
from the form of the Greek word (iravTOKpdrwp), and
as is suggested by the Hebrew words which it
renders, it denotes sovereignty over the world. It
is equivalent to the ' Lord of heaven and earth ' of
Ac 17'*, Mt 11^. Everything is under God's sway
(see Pearson, Eocpos. of the Creed, art. i., especially
notes 37-43). The Syriac bears out this interpreta-
tion by rendering the word ahldh kul, i.e. ' holding
(or governing) all.'
(6) God is 'living.' — He has 'life in himself
(Jn 528). He is 'the living God' (Rev V), 'that
liveth for ever and ever' (10*); and therefore is
eternal, the 'Alpha and Omega, which is and
which was and which is to come' (6 C)v Kal 6 ^p Kal
6 ipx^nevos), 'the beginning and the end' (Rev 1"
21^; cf. 16")— these words are here (but not in
22" ; see below, 6 (e)) rightly ascribed by Swete to
the Eternal Father. ' One day is with the Lord as-
GOD
GOD
459
a thonsand years, and a thousand vears as one
day ' (2 P 3« ; cf. Ps 9(H ; see also Ro l-^].
(c) God is omniscient. — He knows the hearts of
all men (KopSioyvC-ffra rim-wp, Ac 1** ; cf. 15* ; the
prayer in !*• is perhaps addressed to our Lord) ; He
knows all things (1 Jn 3**). St. Paul eloquently
exclaims : ' O the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and the knowletlge of God !' (Ro 11"), and
ascribes glory 'to the only wise God,' i.e. to God
who alone is wise (16^ ; the same phrase occurs in
some MSS of 1 Ti 1", but ' wise ' is there an int«r-
polation). Even the uninstructed Cornelius recog-
nizes that we are in God's siglit (Ac 10**). Such
sayings cannot but be a reminiscence of our Lord's
teaching that ' not one of them is forgotten in the
sight of God ' (Lk 12*). They are summed up in
the expressions * God is light ' (I Jn 1') and ' God is
true' ('This is the true God,' 1 Jn 5^; for the
reference here see A. E. Brooke's note in ICC,
1912, i« loc.). God 'cannot lie' ; see above (a).
{(I) God is transcendent. — This Divine attribute
had been exaggerated by the Jews just before the
Christian era, but it is nevertheless dwelt on in the
apostolic writings. The 'things of God' are indeed
' deep,' so that man cannot, though the Spirit can,
'search them out' (1 Co 2i-«- ; cf. Job 11'). God,
who ' only hath immortality,' dwells ' in light un-
approachable, whom no man hath seen nor can see '
( 1 Ti 6i« ; cf. Jn 1^*, 1 Jn 4i- ^). He is spirit ( Jn 4>*
RVm) and inWsible (Col 1«, 1 Ti 1^", He ll^^), un-
changeable (He 61''- ; cf. Mai 3«, Ps 102^), infinite,
omnipresent (Ac 7^ 17=*-*^; cf. Ps 139'*-)- These
statements do not mean, however, that God is
altogether unknowable by men ; for God in His
condescension reveals Himself to man (see above, 2).
(e) God is immanent. — That God dwells in man
is stated several times. ' God is in you indeed,'
says St. Paul (1 Co 14^ AV and RVm ; RV text
has ' among ' ; the Gr. is iv irfiiy). ' There is one
God and Father of all, who is over all, and through
all, and in all' (Eph 4*). 'Gkxi abideth in us'
(1 Jn 4**). His 'tabernacle is with men' and He
' shall dwell with them . . . and be with them '
(Rev 2P). For the immanence of the Son and the
Spirit in man see below, 6 (e) and 7.
{/) Moral attributes. — God is love (1 Jn 4^^*);
love is His very nature and being, and therefore
love is the foundation of all true religion ; love is
of God (v.^ ; see Brooke's notes on these verses [op,
cit.']). The love of God is specially emphasized by
Christianity ; cf. also Jn 3^* (the kernel of the gospel
message), Ro o'- » 8»-^, 2 Co 13", Col l^* (' the Son
of his love '), 2 Th 3*, 1 Ti 2* (desire of universal
salvation), 1 Jn 2* 3'. The ' love of (Jod ' may be
God's love for us, or our love for God ; but the
latter, as St. Jolm teaches (see above), comes from
the former.
God is holi/. This attribute is emphasized both
in the OT (Lv 11«) and in the XT (1 P l^"). The
four living creatures cry ' Holy {ayios), holy, holy
is the Lord God, the Almighty^ (Rev 4^ ; cf. Is 6»).
' Thou only art holy ' (Sa-ios)* cry the conquerors
(Rev 15* ; cf. 16*) — a striking comment on the as-
cription of holiness to our Lord and to the Spirit
(below, 6 (e), 7). Brooke {op. cit.) thinks it un-
necessary to determine whether 'the Holy One' in
1 Jn 2"^ is the Father or the Son.
God is fust ; He has no respect of persons (Ac 10**,
Ro 2», Gal 2«, 1 P 1" ; cf. Dt W').
He is righteous (for the meaning of this see
below, 6 (c)) ; St. Paul not only speaks of the
' righteous judgment ' {diKaioKpuria, Ro 2* ; cf. 2 Th
1'), but of the ' righteousness ' (SiKatoffvvi)), of God
(Ro 1" 3^ 10^). On this phrase. SiKoioaivr) Oeov, see
an elaborate investigation by Sanday in HDB ii.
' The word oo-tos (equivalent to the Latin piut) ' represents
God as fuJailinsr His relation to His creatures, even as He requites
them to fulfil theirs towards Himself ' (Swete, Com. in toe.).
2<39-212 ; it was familiar to the Jews, and to them
meant the personal righteousness of Go<l. Many
commentators take it, as used in the NT, to mean
the righteous state of man, of which God is the
giver. But in either case it predicates righteousness
of God. In Ph 3* we find -r^r ix 9ew SiKaiooCnpr,
'the righteousness which is of God.' The Apoca-
lyptist also emphasizes this attribute (Rev 15* IB*- ').
God is merciful (Ro U** 159, etc). This is really
the same attribute as love ; but it is not the same
as the Musulman idea of the mercy of God, which
can scarcely be distinguished from indifference.
Love and justice combined produce the true Divine
mercy.
He is the God of hope (Ro 15'*). A despairing
pessimism is rebellion against the good God who
makes us to hope, and wno promises to overthrow
Satan.
He is the God oi peace (Ro 15» 16», 1 Th 5^, 2 Th
S", He 13»).
ig) God is Creator and Saviour. — ^That God the
Father is the Maker of the world is again and again
insisted on (Ac 14i*-" 17*^=', Ro l»-» ll^*. 1 Co 3»,
Eph 2»'> 39 [cf. v.i**-]. Col 115*-, He 1^ 4* 129 [the spirits
of men], Ja I*"'- [' the lights,' the heavenly bodies].
Rev 4^^ 10^). Man was made in God's* likeness
(1 Co IF, Ja 39), That God made the world was
also much emphasized by the sub-apostolic writers
(Swete, Apostles' Creed, p. 20), in opposition to the
Gnostic conception of a Demiurge, an inferior God
who was Creator, and who was more or less in
opposition to the supreme God. (For God the
Father as Saviour, see below, 6 (e) ; for the part of
the Son and of the Spirit in creation see below, 6
(c), 7).
4. The Fatherhood of God. — We now pass to the
great developments made by the Christian doctrine
of G^. In the OT it had been freely taught that
God was Father ; but the conception scarcely went
further than a fatherhood of the chosen people.
' Israel is my son, my first bom, . . . Let my son
go that he may serve me,' is Jahweh's message
to Pharaoh (EIx 4^). The Deuteronomist goes no
further (8* 32*, and especially 14^'- : ' Ye are the
children of the Lord your God . . . for thou art
an holy people tmto the Lord thy Gkxi, and the
Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto
himself above all peoples that are upon the face of
the earth '). The restrictive words of Ps lOS'* are
very significant: 'Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.'
The prophets made no advance on this. To Judah
and Israel God says : ' Ye shall call me. My father '
(Jer 319 ; cf. Is 63i^30i- », Mai 1«) ; ' When Israel was
a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of
Egypt' (HoslH).
The NT greatly develops this doctrine. It teaches
that God is Father of all men, though in a special
sense Father of believers. But, above all, God is
the Father of our Lord in a sense quite unique.
(a) The Father of our Lord. — Jesus ever makes
a difference between the Father's relationship to
Himself and to the rest of the world. The striking
words of the twelve-year-old Child : ' Wist ye not
that I must be in my Father's house?' (or 'about
my Father's business,' iv toTj tw -rarpbi ftov, Lk 2®)
are the first indication of this. Jesus speaks of
' my Father ' and ' the Father' and 'your Father,'
but never of 'our Father,' though He teaches the
disciples to use these words (Mt 6*). In Jn 20^^ the
Evangelist represents our Lord as using what would
otherwise be an unintelligible periphrasis : ' My
Father and your Father, and my God and your God.'
This same distinction is kept up in the rest of the
NT. Thus in Ro 8' St. Patd c^ls our Lord God's
' own Son' {rbr iavrm) vio^), in a manner in which we
could not be designated ' sons ' ; we can only be
• conformed to the image of his Son, that he might
460
GOD
GOD
be the firstborn among many brethren' (v.^), wliile
Jesus is 'liisownSon' (roD/5tou vloC, v.'^; cf. Col 1'*:
'Son of his love'). St. Paul exhibits a fondness
for the plirase ' the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ' (Ro 15», 2 Co P, Eph 1"; cf. Col 1»
' God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'), which
is re-echoed by St. Peter (1 P P), and in the Apoca-
lypse (Rev P: 'his God and Father'). (On the
other hand, in Eph 1" we read : ' the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Klory.') In Rev 3*^
our Lord is speaking, and uses the words ' my
Father.' This distinction is at the root of the
Johannine title ' Only-begotten,' applied to our
Lord (1 Jn 4«, Jn l"-^» a'"-'*). See Adoption,
Only-Begotten.
(b) The Father of all men. — This relationship is
«xpressly affirmed by St. Paul in his speech at
Athens (Ac 17**'- )• God has created us ; 'in him
we live and move and have our being, as certain
even of your own poets have said, For we are also
his offspring.' And he endorses this heathen saying
by continuing : ' Being then the oll'spring of God,'
etc. (v.-**). We may compare our Lord's saying :
' that ye may be sons of your Father which is m
heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil
And the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the
unjust ' (Mt 5*") ; ' he is kind toAvards the unthank-
ful and evil ' (Lk &^). The same thought seems to
be at the root of St. Paul's saying that all father-
hood (irfio-a irarpti) in heaven and earth is named
from God the Father (Eph 3"'- ; see Family).
* There is one God and Father of all, who is over
all, and through all, and in all' (Eph 4*). 'To us
tliere is one God, the Father, of whom are all
things and we unto him' (1 Co 8*). In several
passages in the Epistles where we read ' our Father '
^Ro V, 1 Co P, 2 Co P, Eph P, Ph 42<>, etc.), there
is no special restriction to God's relationship to
Christians, such as we find with regard to the
chosen people in the OT passages. St. James
speaks of 'the Father of lights' (Ja 1"), i.e. of
the created heavenly bodies. And the writer of
Hebrews refers to a universal Fatherhood due to
■creation. As contrasted with the ' fathers of our
flesh,' God is 'the Father of spirits' — the Author
not only of our spiritual being but of all spiritual
beings (He 12^ ; see Westcott, Com. in loc.).
(c) The Father of believers. — Side by side with
the doctrine of universal fatherhood is the special
relationsliip of God to believers, not only as Saviour
(1 Ti 4^") but as Father. Here the apostolic
writers ascribe to Christians the prerogatives of
the chosen people in the old covenant. This special
fatherhood is brought out in the passages where
St. Paul applies the metaphor of adoption to Chris-
tians (Ro 8"-"-23, Gal 45'-, Eph P ; see ADOPTION ;
cf. also 1 P 1", 1 Jn 3"-, Jn V\ etc.).
(d) ' T/ie Father' in general. — In many passages
we find the absolute expression ' the Father,' com-
prehending any or all of the above meanings, as,
^.g., 1 Co 8«, Gal P, Epii 52" ('give thanks in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even tlie
Father '), Col l^^^ Ja 3" RV ( ' the Lord and Father '),
1 Jn 2'^- 15'- ; and 2 P P'', 1 Jn 1^, where there is a
special reference to our Lord.
The word ' Father ' stanrls at the head of most Christian
creeds, but it is probable that it was not orifjinally in that of
Borne. The Creed of Marcellus of Ancyra, an early Western
specimen, though coming from an Eastern bishop, begins : ' I
believe in Almijjhty (navTOKpanopa) God' (Epiphaniua, Haer.
Ixxii. 3). The language of TertuUian (de Virg. vel. 1 — one of
his later works) leads us to suppose that the creed used by him
began similarly ; he speaks of ' the rule of believing in one only
God omnipotent, the Creator of the universe, and His Son
Jesua Christ.' But thenceforward it appears in the Western
creeds (see Swete, Apostles' Creed, p. 19 f.).
3. The Holy Trinity.— («) The technical terms h\
which the Christian Cliurch has expressed the faith
that it derived from the Scriptures were not in-
vented for a considerable time after the apostolic
period. Thus no one would expect to find the
terms ' Trinity ' and ' Person ' in the NT. It is
usually said that the word 'Trinity,' referred to
God, was first used by Tlieophilus of Antioch {ad
Autol. ii. 15; c. A.D. 180), as far as extant Christian
literature is concerned. This is true, but the con-
text shows that it was not then an accei>ted techni-
cal term. The first three days of creation are said
to be ' types of the trinity (rptds), God, and His
Word, and His Wisdom.' Theophilus goes on to
say that the fourth day finds its autityjio in man,
who is in need of light, so that we get the series :
God, the Word, Wisdom, Man. Swete justly re-
marks that an author who could thus ' convert the
Divine trinity into a quaternion in whicli Man is
the fourth term, must have been still far from
thinking of the Trinitj^ as later WTiters thought '
{Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church, p. 47). Or we
should perhaps rather put it that 1 heophilus did
not use the word ' Trinity ' in the technical sense
which immediately afterwards is found ; as wlien
TertuUian speaks of ' the Trinity of the one God-
head, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ' (de Pudic. 21 ;
cf. adv. Prax. 2), and as when Hippolytus says :
' Through this Trinity the Father is glorified, for
the Father willed, the Son did, the Spirit mani-
fested ' (c. Noet. 14).
The words which we render ' Person' {Owda-raan,
irpbauirov, persona) are of a still later date, and at
first exhibited a remarkable fluidity of signification.
Thus virdiTTaais was used at one time to denote
what is common to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
what we should call the Divine 'substance,' at
another it was used to distinguish between the
Three ; so that in one sense there is one vir6<xra<ni
in the Holy Trinity, in the other there are three.
With regard to the word ' Person,' the student
must necessarily be always on his guard against
the supposition that ' Person ' means ' individual,'
as when we say that three different men are three
' persons' ; or that ' Trinity' involves tritheism, or
three Gods. These technical expressions are but
methods of denoting the teaching found in the NT
that there are distinctions in the Godhead, and
that, wliile God is One, yet He is not a mere
Monad. These technical terms are not found in
the apostolic or sub-apostolic writers ; with regard
to the second of them, it may be remembered that
the idea of personality was hardly formulated in
any sense till shortly before the Christian era ; and
its application to theology came in a good deal
later.
{b) The name * God' used absolutely. — In con-
sidering the distinctions in the Godhead taught by
the NT, it must be bonie in mind that, when the
name 'God' is used absolutely, without pronoun
or epithet, it is never, with one possible exception,
applied explicitly to the Son as such or to the Spirit
as such. It is, indeed, most frequently used with-
out any special reference to the Person. But it is
often, when standing absolutely, used in contrast
to the Son or to the Spirit, and then the Father is
intended. Instances of this are too numerous to
mention ; but we may take as examples Ac 2~
('Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God . . .
by mighty works . . . which God did by him'),
13*' (' God raised him from the dead '), Ro 2'« ( ' Got!
shall judge the secrets of men ... by Jesus
Christ '), Eph 4="* (' the Holy Spirit of God % This
is sometimes the ca.se also when ' God ' is not used
absolutely, as in Ac 3'» ('the God of our fathers
hath glorified his Servant [waiSa] Jesus'), 5^ (' the
God of our fathers raised up Jesus'), 2'2i*, Ro P
(' I thank my God through Jesus Christ '). In Rev
3"- '^- our Lord calls the Father ' my God ' ; compare
the similar Pauline phrases quoted above, 4 (a).
See below, 8.
GOD
GOD
461
The one po«ibIe exception is Ac 20* : ' to feed the church
of God which he purchased with his own blood.' This is the
reading of KB and other weighty authorities (followed by AY
and RV textX but ACDE read 'the Lord' instead of 'God.'
The balance of authority is in favour of the reading ' God,' and
it is decidedly more difficult than the other variant. At first
sight, to say' the least, the word 'God' (if read) must refer to
our Lord, and yet this usage is unlike that of the NT elsewhere,
and a scribs finding fcov would readily alter it to mpiov because
of the strangeness of the expression. Thus both because of
superior attestation, and because a difficult reading is ordinarily
to be preferred to an ea^er one, 0eov has oaoally been accepted
here (so WH, iL [18S2J Appendix, p. US). To get rid of the
strangeness of the expression, it has been suggested that the
reference is to the Father, and that 'his own blood' means
' the blood which is his own,' i.e. the blood of Christ who is
essentially one nith the Father ; but this seems to be a rather
forced explanation. A somewhat more probable conjecture
(that of Uort) is that there is here an early corruption, and
that the original had 'with the blood of his own Son.' The
best reading of the last words of the verse, snpiported by over-
whelming authority, is iii. tdv aluaTot nv iSiov; and this
conjecture supposes that viov has dropped out at the end (cf.
Ro 8^ However this may be, it would seem that the verse as
we have it in KB was so read by Ignatius, and gave rise to bis
expression ' the blood of God * (Eph. 1)—* very early instance of
what later writers called the communieatio uftonuUum, by
which the properties of one of our Lord's natures are referred
to when the other nature is in question, because of the unity ot
His Person (see 6 (6)). Another early instance is perhaps to be
found in Clement of Rome (Cor. iL 1) : ri ra^iuLTo. airrou (' his
sufferings 'X Otov having just preceded ; but the reading, though
accepted by Lightfoot, is not quite certain. On these two
passages see Li^tfoot, Apottolie Fathers, ' S. Ignatius and S.
Polycarp*,' 1889, iL 29 f., 'S. Clement of Rome,' 1890, ii. lS-18.
TertuHian uses Hie expression ' the blood of God ' (ad Uxor.
ii. 3).
(c) Trinitarian language. — In the NT teaching
the Son and the Spirit are joined to the Father in
a special manner, entirely different from that in
which men or angels are spoken of in relation to
(iod. Perhaps the best example of this is the
apostolic benediction of 2 Co 13", which has no
dogmatic purpose, but is a simple, spontaneous
prayer, and is therefore more significant than if it
was intended to teach some doctrine. The 'grace
of our Lord,' the 'love of God,' and the 'com-
munion of the Holy Ghost ' are grouped together,
and in tliis remarkable order. In many passages
Father, Son, and Spirit are grouped together, just
as the Three are mentioned together in the account
of our Lord's Baptism {Mt 3^*^), only in a still
more significant way. Thus in Ac 5*'*- we read
that God exalted Jesus to be a Prince and a
Saviour, and gave the Holy Ghost 'to them that
obey him.' Stephen, being full of the Holy Ghost,
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the
right hand of God (7^). The Holy Ghost is in one
breath called bv St, Paul the ' Spirit of God ' and
the ' Spirit of Christ' (Ro 8% See also 1 Co 12»-«
(' the Spirit of God . . . Jesus is Lord . . . the
same Spirit . . . the same Lord . . . the same God '),
Ac 233, 1 P 12 (' foreknowledge of God the Father,'
' sanctification of the Spirit,' 'sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus Christ '), Tit 3*-* (' the kindness of
God our Saviour ' [the Father], ' renewing of the
Holy Ghost,' ' through Jesus Christ our Saviour'),
1 Jn 4^, and especially Jude ^, where the writer's
disciples are bidden to pray in the Holy Spirit, to
keep themselves in the love of God, and to look
for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the greeting of all the Pauline Epistles but
one, the Father and Son are joined together as the
source of grace and peace ; e.g. ' Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ' (Ro 1^); the only exception being Col 1*
RV, which has ' grace to you and peace from (5od
our Father.' And this Pauline usage is also found
in '2 Jn '. It is difficult to conceive the possibility
of this zeugma unless our Lord be God. With
this compare St. James's description of himself
as ' a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ '
( Ja P), and many other passages such as ' one God,
the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto
him ; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom
are all things, and we through him' (1 Co 8* ; see
above, 4 (6)) ; ' in the sight of God and of Christ
Jesus' (2 Ti 4') ; 'fellowship with the Father and
with his son Jesus Christ (1 Jn 1*); 'he that
denieth the Father and the Son ' (2") ; ' the same
hath both the Father and the Son' (2 Jn»); 'the
Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are the
temple thereof ' (Rev 21**) ; • the throne of God and
of the Lamb '(221- »).
These expressions are the counterpart of our
Lord's words in the Fourth Gospel : ' I am in the
Father and the Father in me' (Jn 14"). SVe
might try the effect of substituting for ' Son ' and
'Spirit' the names of 'Peter,' 'Paul,' or even of
' Michael,' ' Gabriel,' to see how intolerable all
these expressions would be on any but the Trini-
tarian hypothesis. St. Paul uses a similar argu-
ment in 1 Co 1" : ' Was Paul crucified for you, or
were ye baptized in the name of Patil?'
These passages are taken from the NT outside
the Gospels. The Fourth Gospel, which is full oi
the same doctrine, is here passed by. But one
passage of the Synoptics must be considered.
How did St. Paul come by the phraseology of his
benediction in 2 Co 13''' ? Some would say that he
invented it, and was the real founder of Christian
doctrine (see below, 9). For those who cannot
accept this position — and the Apostle betrays no
consciousness of teaching a new doctrine, but, as
we have seen (above, 1), professes to hand on what
he has received — the only conclusion can be that
the benediction is based on teaching of our Lord.
In the Synoptics there is one passage (Mt 28^*)
which would at once account for St. Paul's bene-
diction. According to this, our Lord bade His^
followers ' make disciples of all the nations, bap-
tizing them into the name (e:s rb 6rofw.) of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.'
This passage has been criticized on three grounds.
(1) It has l^n said not to be an autlientic part of
the First Gospel. This, however, is not a tenable
position (see BAPTISM, § 4) ; but it is important to-
distinguish it from the view which follows. (2) It
has been acknowledged to be an authentic part of
Mt., but said to have been due to the Christian
theology of the end of the 1st cent., to the same
line of thought that produced the Fourth GJospel ;
and not to have been spoken by our Lord. (3) In
support of this it is urged that as a matter of fact,
the earliest baptisms, as we read in Acts, were
not ' in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost,' but 'in the name of the Lord
Jesus,' or the like. But may there not be a mis-
take here on both sides ? It is quite unnecessary
to suppose on the one hand that the passages in.
Acts describe a formula used in baptism, or, on,
the other, that our Lord in Mt 28^ prescribed one.
All the passages may, and probably do, express
only the theological import of baptism (for authori-
ties, see Baptism as above).* It was not the custom
of our Lord to make minute regulations, as did
the ilosaic Law. He rather laid down general
principles ; and it M'ould be somewhat remarkable
if He made just one exception, in regulating the
words to be used in baptism. (The justification of
the Christian formula is the general consent of the
ages, dating from immediately after the apostolic
period.) Nor is it necessary to suppose that Mt
28" gives us — anj' more than the other Gospel
records do — the ipsissima verba of Jesus. It is al-
most certain that such teaching, if given, would
be much expanded for the benefit of the hearers,
and tliat we have only a greatly abbreviated re-
cord. But that our Lord gave such ' Trinitarian '
teaching in some shape on the occasion of giving
* We are not here concerned with the meaning of * in ' or
' into the name.' The argnment is independent of the disputed-
interpretation of these words.
462
GOD
GOD
the baptismal command is the only way of ac-
counting for the phenomena of Acts, Epistles, and
Revelation. This would explain not only the apos-
tolic benediction, but also the whole trend of the
teaching of the NT outside the Gospels,
Having now considered the general scope of apos-
tolic teaching with regard to distinctions in the
Godhead, we must consider in particular the doc-
trine with regard to the Godhead of our Lord and
of the Holy Gliost.
6. The Godhead of oup Lord. — In historical
sequence the realization of our Lord's Divinity
came before the teaching which we have already
considered. The disciples first learnt that their
Master was not mere man, but was Divine ; and
then that there are distinctions in the Godhead.
(a) Jestis is the Son of God. — Of this the apostles
were fully convinced. The passages are too
numerous to cite, but they occur in almost every
book of the NT, whether they give the title to our
Lord in so many words, or express the fact other-
wise (see above, 4 («)). Before considering the
meaning of the title, we may ask if the name xaty
(' child ' or • servant ') appliea to our Lord (Ac 3"- ^
427. 30) jjf^g ^\^Q same signification. Sanday points
out (HDB iv. 574, 578) that irah is taken in the
sense of 'Son' in the early Fathers, as in the
Epistle to Diognctus (viii. 9f. ; c. A.D. 150?).
This may also lie the meaning of St. Luke in Acts ;
but it is equally probable that he refers to the OT
* servant 01 Jahweh.' This is clearly the meaning
in Mt 12'*, where Is 42' is quoted : ' liehold my
servant whom 1 have cliosen,' etc.
But what is the significance of the title * Son of
God ' ? It was not exactly a new title when used
in the NT, though Dn 3-' cannot be quoted for it
('a son of the gods,' RV ; AV wrongly, ' the Son of
God '). It is probable that Ps 2^ was the founda-
tion of the Jewish conception of Messiah as Son.*
And therefore the title ' Son of God ' had probably
a different meaning in tlie mouth of some speakers
from that which it had in the mouth of others.
Thus when the demoniacs called Jesus the Son of
God (Mk 3" b\ Mt 14^, Lk 4^'), they would mean
no more than that He was the promised Messiali,
without dogmatizing as to His nature. The
mockers at Calvary would use the word in the
same sense. * If thou art the Son of God ' is
thesameas 'If thou art the Christ ' (Mt27^<'). Tlie
Centurion, if (as seems probable) his saying as re-
ported in Mk 15^^ Mt 27'* is more correct than
that given in Lk 23''^, where 'a righteous man'
is substituted for ' the Son of God,' would have
borrowed a Jewish phrase without exactly under-
standing its meaning, and thus St. Luke's para-
phrase would faithfully represent what was pass-
mg in his mind.
But Jesus gave a higher meaning to the title,
and this higher meaning is the keynote of the
teaching of His disciples. It is true that in Lk 3^
the Evangelist calls Adam a [son] of God (for ' son '
see v.^), as being created directly by God ; but
this is not the meaning in the NT generally.
There seems to have been a suspicion in Caiaphas'
mind of the higher meaning given to the title by
Jesus, when he asked Him whether He was 'the
Christ, the Son of God ' (Mt 26«3). There is almost
an approach here to the Johannine saying that the
Jews sought to kill Him because He 'called God
his own leather, making himself equal with God'
(Jn 5'*). To the disciples the confession that
Jesus was the ' Son of God' (11^, Martha) or ' the
Holy One of God ' (6«9 RV, Simon Peter) meant
the oelief that He partook of the nature of God.
This, indeed, miglit have meant only that Jesus
was a Divinely inspired man. But the teaching
• We are not here concerned with the connexion between the
thought of Israel as Son and Messiah as Son.
of Jesus lifts the title to the highest level (Mt 11^,
Jn S'*'^ 9**, etc. ; for St. John's own teaching see,
e.g., Jn 3**'-). In this sense there is only one ' Son
oi God,' who is tlie Only-begotten, the Beloved
(lj.ovoyevi}i and i.fair7rr6% are both translations of
Tn; ; see Onlv-Begotten). And so in the Epistles
the title expresses the Divinity of our Lord. The
apostolic message was to preach that Jesus is the
Son of God (Ac 9'-^ Jn 2(y"). While the first
Christian teacliers proclaimed the true humanity
of the Lord (e.g. Ro 1* : ' concerning his Son who
was born of the seed of David according to the
flesh'), they also proclaimed His true Godhead
(v.* : 'declared to be the Son of God with power').
The saying of Justin Martyr (Apol. i. 22) exhibits
no advance on apostolic doctrine : ' The Word of
God was born of God in a peculiar manner ' (i5iwi).
The Arians distinguished 'Son of God' from 'God,' and de-
nied that the ' Son ' could be in the highest sense ' God.' The
Clementine Ilomilies (wliich used to be thought to be of the
2nd or 3rd cent., but are now usuall)', in their present form,
ascribed to the 4th [JThSt x. (1908-09) 457]) make the same
distinction (xvi. 15). St. Peter is made to say : ' Our Lord . . .
did not proclaim Himself to be God, but He with reason pro-
nounced blessed him who called Him the Son of that God who
has arran^'ed the universe.' Simon [Maffus] replies that he
who comes from God is God ; but St. Puter says that this is not
possible; they did not hear it from Him. 'What is begotten
cannot be comi)ared with that which is unljegotten or self-
begotten.' Sanday (fl^ZlB iv. 577*") refers to this passage as an
isolated phenomenon ; but now that the book has been with
much probability assigned to the later date, we may say that
the teaching just quoted was not heard of, as far as the evi-
dence goes, till the 4th century.
(b) Jesus is the Lord. — The significance of this
title (6 Kvpios) in the Apostolic Age is not at once
apparent to the European of to-day. The name
'Lord' seems to him applicable to any leader of
religious thought. To the present-day Greek
Kvpie is no more than our ' Sir, and 6 Kvpios is the
way in which any gentleman is spoken of, as the
French use the word Monsieur. But to the Greek-
speaking Christian Jew of the 1st cent., 6 /civptoy had
a much deeper signification ; deeper also than tlie
complimentary Aramaic title 'Rabbi' (lit. 'my
great one'). For the Jews habitually used the
word 'Lord 'as a substitute for 'Jahweh.' That
sacred name, though written, was not pronounced.
In reading the Hebrew OT, ' Adonai ' was substi-
tuted for it. And so the Hellenistic Jews, in read-
ing their Greek translation of the OT, found 6
K'upi.os where the original has 'Jahweh.' When,
then, St. Paul declares that ' no man can say,
Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit' (1 Co 12*),
or bids the Roman Christian ' confess with thy
mouth Jesus as Lord ' (Ro 10» RV ; cf. Ph 2"), he
does not mean merely that Jesus is a great teacher,
but he identifies Him with ' the Lord ' of tlie Greek
OT, that is, with Jahweh. St. Peter uses the
same identification when he says : ' Sanctify in
your hearts Christ as Lord' (I P 3'* RV ; the AV
reading is not supported by the best authorities) ;
here he quotes Is 8'* LXX (Kvpiov avrbv ayidaaTe),
actually substituting rbv Xpiffrdv for avrdv. (C.
Bigg [ICC, 1901, in loc] renders 'sanctify the
Lord, that is to say, the Christ,' but this does not
affect the present argument.) This identification
is frequent in the NT. The title 'the Lord' is
used both of the Father and of the Son. A re-
markable passage is J a 5*"", where we read in
quick succession of 'the Lord of Sabaoth,' 'the
coming of the Lord,' ' the Lord is at hand,' ' the
prophets spake in the name of the Lord,' ' the
Lord shall raise (the sick man) up'; 'the Lord'
means here sometimes the Fatlier and sometimes
the Son (in 3" RV it is explicitly used of the Father).
With this compare the way in which in 4" C.od is
said to be the one ' lawgiver and judge, who is able
to save and to destroy,' while in .5" Jesus is the judge
who ' standeth before the doors.' The passage 1 Co
10" would be still more striking if we could be sure
GOD
GOD
463
of the text. Accordinj^ to the AV and RVm, St.
Paul speaks of the Israelites who sinned against
Jahweh in Nu 21''' as * tempting Christ ' ; but the
reading rbv Xpun-dp is not (juite so well attested as
rbr Kvpiop. Another identification of Jesus with
Jahweh is to be seen in the taking over of the
expression 'the daj- of the Lord' ('the day of
Jahweh) from the OT (cf. Am 5'^, etc.) and the
using of it to denote the return of Jesus, in 1 Th 5',
2 P 3'o, which have ' the day of the Lord,' and 1 Co
5*, 2 Co 1", which have ' the day of [our] Lord
Jesus.'
Again, Jesus is in the NT called 'Lord' in a
manner which is equivalent to * Almighty,' i.e. ' all
ruling' (see above, 3 (a)) ; e.g. Ac 1(P* (''he is Lord
of all ), Ro 14* (' Lord of the dead and the living'),
Ph 3**- ('the Lord Jesus Christ . . . is able even
to subject all things unto himself'), 1 Co 2* ('cruci-
fied the Lord of glory ' — an approach to the com-
municatio idiomatum [see alx)ve, 5 (6)]), Rev 1'
('ruler of the kings of the earth'), 17" 19^* (the
Lamb, the Word of God, is ' Lord of lords and
King of kinirs' — a phrase used in 1 Ti 6^ of the
Father); cf.^He l^^^^ (.^he Son . . . upholding all
things by the word of his power') and Ro ^ (' who
is over all '). God is commonly addressed by the
disciples as ' Lord,' as in Ac 1-* (but see above. 3
{c))4^ (explicitly the Father; see v.») 10*- " ll* ;
and this is the way in which Saul of Tarsus and
Ananias address the Ascended Jesus in their
visions (Ac 9^- i"-i3 [see v."*-] 228-«>-i» 26^; cf. Mt
25", etc).
The title 'oar Lord' for Jesos, which became the most
common designation amon^ the Christians, is not very common
in the NT. In Kev 1115 it 13 used of the Father (' our Lord and
his Christ '> In II8 AY it is used of Jesus, but aU the best MSS
here have 'their Lord.' It is, however, found in Ja 2i ('our
Lord Jesus Christ [the Lord] of glory') and in 2 Co 13i*, 1 15
IW, 2 n 1«, He 7" 1320, 2 P 31S, etc
(c) Our Lords Divinity stated in express terms. —
Many of the passages about to be given in this sub-
section have been keenly criticized, but it is im-
possible to pass over the whole of them. This
passage or that may possibly be explained other-
wise than is here done, or in some cases the reading
may be disputed ; but the cumulative eflect of the
whole is overwhelming. Yet it must be remarked
that the doctrine of the Godhead of our Lord does
not depend merely on a certain number of leading
texts. The language of the whole of the apostolic
writings is inexplicable on the supposition that
their authors believed their Master to be mere
man, or even a created being of any sort, however
highly exalted.
In Ro 9* St. Paul says that Christ is ' over all,
God blessed for ever.' Such is the interpretation
of the AV and RV (RV'm mentions the transla-
tions of ' some modem interpreters '), adopted 'with
some slight, but onlj- slight, hesitation ' by Sanday-
Headlani in their exhaustive note (ICC in loc.).
The alternative interpretations insert a fuE stop,
and make the latter part of the verse an ascrip-
tion of praise to the Father.
In 2 Co 4^ Col 1« Christ is called the ' image '
(ei/ciip) of God ; with this we must compare the re-
markable passage. He l**-, where the Son is called
* the effulgence {irajuyaa/xa ; cf. Wis 7**) of his
glory and the very image of his substance ' {xapairrrip
TTJs vroffTdaeojs airrov), and is declared to be higher
than, and worshipped by, the angels, and to have
eternal rule ; the quotation from Ps 45*'% begin-
ning 'Thy throne, O God,' is referred to the Son.
It is remarkable that whereas no Epistle empha-
sizes our Lords humanity so strongly as Hebrews,
its beginning should dwell so forcibly on His
Divine prerogatives. The meaning of these ex-
pressions 'inia^e,' ' effulgence,' is seen by studying
the passage Col I*'"- with Lightfoot's notes (Colos-
sians^, 1879, »» loc.). Christ is 'the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of all creation' (see
FiRST-BoRX for Patristic interpretations). But
our Lord is not the ' image ' of God in the same way
as all men are (1 Co 11", Ja 3», Gn 1» ; Clement of
Rome uses x«p«i«")/) in the same sense [Cor. xxxiii.
4] though he quotes Gn 1* with eUwp). Christ is
the revelation of the invisible God because He is
His ' express image.' He is the ' firstborn of all
creation, as being before all creation, and having
sovereignty over it (Lightfoot). There can be
little doubt that St. Paul here refers to the pre-
incamate Christ as the earlier Fathers, and even-
tually the later Greek Fathers, held. He adds
that ' in him all the fulness (rX-^pufia) dwells ' (Col
I''), and that 'in him dwelleth all the fulness
of the Grodhead bodily ' (2*) : the totality of the
Di\'ine power and attributes (Lightfoot) are in the
Incarnate Jesus.
In Ph 2*^ St. Paul says that our Lord ' being
{inrdpx(ay) in the form of God, counted it not a
prize [a thing to be grasped at] to be on an equality
with God, but empried (iKiviMrt) himself, taking
the form of a servant, being made in the likeness
of man.' This passage, which has given rise to the
word ' Kenotic,' is elaborately treated bv Lightfoot
(see his Phiiippians*, 1878, p. Ill f., and especially
his appended Notes, pp. 127-137). It expresses
Christ's pre-existence, for He 'emptied himself.'
Of what He emptied Himself is seen from the pre-
ceding words. He was originally {vrdpxt^y, denot-
ing ' prior existence,' but not necessarily ' eternal
existence ' [Lightfoot]) in the form of God, partici-
pating in the owrt'a of God. Yet He did not regard
His equality with Gk)d as a thing to be jealously
guarded, a prize which must not slip from His
grasp.
"We cannot lay great stress on Ac 20®, for
which see above, 5 (b), because of the uncertainty
of the reading; but by all grammatical canons
(though this has been denied) Tit 2" must apply
the name ' God ' to our Lord : * our great God and
Saviour, Jesus Christ ' (RV ; tow fieydXov OeoD xai
auTjjpos ijfiuiv ' Iric-ov XpwrroO), and this interpretation
is borne out by the word t-rupdi'eia (' manifestation ')
which imme<uately precedes, and by the whole
context, which speaks of our Lord (v."). The
phrase in 2 P 1^ is similar : ' our God and Saviour
Jesus Christ ' (RV text).
The explicit ascription of Divinity is found
frequently in the Johannine writings. In 1 Jn 5*,
indeed, the phrase ' This is the true God ' may be
applied either to the Father or to the Son (see above,
3 (c)) ; and in Jn 1'* the reading is disputed (see
Okly-Begottex) ; ' God only begotten ' {putwoyepip
dedt) is somewhat better attested than 'the only
begotten Son ' (6 fwpoyewiti \A6i) and is the more diffi-
cult reading ; Westcott (Com. in loc.) judges both
readings to be of great and almost equal antiquity,
but on various grounds thinks that the former must
be accepted. But, whatever view we take of these
two passages, St. Thomas's confession, ' My Lord
and my God ' (20^), is quite explicit ; and so is the
preface to the Fourth Gospel : ' The Word was
with God, and the Word was GJod ' (1*), and so are
our Lord's words, ' I and the Father are one ' (ip
ifffiep, 1(P). The Johannine doctrine of the Logos
or Word, which cannot be altogether passed over
even in an investigation which deals chiefly with
the NT outside the Gospels (though the title
' Word of God ' occurs only in Rev 19'^ outside the
Fourth Gospel, for He 11' [pvf^'rt Oeov] is no excep-
tion to this statement), is equivalent to the Pauline
doctrine of the Image. The Logos is an eternally
existent ' Person ' through whom God has ever
revealed Himself ; who was in a true sense distinct
from the Father, and yet 'was God' (Jn 1') ; who
was incarnate, ' became iiesh and tabernacled (ecrjc^-
464
GOD
GOD
w(T€p) anions us ' (1"). Tlie Logos is identified with
Jesus Christ, wliose glory the disciples beheld.
{(l) Pre-existence of our Lord. — This is stated
frequently in the NT. Besides the passages just
quoted in (c), we may notice Ro 8* ('God sending
Ills own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh ') ; 1 Co
10* (the Israelites of old ' drank of a spiritual rock
that followed them, and the rock was Christ ' [note
the past tense ' was ' : it is not a mere type]) ; 15"
('the second man is of heaven'; the best MSS
omit * the Lord,' but this does not affect the
present point ; Robertson-Plummer, however {ICC,
1911, in loc.\ think that the reference is to the
Second Advent rather than to the Incarnation) ;
2 Co 8* ('though he was rich, for your sakes he
became poor ^ (eTrrwxeuae) — if He had no previous
existence, there never was a i)revious time when
He was ricii) ; Col 1" (' he is before all things, and
in him all things consist ' [hold together] : see above
(c)) ; 1 Ti 1^' (' Christ Jesus came into the world ') ;
3^* (' He who was manifested in the flesh ' : the read-
ing 6e6s for Ss [i.e. 0C for OC], which would have
made this verse an explicit statement of our Lord's
Divinity, has ' no sufficient ancient evidence '
[RVm], but this ancient hymn, as it appears to
be, is good witness for the pre-existence) ; 2 Ti I"*
(' which was given us in Christ Jesus before times
eternal, but hath now been manifested by the ap-
pearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus ') ; He 1* ( ' when
he bringeth in the firstborn into the world ') ; 1 P
120 (' ■who Avas foreknown indeed before the founda-
tion of the world, but was manifested at the end
of the times for your sake') ; 1 Jn 3'"^ (He 'was
manifested'); 4^^ ('Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh '). See also below (e). Some of these expres-
sions might have been interpreted, though with
difficulty, of an ordinary birth ; but such an inter-
pretation is impossible when we compare them all
together.
With these passages from the Epistles we may-
compare a few examples taken out of the Fourth
Gospel. The Word was ' in the beginning ' and
'became flesh' (Jn !*•"). Jesus speaks of Him-
self, or the Evangelist speaks of Him, as ' he that
cometh from above, he that cometh from heaven '
(3^^), 'whom thou hast sent' (17*), as 'he that de-
scended out of heaven, even the Son of Man which
is in heaven ' (3'* ; the last four words are omitted
by M B and some other authorities, and are thought
by WH [Appendix, p. 75] to be an early but true
gloss). Pre-existence does not in itself imply God-
head ; but, on the other hand, if our Lord was not
pre-existent, He cannot be God.
(e) Divine attributes ascribed to our Lord. — At
the outset of the apostolic period St. Peter speaks
of Jesus as the ' Prince ' (or ' Author,' apx-nyd^) ' of
life'; He coidd not be holden of death (Ac 2**).
This resembles the sayings of the Fourth Gospel
that Jesus has ' life in himself ' ( Jn 5^" : see below, 8),
and that He has power to lay down His life and to
take it again (10^*). Jesus 'abolished death and
brought life and incorruption to light through the
gospel' (2 Ti l^o). He is 'the first and the last,
and the Living One,' who ' was dead ' but is ' alive
for evermore ' and has ' the keys of death and of
Hades' (Rev I"'-) ; He is the ' Alpha and Omega'
(22>^), a title which had just before been given to
the Father (P 216; gee above, 3 (i)). The Lamb,
as well as the Father, is the source of the river
(Rev 22') which is the gift of the Spirit (see Swete,
Com. in loc. ; cf. Jn 7'"')' Christ, being the Living
One, is called ' our life,' the giver of life to us, in
Col 3* ; cf. 2 Ti P" as above, and Jn 6" ('he that
eateth me, he aLso shall live because of me ' ; see 8).
And therefore He is 'in us' (Ro S'", etc.).
Our Lord is represented as receiving the worship
of angels (He l"), and of the four-and-twenty elders
(Rev 5^'-), and of the angels and living creatures
and elders (vv."""). He took part in the creation^
of the world (Col I", He P" 3», 1 Co 8«, Ro W^,
Jn P). Both He and the Father are called ' the
Saviour.' The ascription of this title to the Father
is characteristic of tne Pastoral lOpistles (1 Ti P 2*
410, Tit P 2'" 3* ; cf. 2 Ti P) and is also found in
Jude2» RV, Lk 1« (cf. Ja 4'2) ; but it is given to^
our Lord in 2 Ti 1", Tit P 3" (in eacli case just
after it had been given to the Father), as it is given
in Eph 5'a, Ph 3'«, 1 Jn 4'^ 2 P P- " 2«' Z"^^^, Lk 2",
Jn 4", Ac 531 1328 (cf. also Jn l^\ He 1"^). Hi»
human nfime of Jesus was given Him with that
very signification (Mt P'). It was the foundation
of the gospel message that ' Christ Jesus came into^
the world to save sinners' (1 Ti P*). It is in the
same way that the Father is sometimes said to^
be the Judge, sometimes our Lord. The Father
i'udges through the Son (Jn 5*" ; cf, Ja 4'" with 5»).
le that sat on the white horse ' doth judge and
make war' (Rev 19''), though during His eartlily
ministry our Lord did not judge (Jn 8"). These
two considerations, that Jesus is Saviour and Judge,
might not be so conclusive as to His Divinity, if it
were not for another office ascribed to Him, that
of the One Mediator (1 Ti 2'). He is Himself man
(v.*), or He could not mediate ; and by parity of
reasoning He is Himself God. A mediator must
share the nature of both parties to the mediation.
A mere man can only supplicate ; God not incar-
nate can be merciful ; but God incarnate alone can
mediate.
The great attributes of God — love, truth, know-
ledge, holiness, righteousness (including justice) —
are ascribed to our Lord. His love is spoken of in
some of the most pathetic passages of St. Paul :
' the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
up for me' (Gal 2-"), 'the love of Christ which
passeth knowledge' (Eph 3" ; cf. 5^). The Apoca-
lyptist declares that ' he lovetli us and loosed us from
our sins by his blood ' (Rev 1'). It is because of
this Divine attribute of love that ' Christ forgave '
sinners (Eph 4^'^). His forgiving sins was a great
scandal to the Jews (Mk 2*-''-'<'). Well might they
ask, from their point of view, ' Who can forgive
sins but one, even God ?' The forgiveness of sins by
our Lord difJers in kind, not in degree, from human
absolutions pronounced by Christian ministers, who
do not profess to be able to read the heart or
to perform any but a conditional and ministerial
action. — For the attribute of truth see Rev 3^-"
('the Amen ') 6'" 19" (in these Jesus is [6] dXij^ivAi,
the 'ideal or absolute truth,' not merely 'vera-
cious'), Jn P* (' full of grace and truth ') 14* (' I am
the way and the truth and the life'). Our Lord,
then, is absolute Truth ; and with this attribute
is associated that of knoxclcdge : ' He knew all men
... he himself knew what was in man ' ( Jn 2^) ;
without this He could not be the Judge (see also
1 Co P-»-»», Col 23).— Most emphatically is our Lord
called holy. His is an absolute sanctity (Rev 3^ :
' He that is holy, he that is true ') ; not only the
holiness of a good man who strives to do God's
will, but absolute sinlessness. This attribute is
insisted on with some vehemence in 2 Co 5-', He 4'*
7-*'- (' holy ' [Scrtos ; see 3 (/) note], ' separated from
sinners')," 1 P P" 2P, 1 Jn 3'; note also Ro 8^
('in the likeness of sinful flesh'). Sanday-Headlam
justly remark (ICC in loc.) that * the flesh of Christ
IS " like " ours inasmuch as it is flesh ; " like," and
only "like," because it is not sinful.' For this
attribute see also Ac 3" (' the Holy and Righteous
One') 4=", Rev 6'"; and, in the Gospels, Mk 1-'*,
Jn 6**, etc. Both the demoniacs in a lower sense
and the instructed disciples in a higher one call our
Lord ' the Holy One of God.' It was announced
by Gabriel that from His birth Jesus should be
called holy, the Son of God (Lk 1» RV).— Lastly,
the attribute of righteousness is ascribed to our
GOD
GOD
465
Lord. e.g. in Ac 3" 22", 2 Ti 4^ He 1», Ja o\ 1 P S'*,
Kev 19", as in Jn 5**. It is this attribute which
assures a just judgment ; but it includes more than
• justice ' in the ordinary human sense ; it embraces
all that ' uprightness ' stands for. (With the whole
of this sub-section, cf. § 8 above.)
(/) Christ's Godhead w not contrary to His true
humanity. — In weighing all the above considera-
tions, we must remember the great stress that is
laid in the NT on the true humanity of Jesus {e.g.
Ac 17", Ro 1', 1 Ti 2*, Rev 1«), though this does
not come within the scope of this article. The
apostles did not make their Master to be a mere
Docetic or phantom man. Jesus really suffered in
His human spirit as well as in His human body.
But when we review all the passages given in the
preceding paragraphs, and others like them, what-
ever deductions we may make because of a doubtful
reading here or a questionable interpretation there,
we. cannot doubt that the apostles taught that
Jesus is no mere man, or even a created angel,
but is God. See further below, § 9.
7. Pcpsonality and Godhead of the Holy Ghost.
— Much is said in the OT of the Spirit of God, who
from the first had given life to the world (Gn 1- 2^,
Job 33*). The ' Spirit ' in Hebrew, as in Greek and
Latin, is the Breath of God (rxi, rpeOfta, spiritus),
who not only gave physical life at the first, but
is the moving power of holiness. The Psalmist
prays: 'Take not thy holy spirit from me' (Ps
51"). But the OT teachers had not yet learnt
what Christian theology calls the personality of
the Holy Ghost (see above, 5 (a)), though in the
teaching about ' Wisdom,' which is in some degree
personitietl in the OT, e.g. in Pr 8 and the Sapi-
ential books of the Apocrypha, and also in tne
phraseology of such passages as Is 48^" 63^'*, they
made some approach to it. In Christian times,
while there has been on the whole little doubt
about the Godhead of the Spirit (though in the 4th
cent, the Arians asserted that He was a created
being), yet men have frequently hesitated about
His distinct personality, and have thought of Him
merely as an Attribute or Influence of the Father.
It is therefore important to investigate the apos-
tolic teaching on the subject. We must first notice
that the NT writers fully recognize that the Holy
Spirit had worked in the Old Dispensation ; 1^
' spake by the prophets ' [the enlarged ' Nicene '
Creed] ; the words quoted from the OT are the
words of the Holy Ghost (Ac V^ 28^, 1 P 1", 2 P
1^, Mk 12^, etc.). The Pentecostal outpouring
was not the first working of the Spirit in the world.
But the apostolic writers teach a far higher doc-
trine of the Spirit than was known in the OT.
(a) The Godhead of the Holy Ghost. — We have
already seen (above, 5 (c)) that the Spirit is in the
NT teaching joined to the Father and Son in a
manner which implies Godhead. The 'Spirit of
God' (see below) must be God. When Ananias
lied 'to the Holy Ghost,' he lied not 'unto men
but unto God' (Ac o*** ; cf. v.*, where he and
Sapphira are said to have 'agreed together to
tempt the Spirit of the Lord '). With th& we may
compare Mk 3^, where blasphemy against the
H0I3* Spirit is said to have ' never forgiveness ' ;
the II Mt 12*^'- adds: 'Whosoever shall speak a
word against the Son of man it shall be forgiven
him.' The inference is that if the Son is God, the
Spirit is God. — Di\'ine attributes are predicated of
the Spirit. In particular. He is throughout named
holy. We may ask why this epithet is so con-
stantly given to Him, for it is obviously not in-
tended to derogate from the Father or the Son.
May not the reason be sought in the work of the
Spirit ? It is through Him that man becomes holy,
through Him that God works on man. In this
connexion we may notice two points. (1) In the
VOL. I. — 30
OT we do not find the al>solute title 'the Holy
Spirit,' though the Spirit is called ' holy ' in Ps 51"
('thy holy spirit') and Is 63'**- ('his holy spirit').
The use of the title 'the Holy Spirit' is a token
of advance to the conception of personality ; see
below (b). (2) In the NT there is frequently a
difference between the title when used without the
article and when used with it, so that rvevfta iyiov
('Holy Spirit') is a gift or manifestation of the
Spirit in its relation to the life of man, while the
same words with the article (t6 rvevfui t6 iyiw or
TO iyioi' Tvei/fxa) denote the Holy Spirit considered
as a Divine Person (Swete, The Holy Spirit in the
NT, 1909, p. 396 f.).— Again, knowledge of the deep
things of God is predicated of the Spirit (1 Co 2^**").
He is the truth (1 Jn 5? ; cf. Jn 15*). He is the
Spirit of life (Ro 8*), and immanent in man (Ro ^
8» 14", 1 Co 6» [cf. esp. 2 Co 6'«] 7« Gal 4«, Jn 14",
etc. ). He is eternal (He 9" ; but on this verse see
Swete, p. 61).
(b) The Personality of the Holy Ghost.— Tbia
needs careful consideration. Is He but an In-
fluence of the Father? The NT writings negative
this idea ; for, though they join together the Spirit
with the Father and the Son, as above, 5 (c), yet
they represent the Spirit as being in a real sense
distinct from both. In Jn 14^' our Lord says : * I
will pray the Father, and he shall give you another
(dXXo;') Comforter.' He is sent by the Father (14*),
proceeds from the Father (15*), and is sent by the
Son from the Father (15^ 16^). He is called by St.
Paul in the same context ' the Spirit of God ' and
'the Spirit of Christ' (Ro Sfi). The Father is not
the same Person as the Son, and if the Holy Ghost
is the Spirit of both. He must be distinct from
both. This is seen silso, though in not quite so
close and striking a context, in many other passages.
He is called ' the Spirit of God ' also in 1 Co 2^"^- "
7*, Eph 4*>, Ph 3», 1 Th 4*, 1 Jn 4- «, as in Mt 1228
(where the i| Lk 11" has ' the finger of God ' instead,
the meaning being that God works through the
Holy Ghost) ; He is called ' the Spirit of your
Father' in Mt 10*; and 'the Spirit of Christ' or
'of Jesus' or 'of the Son' in Ac 16' RV, Gal 4«,
Ph 1^, 1 P 1"; note especially Gal 4«: 'God sent
forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.' Again,
that the Spirit is distinct from the Son is clear
from Jn 16^ (' if I go not away the Comforter will
not come unto you, but if I go I will send him unto
you') and v." ('he shall take of mine and shall
declare it unto you ').
Personal acts are frequently predicated of the
Holy Ghost. In Ac 13- * we read : ' They minis-
tered to the Lord, and the Holy Ghost said. Separate
me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I
have called them. ... So they, being sent forth
by the Holy Ghost,' etc. In Ac 15"* the formula
which became the common usage of later Councils
is used : ' It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to
us.' So we read that the Spirit wills (1 Co 12"),
searches (1 Co 2'"), is grieved (Eph 4*'), helps and
intercedes (Ro 8**), dwells within ua (above (a)),
and distributes gifts (1 Co 12").
In the sub-apo6tolic period there ia foood some oontonon
between the Son and the Spirit : e.g. Hermas, Sim. t. 6, ix. 1 ;
pseudo-Clement, S Cor. ix., xxv. ; Jostin, ApoL L 33. Thus
Justin says: "Hie Spirit and the Power ■which is from God
must not be thoaght to be anght else bat the Word who is
God's First-begotten.' Hennas seems to identify the Spirit
with the pre-existent Dirine nature of Christ : ' The hrfy pre-
existent Spirit which created the whole earth God made to
dwell in flesh. . . . Tliat Spirit is the Son of God." But the
meaning of these writers seems to be merely that the pre-
existent Logos was spirit and was Divine. Swete (Botif Spirit
in the Ancient Church, p. 31) remarks of this period that ' there
was as yet no formal theology of the Spirit and no effort to
create it; nor was there any conscious heresy. But the
presence of the Spirit in the Body of Christ was recognized
on all hands as an acknowledged fact of the Christian life.'
8. Subordination. — This is the term by which
Christian theology expresses the doctrine that
466
GOD
GOD
there are not tliree sources in the Godhead, but
that the Son and the Holy Ghost derive their
Divine substance from the Father, and that, while
they are equal to Him as touching their Godhead,
yet in a real sense they are subordinate to Hiui.
This, however, does not involve tlie Arian con-
ception of a Supreme God and two inferior deities.
It must be remembered that human language is
limited, and unable to express fully the Divine
mysteries ; so that just as the teclinical terms
* Trinity,' ' Person,' may be misused in the interests
of Tritheism, so 'subordination' may be misused
in the interests of Arianism.
It is noteworthy that the 'spiritual Gospel,' as
Clement of Alexandria calls Jn. (quoted in Eusebius,
HE VI. xiv. 7), though it insists so strongly on the
Godhead of our Lord, yet equally emphasizes the
doctrine of subordination. It is the Father who,
having 'life in himself,' gave 'to the Son also to
have life in himself,' and 'gave all judgment unto
the Son ' ( Jn 5'^- ^). Jesus says : ' I live because
of the Father ' (6" ; cf . 10'»). It has been disputed
whether Jn 14^"* (' the Father is greater than I ') re-
fers to Jesus' humanity, as the Latin Fathers ordin-
arily explain it, or to His Divinity, as the Greek
Fathers interpret ; if to the latter, we have here a
striking instance of subordination (see Liddon,
Bampton Lechires, ISGG^, 1878, lect. iv. p. 199 f.).
We tind the same thing in St. Paul : ' The head
of Christ is God'(l Co IP); 'then shall the Son
also himself be subjected to him that did subject
all things unto him, that God may be all in all '
(1528) ; cf. 1 Co 8», ' of whom are all things.' Sub-
ordination is also suggested by the frequent phrase
' the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ' and
the words ' my God ' used by our Lord in Rev 3*
RV 3'^, and especially in Jn 20", where Jesus dis-
tinguishes 'my God' and 'your God' just as He
distinguishes 'my Father' and 'your Father'
(above, 4 (a)).
Both the Godhead and the subordination of our
Lord are expressed by the phrases ' God of (iK)
God,' ' Very God of very God ' of the Nicene Creed.
The Father is the fount or source of Godhead, and
there is none other.
The subordination of the Spirit is implied in
much that has been quoted above. The very title
' the Spirit of God ' denotes that He is subordinate
to the Father and derives from Him. Note also
Jn 16*^'- : ' He shall not speak from himself, but
what things soever he shall hear, [these] shall he
speak ... he shall take of mine and shall declare
it unto you,' with which we must compare \5}^ :
' all things that I heard from my Father 1 have
made known unto you.' This refers to the tem-
poral mission of the Holy Ghost, and so, probably
(at least in it* primary aspect), does the saj'ing
that He ' proceedeth from the Father ' (15-*). The
procession of the Holy Ghost has been much dis-
cussed, and the controversy has been complicated
by the addition of a word (Filioque) to the Nicene
Creed by the Western Church ; but most of those
who have engaged in this theological warfare
might probably agree in the statement that He
who is ' the Spirit of Christ ' ])roceeds, in eternity
as well as in time, from the Fatlier through the
Son. In any ca.se, procession involves what is
meant by ' subordination.'
9. The Divine unity.— Although the apostolic
writers emphasize the distinctions in the Godhead,
they at the same time reiterate the OT doctrine
that God is One. They show no consciousness of
teaching anything but the unity of God. The
saying of Dt 6* (cf. Is 44^) that ' The Lord our God
is one Lord' is repeated by the Master in Mk
1229. 'There is no God but one,' says St. Paul (1
Co 8* ; so V.8) ; ' There is one God,' ' the only God '
(1 Ti 2' 1"). St. James makes the unity of God a
common ground between his opponents and him-
self ; even the demons believe [this] (Ja 2"*). A.s
a matter of fact, Christianity was never seriously
accused of polytheism. Aubrey Moore remarks
(Lux Mundi^, 1890, p. 59) that at the present day
polytheism has ceased to exist in tne civilized
world ; everj' theist is by a rational necessity
a monotheist. And this tendency had begun at
the commencement of the Christian era. But the
Jews of that day made the Divine unity to be self-
absorbed. The Divine attribute of love implies
relations within the Divine Being ; and hence the
Jewish idea of God was a barren one, as is the
Muhammadan idea to-day. The world needed a
re-statement of the doctrme of (iod, and this was
given by Christianity. The Christian doctrine
steers ite way between Tritheism, which postu-
lates three Persons like three individuals, and
Sabellianism, which teaches that Father, Son, and
Spirit are but three aspects of God. It does not
profess to be ' easy ' ; it was the desire for ' easi-
ness ' that led to Arianism and its cognates, which
taught that the Son and the Spirit were inferior
and created Divine beings ; and, indeed, it was
the same desire that led to all the old Christian
heresies. But we need not expect that the ' deep
things of God' (1 Co 2'"), which cannot adequately
be expressed in human language, will be readily
comprehensible to our limited human intelligence.
To whom is this re-statement of the doctrine of
God due ? Was it made in sub-apostolic times, or
by the apostles, or by our Lord Himself ? Those
who deny that St. Paul wrote any Epistles, or at
least any that have survived, and who make the
Fourth Gospel, and perhaps the First, to be 2nd
cent, writings, may take the lirst view. Only it
is difficult to imagine what unknown genius in the
sub-apostolic age could have made such a revolu-
tion in thought. This view, however, may safely
be passed over, as involving a thoroughly false
criticism of the NT books. More attention must
be paid to the view that the re-statement of doc-
trine is due to St. Paul ; tiiat he was, in reality,
the founder of Christian doctrine, and that the
'original Christianity is better represented by
Ebionism.' It has been well pointed out by Gore
{Bampton Lectures, 1891, Appended Note 26, p.
254 fi".) that this view is contrary to all the evi-
dence. Those books of the NT which are most
independent of St. Paul, such as the Second
Gospel, the Epistle of St. James, and the Apoca-
lypse, give the same doctrine that the Apostle of
the Gentiles gives. There was no opposition on
tlie subject of the Person of Christ between St. Paul
and his judaizing opponents, as would certainly
have been the case had Ebionism been the original
Christianity. The re-statement of the doctrine of
God was fully received at least within a genera-
tion of the Ascension. For example, Sanday points
out (HDB iv. 573*) that the use of 'the Father'
and ' the Son ' as theological terms goes back to a
date which is not more than 23 years from that
event (1 Th 1^- ^'^). It is impossible to account for
such a rapid growth unless the re-statement came
from Him whose bond-servants the apostles loved
to profess themselves. The concurrence of so
many independent writers can only be due to the
fact that ' grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
No man hath seen God at any time ; God only be-
gotten [or the only begotten Son], which is in the
bosom of the Father, he hath declared him ' (Jn I"'-).
LiTKRATiTRK.— Out of a vast number of works it is not easy to
(jive a small seleciion which will be useful to the reader ; and
therefore only Knglish works are here mentioned, and only
those which bear on the apostolic period. Reference may be
made to J. Pearson, An Exposition of the Creed (first published
in leSD; a monument of theological learning, of which the
foot-notes, giving the Patristic quotations, are specially valu-
able) ; C. Gore, The Incarnation o/ the Son of God (Bampton
GODLINESS
GOG AND MAGOG
467
Ltehtrtt, 1891) ; H. P. Liddon, The Divinity oj Our Lord and
Savicwr Jettu Ckritt {Bampton Lecture*, 1866) ; Lux Mundfi,
1890 (especaally EsMtys iv., v., vi.. viii.); H. B. Swete, ne
ApostUf CreedP, 1899, The Holy Spirit in tMe Sew TeaUtmeia,
1909, and The Holg ^rit iu the Ancient Ckureh, 1912 ; R. L.
Ottley, Aspects of tJu OT (Bampton Lectures, 1897) (especuUy
Lecture IT. on the 'Progressive SeU-Revelation of God'); R.
C Moberley, Atonement and Personalitt, 1901 ; H. C. Powell,
The Principle of the Ineamatitn, 1886; A. J. Mason, The
Faith of the G<Mpel, 1887-89. Special reference luiuft also be
made to artt. ' God ' and ' Son of God ' by W. Sanday in UDB
mad • Trinity ■ by C F. DArcy in DCG.
A. J. Maclean.
GODLINESS. — This word appears in the EV of
the NT as the translation of the Gr. ewr^/3«o (1 Ti
2* 316 47. 8 2 Ti 3*. Tit P, 2 P 1»- «• ^ 3", also Ac 3'2 RV).
In 1 Ti 2»" it translates Oeoai^eia. Cf. also 2 Clem,
xix. 1 (cvffe'/Jettt), XX. 4 {deoai^fux). * fvci^eta is a
more general word than dtoci^ui, and Ls almost
equivjUent to the Latin pietas, dne esteem of
superiors, whether human or Divine, while deoai^eia
is restricted to God as its object. However, in the
NT- eiVe,3eitt always has reference to God' (J. H.
Bernard, The Pastoral Epistles [Camb. Greek
Test., 1899], p. 39 f.).
It will be seen from the above references that the
word evai^ewL (deoat^tia) is particularly character-
istic of the Pastoral Epistles. H. J. Holtzmann
speaks of the idea represented by it as one of the
most individual ideas of these letters, and points
out that its appearance in them (cf. also evce^Cn
}t,p [2 Ti 3", Tit 2*2]) ig connected with the recession
of the one-sidedly religious interest of the great
Pauline Epistles (GaL, Rom., 1 and 2 Cor.), and
the coming to the front of an ethical conception of
the business of life (see his NT Theol.^, Tubing-
en, 1911, ii. 306). In the original Paultnism the
supreme stress lies on the religious relation to God,
and the central idea is that of justification by faith ;
while the ethical note is struck only in the second
place, and in connexion with the peculiar Pauline
mj'sticism. The Christian united to Christ in His
Death and Resurrection is a new man, and must
accordingly live as such. In the Pastoral Epistles,
however, it is justification by faith and the specifi-
cally religious relation to God which are in the
background ; while the ethical demand of Christi-
anity comes to the front in connexion with a fresh
idea — that of adhesion to the Church, its doctrine
and practice. It is just this latter point of view
as a whole which is summed up in the word eiae^eia.
' It is above all significant of the tendency of our
epistles, that this conception serves to gather up
in one both of these lines, in which the entire
thought and effort of the author moves, viz. the
ecclesiastical and the practical character of the
type of religion recommended by him ' (Holtzmann,
loc. cit. ). On the one hand, therefore, godliness, a^
adhesion to the Church, appears as guaranteeing
true doctrine (the teaching which is according to
godliness [1 Ti 6^ the Imowledge of the truth
which is according to godliness [Tit 1^], the mystery
of godliness [1 Ti 3^®] ; cf. Ap. Const. iiL 5 : kottj-
Xetff^at TCI TTJs eiae^eias S&ynara). On the other hand,
godliness evidences itself in good works and a life
without reproach (1 Ti 2^ 4''). It is in fact because
of the practical and ethical character of Christian-
ity that its doctrine in opposition to the heretical
speculations of Gnosis is sound speech (Tit 2"),
sound teaching (1 Ti V\ 2 Ti 4^ Tit 1» 2^), sound
words (I Ti 6^ 2 Ti 1") ; cf. 'to be sound in the
faith ' (Tit l^^ 2^). On all this see Holtzmann, op. cit.
Holtzmann, of course, does not accept the Pauline
authorship of the Pastoral Epistles. Bernard, who
does, says that the group of words connected with
ewre^aa was within St. Paul's sphere of knowledge,
as they are all found in the LXX and are common
in Greek literature ; as a matter of fact, too, St.
Paul uses the corresponding forms dceSeia and
offf^qi in Romans. * But why he should not have
used them before and yet should use them so often
in these latest letters is among the unsolved prob-
lems of the phraseology of the Pastorals, although
corresponding literary phenomena have been often
observed ' {op. cit. p. 39). The problem created by
the use of these words is, however, only a part of
the larger problem of the whole change in thought
and atmosphere which has taken place between
the 'Hauptbriefe' and the Pastoral Epistles (see
the writer's Man, Sin, and Salvation, London,
1908, pp. 137-140).
In conclusion, it may be observed, and it has a
bearing on the question of the authorship of the
Pastorals, that the idea of 'godliness' serves to
bind these letters together with the certainly late
and unauthentic 2 Peter and 2 Clement. In 2 Pet.,
moreover, dxri^ia serves to denote, just as in the
Pastoiuls, the religion of the Church, in opposition
to that of a heretical Gnosis (1" 2"-).
Robert S. Franks.
GOG AND MAGOG.— In the Book of Revelation
(20"- *) the seer tells that Satan, after being bound
for one thousand years, shall be loosed and go forth
to deceive the nations which are in the four qnarters
of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them
together to battle. This is conceived in the Apoca-
lypse as the last great battle between the powers
of evil and the armies of God, and as the occasion
of the final overthrow of the wicked, when fire
comes forth from heaven to devour them. In this
passage Gog and Magog are represented as nations
dwelling in the four quarters of the earth and
symbolic of the enemies of the Lord. The names
are taken from the prophecy of Ezekiel (chs. 38
and 39), where Gog is represented as a person, ' the
prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal,' and Magog
as the name of his land (3J8-). The prophet depicts
this prince as leading a great host against the
restored Israel, and being utterly defeated and
overthrown. In the ethnological table in Gn 10
Magog is represented as the son of Japheth and
brother of Gomer. As to the etymology of the
names, considerable difference of opinion exists.
Driver (in SDB, art. 'Gog') states that the name
Gog recalls that of Gyges (Gr. ri^yiji, Assyr. Gugu),
the famous king of Lydia of whom Herodotus
(L 8-14) tells us, and who, Assurbanipal states
(KIB ii. 173-5), when his cotmtry was invaded
by the Gimirra (Cimerians), expelled them with
Assyrian help. The name may have reached
Palestine as that of a successful and distant king
of barbarian tribes and may have been used by
Ezekiel as symbolic of powers hostUe to the King-
dom of God. Anotlier interesting explanation is
that of Uhlemann (ZWT\. [ed. Hilgenfeld, 1862],
p. 265 ff.). He points out that Magog originally
signified ' dwelling-place,' or 'land of Gog,' and that
the name Gog itself means 'mountain.' Accord-
ing to Uhlemann, all etymological and geographical
indications point to the nation of Gog being the
inhabitants of the Caucasus, as the KaxiK&aiow odpot
of Herodotus is simply the Asiatic ' Kauk ' or
the Asiatic ' mountain range.' Others, such as
Augustine and several ancient commentators, con-
nect the word with Heb. ii ' roof,' ' cover' or ' protec-
tion,' but it is unlikely that there is any connexion.
The Jews themselves regarded Gog and Magog
as vague descriptions of northern barbaric nations,
with whom they were very slightly acquainted.
Josephus (Ant. I. vi. 1) identifies them with the
Scythians — a term which was generally used to
describe vaguely any northern barbaric people.
Perhaps even in Ezekiel, where Gog is the prince
and Magog the name of his country, the terms are
little more than symbolic names for the opponents
of God and His people. The picture that Ezekiel
gave of their overthrow gave rise to the apocalyptic
conception that finally the enemies of God and His
468
GOLD
GOOD
people would be utterly overthrown in a great battle,
and the names Gog and Magog frequently appear
in later Jewish apocalyptic literature as leaders
of the hostile world powers (cf. Sib. Orac. iii. 319,
322; Mishna, Eduyoth, 2. 10). This final and abor-
tive attack on the part of the powers of evil is
referred to in Rev IQ^'^"^-, while in 20* the names of
Go^ and Magog appear as tlie description of hostile
nations. Probably Rev 19 and 20, like most of the
book, is part of a Jewish apocalypse which has
been transformed by the Christian writer. The
Christian seer, like the Hebrew prophet, looks for
a day when the enemies of God and His saints will
be utterly overthrown.
Many and varied are the interpretations that
have been given of Gog and Magog by those
who, ignoring the poetical and pictorial nature of
apocalyptic literature, regard the Apocalypse as a
1)rophecy of actual historic events. Thus the names
lave been applied to nations beyond the bounds of
the Roman Empire, to Rar Cochba, the Jewish
Messianic pretender, and frequently to the Turks.
These interpretations depend on the view taken of
the ' thousand years' and the ' first resurrection.'
For a full discussion of the subject, see artt.
ESCHATOLOGY, PAUOUSIA.
LiTERATURB.— A. B. Davtdson, Ezekiel (Camb. Bible, 1892) ;
F. Diisterdieck, Handbuch iiber die Offenbarung Johannis"^
in Meyer's Kommentar iiber das NT, 1865 ; W. Bousset, Die
Offenbarung Johannis^ in Meyer's Kommentar, 1896, Der Anti-
ehrigt, 1895, Religion des Jiuientumg irn NT Zeitalter^, 1906 ; J.
Moffatt, ' Uevelation ' in BGT, 1910 ; B. Stade, Geschichte des
Volkes Israel, 1888 ; E. Scburer.GJV*, 1901-1911 ; E. Schrader,
^^73,1902-03; S. R. Driver, artt. ' Gog," Magog' in 52)£;
A. H. Sayce, artt. ' Gog,' ' Magog ' in HUB.
W. F. ROYD.
GOLD {xpvaSs, -xpvalov, * gold ' ; xP'^'^'f os, * golden ' ;
Xpv(x6(j), 'adorn with gold,' 'gild'). — This mineral
may, from one point of view, be classed with ' any
other yellow pebbles' (Ruskin, Unto This Last,
§29), but as a universal standard of value and
means of adornment it claims a special attention.
From the earliest times the imagination of man
has been fired by the thought of reefs and sands of
gold. There is a naive wonder in the first and
last biblical references — ' and the gold of that land
was good ' (Gn 2'^), ' and the street of the city was
pure gold' (Rev 21^^). There are good reasons for
the unquestioned supremacy of gold among metals :
the supply of it is neither too great nor too small ;
its colour and lustre are permanent ; it is the most
malleable and one of the most ductile of substances ;
it can be melted and re-melted with scarcely any
diminution of quantity. In its state of perfect
purity it is too soft for most purposes, but a small
admixture of copper gives it sufficient hardness
for coinage and for jewellery.
Gold is often found in solid masses, but generally
in combination with silver and otlier ores, from
which it requires to be purified. Peter (1 P V)
refers to ' gold proved by fire ' (xpvalov dia irvpbs
SoKind^ofiivov ; cf. Rev 3'*).
'Strabo states that in his time a process was employed for
refining and purifying gold in large quantities by cementing or
burning it with an aluminous earth, which, by destroying the
silver, left the gold in a state of purity. Pliny shows that for
this purpose the gold was placed on the fire in an earthen
vessel with treble its wei^jht of salt, and that it was afterwards
again exposed to the fire with two parts of salt and one of
argillaceous rock, which, in the presence of moisture, effected
the decomposition of the salt ; by this means the silver became
converted mto chloride ' {EBr^'^, art. ' Gold,' xii. 199).
India, Arabia, Spain, and Africa were the chief
gold-producing countries of the ancients. Arabia,
containing the lands of Seba, Havilah, and Ophir,
was the Eldorado of the Hebrews. Herodotus
(vi. 47) tells of the Phoenician quest for gold in the
island of Thasos : 'a large mountain has been
thrown upside down in the search. ' Pliny describes
the gold-mining of Spain (UN xxx. 4. 21). The
art of the goldsmitli flourished in all the ancient
civilizations. The gold-work of the Greeks, Etrus-
cans, and Romans may be rivalled, but can scarcely
be excelled, and that of the Egyptians of 2,000
years earlier was no less exquisite.
Gold was used for many purposes, secular and
sacred. Crowns were made of it (Rev 4* 9^ 14'''),
rings ( Ja 2"-'), vessels of great houses (2 Ti 2^), idols
(Rev 9-'" ; cf. Ac l?'^). Many articles of gold were
in the merchandise of Rome (Rev 18'^) ; the great
city itself was decked with it (18'*); the scarlet
woman's cup of abomination was made of it (17*).
Much of the furniture of the real Temple, as of St.
John's ideal one, was of gold — the ark of the cove-
nant (overlaid with it. He 9*), the censer (He 9*,
Rev 8=*), the altar of incense (8» 9'^), the bowls full
of incense (5"), the pot of manna (He 9*), the
candlesticks (Rev 1^*- "• ^ 2'). But servants of God
have a spiritual rather than a material standard
of values ; for tiiem 'the true veins of wealth are
purple — and not in Rock, but in Flesh' (Ruskin,
op. cit. § 40). They have been redeemed not with
gold, but with blood (1 P 1^**). Apostles, though
poor, have something more precious to ofler than
gold (Ac 3^). Women have a finer adornment than
jewels of gold (1 Ti 2', 1 P 3^). It is assumed that
even the noblest metal may be rusted (Ja 5^), and
if this is only a popular iamcy, at any rate gold
is ultimately as perishable as all other material
things (1 P V).
It is natural, however, that gold should be a
universal symbol of purity and worth. The golden
age, the golden rule, golden opinions, golden oppor-
tunities are in common speech the best of such
things. Gold is likewise an inevitable category of
apocalyptic prophecy. The Son of Man wears a
golden girdle (Rev 1'*), as does each of the seven
angels of the seven golden bowls (15*- ''). The
twenty-four elders have on their heads crowns
of gold (4^). An angel receives a golden reed to
measure the New Jerusalem (21''), and the city
itself is pure gold (2V«- ^i ; cf. To IS'"- "). The gold
of the Apocalyptist, moreover, has a transcendent
quality ; differing from our opaque yellow metal,
it is ' like unto pure glass,' clear and transparent
as crystal. The gold of heaven is finer than earth's
finest. James Strahan.
GOMORRAH.— See Sodom.
GOOD. — The adj. 'good' (dya06s, Ka\6s) maybe
used of any quality, physical as well as moral,
thing, or person that may be approved as useful, ,
fit, admirable, right. In the moral sense it con-
notes in the NT not only righteousness but kind-
ness, helpfulness, love. For Jesus, God alone was
good witnout limitation or qualification (Mk 10'*,
Lk 18'^) ; and while His own moral discipline on
earth was going on. He disclaimed that epithet
for Himself (cf. Mt 19", with its attempt to escape
the apparent difficulty of the disclaimer). This
Divine perfection is shown in an impartial, uni-
versal beneficence (Mt 5*^), which men are to imi-
tate (v.''*). The same conviction of what Go<l is,
and what man, therefore, should be, is found in
St. Paul's counsels (Eph 4="-5^). Jesus Himself is
the expression and activity of this Divine perfec-
tion, and so it is characteristic of Him to go about
'doing good' (Ac 10^), as He Himself indicates in
His reply to 'the Baptist (Mt 11*- ") ; and this, too,
He enjoins as the practice of His discij)les (Lk 6" ;
cf. Mt 25="ff-, Mk 14^ Lk 19«- »). St. I'aul echoes
the teaching of Jesus when he bids tlie Romans
'overcome evil with good' (Ro 1'2-'), and assures
them that such conduct will have its reward (2").
The distinction St. Paul makes between ' a righteous
man ' and ' the good man ' (Ro 5^) deserves special
attention. Just as God because He is righteooa
GOOD
GOOD
469
reckons righteons (Ro 3^), so it is because God is
good in Himself that He is ever showing His good-
ness to all men, especially in Christ and His Cross
(Ro 5*, Eph 4**) and calling all men to be the imi-
tators of His goodness (1 Co 13).
Although the following article is dealing -with
the Christian moral ideal as * goodness,' this brief
statement in introducing the subject of ' the good '
as man's ' chief end ' has been made for two reasons,
(a) In the Christian view, God Himself is man's
chief good, for in His fellowship alone is man's
perfection, glory, and blessedness, and it is God's
goodness that man enjoys for ever ; and (6) it is
because of this goodness — this self-giving of God's
perfection as love — that the chief good is given to
man. It is in Christ that man so possesses God,
and it is through Christ that God so communicates
Himself to man. The total impression of the
apostolic \^Titings is that Christ Himself is the
Good, for in Him and through Him alone man has
Grod as Love.
We must note, however, that the chief good is
presented to us in three distinctive phrases in the
different types of teaching in the NT. In the
Synoptics, on the lips of Jesus Himself, it is ' the
kmgdom of God ' (Mt 6^) ; in the Fourth Gospel
it is ' eternal life ' (Jn 20^- '^), although we also
find the second representation in Mt 19'*, Mk 10",
Lk 18'*, and the first in Jn 3^ ; in the Pauline
Epistles it is ' the righteousness of God 'or 'of
faith ' (Ph 3'), or, more generally, salvation (Ro
116. 17).
The idea of the good combines character and
condition ; it includes rightness and happiness,
holiness and blessedness, or, as the Shorter Cate-
chism puts it : ' man's chief end is to glorify God
and to enjoy Him for ever.' Man, by claiming
God's goodness, enjoying and praising it, and by
showing a like goodness, glorifies God : that is,
sets forth the honour, worth, beauty, and majesty
of God's moral perfection (Ro lo«- », 1 Co G^, 2 Co
9>2 ; cf. Col 31", 1 P 4i'-^- "). As God is grace, God's
claim on man is for faith, and this is his supreme
duty (He 11®). Thus the two aspects of the good
pass into one another : man fulfils his obligation
to God by making fully his own the salvation God
oflers in Christ. We need not then further pursue
the idea of the good as duti/, but may confine our-
selves to it as boon.
(1) For Plato and Aristotle the good necessarily
included both well-being {evdaifiovia) and also well-
doing ; a man must have health, wealth, beauty,
and intellect as well as the virtues to attain fully
the good. Here the first great distinction of the
Christian view emerges. A man's good is inde-
pendent of his outward circumstances. As Jesus
taught His disciples not to be anxious about food
or raiment, but to leave all to the care and bounty
of the Heavenly Father, who would add all these
things to those who first sought His Kingdom and
righteousness (Mt 6**"*^), so St. Paul assures Chris-
tian believers that even the very worst circum-
stances imaginable cannot really injure them, for
'all things work together for good to them that
love God' (Ro 8^). The declaration has some
affinity with Stoic thought ; but the difference
lies in this, that for Stoic self-sufficiency there is
substituted the possession of the love of God in
Christ as the satisfying portion of the soul (v.*).
While there is tliis independence of outward cir-
cumstances, there is no cjTiic-like contempt for
bodily needs, and the labour that meets these
(1 Th 4", 2 Th 3'», Ro 12ii- 1"). Private property
even may become part of the Christian's good, as
affording the opportunity for the generosity which
is so highly recommended as a Christian grace (Ro
128. 13^ 2 Co 8'-'5).
(2) A second feature of the Christian view that
distinguishes it from the Greek is that the good
is not the result of fortune or the reward of merit,
but the gift of God's grace (Ro 5" 6*»). It does
include a duty to be done, but it Ls primarily a
boon to be claimed. Hence the pre-eminence of
faith as the primary, if not the supreme, grace
of the Christian life. For human self-sufficiency
there is substituted dependence upon God (2 Co 2"
3»-«12»).
(3) A third characteristic is the emphasis on sin
in the Christian view as the evil from which there
must be escape. The good includes deliverance
from sin in the two-fold sense, corresponding to the
two-fold reference of sin in relation to God, and in
relation to a man's own nature. There is forgive-
ness of sin, reconciliation with God, the peace of
God (Ro 3^-^ 6" 1' 2", etc.) ; a man is set in right
relation with God, so that God's approval and not
His displeasure rests upon him, and he does not
distrust, or feel estranged from, God, but is at
home with God as a child with a father. There
is also the breaking of the power of sin, and the
banishment of the love of sin, by a new motive
and a new strength (Ro G'" 7», 2 Co 5", Ph 4i»).
There is a present conquest of eviJ, and victory over
the world. This is a present good claimed more
or less, according to the measure of faith ; but as
Christians are not merely owTiers of the present
but also heirs of the future good (Ro 8", Tit 3^,
1 P 1* ; cf. He 11'), hope as well as faith is neces-
sary to claim the full salvation (Ro 8^, 1 Th 5',
1 P P).
(4) Into the contents of the Christian hope, the
details of the apostolic eschatology (q.v.), it is
beyond the scope of this article to enter ; but one
feature, because of its distinction from, or even
opposition to, the Greek view, may here be men-
tioned. The Greek thinker, if he did hope for a
future life, looked for the release of the soul from
its imprisonment in the body — for a disembodied
immortality ; but the Christian good includes not
merely the survival of the soul in death, but resur-
rection— the restoration of the entire personality
(Ro 8=^, 2 Co 5^-*, Ph 321). This does not involve the
absurdity of a material identity of the body buried
and the body raised, for St. Paul expressly distin-
guishes the one from the other as the natural and the
spiritual (1 Co 15**"**), but only the conWction that
the future life will be a completely human one.
(5) As we may surely reckon as an element in
the Christian good the fellowship of believers, the
membership of the body of Christ (1 Co 12"", Eph
1»), the Koivuivia of the Spirit (2 Co 13" : the com-
mon life of the Church in the Spirit), so the Chris-
tian life is not individual but universal ; it is the
subjection of all things to Christ, the destruction
of aU evil, the cessation of all pain and grief, the
victory of the saints, and God all and in all. No
such wider hope inspired the Greek thinkers. It is
true that the expectation of an immediate return of
Christ in power and glory precludes our interpret-
ing this universal good as a historical evolution
of mankind in manners, morals, laws, institutions,
and pieties to so glorious and blessed a consumma-
tion, and we are left uncertain as to the mode in
which the process is to be conceived. But the hope
is a fact of apostolic life.
(6) There is one feature in the Christian good
peculiar to St. Paul. As a Pharisee he had felt
the burden and the bondage of the Law, and
groaned under its judgment, but he had discovered
its impotence, and so for him the Christian good
included the end of the Law (Gal 4^-5'), for Chris-
tian morality is not legal — the observance of the
letter — but spiritual — the expression of the new life
found in Christ (2 Co 3'-"). It may be doubted,
however, whether even all believers in the Apos-
tolic Age were morally mature enough to be re-
470
GOODNESS (HUMAN)
GOODNESS (HUMAN)
leased from all outward restraints, and to be left
only to inward constraint ; and St. Paul's counsels
and commands even in his letters show that this end
of the Law was ideal rather than actual. It is
certain that the Christian Church in the course of
its history generally has been legal rather than
spiritual m its morality, and so this part of the
Christian good has been unrealized.
(7) In the apostolic view of the Christian good
there are two features which may be regarded as
of temporary and local rather than of permanent
and universal significance for Christian faith : (a)
the expectation of the speedy Second Advent of
Christ in power and glory to usher in the Last
Things, which faded out of the Christian conscious-
ness, with from time to time futile attempts to re-
vive it, as the course of human history contra-
dicted it ; and (i) the belief which became more
prominent in subsequent centuries than it was in
the Apostolic Age, that the evil to be overcome
and destroyed was embodied in personal evil prin-
ciples and powers, over whom Christ gained the
victory, and from whom He effected deliverance for
the believer (Ro S'S'^s, 1 Co 15-S Eph P', Col 2'5).
For the details on both these subjects the relevant
articles must be consulted, as all that is here neces-
sary is merely the mention of them for the com-
pleteness of the treatment of the present topic.
Such is the Christian good ; is it regarded as
destined to be universal ? Does the NT offer us
a theodicy? It has been already indicated that
the Christian hope does include the victory of
Christ over all His foes, and the subjection of all
things to Hira, and at last of Himself to God
(1 Co IS^''^) ; but these confident predictions do
not clearly or fully answer the question whether
all men will at last be saved — that is, become sharers
of the good. While there are a few passages point-
ing towards universal restoration, there are others
indicating eternal punishment, and some even on
which has been based a theory of conditional im-
mortality. This problem seems insoluble even
with the data not only of the Scriptures, but also
of human experience ; and accordingly, whatever
Christian wishes and hojies may be, we cannot
affirm that the Christian good presents the final
destiny of the race in cloudless sunshine without
any shadow ; and thus the believer must walk
not by sight, but by faith, in the belief that what-
ever the Heavenly Father does is wisest, kindest,
best. As has been shown in the art. Evil, the
Christian attitude is neither optimism nor pessi-
mism, but meliorism — the belief that the world not
only needs redemption, but is being redeemed in
Christ.
LiTBRATURB.— W. Beyschlag:, NT Theology, Eng. tr., 1895,
bk. i. ch. viii.,bk. ii. ch. v., bk. iv. chs. vi. ix., bk. v. ch. v. ;
G. B. Stevens, The Thcolocjy of the NT, 1899, pt. i. chs. iii.
xii., pt. ii. chs. vi. vii., pt. iv. chs. v. viii. xii.jjt. vi. ch. v.,
pt. vii. ch. iv. ; T. vonHaering, The Chrintian Faith, Eng. tr.,
1913, ii. 800-926 ; A. M. Fairbairn, The Philosophy of the Chris-
tian Religion, 1902, pp. 94-1G8 ; O. Pfleiderer, The Philosophy
of Religion'^, Eng. tr., 1886-88, vol. iv. ch. iv.
Alfred E. Garvie.
GOODNESS (HUMAN).*— Two applications go
side by side in the general usage of the Avord
• goodness ' and are also found in the NT. On the
one hand, it denotes an inherent quality without
regard to its efiect ; on the other hand, the ' good-
ness' is predicated in view of the effect. In the
latter case, however, the thought of the inherent
quality as producing the effect is never quite
absent from the field of consciousness. It is not
possible to call either of these two uses the older
and more original one and to stamp the otlier as
secondary and developed. Already in Homer {Od.
XV. 324, II. xiii, 284) 070^69 occurs of inherent
quality as a designation of the well-born class, as
* For Divine goodness, see art. God.
distinguished from the common people (cf. our
•better class,' 'aristocracy'). When these are at
the same time called ayaOoi in the sense of ' brave,'
this but shows tlie close connexion between the
inherent and the transient reference of the word.
Bravery is the goodness of the aristocracy in
action. Hence in the frequent sense of ' efficient,'
' adequate,' the adjective does not describe a
momentary or spasmodic efficiency, but the habit-
ual one 01 quality. Good objects, good circum-
stances, 'goods,' in the sense of wealth or of
delicacies, are all so designated because of their
inherent adaptation to benefit the owner or re-
ceiver. The force of the word in such connexions
can perhaps be felt best from the opposite xovrjpoi.
Both meanings are transferred to the moral sphere.
The ethical use of the word is, liowever, in profane
Greek a comparatively late development, not being
frequent until the philosophical writers (e.g. Plato).
In the NT both the sub-ethical and the ethical
use are represented. For the former see Mt 7",
Lk IM 88 1218- 1» IG^, Ro 8^ lO'* 13*, Gal 6\ He 9",
Ja 1", 1 P 3^". For the latter, used of persons,
see Mt 5« 123* W«- " 20'«, Mk 10'», Lk IS'" 23«>,
Jn V^ Ac IP*, Ro 5^ Tit 2» ; of things, Mt 12«- »
19'6, Lk SI" 10-'2, Jn 52», Ac 23', Ro 21" 7'=*- ^«- " 9"
12»- 21 133 14'" 16'9, 2 Co 5J", Eph 4="' 6*, 1 Th 3« 5",
2 Th 2", I Ti P- i». Tit 21", 1 P 3"- »3- 1«, and fre-
quently in the formula ' good works.'
It will be observed that the ascription of good-
ness to persons is rare in the NT. The reason
for this is not to be sought in the biblical doctrine
of sin as excluding human goodness, for on that
view the affirmation of goodness with reference to
works ought to be equally rare, which is not the
case. The true explanation seems to lie in the
God-centred estimate which Scripture places upon
man's moral character. Man is measured with
strict reference to the nature and will of God as
his norm. The conception of ' goodness,' while
not excluding, and even presupposing, an objec-
tive standard of this kind, does not in itself ex-
press it. It describes the quality either as in-
herent or as affecting others, but does not explicitly
relate it to God. This the word SUaios does, for
diKaio<rvvr) means goodness as conformity to the
Law of God and as approved by the Divine judg-
ment. The full and positive conception of 5i»raio-
ffivT) therefore covers all that is dyadoi and adds to
this the God-related element just named. It is
not at variance with this that 5katoj occasionally
occurs in a negative sense, more closely adhering
to the profane and popular usage — a sense which
places it below d7a^<5s in the ethical scale. Thus
in Ro 5'' the SlKaios {' righteous ') is one who merely
is free from fault, who does what in the ordinary
relations of life can be required of him, but does
not go beyond this to the spontaneous exercise of
virtue as the dyadbs does. The term 'good' is
reserved for the latter. But as a rule dlKaio^ is
not less comprehensive than dya66i, covering the
Divine demand in all its reach (Ro 3'").
In the ethical application the inherent and the
beneficent sense lie so close together that it is not
always easy to determine which stands in the
foreground and which is the mere concomitant of
thought. In the Hebrew aio, as used of God, both
meanings are present, but the sense of beneficence
preponderates (cf. Ps 34"). In regard to Mt 19"
( = Mk 10^^ Lk 18'^), usually under;?tood as raising
the question of absolute ethical perfection, G.
Dalman {Die Worte Jesu, 1898, i. 277) advocates
the same meaning of beneficence. Among tlie
passages which refer to human persons Ro 5' not
only extends the reach of ' goodness' beyond that
of • righteousness,' but also finds this overIai>ping
in the spontaneous, benevolent character of the
former. In Lk 23'*' the same distinction may be
GOODNESS (HUMAN)
GOSPEL
471
found, although here the sequence shows that the
rigliteousness before God is estimated higher than
the mere benevolence towards men. In 1 P 2**
the ' good ' and ' gentle ' masters are so described
from the point of view of their treatment of ser-
vants rather than of inherent quality. In Jn 7"
there is some doubt as to whether ' a good man '
(in opposition to one who ' deceiveth the people ')
means a man of good character or one of good in-
fluence. Ac 11^ and Tit 2* seem to be the only
clear instances of the use of the word to describe
inherent goodness.
The same difficulty recurs where the predicate
applies not to persons but to things in the ethical
sphere. The ' good things ' and the ' evil things '
spoken of in Mt 12^ " are, of course, in themselves
morally right or wrong, yet in the context the re-
ference is to blasphemy, so that the element of
the good or bad intent and effect can scarcely be
excluded. When St. Paul in Ro 7" says that the
commandment is d^ia jcat otKola xal d-ya^, the in-
herent perfection of the Law is affirmed not only
by the first and second but also by the third at-
tribute ; still the ensuing question, ' Was then that
which is good made death unto me ? ' proves that
• the good' is felt as that which has naturally com-
bined with it a good eflect. The same thought
must be present in Ro 12^. The 'good' of the
neighbour which is to be promoted according to
Ro 15^ is his ethical good ('unto edification'), but
it is in part so called because it promotes his spirit-
ual welfare. In Eph 6* the element of profitable-
ness is plainly indicated by the context (cf. y.^).
The ' good work ' which Goia began in the Philip-
Eians (Ph 1*) is good primarily because it has a
eneficent, saving purpose, but probably the notion
that it is productive of what is inherently good in
them is also present. In Philem " (cf. v.*) the AV
renders t6 ar^adov aov correctly by 'thy benefit'
(KV 'thy goodness'). The context decides in
favour of ' beneficent ' in 1 P 3'* (cf. v." and 3 Jn ").
•A good conscience ' (Ac 23S 1 Ti l^^ 1 P 3=^) is a
conscience deri\-ing its quality from its content,
and therefore presupposes that the acts approved
by it are good in themselves. The phrase ' good
works' admits equally well of both interpretations.
There can be no doubt that in Ac 9^, Ro 13^ 2 Co
98, 1 Ti 2" b^\ 2 Ti 2^1 3", Tit l" 3' the reference
is mainly to the good intent and effect of the deed.
In other passages, however, like Ro 2^*, Eph 2",
Col P", 2 Th 2^', the emphasis seems to i-est not on
the outward beneficent tendency, but on the in-
herent good character of the work, as conformable
to the iHvine Law.
The Jewish usage of the conception favours this,
for in it not the helpfulness, but the meritorious-
ness, the religious significance of the observance
of the Law, stand in the foreground. While St.
Paul denies, of course, the meritoriousness of good
works as a ground of justification, he nevertheless
is at one with Judaism in emphasizing their specific
religious importance. It is not in harmony with
the Pauline teaching to deem of importance only
the spirit and intent of the deed, and not its external
performance. Such a judgment is possible only
where the ethical point of view is man-centred and
virtue regarded as completed in itself. St. Paul's
point of view is God-centred — the virtue, the dis-
position exist for the sake of God ; and in order
that they may accrue to the fuU glory of God, it
is necessary that they shall issue into act. For
the reality of the good work the presence of the
disposition behind it is indispensable, but it is no
less true that, for the completion of the good as it
exists in the heart, its embodiment in the good
work is essential.
The noun a.ytidt,xjvvT) (Ro 15", Gal 5^, Eph 5',
2 Th 1"— not in classiciBd. Greek, but only in the
Greek translations of the OT and in St. Paul) pro-
bably in each case describes that form of goodness
which seeks the benefit of others. In Gal 5",
standing among a number of other virtues, it
most have this speciali2ed sense. This is favoured
also by the connexion in Ro 15" ('able to ad-
monish one another'). In Eph 5' there is at least
nothing to contradict this meaning. In 2 Th 1",
' Our God . . , may fulfil every desire of goodness
and every work of faith with power,' the desire
and the work stand related as the wish and the
execution, which secures for aya6u<rirrri here like-
wise the same sense of beneficence as is asso*
ciated with the 'work of faith.' A.-^aOusav^Ti then
differs from arfo^injt (likewise a word of the later
Greek) as benevdentia does from bonUcu.
ijTK&ATiJiiB. — J. H. A. Tittmann, De Sjrnomfmts in Koto
7e(tam«nto, 1820-32, i. 19-27 ; R. C Tr^ach, SjpMnvmt qf tkt
yT», 1880, pp. 231-235 ; H. Cremer, Bihl.Thtol. Lex. of ST
Greets, 1880, pp. 3-6, 183-193 ; T. Ziegler, GeaekUhU der
ekriHlieAen BtkiJk, 1886, L &6ff. ; C E. Lntbardt, HiMory of
Cktiftian Ethiet, Eng. tr., 1SS9, i. 9Sff. ; J. B. Lightfoot,
Notet on EpUtle* of SL Paul. 1895, p. 2S6 f. ; W. M. Ramsay
in ExpTx. [1888-90] 107 ; A. Hamack. The MUsion and Ex-
pansion of ChrigUanUji in tAe First Three Centuries, Eng. tr.,
1908, L 147 ff., 199 ff. GEERHABDXJS VOS.
GOSPEL. — 1. The meaning of the term.—
'Gospel,' a compound of the O.E. gdd, 'good,'
and spd, 'tidings,' has been employed from the
beginnings of English translation of the NT to
render the Greek evayytXiov. In the classics this
term denotes (a) the reward for good tidings, and
is so used in the LXX (2 S 4^'), v ^^et /le dm}pai ei-
ayy{Xia (pi.), ' the reward I had to give him for his
tidings ' ; but (6) in later Greek the word stands
for the glad message itself. In the NT, however,
tvayyiXiov refers not to the written record, as in
the modern usage of ' gospel ' = ' book,' but to the
message as delivered and proclaimed. The gospel
of N., e.g., is the good news as N. announced it, and
St. Paul's gospel is the message brought by the
Apostle in his preaching. As long as oral teaching
and exhortation could be had from eye-witnesses
and intimates of our Lord's ministry, ' gospel ' was
reserved for this testimony ; accordingly, the Apostle
John (1 Jn 1') writes, 6 ^v ar dpx^s> * d/tijKooiiti', i
fupdKafier rots dipOaXfioit "fi/Mw, 6 ideoffdfie&a cat al
X«'p€S rjfiQr iifnjXdipijaai', vepi roS Xd^row ttjs fur^, ' that
which was from the beginning, that which we have
heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that
which we beheld, and our hands have handled,
concerning the Word of life.' These are the cre-
dentials of his message, and the persuasion of it to
the hearts of his hearers. Among the early Chris-
tians these memories — airofuninovevnaTa — were most
prized, and that word rather than tiayyiXiov was
the primitive term for the gospel (cf. Moflatt,
LNT, 1911, p. 44, -svith foot-note).
But as the eye-witnesses and their immediate
successors passed away, believers had to fall back,
perforce, upon a written record. The earliest
certain use of the word in the modem sense is
found in Justin Martyr (c. 150 A. D.) — ' The apostles
in the memoirs written by themselves, which are
called " Gospels" ' (Apol. i 66 ; cf. SDB, DCG, and
HDB, S.V.).
The passage which rules the use of fiiiy)fi\ior in
the NT is Mk 1", ^X^er 6 'It^toPj eU t^w TaXtXaloM
KTipi-ffffur TO evayyiXiov rod OeoO (the gen. is both
subj. and obj. ; all aspects are included), 'Jesus
came into GaJilee preaching the gospel of Grod.'
The word, probably, came into favour through
the use by the LXX of the cognate eva-y-yeXifetj' and
euayyeXl^eadai in 2 Is. and in the Restoration-
Psalms (cf. our Lord's discourse [Lk 4'*J in the
synagogue of Nazareth concerning the glad tidings
of His Mission, based on Is 61^). But, while the
term (noun and verb) is of fairly frequent occur-
472
GOSPEL
GOSPEL
rence in tlie Synoptics, it owes its predominance in
apostolic Christianity to the Apostle of the Gentiles.
' It evidently took a strong hold on the imagination
of St. l*aul in connexion with his own call to
missionary labours (£i;'a77A(oi' sixty times in Epp.
Paul, besides in Epp. and Apoc. only twice ; ev-
ayye\l^€<T0ai twenty times in Epp. Paul, besides once
mid. seven times pass.)' (Sanday-Headlam,/2o»ians',
p.5f.).
In Mk 1', dpxv rou tvayye\lov'Iri<ToO Xptcrrov, and
Ilev 14®, /cat flSov &Wov dyyeXov . . . fx°*''''°- ^'^'
ayY^Xiovaiioviov tvayye\lffai,\/e see theword in almost
the transition stage between a spoken message and
a book. Before the Death and Resurrection of
Jesus, ' gospel ' was tlie glad message of the King-
dom, brouglitand proclaimed by Himself and those
whom He sent out to prepare tne way before Him.
But in Ac 20^* ' the gospel of the grace of God,' Ro
V'^ 'the gospel of God regarding His Son,' and 2
Co 4* ' the gospel of the glory (manifested perfection)
of Clirist,' the second stage is approached.
2. The content of the gospel. — As to the subject-
matter of the apostolic gospel, one can scarcely say
that the content varied ; it was rather that tlie
emphasis was changed. In Iiis synagogue ministry
to the Dispersion, St. Paul found the soil in some
measure prepared. The 7rat5a7W76s had brought
men so far that certain beliefs might be taken for
granted as a foundation laid by the Spirit of
Revelation in the OT Scriptures both legal and
prophetic. This would rule the content of his
gospel message to them. The case was different,
however, in purely missionary and pioneer work,
not only in rude places sucli as Lystra, but also
among the more cultured, though equally pagan,
populations in the great cities of the Empire, both
in Asia and in Europe. The pioneer gospel, there-
fore, would have notes of its own. Then, again,
after a district had been evangelized and churches
planted, we can see how the emphasis of the
message Avould change, as apostolic men, prophets
and teachers, souglit to lead the primitive Christian
communities up to ' the measure of the stature of
the fulness of Christ' (Eph 4>» ; cf. He 6^).
From 1 and 2 Thess. we may gather the content
of St. Paul's evangelistic gospel in his heathen
mission. ' Those simijle, childlike Epistles to the
Thessalonian Church are a kind of Christian primer '
(A. B. Bruce, St. Paul's Conception of Christianity,
p. 15 fl'.). From the address on Mars' Hill (Ac
2730-31) ^ye liave further indications of the staple of
his message to those outside. But, perhaps more
succinctly and perfectly than anywhere else, in 1
Co 15^"* we have the evangelistic Pauline gospel —
'for I delivered to you, among the most important
things (iv irptlnois), that which also I received, that
Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures ;
and that he was buried ; and that he has been
raised on the tliird day according to the scriptures ;
and that he apiieared unto Cephas ; then to the
twelve : then he appeared to above five hundred
brethren at once ; of whom the majority survive
to this day, though some have fallen asleep. Then
he appeared to James ; then to all the apostles.
And last of all, as to the one untimely born, he
appeared to me also.' This summary of the Chris-
tian Creed reveals what, to St. Paul, constituted
the essential content of the gospel (cf. J. E.
McFadyen, The Epistles to the Corinthians [Inter-
preter's Com. , 1911], T). 205 ff.).
To this synopsis of liis gospel St. Paul adds (1 Co
15"), ' Whether then it be I or they, so we preach,
and so ye believed.' In all essentials St. Paul
stood on the same ground as the Twelve — St. Peter,
St. James, and St. Paul were absolutely unanimous.
Had it been otherwise, one can hardly see how he
could have won recognition among ' the pillars ' or
been accepted by the Church. His gospel was not
a difl'erent {^repos) gospel, tliough his rapidly chang-
ing spheres, and the pressing need of tlie occasion,
may have shifted the accent. This he acknow-
ledges when, speaking of the evangelical mission
of the Church, he says (Gal 2''), ' I had been entrusted
with the gospel of (for) the uncircumcision, even as
Peter with the gospel of (for) the circumcision.'
But it was the same gospel in all its manifold
adaptability. There is no schism in the NT as to
the content of the gospel message. The opinion
that there is has been well called a ' perversity of
criticism.' Thus (HDB, s.v.) the apostolic gospel
may be defined as ' the good tidings, coming from
God, of salvation by His free favour through Christ.'
But as the ' gospel ' of a church is to be sought not
only in the message of its preachers, but also in its
condensed creeds and in its hymns, there ought
to be added to the above summary at least two
splendid fragments that have the true liturgical
ring about them :
(1) Christ exalted: 1 Ti 3" (5s, not Btbi, is Abe
subject, RV) —
8s i<f>av(pihOr) iv aapKl,
iSiKaiuOr] iv wi/ev/xaTi,
CbipdT} dyyiXoii,
iKrjpiJxOv ^'' iOveaiv,
iiriffTevdrj iv KdfffUfi,
dv€\i/lfjL<f>dT] iv 56^11.
'This fragment, in its grand lapidary style, is
worthy to be placed by the side of the Apostles'
Creed (Kohler, quoted by J. Strachan, Captivity
and Pastoral Epistles [Westminster NT, 1910],
p. 218 f.).
(2) God glorified : 1 Ti 6>5-i«—
6 fiaKdpios Kal /xdvos dwdcrr-qs,
6 ^aaiKevs tQjv ^acriKevdvTuv
Kal Kijpioi Twv KvpievdvTUP,
6 fxdvos ?x'^'' ddavacriav,
^ujs oIkQv dtrpdcriTov,
6v el8ev ov8eU dvdpihiruv
ov8i I8elv dvvarai.
(^ Ti/ii] Kal Kpdros aidviov.
3. The Felation of the gospel to the Law.— Ac 13
records the opening of St. Paul's official missionary
labours, and there (vv.^®- *^) we have the first indica-
tion of the Pauline attitude to the Law. In his
address in the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch, he
generalizes the incident of Cornelius : ' Be it known
unto you therefore, brethren, that through this
man (Jesus) is proclaimed unto you remission of
sins : and by him everyone that believeth is justi-
fied from all things, from -which ye could not be
justified by the law of Moses.'
But Ro 7, with its logical conclusion in ch, 8, is
the crucial passage for the understanding of the
relations of Law and gospel in the life of St. Paul,
and in that of the NT Church generally. It is the
Apostle's account of the struggle, 'often bafBed,
sore baffled,' that filled the years before his conver-
sion. He also was a rich young ruler troubled with
the haunting question, ' What shall I do to inherit
eternal life ? ' For years he had struggled to put
down sin in his own heart, to be righteous in the
sight of God, passionately longing to have the
assurance of the forgiveness of sins, that in peace
he might will his will and work his work. In this
respect he is like his spiritual kinsmen, Luther and
Bunyan. In some respects, St. Paul sharpened the
antithesis between Law and grace to a \K>int that
Avas extreme, in that it did not take account of the
prophetic element in the Old Testament which was
not legal. Jeremiah, 2 Isaiah, and Hosea may be
instanced.
But in his day, as a general rule, it was the le^al
aspect of the OT that held the thought of the Jewish
people. Judaism knew but one answer to such
GOSPEL
GOSPEL
473
questionings as St. Paul's — ' Keep the law ' ; and if
a man replied, ' I cannot,' the answer came back
remorselessly : ' Nevertheless, keep it. ' ' Whosoever
shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one
point, he is become guilty of all ' (Ja 2^", Gal 3").
As the Apostle looked back on the long, weary
way over which he had come, he found that he han
travelled into ' a dark and dreadful consciousness
of sin and disaster ' (Rainy in The Evangelical Suc-
cession, p. 20). And this refers to the observance
not of one part of the Law but of the whole ; what
appealed to the conscience of men everywhere,
ceremonial Judaism, and the tradition of the elders
— all that vo/nos means is included.
'All his experience, at whatever date, of the
straggle of the natural man with temptation is
here [ch. 7] gathered together and concentrated in
a single jwrtraiture. [But] we shall probably not
be wrong in referring the main features of it especi-
ally to the period before his Conversion ' (Sanday-
Headlam, op. cit. p. 186). But of course, as St.
Paul presents it to the churches, it is his own ex-
perience universalized. There is no possibility of
winning a standing before God by the Law —
' For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to Thee.'
He had discovered also that there was no life to
be hoped for from the Law. Such had never been
its intention. The 'parenthesis' of the Law had
for its purpose to create the full knowledge of sin
(5«d vofjiov iTiyvwTis afiapriai), to produce in the con-
science the conviction of it.
Moreover — such is the weakness of human nature
— the Law tended to stir sin into dreadful activity,
for every commandment seemed to bring up a new
crop of sins into his life.
But to the Law St. Paul held on as long as pos-
sible ; his sudden conversion means as much. The
Law was the one outlet to the hopes of Judaism ;
while to the patriotism of St. Paul Christianity
seemed anti-national. Therefore he hung on till
he could hold no longer — ' O wretched man that I
am ! Who shall deliver me out of the body of this
death ? ' (Ko 7^). ' Any true happiness, therefore,
any true relief, must be sought elsewhere. And it
was this happiness and relief which St. Paul sought
and found in Christ. The last verse of Ro 7 marks
the point at which the great burden which lay upon
the conscience rolls away ; and the next chapter
begins with an uplifting of the heart in recovered
peace and serenity ; "There is therefore now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus " '
(Sanday-Headlam, op. cit. p. 189). He had found
salvation by grace, redemption in Christ, and
righteousness by faith and union with Him ; ' the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me
free from the law of sin and of death ' (Ro 8*). The
very essence of St. Paul's gospel is to be found in
his conception of Christ's relation to the condemning
Law. There is no condemnation to them that are
in Christ Jesus, because He stood condemned in
their place, and took their condemnation upon Him-
self ; therefore St. Paul is bold to say, ' Christ re-
deemed us from the curse of the law, having become
a curse for ns ' (Gal 3*').
It is characteristic of his rebound and glad-
ness of spirit that he, by pre-eminence in the NT,
called his message the good news (ei'a77f'\toi'), and
the discovery sent him out everywhere (' Woe is me
if I preach not the gospel ') to the multitudes of
burdened souls, who were held, as he had once
been held, in this strange captivity. Through all
his letters, the contrast between Law and gospel
as mutually exclusive is developed in the anti-
theses, law and faith, works and grace, wages and
free gift — 'Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would
be justified by the law ; ye are fallen away from
grace ' (Gal 5*). In the Third, the Pauline, Gospel,
we have our Lord's story of the two debtors, both
of whom, when they had nothing to pay, were
frankly forgiven. In the days before his conver-
sion, St. Paul had been painfully trying to pay
that debt. Brought to the knowledge that he had
nothing wherewith to pay, he made the great dis-
covery that Christ had paid th« debt and set him
free. And, as he who has been forgiven much
will love much, therefore evangelical love burned
in St. Paul's heart, as perhaps never in the heart
of man besides, to the ' Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me.'
Though the idea of the Law in the Epistle to the
Hebrews is so different that it is impossible for Gal.
and Heb. to have come from the same pen, yet the
contrast between the Law and the gospel is ' with-
out doubt identical with that of St. Paul, although
the writer of Hebrews possibly reached that posi-
tion by a diflerent road (A. B. Davidson, Hebretcs
[Handbooks for Bible Classes], p. 19). Both writers
hold that Christ is the end of the Law to every one
that belie veth, and through Him is the Atonement
made once for all. But inasmuch as the question
between Jews and Gentiles had in the days of
Hebrews passed beyond the stage of keen contro-
versy, and a free gospel was preached everywhere,
the wTiter did not feel it needful to develop the
contrasts between Law and gospel in the Pauline
manner. Yet ' the ceremonial observances are
in themselves worthless (He 7'* 10^"*) ; they were
meant to be nothing more than temporary (9^^" 8*') ;
for God Himself in OT Scripture has abrogated
them (7'* 10*) ; and the believing Hebrews are
exhorted to sever all connection with their country-
men still practising them (13") ' (A. B. Davidson,
op. cit. p. 19). When the Sun has risen, all other
lights pale and fade. The substance has come, the
shadow disappears.
It has already been pointed out that there is no
sufficient reason for assuming a schism re Law and
Faith in the apostolic writings. St. Paul stood
on substantially the same CTOund as the Twelve ;
his recognition by them (Gal 2*"^'*), and much more
his acceptance by the Church, imply as much.
Nor is there on a fair and careful interpretation any
antagonism between the Epistle to the Romans and
the Epistle of James. The question turns on the
meaning of rums. St. James is not denouncing
the Pauline riaru, but the caricature of it in a
narrow Judaism, which has reduced this noble
faculty of the soul to the mere intellectual accept-
ance of a dogma — a. fides informis, ethically fruit-
less— a faith without works ( Ja 2^). St. Paul, on
the other hand, thinks of a fides formata, ' faith
wliich worketh by love' (Gal 5*). Words mean
different things to different men. To St. Paul
' works ' mean ipya ro/wv, while to St. James they
correspond to what St. Paul calls ' the fruits of the
Spirit.' Thus, 'so far as the Christian praxis of reli-
gion is concerned, James and Paul are atone, but each
lays the emphasis on different syllables ' (Moffatt,
LNT, p. 465). It is nothing strange that both
go to the story of Abraham (Gn 15') for an apposite
example, for it has been pointed out (Lightfoot,
Gal.^, 1876, p. 157) that this passage was a stock
subject of discussion in the Jewish schools and in
Philo. St. Paul, quoting Genesis, affirms that the
initial act for which Abraham was accepted in the
sight of Giod was his faith ; and St. James, thinking
more of Gn 22" than of Gn 15*, says that his faith
was made clear, ' seeing thou hast not withheld thy
son, thine only son, from me.' ' Faith alone justi-
fies, though the faith which Justifies does not
remain alone.' Thus we read (Tit 3*), • I will that
thou affirm confidently to the end that they which
have believed God may be careful to maintain
good works ' (cf. the Scots Paraphrase [56], ' Thus
faith approves itself sincere, by active virtue
474
GOSPELS
GOSPELS
crowned '). But while all real opposition between
the apostles (whatever may be tlie temporal rela-
tion between Romans and James) may be dis-
allowed, it need not be denied that the formal
differences which appear in the Epistles may well
have risen from the extremities to which the con-
troversy was pushed in the different schools of
thought in the Church {pnulinior ipso Faulo).
The Apostle was not oblivious of misinterpretation
(Ro 6'- '^), and the school of St. James doubtless
had those who carried their master's doctrine to
extreme lengths. But in the balance of Holy
Scrinture, the truths of wliich St. James and St.
Paul are protagonists are not contradictories, but
safe and necessary supnlementaries in the body of
Christian doctrine. (Jb or the relation between the
doctrines of St. Paul and St. James re the Law and
Faith, reference may be made to Romans'' [ICC], p.
102 If. ; James [Cambridge Bible, 1878], p. 76 ff'. ;
The General Epistles [Century Bible, 1901], p.
163 ft", ; Moffatt, LNT, p. 465.)
Literature.— Sanday-Headlam, Romans^ {ICC, 1902), pp.
184-189; J. Denney, Sttidies in Theology, 1894, p. 100 ff.,
•Romans' in EGT, 1900, p. 632 ff., also art 'Law ' in HDB; R.
Rainy in 'The Evangelical Succession (Lects. in St. Georfre's
Free Church, Edinburgh), 1882, p. 20 ff. ; A. B. Bruce, The
Kingdom of God*, 1891, pp. 03-84, St. Paul's Conception of
Christianity, 1894, p. 293 ff.; ExpT vi\. [1895-96] 297if., .\ii.
[1900-01] 482>', xxi. [1909-10] 497 f. For the Law in Hebrews,
see A. S. Peake, Ilcbrews (Century Bible, 1902), p. 30 ff.
W. M. Gbant.
GOSPELS.— I. The First Three Gospels.— 1.
Date. — [a) The central factor here is the date of
tlie Second Gospel. Tlie conspectus of dates given
in Moffatt {LNT, p. 213) will show that this Gospel
is dated by modern writers between A.D. 44 and
130, and that recent opinion narrows these limits
to 64-85. Moffatt himself decides on a date soon
after 70 on the following grounds : (1) Irenaeus,
adv. Hmr. in. i. 1, dates the Gospel after the
death of St. Peter and St. Paul. This is doubtful
(see below). (2) 'The small apocalypse' (ch. 13)
suggests a date soon after 70. This is based on
the very precarious inference that Mk 13 could
not have been substantially spoken by Christ. He
need not have had more tlian the prophetic insight
of a Jeremiah to have spoken everything contained
in this chapter.
Since the publication of Moffatt's book Hamack
has re-opened the whole question of the date of the
first three Gospels by arguing that Acts was written
at the end of St. Paul's imprisonment in Rome.*
It would follow, of course, that the Third Gospel
must be earlier, and the Second, since it is one of
the sources of the Third, earlier still. "The funda-
mental question here is the evidence of Irenoeus.
The wliole pas.sage should be read carefully. One
clause in it has generally been taken to mean that
St. Mark Avrote his Gospel after the death of St.
Peter and St. Paul. But J. Chapman, t and now
Harnack, argue that the words ' after the death of '
do not date the writing of the Gospel, but, taken
in the light of the whole context, mean that the
apostolic preaching did not come to an end with
the death of the apostles, but was handed down
after their death, in written books, about the date
of the composition of which nothing is said.
Harnack is tlius left free to place the Second
Gospel before St. Paul's iinprisonment. He thinks
that the late evidence of Cflement of Alexandria,^
which connects the Gospel with Rome, may per-
haps mean that Mark edited there his previously
written Gospel. Harnack does not attempt to date
the Second Gospel more narrowly.
But we may carry the argument further. If the
writing of Acts at the end of St. Paul's imprison-
• Beilrdge zur Einleitung in das Neue Testament, iv., Leipzig;'
1911.
t JThSt vL [1905J ^6:i S. t ^P- i^us- US vi. 14.
ment affords a limit after which the Second Gospel
could not have been written, the relationship be-
tween the Second Gospel and the First, which pre-
supposes it, may furnish another.
(6) The First Gospel is assigned by most modem
writers to the period 65-90 (see Moffatt). Harnack
thinks that it must have been written near the Fall
of Jerusalem, but not necessarily before it. Moffatt
is clear that it must have been written aft«r that
event.
Apart from its relationship to St. Mark, the in-
clination to date the First Gospel relatively late is
due to a belief that it reflects the atmosphere of a
period in which the Church has become organized
and developed. It is, it is argued, 'Catholic' in
tone. This method of argument seems wholly due
to the fact that modern critics read the Gospel
through ' Catholic ' spectacles. Read it from the
standpoint of a Jewi-sli Christian of Antioch about
the period of the controversy as to the admission
of Gentiles into the Cliurch, and everything is in
place. In particular, two lines of thought in the
Gospel point to this period : (1) the writer's belief
in the permanent validity of the Mo.saic Law, (2)
his eschatology. On the lirst see St. Matthev^
(ICC, 1912), p. 326, and ExpT xxi. [1909-10] 441.
As to the second point, a few words may here
be added in addition to what is written in St.
MatthetiP, p. Ixix, and ExpT xxi. 440.
The First Gospel is, as is well known, the most
apocalyptically coloured of the Synoptic Gospels.
But there are many who do not realize how deeply
the apocalyptic element penetrates the book. It
is, e.g., urged by E. Buckley * that the presence of
passages like 24'^^-" does not presuppose an early
date for the Gospel, because the Evangelist, writing
comparatively late, might have preserved such say-
ings if he found them in his sources. He might of
course have done so, but the question is not one of
a few isolated passages ; it affects the whole Gospel.
V. H. Stanton t also says that the language of ch.
24 need not make for an early date, because the
writer could quite well have left unaltered expres-
sions of his source. This misses the whole point.
Not only does the editor leave unaltered expressions
of his sources, but he also alters St. Mark in order
to bring that Gospel into line with the idea of the
nearness of the Parousia which was so prominent in
his own mind (cf., e.g., Mt 16'«» with Mk 91, Mt 24»
with Mk 13-^). It is not only one or two isolated
{)assages in one of his sources, it is the Evangelist
limself giving preference to one eschatologically
coloured source (Q) and revising another source (St.
Mark) in accordance with its ideas. There are
many who think that the prominence of the apoca-
lyptic element in the First Gospel is due to the
Evangelist forcing it in upon the tradition of
Christ's sayings. The truta is rather that the
Evangelist had one source full of this element, and
that he was so heartily in sympathy witli it that
he not only preserved large sections of it, but also
allowed himself to transfer sayings of an apocalyptic
nature from it into appropriate sections of St.
Mark's Gospel.
That the apocalyptic colouring of the First
Gospel, in so far as it is peculiar to that book, is
due to the Evangelist himself and not to one of his
sources seems wholly incredible. Allow that the
Gospel was written about the year A.D. 50 by a
Jewish Christian of the party who wished to enforce
the keeping of the Law upon the Gentiles, and the
writer, as one who was anxious to preserve all
those sayings of Christ which represented Him as
One who taught that He was the Messiah of the
Jews who would shortly inaugurate the Kingdom,
is in his natural place in the development of the
• Introduction to the Synoiilie Problem, p. 278.
t T/u (irospeU as UisloricaX DocwnenU, ii. 367.
GOSPELS
GOSPELS
475
Church. He is contemporaneous with the apoca-
lyptic period of St. Paul's teaching. Would the
Church ever hare received a book into which the
writer had thrust his own conception of Christ as
an utterer of apocalyptic fantasies at a later period
when they had a Gospel of St. Luke ? Its reception
by the Church seems explicable only on the ground
that it was a book written early in the history of
the Church, received at first in the district where
it was written by a community which was in agree-
ment with its apocalyptic teaching, and that it thus
held a place in the Church from which it could not
be deposed.
B. H. Streeter* argues that the Apocalypse,
written towards the close of the century, proves
that there were at that period circles with a strong
liking for apocalyptic literature, and seems to think
that the First Gospel may therefore have been
written comparatively late. But the two cases
are not in the least parallel. The Gospel was read
in the Church at an early date and everywhere
received. The use of the Apocalypse was long con-
tested. Moreover, it was one thing for the Church
to value an Apocalypse placed in the mouth of the
Ascended Christ ; it would have been quite another
matter for it at a date when, as the Third and
Fourth Gospels show, the tendency was rather to
diminish than to enhance the apocalyptic element
in the Lord's words, to accept a Gospel in which
(according to the theory) there were placed whole-
sale in His mouth during His earthly life sayings
couched in technical apocalyptic language which
He never used. A Gospel so judaized, as would
be the First Gospel on this theory, in idea and in
language, would have been recoguized as alien to
the true tradition of Christ's life, and would have
stood little chance of being received as an apos-
tolic writing.
Notice may be taken here of a few passages which
are supposed to suggest a late date.
Chs. 1 and 2 are certainly early. Hamack
now recognizes that nothing in them need have
been written later than a.d. 70. The sayings
about the Chtirch (16''"- 18"*^-) are certainly early,
for they are couched in language in which the
Jewish colouring is very remarkable. The word
•Church' is supposed to betray a late date, but
why? About A.D. 52 St. Paul was using it of
the Church at Thessalonica. When the Evangelist
wanted a Greek word to represent the Aramaic
word used by Christ, whatever that may have been,
what other word would he be likely to choose than
the €KK\ri<ria of sacred osage ?
•As to the last point [the nae of ' Church *] it is enough to
note that the word occurs nearly a hundred times in the LXX.
Not only is the rest of the vocabulary essentially Jewish, but it
must come from a quarter in which the Jewish "origin and rela-
tions of Christianity were strongly marked, i.e. from a source
near the fountain head.' f
The trinitarian formula in 28" need not be late.
St. Paul, says Hamack, did not create it (op. cit.
p. 108 ; cf. also The Constitution and Law of the
Church, Eng. tr., London, 1910, p. 259 fl'.).
The narratives peculiar to St. Matthew are, as
Hamack recognizes, of a very archaic character.
If then we are right in dating the First Gospel
about A.D. 5<3, we have a further limit for St.
Mark. His Gospel must be prior to that date, and
fall between 30 and 50. Now it is clear from the
early chapters of Acts that St. Peter was prominent
in Jerusalem as leader of the little society of
disciples of Jesus the Messiah (the First Gospel
reflects this ri^^htly). There about the year 39 St.
Paul stayed with him for a fortnight. But in 44
St. Peter was obliged to leave Jerusalem (Ac 12"),
and we do not find him there again until the
• Interpreter, vui. [1911] 37 ff.
t W. Sanday, in Minutes o/ Etridenee b^ore Boyol Com. on
Mwree, iii. 241.
Council some five years later (Ac 15). During this
interval the Second Gospel may well have been
written. The absence of Peter from Jerosalem
would suggest the writing down of his teachings to
compensate for the loss of his personal presence,
and no one was so fitted for this work as John
Mark. If written at Jerusalem, the Groepel
would naturally have been composed in Aramaic,
and there is much in its style and language to
suggest this. But St. Mark did not stay long in
Jerusalem. He left with his cousin Barnabas for
Antioch, and there (c. 44-47) it may have been
found desirable to translate the Gospel into Greek.
When the controversy between the Churches of
Antioch and Jerusalem broke out a little later, the
wTiter of the First Gospel took St. Mark's work as
his basis, and wrote a longer Gospel, inserting from
another source much of the Lord's teaching as
preserved at Jerusalem. The Second Gospel may
quite well have been re-edited at Rome ; but if so,
the changes made in it cannot have been many, for
it is clear that the editor of the First Gospel had
St. Mark before him much as we have it.
(c) The Third Gospel is generally dated c. A.D. 80
(see Moffatt). But if Hamack is right about the
date of the Acts, the Gospel must of course be
earlier, i.e. it must have b^n written somewhere
between A.D. 47 and 60.*
2. Authorship. — (a) The tradition which assigns
the Second Gospel to St. Mark is so strong that it
requires some boldness to set it aside. It goes
back as early as Papias (c. A.D. 140), who gives it
on the authority of ' the Elder ' (Ens. HE iii. 39),
and it is now very widely accepted (cf., e.g., Peake,
[Critical Introd. to NT, p. 121], Hamack, Mofiatt,
Bacon [The Making of the NT, p. 159]).
(6) The majority of modem writers are also agreed
in referring the First Gospel to an unknown writer.
The reasons for this are the following. (1) The
earliest witness, Papias or the Elder quoted by him,
speaks of a work of St. Matthew which he describes
as rd Xo7ta. This term does not describe aptly such
a book as our First Gospel, but would more
naturally apply to a collection of utterances or
sayings (see Moflatt, p. 189). (2) Moreover, this
work is said by the same ■witness to have been
written in the Hebrew dialect ( = Aramaic ?). Now
our First Gospel is certainly not a translation of
an Aramaic or Hebrew work. It was written in
Greek by a writer who used at least one Greek
source, the Second Gospel, and who used also
the Greek OT (see St. Mattheid* [ICC], pp. xiiiff.
Ixii).
But the inference is a natural one that the name
of St. Matthew was given to the book because it
largely embodies the work of that Apostle referred
to by Papias. Modem criticism has therefore been
largely absorbed in an endeavour to reconstruct
this Matthaean work. Foreign scholars for the
most part refuse in any way to identify the dis-
course source which has been used in the First
Gospel with Papias' Matthaean Logia (Hamack,
however, admits that it may well have been an
apostolic work). They prefer to give it a name
which will beg no questions as to its authorship,
and call it simply Q ( = Quclle, 'source'). Three
main views as to its contents exist: (1) that of
Bemhard Weiss, + who assigns to it not only
material found in both Mt. and Lk., or in one of
them, but also a good deal that is common to all
three Gospels, because he believes that St. Mark
borrowed from Q,* which therefore lay before
* For a refutation of the argument that the Go^id {Mreaop-
poses the Fall of Jerusalem see Hwpack, Beitruffe, iv. 81 ff .
t Die Quelien der tjrnoptitdien Ubertieferung, lieipcig, 190S.
I The question wbethtf St. Uaik used Q has been much dis-
cussed recently. F. Nioolaxdot iLe* Proeidit de ridaetion des
trois premiers Eeang^Httes, Paris, 1908) thinks that he did so
largely. B. H. Streeter Qat Saodajr, Ojjford Sttidies in tJu
476
GOSPELS
GOSPPXS
Mt. and Lk. in a double form — (i.) its original
form, (ii.) as reproduced in Mk. (2) Harnack,*
aeain, assigns to it only material found both in
Mt. and Lk. and not in Mk. (cf. also Hawkins
and Streeter in Sanday, Oxford Sttcdies in tlic
Synoptic Problem). One serious objection to this
theory is that, since it is almost incredible that
Mt. and Lk. should either have both embodied the
whole of Q or both have selected the same sections
from it, a reconstruction on these lines must give
us an incomplete Q, and possibly one so incomplete
that no sure inferences can be drawn from it as
to the nature and character of the whole work.
(3) Finally, Allen {Oxford Studies, p. 236 ff.) be-
lieves that Q is best represented in the First Gospel.
He thinks that if most of the sayings and dis-
courses peculiar to Mt., and those common to Mt.
and Lk., are grouped together, the result forms a
collection of discourses of a very primitive char-
acter which may well be the Mattnsean work re-
ferred to by Papias. He thinks that this work
was not used directly by Lk., but that many
sayings drawn from it passed through intermediate
stages into St. Luke s Gospel, one of these inter-
mediate stages being possibly the First Gospel.
(c) The authorship of the Third Gospel is bound
up with the question of the authorship of Acts.
Critics, like JUlicher, who date Gospel and Acts
about A.D. lOUand deny that the writer of the ' we '
sections in Acts can be identified with the writer
of the whole book of Acts, cannot of course accept
the tradition that St. Luke, a companion of St.
Paul, wrote both Acts and Gospel. But recent
criticism has moved decisively in the direction of
affirming the truth of the tradition. Harnack,
following on the lines of W. K. Hobart,t argues
that the style and language of Gospel and Acts, in-
cluding the 'we' sections, decisively prove that
both works were written by one person and that he
was a physician. :J Moffatt says that the supposi-
tion that both works did not come from a single
pen may nowadays be ' decently interred ' {LNT,
p. 298). It is probable that criticism, after long
wandering in a labyrinth of speculation upon this
Eoint, will return to the traditional belief in the
rucan authorship of both books. It is accepted in
such recent works as that of Peake. For a sum-
mary of the linguistic argument, see Harnack,
Luke the Physician, or Moftatt, LNT, p. 297 f.
Some of those who reject the Lucan authorship
of the two books are inclined to think that Luke
may have written the 'we' sections (so Bacon,
Introduction to NT, p. 211).
3. CharacteristicB.— (a) The Second Gospel is
neither a history nor a biography. It contains
no dates, and the writer is at no pains to give any
details of time or place which would help to make
the narrative intelligible to a reader previously
unacquainted with it. The central figure of the
book is introduced under the description 'Jesus
Messiah, Son of God' (P), but nothing is said of
His human parentage, His early life, or the period
in which He lived. If we set aside the last five
chapters, which describe in detail, disproportionate
to tne rest of the book, the last few days of the
Messiah's life, the account of His doings in l^-KP^
is strangely disconnected and without sequence.
No hint of the length of time occupied by the nar-
rative is given, long periods are passed over with-
out comment, whilst the events of a single day are
recorded in detail.
Synoptic Problem) argues that he did so only to a limited
extent. Harnack thinks that 'this assumption is nowhere
demanded' (Sayings of iJesus, p. 226; so Moffatt. LNT, p.
204 ff. V
• The Sayings of Jesm.
t The Medical Language of St. Luke, Dublin and London,
X8a2.
I See also J. C. Hawkins, Horoe Synoptical, Oxford, 1909.
This incompleteness and fragmentariness sug-
gest the writer's intention. He wished to put
into permanent form such of the incidents of the
Messiah's life as were well known from St. Peter's
teaching to the community in which he lived.
Behind the book there lies as the only explanation
of it the Christian community (at Jerusalem?)
orphaned of its chief teacher. If this be lost
sight of, the book remains as a mere narrative
of disconnected incidents in the life of one Jesus
of Nazareth.
If a keynote to the Gospel be wanted, it may
be found in the jihrase 'having authority' (1").
Jesus is depicted as one whose words and deeds
proved Him to be endowed with power, and so to
be the Son of God. Cf. the following :— l^" : ♦ He
was teaching as having authority ' ; 1^ : 'a new
teaching, with authority he commands'; 2^":
' the Son of Man hath authority ' ; 5*" : ' knowing
the power which had gone forth from him ' ; 6* :
'the powers (miracles) done by him.' In accord-
ance with this is the emphasis in the Gospel upon
the impression made by Him upon the peasantry.
Cf. the following : — 1^ : ' the crowds were aston-
ished at his teaching ' ; 2'- : ' all were astonished ' ;
b*^ : ' they were astonished with great amazement ' ;
6^ : ' the populace were astonished ' ; 7^ : ' they
were above measure astonished ' ; 11'^ : ' the crowd
were astonished at his teaching ' ; 1*^ : ' the whole
city was gathered at the door ' ; 1** : ' He could no
longer enter into a city, but was without in desert
places, and they came to him from all sides ' ; 2^ :
' They were gathered together, so that the space
about the door could no longer contain them ' ;
3* : ' He bade his disciples prepare a boat, because
of the crowd ' ; 3^ : ' the crowd again gathers, so
that they could not even eat ' ; 4^ : ' and there
gathers to him a very great crowd, so that he
embarked into a boat ' ; 6*' : ' There were many
coming and going, and they had no opportunity
to eat.'
(b) If the Second Gospel is a book of remin-
iscences, or rather of notes of a great teacher's
reminiscences of the life of his Master, the First
Gospel is a theological treatise in narrative form.
Its purpose is to prove that Jesus of Nazareth
was, though rejected by the rulers of His people,
the true Messiah, in whom were or would be ful-
filled all the Messianic expectations of the OT.
The phrase 'that it might be fulfilled' may be
taken as the keynote of the book. Ciiaracteristic
of the book are the following: (1) its apologetic
aspect ; it is a defence of the Messiahship of Jesus
against (i. ) current slander (cf. esp. chs. 1, 2), (ii.)
the hard fact that the Jewish autliorities rejected
Him ; (2) its consequent polemic against the recog-
nized authorities of the Jews ; (3) its conception of
the Church or Society of the Messiah as consisting
of Jews or proselytes still under the authority or
the Mosaic Law ; (4) its conception of the Kingdom
as to be inaugurated shortly when the Messiali
returned on the clouds of heaven. See on these
points 5^. Mattheufi, pp. 309 tt", 326 ft'. ; ExpT xxi.
439 tf. ; and art. ' Matthew (Gospel) ' in DCG.
(c) In the Third Gospel we come at last to a pro-
fessed biography or history of a life. It is best
treated when taKen as the first part of a great his-
torical work of which Acts is tne second volume,
and some of the following features characterize
both works: (1) if in the First Gospel Jesus is
'He who fulfils' and in the Second He is the one
having authority and power, in the Third He is
the Divine Healer ; (2) there is a strong universal-
istic note. Jesus is the Second Adam, and His
gospel is for all peoples (cf. 2»- ^i 3«) ; (3) promi-
nence is given to women in both GosjmjI and Acts ;
(4) there is considerable emphasis upon prayer,
the inUuence of the Holy Spirit, and upon Chris.
GOSPELS
GOSPELS
477
tianity as being a religion marketl by thanks-
giving, joy, and peace.
Out of his many sources St. Luke has composed
a wonderful book. About the first part of the
Gospel hangs the peace of God, clothing it like a
soft garment. Into the world has entered the
Prince of Peace, bringing healing to the souls and
bodies of men — not of Jews only but of all man-
kind, not for the rich and privileged classes but
for the poor and the outcast, not for men alone
but for women also. To those who are Christ's
disciples the gates of prayer are ever open, and
they live in an atmosphere where praLse is upon
their lips and joy in their hearts. About the
second part hangs still the feeling of the joy and
peace which Christianity brings with it. But
there is now a new note of triumph. The Chris-
tian Church as St. Luke describes it in the Acts
marches victoriously through the Koman world
from conquest to conquest. Hamack somewhere
titl>" quotes as a keynote to the work the words
of the old Latin hymn 'The Royal banners forward
go'
IL The Fourth Gospel.— The Fourth Gospel
is dated by many modem writers in the early part
of the 2nd cent, (so recently Clemen * and Bacon t).
This of course precludes its apostolic authorship.
The line of argument which leads up to this posi-
tion is as follows, (a) The Fourth Gospel con-
flicts with the first three in facts such as the date
of the Crucifixion, the cleansing of the Temple,
and the account of John the Baptist ; it is there-
fore hopelessly unhistorical, and cannot have been
written by an apostle, {b) It conflicts with them
in its presentation of the Person of Christ. The
Christology is so diflerent from that of the Synoptic
Gospels that the sayings put into the mouth of
Chnst must be mainly the work of an author (not
an apostle) who is writing under the influence of
Je\%'ish Alexandrian Philosophy and of Stoicism. :J
(c) What then of the 2nd cent, attribution of the
Gospel to the Apostle? This is hopelessly mis-
leading. Irenaeus misunderstood Polycarp and
attributed the Gospel to John the Apostle when
he ought to have assigned it to John the Elder.
Irenaeus is wrong again when he said that John
the Apostle lived to a good age and spent the last
part of his life at Ephesus. As a matter of fact,
he suflered early martyrdom at the hands of the
Jews. §
We may consider further some points in this
argument, (a) The historical inaccuracy in matters
of fact needs at least considerable qualification.
In many respects the writer is remarkably accu-
rate in his representation of Palestine as it was
before the Fall of Jerusalem, e.g. in geographi-
cal and topographical detail, in his knowleidge of
Jewish custom, the relationship between Jewish
parties, their religious beliefs. Moreover, the
Synoptic tradition is too one-sided to be taken as
a measure or gauge.
(6) The contrast drawn between the Christology of
the Synoptic Gospels and that of the Fourth Gospel
is open to the same criticism. What right have
we to regard the first three Grf)spel8 as an adequate
presentation of the Person of Christ, aad not as
three slightly varying forms of a tradition which
represented a very meagre part of a life which was
many-sided? For hints in the Synoptic Gospels
of a Judaean ministry see Motfatt, LNT, p. 541.
With respect to the teaching of Christ, the Synoptic
(Jospels give us a significant hint that there were
sides of this teaching which they have left almost
wholly unrecorded. The saying Mt 11*' = Lk 1(F,
* Die Entstehung des Johannetevangeliumi, Halle, 1912.
t The Making of the ST.
t See Moffatt, LNT, p. 522 ; Scott, Fourth Gotpel, p. 29 ff.
S M<MEatt, LST, p. 602ff.
with its emphasis uiK>n the unique Sonship of
Christ, implies the whole Johanuiue Christology,
and is no doubt a fragment from a whole cycle of
teaching such as that which has survived in the
Fourth Gospel. And St, Mark has another allusion
to this teaching in 13" ('the Son'). The modem
critic fashions out of the first three Gospels a Jesus
after his liking, and then denies that the Christ of
the Fourth Gospel is compatible with this Jesos
whom his literary criticism has created. But is it
not more likely to be the case that the Jesus of
history was One too lofty in personality, too many-
sided in character, to be understood by His contem-
poraries ? The Synoptic tradition has given to us
one impression as it was left upon some of His
followers (though even here there are many aspects
of character — teacher of virtue, critic of Pharisaic
religion, mystic, doer of miracles, apocalyptic seer,
etc. ) ; the Fourth Gospel has preserved another
side of His character. It may well be that, had
others set themselves to describe the life, we should
have had information which would have given us
quite a fresh conception of Him. It is, moreover,
easy to draw quite false antitheses between the
Fourth Gospeliand the Synoptics. It is, e.g., true
that the writer of the Fourth Gospel dwells by
preference upon the teaching as to the present
possession of Christian privileges rather than upon
that as to their future consummation (the apoca-
lyptic teaching of the Synoptic Gk>spels). But the
whole cycle of this apocalyptic teaching is pre-
supposed. There is to be a general resurrection
(5^). Eternal life involves a resurrection at the
last day (6***). The very conception of eternal life
is apocalyptic, involving the thought of the per-
manence of the individual life and its future entry
into a Kingdom which will be a fulfilment of the
partial manifestation of the kingdom in the present.
The retention of these peissages in the Gospel is
not a deliberate departure from the writer's view
of life as present, and a falling back on a primitive
eschatological view (Scott, Fourth Gospel, p. 249).
Rather they are a hint that there is another side
of the doctrine of eternal life which the author
knows to have been taught by Christ, and which
he will not altogether omit because it is the
necessary corollarj- of such teaching on eternal life
as he records. They who have eternal life cannot
die for ever, and there must be a sphere in which
their life wiU be manifested. That is pure apoca-
lyptic.
The conception of the Christology of the book as
being the work of a writer strongly influenced by
Alexandrian philosophy is probably a false one
due to the fact that modem writers on the Gospel
know something about Alexandrian philosophy
because Philo -wrote in Greek, but little or nothing
about Jewish theology in the time of Christ, except
at second hand, or in so far as it can be ascertained
from Greek sources (the apocalyptic literature).
The Gospel is probably thoroughly Hebraic in
language, in method of argument, in idea, and
it will be seen to be so when Christian scholars
take the trouble to set themselves to the work of
critically editing the Rabbinical literature, with
a view to ascertaining how much of its theology
they must carry back into the period of the life of
Christ.*
(c) With regard to the 2nd cent, tradition, it is
significant that decision as to its value seems to
depend upon a prior question — that of the possi-
bility of an apostolic authorship for the Fourth
Gospel. That is, critics who find the Gospel so
unhistorical as to render its composition by an
apostle impossible all depreciate the value of the
2nd cent, witness to St. John as the author. And
* See I. Abrahams, in Cambridge Biblical EttayM, London,
1909, p. 181 ff.
478 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
indeed what need to trouble abont explaining away
this witness if the Gospel on its own showing can-
not be apostolic? On the other hand, all who do
not find the Gospel to be so unhistorical as to
make its conii)osition by 'm ai)ostle, or its depend-
ence upon him, incredible, find the 2nd cent,
attestation to be good. The most recent critical
work, that of Clemen,* decides in favour of the
literary unity of the Gospel ; denies a confusion
between two Johns, a presbyter and an apostle ;
argues that there is no valid ground for denying
that the apostle settled in Ephesus at the end of
his life, and none for supposing his early martyr-
dom. Clemen believes the Gospel to be too far
removed from history to have been written by the
apostle himself, but thinks that Johannine tradi-
tion is a main element in it.
Recent attempts to analyze the Gospel into
sources seem to have failed,! and it is little likely
that for the present any fresh light on the book
will be forthcoming. It may be hoped that we
shall one day have an editor of the Gospel who is
trained in Rabbinic exegesis, as well as in Western
scholarship. Such a one may find that the Gospel
is certainly the work of a Jew, and may see no
reason for denying that its author may have been
John the son of Zebedee. If he prefer historical
evidence as to Christ's teaching and Person to pre-
conceived ideas about Him, he m<ay also see no
reason for denying that both Synoptic and Johan-
nine pictures of Jesus are substantially true, yet
equally one-sided, and that the Jesus of history
must have been One of whom all our knowledge
can be only partial, enough to elicit our devotion
and to silence our criticism.
Literature. — This is enormous. The following are some
recent books in English : V. H. Stanton, The Gospels as His-
torical Documents, Cambridge, pt. i. [1903], pt. ii. [1909] ; J.
Moffatt, LNT, Edinburgh, 1911 ; A. S. Peake, A Critical
Introduction to the JVT, London, 1909; W. Sanday, The Life
of Christ in Recent Research, Oxford, 1907, Oxford Studies in
the Synoptic Problem, do. 1911, The Criticism of the Fourth
Gospel, do. 1905 ; A. Harnack, Luke the Physician, Eng. tr.,
London, 1907, and Sayings of Jesus, do. 190S ; F. C. Burkitt,
The Earliest Sotircesfor the Life of Jesus, Boston, 1910; J. R.
Cohu, The Gospels in the Light of Modem Research, Oxford,
1909 ; E. R. Buckley, -^rt Introduction to the Synoptic Problem,
London, 1912 ; B. W. Bacon, The Making of the NT, do. 1912;
E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, Edinburgh, 1906 ; J. Armit-
age Robinson, The Historical Character of St. John's Gospel,
London, 190S ; L. PuUan, The Gospels, do. 1912 ; W. C. Allen
and L. W. Grensted, Introduction to the Books of the NT,
Edinburgh, 1913. W. C. ALLEN.
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL).— /n^rorftfc^ory.—l.
•Tlie Church,' as Origen said — or rather, as the
translator of Origen's Homilies on Luke (i.) said for
him — ' the Church has four Gospels, heresy has
many. ' This could be said by the middle of the
3rd century. A century earlier, with the rise of
the Gospel canon, a sharp distinction had been
drawn between the four Gospels of the NT and all
other writings of this cla.ss. The present article
deals with the latter, not in relation to the former
but rather in the light of their own genesis and
structure as products of early Christian literature.
Still, two preliminary remarks must be made in
connexion with the distinction drawn by Origen.
One is, that while the Church had only four Gospels
in the sense of Scriptures relating to the life of
Jesus, which were authorized to be used in public
worship and for purposes of doctrine, the early
Christians did not by any means confine their read-
ing to the canonical Gospels. Their piety was
nourished upon some Gospels which found no
place in the canon. And these Gospels were not
* Die Entstehung des Johannesevangeliums.
t J. Wellhausen, Eriveiterungen und Kndemngen im vierten
Evangelium, Berlin, 1907, Das Eimngelium Johannis, do. 1908:
F. Spitta, Das Johannes- Eeangrlium als Quelle der Geschichte
Jesu, Gottingen, 1910 ; Bacon, The Fourth Gospel in Research
an4 Debate, London, 1910.
always tinged with definite heresy. We can see,
for example, from the evidence which Eusebius
rather grudgingly furnishes for the re|)ute of the
Gospel of the Hebrews in certain circles, that an
imcanonical Gospel like this hatl a vogue which
was only partially afiected by the necessity of ex-
cluding it from the canon. Also, before the canon
gained its full authority, a Gospel like that of
I'eter could still keep some footing within a com-
munity. The Church might have its four Gospels
as classical and standard documents for the life
and teaching of Jesus ; fortunately, it felt obliged
to stamp these with the special mark of ins])ired
authority, liut Gospels already in circulation did
not disappear at once, even wiien they were ex-
cluded from ecclesiastical use. Nor again — and
this is the second remark to be made — did the
fixing of the canon put a stop to the composition
or the editing of such Gospel material. Literature
of this kind continued to be produced, not only in
circles which were more or less semi-Christian, but
especially in the Egyptian Church. It belonged
to the category of religious fiction for the most
l)art. Still, it followed in the wake of the canoni-
cal Gospels, and what has survived the •wreck,
reaching us partly on the planks of versions and
partly on broken pieces oi the original, forms a
considerable section of the material for our present
survey.
To study these Gospels against the background
of the canonical, and to mea.sure them by the
standards of the latter, is to do them too much
honour. But it is also to do them, or some of
them, an injustice. As we shall see, it is a mistake
to speak of the uncanonical Gospels as if they were
a homogeneous product. They vary widely, not
only in age but in spirit. Some of them are docu-
ments of ' here.sy,' * and were never meant to be
anything else ; the motive for their composition
was to adapt one or more of the canonical Gospels
to the tenets of a sect or party on the borders of
the catholic Church, But others were written to
meet the needs of popular Christianity ; their aim
was to .supplement rather than to rival the canoni-
cal GosiJels, and in some cases they can be shown
to be almost contemporary with the latter —
certainly prior to the formation of the canon itself.
The problem is still further complicated by the
probability that now and then a Gospel of an-
heretical character was re-issued in the interests
of later parties, while a Gospel originally Gnostic,
for example, may occasionally have been pruned of
its objectionable features and started on a career
within the Church. t Certain phenomena seem to
point to both of these practices in early Christian
literature. An uncanonical Go.spel might experi-
ence either change; it might rise or fall in the
world of the Church, And this would be all the
more possible just because it was uncanonical.
Neither its text nor its contents ensured it against
degeneration or stood in the way of its appropria-
tion by the hands of the orthodox. Either the
Church or 'heresy' could drag over a document
which lay close to the border, and fit it to strange
uses. HoAvever this may be, recent phases of
critical research in the uncanonical Gospels show
us pretty plainly that within as well as without the
early Church there was sometimes a good deal of
what not only later generations but even contem-
poraries did not hesitate to call ' heresy,' that this
'heresy' assumed many forms, and that the un-
canonical Gospels, as we now have them, often re-
present heterogeneous and varied interests of such
Christian or semi-Christian piety.
* i.e. of ' heresy ' which repudiated the name of ' heresy ' ; cf,
V. H. Stanton, The Gospels as Hist. Documents, 1. [igO.-?] 24« f
t A similar process went on in the case of some of the un-
canonical Acta.
GOSPELS (UNCAXOXICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL) 479
a. The ext&nt fragments, mainly Greek and LAtin, were first
collected in a critical edition by J. A. Fabricios (Codex Apoe-
ryphus Sov. Tttt. . . . editio aeeunda, emendatior, Hambars^>
1719 [1st ed., 1703]) ; A. Birch (Auetarium codidt Apoayphi
A'ooi Tetiamenti Fabrieiani eontinen* plura inedita alia ad
Adem eodd.mu.emendatiuta^fretta.Copenbttgen, 1S&4) ; J. C.
ThBo {Codex ApoaryfkHi Son Tettamtnti, Leipzig;, 1S3'2) ; and
C de Tischendorf (^winjrfia Apocrypha^, Leipzig, 1876).
Later discoveries were mainly incorporated in the texts iasaed
by E. Nestle (Sovi Testamenti SuppUmentum, Leipzig, 1896);
E. Prenschem CAntiUgomena : die iUtte der aiisierkanoni$ehen
SvangtUmiwMwrekntUieken Uriteriieferungen, henuugeaeben
und «MterM<2(S, Gieaaen, 1906); and E. Klosteniiaim Qn H.
Lietzmann'8 Kleine TezU, 3, 8, and 11, Bonn, 1903-O4X But
Thilo and Tischendorf still form the basis for research, so tar as
the Greek and Latin texts of several important docoments are
concerned. In E. Hennecke's IfetUettamenttie^ Apokrppken
(Tiibingen and Leipzig, 1904) there are Talnable translations,
with inutxluctions and notes, of the Goepel of the Hebrews, the
Gospel of the Ebionites, the Protevangetiom Jacobi, and the
Gospel of Thomas (by A. Meyer), of the Gospel of Peter (by A.
Stiilcken), of the Traditions of Matthias and some Coptic frag-
ments, etc (by the editor). The French edition in course of
preparation by J. Bonsquet and E. Amann (Lei Apoerfpkes
du SouTfau testament, Paris), includes the original texts, but
as yet only the Protevangelium Jacobi has appe^-ed (1910X
The eighteen.th century brought Augustin Calmet's Diiter-
tation sur U* EcangiUt apoeryphes in his ' Commentaire,* Paris,
1709-16, vol. viL ; Jeremiah Jones' jN>ir and FuU Method
of Settling the Canonical Authority of the Sew TettametU,
London, 172&-37 (written on the basis of Fabridas, akmg
apologetic lines); and J. F. Klenker's similar Ueber die
Apol^lfphen des ST, Hamburg, 1798 ; followed in the nine-
teenth century by Arens' essay de Eyang. apoe. in eanonici*
vtu ki^orieo, eritieo, exegetteo, Gottingen, 1S35; K. F.
Borbergr's Bibliothek der netUegtamenuiehen Apokryphen,
geaananeU, vebertetzt, und erlatUert, Stuttgart, 1341 ; J. Pons
(ide Kigr^pelisseX Reehereket ntr les Apoeryphe* du Souteau
Tettament (thite hittorique et critique), Montanban, 1850 ; and *
R. CUonens' Die geheimgehattenen oder tog. apoktyphen
Bvangelien , Stuttgart, 1850 ( voliune of German translations). A
French tr. of Thilo was issued in 1S4S by G. Brunet (Lei
^vangilei apoeryphes-, Paris, 1863X and a poor English compila-
tion, based on Fabricius, Thilo, etc., was published four years
later by J. A. Giles (Codex Apocryphui Sovi Tettamenti,
LondonX W. Hone's worthless and unworthy Apoeryphal
ST, London, 1S20, included the Protevangelium Jacobi. Useful
volumes of English t translations were published, however, bv A-
Walker (in the Ante-Sicene Chr. Lib., xvi. [Edinburgh, 1S73]);
B. H. Cowper (The Apoe. GospeU, London, lse7, '*1S74);
and B. Pick (Paralipomena : Remaini of Gcspeli and Sayings
of Christ, Chicago, 1908). Two French treatises overshadowed
any Elnglish criticism during this period, one a critical study by
M. Nicolas (£tiidet tar lei ivangiiet apoerypket, Paris, 1S65) ;
the other a Roman Catimlic counterpart by Joseph Variot
(Lei Erangilei apoeryphei, Paris, 1878X
In W. Wright's Contributions to the Apocryphal Literature
of the Seia Testament, London, 1865, Syriac versions of the
Protevangelium Jacobi(a fragment)and the Gospel of Thomas the
Israelite were published and translated with notes. Otherwise,
the main contributions to the subject duringthe last century were
monographs upon special points and aspects, like P. J. Peltzer's
Historische und dogmenkistoriiche Elemente in den apok.
Kindheits - Erangelien, Wnrzburg, 1864 ; A. Tappehom's
Auiserbiblische Saehriehten, oder die Apokryphen iiber die
Geburt, Kindheit und doi Lebemende Jeiu und Maria, Pader-
bom, 1S85 ; and J. Haver's Die apokryphiaehen Bvangelien,
aueh ein Beiceis fUr die Glaubviirdigkeit der kanoniichen,
Halberstadt, lS98-99;t with S. Baring-Gould's Lost and
HoitUe Gospels, London, 1874, p. 119 f. ; J. Chrzaszcz's Die
apokryphen Etangelien, insbeiondere dai Etangelium seeun-
dun^ Hebrceos, Gleiwitz, 1888; and C. Bost's Les Btangiles
apoeryphes de Venfanee de J.-C. atee une introduction sttr les
rieiti de ilatthieu et de Lue, Montauban, 1S94.
The older monographs upon their relation to the sources for
the life of Jesus, by R. Hofhiann (Das Leben Jesu nach den
Apokryphen, Leipzig, 1851) ; J. de Q. Donehoo (Apoe. and
Legendary Life of Christ, London, 1903); and L. Couard
(AltehriiU. Sagen iiber das Leben Jetu, Gutersloh, 1905) have
been largely superseded by the exhaustive work of W. Bauer
(Dai Leben Jem im Zeitalter der neutest. Apokryphen, Tubin-
gen, 1909).
An excellent survey of recent Oriental discoveries and dis-
cussions in this field is given in Felix Haase's Literarische
Untentiehungen zur orientaiiseh-apokryphen Evangelien-
literatur, Leipzig, 1913 ; the Slavonic versions are chronicled
by E. Kozak in JPTh, 1892, p. 127 f., as weU as by Bon-
wetsch in Hamack's AltehristL Lilt. L [Leipzig, 1893], p. 907 f.
The principal general articles on the subject are by G.
Brunet in Migne's Diet, des Apoeryphes, i. [1S56] 961 f . ; R. A.
Lipsins in DCB ii. [1880] 700-17 ; B. F. Westcott, Introd. to
Study of the GospeUfi, London,il881, p. 466 f . ; Movers in Wetzer-
Welte2, L (1882] 1036-84; T. ZaJm, Geseh. da Kanons, u. [Leipzig,
* Tiacdiendorf 8 prize essay, De Bvangeliorum Apoeryphorum
origine et uiu, appeared in 1851 ; Hilgenfeld's serviceable Eoan-
geSum tee. Hebrceos, etc., in 1866.
t C. J. Ellicott'a ' Dissertation on the Apocrj-phal Gospels' in
Cambridge Essays, 1856, is apok^etic.
} A tnjoslation of the Arabic (lospel of the Infancy, with notes.
1892] 621-97 ; A. Hamack, op. eU. i. 4-25, ii. L 589 f. ; R. Hot-
maan, in PRB3 L [1896] 653 f. (Eng. tr. i. [1908] 225-29); M. R.
James in BBi L [1889] SSS8-69 ; Batiffol, in Vigooroox's Diet, de
la BibU, iL [1899] 2U4-18; A. Ehrhard, AltehrittL Lit., ¥k\-
burg i. B., 1900. pp. 123-17 ; O. Bardenhewer. Getek. der.
altkirchL LU.^, i. [do. 1913] § 31 ; J. G. Tasker in UDB v.
[1904] 420-38; A. F. Findlav in DCGi. [1906] 671-85; J.
Leipoldt, Geteh. des neutest. Kanom, i. [Leipzig, 1907] S 21 ;
R. Knopf in RGG i. [1908-09] 543 ff. ; H. Jordan, Geteh. der
aitehristl. Lit., Leipzig, 1911, pp. 74-73; H. Waitz, in PRE*
xxxii. [1913] 79-93 ; and L. St. A. Wells, in BRE vL [1913]
34&-352. The discussions of LipeiiM, Zatan, and H»rn«f;V are
most important, together ^\ith the criticisms of ThakerandWaitx.
In several NT Introductions the nncanonical Gospels are
included, especially by F. Bleek (Binleitung in dot ST*,
Berlin, 1886, p. 406L) ; G. Salmon (Introd. to the ST», London.
1^9, pp. x-xi) ; and J. E. B«ls«r (Einleittmg in dot ST,
Freiburg L B., 1905, p. 789 f.) ; there is a <diaptar oo tbem in
E. Renan's L'Eglise ehretienne, Paris, 1879, ch. xxvL, as weO
as in F. C Borldtf s Gospel Hist, and iti Tranmiuicn,
Edinborgh, 190& p. 324 f. ; and a recent ^MOish monogn^ fay
E. C Carillo (Lot BoangOiot Ap^erifot, Par^ 1913); also
the relevant paragraphs in Kesch's Agrapha (TU y. 4, Leip^,
1889) and in Histories of Christian literature, e.g. C. T.
Cruttwell's Lit. Hist, of Early Christianity, London, 1883, L
160-174; G. Krfiger's AltehristL LitL\ Freibui^, 1898, 516;
and P. Wendland's Die urehriM. Literaturformen^, Tubingen,
1912, pp. 292-301.
3. "Writing at the close of the 1st cent. A.D.,
St. Ltike observes in the preface to his Gospel that
'many' had already undertaken to compose a
narrative of the life of Jesus : xoXXoi irexeipTjcar
ajfard^affdai Sii^ffw, ktX. (V). He does not intend
to convey any impression of disparagement by the
term irrexeip^av. He is not satisfied with their
work, but he does not dismiss his predecessors as
unauthorized. Nor does he claim for himself any
special inspiration. What others have done he
proposes to do ; only, it is to be in a more com-
plete and orderly fashion.
The Muratorian Canon, in its extant form, does
not happen to mention any nncanonical Gospels
which are to be avoided by the faithful, unless we
are meant to understand some of them as included
in the obscure closing words. But more than a hun-
dred years after St. Luke wrote his preface, Grigen
commented on it as follows : ' Po.ssibly the term
iTexeifn}<rav contains an implicit condemnation of
those who betook themselves hastily and without
any spiritual gift (xapiV/Miros) to the composition
of Gospels. Thus ilatthew ovk (rfxeipvaa', but
wrote under the impulse of the Holy Spirit ; so did
Mark and John, and similarly LuKe. But those
who composed the Gospel called Kar Aiyvrrlovi and
that entitled TQv AwSeca, they iTexeipvffay. There
is also a Gospel Kara Qufidv current. Basilides has
also ventured to write a Gospel Kara Ba<Ti\i5i]p.
Many indeed i-rexeipvo^ar : there is the Gospel
KarA Ma^iaj' and many others ; but the Church of
God accepts only the four.' It is not certain
whether ()rigen intended to suggest that the first
two or three Grospels which he named were among
the uninspired predecessors of Luke. Probably he
did. But the interest of the passage for us lies
in the names of the Gospels which his erroneous
interpretation of i-rextipriffav leads him to mention.
They must have been among the most prominent
of those known to him.
In the 4th cent. Eusebius {HE iii. 25) ends his
catalogue of the canonical or accepted Scriptures
with the remark that his object in drawing it up
has been ' that we may know both these worfe
and those cited by heretics under the name of the
apostles, including, for example, such books as
the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of
any others besides them. . . . They are not to be
placed even among the rejected writings (iw v60ois),
but are all to be put aside as absurd and impious.'
Further down in the same century we come upon
Ambrose (CSEL xxxii. p. 10 f.), in his prologue
to an exposition of Luke, following Grigen almost
verbatim. He admits that some of these nn-
canonical Gospels are read by orthodox Christians,
e.g. the (iospel of the Twelve, the Gospel of
480 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
Basilides, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel
of Mattliias ('novi aliud scriptum secundum
Matthian '). But ' we read, le.st we should be
ignorant ; we read, not in order to keep but to
repudiate them ' !
In the prologue to his commentary upon Matthew,
Jerome (A.D. 346-420) also mentions some of the
uncanonical Gospels, but his information adds
nothing to the data supplied by Origen, from
whom he probably derived in the main liis know-
ledge of tliese documents. After quoting Luke's
preface, he applies its language to Gospels 'like
that according to the Egyptians, and according to
Thomas, and according to Matthias, and according
to Bartholomew, also the Gospel of the Twelve
Apostles, and of Basilides, and of Apelles, as well
as others which it would take a very long time
to enumerate.' Following Origen, he interprets
Luke's iirexeipriffav of unauthorized, uninspired
attempts. To them the prophetic word of Ezekiel
applies (13'- *) : ' Woe to tliem that prophesy out of
their own heart, who walk after their own spirit,
who say. Thus saith the Lord, and the Lord has not
sent them.' Also, the word of Jn 10": 'all who
came before me were tliieves and robbers.' Note,
says Jerome, ' they canie ' ; not ' they were sent' !
In Pope Innocent's Epistle (A.D. 405) to Jerome's
friend, Bishop Exsuperius of Toulouse, the canonical
list is followed by a note of ' cetera autem quae uel
sub nomine Mathiae sine lacobi minoris ; uel sub
nomine Petri et lohannis, quae a quodam Leucio
scripta sunt ; uel sub nomine Andrese, quae a
Xenocaride et Leonida philosophis ; * uel sub
nomine Thomae ; et si qua sunt alia ; non solum
repudianda uerum etiam noueris esse damnanda.'
This is a fair specimen of the opinions held by
the authorities of the Western Church ; but the
official view did not represent the popular, and, as
Leipoidt observes,! ' such opponents of the apoc-
ryphal Gospels were doubtless in the minority.
The majority of theologians treated books like
the Gospels of James and Thomas not indeed as
canonical but still as genuinely apostolic'
Finally, the so-called ' Decretum Gelasianum de
libris recipiendis et non recipiendis ' X includes a
list of apocryphal § Gospels Avhich, by the 6th cent.,
were supposed to have been in existence :
' Evangelium nomine Mathiae
,, ,, Barnabsell
„ „ Jacobi minoris
„ „ Petri apostoli
,, „ Thomte quibus Manichei
utuntur
Evangelia nomine Bartholomaei
,, ,, AndreoB
,, quae falsavit Lucianus
,, ,, ,, Hesychius
Liber de infantia salvatoris
,, nativitate salvatoris et de Maria vel
obstetrici.'
By a gross blunder, arising perhaps from a mis-
reading of Jerome's prologue to the Gospels, the
writer mistakes the textual recensions of the
Gospels made by Lucian and Hesychius for apoc-
ryphal Gospels. This does not encourage hopes
of accurate information with regard to the other
* For a defence of the genuineness of this clause, which refers
to the Acts of Andrew, see JThSt xiii. [1911-12] 79-80.
t Geschichte des neutest. Kanons, i. p. 179 (cf. below, p. 482).
I Ed. von Dobschiitz, TU xxxviii. 4 [1912]. He arjifiies for its
pseudonymous character, and dates it between a.d. 519 and 535.
§ ' Apocrvphurn ' (' apocr^'pha '), which is appended to each
title, has its later opprobrious meaning.
II If there ever was a Gnostic Gospel of Barnabas, it may have
supplied part of the basis for the Muhammadan (Italian) Oos])el
of Barnabas — a curious, docetic production (ed. L. and L. Ragg,
Oxford, 1907). Cf. W. E. A. Axon in JThSt iii. [1901-02] 441-451.
The Gospels of Barnabas and .Matthias appear also at the end
of the list of the 60 books in Cod. Barocc. 200.
works, particularly when this blunder is regarded
as a misunderstanding of what Jerome had written.
Thus the writer appears to have had no independent
knowledge of the Gospels of Bartholomew and
Andrew ; his allusion to the former, as well as
to the Gospel of Mathias ( = na/)a5(5<r«(s Mardla), is
probably drawn from Origen, his reference to the
latter from Innocent. He also confines himself to
Gospels bearing apostolic names.
It is not necessary to go further down for ecclesi-
astical strictures upon uncanonical Gospels. Those
already mentioned will suffice to give a fair idea of
the principal writings belonging to this cla.s8 which
were from time to time banned by the authorities.
Some, no doubt, were not Gospels at all ; * some
were only censured from hearsay ; others, as we
shall see, e.xisted and flourished in a more or less
provincial or surreptitious fashion. But the point
IS that they had to be banned, and that the ban
was often ineflective.
i. We now pass from verdicts upon the uncan-
onical Gospels to an outline of the information
yielded by their extant fragments. But before
turning into this rank undergrowth of popular
literature in early Christianity, we must state and
define one or two general principles and methods
of criticism which are essential to any survey of
the position.
(a) The present state of research offers almost
as many problems as results. In five directions,
especially, further inquiry is necessary before the
materials which are now accessible can be criti-
cally arranged and assimilated, (i. ) The Coptic,
Sahidic, and Ethiopic fragments, which are being
still recovered, require to be sifted. In some cases,
as e.g. with regard to the Gospel of Bartholomew,
they may prove to furnish data for reconstructing
Gospels which hitherto have been mere names in
early Church history ; in other cases, they may
compel the re- valuation of material already known,
(ii.) The entire problem of the Jewish Christian
Gospels has been re-opened by the researches of
critics like Schmidtke and Waitz ; the relevant
factors are mainly supplied by the higher criticism
of writers like Origen, Jerome, and Epiphanius,
but the outcome of the discussion seriously afl'ects
the estimate of primitive Gospels like that of
the Hebrews or or the Egyptians. The subject-
matter here is not so much new material as
allusions and quotations which require, or seem to
require, fresh study, (iii.) Several uncanonical
Gospels are still unedited, from the standpoint of
mocfern critical research ; even the extant Greek
and Latin MSS are not properly collated, in many
cases. The Gospels of Thomas and of Nicodemus
are instances in point. There is some prospect of
these defects being remedied systematically by
French scholars, but English investigation has
been sadly inditt'erent to such pressing needs in the
field of early Christian literature, (iv. ) Even where
texts have been edited thoroughly, problems of
higher criticism arise. In the case of Gospels, e.g.,
like the Protevangelium Jacobi, we are confronted
with composite productions whose sources go back
to difierent circles and periods ; literary problems of
structure have to be solved. The numerous ver-
sions of some uncanonical Gospels might seem to
compensate for the fragmentary condition of others,
but in reality the versions are often equivalent to
fresh editions rather than to translations, and in
this way the recovery of the primitive nucleus is
sometimes rendered more dirticult than ever, (v.)
Finally, the form and the content of the uncanonical
• Tatian's 'Gospel,' e.g., was simply the Diatessaron ; the
Gospel of Andrew was probably the Gnostic lltpio&oi of that
apostle ; the Gospel of Nicodemus was part of the Acts-literature
of the 2nd cent.; and several so-called Gnostic 'Gospels'
were no more than treatises on religion, as, for example, the Vat-
entinian ' Gospel of the Truth ' (Iren. iii. 11. 9).
GOSPELS (UlfCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL) 481
Gospels open problems of their own. The stories
occasionally show tlie naive popular imagination
working upon the OKI Testament, but their methods
are wider. There is more in them than merely
Haggudic fancy. ' Les evangiles apocryphes,' says
Kenan, ' sont les Pouranas du christianisme ; lis
ont pour base les evangiles canoniques. L'au-
teur prend ces evangiles comme un th^me dont il
nes'ecarte jamais, qu'il cherche seulement kdelayer,
i completer par les procedes ordinaires dela legende
hebraique. ' But it was not simply Semitic methods
of compiling a midrash that were followed by the
authors of the uncanonical Gospels. Allowance
has also to be made for the influence of Hellenistic
romances, particularly in the light of recent in-
vestigations by Norden and Reitzenstein.* This
line of inquiry has not yet been followed up; it
will lead probably to valuable conclusions with
regard to the literary texture of certain strata in
these (lospels. More attention has been paid to
the influence of Buddhistic and Egyptian religion
upon the matter of Gospels like those of the
Egyptians, of Thomas, and of Peter. Here also
problems are emerging which require careful
scrutiny, in view of contemporary research into
the syncretistic religious situation of the 2nd
cent., particularly but not exclusively with
regard to the elements of Gnosticism. In the
edifying romance of Barlaam and loa^aph a later
writer adapted boldly the story of Buddha to the
ends of Christian mona^ticism. The Indian traits
in our uncanonical Gospels are less plain, but they
are probably present under passages which at first
sight are almost covered with Christian fancy and
doctrine.
{b) The close connexion between the extant frag-
ments and the agrapha renders it necessary to lay
down a special t principle of criticism, viz. that
when the same saying, in slightly difierent versions,
recurs in more than one fragment, three possibili-
ties are open to the critic, (i. ) The early Christian
writer Avho quotes the saying as part of some
Gospel may be quoting loosely from memory, and,
either for that reason or for some other, confusing
one Gospel with another, (ii. ) On the supposition
that the quotation is correctly assigned, it may
have been preserved in more than one Gospel ; it
is imlikely that certain sayings were monopolized
by one document. Or, when this possibility is set
aside, (iii.) one Gospel may have borrowed from
another. There has been a tendency to ignore the
second of these possibilities, in particular. What
we know of certain Gospels may be enough to
show that a given quotation is incompatible with
their idiosyncrasies, but not all quotations possess
this characteristic quality, and room should be left
for the hypothesis that some allied Grospels con-
tained a good deal of common matter.
One illustration of this may be quoted, for the
sake of clearness. Take the well-known saying,
' He who seeks shall not cease till he finds, and
when he has found he shall wonder, and wondering
he shall reign, and reigning he shall rest.' The
last two clauses are cited by Clement of Alexandria
as part of the Gospel according to the Hebrews
{Strom, ii. 9. 45), but elsewhere (Strom, v. 14. 96)
he quotes the whole saying, without mentioning its
origin, in order to illustrate Plato's aphorism that
wonder is the beginning of philosophy. Independ-
ently, the entire saying has turned up among the
agrapha of the Oxyrhynchite Papyri, apparently
as part of a collection of words addressed by Jesus
to some disciples, including Thomas. In the later
* Cf. Ii. Radermacher's Deu JenttiU un Mythot der HeUenen,
1903.
t But not, of coarse, an exception^] one. It bears also upon
the criticism of the Synoptic Gospels, pardcolarly in the differ-
entiation of Mark and Q.
VOL. I.— 31
Acts of Thomas (ed. Bonnet, 1883, p. 243) an echo
of the saying also recurs : ' Those who partake
worthily of the good things there [i.e. in the
treasury of the holy King] rest, and resting they
shall reign,' and, as if this were not enough, the
f)roblem is further complicated by what sounds
ike an echo in 2 Clem. v. 5 (' know, brothers, that
the sojourning of the flesh in this world is little
and for a brief time, whereas the promise of Christ
is great and wonderful, is rest in the kingdom to
come and in eternal life '), and by a very famt echo
in the Traditions of Matthias, if we can trust Clement
of Alexandria {Strom, ii. 9. 45), who cites from the
latter, ' Wonder at what is before you,' to illustrate
again the Platonic doctrine of wonder.
Now it is tempting to deduce from this, among
other indications, that the common source of the
Oxyrhynchite Logia and the quotations in 2 Clem,
was the Gospel according to the Egyptians, or
that this saying is a water-mark of some Thomas
Gospel. The former hypothesis would be cor-
roborated if the source of the quotations in 2 Clem,
could be proved to be the Gospel of the Egyptians,
for the echo in 2 Clem, follows close upon one of
these quotations (see p. 495), and upon the whole
this is the least improbable hypothesis. But the
second of the possibilities (ii.) is as feasible as
the third (iii. ). It is at any rate hasty to assume
that such a saying was only accessible in a single
document.
(c) It is also fair to remember that some of the
early uncanonical Gospels are knowTi to us only in
fragments and quotations made usually for the
purpose of proving their outre character. This
easily gives a wTong impression of their contents.
Suppose, for example, that all we knew of the
canonical Matthew amounted to a few passages
Uke 2^ 5i*-i9 7« 8«- 17**-" 19" and 27"-», sup-
pose that Luke's Gk>spel was preserved in stray
quotations of 2*2-*> 4» 6^" 8'« 16» 188" and
24^"** — would our impression of the Gospels in
question be very much more misleading than may
be the case with Gospels like those of the Hebrews
or of the Egyptians or of the Nazarenes? It is
possible that some of the uncanonical Gospels may
not have been so eccentric as they seem to us.
But, even when allowance is made for this possi-
bility of an error in our focus, the general character
of most of the uncanonical Gospels must be recog-
nized (cf. § 1). When Archbishop Magee preached
before the Church Congress at Dublin, an Irish
bishop is reported to have said that the sermon
did not contain enough gospel to save a tom-tit.
An evangelical critic might say the same about
the uncanonical Gospels, for the most part, and
he would not be saying it in haste. It is rare,
upon the whole, to come across any touches or
traditions which even suggest that by their help we
can fill out the description of the Sjnoptic Gospels.
As we read Marlowe's Faustus or Goethe's Faust
for reasons quite other than a wish to ascertain
the facts about the real Faustus of the 16th
cent., so it is with the majority of the un-
canonical Gospels. Their interest for ns is not in
any fresh light which they may be expected to
throw upon the character of the central Figure,
but in the evidence they yield us for ascertaining
the popular religion of the early Christian Churches,
the naive play of imagination upon the traditions
of the faith, and the fancies which the love of
story-telling employed to satisfy the more or less
dogmatic or at any rate the pious interests of
certain circles in Syria and Egypt especially.
The large majority of the uncanonical Gosptels
belong to Church history rather than to NT criti-
cism, and to a period of Church history which is
mainly post-apostolic. Their varying background
covers several centuries and soils. They were
482 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
being produced as late as the Muhammadan era,
and as early as the Ist cent. A.D. liut, with one
or two exceptions, we cannot do justice to them
unless we set them not over against the Gospel
literature of the first hundrea years after tlie
Death of Jesus but among tlie currents and move-
ments which occupy tlie subsequent two hundred
years of Christianity in the Mediterranean basin.
The interests which led to their composition were
sometimes doctrinal. There was a constant desire *
to convey esoteric teaching under the guise of
revelations made by the risen Christ to His
disciples, between tlie Resurrection and the Ascen-
sion, for example ; there was also a desire to re-
cast or amplify the Synoptic traditions in order
to express certain views of the Christian gospel.
Furthermore, dogmatic interests led to the elabora-
tion of stories about tlie birth of Mary as well as
of Jesus, and to the composition of tales which
filled up the childliood of Jesus. But the latter
were as often due to naive curiosity as to dogmatic
aim, and a much larger part must be assigned to
the former motive (if it can be called a motive)
tlian is usually allowed. Here the influence of
Oriental folk-lore and mythology would naturally
operate, in addition to the desire to mark the fulfil-
ment of OT prophecies. And it would operate not
as a purely literary motive but as one result of
fireaohing and teaching. The same interests which
ed to the rise of midrashic literature among the
Jews led to the rise of uncanonical Gospel-stories
among the early Christians. The popularity of
the latter was too strong to be put down by ecclesi-
astical decisions. Not even the strict use of
the canonical Gospels in the worship of the
Churches was able to check the popular appetite
for such tales and traditions as survive in the un-
canonical Gospel literature ; they were read for
private edification t even when they were not used
m worship ; and recent discoveries have proved
how numerous and wide-spread were the versions
of such Gospels even when the term ' apocryphal '
in its opprobrious sense was being applied to them
by the authorities. The historical critic has some-
thing better to do than look in these Gospels for
primitive, authentic traditions about the teaching
and ministry of Jesus, which may correct or
supplement the nucleus preserved in the canoni-
cal Gospels ; if he does so, he will be likely
as a rule to look for a kingdom and find asses.
On the other hand, he has sometliing better to
do than to pour indiscriminate ridicule on these
popular documents. Their ends and motives,
however little they may appeal to a modern
mind, were not always perverse. For example, in
one of the extant Sahidic Gospel-fragments (TS
iv. 2 [1896], pp. 165, 237), the narrator, after de-
scribing (partly as in the Protevangelium Jacobi,
21 ; see below, p. 484) how the star of Bethleliem
had ' tlie form of a wheel, its fi<^ure being like
a cross, sending forth flashes of light ; letters
being written on the cross. This is Jesus the
Son of God,' anticipates an objection. ' Some one
will say to me. Art thou then adding a supple-
ment to the Gospels?' Unfortunately, the frag-
ment breaks off here, and we have no means of
knowing how the writer answered his critic, unless
* Which, as we learn from Clement ot Alexandria (Eus. HE
li. 1), was by no means confined to Gnostic Christians (see W.
Wrede, Das Measias(jeheimni/i in den Evanrjelien, 1901, p. 246 f .).
t There is a 8ij,'niricant indication of this in Jerome's letter
to I>aeta, advising her how to bring up her daughter (A'p. cvii.
12). The girl is to read ' the Gospels, which are never to be
laid aside. . . . Let her eschew all apocryphal writings ; if she
desires to read them not for the truth of their doctrines but out
of reverence for their miracles, let her understand that they
are not the work of those whose names they bear, that many
faulty things are mixed up in them, and that it requires great
discretion to look for gold among mud.' This was written in
A.O. 403.
from a Coptic sermon of Euodius, who praises
such supplements — evidently as justified by Jn
2030 212». It is not often that we come upon any
such self-consciousness in the writers of the un-
canonical Gospels. Usually we have to infer their
spirit and aim from the contents of tiieir work.
But even so, the naive temper which characterizes
several of the leading uncanonical Gospels is as
noteworthy as the tlieological tendencies which
dominate others,
8. The very fact that such Gospels were com-
posed is significant, in view of the fact that
' Gospel ' in the 2nd cent, began to be limited to
the sayings and deeds of Jesus.* It proves the
steady interest in Jesus, even in circles where the
interest was due to tendencies more or less semi-
Christian in cliaracter. No doubt, several of the
uncanonical ' Gospels,' as we shall see,t were not
originally called Gospels at all, while even those
which professed to be such should be rather de-
scribed as religious handbooks or treati-ses ; still,
even after we make sucli qualifications, we must
recognize that, whether an uncanonical Gospel
wished to make Jesus more or less of a human
being than the Synoptic or Johannine tradition
presented, there was a wide-spread desire to convey
new ideas by means of a tradition about His
personality. Acts of various apostles were not
sufficient; even apocalypses did not meet the
demand. Gospels were necessary, and Gospels
were supplied. J
This involved not only a dissatisfaction with
the canonical Gospels, on the score of what they
contained as well as of what they omitted, but a
certain dependence upon them, in several cases.
The unknown authors, as Kenan neatly puts it,
' font pour les 6vangiles canoniques ce que les
auteurs des Post -homer ica ont fait jiour Homfere,
ce que les auteurs relativement modernes de
Dionysiaques ou d' Argonautiques ont fait pour
I'epopee grecque. Ds traitent les parties que
les canoniques ont avec raison negligees; ils
ajoutent ce qui aurait pu arriver, ce qui paraissait
vraisemblable ; ils developpent les situations par
des rapprochements artificiels empruntds aux
textes sacrds.' For a certain class of the uncan-
onical Gospels, this is fairly accurate, but others
make remarkably little use of the canonical nar-
ratives except as points of departure. Kenan's
subsequent remark also requires modification :
' Comme le catholicisme degener6 des temps
modernes, les auteurs d'6vangiles apocryphes
se rabattent sur les c6t6s puerils du christian-
isme, I'Enfant Jesus, la sainte Vierge, saint
Joseph, Le Jesus veritable, le J6su8 de la vie
pubhque, les depasse et les eRraye.' Kenan is
thinking here of the Gospels of the lnfancy.§ But
since his day discoveries of papyri and manuscripts
have shown that even the Mission and Alanhood
of Jesus did not entirely escape the notice of the
uncanonical Gospels.
This enables us to fix upon a principle of
arrangement for these Gospels. It is open to the
critic at this point to follow one or other of three
paths. One is to group them on a principle which
partly estimates their form and partly takes into
account their character, viz. Gospels of the Syn-
• Cf. Harnack'8 ConilittUion and Law cf the Church, 1910,
p. 308 f .
t E.g. the Gospels of Nlcodemus and of Andrew (p. 480),
besides the later ^Eternal Gospel' of Abbot Joachim (l>eg. of
13th cent.) based on Rev 14«. The Gosi>el of Thaddseus owes
its existence apparently to a variant reading of 'Mathiw*
as 'Matthioi' in the text of the Decretum Gelasianum (cf. von
Dobschiitz's note in I'd xxxviii. 4 (l".)lL'i p. 293).
t The literary form of 'Gospel' came to be indistinginslwble
more than once from that of ' Acts ' (cf. the ' Gospel of Mary ')
as well as from that of 'Apocalypse.'
§ An admirable account of their motives and charact«n«tic«
is given by Meyer in Uennecke's Seutett. Apok., pp. 96-106.
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL) 483
optic type which have some claim to represent
early trtuiition ; Gospels which are Gnostic or
heretical ; and Gospelf; which aim at supplementing
the paps in the canonical stories especially of the
Birth and Resurrection. This is the usual method
since Harnack. Another is (of. Nicolas, op. cit.
p. 17 f.) to divide them into (a) pro- Jewish, i.e.
Gospels mainly practical, in which Christianity is
S resented as the renovation of the OT ; (b) anti-
ewish ; and (c) unsectarian. But there are serious
difficulties in carrying out this arrangement, and
it is best, upon the whole, to classify them accord-
ing to their subject-matter, viz. those devoted to
the parents and birth of Jesus, those Avhich cover
the coul^se of His life, and those which narrate the
Passion and Resurrection. Tischendorf s plan was
different : ' Quod ita instituam nt tria liberorum
horum evangelicorum genera distinguara, quorum
primuni corapreliendit qui ad parentes Jesu attjue
ipsius or turn, alterum qui ad infantiam eius,
tertium qui ad fata eius ultima spectant.' But
materials have accumulated since Tischendorf
WTote, which show that the middle part of the life
of Jesus was not left untouched by the authors of
this literature. It used to be argued, indeed, that
the nncanonical Gospels showed next to no interest
in the central part of the life of Jesus, between His
Baptism and the Passion. Even if this were the
case, it would not be quite so remarkable as
might appear. Such a concentration of interest
upon the beginning and end of the life was natural
to the early Church. For example, aft^r finishing
an account of the origin of the four Gospels, the
author of the Muratorian Canon proceeds : ' Con-
sequently, although various elements are taught
in the several books of the Gospels, this makes no
difference to the faith of believers, inasmuch as by
one controlling Spirit all things are announced
in all of them with regard to the Nativity, the
Passion, the Resurrection, His intercourse with His
disciples (conversatione cum discipulis suis), and
His two-fold advent.' Here the salient points
selected lie outside the central part of the life of
Jesus, unless we admit a partial exception in the
allusion to intercourse with the disciples. But
the uncanonical Gospels do not entirely ignore
this section. Even apart from the famous corre-
spondence of Jesus * and Abgar (Eus. HE i. 13), or
— in the form which it assumes in the Doctrina
Addcei — His oral message to that monarch, we
possess several Gospels which must have covered
the ministry of our Lord, and the Oxyrhynchite
fragment (see below, p. 499) now swells their number.
Any classification has its o>\-n drawbacks, owing
to the heterogeneous and fragmentary character
of the extant materials ; but the triple arrange-
ment proposed has, upon the whole, fewer obstacles
than either of its rivals. In the following dis-
cussion, therefore, the uncanonical Gospels will be
treated as follows :
(1) Gospels relating to the Birth and Infancy of
Jesus ; (2) general Gospels, covering His entire life
and ministry, from the Birth to the Resurrection,
either on the type of Matthew-Luke or of Mark-
John ; (3) Gospels of the Passion and Resurrection.
I. Gospels relatisg to the Birth axd Is-
FAycroFJEsrs.—[a) The ProteYangelium Jacobi.
— A certain element of romance attaches to this
uncanonical Gospel. During his travels in the
East, AVilliam Postel, a French humanist of the
16th cent., who devoted himself to Oriental lan-
guages and comparative philology, came across
an edifying treatise which was read in several
* For traces of similar epistles of Jesus, cf. Augustine, de Con-
sensu erang. i. 9-10. For the ' epistle of Christ which fell from
heaven,' cf. G. Morin in Revue B&nMietine (1899), p. 217 f.,
and a monograph on its Elastern version and recension by M.
Bittner in the Denkschriflen der kaU. Akad. der Wissensehaften
(Philoe. Hist. Klasse, vol. IL Abth. 1) for 190e.
churches. He procured a copy of the work, and
cherished great expectations about his find.*
Here was the original prologue to Mark's Gospel,
' evangelii ad hunc diem desiderata basis et funda-
mentum, Ln quo sappletur summa fide quicquid
posset optari.'
Posters Latin version was pablished in 1662 by Theodore
Bibliander (ProUuan^um tu de natalibtu Jesu Chritti et
ipnus matrit virmnis Marice termo kitterietu dm Jaeobi
tmnorif ... X "^ Greek text wm first poUkted hy M.
Nesnder (Apocrypha ; hoe ett narratumet (U Ckritto, Maria,
Jotepho, cognaUone et /amilia Jetu Ckrigti extra BMia . . .
interto etiam PrttevangeUo Jaeobi greeee, in Oriente nuper
reperto, needvm edito haetenut . . . 1563, re-iasaed in 1567),
who did not share Poetd's or BiUiaiidar's entbusiasin i for the
treatise. One of TischendorTs M88 (A) w«a edited by C. A.
Suckow in 1S40 (ProtevangeUmn Jaeobi ex eodiee ma. Vene-
tiano deteriptit, proiegcmettis, varietate leeUonwn, notit aritieit
imtTuetum edidit), and a Fayyftra parchment fragment con-
taining 7^101 was pablished in 1896 by B. P. Grenfell (An Alex-
andrian Erotic Fragment and other Greek Papyri, pp. 13-19).
In spite of these and other contribations, however, ' the Greek
MSS — the oldest of which is a Bodleian fragment from Egypt of
cent, v-vi — are very numeroos and very incompletely known ;
the versions have not been exbaastirely studied ; and many
important questions, especially those affecting the integrity of
the book, mast still be regarded as open' (M. B. James, in
JThSt xii.[19ia-ll] 623X
The work itself professes to be a Urropla or 3ti^7Tj«r«
(25^), and the narrative runs as follows.
The first part (1-18^) opens by describing how the
wealthy Joachim and nis wife Anna lamented
over the fact that they had no child. Joachim is
told, to his chagrin, by Reuben (the high priest?)
that his childlessness disqualifies him from pre-
senting his offerings to God. Anna, praying in
the garden and looking up to heaven, is reminded
afresh of her childlessness by the sight of a
sparrow's nest in a laurel bnsh ; she breaks into
the following lament (3 : spoiled in the Syriac, and
omitted in the Armenian, version) :
' Woe is me ! who begat me, and what womb produced me ?
For I was bom accursed before the sons of Israel,
I am reproached, and they have driven me with Jeers
from the Lord's temple.
Woe is me ! what am I like ?
I am not like the birds of heaven,
for the birds of heaven are fruitful before thee, O Lord.
Woe is me I what am I like ?
I am not like the beasts of the earth,
for even the beasts of the earth are fmitfal before tbee, O
Ix>rd.
Woe is me '. what am I like?
I am not like these waters,
for even these waters are fmltfal before Uiee, O LonL
Woe is me ! what am I like?
I am not like this earth,
for even this earth bears its fruits in season and blesses
thee, O Lord.'
An angel assures her that God wiU give her a
child, and eventually Mary is bom — the idea of
the story corresponding thus to that of John the
Baptist's birth in Lk l**-. Anna now proceeds to
fulfil her vow of consecrating the child to God.t
The baby is not allowed to walk on the common
earth till her parents take her, at the age of
three, to Jerusalem, where she is welcomed by the
priest and left in the temple, ' like a dove nestling
* Hallam describes him as ' a man of some parts and more
reading, bat chiefly known . . . for mad reveries of fanaticism '
(Introd. to the Literature of Europe^, 1&17, i. 468).
t Henry Stei^en, in his Introduction au traits de la con-
formite des merreilles ancxennes avee lea modemet, ou traite
pr^parati/ d Fapologie pour H&rodMe (1568)^ openly expressed
his disgiist at Postel's production, whose origin and popularify
he could e.xplain only as a deliberate maniBOTre of Satan!
X Anna's song of praise (6^ is more appropriate than is osnaDy
the case with such songs in the Bible :
• I will sing a song to the Lord my God,
for he has visited me and taken from me the reproach of my
enemies ;
the Lord has given me fruit of righteousness, a single froit
but many-sided in his sight.
Who will tell the sons of Reuben that Anna is suckling ?
Hearken, hearken, ye twelve tribes of Israel : Anna is
suckling.'
484 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANOmCAL)
there.* Her parents, in a transport of wonder at
her, depart. They vanisli from the story,* which
at once (8) hurries on to describe the action taken
by the priests Avhen this wonder-child readied the
age of puberty (twelve or fourteen years — the MSS
vary). An angel bids Zecliariah, the high priest,
summon the widowers (' bachelors,' in the Armenian
version) of Israel : ' let each bring his rod, and
whoever has a sign shown him by the Lord, his
shall the woman be.' Joseph is then suddenly
introduced (9'). 'And Joseph, throwing aside Ins
axe ' — it is assumed that the readers know he was
a carpenter or joiner — went out to meet the heralds
(or, tlie widowers). A dove emerges from his rod,
and he is reluctantly assigned the charge of Mary.
He protests, ' I have sons, and I am an old man,t
while she is a girl. I am afraid of becoming
ridiculous to the sons of Israel.' But he is warned
of the penalties attaching to disobedience, and
eventually agrees. Only, to ensure the credibility
of the virgin-birth, the author observes that Joseph
left her at once in his house and went off to a
distant task of building. Meanwhile the Annun-
ciation takes place, Mary visits her kinswoman
Elizabeth, and returns home. When she is six
months pregnant, Joseph returns home, and is
distressed at her condition. He has been put in
chaige of this virgin, and he has failed to keep his
charge ! ' Who has deceived me (her) ? Who has
done this evil deed in my house and defiled the
maiden ? Has not the story of Adam been re-
enacted in my case? As the serpent came and
found Eve alone, and beguiled her, when Adam
was singing praise, so with me.' In a dream,
however, an angel reassures Joseph. Neverthe-
less, when the authorities of the Temple discover
Mary's condition, Joseph is charged with the crime
of having secretly married a virgin whom he under-
took to guard. First he, and then Mary, are made
to undergo the ordeal of Nu 5". They pass the
test scatheless. 'And the priest said, "Since the
Lord God has not disclosed your sins, neither do
I condemn you " {ovde iyd) Kplvu vfias ; cf. Jn 8").
So he sent them away. And Joseph took Mary
and went home, rejoicing and glorifying the God
of Israel.' 4:
The story then (17-18^) describes Joseph and
Mary travelling to Bethlehem as in Lk 2^. On
the road, ' Joseph turned and saw she was sad ;
but he said to himself, " Perhaps Avhat is in her is
paining her." Again Joseph turned and saw she
was laughing. So he said to her, "Mary, what
does this mean? Why do I see your face now
laughing and now sad?" And Mary said to
Joseph, " Because I see with my eyes two peoples,
one wailing and lamenting, the other rejoicing and
exulting." '§ As the time of her delivery is im-
minent, Joseph leads her into a cave {(nn/i\ai.ov),
leaves her in charge of his sons, and goes oft" * in
search of a Hebrew midwife in the district of
Bethlehem '(18').
At this point ( 18^) the narrative || suddenly changes
to the first person : ' and I Joseph wasAvalking and
not walking, etc' All nature is still and silent.
* The Armenian version (3) kills them both oflf 'in one year '
at this point.
t In his vehement attack on Helvidius, Jerome insists that
Joseph as well as Mary was a virgin. The ProtevangeHum is
content to show how he could not have been the real father of
Jesus.
t This must have been a serviceable episode for apologetic
purposes ; the story of Mt I'Sf- did not vindicate Mary to anyone
except her husband. But it was specially essential to the
argument of our author, who is at pains to show that there
was no question of a real marriage between Josti)h and Mary.
§ This prophetic vision is a blend of Lk 2^* and On l!.")-^ (where
the two nations are in Rebecca's womb). In pseudo-Malthcw they
become the Jews and the Gentiles. Here they are probably no
more than the unbelieving and the believing. Mary suffers no
birth-pangs ; her sorrow is purely spiritual.
i OLDeLacy U'Leary iu ItUerti.'Joum.Apoc.xxxv. [1913], p. 70 1.
The birds of the air are motionless ; so are all
animals and human beings within sight. Joseph
secures a midwife, carefully explaining to her tiiat
Mary has conceived by the holy Spirit. But in the
midule of their conversation the narrative again *
resumes the third person (19'). and a further abrupt
touch t occurs in 19', where the midwife leaves the
cave ' and Salome met her.' Salome, like Thomas
(Jn 20^), refuses to believe the story of the virgin-
birth without tangible evidence. This she receives,
with a temporary punishment for her incredulity.
She carries the child, in obedience to an angel's
command, crying, 'I will worship Him (i.e. God),t
for a great King has been born for Israel.' The nar-
rative then proceeds (20*) : ' and she went out of the
cave justified (dediKaiwfjUvr]). And lo a voice said to
her, " Salome, Salome, do not proclaim the miracles
{wapddo^a) you have seen, till the child reaches
Jerusalem.'' And (21 ') Joseph was ready to go
into Judsea.*
Here the line of the narrative is again broken
abruptly. Joseph is never mentioned again. 21'-
22- re-tells Mt 2"-, with elaborations. The magi
have seen ' a star of enormous size, shining among
these stars and eclipsing their light.* The star
conducts them to the cave, where the magi see ' the
infant with his mother Mary ; and they brought
out of their wallet gifts of gold, incense, and
myrrh. And being instructed by the angel not
to enter Judaea, they went to their own land by
another road.' § The omission of Joseph would not
of itself be significant (in view of Mt 2'"'^), were it
not that in 22''^ the initiative is assigned to Mary
instead of to Joseph (as in Mt 2'^'-). Hearing of
Herod's order to mas.sacre all children of two years
and under, Mary hides the child Jesus in an ox-
stall. Evidently, the original narrative ignored
the flight to Egypt. But what it substituted for
this remains a mystery, for at this point (22^) the
story suddenly breaks into an account of John the
Baptist and his parents. The child John is among
the infants sought for by Herod, and Elizabeth in
despair prays to a mountain in the hill-country,
'O mountain of God, receive mother and child.'
The mountain immediately parts in two and
shelters them, protected by a light ('for an angel
of the Lord was with them, watching over them').
Herod, unable to make Zechariah (who is high
priest) confess the whereabouts of his child, has
Iiim murdered inside the Temple, on the ground
that ' his son is to be king over Israel.' At day-
break, as Zechariah does not come out, one of the
priests ventui'es inside ; he sees clotted blood beside
the altar, and hears a voice saying, ' Zechariah has
been murdered, and his blood shall not be wiped up
until his avenger comes.' His body is never found,
but his blood turned to stone. The Simeon of Lk
2^' is chosen by lot to succeed him, and with this
the story ends. The epilogue runs : ' I, James, the
writer of this history, when a riot arose in Jerusa-
lem at the death of Herod, withdrew myself to the
desert till the riot in Jerusalem ceased, glorifying
the Lord God who gave me the gift and the wisdom
to write this history.' The book thus professes to
be written not only by an eye-witness but imme-
diately after the event.
In spite of Zalin's and Conrad3''s arguments to
• The Syriac fragment passes straight from 1S2 to 19'.
t Possibly echoed in Clem. Strom, vii. 16. 93.
i Jesus, in the Syriac as in pseudo-Matthew (see below,
p. 488).
§ The simplicity of the story is noticeable ; in the primitive
form (expanded in the versions and later MSS) the magi do not
even adore the child, and no attempt is made to name them, as
in the Armenian version, which calls them Melchior, prince of
Persia, Baltasar, prince of India, and Gaspar, prince of Arabia.
The angel goes to them at once after the Annunciation, ' and
they were led by the star for nine months, and then came and
arrived in time for the birth from the holy virgin.' Thi» it
reproduced in the Coventry Nativity play.
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCAl^^OXICAL) 485
the contrary, it is almost necessary to postulate
the composite character of tlie Protevangelium,
although the sources cannot be disentangled with
much precision. Even in 1-18' there are traces of
ditfereut strata, e.g. the sudden introduction of
Joseph in 9', and the episotie of Mary sewing the
purple and scarlet * for the veil of the Temple ( 10,
12). The latter episode could be parted from the
context not only without difficulty but with a gain
to the sequence of the narrative.! On the other
hand, neither 1-18' nor 18--22'^ can be regarded as
complete sources. The legend of Zechariah's
murder in 22*- 24, on the other hand, is a water-
mark of late origin. In the light of the investiga-
tions by A. Berendts,:}: it is clearly subsequent to
Origen, who knows quite a different version of
Zechariah's death — one which connects it closely
with the virginity of Mary (he was murdered,
according to this tradition, between the Temple
and the altar, for having permitted Marjr to ent«r
the court of the virgins after she had given birth
to Jesus). Had Origen read 22*-24 in his ^ijiXoi
'laxu^ov, he would not have written as he has done
npon Mt 23^. For the existence of the legend in
the form of 22^-24 the first evidence is from Peter
of Alexandria (t A.D. 311), and even this evidence
is not absolutely decisive.
Whether the composite work underwent suc-
cessive expansions or, as is less likeljr, was recast
by a Gnostic author, l'-18', which is practically
a yhnniffii yiapiai, probably belonged to the book of
James, from which Origen quotes. His quotation
is based on this part, and on this part alone ; the
rest of the book never mentions the other children
of Joseph. If the conclusion (25) was part of the
original romance, the story must have included the
incidents of Herod's massacre, though in a form
differing from that preserved in the Apocalypse of
Zechariah § as it now appears in 22^-24. For some
reason, the latter must have been substituted for
the original conclusion, or added to a narrative
which had lost its ending. AVhether 18'-21' was
also an extract from some Apocn/phnm Josephi,
which became appended to 1-18', or whether the
author of the book of James himself combined the
fragment Avith his other source, is a problem which
cannot be decided definitely either way, in view of
the obscurity surrounding the literary origins of
this as of most other pseudepigrapha.
Here, too, as in the Oxyrhynchite fragment (cf.
p. 499), the attempt to describe the conditions of
Jewish ritual shows the writers ignorance. That
Joachim should be repelled from his right to offer
in the Temple.on the score of childlessness (1*), and
that girls could remain within the Temple like
vestals, are only two of the unhistorical touches
which indicate unfamiliaritj' with the pi^axis of
Judaism. The romancer knows his OT better.
And he knows it in Greek. The attempt to
establish a Hebrew original for the Protevangelium
has been unsuccessful ; it is bound up with a
desire to put it earlier than the Synoptic Gospels,
on which, as on the LXX, it plainly depends. But,
as it is uncertain whether Justin Martyr owes to
it touches like that of the cave ; and the curious
* Perhaps, like the emphasis on the wealth of her parents, a
reply to the current depreciation (Orig. Cels. i. 28 f .) of their
position. But the wealth of Joachim ia probably taken over
from that of his namesake in Sus l-*.
t The obscure sentence in 10, ' At that time Zechariah was
domb, and Samuel took his place, until Zechariah spoke,' may
be an interpolation ; but even if 'Simeon ' (cf. Lk 2*) is read
for ' Samuel ' with some MSS, it remains an erratic block. It
seems to presuppose the storj- (or the tradition) of Lk 15t.
{ Studien ubir Zaehariat - Apohryphen und Zaehariat •
Legtndtn, 1895, p. 37 f.
$ Some details from this seem to underlie the Armenian version
inch. 3.
I According to Chaeremon, the Egyptian historian (quoted by
Jo«ephas,|e. Apian. L 32 [292]), the mother of Barneses also bore
him m a cave.
phrase about Mary in Dial. 100 (cf. Protev. 12»),
the date of the earliest section cannot be assigned
definitely to the first quarter of the 2nd century.
In the Armenian Church the Proterangelium formed the basis
for the first part of a large work which iucluded a Gospel of the
Infancy and later apocn-pha on the life and miracles of Jesoa.
According to F. C. ConyDMn, who prints one or two chapters of
the section based on the Protevangelium {AJTIi L [1807] 424-
442X the entire work consists of 28 cb«>tet8, and goes back to
an older Syriac text which was used by ^>hi«ni Surras. The short
Syriac fragment published by Wright {ContrihmonM to the Apoc-
rifphal Literature of the NT, pi. 17 f.) gives merely a somewhat
abbreviated form of 17-25. llie larger, complete, Syriac version
pablished by Mrs. A. S. Lewis (Studia SUnaxtiea, xL [1902]), is in
all probabilit>- a version of some Greek text practically corre-
sponding to Tischendorfs. Both in the Syriac and in the
Armenian versions the Protevangelium forms only the intro-
duction for subsequent apocrypha on the Kativity or on Mary.
Versions of the Protevangelium abound, testifWng to its wide
popularity as a religions story-book in the early Cliurch. In
addition to the Araienian, there were Arabic and Slavmiic
versions or editions, as well as Egyptian. A small «»iii^|j^
fragment has been edited by Leipoldt {ZSTW, 1906, p. 1061).
The popularity of the Protevangelium, even
apart from its advocacy of the absolute virginity of
Mary, is not unintelligible. The story is told with
much simplicity and pathos, in its original form.
There are vignettes of peasant life, of nature, and
of domestic affection, which single it out from the
other uncanonical Gospels — glimpses, for example,
of Anna standing at the door as her husband drives
home his flocks, and running to embrace him ; of
Elizabeth dropping her needlework and running to
the door when Mary knocks ; or of Anna (in the
Armenian text) tossing her baby merrily in her
arms. None of the Infancy Gospels is so free from
extravagance and silliness. The child Jesus is a
child, and, if the halo has begun to glow round the
head of Mary, she is still a woman. No tinge of
Docetism makes her unreal. Even the narrator
keeps himself strictly in the background. The
skill with which the author has contrived to tell
his story is best appreciated when we compare the
crude, coarse handling towhich some of its materials
are subjected in the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel
of pseudo-Matthew.
Occasionally there are touches which remind
the reader of Buddhistic legends ; e.g. in the 1st
cent. (A.D.) life of Buddha (cf. Chinese version in
SBE xix. [1883]) Buddha is bom miraculously, 'with-
out causing his mother pain or anguish' (11'), and
at his birth ' the various cries and confused sounds
of beasts were hushed, and silence reigned' (11**).
But the proofs of Buddhistic influence are not
cogent (cf. von Dobschutz in ThLZ, 1896, pp. 442-
446); the comparative study of folk-lore in its
modem phases renders hesitation on this point
prudent.
Sfscial Litxratckk. — L. Conrad^'s hypotheses of its Semitic
original and its priority to the birth-stories of Matthew and
Luke are printed in SK (1889) 728-784, and Die Quelle der
kanom»ehen Kindheitagetehiehte Je*iu,Gox.tiDsea, 1900. The
best editions are both French, by Emile Amann, Le Prot-
etangHe de Jacques et tea remaniements latins, Paris, 1910
(Greek text of Protev., Latin texts of pseudo-Manhew 1-17 and
the Nativity of Mary, with French translation, introduction,
and notes) ; and C. Michel, ProUvanffile de Jacques, pseudo-
Matthieu, Scangiie de Thomat, teXtes annoti* et traduitt,
Paris, 1911 (with the Coptic and Arabic versions of the History
of Joseph the Carpenter, translated with notes by Peeters);
cf. Haase, pp. 49-«0.
(b) The Gospel of Thomas.—
The Il<u2(jca, or Gospel of Thomas, survives in two Greek re-
censions, one (A) longer than the other (BX* but the MSS are
not earlier than the Hth or 15th centurj". The Latin version (LX
however, survives in a Vienna palimpsest as yet undeciphered,
and the Syriac (S) in a MS of the 5th or 6th century.
No satisfactory edition has yet appeared, but Tischendorfs
Greek texts have been edited and translated by C. Michel,
BtiangUeiApoeryphes, i (1911), ProticangHe de Jaequet.pteudo-
* In PertffHnrts Protexis, 1S79, p. 39 f., J. M. Cotterill
tries to show that .\ and B are from the same hand, and
that the author not only uses the LXX of Eoclesiastes but
deUberately parodies some verses of Proverbs— two eqoaDy
baxardoos hypotheses.
486 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
Matthieu. Svangile de ThoinaK ; S is published in Wriftht's Coji-
tribtUioTUi to the Apocryphal Literature of the yew Testament,
pp. 6-11, etc.
According to Hoase (pp. 38-48), L represents in the main a
version of A, while S also, though independently, resembles A;
but all imply a common source which is not extant.
We know from Hippolytus (Philosoph. v. 2), tliat
the Naassenes appealed, on behalf of their tenets, to
a passage in 'theGospel according to Thomas,' which
ran as follows : ' He who seeks Me will find Me in
children of seven and upwards {iv naidloi^ dirb irihv
iwrd), for hidden there I shall be manifested in the
fourteenth age {or seon, alQvi).' No other citation
has been preserved.* Indeed, apart from the
reference of Eusebius {HE iii. 25. 6), it is only
mentioned again by Cyril of Jerusalem, who twice
warns Christians against it as a Manichsean produc-
tion {Catech. iv. 36, 'There are only four Gospels in
the NT ; the rest are pseudepigrapha and noxious.
The Manicha;ans wrote a Gospel according to
Thomas which, invested with the fragrance of the
evangelic name, corrupts simple souls'; vi. 31, ' Let
no one read the Gospel according to Thomas, for it
is not by one of the Twelve, but by one of Manes'
three wicked disciples'). Since the Manichaeans
possessed a Gospel of Thomas as well as a Gospel of
Philip (see below, p. 501), this Manichsean Scripture
may have been the Gospel mentioned by Hippolytus,
possibly in a special form.
Zahn attempts to date the original Gospel quite
early in the 2nd century. He regards the second
half of the quotation made by Hippolytus as a
Naassene comment, and thus is free to mini-
mize the Gnostic character of the work. He
further argues that Justin's description of Jesus
{Dial. 88) as a maker of 'ploughs and yokes' in
His native village is derived from the story in A 13
= S 13 = L 11 (Joseph, who 'made ploughs and
yokes,' had an order from a rich man to make a
bench. One jilank turned out to be too short, but
Jesus rose to the emergency, pulled the plank out
to the proper length, and thus relieved His father).
This may be no more than a coincidence, and
Justin might have derived the touch from oral
tradition. But it is certainly remarkable how
little Gnostic fantasy pervades the Stoi-y of the
Infancy, in any of its extant forms ; apart from
the 'great allegories' of the letter Alpha which
the lad Jesus is reported to have taught His teacher,
the stories and sayings are naive rather than
speculative. On the other hand, the childhood of
Jesus is possibly filled with miracles owing to a
desire of heightening His Divine claims prior to
the Baptism. It is usually argued that this motive
also implies a Docetic interest, since the miracles
represent Jesus as not really a human child, but
exempt from the ordinary conditions of human
nature. This, however, is not a necessary or even
a probable interpretation of the stories. They
exaggerate the supernatural element, but they do
not suggest a wraith or phantom in the guise of a
child. In S 6-8, the reply of Jesus to His teacher
does recall dogmatic interests ('I am outside of
you, and I dwell among you. Honour in tlie flesh
I have not. Thou art by the law, and in the law
thou abidest. For when thou wast born, I was . . .
When I am greatly exalted, I shall lay aside what-
ever mixture I have of your race '), but the tone
and even the wording are not remote from the
Fourth Gospel ; and, as the Gospel evidently pas.sed
through several editions or phases, it may have
accumulated such elements in the gradual course of
its development. The above-quoted passage, for
example, is peculiar to S, as we can see from the
remark of Epiphanius (li. 20). There was even a
* Even this one is echoed onlj' once, and that vajfuely, in the
pert reply of Jesus to the Jewish schoolmaster preserved in
pseudo-Matthew 30^ (' I was among you with children, and you
did not know me '),
tendency among orthodox Christians * to accept
stories of miracles during the boyhood, in order to
refute the Gnostic tlieory that the JJivino Christ
did not descend upon Jesus until the Baptism — a
tendency which helps, among other things, to
account for the tenacious popularity of such tales.
From this very natural point of view, the rise of
these stories may have been due to interests which
were not distinctively Gnostic, whatever be the
amount of dogmatic tendency that must be ascribed
to their later form.t
There is no ground for denying that some Gnostic
Go.spel of Thomas existed during the '2nd century.
The quotation nreserved by Hippolytus does not
occur in any of the extant recensions of the Thomas
Gospel which afterwards sprang up ; but even these,
for all their size, cannot have corresponded to the
entire work, which (on the evidence of Nicephorua)
extended to no fewer than 1300 stichoi, almost
double the length of the longest extant recension.
Even in these exUmt recensions it is probable that
the orthodox editor (or editors) must nave removed
the majority of Gnostic or Docetic allusions. And
the Hippolytus quotation would naturally be one
of these. Furthermore, we have an indirect proof
that such a Thomas Gospel did exist prior to
Irenaeus. In describing the tenets of the Mar-
cosians, that Church Father charges this Gnostic
sect with introducing apocryphal and spurious
scriptures (i. 20. 1), and with circulating the
following legend. ' When the Lord was a boy,
learning his letters, and when his master said to
him as usual, " Say Alpha," he said " Alpha." But
when the master went on and ordered him to say
" Beta," the Lord replied, " You tell me first what
Alpha means, and then I will tell you what Beta
means."' The Marcosians, Irenajus adds, told this
story to show that Jesus alone knew the mysterious
significance of Alpha. The legend illustrates the
mystic content which the sect put into the letters
of the alphabet, t but its immediate interest for us
lies in the fact that this story occurs in the Story
of the Infancy.
Irena;us proceeds (i. 20. 2) to show how the
Marcosians also misinterpreted the canonical
Gospels to suit their propaganda ; e.g. Lk 2** they
explained to mean that the parents of Jesus did
not know He was telling them alx)ut the Father ;
in Mt 19'*'^'' (quoted as, ' Why call me good ? One
is good, my Father in the heavens') the word
' heavens ' denotes ' aeons ' ; and the word ' hidden '
in Lk 19''2 denotes the hidden nature of the Depth
{^d6o$). Among these quotations from ' the Gospel '
{i.e. the canonical Gospels) Irenaeus includes one
which does not occur in our four Gospels: 'His
saying, / have often desired to hear one of these
words, but I had no one to tell me, indicates (they
allege), by the term one, Him who is truly
one God.' This curious and unparalleled Logion
may have been quoted by mistake from an un-
canonical Gospel like that of Thomas, but we can-
not do more than guess upon a point of this kind.
In an 11th cent.Athos MS of the Gospels (cf. Stud.
Bib. v. [1901-03] 173) there is a note to the etlect
that the pericope adulterce belonged to the Gos-
pel of Thomas {rb KetpdXaiov tovto rod Kard. Qto/MP
evayyeXlov iirriv) ; if so, it must have occurred in an
edition which has not been preserved.
The extant recensions, to which we have just
referred, are versions of a Story of the Infancy (t4
IlatSi/cd ToO Ki;p/oi;) narrated by Thomas, which is,
and may have been intended to form, a sequel to
• Usually, Jn 2" was held, as e.g. by Euthymius Zigabenus,
to rule out such legends of miracles done by the boy Jesus.
t The influence of Kgvptiaii iiivthology is asserted, but ex-
aggerated, bv Conrady iii SK (1!)()3) 397-459.
t e.g. Alpha and Omi ga. One of the Marcosian fantasies was
that the dove at the IJaptism inditmted the perfection of Christ's
nature, the symbol of a dove being Omega and Alpha.
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL) 487
the stories of the Protevangelium Jacobi. The
resemblances and differences between the four
recensions may be seen by comparing their accounts
of an incident which happens to be recorded by all
the four, viz. the unpleasant story of how Jesus
once became unpopular.
him do.' On the otlier hand, a better spirit is
shown in the following anecdote (S 16) : ' And
again, Joseph had sent his son Jacob (James) to
gather sticks, and Jesus went with him. And
while they were gathering sticks, a viper bit Jacob
(James) in his hand. And when Jesus came near
B4-5
Some days later, when Jestu
was pMsiiig throngb the town,
a boy threw a stone at him and
struck him on the shoulder.
Jesus said to him, ' Thou shalt
not g^ thy way.' And at once
he fell down and died. Those
who happened to be there were
astounded, saying, ' Whence is
this child, that every word he
utters becomes act and fact ? '
And they went off and com-
plained to Joseph, saying, ' Thou
canst not dweD with ua in this
town. If thou dearest to do so,
teach thy child to bless and not
to curse ; for he is killing our
children, and ever)-thing he says
bectnnesact and fact.'
Joseph was sitting on bis seat,
and the child stood in front of
him : and he caught him by the
ear and pinched it hard. Jesus
looked at him steadily and said,
' That is enough for thee.'
L5
A few days later, as Jesus was
\*-alking with Joseph through
the town, one of the children
ran up and struck Jesus on the
arm. Jesus said to him, ' Thou
shalt not finish thy journey
thus.' And at once he fell to
the earth and died. But when
they saw these wonders, they
cried out, sayin«r, 'Whence is
that boy ? ' Ana tiiey said to
Joseph, 'Such a boy must not
be among us.' Joseph went off
and brought him, but they said
to him, 'Go away from this
place; but if you must be among
OS, tfatch him to pray and not
to curse. Our children have
been insensate.'
Joseph caUed Jesus and re-
proved him, saying, ' Why dost
thou curse? "These inhabitants
hate us.' But Jesus said, 'I
know these words are not mine
but thine ; for thy sake I will
say nothing ; let them see to it
in their wiidom : ' Immediately
those who spoke against Jesus
were blinded ; and they walked
up and down, saying, ' All the
words that proceed from his
mouth take effect.' But when
Joseph saw what Jesus had
dmte, he ai^rily caught him by
the ear. Jesus in a passion
aud to Joseph, ' It is enough for
thee to see me, not to touch me.
For thou knowest not who I am ;
if thou kne west that.thou would-
est not irritate me. And al-
though I am with thee now, I
was made before thee.' i
8 4-5(te. Wri^tX
And again Jesna had gone
with his father, and a boy,
running, stmck him with Ua
shoulder. Jesus says to him,
* Thou shalt not go thy way.'
And aU of a sudden he fell down
and died. And all who saw him
cried out and said, 'Whence
was this boy bom, that all his
words become facts?' And
the family of him who was dead
drew near to Joeepii and say to
him, * Thou hast this boy ; thoa
canst not dwell with us in this
village unless you teach him to
Ueas.'
And be drew near to the boy,
and was teaching him and say-
ing, 'Why doest thou these
(things)? And these people
reckon them, and hate thee.'
Jesoa says, ' If the words of my
Father were not wise, he would
not know how to instruct child-
ren.* And again he said, 'It
these were childroi of the bed-
chamber, they would not re-
ceive curses. These shall not
sec torment.' And immediately
those were blinded who were
accusing him. But Joseph be-
came angr}', and seized hold of
his ear, and pulled it. Then
Jesus answered and said to him,
' It is enough for thee, that thou
sbouldest be commanding me
and finding me (obedient) ; for
thou ha£t acted foolishly.'
A4-5
Again, he was passing through
the village, and a boy ran and
knocked against his shoulder.
Jesus was angry, and said to
him, * Thou shalt not go back
as tiiou earnest.' And at once
he fell and died. Some who saw
what happened said, ' Whence
was this child born, for every
word of his becomes act and
fact?' And the parents of the
dead boy went to Joseph and
blamed him, sajing, ' With
such a child, thou canst not
dwell with us in the village.
Or^ teach him to bless and not
to curse ; for he is killing our
children.'
And Joseph called the child
apart and admonished him, say-
ing, 'Why doest thou such
things? These people suffer,
and hate us, and persecute us.'
Jesus said, ' I know these words
of thine are not thine. Still, I
will say nothing, for thy sake.
But they shall bear theirpunish-
ment.' And immediately his
accusers were blinded. And
those who saw it were terribly
afraid and perplexed ; they said
of him, that every word he
uttered, good or bad, became
fact and proved a marvel. And
when they [he '?] saw Jesus had
done such a thing, Joseph rose
and took hold of his ear and
pulled it hard. The child was
much annoyed and said to him,
' It is enough for thee to seek
and not to find. Certainly thou
hast not acted wisely. Knowest
thou not that I am thine ? Do
not vex me.'
I L covers the childhood of Jesus from his second year, A from his fifth to his twelfth year, and B from his fifth to his eighth.
A fair idea of the characteristic contents of this
Gospel may be derived from one or two extracts,
such as the story of Jesus and the sparrows (B 3) :
' Jesus made out of that clay twelve sparrows. It
was the Sabbath-day. Ana a child ran and told
Joseph, saying, "Behold, thy child is playing
about the stream and he has made sparrows out
of the clay, which is not lawful." When he heard
this, he went and said to the child, "Why dost
thou do this, profaning the Sabbath ? " But Jesus
did not answer him ; he looked at the sparrows
and said, "Fly off and live, and remember me."
And at this word they flew up into the air. And
when Joseph saw it, he marvelled.' On the
strength of this anecdote Variot (op. cit., p. 228 f.)
ventures to compare the Gospel of Thomas to the
Fioretti of St. Francis. Another tale is that of
J^us and the boy's foot (L 8) : 'A few days after-
wards a boy in that town was splitting wood, and
he cut his foot. As a large crowd went to him,
Jesus went with them. And he touched the foot
which had been hurt, and at once it was healed.
Jesus said to him, "Rise up, split the wood, and
remember me.'" It is as a tliaumaturgist that
Jesus appears in A 11 : ' When he was six years
old, his mother gave him a pitcher and sent him to
draw water and bring it into the house. But he
knocked against someone in the crowd, and the
Eitcher was broken. So Jesus unfolded the cloak
e wore, filled it with the water, and carried it to
his mother.* And when his mother saw the
miracle which had taken place, she kissed him.
And slie kept to herself all the mysteries she saw
* It is conjectured that this was suggested by Pr 30*.
him, he did to him nothing more but stretched out
his hand to him and blew upon the bite, and it
Avas healed ' (from Ac 28*^ ?).
A closes with quite a .sober version of Lk 2"*'',
which substitutes for v.** the following passage :
'The scribes and Pharisees said, "Are you the
mother of this child ? " She said, " I am. They
said to her, "Blessed art thou among women, for
God has blessed the fruit of your womb ; such
glory, such virtue, such wisdom we have neither
seen nor heard." ' S also ends in this way, but the
passage first quoted occurs at the close of L (in sub-
stantially the same form), to round off a miracu-
lous cure (15 : 'A few days later, a neighbouring
child died, and its mother grieved .sorely for it.
On hearing this, Jesus went and stood over the
boy, knocked on his breast, and said, " I tell thee,
chUd, do not die but live." And at once the child
rose up. Jesus said to the mother of the boy,
"Take your son and give him the breast, and
remember me " ') which occurs earlier (in A 17).
The data are so scanty that even conjectures
must be tentative, but we may attempt to explain
the literary problems by assuming that an original
Gospel of Thomas was af temards used (edited ?) by
the Marcosians and Xaassenes, and that it subse-
quently formed the basis for the story of the
Infancy in its various recensions. Was another
version of it circtdated among the Manichaean
Christians ? * Or was the (Jospel of Thomas which
• The Manicfasean literature is said by Timotheas to have
included also, among its ' devilish' and 'deadly ' contents, ' the
living Gospel' (cf. Photius, BibL 85). Diodoms devotnl the
first seven of his twenty-five books against the Manirharanw
488 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
they used an independent (native or Indian) work?
Tliese are questions to which, in the present state
of our knowledge, no definite answer can be given.
Protests were repeatedly made against tlie
UaiSiKd, from Chrysostom onwards ; but the work
must have enjoyed a popularity among Oriental
Christians which orthodox censures were unable to
check. One proof of tliis popularity may be found
in the Gospel of pseudo-Matthew and the Arabic
Gospel of the Infancy, which have worked up
materials furnished by the Thomas Gospel into in-
dependent collections of stories for the edification
of pious Christians. The second of these two
Gospels seems to have circulated among Jews and
Muhammadans as well.
(c) The Gospel of pseudo-Matthew.— The Gospel
of pseudo - Matthew owes its jjresent title to
Tiscliendorf, the first editor of the Latin text,
since the MS he used was headed : ' incipit liber
de ortu beatse Maria? et infantia Salvatoris a
beato Mattha30 evangelista hebraice scriptus et
a beato Hieronymo presbytero in latinum trans-
latus.' Thilo had already given this title to the
Gospel of the Nativity of Mary. Both pieces (the
former at least in one or two MSS) are prefaced by
the forged correspondence between Jerome and
two bishops, in which the latter plaintively bewail
the apocryphal and heterodox character of the
current books upon the birth of Mary and the
Infancy of Jesus ; they have heard that Jerome
has come into possession of a Hebrew volume on
the subject by the evangelist Matthew, and beg
him to translate it into Latin for the apologetic
purposes of the faithful. Jerome agrees, explain-
ing that the book was intended by Matthew for
Erivate circulation, and that in making it public
e is not adding to the canonical Scriptures. This
is the author's adroit * way of winning a welcome
for his production and safeguarding it against
suspicion. He had the fate of the Protevangelium
Jacobi and the Gospel of Thomas before his eyes.
But such a description of the writing's contents
as this correspondence presents is obviously more
suitable to the Gospel of pseudo-Matthew tlian to
the little treatise on the Nativity of Mary, which
never alludes to the Birth and Infancy of Jesus.
Tischendorf's nomenclature is therefore more cor-
rect than Thilo's.
The Thomas Story of the Infancy has been
exploited by the author in the third part of the
book (25-42), but this is only one of his sources.
The Protevangelium Jacobi is another (1-16). In
fact, the Gospel must have carried the name of
James occasionally ; Hrotswitha, for example, the
Abbess of Gandersheim (10th cent.), who para-
phrased it in Latin hexameters for the benefit of
her nuns, entitled her work, ' Historia nativitatis
laudabilisque conversationis intactjB Dei Gene-
tricis, quam scriptam referi sub nomine sancti
Jacobi fratris Domini.'
In the first part (1-17), which describes the birth
and maidenhood of Marv, her marriage, the virgin-
birth, and the escape from Herod, the features
of moment introduced are as follows. The home
of Mary's parents is definitely Jerusalem (in the
Protevangelium this is only a matter of infer-
ence) ; Joachim does not offer sacrifices for forgive-
ness ; he absents himself for five months instead
of forty days ; Anna's vow to consecrate her child
is made before, not after, the angel's announce-
ment ; an angel bids her go to meet Joachim ; in
to refuting what he thought was their ' vividum evangelium,'
but which was really the 'niodium evangelium' written by
Adda.
* Except in one point. He makes Jerome plead love for
Christ as the motive for his translation. Did he forget that the
author of the Acts of Paul and Thecla had been condenmed in
spite of his plea that he had invented the Acts out of love for
St. Paul?
Protev. 7 Mary, aged three, dances when set down
on the third step of tlie altar, but here (4) slie runs
up the fifteen steps to tiie Temple so rapidly that
she never looks back ; she is mature at the age of
three, remains in the Temple as a paragon of
virginal piety, fed daily by one of the angels, and
often in conversation with them ; any sick person
who touches her goes home cured ; her courteous
greeting instituted the custom of saying 'Deo
gratias ; she refuses to be married, and takes the
vows of virginity ; Joseph, already a grandfather,
is chosen from tlie widowers to take charge of
(not to marry) Mary ; the jealousy of her five
maids is rebulied by an angel ; tlie Annunciation is
made wlien she is working at the purple for the
veil of the Temple ; Mary does not hide during her
pregnancy, nor does she visit Elizabeth ; * Joseph
does not upbraid her, and he apologizes to her for
his suspicions ; after she successfully passes the
ordeal tor virgins, the people kiss her feet and ask
her pardon ; the brilliant light in the cave at
Bethlehem does not diminisli ; Salome adores
Jesus t (not simply God, as in Protev. 20), and is
not forbidden to d,eclare the wonder of the virgin-
birth ; only angels witness the birth, and as soon
as Jesus is born He stands on His feet ; the star is
the largest ever seen in the world ; the magi offer
gifts to ' the blessed Mary and Joseph' as well as
to the child ; Mary's fear of Herod's fury (Protev.
22) is omitted.
"The second part (18-24) describes with pictur-
esque detail the flight to Egypt and the residence
of tlie holy family there. Some of the legends
have sprung from the soil of the OT. For example,
when Mary is terrified by dragons issuing from a
cave (18), the infant Jesus leaves her bosom and
confronts them, till they adore him and retire
(from Ps 148^). Docile lions accompany and aid
their oxen, and wolves leave them untouched (in
fulfilment of Is 65-'). Again, when Mary and
Jesus entered tlie Egyptian temple, all the idols
bowed and broke (in fulfilment of Is 19^). The
OT is enough to explain the last-named legend,
without recourse to the later and rather
ditterent Buddha-legend in the Lalita Vistara
(viii.). Athanasius, by the way, welcomes this
incident (de Incarnatione Verbi Dei, 36), which he
accepts without a shadow of suspicion, as a jiroof
of the supreme glory of Jesus. Another pretty
legend:!: occurs in 20-21, where Mary rests from
tlie heat under a tall palm-tree and longs to eat
some of the fruit hanging high overhead, Joseph
tells her he is more concerned about the lack of
water, since their water-skins are empty. * Then
the infant Jesus, resting with happy face in the
bosom of his mother, says to the palm, " Bend thy
branches, O tree, and refresh my mother with thy
fruit." Immediately, at this word, the palm
bowed its crest to the feet of the blessed Mary,
and they gathered from it fruits with which all
were refreshed. After they had gathered all its
fruit, it remained bent, waiting his command to
rise at whose command it had bowed down. Then
Jesus said to it, "Raise thyself, O palm, be strong,
and join the company of my trees which are in the
paradise of my Father. And open from thy roots
the vein of water which lies hidden in the earth ;
let the waters flow, that we may be satisfied there-
with." At once the palm rose up, and at its root
a spring of water began to trickle forth, exceed-
• The cleaving of the mountain to shelter Elizabeth and John
the Baptist from Herod's fury, and indeed the whole Zechariah
legend, is omitted.
t The angels sing Lk 2i-» in adoration of the infant Jesus in
the cave ; the ox and the .-vss in the stable also itu^essantly adore
him (14)---in fnltUment of Is 1^ and Hab 3- (LXX, iv liiam ivo
^J^iV yviacr^cn]).
■ ; Which passed into the Qu'ran (ed. E. H. Palmer {SBE vi.
and ix., 1900], xix. 20-26) in a simpler form.
GOSPELS (TJNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL) 489
ingly clear, cool, and bright.' Next day, before
leaving, Jesus rewards the palm by allowing an
angel to transplant one of its branches to paradise.
'This palm,' he tells the terrified spectators, ' shall
be prepared for all the saints in the place of bliss,
as It has been prepared for ns in this lonely spot.'
The third part (25-42) describes incidents in the
boyhood of Jesus, from the return to Judaea, for
the most part on the unpleasant lines of the Gospel
of Thomas. The incident of the taming of the
lions is new, however (35-36). Jesus, a boy of
eight, went out of Jericho one day to the banks of
the Jordan, and walked deliberately into a cave
where a lioness lay with her cubs. The lions
adored him. Jesus then improved the occasion by
telling the astonished crowd, 'How much better
are the beasts than vou ! They recognize the Lord
and glorify him, while you men, made in God's
image ana likeness, do not know him ! Beasts
recognize me and are tame ; men see me and do not
acknowledge me.' Jesus then crosses the Jordan,
accompanied by the lions, the waters di\iding to
right and left (cf. Jos 3**, 2 K 2*), and dismisses his
wUd companions in peace.
{(i) The History of Joseph the Carpenter. — One
of the latest developments of the legends relating
to the Infancy of Jesus is represented by the
History of Joseph the Carpenter, which purports
to be the story, told by Jesus to the disciples on
the Mount of Olives, of the life and death of Joseph.
It is a genuinely native product of Egyptian piety,
not earlier than the 4th century. At several
points it recalls the 'Testament' literature, and
probably it belongs to that category rather than
to the Gospel category. Sahidic, Bohairic, and
Arabic versions (cf. Haase, pp. 61-66) are extant.
(«) Unidentified fragments. — The four Sahidic
fragments upon the life of the Viigin Mary, pub-
lished by Forbes Robinson {TS, iv. 2 [1896],
5. 2 flF. ), maintain her virginity after the Birth of
esus, but abjure the ideas which afterwards
developed into the dogmas of the Immaculate
Conception (' Cursed is he who shall say that the
Virgin was not bom as we are ') and the Assump-
tion ('Cursed is he who shall say that the Virgin
was taken up into the heavens in her body. But
she died like all men, and was conceived by man's
seed as we are'). The outline of the fragments
generally resembles the story of the Protevangelium
Jacobi and pseudo-Matthew, with some curious
idiosyncrasies. Joachim her father was formerly
called Cleopas (according to Codex B of pseudo-
Matthew 32, Anna married Cleopas after the death
of Joachim) ; he and Zechariah were brothers, and
Anna was the sister of Elizabeth ; a white dove
(=Mary) flies to Anna in a vision ; Mary in the
temple 'never wa-shed in a bath' (a favourite
ascetic feature of the Egyptian nuns), nor did she
use perfumes ; she conceived ' by the hearing of
her ears,' and she is the Mary who visits the tomb
and receives the commission of Mt 28^" (cf. Albertz
in SK [1913] 483 f., on this point); she works
miracles of healing after the Resurrection, but
modestly forbids the apostles to record them ;
when she dies, her soul leaps into the arms of her
Son. It is doubtful, however, if these fragments
originally belonged to a Gospel at all. Probably
they are part of the debris of the Mary litera-
ture (cf. Haase, p. 77 f.) which developed out of
the legends represented by Gospels like the Prot-
evangelium Jacobi, where the main interest is
really in Mary rather than in Jesus. It is through
the channel of such religious fiction, from the
Protevangelium Jacobi to the so-called Transitus
Mariae, formed in part by local legends and pagan
views on the relation oetween sex and religion,
that the mythology of the early Church flowed
over into art and literature. Painters like Titian
and Perugino, poems like the Byzantine Christu*
Pattens, and stories like the Golden Legend, were
as indebted to this source as the calendar of the
Roman Church's festivals.*
II. GrxERAL Gospels, covsrisg the extirb
LIFE ASD MIS 1ST RY OF JESCS.—{a) The Jewish
Christian Gospels (the Gospel of the Hebrews,
the Gospel of the Nazarenes, the Gospel of the
Twelve, the Gospel of the Ebionites).
Special Lttbratciie.— The qaotations from and the Patriitic
allusions to the Gospel accordui£r to the Hebrews, togetiier with
the Gomel of the Ebionites, are o(diected, with critical 8tadiM,t
by E. W. B. Nicholson {G<i*pA aee, to Ute Hebrewt, t.««<v««j
18791 Zahn {Geich. da Kanona, iL 642-7S3X R- Haadmaan
(rcr T. $, 1888X J. H. Ropes (TU xir. 2, 189«, p. 77 tX A. Meyer
(in Hennecke's NeuUtt, Apok.\ and A. Schmidtke ('Nene
Fnwm. a. Untenachtmgm ta den iadenduisU. ETanxelien,'
rtr xxxviL 1, 1911) ; cf. also Waltz's important atodj, • Das
Evangelimn der rwolf Apostel' in ZHTW Q3i2, p. 338f., 1913,
pp. 38 f., UTf.). In the light of Schmidtke's and Waits's re-
searches, it is no loogor poasifale to treat the Gond aooordini;
to the Hebrews withoot Handling the Gospel <rf uie Naaarenes
and the Gospel of the Ebimiites, since the qnotatkMis nsoally
assigned to the first are disputed. In tilie MlowiiK section,
therefore, these three Gospels will be disciused tog^er.
The general problem may be stated thus. Four
'Jewish Chrisrian' Gospels are mentioned and
quoted in the literature of the early Church : the
Gospel of the Hebrews (HG), the Gospel of the
Nazarenes (SG), the Gospel of the Ebionites (EG),
and the Gospel of the Twelve, i.e. of the Twelve
Apostles (TG).* Were there really four Grospels of
this kind? Or are some of these titles no more
than diflierent descriptions of the same Gospel?
This is a problem which goes back to the 5th
century. Jerome apparently held HG=TG, and
this equation has been accepted by critics like
HUgenfeld, Cassels (Supemat. Hel., 1874-77, pt. iL
ch. iii), Lipsins, and Resch, with varying defini-
tions of its age and content. One of the notable
features in Schmidtke's recent monograph is that
he not only challenges the ordinary equation of
HG = XG in recent criticism, but reconstructs an
HG which absorbs practically all the material
assigned to TG, so that HG becomes equal to EG,
as Nicholson had already argued. The usual
identification § of EG = TG (Hilgenfeld, Zahn,
Hamack, etc.) is combined by Waitz with a re-
fusal to equate HG and NG.
Of these four, TG is mentioned much less often
than HG ; our first knowledge of it is of a Gospel
bearing this title (i.e. with the twelve apostles as
its authors or authorities) which is mentioned by
Origen next to the Gospel of the Egyptians (see
above, p. 479). We hear of NG first in Jerome,
and for EG we are mainly indebted to Epiphanius.
But we do not know to what extent these titles
were interchangeable, and whether different writers
meant the same work when they mentioned HG
or TG, for example. The most hopeful method of
arriving at some solution of the problem is to ap-
proach it along the line of the allusions to Jewish
Christians in the early writers of the Church.
There were Jewish Christians, according to
Justin {Dial. 88) who maintained that Jesus was
bom in the ordinary way. Whether all the Jewsh
Christians whom Justin knew held this position,
* There is a mouognfib by B. Bdnsch <m Die Pteudo-Swam
gelien von Jetu iind Marias Kindheit in der romanitehen vmd
germaniiehen Literatur, Halle, 1ST9.
t The varying directions of criticism are traced by Handmann
(cf. MofEatt,' lSt^, Edinborgb, 1912, ppt 2S9-261). Of the eariier
studies, one of the most acate is in cha. viL-viiL of B. Simon's Hit-
toire critique du teate du Noueeau TettamaU, Rotterdam, 1680.
t A later Svriac Qrarch-compilaUoo with this title has been
edited by J. Bendel Harris: The GotpAoftkeTwebteApotttet^
together -with the Apoeairptet of each one ef tJkem, Oamlwidge.
1900. Wh^her the Coptic fragments edited by BeriDoat (Pat-
roiog. Orient., u. 2. Paro, 1903-05. 1)^. 1231) bek>ng to this, or to
some allied Qogpti of the Twdve, is a moot point (cf. Baaae,
p. 30LX It >1m seems doabtfol whether this Syriac TG can
be shown to rest oa a sooice akin to the EG of EfMphanias.
S OccasimiallyintheseosethatEGisDomorethananEbionitic
copy or edition of the anginal catholic HG.
490 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
or whether it was only some of them, is not quite
clear ; all he asserts is tiiat the majority of Chris-
tians in Iiis day preferred to believe in tlie virgin-
hirth. The real dividing line among Jewish
Christians was drawn by their view of the Law
(Dial. 47) ; the stricter party sought to enforce the
Law upon Gentile Christians, while the more
tolerant were content with obeyinfj it themselves.
It was over this question of practice, not over a
Christological issue, that differences arose. With
Irenaeus the situation is dillerent. Writing in
the West, he is not acquainted with the varieties
of Jewish Christians in Palestine and Syria ; to
him they are all ' Ebionites,' who believe Jesus was
the son of Joseph, reject St. Paul as an apostate from
the Law, and use no Gospel but that of Matthew
{II(er. i. 26. 2, iii. IL 7). Origen is better informed
(Cels. v. 61). He recognizes the two-fold classifica-
tion of the Ebionites or Jewish Christians, and holds
that both rejected St. Paul (v. 65), but says nothing
about any special Gospel used lay those who re-
jected the virgin-birth. The difficulty presented
by the statement of Irenoeus remains, viz. how
could any party in the Church adhere strictly and
specially to the Gospel of Matthew, if they believed
(iii. 21. 1) in the natural birth of Jesus? Must
they not have omitted all or part of the first two
chapters ? Yet Irenteus seems to imply that they
did not alter or abbreviate Matthew's Gospel,* for
he contrasts them favourably with Marcion. * The
Ebionites, who use only that Gospel which is
according to Matthew, are convicted out of that
Gospel itself of holding wrong views about the
Lord ; whereas Marcion, who mutilates the Gospel
according to Luke, is shown by the parts that sur-
vive in his edition to be a blasphemer against the
only living God' (iii. 11. 7; cf. iii. 21. 1). The
loose statement of Irenaeus is corrected or ex-
1)lained by Eusebius of Csesarea {HE iii. 27. 4) ;
le declares that the Ebionite Christians, who took
so low and ' poor ' a view of Christ's person as to
believe that He was born naturally, and who re-
jected St. Paul as an apostate from the Law, used
the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews, and
attached little value to the other Gospels. But
this HG was not the special possession of these
Ebionite Christians. It was the particular delight
of Christian Jews (iii. 25. 5 : <j3 ni'Kiara'Eppaluv ol rbv
Xpurrbv irapa8f^djj.€vot. x^'-po^'^'-)- More than that :
the last-named passage from Eusebius proves that
HG was ranked by the Church among the scrip-
tures which 'though not within the canon but dis-
puted are nevertheless recognized by the majority
of the orthodox {napa irXeiorots tQp iKK\i]<nacnKCiiv
yiyvuffKOfi^vai).' This class of scriptures includes
the Apocalypse of John {el (}>avd7], Eusebius puts
in). ' And nowadays (^Sij) some have also included
the Gospel according to the Hebrews.' By ' some'
Eusebius plainly means orthodox Christians, as
distinguished from the Christian Jews whose en-
thusiasm for this Gospel was natural and taken
for granted. He implies that this tendency to
disparage the Gospel was comparatively recent.
Here we begin to suspect confusion. What
Eusebius calls the Gospel KaO' 'E^palovs was at once
the sole t Gospel of the Ebionites, who denied the
virgin-birth as well as the authority of St. Paul,
and the favourite Gospel of Christian Jews. It was
even regarded by some of the strictly orthodox as
only second to the four canonical Gospels and dis-
* Their Gospel must have been, apparently, EG ; NG contained
Mt 1-2, and IIG could not be called a Matthieau Gospel.
t At the same time, strict Jewish Christians who held the OT
to be the revealed truth, and Christianity a consummation of
the Jewish religion, would not necessarily attach the same
canonical value to a Gospel as other Christians (c(. ITandn)nnn,
p. 108 f.). This consideration may also serve to account (or the
targumistic features of NG and the freedom with which the
text ia treated in EG.
tinctly above Gospels like those of Peter, Thomas,
and Matthias !
The suspicion that Kaff'E^paiovi* was being used
loosely to describe more than one Gospel t is con-
lirmed by two other lines of evidence.
(l)The first of these runs parallel to the refer-
ences already quoted, and is derived from the
statements of Jerome. It is to Jerome that we
owe our knowledge of the existence of NG, but his
statements about this Gospel and the Nazarenes who
used it require to be carefully sifted, and when they
are sifted they witness to a diti'erence between HG
and NG which Jerome for some reason ignored.
At first sight, almost everything would seem to
turn upon the interpretation of Jerome's famous
allusion in his treatise contra Pelagianos, iii. 2 : • In
the Gospel according to the Hebrews, written in the
Chaldaic and Syriac tongue [i. e. Aramaic, or Western
Syriac]:|: but in Hebrew letters, which the Nazarenes
use to this day, (the Gospel) according to the apostles
{secundum apostolos) or, as most suppose, according
to Matthew, (the Gospel) which is m the library at
Caesarea, the story runs, "Behold the mother of
the Lord and his brothers said to him, John the
Baptist is baptizing for the remission of sins ; let us
<jo and be baptized by him. But he said to them.
What sins have 1 committed, that I should go and
be baptized by him ? Unless perhaps what 1 have
just said is (a sin of) ignorance." And in the same
volume, "If your brother has sinned in word, he
says, and made amends to you, receive him
seven times in one day. Simon his disciple said to
him. Seven times in one day ? The Lord answered
and said to him. Yes and up to seventy times seven,
I tell thee. For even in the projjiiets, after they
had been anointed with the Holy Spirit, matter of sin
was found." ' The opening words § seem to suggest
that Jerome identified HG and TG ( = the Gospel of
the Ebionites), but he is simply reproducing at
second - hand the conjecture about HG and the
Gospel of the Ebionites, neither of which he seems
to have known ; as the only Semitic Gospel he
knew was NG, he naturally attributes to it the
floating titles and opinions which had gathered
round the others.
This is corroborated by the fact that he sometimes
uses ' Nazaruei ' loosely for heretical Jewish Chris-
tians (practically = the 'Ebionites' of earlier writers),
and sometimes speaks of them in special connexion
with the local Church at Syrian Bercea. Now, what-
ever Gospel or Gospels the former used, and whoever
they were, it is plain that the latter class of Jerome's
' Nazaraji ' could not have been the Ebionite Chris-
tians of Irenaeus, Origen, and Eusebius, for, accord-
ing to their interpretation of Is 8^-9\ which
Jeromequotes, they nonoured St. Paul and his Gospel
('per evangelium Pauli ... in tenninos gentium
et viam universi maris Christi evangelium splen-
duit').|| They were Jewish Christians of non-
* The size of the IIG known to Nicephorus in the 6th cent,
amounted to 2,200 stichoi, i.e. larger than Mark and smaller than
Matthew— thoujfh such comparative calculations depend on the
size of the writing being the same, which is not to be assumed
invariably.
t This was felt long ago by Gieseler (HisUnisch-kritisch Vet'
such iiber EntstehiiiKj der schriftl. EeangHien, 1818, p. 8 f.), and
elaborated by Credner (Beitrdge, 1S32, p. 399 f.), who almost dis-
tinguished EG, HG, and NG under the common title of Ka$'
'E/3paiov?. How easy it was for early Christians to fall into
confusion of this kind may be seen from the fact that in some
quarters Tatian's Diatessaron was actually called the Gosi>el
' according to the Hebrews* (Epiph. xlvi. 1).
t The meaning of, Jerome's words may be seen by comparing
his remarks in his Preface to Sam. and Kitign ( = Prolog. Galeatus):
'Syrorum quoque et Chaldauorum lingua testatur, qu» Hebr*M
magna ex parte confinis est.'
§ Handmann (p. Ill f.) thinks that Jerome wrote ' secundum
apostolos' to prevent this Gospel from bein^ confused with the
heretical Gospel of the Twelve ('evangelium secundum xii.
apostolos'). . , ,,
il Their catholic attitude to the canonical Scriptures, including
not only Matthew but Acts, John, and even St. Paul's Epistles,
is excellently deduced by Schmidtke (p. 107 (.) from Jerome s
GOSPELS (UNCANOXICAL)
GOSPELS (UXCAXOXICAL) 491
heretical opinions, as is iniplietl in Jerome's account
in de Viris UUi-stribus, 3: ' Matthew who is also Levi,
the apostle who had been a tax-gatherer, first in
Juda'a composed the Gospel of Christ in Hebrew
letters and words for the benefit of those belonging
to the circumcision who had believed. It is not
quite certain who translated it afterwards into
Greek. Further, the Hebrew (orijrinal) itself is
kept to this day in the library at Caesarea which
Paniphilus the martyr gathered most diligently.
I was also given permission to copy it, by the
Nazaroei who use this volume in Bercea, a town
of SjTia.'
(2) The second line of proof which suggests that
HG and NG were not identical is as follows. In his
Epistle to the Church at Smyrna (iiL 1-2) Ignatius
writes : ' I know and believe He was in the flesh
even after the resurrection. And when He came
to those with Peter, He said to them, " Take, handle
Me and see that I am not a bodiless phantom.'"
This may be a loose paraphrase of the Synoptic
saying in Lk 24®, but the early Church preferred
to regard it as a quotation from some nn canonical
Gospel. Unfortunately, the three writers who
mention it do not agree upon its origin. Origen
(according to the Latin version of the preface to his
de PrincCpiis) said it came from a little book called
the Teaching of Peter, which had no claim to be
authentic {'Ule liber inter libros ecclesiasticos non
habetur . . . neque Petri est scripturanequealterius
cuiusquam qui spiritu dei fuerit inspiratus '). This
sounds so definite that we are surprised to learn
that Eusebius (^i^ iii. 36. 11) does not know what
source Ignatius used. Jerome, however, twice
asserts that it was the Gospel which he had trans-
lated. As both Origen and Eusebius knew HG,
Jerome's statement must be an error, if he is refer-
ring to HG. But it is very difficult to suppose that
he could have made such a mistake about a Gospel
which he had translated, and the inference must
be either that his HG was a diflerent edition from
that known to Origen and Eusebius, or more pro-
bably that it was not HG but NG. This latter
hypothesis explains why Eusebius could not place
the quotation, for Eusebius knew HG but not NG.
There is no reason why such a quotation should not
have occurred both in NG and in the pseudo-Petrine
document mentioned by Origen. It is of course
possible that one of them borrowed from the
other ; perhaps Ignatius used the Petrine document
(Zahn), while NG used Ignatius or that document
(Schmidtke). But the last-named hypothesis im-
plies that Jerome had an extremely superficial know-
ledge of NG, and this is on other grounds unlikely.
It is true that Jerome required an expert to trans-
late the Chaldee or Aramaic text of Tobit into
Hebrew, that he might render it into Latin ; and
his acquaintance vrith the original of NG must
have been equally second-hand. But this does
not prove that he could not have known its contents
with sufficient accuracy. There is no obvious
reason to doubt his veracity, or to hold that he did
not know, e.<^., that this or that quotation occurred
in NG, even supposing that he translated the latter
as rapidly as he did Tobit.
references in his Commentary on Isaiah. But we do not see why-
it follows (pp. 125-126) necessarily that their Gospel could not
have inclua«l the nnhistorical legend about the appearance of
the risen Jesus to his brother James. This was surelj in line
withSt. Paul'sowntradition(lCol57). The latter no doubt puts
the appearance to James fourth instead of first in chronological
order, hut, in view of the very different accounts in the Gospels
(particularly Matthew and John), we can hardly lay stress upon
the prominence assigrned to James as if this were incompatible
with the catholic position of the ' KazarsL' After all, as
Schmidtke himself admits, they were keen upon circumcision
and the Law as national traditions. .\s MatUiew's Gospel had
no record of any appearances to individual disciples, the «-ay
lay open for a harmless legend of this kind in honour of James
the Just. If St. Paul put the appearance to him before his own
vision, why should not the ' Nazar^ei ' ?
Schmidtke's reconstruction is in outline as follows. At an
early period the Church at Syrian Bercea broke up— or, at any
rate, the local Jewish Christians soon tonned a communit}- of
their own, apart from the Gentile Christian Church. It was
these Jewish Christians who were the real ' Nazarenes ' of the
early Church. Outside Beroea there were none. \^'hen Epi-
phanius calls the Naaarencs a sect of the primitive Church, he
IS simply confosing them with the Naiarenes of Ac 241-^^,
where St. Paul protests, on being charged with betngaring-Ieader
of -nrt riiv NaJMpatMr alpftrttt, ' I cherish the same bom in God
as they (avrol sftm) accept.' Here svrot oStm meana St. Paul's
Jewish accosen, bat Epiphanios misto<A the worda fora refer-
ence to the Maarenea. In reality, these Nasurene ChriMians
of Benea preaerred their oooacioaaneaa of belonging to the
Church ; they accepted the rirgin-birth of Jeans and hononted
St. Paul as an apostle (see above, p. 490 n.X tJKmgh they retained,
like some of the Jewish Christians afterwards known to Justin,
a number of Jewish pecoliaritiea of custom and belief. Their
Goapel was an Aramaic version (1S5-150 A.D.) of Matthew's
Gospel, which was a sort of targnm ; it also included some
touches from the other canonical Gospels. Now it waa this
document, according to Sdunidtlce, which caused all the sabee-
quent misonderstanidings of the Chorch about the Hebrew
Gospel which formed the baas of the canonical Matthew. This
version of Matthew was soppoeed to have been the original of
Matthew. Papias was the first to go wroi^, and he misled
Eusebius and ApoDlnaiis, as weD as Ireiueas and Origen.
Even those who knew Hebrew and Syriac were misled uto
calling NG a Hebrew document, since they assnmed it was the
basis of the canonical Matthew with its Jewish Christian ctMr-
acteristics. The only writer who had a first-handknowledge of
it was H^eoppos (e. jld. 180)l Eusebius second a copy only
when he wrote the Theophania ; he did not know it whoi be
composed his Church History. And eren when he did read it
he imagined, thanks to Pajpias and others, that it was the
Semitic original of Matthew.
The copy of Eusebius in the library of CVsarea fell into the
hands of Jerome. But Jerome, like Epiphanius, for the most
part depended not on this Gospel directly but on the information
supplied by the distingmshed scholar, ApoUinaris of lAodicea,
who had edited an expoeiti(m of Matthew, in which his Hebrew
scholarship enaUed him to quote fragments ol this Naaunean
GospeL That dishonest and unreliable writer, Jerome, had no
first-hand acquaintance with the Naiarenes, of whom he says
so ma<^ He was the Defoe of his age.
Hegeaippus, aa Eusebius points out, used both KG and HG.
The latter * was an independent Greek work, equivalent to TG
whereas NG was neither an independent work nor a Greek
oomposiUon, but a Syriac document reproducing Matthew's
Gospel in the main. The mistaken identification of HG and
KG was Jerome's &iult. He ima^ned that this Gospel of the
Kazarenes which he saw in the episcopal library of Caasarea was
the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and Schmidtke bluntly
declares that his story about translating it (c a.i>. 390) is a
fabrication, t
It is not necessary here to discuss the details of
Schmidtke's brilliant and searching investigation.
His strictures on Jerome (pp. 66-69) are too sweep-
ing ; his conjecture about the relation between
ApoUinaris and the extracts from the Nazarene
(jrospel is hardly more than ingenious ; and his
tendency to attribute misunderstanding to early
Christian writers, although it is in the main justi-
fiable, carries him into some extreme positions.
But his analysis of the extant data has suc-
ceeded in showing afresh J the strong case for
regarding HG and NG as diflerent works. So much
at any rate may be granted. On the other hand,
the identification of HG and EG breaks down ;
Waitz is probably right in regarding EG as an in-
dependent work. The difl'erentiation of HG, NG,
and EG is a precarious task, however, and in the
present state of our knowledge no reconstruction
can claim to be more than conjectural. The proba-
bility is that there were several Jewish Christian
Gospels approximating more or less closely to the
type of Matthew. Jewish Christians who claimed
* EG (see below) was aiao a Greek composition, but, unlike
HG and like KG, it was allied to Matthew, though not so
closely as KG.
t Bede, in the beginning of the 8th cent., made the
fact of Jerome having quoted and translated the Hebrew
Gospel the reason for holding that the latter was to be ranked
' not among apocrvphal but among ecclesiastical histories' (in
Luc LIX
I The loose usage of co^ 'Eftmuivs as a Goqiel title was
seal by several earlier writers brides those already mentioned
(p. 490). Holtzmann, e.g. (EinleUung in da»A'eve Tettamenfi,
189S, p. 4S7f.X suggested that it was applied to a whole series
of more or less cognate Greek and Aramaic compositiona.
lipsius preferred to regard HG as assuming different shapes in
different circles and at different times. This is almost inevit-
able, when HG and TG are identified.
492 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
to be the true ' Hebrews,' and who saw in Christi-
anity tiie completed form of Hel)rew relij^ion,
could well, as Waitz observes, call their (iospel a
' Gospel according to the Hebrews,' even although
it was written in Greek, Thei'e were varieties of
such Jewish Christians, from the orthodox ' Naza-
rfei' to the extreme wing of the Ebionite Chris-
tians, and there is no reason to doubt that more
than one Gospel was composed and circulated by
them. If one of these was an Aramaic version of
Matthew, it would be particularly easy for later
writers to use KaO"E^palovi \oose\y ns a linguistic
title, and thus to imagine that HG meant either a
Hebrew (iosnel or the supposed original of Matthew.
One of the obstacles in aealing Avith the entire pro-
blem of the Jewish Christian Gospels is due to the
fact that some early Christian writers and fathers
often mention books which they seem never to
have seen, and that their references to the Gospel
books of the Jewish Christians are too loose
and vague to be taken at their face-value. This
applies particularly to Epiphanius and Jerome,
when the latter, for example (de Vir. illustr. 2),
introduces the quotation about the Lord's post-
Resurrection appearance to His brother James, by
declaring that it occurred in ' the Gospel called
"according to the Hebrews," which 1 recently
translated into Greek and Latin, and which Origen
often uses,' he is surely confusing HG and NG.
He is anxious to prove the importance of NG ;
that is why he says it was often cited by Origen.*
But what Origen cited was HG. There is an error
of memory here, at any rate. So with Epiphanius.
He explains (Hmr. xxix. 7, 9) that the Nazoraeans —
Jewish Christians who practised Jewish habits of
life, and who had their headquarters at Syrian
Beroea — possessed and used the Gospel of Matthew
in Hebrew ; he declares that their edition was
unmutilated (wX-qpicFTaTov), but does not know if it
contained the genealogy from Abraham to Christ.
This is to distinguish the Nazoraeans from sectarian
Christians like the Cerinthians, who (Hmr. xxviii. 5,
XXX. 14) used a mutilated Matthew, leaving out
passages like 1'"" lO'^' and 26'^. Obviously, his
remarks are contradictory. If he knew that the
Gospel used by these Nazoraeans Avas unmutilated,
he must have known whether it contained Mt 1'"^^
or not. He is speaking about this NG either
from hearsay or from a hasty perusal of Irenaeus,
and, with a carelessness which is characteristic of
him, at several points confuses it with EG.
The rival theories thus are: (i.) HG and NG
either identical or different editions of the same
work ; (ii. ) HG and NG different works entirely.
The latter seems preferable, but in any case it is
essential to have the extant data before us.
(a) In tlie first place (cf. Schmidtke, pp. 1-31,
63 f.), we possess a number of marginal scholia on
Matthew from a group of minuscule MSS Avhich,
partly on the basis of von Sodeii's researches and
discoveries, Schmidtke regards as witnessing to a
special type of text or a special edition of the
Gospels dating not later than A.D. 500. These
scholia are held to be exegetical notes, probably
drawn from the Commentary on Matthew whicii
ApoUinaris of Laodicea wrote, prior to Jerome.
They profess to quote the readings of rb 'lovSaCK6v
(sc. evayyiXiov Kark '^iardatov). Perhaps the discredit
into which the supposed Aramaic (original) Matthew
was falling, on account of its use by heretical
sects, led to the pious preservation of these brief
extracts on the margin of Church copies. There
is a good deal of speculation in the eye of this
hypothesis. The scholia, however, are unmis-
takable.
* According to Schmidtke (p. 134 f.), Jerome betrays here the
fact that he copied this story from Origen ; but this is not a
necessary inference (cf. p. 490 n.}.
In Mt 4* the ' Jewish ' Gospel read iv 'XtpovcraXrui. for c t? •riji'
ayCa.v voKiv, in S'-"-* it omitted «i«ti7 and in (J'^_ the doxology to
llie Ijord's prayer ; at 7* it read :* ' If ^'ou are in my t>oHoin and
do not the will of my Father who is in heaven, I will cast you
out of my bosom '; in 10'* it read turip o<^(t« for &Jt oi oi^cit, in
1112 Jtopirafexai for ^ia^«Toi, in 11-* ciivopKTTtt) for <f OfxoAo-yoi/fiat ;
in 12'*" it omitted tlie second ' three days and three nights' ; in
15' it read xopfiav o v^ei? ixiieKrfirfiTtiiSt i{ rj^xuc ; it omitted
l(j2b.3 and read ' son of John ' for Bar-Jonah in ISi? ; in IH'-^ after
' seventy times seven ' it read : KaX yap ivroii jrpo<^^Totv fitra to
XpurOrivai avrovt iv irvrvfiaTi, ayCijt tvpioKno iv avroli Koyoi
afxaprCai ; in 26''* it read ; koI ripvriaaTO (cat ufiocrtv /toi Kart)pa.<TaTO ;
and in 27"* it had : koi vapeSioxtv aurot? avSpa^ ivonXov^ iVo
Kadts^iivTat. Kar ivavriov toO (rmjAac'ou Kol Trip<o<Tiv avrhv rifiipai
Kol WKTOi.
(b) The extant quotations may best be classified
according to the source :
Clkment op Alexandria cites HG twice —
Strom, ii. 9. 45 : 'as it is written also in the Gospel according
to the Hebrews, " He who wonders shall reign, and he who
reigns shall rest." '
atrom. V. 14. 96 : ' He who seeks shall not rest until he finds ;
when he has found, he shall wonder, and wondering he shall
reign, and reigning he shall rest.'
Obioen (in Joh. ii. 6) quotes a saying of the Saviour from
the Gospel according to the Hebrews as follows : ' My
mother, the Holy Spirit, took me just now by one of my hairs t
and carried me off to the great mountain Tabor.' He repeats
the quotation in his Homilies on Jeremiah (xv. 4). It is evi-
dently from a description of the Temptation, where Jesus had
not His disciples beside Him, as He had at the Transfiguration.
Origen quotes the passage in order to prove that the Word
came into being through the Spirit ; he adds that if one reads
Mt 1250 one cannot have any difficulty about understanding
how the Spirit could be called the mother of Christ. In the
Gospel, Jesus is the Son of the Spirit ( = Wisdom ; cf. Wis I-"- 9",
Lk 7a-«-38)
The Latin version of his CJommentary on Matthew (W^^-) has
the following passage : ' it is written in a Gospel called the
Gospel according to the Hebrews (if anyone cares to receive this
not as an authority but in illustration of the question before
U8),t "the other § rich man said to him, Master, what good
thing shall I do to live ? He said to him, Man, do the Law and
the prophets. He answered him, I have done them. He said
to him, Go, sell all you possess and divide it among the poor,
and come, follow me. But the rich man began to scratch his
head, and was not pleased. And the Lord said to him, How do
you say, I have done the Law and the prophets? For it is
written in the Law, You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
And lo, there are many brothers of yours, sons of Abraham,
clothed in filth, dying of hunger, while your house is full of
many goods, and nothing at all goes out of it to them. And
turning he said to Simon his disciple, who was sitting beside
him, Simon, son of John, it is easier for a camel to enter by the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
heaven."'
This popular version of the story recounted in the Synoptic
Gospels tallies partly with Mt. and partly with Lk. ; if it
represents a conversation at some rich man's table (.Meyer), this
is a Lucan affinity, for in Lk. (18i«), as distinguished from
Mt. and Mk., the incident is not described as an open-air
episode.
EusBBius declares that the story of the woman accused of
manv sins before the Lord, which I'apias quotes, was contained
in the Gospel according to the Hebrews (UK iii. 39. 16). In
Theophan. Syr. iv. 12 (ed. Gressmann, 1904, p. 183f.) : II 'the reason
of the divisions between souls that take place in households
[Mt 10 34-3,')] He taught — as we have found in one place in the
Gospel which exists in Hebrew among the Jews, where it is
said, "I (will) choose for myself the excellent [or, worthy]
whom my Father in heaven gave to me." ' On the authority of
Mai, another quotation from this Gospel has been usually
referred to the Theophania, viz. : 'Since the Gospel which has
reached us in Hebrew characters pronounces the threat not
against the man who hid the money but against him who lived
riotously— " for he had If three servants, one who spent the
master's substance with harlots and flute-girls,** one who
multiplied it, and one who concealed the talent ; the one
was accepted, the other was merely blamed, and the tliird was
shut up in prison" — I judge that, according to Matthew, the
threat immediately following the conclusion of the wortl spoken
• Cf. below, p. 495.
t From the Jewish story of Bel and the Dragon (v.W),
where an angel lifts Habakkuk by the hair of his head and
transports him to Babylon (cf. Ac 8»9). In the Christian
Haggada, the hairs become a single hair, which reminds us of
Ezk 83.
X Origen hesitates to quote this Gospel as Scripture, not
because it is heretical, but because the canon of the four Gospels
was now dominant — as it had not been when Clement wrote.
§ So there were two : for Matthew 's duplications, cf. S* 20*.
II On this passage, cf. J. A. Robinson in Expositor, 5th ser.,
V. [1897] 194 f.
II Or, ' it contained ' (n(pi.tl\evy—\n which case we have only •
cummary, not a verbal quotation.
*• This phrase recurs in an Oxyrhynchite fragment (see
p. 499>
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANOXICAL) 493
against him who did nothing does not apply to him, but was
spoken by way of epanalepsis with reference to the man
formerly mentioned, who had eaten and drunk with drunkards.'
But Gressmann shows that this passage does not belong to the
Thtophania (cf. his ed. §29); it belongs either to some other
author altogether or to some other treatise of Eusebius (,T(I
XXX. 3 [19061 363). The version of the parable given in this ex-
tract witnesses to the dissatisfaction which was felt at an early
date with what seemed to be the severe verdict of Mt 2o*9-30.
In addition to corroborating the reading of the 'Jewish*
Gospel in Mt 4* 1617 and 26^*, and repeating (on Mic T^) Ongen's
argument from and citation of the Tabor saying, Jkromk affirms
that in Mt i* it * read ' Judah ' not ' Jadsa ' ; in the narrative
of the Baptism it contained the following conversation : 'Behold
the mother of the Lord and his brothers said to him, "John
the Baptist is baptizing for the remission of sins ; let us gro and
be baptized by him." But he said to them, "What sin have I
committed that I should go and be baptized by him ? Unless
perhaps what I have just said is (a sin of) ignorance "' — and the
following incident : ' But it came to pass when the Lord had
ascended from the water that the entire fountain t of the Holy
Spirit descended and rested on him, and said to him, " Mj'
son, in all the prophets I looked for thee, that thou mightest
come and I might rest in thee, t For thou art my rest, thou
art my firstborn son, who reignest to eternity " ' ; in Mt 6ii it
read mahar, i.e. (bread) for to-morrow ; at Mt 1210 it inserted,
' I was a stone-mason, seeking a livelihood by my hands ; I pray
you, Jesus, to restore my health, lest I beg food with shame ' ;
it also read (at the passage corresponding to Mt IS-'— ?), ' " If
your brother has sinned in word and made amends to you,
receive him seven times in one day." Simon, his disciple, said to
him, " Seven times in a day ? " The Lord answered and said to
him, "Yes, I tell yon, and up to seventy times seven ! for even in
the prophets,! after they had been anointed with the Holy
Spirit, matter of sin was found " ' (cf. above, p. 490) ; in Mt 219 jt
read : ' Osanna barrama ' (i.e. Hosanna in the heights) ; instead of
' son of Barachiah ' I it read ' son of Jehoiada ' at Mt 23^ ; at Mt
27*1 it read, 'the lintel of the temple, which was of enormous
size, broke and fell in pieces ' ; and it contained (in the neigh-
bourhood of Mt 5— or ISis-i") a saying of Jesus to His disciples,
'Xever be glad except when you look with love at your
brother.'
These Jerome quotations show a (Sospel in which Jesus is
called ' Jesus ' as well as ' the Lord ' (only the latter in the
Gospel of Peter), where the narrative of the Baptism has an
apologetic purpose as Matthew's has (31-*''-) — although the two
differ — but which was characterized by naive, popular traits
rather than by any theological tendencies. It must have ad-
hered to the general order and even material of Matthew ;
otherwise, as in the case of the scholia, it would have been out
of place to chronicle slight variations of text.
It is more easy to feel that HG and NG were
different than to assign these fragments to one oi"
the other. This is the precarious side of the hypo-
thesis advocated by Schmidt ke and Waitz afresh.
However, to HG we may assign the quotations of
Clement and Origen, to NG those of Jerome and
the Jerusalem scholia. But naturally there must
have been some material common to both (Jospels,
and we have evidence of this in the fact that both
Origen and Jerome witness apparently to the in-
terpretation of Barabbas as ' son of (their) teacher'
and to the Tabor saying IT about the Spirit as
mother. How far, if at aU, the scholia of the
' Jewish ' Gospel att«st the text of HG as well as
of NG it is impossible to say. The daemon-saying
quoted by Ignatius came from NG, if it came from
either of these Gospels. Probably, though not
certainly (see note on p. 490), the following passage
belonged to HG : ' But when the Lord had given
the linen cloth to the servant of the high priest, he
• ' Sicnt in ipso Hebraico l^mus.' This might mean ' in the
original Hebrew of the OT,' but the analogy of the other refer-
ences favours the meaning of 'in the Hebrew Gospel.'
t For Jerome's argument (on Is 11-), the emphasis falls upon
the word ' entire.' The spirit of wisdom is ' poured out like
water' on the Elect One in En. xlix. If. (cf. LXX of Is llif).
Spitta (ZA'TW, 1904, p. 316 f.) suggests that /<m« represents^
icoAvfi^ii^pa (ira»-Tos Tov irvtv/ioTos oyi'ov) in the original, and that
KoAvfijSij^pa may have been confused with koAvm/^ (eolumba}—
which would explain the remarkable absence of the dove here.
t Cf.£n. xlii. 1-3.
I The second allusion in these citations to the OT prophets.
H In a Coptic fragment of some late Egj-ptian (Gospel?)
treatise, Jesus denounces the Jews before Pilate for killing the
prophets down to ' Zeehariah the son of Barachiah and John
his son ' (Patrol. Orient, ii. 165) — identifying the Zeehariah of
the canonical Matthew with the other (cf. above, p. 4So).
^ As we can see from the Baptism-story in XG (see above,
p. 490), no difficulty was felt about calling Jesus the Son of the
Spirit and mentioning His human mother, any more than in the
S)-noptic tradition about mentioning His father Joseph and His
Heavenly Father.
went to James and appeared to him ; for James
had sworn he would not eat bread from the hour
when tlie Lord had drunk the cup until he saw
him rise from those who sleep. . . . "Bring a table
and bread," the Lord says. He took bread and
blessed it and broke it and gave it to James the
Just, and said to him, " My brother, eat yotir bread,
for the Son of Man* has risen from those who
sleep " ' (quoted by Jerome). The Eusebius quota-
tions are doubtful ; the Theophania citations point
to NG, but whether the story of the accused woman
corresponds to that of Lk 1^^ or to that of Jn 7"-
8^", the probability is that Eusebius means to say
that it occurred in HG — a fresh indication that HG
was not, like NG, a sort of 'Matthivan' composi-
tion or version. We do not know if HG had any
Birth-story ; t perhaj)s it resembled Mark or John
in this respect. And its contents seem to have been
different from the exact Synoptic or Johanninetype.
Both HG and NG were Known to Hegesippus,
who brought forward material from both, as
Eusebius informs us : ex re rod jca0"Ej3p<uoi;s evayyeXiou
Koi TOV ^vpiaKov Kal ISion ix t^ 'EjSpatSos SiaXiinrov riyd.
ridriffiv (iv. 22. 8 ; cf. iii. 25. 5). Unless we regard
the Kol between ewi77eXt'oi' and tov as an error or
interpolation (Nicholson, Handmann), the inference
from this passage is that ' the Syriac (Gospel) ' was
used by this Jewish-Christian writer as well as
the Gospel of the Hebrews.* Furthermore, since
NG was probably used by Ignatius (cf. p. 491), it
may be placed not later than the end of the
1st cent., subsequent to the composition of
Matthew's Gospel. It was the special Gospel of
the Jewish Christians at Beroea, originally ; it was
not marked by anti-Catholic tendencies, § but owing
to its language it never attained the popularity and
circulation of HG. The latter was not a translation
but a Greek Gospel. It received the name of Kad'
'E^palovi or 'Hebrew Gospel' from Christians who
were not Jews; the title no more meant that it
was written in Hebrew than the Gospel according
to the Egyptians meant a Gospel written in Coptic.
It was the readers, not the language, that suggested
the sobriquet, in this case. Again, unlike KG or
even EG, it had not Matthew's Gospel as its basis
or prototype. Clement and Origen never quote it
or refer to it as a work allied to Matthew. So far
as we can judge from the few allusions and cita-
tions that may be accepted as belonging to it, the
contents of HG must have been stamped with
characteristics which differentiated it from the
canonical Gospels and yet commended it for a time
to others than Jewish Christians both in Palestine
and Syria (probably its original home) and Egypt.
But we do not possess any means of determining
its date with certainty ; whether it was contem-
porary with NG or written early in the 2nd cent.,
remains an open question. Later;; than NG at
any rate, and further from orthodox teaching than
either NG or HG, was EG, which seems to imply a
* This is one note of primitive oripn or ooloor ; the title ' Son
of Man ' is extremely rare outside the Grospels, and later writers
of uncanonical Gospels never copied it.
t Hegesippus did say that Domitian dreaded the second ap-
pearance of Christ as Herod dreaded the first (Eus. HE iii. 20.
2), but it does not follow that he owed to HG this reference to
Herod. Oral tradition (as Handmann sogg^ests) m%ht accoont
for it.
I Waits (ZSTW, 1913, p. 121) thinks it was EG that Hegeappos
used, not HG ; but his reasons are unconvincing. There is no
ground for supposing that HG was confined to Eferpt, and none
for assuming that James was a vegetarian (see belowX whose
principles would be shared by the Jenpiah Ouistiana— and ex-
pressed in their (Jospel (i.e. EG).
§ It is still a question how far the text and traditions of NG
represent earlier forms than those of the Synoptic narrative.
$ But if EG is used in the pseudo-Oementine cnptryfu'^"
neVpou, and if the latter were written by the middle of the
2nd cent., as Waitz shows good reason for maintaining (cf.
ZSTW, 1913, p. 49 f.), our Gospel may be put in the first hall
or even quarter of the 2nd century. This is corroborated by
Irensus (ct above, p. 490), if his EbioniUc Chiisuaas used £G.
494 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
knowledge of Luke as well as of Matthew, although
it is Matthaean, as HG does not appear to have been.
This early 2nd cent, production is known to us
from the quotations made by Epiphanius, which
enable the following outline to be drawn :
{b) The Gospel of the Ebionites. — According to
Epiphanius {Ihvr. xxx. 3), tlie Ebionites accepted
no Gospel except that of Mattliew. ' This alone
they use, like the adherents of Cerintiius and
Merinthus ; they call it " the Gospel according to
the Hebrews" — a correct description, since it was
Matthew alone in the New Testament who com-
posed the narrative and preaching of the Gospel in
Hebrew and Hebrew characters.' It is true, he
adds— and he repeats this in xxx. 6 — that Hebrew
translations of John's Gospel and of Acts were said
to be kept in the Genizali at Tiberias, which had
proved useful in the conversion of Jews, liut
Matthew's Gospel was tlie only one originally
written in Hebrew. This idea of a Hebrew
Matthew obsesses Epiplianius among other early
Cliristian writers; it is needless* to spend words
upon his explanation of Kad"EppaLovs as suitable to
the original language of Matthew. What is more
important for our present purpose is to notice how
he proceeds to explain that this Gospel used by the
Ebionites was not the canonical Matthew, however,
but a mutilated and revised edition (xxx. 13). It
began at 3'. (1) ' The beginning of their Gospel is :
"It came to pass in the days of Herod king of
JudiBa that John came baptizing with a baptism
of repentance in the Jordan river ; he was said to
be of the race of Aaron the priest, the son of
Zechariah and Elizabeth. And all went out to
him." ' The story of the Birth and the genealogy
were therefore absent from this Gospel. ' Cutting
ofl" the genealogies in Matthew, tliey make a
beginning, as I have already said, in this way : "It
came to pass in the days of Herod, king of Juda5a,
under the high priest Caiaphas, that a certain man
named John came, baptizing with a baptism of
repentance in the Jordan river"' (xxx. 14). This
suggests that the author had Lk 3' in mind, but
in the following extract (2), by making the
Pharisees accept John's baptism, lie dilfers from
the Lucan tradition (Lk 3"- 7=^-=*"): 'John came
baptizuig, and the Pharisees went out to him and
were baptized, and all Jerusalem. And John had
raiment of camel's hair and a "irdle of skin round
his loins ; and his food (says tlie Gosjjel) was wild
honey, t the taste of which was the taste of manna,
like a honey-cake dipped in oil ' (xxx. 13). The
account of tlie Baptism of Jesus, however, did not
immediately follow, as in the canonical Matthew,
but only after an interval {fiera to elirelv iroWd).
The author first of all brought Jesus on the scene,
and placed the call of the twelve apostles prior to
the Lord's Baptism, possibly to make it clear that
they had not been originally disciples of John,
more probably to convey the impression that they
had been eye-witnesses from the very outset. (3)
* There was a man named Jesus, and he was about
thirty years of age ; he chose us . . . and entering
Capharnaum he went into the house of Simon
surnamed Peter, and opening his lips said, "As I
walked beside the lake of Tiberias 1 1 chose John
• Even after Zahn's (Gegch. des Kanons, ii. 731 f.) argrunient
that Epiphanius'8 statement is correct, and that since Orijr en the
Ebionitic Christians had bepun to appropriate for their own
Gospel the honorific title of the Church's HG.
t The religious vetfetarianism of the Ebionite Christians
^Epiph. xxx. 15) made them change 'locusts' (axpCSti, Mt 3*)
into honey -cake (iyKp{^). The verse echoes LXX of Nu lis
(«tal Ijv r; riSovr) avTOv oKrei yeviia t'yxpU f'f t'Aat'ou). Note James
was an ascetic but not a vegetarian. The words of Hegesii>pus,
which Kusebius quotes (iIE ii. 23. 5), ovSi itj.ipvxov f<l>ay(p,
mean that he was careful to eat only ' kosher ' meat (in the sense
of Ac l.S''* and Jos. Ant. i. 102, x<^P'f ai'/iarot).
} This is almost the only touch in the extant fragments which
recalls the Fourth Gospel ((>''<'), and even this need not be a
and James, sons of Zebedanis, and Simon and
Andrew and Thaddipus and Simon the zealot and
Judas Iscariot ; and I called thee, Matthew, sitting
at the receipt of custom, and thou didst follow me.
You then I desire to be twelve apostles for a testi-
mony to Israel"' (xxx. 13). The narrative of the
Baptism (4) diverges in order and in some details
from the Synoptic tradition. ' When the people
had been baptized, Jesus also came and was
baptized by John. And when he came up from
the water, tiie heavens opened and he saw the
Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descending and
entering into him. And a voice came from heaven
saying, " Thou art my Beloved, in thee I am well-
pleased" — and aj'ain — "to-day have I begotten
thee." And immediately a great light* shone round
the place. Seeing tliis (says the Gospel), John says
to him, "Who art thou. Lord?" And again a
voice from heaven addre.ssed him [or, said of him],
"This is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well-
S leased." And then (says the Gospel) John fell
own before him and said, " I pray thee, Lord, do
thou baptize me." But he forbade him, saying,
"Come, this is how it is fitting that all should
be accomplished"' (xxx. 13). The divergence of
EG from NG at this point is clear : tlie one has
a dove, the otlier has not (cf. above, p. 493) ; and
EG conflates the voices from heaven.
The Gospel must have included the middle part
of the life of Jesus,t for two sayings are quoted,
one (5) a curious protest against sacrifices ('1 came
to abolish sacrifices, and if you do not cease sacri-
ficing, the Wrath will not cease from you,' xxx. 16),
and the other (6) a version of Mt 12*'-«' = Mk 3'i-»»
= Lk 8'*'''' (' They deny he is a man, on the ground,
forsooth, of the word which the Saviour spoke when
he was informed, "Behold, thy mother and thy
brothers are standing outside. " " Who is my mother
and my brothers ? " And stretching his hand out to
his disciples he said, "These are my sisters and
mother and brother, who do the will of my Father," *
xxx. 14). If (5) was substituted X for Mt 5'^ (as in
tlie case of (7)), and if the plural deX^/xara in (6) means
the various injunctions of the Law as God's will,
we have two indications of the Jewish Christian
syncretistic and anti-sacrificial § tendency which
dominated the Gospel.
The sole saying (7) which lias been preserved
from the Passion narrative illustrates the vegeta-
rian tendency which we have already seen in the
description oi John the Baptist's food. The Lucan
saying, ' With desire have I desired to eat this
passover with you,' became : ' I have not desired
to eat this passover of lle.sh with you' (xxx.
22). II The Ebionites were vegetarians, probably
because they objected to sexual relations as im-
moral, and con.sequently to animal food as the
product of such relations even among the lower
creatures.
The accuracy of Epiphanius is seldom beyond
question, and it has been surmised that these
quotations in whole or part came from other sources
(so, e.g., Credner, Lipsius, Westcott, Schmidtke).
Thus (5) may have come from the Clementine He-
cognitions (i. 39, 54) and (6) from Origen's comment
on Jn 2'^ But it does not follow that they were
current only in these quarters. And as Epipnanius
does show some close acquaintance with the tenets
reminiscence. On the other hand, the Coptic fragments which
some propose to connect with this Go8i>el (cf. 606) show
marked Johannine colouring.
* See Justin's Dial. 88.
t Origen (rfc Princip. iv. 22) also quotes the Ebionites' inter-
pretation of Mt ir)24.
J Nicholson (p. 77) suggests that it was part of a paragraph
answering to Lk 13in.
{ This led them (Epiph. xviii. 2, xxx. 8, 18) to criticize {wrts of
the Law and even of the prophets, in spite of their admiration
of the OT.
II Or, ' Have I desired . . . you?'
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL) 495
and practices of the Ebionites, it is fair to assume
that his citations from their Gospel are not invari-
ably inaccurate or imaginary. As the quotation (2)
shows, by the substitution of iyxpis for the Synoptic
dicptSfr, the original text was Greek, not Semitic.
Origen (see p. 479) calls it ri i-riyrypay.fUvov rwr
iij)8eKa ei'ayy^ioy, instead of using /card, as he does
in describing the other Gospels on his list, and as
the Latin translator renders it ('iuxta* duodecim
apostolos '). The probability is that a saying like (3)
gave rise to this title ; it would suggest, and perhaps
was intended by the writer to suggest, that the
Gospel was composed bv Matthew inthenameof the
twelve apostles, just like the Gospel of Peter or
(according to one legend) the Fourth Gospel. It is
true that a similar inference may be not unreason-
ably drawn, identifying this Gospel with HG, which
also claimed to be a Gospel of Matthew ; but the
inference would not be so conclusive, for in any
case the Gospel of the Ebionites, like the other
Jewish-ChristianGospels, was based on the canonical
Matthew. Its original title may have been ' the
Gospel of the Twelve by Matthew ' or ' the Gospel of
the Twelve,' for 'the'Gospel of the Ebionites' is
naturally no more than a description of it which
emanated from outside circles. It belonged to the
Synoptic type ; nowhere can it be proved to have
derived from the Johannine Gospel.
(t) The Gospel of the Egyptians.— The ' Gospel of
the Egjptians ' means a Gospel current among the
Egyptians, not a Gospel composed by them. The
title (rd /COT AiyvxTiovi eua'y7Aio»') first occurs in
Clement of Alexandria, who observes that it was used
by people (the Encratites) ol rdrra fidWow ij tQ Kara
TTjv aXrjdeiap evayye\iK(^ <rroiXT/l<fo^Tei Kavbvi (Strom, iii.
9. 66). By the time that Origen wTote, it had been
degraded to the rank of a heretical writing, but
Clement's language implies an earlier attitude
which was more favourable. Thus in Strom. iiL
13. 92 he remarks, a propos of one quotation, ' We
possess this saying {^xof^^ "f"^ pTrr6v) not in the four
Gospels which have been handed down to us, but
in the Gk)spel according to the Egj'ptians.'
The extant quotations are for the most part taken from
dialogues between Jesus and Salome, (a) ' When Salome asked
" How long shall death prevail ? " . . . the Lord said, " So long
as you women bear"' (Clem. Strom, iii. 6. 45). (6) 'Salome
says, " How long shall men die ? " . . . The Lord answers, " So
long as women bear " ' (Strom, iii. 9. &4 ; similarly in Bxcerpta
Theod. 67). (c) '"Then," said she [i.e. Salome], "I would
have done well in not bearing ? " as if child-bearing were not
allowed. The Lord replies, " Eat everj- herb, but do not eat the
bitter t one " ' (Strom, iii. 9. 66). (d) A fourth quotation is less
certain. 'Those who oppose what God has created, in their
specious (or fine-sounding, ev^^ov)continence adduce the words
spoken to Salome which we have mentioned above. They
o«;ur, I think (^xperoi ii, o*m<u), in the Gospel according to the
Egyptians ; for they say, "The Saviour himself said, / eame to
dehroy the tcorks ofthe/einaU " ' (Strom, iii. 9. 63). The hesita-
tion is curious.but it hardly justifies us in arguing that thequota-
tion must have come from a work like the Exegetica of Cassianus
rather than from the Egyptian Gospel. In any case, the leading
idea of (c) and (d) is that the d^nctions of sex are to be
obliterated in the future kingdom, and that marriage as the
bitter herb of bodily passion is therefore to be avoided. This is
still more vividly put in (e\ a fifth quotation. In reply to another
question put by Salome upon the time when the kingdom was
to be revealed, 'The Lord said, "When you tread under foot
the garment of shame, when t the two become one, the male
with the female, neither male nor female " ' (Strom, iii. 13. 92).
Here the 'garment of shame' is the body, which Ouaianua
regarded as the garments of skin in Gn 39. The perfect state
means the abolition of all sexual connexions and the physical
organism which forms their opportunity, according to the
P^hagorean theosophy or perhaps merely Philonic influence.
* By 'iuxta ' he meant to render caro, for he goes on to tnns-
late Kara Mofiiav by ' iuxta Mathian.'
t G. Wobbermin's theorj- (Reliffionxg^sehiehUieAe Studien,
1896, pp. 96-103) that Orphism has influenced this Gospel in-
volves, among other improbabilities, the Uteral meanii^ of
' herb ' here, as an indication of vegetarian tendencies^
J This kind of rhetoric became common in some circles; cf., e.^.,
tbe Acta Philippi, 110 (p. 90,ed.Tischendorf)andthe4etoP«tr»,
38 (C. Schmidt, TU X3dv. [1903]). But the curious fantasy of the
Logion quoted in these AUa does not necessarily imply a use of
the Egj-ptian GospeL
The dialogue form is common in contemporary
Rabbinic tradition, and Salome for some reason
was one of the Synoptic figures to whom the later
Gnostics (cf. her dialogues with Jestis in Putts
Sophia, 102, 104, 114, 115, 343,381) and the Carpocra-
tians (Orig. Ceia. v. 62) assigned an important r61e.
The allusions of Hippolytus and Epiphanins
suggest that the Gospel must have contained pas-
sages capable of a pantheistic development, out
it is naturally impossible to determine, with the
scanty data at our disposal, how far these encratitic
and modalistic theories of the later Naassenes and
Sabellians were due to the text of the Gospel itself
and how far to later interpretations.
The Gospel of the Egyptians was probably used
by the author of the homily ( -h A.D. 150) known as
2 Clement. This is not beyon J question (cf. Zahn ;
Haase, p. 3 ; and BatifFol's plea in his study of the
Gospel m Vigouroux's Dictionnaire de la Bible, ii.
1625-1627),but the e%'idence points strongly in favour
of such a hypothesis. Thus the saying quoted in
Strom, iii. 13. 92 reappears in 2 Clem. xii. 2 : 'When
questioned by someone when His kingdom would
come, the Lord said, " When the two shall be one,
the outward as the inward, the male Avith the
female, neither male nor female." ' If this is so, it
proves that the (jospel of the Egyptians had a high
place, next to the four Gospels, since it is quoted
alongside of them. The writer of 2 Clement gives
quite an orthodox and moral interpretation of the
saying which he cites, and this would again corro-
borate the impression that the Gospel of the Egyp-
tians was not originally Encratitic, but only that
some of its contents lent themselves to such views.
It is possible but hazardous to infer that the three
other uncanonical quotations in 2 Clement are also
derived from the Egyptian Gospel, viz. iv. 5 ('The
Lord said, " If you are gathered with me in my
bosom, and do not my commands, I will cast you
out and will say to you. Depart from me, I know
not whence you are, you workers of iniquity " '),*
v. 2-4 (' The Lord said, " You shall be as lambs in
the midst of wolves." And Peter answered and said
to him, "Supposing the wolves tear the lambs?"
Jesus said to Peter, " Let not the lambs fear the
wolves after death ; and as for you, fear not those
who kill you and can do no more to you, but fear
him who after death has power over soul and body,
to cast them into the fiery gehenna " '), and viii. 5
( ' The Lord said in the Gospel, " If you did not guard
what is small, who shall give you what is great ?
For I teU you that he who is faithful in what is
least is also faithful in what is much " '). The
attempts to identify the Oxyrhynchite fragment
(see below, p. 499), the Oxyrhynchite Logia, the
Strassburg Coptic fragments (cf.'p. 506), the Fayyftm
fragment, or the Gospel of Peter, with this Gospel,
have not succeeded in almost any case in establish -
in^r a proof which is beyond que-stion, although the
affinities with the (first series of) Oxyrhynchite
Logia perhaps justify us in assigning the latter
provisionally to this Egyptian scripture (cf. J. A.
Kobinson in Expositor, oth ser., vi. [1897] 417 f.).
The use made of it by men like Julius Cassianus,
a leader of the Docetic movement who was tinged
Avith Encratitic tendencies, and Theodotus, the
Egyptian Valentinian, together with its popular-
ity among Christian circles like the Naassenes and
the Sabellians.t may have contributed to the dis-
* In the context of a passage like Ut 7^^? Practically the
same Logion occurs among toe sditdia of the HG (cf. above,
p. 492). Does this mean tl^t the Clement quotations go hmA
to NG, or that the scholia borrowed from 2 dement^ or that
the Logion lay in both NG and EG ? Cf. Scfamidtke, p. 297f.
t According to Hippol.vtus (Philot. v. 7% it ¥ras one of the
writings exploited by the Gnostic Naassenes ; according to
Epiphanius (Ixii. 2), tbie SabeOians med it(Tow trnXevfterov Aiyyw-
Tutv cvayycAiov) in support of their tenets. Both notices
corroborate the Egyptian provenance of the GospeL The
Sabellians used it along vs-iih the OT and the XT.
496 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
favour into which it afterwards fell. Originally
its position relative to tlie canonical Gospels may
have resembled that of the Gospel according to
the Hebrews. Like the latter and the Gospel of
Peter, it circulated for a while without incurring
any suspicions or hostility on the part of the
authorities.
Unlike the Gospel of the Hebrews, it seems
neither to have been a translation nor to have
been translated. Kar' AlyvtrTiovs does not mean,
'in Coptic'; the most probable explanation is
that it denotes a Gospel meant for and used by
the native Egyptian converts, Just as Kad"E^paiovi
meant a Gospel originally de.signed for the Jewish
Christians oi Palestine. It is possible that the
Gospel of the Hebrews reached the Jewish Chris-
tians of Alexandria (Egypt), and that the Gospel
of the Egyptians was so named in order to dis-
tinguish it from its contemporary ; but this is no
more than conjecture, although Aly^imos is known
to have meant 'provincial' as op})Osed to 'Alex-
andrian.' Zahn accounts for the title and circula-
tion of the Gospel by supposing that already, as
in later days, the provincial churches of Egypt
did not invariably follow the Alexandrian Church,
and that, while the latter adhered more closely
to the canonical Gospels, the country churches
favoured the native product.* This meets the
requirements of the situation during the later
Eart of the 2nd cent, as fairly as any other
ypothesis, and may be accepted tentatively as
satisfactory. But there is no reason to suppose
that the Egyptian Gospel only followed in the
wake of the four canonical Gospels. Unfortun-
ately, our knowledge of the origins of Christianity
in Egypt is extremely scanty until the middle
of the 2nd century. I'here is, further, the lack of
adequate information about the exact contents of
the Gospel of the Egyptians. But if the latter
could be used by tlie author of a non-Egyptian
document like 2 Clement by the middle of the
2nd cent., the Egyptian Gospel may have been
current c. A.D. 125, if not earlier.
Special Literature. — M. Schneckenburger, Ueber das
Evawjelimn der Aegypter, Bern, 1834 (edition of the Gospel
of the Hebrews, in the interests of an Ejcyptian Ebionitic sect) ;
Hilgenfeld, Ketzerqeseh. des Urchristenthurns, Leipzig, 1884, p.
546 f. ; D. Volter, Fetninerangelium oder Aegypterevangelinini
Tubingen, 1893 (cf. ZNTW, 1905, pp. 368-372) ; O. Pfleiderer,
Prim. Christianity, iii., London, 1910, pp. 225-228. It is pos-
sible (cf. Baumstark in ZNTW, 1913, pp. 232-247) that traces
of the use of the Gospel of the Egyptians are to be found in the
Ethiopia 'Testament of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Clirist,'
recently edited by L. Guerrier and S. Gr^baut in Patrologia
Orientalis, ix. 3 [1913] ; and an attempt has been made (by F.
P. Badham and F. C. Conybeare, IIJ \\. [1912-13] 805 f.) to
show that, like the ' Ascensio Isaias,' it was read by the Cathars
of Albi.
(d) The Gospel of Peter.— The Gospel of Peter
was used, either for jjrivate reading or in
public Avorship, by the Church at Rhossus on the
coast of Syria, not far from Antioch, in the last
quarter of the 2nd cent. Its use appears to
have occasioned some doubt and dispute, however.
Serapion, the bishop of Antioch (A.D. 190-203),
who seems to have been either a casual or a
tolerant person, at first declined to take any steps
in the matter ; he sanctioned the use of theGospel,
without troubling to examine it carefully. Sub-
sequently, he borrowed a copy from some Docetic
Christians, and discovered that ' although most
of it belonged to the right teaching of the Saviour,
some things were additions.' By the time Eusebius
(HE vi. 12) wrote, it was definitely branded as
illegitimate. t It is doubtful whether Eusebius
knew it at first-hand, and the later allusions to it
* The author is unknown, and no name was ever connected
with it— which is one mark of early origin, at any rate of an
origin apart from any special sect or tendency.
t The harsh censure of Eusebius {11 E iii. 3) is repeated by
Jerome {,de Vir. iilusir. 1).
are probably Ijorrowed from him. At the same
time, it has to be remembered that the Gospel of
Peter was not obliterated by the episcopal censure
of Serapion. Its circulation was never wide, but
it was tenacious. Tlie Syriac Didascalia (cf.
TU, new sen, x. 2 [1904], p. 324 f.) in the 3rd cent,
and Syriac Jewish Christians as late as the 5th
witness to its existence and popularity (cf. Theod.
Hcer. fabul. ii. 2) * in Syriac ; and the discovery of
the Akhmtm fragment attests its circulation in
Egypt. Still later traces are detected by Usenet
{ZNTW, 1902, p. 353 f.), Stocks (ZKG, 1913, p. 3),
and Leipoldt [Geschichte des neatest. Kanons, i.
177 f.).
About A.D. 246 Origen, in his Commentary on
Matthew (x. 17) observes that 'The citizens of
Nazareth (Mt 13'") supposed Jesus was the son of
Joseph and Mary ; as for the brothers of Jesus,
some say they were .sons of Joseph by a former
wife who had lived with him before Mary, on the
ground of a tradition in the Gospel entitled xari
Mirpov or the book of James.' This tradition, we
now know, existed in the primitive source of the
Protevangelium Jacobi (cf. p. 484). But it does
not follow that it did not also exist in the Gospel
of Peter. If so, that Gospel belongs to our second
class ; and one consideration in favour of this is
the extreme unlikelihood of Peter's name being
specially attached to a Gospel which did not cover
the ministry of Jesus. Till the winter of 1886-
1887 this solitary reference was all that was
known of the Gospel ; but the discovery of an
8th cent, manuscript of fra^ients of Peter's
Gospel, Peter's Apocalypse, and Enoch in Greek, at
Akhmim in Upper Egypt, revealed more of the
characteristics of this Gospel. Unluckily, the frag-
ment begins and ends abruptly. It opens with
the end of the trial ; Pilate has washed his hands,
but none of the other judges (including Herod)
does so. Herod takes the leading part in what
follows,t the aim of the author being to exculpate
the Romans and emphasize the responsibility and
guilt of the Jews. In the story of the Crucifixion
one of the malefactors reproaches not his fellow-
criminal but the Jewish by-standers, who retaliate
by leaving his legs unbroken in order to prolong
his agony. It is at this point that the Docetic and
semi-Gnostic tendencies of the writer begin to
show themselves. On the Cross the Lord 'was
silent, as having no pain ' ; his last cry is, ' My
Power, my Power, hast thou forsaken me ? ' When
His dead body is lowered to the ground, there
is an earthquake. The Jewish mob and their
authorities then X repent, crying, ' Alas for our
sins ! the judgment, the end of Jerusalem, is
nigh ! ' At this point the author § brings Peter on
the scene. ' I and my companions grieved, and,
struck to the heart, we hid ourselves, for we were
being sought for by them [i.e. the Jews] as male-
factors and as intending to set fire to the temple.'
Meantime Pilate has the tomb guarded, at the
request of the Jews. The author then ventures
to describe the Resurrection.il ' There was a loud
* But Theodoret's evidence is not above suspicion. How
could 'Nazarene' Jewish Christians make so anti-Jewish a
book their favourite Gospel ? Theodoret's reference, like several
other references of the same kind, may be to a different volume
from our ' Peter.'
i But it is difficult to understand why the writer did not
draw material for his anti-Jewish representation from the
vain appeals of Pilate to the Jews, or from their deliberate pre-
ference of Barabbas to Jesus. Perhaps these were noted in
sections which have not been preserved.
X This is inconsequent ; but here as elsewhere the fragment
does not seem to have preserved the true order of the text.
Or, possibly, it has omitted connecting material.
§ This Gospel, like the Protevangelium Jacobi and the^Gospel
of the Twelve, is definitely pseudonymous.
II On the connexion between what follows and the Jewish
doctrine of the heavenly Adam, see Stocks' essay in NKZ, 1902,
1>. 302 f., ib. 1903, p. 528 f. The Cross probably symbolizes the
soul of Jesus (see, further; p. &00).
GOSPELS (UNCAi^^ONICAL)
GOSPELS (UXCANONICAL) 497
voice in lieaven, and they [i.e. tlie sentries] saw
heaven opened and two men descending thence,
Avith a great light, and approaching the tomb.'
The boulder at the opening moves of its own accord,
the two figures enter, and the astonished soldiers
(including the centurion and the elders) ' see three
men coming out of the tomb, two supporting the
third, and a Cross following them ; the heads of
the two reached as far as heaven, but the head of
the One whom they escorted was higher than the
heavens. And they heard a voice from the heavens
saying, " Hast thou preached to them that sleep?"
And from the Cross the answer came, "Yes."'
The next vision is that of a man descending from
heaven and entering the sepulchre. The party of
soldiers and Jews then retreat, and agree to say
nothing about what they have seen. The following
paragraph describes how Mary Magdalene took
her friends on the morning of Sunday to wait at
the tomb. They find a comely youth inside [ = the
man who had entered ?] ; he tells them that the
Lord has risen to heaven [there is no Ascension],
and they fly in terror. The fragment then breaks
ofi" abruptly: 'Now it was the last day of Un-
leavened Bread, and many went away home, since
the feast was over ; but we, the twelve disciples
of the Lord, wept and grieved. Each left for
home, grieved at what had occurred ; but I,
Simon Peter, and Andrew my brother, took our
nets and went to the sea, and with us were Levi
the son of Alphaeus, whom the Lord . . .'
According to ' Peter,' there are no Resurrection
appearances to the women or to the disciples in
Jerusalem. The fragment breaks off on the edge
of what seems to be an account of some appearance
at the Sea of Galilee to Peter, Andrew, Levi (and
some others ?). This would tally with the appear-
ance preserved in the appendix to ' Jolin,' only, in
' Peter ' it would be an appearance of the Ascended
Christ, for the word of the young man (angel) to
the woman at the tomb is, ' he has risen and gone
away to where he was sent from ' (dxeo-TdXij, i.e.
from heaven, as in Lk 4^, where Mark's ^^\0or, i.e.
from Capernaum, is changed into areffrdXTjv, i.e. from
heaven). A further idiosj-ncrasy is the apparent
length of interval between the Resurrection and the
flight of the disciples from Jerusalem to Galilee.
Did the writer really mean that a week elapsed ?
Or is his description due to chronological in-
accuracy ?
Whether the terminus ad quern for the com-
position of the Gospel can be carried back earlier
than the last quarter of the 2nd cent, depends
upon the view taken of its relation to Justin Martyr.
It had been already conjectured by Credner and
others that the Gospel of Peter might be one of the
apostolic memoirs used by Justin, and this con-
jecture seems corroborated by the Akhmim frag-
ment, which apparently supplies the basis for the
references in Apol. i. 35 (the seating of Jesus on
the;3^^),i. 40 ('The Spirit of prophecy foretold . . .
the conspiracy formed against Christ by Herod, the
king of the Jews, and the Jews themselves, and
Pilate . . . with his soldiers'), and possibly i. 50,
as well as in Diai. 103 (where Herod is termed ' a
king'). Dial. 97 (XaxM/by j3d\XojTes — the phrase in
' Peter '), and Di<il. 108. Upon the whole, this
dependence of Justin upon the Gospel of Peter
seems preferable (so,e.g., Hamack, von Soden,Lods)
to the alternative hypothesis of von Schubert and
Stanton (Gospels as Hist. Documents, i. [1903] 93 f.,
103 f.) that the coincidences between the two are
due to the use of a common source, viz. the Acts of
Pilate, an olficial report of the trial of Jesus pur-
jwrting to have been drawn up by the procurator
and perhaps underlying the references in the later
Acta Pilati and in Tertullian.
This fixes the date of the Gospel's composition
VOL. I, — 32
approximately within the first quarter of the second
century. The terminus a quo depends upon the
view taken of its dependence on the canonical
Gospels. Those who find in it traces of all four —
as if the writer knew them and employed them
indifferently, quoting perhaps from memory, to
suit his own dogmatic ends — naturally place the
Gospel c. A.D. 125 as a very early attempt to employ
the canonical traditions in the interests of a Gnostic
propaganda. The dependence on Mark and even
Xiatthew is, we think, to be granted. The coinci-
dences between 'Peter' and Luke and John (cf.
Lods, op. cit. 18 f.) are not quite so clear.* There
is room still for the hypothesis that ' Peter' repre-
sents a popular, early type of the inferior narratives
which Luke desired to supersede. At several points
' Peter ' marks the same line of development which
recurs in Luke and John, and as a composition from
Syrian Antioch, with which the traditions of Luke
and John are independently connected, it may even
be conjectured to have arisen within the 1st cen-
tury. To a modem reader, a comparison of its
text with those of Luke and John seems at first
sight to put its dependence on them beyond doubt.
But doubts recur as soon as we recollect that the
specific traditions which for us exist primarily in
Luke and John were already in existence, at least
orally, and that touches which are extant in litera-
ture in these canonical (Jospels for the first time
must have been current decades earlier. Take,
for example, a piece of evidence like that of the
' garden ' of Joseph. ' Peter ' mentions this. The
Fourth Gospel also does. Therefore, it is assumed,
' Peter ' used the Fourth Gospel. Why ? It is
surely illogical for those who believe that this
formed part of the authentic tradition to assume
that the only access to it was through the text of
a Gospel at the very end of the 1st century. And
even apart from this, such a tradition may have
been ea.sily known orally decades before it was
committed to writing, t The evidence generally
alleged for the dependence of ' Peter ' upon Luke
and John must be sifted in the light of this con-
sideration, and also with a desire to avoid the
mistake of supposing that inferior traditions are
invariably later, chronologically, than the written
forms of what is more authentic. ' Peter,' like the
Gospel of the Hebrews, is in danger of being read
in the light of an uncritical assumption that the 1st
cent. A.D. saw nothing but the circulation of good
traditions about the life of Jesus, that the canonical
Gospels swept up all of these into their pages, and
that the uncanonical Gospels represent invariably
the later, fantastic efibrts of a generation which
had to make up by the exercise of its imagination
for the lack of sound materials.
The traces of Gnostic speculation confirm the
hypothesis of a date early in the 2nd cent, if
not Avithin the 1st. They are too incipient and
naive to be described as related to the system of
Valentinus ; neither the personification of the
Cross nor the allusion to Christ's Divine Power is
much more than the popular setting of ideas which
form the basis for the doctrines attacked in the
First Epistle of John and in Ignatius. ' Peter ' is
not the attempt of a Gnostic theorist to work over
the canonical texts in the interests of Docetism or
Valentinianism.
As soon as the Akhmim fragment was published,
• ' Peter,' e.g., introduces Herod among: tlje jadses of Jesus.
So far be agrees witii the tradition followed by Lake, bnt then
be calls Herod ' the king,' whereas Luke corrects this (SP) Marcan
term (6^*) at an earlier stage, and never uses it in the Passion
narrative.
t Even apart from the possibility of common written sources,
the factor of oral tradition must be estimated if we are not here,
as in the Svnoptic problem, to be misled by the juxtapcsition of
printed texts with hj-potheses which are ultra-literary and
artaiicial.
498 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
it was conjectured by some critics that tlie Akhmlm
fragment of the Apocalypse of Peter might also be
a part, or an elaboration of part, of the Gospel.
The Apocalypse contains a vision of two righteous
saints in heaven granted to the twelve on ' the
mountain,' with a special revelation, granted to
Peter alone, of hell. A similar problem emerges
(cf. p. 504) in connexion with the so-called
'Gospel of Bartliolomew.' The dividing line
between Apocalj'pses and Gospels of our third class
is naturally wavering, and if on other grounds it
could be established that the Gospel of Peter was
originally a Gospel of the Death and Resurrection,
there would be less improbability about the con-
Jecture that the Petrine Apocalyi)se and the
'etrine Gospel were either the same work, to begin
with, or organically related.
Repeated attempts have been made to connect
this Gospel with material extant in other qujirters.
V5lter (cf. p. 496) actually identifies it with the
Gospel of the Egyptians ; Harnack suggests that
the Pericope Adulteraj originally belonged to it ;
and H. Stocks (ZKG, 1913, pp. 1-57) argues that
lost fragments of it are embedded in Asc. Is. xi.
2-22, iii. 13Mv. 18 (the latter passage describes,
inter alia, how the Beloved appeared on the third
day sitting on the shoulders of Gabriel and Michael,
Avho had opened the tomb).
The remarkable phrase about Jesus feeling no
pain (d)s fi-qS^v irbvov ^xwv) on the Cross ought perhaps
to be taken in the light of the description of the
heroic Blandina amid her tortures (/uijS^ aXcrdi^cnv
(ti tC)v ffVfjL^aivdvrup ^xow** ^^^ '^'' ^^T/5a kt\., Eus.
HE V. 1. 56).
Spbcial Liter aturb.— The Akhniim fragment, first published,
six years after its discovery, bj' U. Bouriant in Mimoirespxibliis
par les membres de la mission archMogique frangaise au Caire
ix. 1 (Paris, 1892), 137-147, with a photographic reproduction
{ib. ix. 3, 1893, p. 217 f.), led to a series of critical editions by O.
von Gebhardt (Das Eeangelixim und die Apokalypge des Peinis,
Leipzig, 1893); A. l^ods* {L'iivangile et I'apoealypse de Pierre
. . . avec un appendice sur les rectijications d apporter au texte
grec du livre d' Henoch, Paris, 1893); H. von Schubert t {Die
Composition des pseudo-petrinischen Evanqelienfragments, Ber-
lin, 1893) ; Zahn {Das Evangelium des Petrtis, Erlangen and
Leipzig, 1893) ; Harnack {TLT ix. 2, Leipzig, 1893, pp. 8 f., 23 f.) ;
J. Kunze {Das neiiaufge/undene. Bruehstiick des sogen. Petrus-
evangelium, do., 1893); P. Lejay (in REG, 1893, pp. 59-84, 267-
270) ; van Manen {IJet evangelie van Petrus. Tekst en Vertaling,
Leiden, 1893) ; and Semeria (in HO, 1894, pp. 622-560). English
editions by J. A. Robinson and M. R. James {The Gospel
according to Peter and the Revelation of Peter", London, 1892) ;
H. B. Swete {The Apocryphal Gospel of St. Peter. The Greek
text of the newly discovered fragment^, London, 1893 ; also,
Eitavye'Aio;' koto. ITc'Tpoi'. The Akhmim fragment of the Apoc-
ryphal Gospel of S. Peter edited with an introduction, notes,
and indices, London, 1893) ; the Author of ' Supernatural
Religion ' {The Gospel according to Peter, London, 1894) ; and A.
Rntnerfurd {Ante-Nicene Chr. Lib. ix., Edinb., 1897, pp. 3-31,
with J. A. Robinson's tr.). Critical studies by A. Sabatier
(L'Evangile de Pierre et les ivang. canonique's, Paris, 1893) •
A. Hilgenfeld {ZWT, 1893, p. 439 f.); von Soden {ZTK, 1893,
pp. 62-92); V. H. Stanton {JThSl ii. [1900-01] Iff.); Vblter
{ZNTW, 1905, p. 368f.); K. Lake {The Resurrection of Jesus
Christ, London, 1907, pp. 148 f., 177 f.); and C. H. Turner
(JThSt xiv. [1912-13] 101 ff.).
(e) The Gospel of Basilides. — In Alexandria
Basilides and his school maintained their apostolic
succession along two lines. They claimed as their
authority for doctrine Glaucias, the interpreter of
Peter (Clem. Strom, vii. 17. 4), and they circulated
an edition of the Gospel or Gospels which liad been
prepared in their own interests. This is the so-
called ' Gospel of Basilides,' though the title (/card
Ba<rtX(57;i') was of course due to his opponents.
There seems no reason to doubt the accuracy of
Origen's reference to a Gospel of Basilides, which
that distinguished Egyptian Gnostic must have
composed before the middle of the 2nd cent.
* Besides an earlier study, Evangelii secundum Petrum et
Petri Apocalypseos quce supersunt . . . cum latina vergione et
dissertatione critica, Paris, 1892.
t A smaller pamphlet by this writer (Das Petrusevangelittm.
Synoptxsche Tabelle nehst Uebersetzrtng und kritischem Apparat,
Berlin, 1893) was translated by J. Macpherson (Tlie Gospel of
St. Peter, Edinburgh, 1893).
(possibly under Hadrian, or even Trajan), but the
only means of determining approximately its
character is furnished by the quotations made by
Clement of Alexandria (Strom, iv. 12) from the
twenty-third, and by the Acta Archelai (Ixvii., ed.
C. H. Beeson) from the thirteenth, of the twenty-
four books of Excgetica which Basilides himself
composed as a conmientary upon it. These quota-
tions make it improbable that the Gospel was
merely a collection of sayings of Jesus, like the so-
called Q or second source of Mattliew and Luke.
The glimpses we can gain of it * rather point either
(a) to a compilation or harmony based on the
canonical Gospels (Zahn, Kriiger, IJardenhewer), or
(b) to a more independent Gospel of tlie Synoptic
type. The similarities between the extant frag-
ments (e.g. that from the 13th book relates to the
Parable of Dives and Lazarus) and Luke's Gospel
have led some critics (e.g. Lipsius, Windisch, and
Waitz) to conjecture that Ba.silides simply prepared
an edition of Luke for his own purposes. In this
case, his Gospel would be, like that of Marcion, an
altered form of our canonical Third Gospel. Origen
more than once refers in his Homilies on Luke to
the numerous heretics who had recourse to this
Gospel, quoting it like the devil for anti-divine
purposes of their own. As Basilides is grouped
with Marcion in Origen's references, and as the
extant fragments can almost without exception t
be described as distinctively Lucan, it is not un-
likely that his fvayyiXiov was an edition of Luke.
Special Literature.— Hilgenfeld's Einleitung in das Neue
Testament, p. 46 f. ; Zahn's Gesehichte des Kanons, i. 70.'}-774 :
'Basilides und die kirchliche Bibel'; and H. Windisch in
ZNTW, 1906, pp. 236-246 : ' Das Evangelium des Basilides.'
(/) The Oospel of Marcion. — Marcion's ' Gospel '
was certainly an edition of Luke, prepared for the
use of those who shared his anti]iathy to Judaism.
This dogmatic purpose explains most of the omis-
sions— e.g. of the first two chapters, of H^s-sa^ and
of 20^'^^. It is a further question whether his text
does not occasionally reproduce a more original
form than that of the canonical Luke. But in any
case his ' Gospel,' though to a slight degree harmon-
istic (i.e. introducing material from other Gospels),
is not in the strict sense of the term an inde-
pendent uncanonical production. Its title was
'the Gospel of the Lord.' The best critical recon-
struction is in Zahn's Gesch. des Kanons, i. 674 f . , ii,
409 f., together with Sanday's Gospels in the Second
Century (1876, ch. viii.). Hahn's earlier reconstruc-
tion (1823) was translated into English by J. Ham-
lyn Hill (Marcion's Gospel, 1891).
(g) The Gospel of Apelles. — Apelles, Marcion's
disciple, is said by Epiphanius (xliv. 2) to have
quoted the Logion, ybecrde dSKifioi Tpairf^rai, as
occurring iv rip evayyeXlifi. If so, he must have
used other Gospels than that of his master, for the
saying does not occur in Marcion's Luke. But it
does not follow that he edited or composed a
Gospel of his own. The Logion was evidently
current in many quarters (cf. Resch, TU xxx. pp.
112-128), though it never occurs in any fragment
of an uncanonical Gospel. Apelles simply used it to
corroborate his principle of selecting from Scripture
the salient passages (x/>w y^p, iprt^lv, avb trdat]! ypa<pTJ^
dvaXiywv rd xP'Jc'A'tt).
(h) The Gospel of the Naassenes.— In the Philo-
sophouniena, Hippolytus quotes a number of Gospel-
* Jesus did not suffer on the Cross (Iren. i. 24. 4), but changed
places with Simon of Cyrene, and stood mocking those who
imagined they were crucifying Him. This Docetic representa-
tion of IrensBus differs froin that of Hippolytus, according to
whom the Jesus of Basilides really died and rose (cf. p. 501).
t The tragnient {Strom, iv. 12) which Zahn connects with Jn
91-3 tnay be connected eqvially well with Lk 21i'f- or 2339f. ; and
the other fragment, which seems to echo ,Mt 19'* (S/rom. iii. 1 -2)
l>robably was taken not from the 'EfTrj^TTiita of Basilides but
from the 'llBiKa of Isidore his son (mentioned in the immediate
context).
GOSPELS (UNCANOXICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCAXONICAL) 499
sayings from the usage of the Ophite Naassenes,
but whether tliey came from a special Gospel com-
posed by this Gnostic sect or whether they are
simply citations from some treatise likeithe Gospel
of Perfection or the Gospel of Eve, it b not possible
to say. In the former case, it must have been a
Gospel compiled from the uncanonieal Gospels.
One citation is : ' Why call me good ? One is
good, my Father who is in heaven, who makes his
sun rise on the just and the unjust and sends rain
on the holy and on sinners' (Lk 18>', Mt 5").
Another is : ' Unless you drink my blood and eat
ray flesh, you shall not enter the kingdom of
heaven — and even though you do drink the cup
I drink, whither I go thither you cannot enter.'
Two are distinctively Johannine ; one runs thus :
' His voice we heard, but his form we have not seen "^
and the other, ' I am the true Door.' The follow-
ing are distinctively Matthaean : ' You are whited
sepulchres, inwardly full of dead men's bones, since
the living Man is not among you,' and ' The dead
shall leap from the tombs.' The Gospel — if it
was a Gospel — was a Gnostic compilation, but
neither its date nor its scope can be determined
from the few extant fragments. The general
tenets of the sect, as recorded by Hippolytus,
suggest that it had some affinities with the circle
which used the Gospel of the Egyptians.
(i) Three Oxyrhynchite (Greek) fragments. — (i.)
A small fragment of a Gospel in a papyrus roll is as-
signed by Grenfell-Hunt (Oxyrhynchns Papyri, iv.
[1904], pp. 22-2S) to a period not later than A.D. 250.
The mutilated opening reads like a short para-
phrase of Mt 6^=Lk 1222-a Mt 6^- »=Lk 12"- »*,
Mt 62^-2i-^ = Lk 12^29-n. .fj-om morning t[ill
evening, nor] from even[ing till mjoming, neither
[for your food] what you shall eat [nor] for [your
clothing] what you shall put on. [You are] far
better than the [lil]ies which grow but spin not.
. . . Having one garment, what [do you lack?].
. . . "Who could add to your stature? He will
give you your garment.' Then follows (cf. Jn
li'**-) a question put by the disciples, with the
answer of Jesus. ' HLs disciples say to him, "When
wilt thou be manifest to us, and when shall we see
thee? He says, When you are stripped and yet
not ashamed. . . .'* Finally, a mutilated frag-
ment at the end may be deciphered so as to yield
a saying like that preserved in Lk 11'-, but the
restoration is too conjectural to be of any service
in determining the original sense of the passage.
The editors think the Gospel of which this
formed a fragment mtist have been composed in
Egypt prior to A.D. 150, and that it was closely
connected in some way mth the Egyptian (Jospel
and the uncanonieal source of 2 Clement. The
fragment seems to be from some homily on the
Eassage Mt 6^'*, in which the preacher dramatizes
is teaching by putting it into the form of a
dialogue. The edifying tendency corresponds to
the primitive Christian instinct about marriage
and the sexes which afterwards developed into
Encratitism, but which neither then nor afterwards
has been incompatible with orthodox belief. The
question and answer at the close form a mystic ex-
pansion of the preceding saying about the garment
— an expansion which presupposes a verl^l form
of the Logion like that of the Gospel of the Egyp-
tians as it appears in Clement's citation, not in
that of 2 Clem. (seep. 495), although here the ques-
tion is put by the disciples instead of by an indivi-
dual (Salome?). Resch (TU new ser. xiL [1904]
593 n.) holds that the whole fragment comes from
the Egyptian Gospel ; but there is not enough evi-
dence as yet to show that the OxyrhjTichite Gospel
• i.e. when the Eden -innocence (Gn oj) is restored, and
Kzual associations abolished. Cf. R. Reitzenst«in's BMenii-
tiiche WunderendJihtngen, Leipzig, 1906, pp. 67-68.
was identical with this early document. Such
ascetic tendencies were not contined to any one
circle, and it is uncritical to assume that the varied
expressions of them which survive in Gospel
fn^^ents belonged to the same document, or even
to diiierent recensions of the .same document. The
Oxyrhynchite Gospel may have been the source
used in 2 Clement ; the difference in the M-ording
of the two passages is not conclusive against this
conjecture as it is against the theory that the
Oxyrhj-nchite Gfospel or the Clementine source
is identical with the Gospel according to the
Hebrews.
(ii.) A second Oxyrhynchite fragment was pub-
lished in 1907 by Grenfell and Hunt {op. cit. v. 840),
from a vellum leaf of the 4th (5th ?) century. It
begins with the conclusion of an address by Jesus
to the disciples and proceeds to a dialogue between
Jesus and a high priest in the temple* at Jerusalem
(cf. Mk 11^), the theme of which (cf. Mk V^) is the
contrast between inward and outward purity :
'" . . . before doing wrong he makes all aoidustical excuses
(vorra oo^t^mu). But take heed lest yoa suffer like them, for
the eril-doers among men do not receive [their due] among the
liring simply, bat await pmiishment and sore torture." And
taking tbcan [t.«. the disciples] he broaght them into the sacred
precinct (to ayFrvr^fHor) and walked within the temple. And
a Pharisee, a high priest named Levi (!% came up to ihem and
said to the Saviour, " Who aUowed you to tread the precinct and
look at these holy vessels when vou have not washed, neither
have yonr disoples bathed their feet ? Nay, yoa are defiled and
yoa have trodden this holy Place which is <jean, which no one
treads unless he has washed and changed hu clothes, neither
does he [rentnre to look at] the holy Teasels." And . . . (with T)
the disciples . . . [the Saviour said], "Then are you dean, you
who are in the temple ? " He says to him, "I am clean ; for I hare
washed in the pool of David, and after descending by one stair I
ascended by another, put on clean, white clothes, and then came
and gazed on these holy vessels." IJieSavioursaidtohiminreply,
" Woe to you, blind folk, who see not ! You have washed in
these running waters, in which dogs and swine have been flung
night and day ; and yoa have wiped clean the ootdde skin,
which even harlots and Snte-girls f anoint and wash and wipe
and adorn to excite the lust of men, while within tbey are [full ?]
of scorpions and [aU rice?). Xow I and [my disciples?], who,
you say, have not bathed, have bathed in the [living?] waters
which issue from . . . But woe to . . ." '
Like the fotir scraps recently discovered {op. cit.
X. [1913] 1224), this extract cannot be assigned to
any of the 2nd cent, uncanonieal Gospels. That
it Delonged to this century is questioned by the
editors, who point out that the ecclesiastical vogue
of the canonical Gospels, which became strong to-
wards the close of the 2nd cent., would make
it difficult for any document covering the same
ground to gain acceptance, and that ' after about
.\.D. 180 authors of apocryphal Gospels generally
avoided competition with the uncanonieal Grospefs
by placing their supposed revelations in the period
of the Childhood or after the Resurrection.' If
our fragment does not belong to the (Jospel of the
Egyptians, it at any rate betrays no dogmatic or
heretical tendency. On the other hand, the author's
acquaintance with the local customs of the Jewish
temple in the 1st cent, seems defective (cf. J.
Horst in SK, 1914, p. 451 f., and Preusclien in
ZNTW, 1908, pp. 1-12), though more favourable
verdicts have been passed occasionally on this
feature of the fragment (cf. A. Biichler in JQR
XX. [1907-08], 330?.; Sulzbach in ZNTW, 1908,
p. 175 f.; and L. Blau, ib. pp. 204-215).
(iii.) A tattered leaf of papyrus, 'copied probably
in the earlier decades of the 4th cent.,' contain-
ing fragments of a Gnostic (iospel, has been pub-
lished by Hunt( in The Oxyrhynchvs Papyri,
viii. [1911], p. 16 f. From what can be deciphered,
it is clear that the contents must have come from
some Valentinian or Marcosian source. Not only
* This is one of the most remarkable features in the fragment.
The uncanonieal Gospels of the 2nd cent, very rarely famish
any material for the Jerusalem ministry of Jesus.
t This curious collocation occurs in another ftagmoit of an
uncanonieal Gospel (cf. above, p. 492). probaUy NO ; Waits
infers that our fragment came from the latter.
500 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCAITONICAL)
is the Lord called (xur-Zip, as well as /ci/ptoj (cf. Iren.
i. 1. 3),* but a distinction is drawn between iraTijp
and irpoirdTup {it. i. 1. 1, 12. 3, etc.).+
'Lord, how then can we find faith? The Saviour sa.vs to
them, When .vou pass from tliinj^s hidden [into the light of?]
things vi8i>>le, then the etHucnce (iiroppoia) of conception
(ecfoiaf) will show to you how faith ... He who has ears to
hear, let him hear. The Lord (Stairo-nK) of [all thing^a?] is not
the Father but the Fore-father ; for the Father is the source of
the things that are to come (apxi? i<rrlv rmv fifK\6vTu>v). . . .
He who has an ear for what is beyond hearing [('.«. for the
mystic or inner meaning. But the text is uncertain], let him
hear. I speak also to those who watch not. Again ... he
said, Everything born of corruption perishes, as the pro<iuct of
corruption ; but what is born of incorruption (a.'i>Oapai.ai) does
not perish, but remains incorruptible as the product of incor-
ruption. Some men have been deceived, not knowing . . .'
(j) Three Sahidic fragments. — It may be no
more than a coincidence that Thomas should be
mentioned in the second series of the Oxyrhynchite
Logia,t and that he § is also exceptionally import-
ant in the third of five Sahidic || Gospel fragments
published by Forbes Robinson (TS iv. 2 [1896],
pp. 168-176). The fragment is long and remark-
able. In the description of the feeding of the five
thousand, Jesus bids Thomas go to the man (lad)
who has the loaves and fi.shes. After the miracle,
Thomas asks for a further proof of the Resurrection,
in the raising of a man from the tomb, not merely
in the raising of a dead, unburied person like the
son of the widow of Nain. Then the dialogue of
Jn 20'"''^ is used to introduce the raising of Lazarus.
Jesus takes Thomas (Didymus) specially with him :
' Come with Me, O Didymus, that I may show
thee the bones which have been dissolved in the
tomb gatliered together again.' The entire story
(cf. Revillout, Les Apocryphes copies, p. 132 f.) is re-
told with the special motive of re-as.suring Thomas.
It is Thomas who, at the bidding of Jesus, removes
the stone from the tomb.
This Gospel must have been comprehensive. It
included (fragm. 1) an account of the birth of
John the Baptist and of Jesus, and also the
Ministry, the Death, and the Resurrection. Thus
the second Gospel fragment describes the wedding
at Cana. The Johannine account is embroidered
with some fresh details ; Mary is the sister of the
bridegroom's parents, and it is they who appeal to
her for help when the wine fails, pleading that this
lack will disgrace them as the hosts of Jesus, and
that as the Saviour of the world He can do any
miracle. The Johannine reply of Je.sus to Mary
(here = ' Woman, what wilt thou with me?') is
softened by tiie observation that Jesus spoke ' in a
kindly voice,' and by the repeated remark that
Mary felt sure He Avould not grieve her in anything.
The rest of the story is told by one of the servants
who fill the waterpots. The fourth fragments
contains a conversation on the mount of Jn 6^- ^'
between the disciples and Jesus, in which Jesus
asserts that His kingdom is spiritual. Pilate and
the Roman authorities, however, propose to make
Him King of Judaja ; such is their admiration for
His miracles and character. Herod ** opposes this.
* This would not of itself mean much ; the same title occurs
in the earlier Oxyrhynchite fragment (cf. p. 499).
t ayeVioTTO? also occurs in the lacunae.
I In The Oxyrhynchus Logia and the Apocryphal Gospels,
1899, C. Taylor connects the first series with the Gospel of
Thomas ; cf. Scott-Moncrieff, Paganism and Christianity in
Egypt, 1913, p. 64 f .
§ Photius (\\\oief,{Bihliothe.ca, 232) a tradition that it was he, not
Peter, who cut off the ear of the high priest's servant (Jn 1810).
II The Egyptian colouring comes out in the cry of I^zarus,
when he is raised: 'Blessed art thou, Jesus, at whose voice
Amenti trembles.' The idea of Jn 1125.45 jg expressed by say-
ing that the multitudes 'gathered together to Lazarus, like bees
to a honeycomb, because of the wonder which was come to pass.'
% It corresponds to a Coptic f rnginent published by Revillout
(Apocryphes copies du nmineau 'J'c.itament, Paris, 1876, p. 124 f.),
and is assigned by that scholar to his ' Gospel of Gamaliel ' (see
below, p. 504).
** The aiiti-Herodian bias is even more marked than in the
Gospel of Peter.
'And straightway there was enmity between Herod
and I'ilate because of Jesus from that day.' On
coming down from the mount, the disciples and
Jesus meet the devil in the guise of a lisherman,
with many demons ' carrying many nets and drag-
nets and hooks, and castin<j nets and hooks on the
mount' : Jesus explains this vision in terms of Lk
2231-^3, John, by permission of .lesus, challenges
the devil to a iishing-contest. The devil catches
' every kind of foul lish which was in the waters —
.some taken by their eyes, some caught by their
entrails, others taken by their lips.' The fragment
then breaks oil", before Satan's capture of sinners
by their members is outdone by the apostolic cap-
ture of the elect.
The Coptic counterpart of this fragment pub-
lished by Revillout is apparently followed (op. cit.
184) by a fragment corresponding to Jn 7"* "*•
*". . . the time is accomplished." When he said
these things, he went into Galilee. When his
brothers had gone up to Jerusalem for the feast, he
went thither also, not openly but in secret. The
Jews, however, sought for him, and said, "Where
is he ? " Now it was the house of Irmeel which was
his place of residence owing to . . . the multitude.
Then they said, " What are we to do?"'
The fifth fragment describes the Resurrection
(p. 179 f.). The anti-.Jewi.sh tendency* which
emerged in the fourth fragment re-appears in the
determination of the Jews to burn the very wood
of the Cross — a plot thwarted by Joseph of Arima-
tha^a and Nicodemus, who preserve the Cross, the
nails, and the written title. A rich Jew called
Cleojias, the cousin of the Virgin Mary, buries his
son Rufus near the Saviour's tomb. The imperfect
state of the text at this point leaves the course of
events obscure, but evidently Rufus was raised
from the dead by Jesus, in response to the prayer
of Cleopas, who sat with his back to the stone at
the tomb of Jesus. Cleopas 'saw with his eyes a
figure of the Cross come forth from the tomb of
Jesus. It rested upon him Avho was dead [i.e.
Rufus]; and straightway he arose and sat.'
Whereupon Cleopas, who had hitherto been un-
able to walk, owing to a disease of the feet, leapt
up as if he had no disease at all. The description
of the Cross recalls the Gospel of Peter.
The fragments are all late ; they profess to quote
from Josephus and Irenteus, and in any case must
be placed not earlier than the 3rd century. If
there was some connexion between later forms of
the Gospel of Thomas on the one hand and a
Gospel of the Twelve (see above, p. 480) on the
other, these fragments might be placed approxi-
mately in this quarter. But as the fragments are
embedded in homiletical material, there is always
the possibility that such stories were imaginative
tales, not necessarily drawn from any written
Gospel. They illustrate also the difliculty of
assigning material like this to our second or to our
third group ; the later fragments tally in several
respects with some Coptic fragments which fall to
be noted in our third section.
III. Gospels op the Passion and Resurrec-
tion.—(a) The Gospel of Philip.— The existence
of a Gospel of Philip is attested by the Pistis
Sophia, but the only extant quotation occurs in
Epiphanius (xxvi. 13) : ' The Lord revealed to me
what the soul must say when she mounts to
heaven, and how she must answer each of the
Powers above. " I have known myself," she says,
"and gathered myself from all quarters, and have
not borne children to the Archon, but have torn
up his roots and gathered the scattered members.
And I know who thou art. For I," she says,
"belong to those above." So saying, she is re-
• ' The abuse of the Jews is a favourite theme in Coptic
apocryphal sermons ' (cf . p. 187)k
GOSPEI^ (UNCANOXICAL)
GOSPELS (UXCANONICAL) 501
leased. But if it is found that she has borne a son,
she is kept below until she is able to recover her
cliildren and attract them to herself.'
The fragment reflects the Gnostic idea (cf.
Bousset's essay in Archiv fur Heligionsteissen-
scha/t, 1901, p. 155 f.) of the ascent of the soul
through the heavens, and the magic pass-words re-
quired forthe journey, but the characteristic feature
is the antipathy to marriage, which agrees with
the 2nd cent, conception of Philip the Apostle.
According to Epiphanius, this pseudo-Philip
Gospel was used during the 4th cent, by an
immoral sect of Egyptian Gnostics to justify sexual
vice instead of marriage {ol St Aevirou -rap aCroTi
KoXovfuyoi, w fiiffyoPTai •Yuyai^iv, dXAa oXXi^Xots fda-
yoirrai}. The Gosi>el of Philip, which, according to
the 6th cent. Leontius of Byzantium {de Sectis,
iii. 2, X^70Wi yap EvayyiXiop Kara Oufidw (coi <f>iXtxxov,
artp rjfieii oiiK ttrfiev),* was used by the Manichaeans,
may have been a special edition of the original
Philip Gospel.
The Pistis Sophia (69-70) proves that this Gospel
circulated among Gnostic Christians in Egypt
during the 3rd century. If it was the source of
Clement's tradition that Jesus spoke the words of
Lk Q*' ('Let the dead bury their dead') to Philip
(Strom, iii. 4. 25), then the date could be brought
i>ack to about the middle of the 2nd century.
It is no argument against this conjecture to say
that the Gospel of Philip did not contain Synoptic
material but was a Gnostic speculative work set
in the post-Resurrection period. We do not know
all that the Gospel contained, and while it professed
to have been written by Philip on the basis of
revelations made to Thomas, Matthew, and him-
self by the risen Christ, what Philip wrote was
not only the mysterious visions he was to see but
'all that Jesus said and all that he did' — which
might (cf. Ac 1^) readily include an incident like
that of Lk 9**. But the identification of the
anonymous disciple with Philip (which re-appears
in the later Acts of Philip) may have been derived
from some other source in written or unwritten
tradition ; the anti-marriage view of Philip was
probably older than the Gospel of Philip, and the
latter cannot safely be put much earlier than the
last quarter of the 2nd century. It is upon
the whole better to place this writing among the
Resurrection Gospels than in the second of our
groups.
Philip appears in a curious little Coptic fragment
of some Gospel (Revillout, 2^ Apocryphcs copies,
131-132), where he is accused by Herod of seditious
conduct ; Herod persuades Tiberius to allow him
to confiscate all the Apostle's property. But it is
one thing to put Philip into a Gospel — he would
naturally appear in any later Gospel of the Twelve
— it is another thing to make him the author of a
Gospel.
(b) The Gospel of Matthias. — Neither Origen
nor any writer after him quotes from the Grospel
of Matthias. It is simply branded (e.g. by
Eusebius, HE iii. 25. 6) along with the Gospels of
Peter and Thomas. But Hippolytus (Philos. vii.
20) declares that Basilides and Isidore claimed to
have received X6701 a-r6Kpv<fxM. from Matthias, who
had been taught them privately by the Saviour.
Hippolytus argues that the contents of these so-
called apostolic \ir/0L were really borrowed from
the philosophy of Aristotle's Categories.t Again,
Clement of Alexandria quotes twice from the
Traditions (rapa5d<reis) of Matthias, once (Strom.
* These Gospels seem to have been Docetic ; the Incarnation
was card ^<u^a0'i<u' ; Jesns changed places uith a man (Simon?),
and therefore escaj^ed suffering on the Cross ; Jesus became
invisible when transfigured, etc.
t As it happens, the saying about wonder as the gateway to
knowledge occars in Aristotle {Metapkys. L 2. 15) as weQ as in
Plato {TheceUt. 155 D).
ii. 9. 45) in illustration of the principle that wonder
is the beginning of knowledge ('as Plato says in
the Thetetetus and as Matthias advises in the
Traditions, "wonder at what is before you," laying
this down as the first step to any further know-
ledge '), and once to prove the responsibility of a
good example : ' If the neighbour of an elect
person sins, the elect person sins ; for, had he
behaved as the word [6 X6701] prescribes, his neigh-
bour wotild have so esteemed his life that he would
not have sinned ' (Strom, vii. 13. 82). Elsewhere
Clement observes that, according to some (yjyown
•yoi/i'), ' Matthias taught that the flesh must be
fought against and denied, no indulgence granted
to its intemperate lust, and that the soul should
grow by faith and knowledge ' (Strom, iii. 4. 26).*
Are the Traditions the same as the Gospel ? It is
not decisive against this, that Matthias Ls intro-
duced as teaching, for both Peter and Philip are
represented in their respective Gospels as giving
instructions. On the other hand, rapaSixreis would
be a strange and superfluous title for a writing
which was known as a euo77e'XMH'. Clement, like
Hippolytus, ranks the Basilidians among the
Gnostics who put themselves under the aegis of
Matthias (Strom, vii. 17. 108, ttjf 'Mardiov ajJxwfi
trpocdyeffOat Si^of) ; but this reference is not conclu-
sive, for he adds : ' as the teaching which has come
from all the apostles is one, so is their tradition.' He
objects to one apostle's teaching being singled out
for special purposes by any sect. But his own
references to the teaching of Matthias are upon
the whole respectful, and their tone does not
suggest a Gospel identical with the X6yot dxojcpi^ot
of the Basilidians. We might conjecture that the
Gospel of the Basilidians (icard Batri\l5-r]v) was the
Gospel according to Matthias. But Origen's evi-
dence is against this, and such data as we can
gather for an estimate of the Gospel of Basilides
point in another direction. + There is no reason
why Traditions of Matthias should not have existed
alongside of a Gospel of Matthias, and the Xo^ot
d-rdxpuipoi may refer to the former.
Since Matthias was elected an apostle after the
Resurrection (Ac l''*"*), it would be natural to use
his name and tradition as the vehicle of more or
less secret revelations made by the Risen Lord to
the disciples. Hence we may provisionally rank
his Gospel in our third class.
In a Coptic fragment, assigned by Revillout to
the Gospel of the Twelve (Les Apocryphes copies,
157 f . ), Matthias appears at the Laist Supper. ' The
Saviour set him with the twelve apostles, and the
table was before them. When the Saviour stretched
his hand towards the food, the table turned round,
so that they stretched all their hands towards what
the Saviour ate, and he blessed it. Matthias set
down a platter on which was a cock. The salt was
on the table. The SaWour stretched his hand to
take the salt first, and as the table turned
round all the apostles partook of it. Matthias
said to Jesus, " Rabbi, you see this cock. When
the Jews saw me killing it, they said. They will
kill your Master like that cock." Jesus sighed.
He said, " O Matthias, they shall accomplish the
word they have spoken. This cock will give the
signal before the light dawns. It is the type of
John the Baptist who heralded me in advance. I,
I am the true light which has no darkness in it.
* This is also quoted (from Clement ?) as a word of Matthias,
b}- Xicephorus Callistus, HE iii. 15.
t The one item of e\idence that makes one hesitate is
Clement's version of Lk 19it in Strom, iv. 6. 35, which begins,
' Zacchsns (some say, llatthias) . . .' But even if this is any
more than an instance of the frequent confusion between
llatthias and Mattbew, it might simply mean that, in the
Gospel of Baalides or of Matthias, llatthias occupied the r61e
of Zacdueas. Elsewhere he became omfosed not only with
Matthew but with Simon the Zealot (cf. Schermann, TU 3rd
ser. L 3 [1907], pp. 28S-285).
602 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
When this cock died, they said of me that I wouKl
die, I whom Mary conceived in her womb. I dwelt
there with the cherubim and seraphim. I have
come forth from the heaven of heaven to earth.
It was hard for the earth to bear my glory. I have
become man for you. However, this cock will
rise." Jesus touched the cock and said to it, "I
bid you live, O cock, as you have done. Let your
wings bear you up, and fly in the air, that you
may give warninj' of the day on which I am be-
trayed." The cock rose up on the platter. It flew
away. Jesus said to Matthias, " iiehold the cock
you sacriliced three hours ago is risen. They shall
crucify me, and my blood will be the salvation of
the nations (and I will rise on the third day) . . . " '
This fragment witnesses to the prestige or Matthias
in the tradition of the early Church ; he is ad-
mitted to the fellowship of the Last Supper of Jesus,
beside the twelve apostles, instead of being merely
(Ac l''^"^) added to their company after the Resurrec-
tion. It was an easy step from this to make him
the author of a Gospel or the vehicle of esoteric
revelations.
(c) The Gospel of Mary. — In SBAW (1896,
p. 839 f. ) C. Schmidt describes three fragments from
a still unedited Coptic MS of the 5th cent., and
shows that the title of the first, ' Gospel of Mary,'
covers them all. The alternative title, ' An Apoc-
ryphon of John,' belongs to the second fragment,
but this is intelligible, for the Mary literature
tends to be connected with apostolic apocalypses
(cf. p. 503). The passage in Ac 1", where Mary as-
sociates with the apostles, formed a suggestive point
of departure for this kind of religious romance.
The Gnostic references in these fragments tally
so exactly with some of the data supplied by
Irenseus in his refutation of the Barbelo Gnostics
(i. 29) that Schmidt and Harnack infer without
hesitation that this Gospel of Mary must have
been a document of the sect and known to Irenseus.
Hitherto, we had only the assertion of Epiphanius
(xxvi. 8) that certain Gnostic sects issued a number
of works in the name of Mary. The present find
ratifies this assertion.
• Now it came to pass on one of these days when John, the
brother of James — who are the sons of Zebedee— had gone up to
the temple [cf. Ac 3i], that a Pharisee named Ananias (?) drew
near to him and said to him, " Where is your Master, that you
are not following him ? " He said to him, " He has gone (?) to
the place whence he came." The Pharisee said to him, " By a
deception has the Nazarene deceived you, for he has . . . and
made you forsake the tradition of your fathers." When I heard
this, I turned from the temple to the mountain, at a lonely spot,
and was very sad in heart, and said, "How then was the
Redeemer chosen, and why was he sent to the world by his
Father who appointed him ? And who is his Father ? And how
is that ajon created, to which we are to come?"' Suddenly
heaven opens ; the Lord appears, explains matters, and with-
draws— the audience being not only John but the disciples.
They are dismayed at the prospect of having to preach Jesus
to the heathen. ' ' ' How can we go to the heathen and preach the
gospel of the kingdom of the Son of Man ? If they refused to
receive him, how will they receive us?" Then Mary* rose,
embraced them all, and said to her brothers, " Weep not and
sorrow not, neither doubt ; for his grace will be with you all
and will protect you. Rather let us praise his goodness, that
he has prepared us and made us men."' The discussion pro-
ceeds, Mary remonstrating with the incredulous disciples, and
finally bursting into tears at a sharp rebuke from Peter. Levi
stands up for her, however. But at this point our fragment
unfortunately breaks off, and the next episode is an appearance
of the risen Christ to John.
A fragment from ' the Wisdom of Jesus Christ '
then begins. ' After his resurrection from the
dead, his twelve disciples and seven women, his
women-disciples, repaired to Galilee, to the moun-
tain which , . .' The Lord's appearance is de-
scribed as 'not in his earlier form but in the
invisible spirit ; his form was that of a great angel
of light. ' The disciples question him on topics of
Gnostic speculation, and receive answers.
The third fragment is an episode from the
* She is evidently with them, u in Ac V*.
miraculous career of Peter. As he is healing the
sick on the day after the Sabbath (i.e. the KvpiaK-ff or
Lord's Day), a man taunts him with failing to cure
his own daughter, who had been for long paralyzed.
Peter then heals her. The story closes with an
account of the conversion of a pagan, Ptolemceus.
The Gnostic work from which these fragments
are preserved was, according to Schmidt, an
Egyptian 'Gospel of Mary' (p. 842 f.), and its
evident use by Irenaeus proves its existence prior
to A.D. 130.
(d) The Gospel of Bartholomew.— When Bar-
tholomew evangelized India, according to tlie
tradition preserved by Eusebius (HE v. 10. 3), he
took with liim Matthew's Gospel in Hebrew. This
is not what Jerome and the Gelasian Decree mean
by the Gospel of Bartholomew, which they rank
among the apocrypha. The latter may now be
recovered, in stray fragments from Latin, Greek,
and even Coptic sources, although the same kind
of problem emerges here as in the case of the
Gospel of Peter, viz. how far it is possible to
separate the extant fragments from a Gospel and
from an Apocalypse, and to assign them to either.
The Latin fragments are preserved in a Vatican
MS of the 9th cent. (Reg. lat. 1050), in which
a compiler of the 7th or 8th cent, lias written
three episodes from that Gospel, containing con-
versations between Jesus and Bartholomew. Thus
Bartholomew asks Jesus to tell him who the
man was whom he saw carried in the hands of
angels and sighing heavily when Jesus spoke to
him. Jesus replies, ' He is Adam, on account of
whom I came down from heaven. I said to him,
"Adam, on account of thee, and on account of thy
sons, I have been hung on the cross." Sighing, he
said to me vnih. tears, "Thus it pleased thee, O
Lord, in heaven."' Bartholomew then asks why
one angel refused to ascend with the other angels
who preceded Adam, singing a hymn, and why, on
being bidden ascend by Jesus, a flame shot from
his hands as far as Jerusalem. Jesus explains
that the flame struck the synagogue of the Jews,
in token of the Crucifixion. 'Afterwards Jesus
said, " Await me in yonder place, for to-day the
sacrifice is offered in paradise." Bartholomew
said, ' ' What is the sacrifice * in paradise ? " Jesus
said, "The souls of the just enter the presence
of the just to-day." Bartholomew said, " How
many souls leave the body every day?" Jesus
said, "Truly, I tell thee, 12,873 souls t leave the
body daily.'" The second fragment describes
Jesus reluctantly alloAving Bartholomew and the
other apostles, with Mary, to see the devil, or Anti-
christ. Jesus places them on Mount Olivet, and
after a blast of Michael's trumpet and an earth-
quake, the Evil One appears, in chains of fire, under
a guard of 6,064 angels. He is 600 cubits hi^h and
300 broad. Jesus then encourages Bartholomew
to strike Satan's neck with his feet, and to ask
him about his ways and means of tempting men.
Bartholomew kicks the devil, but returns in terror
to ask Jesus for something to protect him during
the conversation. Encouraged by Jesus, he makes
the sign of the cross, kicks Satan again, and forces
the furious creature to tell who he is. The third
fragment runs : ' Then Bartholomew approached
Satan, saying, "Go to thine own place with all
like thee.^' And the devil said, "Wait till I tell
thee how I was caught when God made man. I
was then in the second heaven . . ." '
The extant Greek fragments, four in number,
are much larger than the Latin, but their character-
• For mxmus the Greek has fluo-io, and, in the reply of Jesus,
' Unless I am present, thev do not enter paradise."
t The editors Wilmart-f isserant (liV,, 1913, pp. 161 flf., 321 ff.)
add M between XII and D, to approximate to the ;M),000 of the
Greek.
GOSPELS (UNCAXONICAL)
GOSPELS (UXCANOXICAL) 503
istics are the same. In the first, Bartholomew
asks the Lord after the Resurrection to show him
the mysteries of heaven. The apostle explains
that when he followed Jesus to the Crucifixion, he
saw the anpels descend and worship Him, but that,
when the darkness came. He (Jesus) had vanished
from the Cross ; all that Bartholomew could hear
was a sound from the under world, loud wailing
and gnashing of teeth. Jesus explains, 'Blessed
art thou, my beloved Bartholomew, that thou didst
see this mj'ster^. And now I shall tell thee all
thou hast asked me. "When I vanished from the
Cross, then I went down to Hades to bring up
Adam, and all who are with him, thanks to
(koto rijf rafxiKXrjaiy) the archangel Michael.'
The sound was Hades calling to Beliar, *God
comes here, as I see.'* Beliar thinks it may be
Elijah or Enoch or one of the prophets, and en-
courages Hades to bar the gates. Hades wails
tliat he is being tortured ; it must be God. ' Then,'
says Jesus, ' I entered, scourged him and bound
him with unbreakable chains, and took out all
the patriarchs,t and so returned to the Cross.' A
Greek replica of the first Latin fragment follows,
after which Bartholomew asks, ' Lord, when thou
wast teaching the word with us, didst thou receive
the sacrifices in paradise?' Jesus replies, 'Truly,
I tell thee, my beloved, when I was teaching the
word with you, I was also sitting with my Father.'
Bartholomew then seems to ai-k how many of the
souls who leave the world daUy are found just (the
text is corrupt at this point) ; Jesus replies, * Fifty.'
And how many souls are bom into the world every
day ? ' Just one more than those who leave the
world.' Then the conversation ends. ' And when
he said this, he gave them peace and vanished
from them.'
The second Greek fragment introduces Mary.
The apostles are in a place called Cheltura, when
Bartholomew proposes to Peter, Andrew, and
John that they ask ilary about the virgin-birth.
None of them cares to put the question ; Bartholo-
mew reminds Peter that he is their leader, but
Peter turns to John, as the beloved apostle and as
the ' virgin ' (rapdivos). Eventually Bartholomew
himself approaches Mary. The text becomes
broken at this point, but Mary evidently utters
an elaborate prayer, at the close of which she
invites the apostles to sit down beside her, Peter
at her right with his left hand under her arm,
and Andrew similarly supporting her on the left ;
John is to support her bosom, and Bartholomew to
kneel at her back, in case she collapses under the
strain of the revelation. She then tells them :
'When I was in the sanctuary of God, receiving
food from the hand of an angel,* one day there
appeared to me the shape of an angel, though his
features could not be fixed (? to oi -rpSawTrov oiJtoi;
fiv dxi^ipTTTO") ; he had not bread or a cup in his
hand like the angel who formerly came to me.
And suddenly the veil of the sanctuary was torn,
and a great earthquake took place, and I fell on
my face, unable to bear the sight of him. But he
put out his hand and raised me, and I looked up
to heaven ; and a cloud of dew came . . . sprink-
ling me from head to foot. But he wiped me with
his robe and said to me, " Hail, O highly favoured
one, thou chosen vessel." And he put out his right
hand, and there was a huge loaf ; and he laid it on
the altar of incense in the sanctuary ; he ate of it
first, and gave to me. Again, he put out his left
* The Slavonic version, which differs considerably from the
Greek text at this point, paraphrases Ps 24't
♦ One of the themes which led to the composition of the so-
called G<»pel of Xicodemus. This Harrowing of Hell became a
favourite theme of mediaeval reli^ous romajice.
t As in the Gospel of pseudo-Matthew (see above, p. 4SS). The
first annunciation takes place earlier in the Gospel of Baitholo-
mew than in the other Gospels of this class.
hand, and there was an enormous cup, full of wine ;
he drank of it first, and gave to me. And I beheld
and saw the cup ftill and the loaf. And he said
to me, " Three years more, and I will send thee
my word, and thou shalt conceive a son, and by
him all creation shall be saved ; and thou shalt be
for the saving of the world. Peace to thee, my
beloved ; yea, peace shall be with thee evermore.
And he vanished from me, and the sanctuary be-
came as it had been before.' At this, fire issued
from her mouth, and threatened to put an end to
the world ; whereupon the Lord bids her keep
silence on the mystery. The apostles are terrified,
in case the Lord is angry with them for their pre-
sumption in questioning her.
The third fragment is extremely brief and
broken. Evidently, the apostles (through Bar-
tholomew ?) had asked for a revelation of the
under world. ' Jesus said, " It is good for you not
to see the abyss. But if you desire it, follow and
look." So ne brought them to a place called
Chairoudek, the place of truth, and nodded to the
western (dvrucdis) angels ; and the earth was rolled
up like a scroll, and the abyss was revealed, and
the apostles saw it and fell on their face. But the
Lord raised them, sajnng, "Did I not tell yon, it
is not good for you to see the abyss t " '
The long fourth fragment corresponds to the
second and third Latin fragments. Jesus takes
them to the Mount of Olives, accompanied by
Mary. He is at first stem, when Bartholomew-
asks Him for a sight of the devil and his ways, but
eventually leads them down and orders the angels
over Tartarus to make Michael sound his trumpet ;
whereupon the fearful figure of Beliar appears, to
the terror of the apostles. Bartholomew, as in
the Latin fragment, is encouraged by Jesus to put
his foot on the giant's neck and to question him
about his names. The reply is, ' First I was called
Satanael, which means angel of God ; but when in
ignorance I rebelled against God, my name was
called Satan, which means angel over Tartarus.'
He proceeds, against his wiU, to make further
disclosures. ' When God made heaven and earth,
he took a flame of fire, and fashioned me first, then
Michael, thirdly Gabriel, fourthly Raphael, fifthly
Uriel, sixthly Xathanael, and the other six thou-
sand angels, whose names I cannot utter, for they
are the bearers of God's rod (po;35ouxot rod dtoO), and
thev beat me every day and seven times every
night, and never let me alone, and waste my
strength ; the two angels of vengeance, these are
they who stand close by the throne of God, these
are they who were fashioned first. After them
the multitude of angels were fashioned. In the
first heaven there are a million, in the second
heaven a million, in the third heaven a million, in
the fourth heaven a million, in the fifth heaven a
mUlion, in the sixth heaven a million, in the
seventh heaven a million. Outside the seven
heavens. . . . ' After a few more details on the
angels, the fragment then breaks off, in the MS
(lOth-llth cent.) from the library of the Orthodox
Patriarch at Jerusalem. The Vienna MS shows the
devil continuing the list of the angels of the elements.
The contents of these fragments correspond partly with what
we know elsewhere * of the ' questions of Biutholomew ' (for
the Ethiopic and Coptic versions and recensions of this litera-
ture, cf. Liehtenhan in ZSTW, 1902, p. 234 f., and Haase, p. 22 f.).
Thev also throw some light npon what lies behind the remark
of Epiphanins in the 11th cent, (de Vita htatae Virginit, 26)
that the holy UMetle BarttwIoDiew sud, 'The holy Mother of
God made a wiU.' There seems to be some connexion between
the Gospel, whose fragments we have just cited, and the sonrces
of the later Mary fiteratore which is preserved m Sahidic and
Coptic fragments (see below). The Coptic fragments gfcuify
* There is another allusion in pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
(de Mytt. theoioffia, L § 3 : ' Bartholomew says that theologj- is
both large and small, and that the gospel is broad and large
and, agam, contracted 7-
504 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOSPELS (UKCANONICAL)
the primacy ot Peter and the prestige of Mary, with Gnostic
and Egyptian colourintr (Kevillout, Les Apocryphes copies, 185 f.);
they begin with an unsympathetic denunciation of Judos by
JesuB, one of the first things tlie Lord does, apparently, being to
reproach the traitor in Amenti and contlrni his eternal doom.
The Gospel from which they are taken was a Gospel of Bartholo-
mew, for that Apostle speaks in the first person.
According to Wilmart and Tisserant, the Jerusalem MS ap-
proximates more than the others to the primitive text. The
original Greek Gospel of Bartholomew, they conclude, appeared
' vers le IVo siftcle, dans quelque secte chretienne en marge de
r^glise d'Alcxandrie.' It was on the basis of this that the
Coptic Bartholomew compositions, whether in the form of
Gospel or of Apocalypse, developed the literature whose debris
is now being recovered in still larger quantities.
(e) The Gospel of Nicodemus. — The Gospel of
Nicodenuis really belongs to the uncanonical Acts.
The Acts of Pilate and its allied literature go
back to the 4th or 6th cent. — possibly, in some
primitive form, even to the beginning of the
2nd ; but while Nicodemus is associated with the
Acta (in one Greek edition of the text, they pro-
fess to be a translation of what Nicodemus wrote
in Hebrew ; in another Greek edition, Nicodemus
is a Roman toparch who translates the Hebrew
record of a Jew named .^neas ; in the Latin
version, iEneas is a Christian Jew who translates
the Hebrew record of Nicodemus), they are never
styled 'a Gospel of Nicodemus' till the 13th
century. It has been conjectured that the title
was due to the patriotism of the British, wlio
claimed Nicodemus as their chief apostle ('quae
coniectura inde aliquam probabilitatem habet quod
antiquissima omnium recentiorum versionum est
anglosaxonica : id quod documento est quanto
honore opus istud iam pridem in Anglia habitum
sit,' Tischendorf, i. p. Ix, n. 3) ; but wherever and
whenever it arose, it is quite adventitious.
Critical editions are promised by von Dobschiitz
(HDB iii. 545) and in the French series (cf. p. 479).
(/) The Gospel of Gamaliel. — In one of the
Coptic Gospel fragments edited by Kevillout
(Patrologia Orient, ii. 172 f.), the phrase occurs,
' I, Gamaliel, followed them (i.e. Pilate, etc.) in the
midst of the crowd,' and it has been conjectured
(e.g. by Ladeuze, Revue d'histoire eccl6siastique, vii.
252 f.,Haase, 11 f., and IJaumstark in EB, 1906, pp.
245-265) that if these fragments belonged originally
to the Gospel of the Twelve, or if some other frag-
ments of the later Pilate literature can be referred
to such a source, there must have been a Gospel
of Gamaliel in existence, perhaps as a special
recension of the original Gospel of the Twelve.
To this some critics (e.g. Ladeuze and 13aum-
stark) further propose to relegate one or more
of the Sahidic fragments which have been al-
ready referred to (cf. p. 500), placing the com-
position not earlier than the 5th cent., since
it implies the Acta Pilati. The ramifications
of the Pilate literature still await investigation,
especially in the light of recent finds (cf. Haase,
pp. 12 f., 67 f.). It would be curious if it could be
proved that there was a tendency to use the
Gamaliel of Ac 5^"- in favour of Christianity, as
was the case with Pilate. But the period of this
Gospel is very late and its reconstruction unusually
hypothetical. ' Si I'jfivangile de Gamaliel est un
sermon compose au monastcre de Senoudah, comme
porte k le croire la provenance des manuscrits, 11
n'est pas etrange qu'on y ait voulu mettre en
evidence, dans I'expose de la vie du Christ, le role
de Barthelemy dont on se llattait de poss6der le
corps au monastcre, et qu'on s'y suit servi des
apocryphes dejh. existants sous le nom tie cet apotre '
(Ladeuze, loc. cit. 265). The fragments which may
be conjecturally assigned to this Gospel (?) tally
with the Coptic Bartholomew fragments in several
features, e.g. the description of Christ in Amenti,
the appearance of Christ after the Resurrection
to his mother Mary iirst of all (cf. p. 505), the
narrative of the death of Mary, and the bless-
ing pronounced on Peter as the archbishop of
the whole world. Ladeuze's suggestion meets the
main requirements of the case better than lievil-
lout's conjecture (RD, 1904, pp. 167 ff., 321 ff.) that
some primitive orthodox Gospel of the Twelve (see
above) profeases to have been edited by Gamaliel,
the teacher of St. Paul, who had become a Christian
(cf. Zahn's Gesch. des Kanons, ii. 673f.). Even if the
fragments are a.ssigncd to a ' Gospel,' they repre-
sent a late compilation, based primarily on the
Johannine naiTative, and expanded on tlie basis of
legends drawn possibly from a special .source. The
tradition of Gamaliel's conversion is noted in Clem.
Recogn. i. 65 and quoted by Photius (Bibliotheca,
171) from earlier written sources : ' Reperi quoque
in eodem illo codice, Pauli in lege magistrum
Gamalielum et credidisse, et ba]itizatum fuisse.
Nicodemum item noctumum (quondam) amicum,
diumum etiam redditum, martyrioque coronatum,
quem et Gamalielis patruelem haec testatur
nistoria. Baptizatum vero utrumque a Joanne et
Petro, una cum Gamalielis lilio, cui Alnbo nomen.'
Nicodemus became a martyr to Jewish fury, on
this tradition ; once the idea of his conversion
and authorship of a Gospel was started, it was not
unnatural that Gamaliel should also be brought
inside the Christian circle.
(g) The Gospel of Perfection. — ' Some of them,*
says Epiphanius (xxvi. 2), speaking of tlie Nico-
laitans or Ophite Gnostics,' bring in a manufactured
sort of adventitious work (^71674/46^ rt troirj/jui) called
The Gospel of Perfection,' which, he adds ironically,
is the very perfection of diabolic mischief ! This
notice is probably derived from Hippolytus (Phil-
aster, IT(C7: 33). If it was a Gnostic treatise in
Gospel form, it may have resembled, or been related
in some way to, the Gospel of Eve ; but no details
or quotations have been preserved, unless we may
suppose that allusions to it occur in the Pistis
Sophia, where uncanonical Gospel material is more
than once employed.
(h) The Gospel of Eve. — 'Others,' Epiphanius
adds (xxvi. 2f.), ' are not ashamed to speak of the
Gospel of Eve,' who owed her gnosis to the serpent.
One quotation from this Gospel is given : • I stood
on a high hill, and I saw a tall man and a short
man (dWov ko\o^6v) ; and I heard as it were a voice
of thunder and drew near to listen, and it spoke to
me and said, " I am thou and thou art I, and
wherever thou art there am I also, and I am sown
in all (in dirairiv eifii iffwapjiivoi). And Avherever
thou gatherest me from, in gathering me thou
gatherest thyself." ' Probably the quotation which
follows, from the secret books of the Gnostics,
was also derived from this ' Gospel ' : (iv dTcoKpiLxpoii
dvayivibcTKovTes 6tl) ' I saw a tree bearing twelve
fruits a year, and he said to me, This is the tree of
life.' Epiphanius (xxvi. 5) explains that this meant
allegorically menstruation. But this so - called
' Gospel ' may have been either of an apocalyptic
character or simply, as Lipsius suggests, a doctrinal
treatise in more or less historical form. In any
case, its mj'sticism assumed a sexual form which
readily lent itself to obscene interpretation.
(i) The Gospel of Judas. — The Gnostic Cainites,
in the 2nd cent., composed 'a Gospel of Judas'
(Iren. i. 31. 1 ; ffwrayp-dnov ri, Epiphan. xxxviii. 1)
in the name of their hero, Judas, who was supposed
to have alone penetrated the Divine secret, and
consequently to have deliberately betrayed Jesus
in order to accomplish it. Notlung lias been pre-
served of this Gospel.
The lifth of Revillout's Coptic fragments {Les
Apocryphes copies, 156-157) contains a novel tra-
dition about Judas. The disciples speak : ' We
liave found this man stealing from Mliat is put
into the purse every «laj', taking it to his wife, and
defrauding the poor in his service. Whenever he
GOSPELS (UKC^VJS^ONICAL)
GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL) 505
returned home with sums of money in his hands,
she would rejoice at what he had done. We have
even seen him failing to take home to her enough
for the malice of her eyes and insatiable greed.
Whereupon she would turn him into ridicule.' His
■\viie then, like a Lady Macbeth, instigates him to
the crime of selling Jesus. ' " Look how the Jews
pursue your master. Up then and betray him to
them. They will give you plenty of riches, and we
will bestow them in our house, so as to live thereby."
He got up, the unfortunate man, after listening to
his ^vife, till he had consigned his soul to the hell
of Amenti,* in the same manner as Adam listened
to his wife, untU he became a stranger to the glory
of Paradise, so that death reigned over him and his
race. Even so, Judas listened to his wife and thus
.set himself outside the things of heaven and the
things of earth, to end in Amenti, the place of tears
and moaning. He went to the Jews and agreed
with them for thirty pieces of silver to betray his
Lord. They gave them to him. Thus was ful-
filled the word which was written : " They received
the thirty pieces of silver for the price of him who
is appraised." He rose up. He carried them to
his wicked wife.'
Here the motive of Judas is not personal greed ;
he is a thief, as in the Fourth Giospel, but it is
owing to his wife's pressure. She is a temptress,
and the misogynism of the author leads him to
blame her more than her poor husband. But this
is a catholic exculpatory estimate of Judas, in
Eg3rptian circles, which is very different from the
Gnostic glorification of him ; he is not the author
of a Gospel, but he is made out to be not so de-
liberately the author of Christ's betrayal as in the
canonical traditions. We cannot tell whether the
Gnostic Gospel made use of any such motive to ex-
plain his conduct. It is unlikely that this would
be so, for his conduct, on the Gnostic theory, re-
quired no exculpation.
Another Coptic Gospel fragment, assigned donbt-
fullv by Revillout {op. cit. 195-196) to the (Jospel
of IJartholomew, belongs to the same line of
tradition. 'The apostle Judas, when the devil
entered into him, went out and ran to the high
priests. He said, "What will you give me for
handing him over to you ? " Thej' gave him thirty
pieces of silver. Now the wife of Judas had taken
the child of Joseph of Arimathaea to bring him up.
The day when the unfortunate Judas received the
thirty pieces of silver and took them home, the
little one (would not drink). Joseph went into
the woman's chamber . . . Joseph was utterly
distressed over his son. When the little child saw
his father (he was seven months old), he cried,
saying, " My father, come, take me from the hand
of this woman, who is a savage beast. Since the
ninth hour of this day, they have received the
price (of the blood of the just)." When he
heard this, his father took him. Judas also went
out. He took . . .' Then follows a broken pas-
sage belonging to the Acts of Pilate literature.
0") Coptic fragments. — (i. ) A Coptic Akhmim MS
(4th-5th cent.) contains two fragments, which may
have belonged to an uncanonical Gospel of the
•2nd century. The second is a fragment of pro-
phetic discourse by Jesus, predicting Ac I'Z**- (?).
The first opens ^vith Mary, Martha, and Mary
Magdalene going to the sepulchre to anoint the
body, and weeping when they find the sepulchre
empty. The Lord says to them, ' " AAHiy do you
weep? Cease weeping, I am he whom ye seek.
But let one of you go to the brethren and say :
Come, the Master has risen from the deai"
Martha went away and told this to us. We said
to her, " What hast thou to do with us, O woman?
He who died is buried, and it is impossible that
* An EgA ptian touch as above (p. 500).
he lives.' Vt'e did not believe her, that the Re-
deemer had risen from the dead. So she went to
the Lord and said to him, " No one among them
has believed me, that thou livest." He said, " Let
another of you go and tell it to them again. " Mary
went and told us again, but we did not believe her.
She went back to the Lord and told him. Then
said the Lord to Mary and her other sisters, " Let
us go to them." And he went and found us within
and called us outside. But we thought it was a
ghost, and we did not believe it was the Lord.
fcio he said to us, " Come and . . . Thou, O Peter,
who hast denied me thrice, dost thou still deny?"
And we went up to him, doubting in our hearts
whether it was he. So he said to us, " Why do
you doubt still and disbelieve ? I am he who told
you, so that on account of my flesh and my death
and my Resurrection you may know it is I. Peter,
lay thy finger in the nail-marks on my hands ;
and thou, Thomas, lay thy finger in the lance-
wounds on my side ; and thou, Andrew, touch my
feet and see that they ... to those of earth.
For it is written in the prophets : * phantams of
dreams . . . on earth." We answered him, "We
have in truth recognized that ... in the flesh."
And we threw ourselves on our faces and confessed
our sins, that we had been unbelieving.'
This fragment professes to give the testimony to
the Resurrection which the disciples bore, based
on revelations received by them from the Lord.
As in the appendix to ^lark's Gospel, their un-
belief is emphasized ; they refuse to believe the
story of the women, and it requires the direct
appearance of Jesus to convince them. 'There-
fore . . . we have written to you concerning . . .
and we bear witness that the Lord is he who was
crucified by Pontius Pilate.' The apologetic in-
terest of this emphasis on the originjil incredulity
of the apostles may be to heighten the importance
of the Resurrection appearances, as against the
denial of the bodily Resurrection by some Gnostics.
Even the disciples, it is said, held it impossible
once ! But they were taught the truth ! The
fragment mentions ' Corinthus' ( = Cerinthtis) and
' Simon' (= Simon Magus), and the original Greek
Gospel writing, of which it is a translation, was
e^•idently a piece of apologetic fiction issued by
some pious (Gnostic ?) Christian in order to refute
the heretical tendencies represented by these two
great names. It professes to be written in the
name of the Twelve, and probably appeared during
the first half of the 2nQ century. The data do
not enable us to determine whether it belonged
to a Gospel of the Twelve or, as Schmidt thinks,
to the pseudo-Petrine literature.
Sfecui. Lttkratuss. — 'The fragment was pobUshed fint bj
C. Schmidt in SB A W, 1886^ pp. 70&-711, hot a taU edition is stiO
awaited; Hamack's en^ ^ipeared in ITudog. Stvdien B.
Weitt dargebradU, G^;tiiq;en, 1887, pp. 1-8 ; cf. Bardenhewer,
397-399, Haase, 36-37. Harnack dates it between a.i>. 150 and
ISO, Schmidt somewhat eailier. The second fragment suggests
that the Qcmpd (if it was a Go^d) was a Peter GoepdTbat
the extent and aim of its ' Gnosticism' cannot be determined
in the present state of oar knowledge.
(ii.) Some lines of another Coptic papyrus (4th-
6th cent.) appear to contain debris of what was
once an uncanonical GJospel. The fragments are ex-
tremely mutilated, and the translators and editors
disagree upon their age and origin. The last runs
thus — ondently the close of a Gospel narrative
which describeii a post-Resurrection scene on the
mountain, prior to the Ascension: '(that I) may
manifest to you all my glory and show you all
your power and the mystery of your apostleship
* Wis ISi", in a description of the terrors that befell the
Egyptians during the plagaes. The scriptural aottKmty of
Wisdom in wide cindes daring the 2nd and 3rd caitories
is well known, bat fnobably Origen is the only writer who ex-
pressly calls this literature prt^etic iHmn. m LeviL t. 2, m
£xod.\i. IX
506 GOSPELS (UNCANONICAL)
GOVERNMENT, GOVERNOR
. . . (on the) mountain. . . . Our eyes penetrated
all places, we saw the glory of his divinity and all
the glory (of his) dominion. He invested (us with)
the power of (our) apo.stle(ship).' The previous
fragment, whose contents are only separated from
the other by two or three lines, may be either a
piece from tlie same setting or a fragment of some
Gethsemane story. It runs thus : ' (that) he be
known for (his) hospitality . . . and praised on
account of his fruit, since . . . Amen.* Grant
me now thy power, O Father, that . . . Amen.
I have received the diadem of the Kingdom, (even
the) diadem of ... I have become King (through
thee), O Father. Thoushalt subject (all) to me . . .
Through whom shall (the last) Enemy be destroyed?
Through (Christ). Amen. Through whom shall
the sting of death (be destroyed)? (Through the)
Only Begotten. To whom does (the) dominion
belong? (To the Son.) Amen. . . . When (Jesus
had) finished all . . . he turned to us and said,
"The hour has come when I shall be taken from
you. The spirit (is) willing, but the flesh (is)
weak . . . then and watch (with me)." But we
apostles wept . . . said . . . (Son) of God. . . .
He answerecl and said (to us), "Fear not destruc-
tion (of the body), but rather (fear) the power (of
darkness), llemember all that I have said to
you : (if) they have persecuted (me), they will also
persecute you. . . . llejoice, then, that 1 (have
overcome) the world, and have . . ." '
The fragments are evidently based upon the
Gospels of Matthew and John ; so much is clear
even from what can be deciphered. Possibly they
l)elonged to some uncanonical Gospel current in
Egypt during the 3rd or even the 2nd cent.,
but the internal data are too slender to support
any hypothesis which would connect them with
the Gospel of the Egyptians ( Jacoby) or even with
the Gospel of the Ebionites = the Gospel of the
Twelve (Schmidt, Zahn, Revillout). The ' Gnosti-
cism ' of the fragments is mild.
Special Literatcrb. — A. Jacoby, Ein nexus Evangelienfrag-
merit, Strassburfr, 1900; C. Schmidt (GGA, 1900, pp. 481-506);
Za.hTi{NKZ, 1900, 361 f.); Revillout, I'atr. Orient. 1907, pp. 159-
161 ; Haase, 1-11 (where further literature is discussed).
(iii. ) Another Coptic fragment from a narrative of
the trial is edited by Revillout (Pa^r. Orient., \Q\i.):
* ... to Jesus who was in the prsetorium. He
said to him, " Whence do you come and what do
you say of yourself ? I am sore put to it in de-
fending you, and I . . save you. If you are king
of the Jews, tell us definitely. Jesus answered and
said to Pilate, "Do you say this of yourself, or
have other people told you about me?" Pilate said
to him, ' ' Am I a Jew ? — I ! Your own people have
handed you over. What have you done ? " Jesus
replied, "My kingdom is not of this world. If
my kingdom were of this world, my servants would
fight to prevent anyone handing me over to the
Jews. However, my kingdom is not of this world."
Pilate said to him, " Then you are a king?" Jesus
replied, "It is you who say so; I am a king."
Pilate said to him, "If you are a king, let me
learn the truth from your own lips so that you
may be relieved of these troubles and these revolu-
tions." Then he said to him, "Behold, you confess,
you say with your own lips that I am a king. 1
was born and I have come into tlie world for this
thing, to bear witness to the truth. He who be-
longs to me hears my voice." Pilate said to him,
" What is truth ? " Jesus said to him, "Have yon
not seen — you ! — that he who speaks to you is
Truth? Do you not see in his face that he has
been born of the F.ather ? Do you not hear from
his Avords that he does not come from this Avorld?
Know then, O Pilate, that he whom you judge,
* According to Revillout, these ' Amens* are not final but in-
troductory = ' Truly.'
he it is who shall judge the world with justice.
These hands which you seize, O Pilate, have
formed you. This body you see and this flesh
which they . . ." '
The fragment is also assigned by Revillout to
his Gospel of the Twelve, but it may be no more
than a paraphrase of Jn IS""'- from some early
Egyptian homily. The rest of Revillout's frag-
ments (cf. al>ove, p. 503) are plainly from an Egyp-
tian treatise whicli belongs as much to the Mary
literature as to the category of the uncanonical
Gospels.
[k) An unidentified fragment.— In Augustine's
treatise contra Adversarium Legis et Prophetarum
(ii. 14), he quotes a saying from some apocryphal
scripture — evidently a Gospel, since he proceeds :
' but in the Gospel of the Lord, which is not
apocryphal' (i.e. esoteric), he taught the disciples
after the Resurrection about the prophets (Lk 24*'').
The Quotation is as follows : * But when the apostles
askea what view should be taken of the prophets
of the Jews, who were thought to have sung
something about his arrival in the past, our Lord,
vexed that they still took such a view, replied,
" You have sent away the living One who is before
you, and you make up stories about the dead ! " '
This may have come from some Marcionite or
Ebionitic (cf. above, p. 493) Gospel. J. H. Ropes {TU
xiv. 2 [1896], 119-120) suggests that it would fit in
with the story of Mt 8'^^, but the context in Augus-
tine points rather to a post- Resurrection dialogue
between Jesus and the disciples.
(1) The Fayyiim fragment. — The Fajry^im frag-
ment, first published by G. Bickell (cf. Zeitschrift
fur kath. Theologie, 1885, pp. 498-504, 1886, p.
208 f.), is a 3rd cent, scrap of papyrus which has
received more attention than it deserves ; it is no
more than a loose quotation of Mk \4P^-^- ^-'^
(so Zahn, as against Bickell, Harnack [TU v. 4,
481-497], Resch {TU x. 2, 1894, pp. 28-34], P. Savi
[RB, 1892, 321-344], and others), and cannot be
assigned with any probability to the Gospel of
the Egyptians or any other uncanonical Gospel,
The fragment runs : * And in departing he spoke
thus. " You will all be ofiended (aKavStiKiadTtaeade)
this night, as it is written : / will smite the shep-
herd, and the sheep shall be scattered." Peter
said, "Though all [are offended], not l!" The
Lord said, " The cock will crow twice, and thou
shaltbe the first to deny me three times." ' Revil-
lout (Les Apocryphes copies, 158-159) places it as
a sequel to the Matthias fragment quoted above
(pp. 601-502), assigning it to his 'Gospel of the
Twelve.' But it may have come from some Gospel
of our third group, if it came from any Gospel at all.
J. MoFFATT.
GOYERNMENT, GOYERNOR. — (1) The term
'government' occurs twice in the AV of the NT,
in neither case with reference to civil government.
In the first passage, 1 Co 12'^, it occurs in the plural,
being a translation of the Greek Kv^epvrjfffis, which,
like the English ' government,' is a metaphor from
steersmanship (see following article). In thesecond
passage, 2 P 2'" (cf. Jude*), the word appears to be
abstract, but to have an implicit reference to the
domination of angels (see art. Dominion).
(2) The word ' governor ' occurs many times in the
NT. In nearly every passage it is a translation of
riyefxibv or some word connected with it. This word
is the most general term in this connexion in the
Greek language ( = Lat. prceses). This can be seen
in two ways. In the first place, in Mk 13' (and
parallels) and 1 P 2'* the word is coupled with
' kings ' (emperors), and the two words together
include all the Gentile authorities before whom
the followers of Jesus will iiave to api)ear. In tiie
second place, the term, or its cognates, is used with
reference to authorities of such diverse status as
GOVERNMENTS
GRACE
507
the Emperor Tiberius (Lk 3'), the legate P. Sul-
picius Quirinius (Lk 2^ a special deputy of consular
rank sent by the Emperor Augustus in an emergency
to have temporary rule over the great proWnce of
Syria), and the successive procurators of the small
and unimportant province of Judaea, Pontius
Pilate and Felix; for 2 Co 11*^ see Ethnarch.
It was in accordance with Greek genius to avoid
specific titles and to use general terms, and to
the Oriental the king (emperor) dwarfed everyone
else. The procurator (agent) was really a servant
of the Emperors household, never of higher rank
than equestrian, and belonged to the lowest class of
governor. He is never called by his o^vn (Greek)
name (ivlTpoTo%) except in a variant reading of
Lk 3>. A. SOUTER,
GOVERNMENTS.— In each of the five lists of
spiritual gifts or of gifted persons which St. Paul
^aces in his Epistles (1 Co i28-»<>-»- »-*>, Ro 126-8,
Eph 4") there are at least two items which are not
found in any other list. In 1 Co 12^ we have
'helps' or 'helpings' (drrtX^/t^ets) and 'govern-
ments ' or ' governings ' (Kv^epviiaeis). In 1 Co 12"-^
' gifts of healings ' are followed by ' helpings ' and
'governings.' These two form a pair, and refer
to management and direction in things external.
' Governings ' is a word which comes from the idea
of a Kv^epvrjTrii, a shipmaster (Ac 27", Rev 18") or
pilot (Ezk 27*- ^- ^), directing the course of a ship.
The word occurs nowhere else in the NT, but in
the LXX we have it in the sense of ' wise guidance '
in peace or war (Pr 11" 24*). St. Paul probably
uses it of those who superintended the externals of
organization. It would therefore denote those who
are over the rest, and rule them, the vpoiffTdfievoi of
1 Th 51-, Ro 1** and the iryov/ieyoi of He 13'- "• -^
Ac 15—. The ' governors ' are directors and organ-
izers, not teachers ; still less are they ' discemers
of spirits,' as Stanley suggests. They are persons
with a gift for management. It is possible that
they afterwards developed into a class of officials
as ' elders ' or ' bishops,' but that stage had not
been reached when 1 Cor. was written. See Helps
and Church Goverxmext. A. Plummer.
GRACE.— 1. General meaning and presupposi-
tions.— (a) Divine prevenience and generosity. —
Grace is a theistic idea. It emerges inevitably in
the progress of religious thought and practice with
the idea of God's separateness from man (cf. in
India, Brahmanism ; in Greece, Orphism). It
deepens in character and content in the growing
sense of separateness, with the concurrent con-
viction, ever deepening in intensity, of the Divine
goodness in sustaining fellowship with man (cf. in
Israel, Hebraism, Judaism). It attains perfect
form in Christianity, whose Founder exhibits a
personal life so dependent on and penetrated by
Grod as to reach absolute maturity simply through
the Divine power immanent within it — the cease-
less sense, possession, and operation of the Divine
Spirit. Irresistibly the soul's interior experience
of that fellowship postulates a realm of Divine
{>revenience and generosity. Generally the postu-
ate embraces three features : the priority of God,
His self-donation to man. His regard and care for
man's salvation — all making emphatic the given-
ness of man's best life, the Divine action inviting
his. Grace is thus a purely religious affirmation
expressing the soul's assurance that God's good-
ness is the beginning, medium, and end of its life.
Here God is not simply a great First Cause : first
in time, foremost in space ; He is rather the back-
ground and dynamic force of man's inner being,
and, for its sake, of all created being ; enfolding
and comprehending it, giving it its origin, reason
of existence, unity, completeness, final end; the
envelope of the whole b}' which the parts do their
best and issue in their most fruitful results, so
that the soul is a harmony of linked forces,*
Divine and human. Here, too, the soul's blessed-
ness is not simply the gift of God. The soul's life
is through Himself — 'His very self and essence
all-Divine.' t Its various stages, the growing pro-
cess of His grace, do not depend, nay, disappear
when made to depend, on merely mental reference
to His acts, or on merely self-originating impulses.
Such attachment of the human to the Divine is
too superficial. The inadequacy of man's spirit
to work out its own perfection is irremediable.
Salvation is only secure in utter and entire de-
pendence on the Divine Life, distinct from man's,
the life which precedes and from which proceeds
all his capacity for good: in which, truly, 'we
live and move and have our being.'
(b) The Christian experience. — The apostolic
doctrine of grace presupposes the distinctive Chris-
tian experience. The S T teaching falls into three
groups : Synoptic, Pauline, Johannine. The first
reproduces the most immediately and literally
faithful picture of Christ's saj-ings ; the second and
third present the earliest impressive developments
of His sayings in individual realization, and are
rich in exposition and explanation of the subjective
apprehension and appropriation of Divine grace.
It is the process in man's activity that is detailed
more than the analysis of the attribute in God.
Between the two types we are conscious of marked
contrasts, not only in their form but in the sub-
stance and mode. Along with a deep underlying
unity of fundamental thought, it is true to say
that the consciousness of the apostles is not
identical with the consciousness of Christ. Christ
is not repeated in them.* The teaching of both is
the direct transcript of their spiritual history ; but
their spiritual constitution is so radically diSerent
that their teaching is bound to have radical difier-
ences. ' He spoke as the sinless Son of God ; they
wrote from the standpoint of regenerated men.'§
The principle of sin alters the whole position. The
^'iew-points for estimating grace increase. Thus it
is that while Christ speaks little, if at all, of grace,
it is a central conception of the apostles. There-
fore also, while grace is in both, it is 'in Christ'
in a \-itally intimate way such as cannot be predi-
cated of the apostles except ' through Christ.' It
is * the grace of Christ,' as ' of God ' ; not the grace
of the apostles, whose it is only ' by his grace.'
Again we have to note in Christ's case no trace
of that separateness of the human from the Divine
Spirit in their communion and inter-operation in
the relationship of grace, which is so clear in the
case of the apostles, a distinction of which they
are so confident that they claim a special illumina-
tion and infusion of supernatural light and energy
in this experience. Christ's mediation of grace to
them is basic. It differentiates their doctrine not
only from Christ's, but from all ethnic and pro-
phetic ideas. The apostles are neither mere seekers
after God, nor simply seers or servants or inter-
preters of Gk)d : they are sons, the bearers of Him-
self ; II and the immensely richer experience is
reflected in the ampler refinement of their idea of
grace and its more commanding place in their
system. Nor should we fail to observe that the
term 'grace' denotes a new economy in human
history. Primarily it signifies a fresh advance of
the human spirit under the impetus of new Divine
• Ct Tennjrson's picture of 'the »wfal roee of dawn' in the
Vigion of Sin.
t Cf . Xewman's hymn : ' Praise to the Holiest in the hei^t.'
i Cf., for an admirable discussion of this point, P. T. Finrqrtb,
The Perion and Place of Jem* Christ, 1909.
§ W. P. Paterson, The ApottUT Teaching, pt L : 'Ihe
Pauline Theology,' 1903, p. 5.
I Cf. the early Christian term for belierers— X/koto^i^oi.
508
GRACE
GRACE
redemptive force. That fact implies a fresli out-
flow of energy from God and a fresh uplift of the
world's life ; man is ' a new creation,' * the world
' a new earth ' ; t there is revealed a new stage in
the fulfilment of the eternal purpose. Grace here
has cosmic .significance. Sin is over-ruled for good
in the whole world-order as it is in the individual
Christian heart. History, like the soul, is trans-
formed through Christ. The initial and control-
ling causes of that whole vast change are discovered
to the primitive Christian perception in a great
surprise of God's forgiveness, pronounced and im-
parted by Christ, and made elective for regenera-
tion by a force none other than, not inferior to,
His Holy Spirit. Thereby a new era is inaugur-
ated— the dispensation of ' the gospel of the grace
of God.' J ' Grace, then, comprises three specific
moments : a supernatural energy of God, a
mystical and moral actuation of man, an immanent
economj' of Spirit.
(c) Essential cimractcristics. — Grace, accordingly,
is erroneously regarded when defined as a .substance
or force or any sort of static and uniform quantum.
It is * spirit and life,' and as such its characteristics
are personality, mutuality, individuality. The ex-
perience of grace is that of 'a gracious relation-
ship'§ between two persons, in which the proper
nature of either in its integrity and autonomy is
never at all invaded. The mode is not impersonal
or mechanical. The blessing is not an influx so
much as response to an influence ; a gift yet a
task ; a mysterious might overpowering, but not
with power, rather witii persuasion ; the renewal
of the entire disposition through implicit trust in
God's goodness and by the diligent exercise of the
powers of Spirit, ever latent and now let loose,
with which He enables and quickens. It is not
only an awakening of the moral self into more
active freedom : it is first the conscious springing
up and growth of a new life, sudden or gradual and
wondrous, from immersion in the mystic bath,|| fed
by the heavenly streams, whose cleansing power,
if before unknown, is not alien, and invests the
finite life with the sense of infinite worth and im-
perishable interest — a sense welcomed as native
and as needful for the life's predestined end. The
process is easily intelligible, yet readily liable
to misunderstanding. The traditional doctrine,
Catholic and Protestant, in its anxiety to safe-
guard both the mystical and moral constituents of
the experience, has tended towards two grave
defects — the separation of the two which in reality
are one, and the confusion of the mystical with tlie
magical. H Grace then becomes a material quantity,
instead of spiritual quality. Psychologically a
person is only inasmuch as he is living, growing.
Man is, as he lives in God ; and his capture** and
surrender are achieved not in a thing but in a
l^erson, and not to a thing but to the One Person,
whose right to claim him and renew his life con-
sists precisely in this, that He is Himself absolutely,
infinitely, and actually what man is derivatively,
finitely, and potentially. Thus the act which binds
man to God does so for growth and enhancement
of life. All that comes from the living God is
worked out by living souls, and is ever living and
enlivening ; it is as varied and individual as the
variety of individuals concerned.
The apostles were Hebraic, and no true Hebrew
could misinterpret this. To the Fathers it was so
* 2 Co 5", Gai:ci5. f Rev 211. s. j Ac 2.(fi*.
§ Cf. art. ' Personality and Grace,' v., by J. Oman in ExpngUor,
8th ser. iii. [1912] 46811.
II Cf. St. Paul's ' baptism with Christ ' (Ro C^, Col 2i-'). Cf. for
the idea, art. 'St. Paul and the Mystery-Religions,' in., by
H. A. A. Kennedy, in Expos-itor, 8th ser. iv. [1012] COff.
*II This criticism does not apply to mjstical piety or evangelical.
** It is a seizing by God as well as a yielding by man, 'appre-
hension ' on both sides (Pb 3>3).
familiar. The covenant-relation was the central
truth of their religion. Its very essence was this
mutualncss of religious communion. Vital godli-
ness hinged on two realities — the Divine Being
willing to be gracious, and the no less ready
response man must make to Him. For God and
man to come together, both must be individually
active. To God s willingness to help, man comes
with his willingness to be helped. To God's desire
to forgive, man comes with a penitent mind. By
mutual love, the love of God to man meeting the
love of man to God, the two are reconciled. Com-
plete surrender (religion) brings with it growing
mdividualityand independence (morality). Herein,
further, let us note, rests the explanation of two
conspicuous facts in the life of giace — the fact, viz, ,
tliat the inspiration of grace is neither iii fallible
nor irresistible ; * and the fact of the splendid out-
burst of fresh forms of goodness. The Church in
her materialistic moods has been prone to forget
both. The Apostolic Age is so rich spiritually
just because so sensible of both. 'We Iiave this
treasure in earthen vessels' is the precise counter-
part of the psalmist's ' the spirit of man is the
candle of the Lord.' It is never forgotten that
while the Divine Life is the milieu of the human,
the human is the medium of tlie Divine, its assimi-
lative capacity adequate only to the present need,
not to the ultimate reality ; f while its readiness
to receive is never in vain in any event or circum-
stance or relation of life. The human spirit may
appropriate only within limits ; but the indefinite
variety of limits alone bounds the operation of
grace. Grace is all-sufficient ; the ' fruits of the
Spirit' correspond to its plenitude.
2. Specific redemptive content. — In seeking to
analyze the contents of grace, wc have no lack of
material. What grace is is to be seen in the spiritual
personalitj' it produces. The Apostolic Letters
furnish a comi)lete, typical description, of rare
intensity and lucidity, of two such personalities
of the loftiest order — St. Paul and St. John, and
we possess abundant parallel records of Christian
sanctitjy^ of every later age, to verify our conclu-
sions. The letters are not so much doctrinal systems
as a sort of journal intime of soaring, searching
spirits : autobiographies of spirit, ' confessions ' of
what the writers saw and heard Jind knew of ' the
mystery of Christ.' J As Christ 'witnessed' of
Himself, the apostles 'witness' of Chri.st. Their
witness is offered in two distinct types — the pre-
dominantly ethical and the predominantly con-
templative— neither of which has ever failed to
recur constantly in subsequent history. It may
therefore be taken as comprehensive and normative.
It is, moreover, offered with a minimum reference to
the material througli which it has operated — the
psycho-physical organism and temperament in
which the gracious working has developed itself. §
The .scaffolding has been taken down, and the
building is disclosed unencumbered with immaterial
detail. From that fact we may trust in the apos-
tles' balance of mind and credibility, since the
very richness of their spiritual vision points to an
unusually large subconscious life of ' the natural
man' and its insurgent impulses, not e<asy to
subdue, yet which, instead of dominating, is so
exquisitely kept in place as to become a chief
instrument and material of their life's worth and
works. Regarding our data in this light, what do
" See art. Pkrsbvkranxk.
t Cf. a sermon by I'hillips Brooks. 'The Candle of the Lord'
{The Candle of the Lord and Other Sermo)ut, 1881).
} The recent extensive literature devoted to the study of the
apostles' teaching has for main result to cist into bolder relief
the splendid spiritual stature of, next to Christ, the two grreat
figures, St. Paul and St. .lohn.
§ Hints occur in SU Paul's writings (Ko T^* 12', 1 Co 9'^,
2 Co lS7-8l2!i).
GRACE
GRACE
509
we find? — At once a continuity of experience and
an identity uf essential fact.
(«) Supeniatural principle of li/c. — To l)egin
with, we find tlie life of grace to be constitutetl by
the supernatural principle, and to be an indivisible
entity. The life of the believer is by a new birth
from above,* translating men into a new position
before God and a new disposition to sustain it.t
That is the consentient testimony of the apostles,
as of the saints, of the first and of every age.+
Grace is initially regeneration, the work of God's
Spirit, 'whereby we are renewed in the whole
man and are enabled more and more to die daily
unto sin and to live unto righteousness.' § Apos-
tolic and saintly biography shows that this con-
dition may have different levels and values in
different natures, and even in the same nature
at different times. It shows also that the main-
tenance of that condition means a constant and
immense effort, a practically unbroken grace-
ge.tting and ever-growing purity in conflict with
the insistent lower self. But the characteristic
general fact of renewal remains, as something
constant and inalienable — in its inferior planes as
a fight against the devil ; in its higher, a struggle
with lower self, stimulated and impelled by GcJd's
illumination working in and upon the soul : con-
stant and inalienable so long as the soul keeps
turning towards the Light. For the grace of
conversion!! is the concomitant of regeneration.
Conversion is an act of the soul made possible by
the Spirit, and should be as continuous as an act
as regeneration is as a work.^ This experience,
which on one side is regeneration and on the other
is conversion, is one which leaves the soul different
for ever from what it was before ; yet not in such
wise as to prevent the soul itself living on, or as to
raise the soul above its limitations and failings, so
that it will not fall from grace, and wUl be kept
from sin. Bat the endeavour to keep from fall
and lapse is now on a larger and deeper scale, on
a higher plane, on a new vantage-ground. It is
always attended by the clear consciousness of the
effort being 'in God,' 'in Christ,' and as wholly
their work as the soul's.
This double consciousness of I>i\nne and haman
action, nevertheless, does not divide the soul. On
the contrary, the more deeplj' it proceeds, the more
does the soul wake up and fuse itself into single
vital volition to cast off what is inconsistent with
its growing self and to mould what remains into
better consistency. The soul as the subject of
grace is not an automaton but a person, and the
two actions are but two moments of one motion
whose activities are not juxtaposed but inter-
penetrate in an organic unity.** Spirit and spirit
can be each within the other tt — a favourite idea of
the apostles.:^^ In St. John the same thought is
ever present under the categories of life, light,
knowledge, love.§§ All here comes from, and leads
to, a life lived within the conditions of our own
existence in willed touch and deliberate union
with God.
(6) Blessings of Christ's work and Person. — Next
• Cf. Jn 113 3*. 2 Co 517, Gal 615, ja ii8, i p i», i Jn 39.
t Cf. Jn W«, Ro 52, Eph S*- 10- 18 313, Ph 3», "Rt S*- 6 He 719
1019. 20.
X Cf. for the typical instance of mediaraljMety — St. Catherine
of Genoa — the remarkable delineation in F. von Hugel's
Mfstieal Element of Reli^vn, 1908 ; atoo Lnther, Bunj-an, etc ;
and for Reformation examples, the life story of Luther. See
also * Studies in Conversion,' bv J. Stalker, in Expositor, 7th ser.
\u. [1909] 118, 322, 521.
S Shorter Catechism ; cf. Ro 12^, 2 Co 4i6, Eph 43, Col 310.
I It belongs to the life of 'perseverance.'
5 Cf. Jn 6«, Ac 2» 319- « 9 na 1730 •26IS, 1 Th 19, Ja 4S.
*• Cf. 1 Co 1510, 2 Co * 12112, Eph 37- 20. Ph 212- 13.
tt Cf. Ro gs.
It Cf. Ro6»8l-9.10.ui48 iCo 10»-<15M, 200410^11135. Gal
3K, Ph la.
§S Jn 4" 521 29 ess. «L 44 KJIO 1250 I4IO 15L 5 17X » 1 Jn 41^ ».
we find the life of grace to be a progressive process
of moral purification and mental enlightenment in
mystical union with Christ. It Ls a growth in
grace and in the knowledge of Christ,* in the
' grace and truth ' that are come bj' Jesus Christ. t
St. Paul dwells on this grace as ' righteousness,' +
St. John dwells on it as 'truth' (light, know-
ledge) ; § never, however, in either case on the one
as exclusive or separate from the other. To St.
Paul Christ is wLsdoni as well as righteousness ; to
St. John He is righteousness as well as truth,
although in the former instance the point of
emphasis is on righteousness, in the latter on
light. For this reason, in the Pauline doctrine the
description of the source, sphere, and effects of
grace is mainly in juridical terms ; in the Johan-
nine, in abstract terms — true to the intellectual
influences to which they were subject.!! The two
accotmts necessarily differ, and in important de-
tails. The fundamental conceptions are identical.
A broad statement of their unity may well precetle
the elucidation of their divergences. To both
types of idea: (I) Christ is not 'after the flesh,'
but is Spirit or Life,1I^ i.e. the Risen and Glorified
Christ who had met St. Paul on the way to
Damascus, converting him ; whom St. John saw in
the Vision of Patmos for his comfort ; ' the second
Adam,' ** ' the Man, the Lord +t from heaven ' ; ' the
Lord of glory.' Xi (2) Righteousness and truth are
objective realities as well as subjective qualities,
powers of God and qualities in man : the righteous-
ness of God and the sanctity of man — the first
creative of the second through faith. §§ (3) Christ
is the ^lediator of righteousness and truth, both
of which He is Himself ; 11 1] in vii-tne of which it
is said that ' the grace of God ' is the ' grace of
Christ,' ItH and the life of grace is ' life in him ' or
'life in the Spirit.'*** (4) This Spirit creates or
awakes Spirit (ryevfia) in man through the infusion
of its supernatural principle in the gift of right-
eousness and knowledge (= Spirit), so that men
are partakers of these as they are in God, in the
measure of men.tt+ The Apostle finds the possi-
bility, on man's side, of this infusion, in the
nature of the human xi-eO/ta.t^ which then becomes
the temple of the indwelling Divine rrev/jM, and
from which as basis proceeds the sanctification of
the whole nature. (5) The righteousness and
truth (which are Spirit, and Christ), mediated to
faith, are mediated by the human life and historic
work of Christ : in the Pauline statement, with
special relation to His Death and Resurrection;
in the Johannine, with reference to the issues for
character which His Coming reveals and makes
acute. According to the former, the sacrifice of
Christ is deliverance from the curse that rests on sin
and the alienation from God. By His Resurrection
Christ so completely takes possession of the believ-
er's heart that he feels his life is not so much his
own as that of Christ in him — the indwelling
Spirit. According to the latter, the eternal life
of the pre-existent Logos, manifested in Christ's
historical Person, is in believing experience incor-
• 2 P 318. t Jn 1".
t Ro 117 10«, 1 Co 1», 2 Co 521, Ph 39, etc
5 Ct Jn 1» 319 12», 1 Jn 15- 7 23 5«, Rev 225- 6, etc
I We take St. Paul's mind to be httle influenced, the
Johannine writings to be moch influenced, by Greek thoaght.
^ Jn 14« 1135, 1 Oo 15«. «7, 2 Go 317, 1 Jn l^A
*• 1 Co 15« tt 1 Co 1 a«7.
Jt 1 Co 28, Ja 21. 5§ Ac 31s.
II Ro 51s, 2 Co 521, Ph 111, 2 P 11, 1 Jn 'Z^^ 520.
%^ Christ is its bearer and bringer, having the pleroma ; see
esp. Col 1.
*** The Sinrit of grace.
ttt Jn 37 5», Ro 117 517 3M, 2 Co 5«, Ph 3>.
iit The Paoline anthropokigy is an intricate snbject. For a
remarkably interesting luid (dear statement see H. Wheeler
RobinscH), Christian Doetri»e of Man, 1911, i^ 104-136. St.
Paul teaches that in the natoial vrcvyts of man lies the groand
of affinity with the Divine wvevfta.
510
GRACE
GRACE
porated tlirough the mystical fellowship * of
believers with Christ, who are translatea from
darkness into light, from death to life, from sin
and unrighteousness to love.f (6) In the Epistle
to the Hebrews (of the Pauline type) the life of
grace is seen at work in Christ's Personal Life,
making it clear that the faith in Him that
is receptive of grace is the faith of Him ; so that
what He did and won for men He did and won
for Himself as a work of spiritual and moral
power exerted in Him, and not simply upon Him.
'The grace-enabling faith and the faith enabled
by grace to overcome sin and destroy death, the
Divine and human conspiring to produce and con-
stitute the new righteousness of God in man and
man in God, were so met in Jesus that He Himself
"was the revelation because He was the thing re-
vealed.' :J: (7) The appearance of this Life and its
blessings of grace are traced to the spontaneous
and unmerited beneficence and initiative of God,§
who in C'hrist deals with sinful mankind not on tlie
ground of merit or after the mode of Law, as
though they were servants or subjects, but solely
from His own natural instinct of Holy Love, as
a father towards his sons. Hence the gracious
will of God is distinctive in the incomparable
fullness and excellency of the motives which it
comprehends. II (8) Divine grace consequently
underlies every part of the redemptive process,
in an imposing array of objective forces. IT What
are its parts ? Here the schemes of saving grace
in the two types widely diverge in their most
conspicuous features. St. Paul conceives of
the subject of grace thus — the sinner is a criminal
whom the Righteous Judge will of His clemency
save ; and his thought moves in a circle of juristic
terms. St. John's conception, on the other hand, is
of the world (=human life) as marred by sin in
opposition to God, and his notion moves in a series
oi antitheses reconciled finally by the manifesta-
tion of that pre-existent Logos who is the world's
fundamental principle. Under these leading con-
cepts let us classify the respective terms.
(a) The Pauline scheme. — 'Justification' is the
point of stress in the Pauline list, and with it go
' redemption ' and ' righteousness ' ; ' adoption ' and
' reconciliation ' go together ; sanctification is their
result. The source of the whole is in the Divine
predestination, and the goal is man's glorification.
The briefest definitions must suffice. Predestina-
tion determines on God's part His purpose of
grace. Election expresses the soul's experience
and certainty of saving grace. Justification is
the grace which acquits and accepts the sinner
as righteous. By justification the redemption pur-
chased by Christ is made effective. Adoption is
the grace that removes the obstacles debarring the
sinner from fellowship with God, and inspires him
with filial trust, freedom, and inheritance. By
adoption reconciliation with God is made effective.
Sanctification is the issue of these already men-
tioned in the renewal of the whole man — spirit,
soul, body — a renewal leading eventually to
resurrection, life, glory. Though the parts may
thus be separated in thought, it is to be remem-
bered that they are inseparable in tlie actual
process. The prescience and prevenience of God
are not otiose ; they are the active origin and basal
ground of man's salvation. Justification in its
attitude of faith implies the implicit energy of
sanctification. Sanctification is but a ' continuous
* Cf. the discourses in tiie Upper Room, Parable of the
Vine, etc.
t St. John's three jpreat antitheses.
i W. P. DuBose, The Gospel according to Saint Paul, 1D07,
pp. 85-86.
§ Jn 112 637. 40, Ro 5H- 10, Eph 1* 28, Col 18, 1 Jn 310 410.
II 2 Co 98, Ph 419, 1 P 410, 1 Jn 31.
U Ro 830.
justification.' * Imputed righteousness is vital and
IS imparted. The ' peace with God ' which these
secure is, through a real remission of sins and
rescue from God's wrath, fitted to partake in the
ineffable nature of the Spirit of righteousness and
truth, who effects salvation, and the bliss of the
Eternal Life, of which it is the foretaste and first-
fruit, t
St. Paul gives two ' sums ' of grace, the one in
1 Co P", the other in Ro 8^", to which elsewhere are
added ' adoption ' and ' reconciliation ' (Gal 4"'',
Ro 5", 2 Co S*"). We may tabulate thus :
A. Predestination and Election.
Justification Ado)>tion Sanctification
B. and and and
Redemption. Reconciliation. Righteouanew.
C. Resurrection and Glory.
(/3) The Johannine scheme. — Eternal Life is the
point of stress in tlie Johannine scheme. It works
itself out in a series of three antitlieses subsumed
under the general and inclusive one of God versus
the world, viz. light v. darkness, life v. death, love
V. sin = unrighteousness. God and Christ, working
in the Pauline scheme as righteou.sness and wisdom,
work here as light, life, love, driving away dark-
ness, death, sin ; restoring life to its full com-
pletion by this self-revelation of the Divine Life
which is at the same time the principle of the
world's real life (Logos). Resurrection liere is just
fullness of life, the perfection of personality, which
we see in Christ (historic), who is the Resurrection
and Life, and who communicates it to believers,
with self-evidencing force, in the life of love. This
new life is attained from the new birth in an ex-
perienced succession t of ever-deepening intuitions
and acts of faith, in a rich immanence of Christ in
the believing soul,§ and of such a soul in Christ,
like that of the Father in the Son and the Son in
the Father. II We may tabulate thus :
A. Pre-existent IX)gos and Life.
God Light Life Love
B. V. = V. V. V.
World. Darkness. Death. Sin.
C. Incarnate Logos, Principle of Resurrection and Life.
The broad result of both descriptions of the life
of grace is notable. It vindicates the outstanding
fact of the Synoptic presentation of Christ : the
uniqueness of His self-estimate for salvation.
That is the conspicuous fact likewise of apostolic
experience : ' the mystery of Christ now revealed
to his holy apostles.' Unique as His life was, it
yet can be the very law of all life. And it is so,
when a relation between men and Christ is estab-
lished of such a nature as links them to Him, so
tliat they abide in Him as in their element. That
relation is not adequately expressed as simply
ethical harmony. It is rather an interpenetration
of essence, in which the soul, gathering up all its
faculties in unitary interplay and under His in-
fusion of His Spirit, enters on a progressive sanc-
tification, the illumination of the mind, the
cleansing of the Spirit, until the whole nature is
filled with the rich gifts of grace. Man in all this
is neither depersonalized nor self-deified. He is,
indeed, a self-contained system of spiritual opera-
tions— a little cosmos. But he is this in order to
take his rightful and ordained place in the larger
•The phrase is Flint's, in Sermon* and Addresses, 1809, p.
230 — Christ our Righteousness. It is a merit of Ritschl to
have broken down the distinction between justification and
sanctification. Cf. his chief work, Rechtjertigung und
Versohnung*, 1900.
t Ro 51.
X Cf. \V. R. Inge, art 'John, Gospel of,' in DCG i. 885 fl.,
where, however, the successiveness of the stages is overdrawn,
and the equally true simultaneity is obscured.
§ Too narrow a content is at times given to St. John's ' know-
ledge' : it includes not only the mental part, but all the parts
of a man's self.
II Jn 14a>- 21,
GRACE
GRACE
511
cosmos ; for the fundamental energy in his new
life is the wider fundamental energy which Ls co-
extensive with creation \italizing all that lives.
So large is God's gift.*
(c) The gift of the Holy Ghost.— Vie find the life
of grace to oe consummated under the pre-ordained
Divine ideal by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit
and the hope of glory. The life of grace is the
eternal life in its earlier stage. The gift alone
corresponding to the requisite grace is the Holy
Spirit. It is a gift, the natural and necessary
sequel to the process just described.t For the
Spirit is the agent of the operations of grace. If
God justifies, adopts, and sanctifies, regenerates
and converts, it is but fitting that He take means
to make known the fact to them who are subject
to these acts of grace : hence in justification the
Spirit 'sheds abroad in our hearts' the love of
God ; Z in adoption ' the Spirit beareth witness
with our spirits that we are the children of God.'§
St. John dwells on the importance of the sending
of "the Spirit. II The Spirit is specially the gift
of God ; His mission the most important of the
consequences of Christ's Exaltation. As Christ
grew Himself in grace by the Spirit, so by the
SjJirit He did His work for man, does His work in
man, and mystically abides in man. The Spirit
comes not to supply the place of an absent Christ
but to bring a spiritually present Christ. He
dwells in the believer as that Divine personal
influence that brings Christ into the heart and
seats Him there. He joins us to Christ, and in
Christ we are joined to God — hence the terms
'Spirit of Christ,' 'Spirit of the Son,' 'Spirit of
Jesus Christ.' Again, the Spirit does His work
not abstractly, but by producing conviction of sin,
righteousness, judgment to come, in relation to
Christ whom 'He glorifies.' IT He makes the
historic facts of the Life, Death, and Resurrection
of Christ the vital points of connexion through
which He acts ; and because it is so, men experi-
ence in grace those energies which constitute the
Spirit of the Son, the energies of God.
Hence His indwelling manifests itself in the par-
ticular dispositions and graces of character** which
He calls into existence, called 'the fruits of the
Spirit.' We need not trace the forms in which the
spiritual principle unfolds or the spheres within
which it operates, tt We point only to the infinite
variety and individuality of grace in its exhibition
here, and to its limitless prospect and horizon.
Crod in Christ through His Spirit is the Maker,
the Creator of this new spiritual character.:^ It
is the protlucrion of the original and underived con-
ception of His mind, not an origination in man's
nature nor within its limits. Hence its freshness,
£regnancy, fruitfulness, and hopefulness. It is a
fe to l>e worked up to (a Divine ideal), not
worked out from — and no man can fix the bounds
of its splendour.
It finds exercise in the natural virtues, in the
spiritual graces, in the service and worship of God,
in the religious emotions, and in the realization of
the blessings of salvation. It is ' unto good works,'
with sublime inclusiveness. There is no fixed
pattern. God has no set moulds for character to
run in : nothing is fixed but the predestined path
•Ro8.
t This is prominent in Romanist teaching of gratia, infusion
of Baring energy by the work of the Spirit, jost as in Reformed
doctrine * grace ' is the free favour of God, manifested in
justification, which bringB with it assurance. St. Paul's idea
comprises both.
: Bo 5». $ Ro 8i«- 17.
I Jn 14, 16, etc. 5 Jn 16".
•• St. Paul gives a fine list (Gal 5*2. 23) ; st. John gives its no
less fine spirit— love (1 Jn 3X).
ft Briefly, the Spirits 'manifestation' is (a) ecstatical, (6)
ethical, (c) religious. St. Paul g:ives the lowest place to (al the
highest to (e) (1 Co 13).
U Eph 210, ' we are His " poem" created.'
' that God has ordained that we should walk in.'*
The same idea occurs in another fine setting in St.
Peter. t The greatness of grace lies quite as much
in what it is to be as in its present value ; in grace
there is an inherent, indefinitely prolonged, and
enduring propagativeness, another aspect of grace's
resources. In this regard the Spirit is ♦ an earnest.'
An earnest implies two things — more to follow,
and more of essentially the same kind. The pres-
ence of the Spirit in a man's life speaks to him
with assurance of the future, and the blessedness
awaiting ; and, if it does not enable him to forecast
the particulars of that life, yet it does enable him
to foretaste its nobleness and bliss. What grace
gives here J will be enjoyed there in perfect glory
and perfected fullness. Only let us 'live in the
Spirit' and 'walk in the Spirit' §
3. Historical controYersie&. — The subject of grace
bristles with controversy. Every fresh epoch, bring-
ing larger thought and fresh foci of emphasis, sees
the recurrence of perplexities. The Apostolic Age
is no exception. Its apologetic protagonist, St.
Paul, discusses at least four points — grace in rela-
tion to (a) nature, (6) merit, (c) freedom, (d) the
Church and sacraments. A brief note on each may
fitly close this exposition.
(a) Grace and nature. — The question is in reality
part of the perennial problem of nature and the
supernatural, and their relation. With the Apostle
it offers two facets : (1) the extent to which unre-
generate man may be said to be under grace ; (2)
the conversion of sinftil nature by grace. As to
the former, there have been in sub^quent times
two attitudes : (a) man's tinregenerate nature is
wholly outside grace, a viassa perditionis (St.
Augustine), a ' total depravity ' (Calvin), ' in bond-
age ' (Luther) ; and (^) it is only in piart outside
the operation of grace ; grace includes natural
%-irtue as well as supematuxal gifts ; in the work-
ing of reason and conscience we see the working of
God's Spirit ; the question is one of degree. As
to the latter there have been also two attitudes : Is
sin radical or superficial, imperfection or perver-
sion? If it is a radical perversion, then the con-
verting grace required is above nature, the free
gift of God's mercy ; if a superficial imperfection,
moral influence by way of education will suffice to
eradicate it.
These attitudes in varying guise have divided
Christendom through the centuries. On which
side may we range the apostles? The question is
not easy to answer. They ofler no systematic state-
ment. Two considerations are relevant. First,
they inherit the national attitude, the cardinal
feature of which is the natural affinity of man for
Ciod and the easy access of God's Spirit to man.
The Spirit operated specially but also generally ;
His grace lay in the ordinary as well as in the ex-
ceptional facts of moral and religious life. There
is no sign that the apostles broke with this point
of view (nor did the Patristic age).'! They make,
however, a most significant addition, due to the
vital effect of Christ's Personality in their experi-
ence, introducing an absolutely new strain, form-
ing a new centre round which the problem gathers.
The inherited theory is left unreconciled with the
new focus ; the new focus inevitably leads to the
profoundest widening of the gulf between nature
and grace ; and pre-Chrisrian moral and religious
life is conceived of as, in its general disposition,
evil, abandoned of God, even if, in its higher
tendencies, especially in Israel under the Law, it
was propedeutic and led to demands for revelataon
• Eph 210. tip 1".
X ' The Spirit of j^arj aad of God rests upon us now ' (1 P 41'*)-
S The beherer wlio has the Spirit thus has Him as 'a seal'
(2 C!o 123, Eph lis 430).
i The Greek Fathers teach that the Greek i^iiloeopherB are
onder the influence of the Holy Spirit.
512
GRACE
GRACE
of grace. In both St. Jolin and St. Paul the con-
ception of .sin is inimeasuiubly deepened — its opposi-
tion, even enmity, to God and grace starkly ex-
pressed.
{b) Grace, (ind iticrit. — The doctrine of merit in
its full technical sense belongs to later days. It is
fully developed in mediajval scholasticism, where
it occupies a large place. It was seriously assaulted
by the Keformers. It was prepared for by a long
anterior development from small beginnings as
early as the sub-apostolic teaching.* Many factors
entered in tlie course of history to enhance its theo-
logical interest. From the sub-apostolic age there
begins the emphasis on works. Again, increasingly,
Christianity tends to become a new Law, the Chris-
tian life its submissive acceptance. Still more, as
the Church -consciousness grew, there grew tlie
ecclesiastical idea of redemption as a great system
beginning in baptism and ending in resurrection ;
grace working not spiritually but mechanically in
its mode.t The Latin Fathers gave a strong im-
petus to the idea of merit in the doctrine and dis-
cipline of penance. In the Pauline anthropology
the idea is present and is opposed in its most rudi-
mentary form. It has a natural basis, which the
Apostle takes up, and, dissociating it from the
popular view, makes serve as the foundation of
his doctrine of faith as the human factor in the
renewal of the believing heart. It is not quite
true that in Pauline theology man 'can do nothing'
and 'needs to do nothing.' Grace requires man's
co-operation in faith, which is not simply an initial
act, but a constant attitude. Faith, or the recep-
tive heart, implicit, humble trust in God, may be
all the sinner has to exercise — but it is a vast deal,
and has a distinct moral worth. if Its worth, how-
ever, is not extended to the good qualities or
good works of which it is the precursor ; these are
credited solely to the grace whose reception faith
renders possible.§ The Pharisaic doctrine of merit
is before the Apostle's mind ; and his arguments
emphasize the gospel of absolute grace in reaction
from the conception of Law as conditional reward.
He labours to prove that the Law by its very nature
cannot unite the sinner to Christ or God, union
with whom is the proper idea of grace. The true
relation is reversed when character and conduct are
made pre-conditions of our obtaining Divine grace
instead of the joyous result of our having accepted
it. Besides, even faith is the gift of God. The
Spirit implants. For that express purpose Christ
is exalted. II These principles reappear in the
Reformers' polemic against the Catiiolic dogma.
' Faith unites the soul to Christ.' That primary
fact it is that outcasts all merit, and faith is ' the
gift of God.'
(c) Grace and freedom. — In the life of grace as a
human experience God of His own motion takes
part. Another problem is : What is the part God
takes, and what is man's ? The problem is one of
tlie most difficult. It is continually emerging in
the course of human thought, and, like all of these
grace problems, has continuously divided Christian
loyalty. Two great answers have been given which
in their extreme statement are directly contradic-
tory of one another, but modifications of which are
continually proposed. The first is known as Pelagi-
anism, according to which the spiritual life of a man
is the direct result of his own choice. The second
is known as Augustinianism, according to which
the spiritual life is necessitated by God's will. The
best-known modification is Semi-pelagianisin, which
* In ' Ilermas ' we have the idea of superero^jatory merit ; and
also o( some works better pleasing to God than others.
t Not the same as the magical worthing of the impersonal
' infusion ' of later scholasticism.
J He 118.
5 This is all more fully considered under art. Jcstification.
U Ac 61.
finds prevailing favour in the Roman Catholic teach-
ing, as Augustinianism does in Reformation doc-
trine. It is a form of Synergism, according to which
Divine grace is insuilicient till human eflbrt con-
joins with it. The three may be thus defined — in
the Pelagian view, grace precedes and assists the
natural (unregenerate) will ; in the Augustinian,
grace prepares and assists the regenerate will ; in
tlie Semi-pelagian, grace is not operative at all till
man's will (indifferent) brings it into play. The
answer to the problem depends on the i)hilosophy
of personality adopted.* What is here relevant is
the ffict that the apostolic doctrine has nothing of
all this in view, however much it may suggest it.
These eternal values are carried up to the eternal
Eurpose of God and at the same time tiie ctiiical
asis of moral responsibility in human freedom is
recognized. The Divine control of human life in
the whole of its activities is one of the great con-
ceptions of the OT. It is power animated by a
gracious and righteous purpose and conditioned by
the recognition of human freedom. Tlie OT idea
of providence culminates in tlie NT itiea of salva-
tion. The assertion of human freedom runs through
both OT and NT, Divine control and human free-
dom accompanying each other, in harmonious in-
timacy, regarded in a purely practical manner.
Whatever invasion of ' freedom there is, is due to
sin ; but the evil tendency is never pressed into
determinism. The apostles, as later the Fathers,
think in this ancestral descent. Religious depend-
ence has for necessary concomitant moral inde-
pendence ; the deeper the dependence (religious)
the richer the independence (morality). It is this
independence that St. Paul emphasizes in the bless-
ing which he terms ' the glorious liberty of the
sons of God,' ' the freedom wherewith Christ sets us
free't — a primary feature of the new life. Grace
is the personal relation to our moral self by which
that self attains emancipation. Modern moral
theory approves.
{d) Grace and the Church and sacraments. — In
apostolic thought the Church is a visible and
Divine institution : the Body and Bride of Christ.
It is the approjiriate social environment for the
sanctified soul, wherein at once the gifts of each
are available for the profit of all and the spiritual
atmosphere conduces to the uplift and sanctity of
all. It is specially the ' fulness of him that filleth
all in all,' + i.e. the complement of His purpose, the
means by which He accomplishes His loving .scheme
for man s salvation. There are two strata of con-
cepts concerning the Church, one lower than the
other, which have given some justification for the
belief that the apostles describe the Church in two
aspects, visible and invisible, realistic and ideal-
istic. Rather they find in the Church as men see
it something evident only to spiritual insight.
To them the Church's life and spirit are but the
realization and extension of the Spirit of Christ
Himself, and the Church possesses, in the midst of
its variety of spiritual influence upon its members,
a mysterious unity, which is not only the sum-total
of all present variations, but something always be-
yond and far-reaching, inviting and calling and as-
sisting the believin" members upward and onward
identically after the manner of Christ Himself
with the soul living in Him. To magnify tlie
Church is to magnify this Divine Spirit living and
working in the Body of Christ.
The ordinances of the Church possess a particular
character. They are not sul)ordinate as mere
means of influencing the soul : they are means of
grace to the soul. They are of co-ordinate import-
ance with the Incarnation, whose eflfects they
continue, with the Atonement, which they com-
* A question into which we need not here enter,
t Gal 51. : Eph 123.
GRAFTING
GRAVE, GRAVITY
513
memorate, for they apply the {:n"ace3 of these.
This efficacy hangs on the Living Presence of
Christ, whose grace they convey ; for the effect of
sacraments depends on the action of Christ Him-
self. In them He communicates what He alone
can bestow, for the use of which faith and spiritual
affections are required, but which thej' cannot
create.* Throu^ His Spirit's operation they
unite us with Him in the mystical union. The
Church in this sense M-as purchased by Christ's
blood t and is the object of justitication.* Very
earlj' the rapidly growing Christian society seized
upon this conception and began to relate the grace
of Christ tlirough His Spirit to the sacraments as
feeders of the mystery of the inner life. The whole
ancient Church, e.g., connects the gift of the Spirit
with baptism. Yet there is no disposition to regard
the rite as magical or mechanical : the spiritual effi-
cacy of the ordinance is due to the Holy Spirit. §
Not the rite ex opere operato, not the minister, but
the Spirit dispenses grace ; the visible elements and
the ministerial action derive their validity from
the Spirit alone. Soon pagan and superstitions
elements were to enter in, to alter this free spiritual
idea of sacramental grace into ' another grace '
altogether — a lapse from personal to sub-personal
categories, in perfect consonance with the new and
attractive idea of the Church in its \-isibility and
authority as the exclusive custodian of grace.
Externally as that idea was formulated, and false
as its rapid development grew to be to the apostolic
mind, its opponents too often forget that to the
apostolic mind there is no idea so fundamental as
the reality of a great spiritual society living by its
own truth and life, having its own laws, and these
exclusively spiritual. For the life of grace consists
not simply in the new life of the soul. It is the
new order of the world, a new permanent order
of life, a real supernatural constitution unfolding
itself in the world, in absolute rupture with the
present world, deeper and more comprehensive
than the life of believers, having objective substan-
tiality in the Life of God as the Life of Christ itself,
whose embodiment on earth it is — an idea whose
present and practical realization the modem social
necessities imperatively demand.
iJTERATCsx. — Besides the books referred to in the body of
the art., the following will be found useful : the artt. ' Grace ' in
JE, CE. and ' Gnade ' in PRE'^ ; the Commentaries on Romans,
particularly that of Sanday-Headlam in ICC, 1902 ; C. Pie-
pinbring, Jfms et leg Apotres, Paris. 1911 ; A. E. Carrie,
Studies of Paul and hi* Gofpel, London, 1911 ; J. R. Cohn,
St.Paulinthe Light of Modem Research, do. 1911 ; G. Steven,
The Ptychology of the Christian Soul, do. 1911 ; W. A. Cor-
naby. Prayer and the Human Problem, do. 1912 ; a series of
artt. by W. M. Ramsay, A. E. Garvie.and H. A. A. Kennedy
in the Expositor, 8th ser. iii. [1912]. iv. [1912], v. [1913] ; the great
work of H. J. Hoitzmann, Die Seutest. Theologie^, Tiibingen,
1911, and an older work of great merit — J. W. Nevin, The
Mystical Presence, Philadelphia, 1846. A, S. MaKTIN.
GRAFTING — The Greek word used (^r«T/>ffw)
has two distinct meanings : (1) ' goad ' or ' spur on '
(cf. Ac 26", ' It is hard for thee to kick against the
foad [Kirrpov'])' and (2) ' inoculate ' or ' graft.' The
English word ' graft' is derived from the Gr. 7/>d^-
tiv, ' to \\-rite,' and means a slip of a ctiltivated tree
inserted into a wild one, so called because of its
resemblance to a pencil. In the NT the word
occurs only in Ro 11 "-2* ; St. Paul here follows the
Prophets (cf. Jer lli«) in likening Israel to an olive
tree (cf. art. OLn'E). Its roots are the Patriarchs,
the original branches are the Jews, and the
branches of the wild olive which have been grafted
* The point is not how Christ acts upon us by His Divine
Humanity in the Church ordinances, whether by transubstantia-
tioa or spiritual power, but the fact that He does so act really
and truly, whatever the mode.
t Eph 52s, Tit 2W.
I Cf. KitschI, Rechtfertiffuna und Versolmung, ii. 217 ff.
i Cf. H. B. Swete, Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church, 1912.
VOL. I.— 33
in are the Gentile Christians. Some of the original
branches have been broken off owing to their lack
of faith, and by a wholly unnatural process shoots
from a wild olive have been grafted into the culti-
vated stock. But this is no ground for self-adula-
tion : all tlje blessings which the Gentiles derive
come from the original stock into which they have
been grafted through no merit of their own ; let
them beware, therefore, lest through pride and
want of faith they also are cut off, for it would, on
the one hand, be a much less violent proceeding to
cut oft' the wild branches, which have been grafted
in, than it was to cut off the original branches :
while, on the other hand, it would be far easier and
far more natural to graft the original cultivated
branches back into the stock on which they grew
than it was to graft the Gentiles, who are merely
a slip cut from a wild olive, in amongst the
branches of the cultivated olive. The olive, like
most fruit trees, requires a graft from a cultivated
tree if the fruit is to be of any value. A graft
from a wild tree inserted into a cultivated stock
would of course be useless, and such a process is
never performed ; hence the point of St. Paul's
comparison.
LrrERATCRE. — Sanday-Headlain, Romans (ICC, 1902X pp.
31*-3:« ; HDB ii. 257 f . ; EBi 3496 ; SDB, p. 314 ; J. C. Geikie,
The Holy Land and the Bible, 1903, p. 50 ; W. M. Thomson,
The Land and the Book, 1910, p. 33.
P. S. P. Haxdcock.
GRAYE, GRAVITY {<rf/ju>6i, aeitv&rm, 1 Ti 2=»
3*- 8- 1\ Tit 2-- ', Ph 48).— The translation is, as a
rule, 'grave,' 'gravity' ; but in Ph 4* the AV has
'honest,' 'venerable' (marg.) (KV 'honourable,'
'reverend' [marg.]), and in 1 Ti 2^ 'honesty'
('gravity,' RV). The Vulgate has ptw/ictts, except
in 1 Ti 3* (castitas) and in Tit 2^ (gravUas). ' The
idea lying at its root (ce/S) is that of reverential
fear, profound respect, chiefly applied to the bear-
ing of men towards the gods' (Cremer, LesMOV?,
1880, p. 522). It is akin to the Latin seriug,
severux, and the Gr. evtrf^ua.
1. The word was used in a local sense of places
haunted by supernatural powers — of caves,* of the
boundary t of heaven and earth — as pointing to
the Divine guardiansliip of the world. In the
LXX the word is used in this sense of the Temple
at Jerusalem, because it possessed a nva 0eov
Svyafuf which miraculously thwarted Heliodorus
when he sacrilegiously tried to rob it (2 Mac 3).
In an inscription of the 2nd cent. Beroea is called
ffefivoTCLTT} because it was a Temple-guardian {peu-
Kopos).
2. Akin to this was the religious application of
the word to Divine persons — a usage which is
common in early Christian literature. In Hermas,
Mand. iii. 4, it is used along with akjjdfs of the
Holy Spirit. It is used of the name of the Deity
(2 Mac 8'*), just as in classical Greek the word
was applied to the gods, 'E/xri-es — ai ae/xyai deal.
In the NT, while the word has not lost its re-
ligious meaning, it is used mainly in a moral sense.
It occurs only once outside the Pastorals (Ph 4*),
and probably was familiarized in common speech
through the influence of popular Stoicism. The
sophist claimed this title (Luc. Bhet. Prcec. i.).
In Hermas, Vis. III. viiL 8, ^cfivanji is one of the
daughters of Uians, and thus has a place among
the Christian virtues. The word is applied to
persons or personal qualities in two senses — either
subjectively, of a conscious moral attitude of
gravity, or objectively, indicating the influence
produced on others by such a grave, decorous
behaviour. The best translation seems to be
'gravity.' Vergil {^n. i. 151 ff.) speaks of a
'pietate gravem ac meritis virum.' At his
approach a seditious mob stands still, waiting
* Pind. Pytk. ix. Sa t Eur. Hippol. 746.
514
GRAVE, GRAVITY
GRECIANS, GREEKS
silently to hear him ; and he rules their mind and
calms their passions by his word.
Tills {ffavity of behaviovir eminently becomes
Church otiicials — bishops (Tit 2''), deacons (1 Ti 3*),
deaconesses (v."), and the ajjjed in general (v.*, Tit
2^). They are to act, in all their official duties,
with a sense that they are dealing with holy
things ; they are to teach with grave impressiveness
(Tit 2^). It is thus the opposite of lifjht-hearted
flippancy or frivolity. It implies dignity, and in
this sense Aristotle uses it of the high-souled man
(Eth. Nic. IV. iii. 26).
The home is a nursery for the training of gra-
vity (cf. 1 Ti 3''). Hence it is not altogether right to
."ay that 'gravity is hardly a grace of childhood'
(see N. J. D. White in EGT, 1910, on 1 Ti :i*).
It is the ' " morum gravitas et castitas" which be-
fits the chaste, the young, and the earnest, and is,
as it were, the appropriate setting of higher graces
and virtues' (C. J. Ellicott, 27ie Pastoral Epistles
of St. FauP, 1864, p. 27). It befits all in the
home — children and women as well as the heads
of the household, and all Christians as well as
Christian ollicials (1 Ti 2-). This aspect of gravity
is referred to by Clement more than once in his
First Epistle to the Corinthians (ch. i. ). In an
inscription it is found applied to a wife (see J. H.
Moalton and G. Miliigan in Expositor, 8th ser.
i. [1911] 479). llegard for becoming conduct must
be fostered in the home, and women and youths,
as perhaps more open to frivolity and disobedience,
must live <renvCos.
So, in tiie Cliurch, gravity is the opposite of
disorder, of shamelessness of behaviour. It is the
opposite of d7r6voia (see Theophrastus, Char. xiii.).
In 1 Ti 2^ the Apostle inculcates gravity as a
Christian attitude towards the State, and for this
end prayer is to be made for kings and all in
authority. Christians are not to imitate tiie Jews,
who brought on theniselvps Roman hostility by
their religious contempt of authority (Jos. BJ
II. xvii. 2). Because God wills all men's salvation,
and Christ gave Himself a ransom for all, Chris-
tians are to respect sincerely all authority as such.
' Christian reverence . . . hallows to us everythinjj in life.
The Christian regards himself as a valued work of God. His
body is a temple Imilt through ages by the Almighty. His
race is a divine offspring. lie loves even in the unworthy the
stamp of their Maker. Material nature, human history, daily
industry, the common intercourse of life gleam for him with
the veiled light and movement of the Omnipresent' (G. G.
Findlay, Christian Doctrine and Morals, 18i)4, p. 19).
Thus in Ph 4^ the word is very Avide in meaning
— whatever demands and commands respect as
well as the 'noble seriousness' (M. Arnold, God
and the Bible, 1884, p. xvi) which such objects
produce. (Christian gravity is not, however, ' that
sham gravity which so often discredits the word ;
not . . . the gravity of self-importance, or narrow-
ness, or gloom ; but ... a free and noble reverence
for ourselves (since God has made us and dwells in
us), and for all that is great and reverend around
us — the grace of thought that guards us from
mere stu[)id flippancy' (F. Paget, The Spirit of
Disriplim, 1891, p. 74).
There Avas a tendency in Greece to oppose the
ff{fj.v6s to the €virpoa-/iyopoi, the ' affable ' ; and thus
grave persons got the reputation of being proud
and unapproachable (Thuc. i. 130), of being in-
different to the public weal (pq.6vij.la), of being
incapable of action, of looking superciliously on
enjoyment, and of casting di.sdainful looks on
tliose who did not philosophize (cf. Hadley's note
[1896] on Eur. Alrest. 773 f. ). The virtue of gravity
ea.sily passes into the vice of i>omj)osity. Aris-
totle says of the high-souled man tliat he is digni-
fied towards persons of afliuence but unassuming
towards the middle class. A tlignilied demeanour
towards the former is a mark of nobility, towards
the latter it is vulgarity (Eth. Nic. iv. iii. 26).
In modern times gravity ha.s been looked on as a
flower that withers in the knowledge of natural
law and in the change of social and political con-
ditions (see W. E. H. Lecky, History of European
Morals^'\ 1897, i. 141 f.). St. Paul, however, adds
irpoa-ipiXrj to fff/ivd. ' By this the apostle seems to
advert to that in wliicn religious persons are too
often deficient, who by an au.stere and ascetic
demeanour not a little prejudice the cause of re-
ligion' (S. T. Bloomfield, Gr. Test., 1832, »1855, on
Ph 4«).
He also adds dXij^^- ' Truth is the basis, as it
is the object of reverence, not less than of every
other virtue ' (H. P. Liddon, Bampton Lectures
for 18GG^, 1878, p. 268).
For the diflerence between the form and the
reality of reverence see Augustine on Seneca in
Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, 1883, p. 248.
Literature. — See the relevant Commentaries and Literature
referred to in the article ; HDD, art. ' Grave ' ; B. Whichcote
has 13 sermons on I'hil 4>* (4 vols., Aberdeen, 1751); Isaac
Barrow, Sermnns, London, 1861, i. 40. For a discussion on
Ueverence, see J. Martineau, TypeH of EthicalTheory^, Oxford,
1898, vol. ii. ; E. Caird, The Emlution of Jielir/ion, Glasgow,
1893, Lectures vii. and viii. ; W. Paley, Moral Philosophy,
London, 1817, pp. 296-304. For Kant's view, see The Meta-
physic of Ethics, tr. SenipleS, Edinburgh, 1871 ; J. Kidd, Moral-
ity and lielirjion, do. 1895, Lecture iv. ; H. Sidewick, The
Methods of EthicsT, London, 1907; A. Bain, Mental and Moral
Science, 1868, p. 249. DONALD MACKENZIE.
GRECIANS, GREEKS.— These two terms corre-
spond respectively to the Greek words ' EWrjviffral
and "EWrives. The term "EWTjvts is projierly the
name applied by the inhabitants of Greece to
themselves, which the liomans rendered by the
word Grceci (Eng. ' Greeks '). In the NT the term
is correctly used of those who are of Greek descent
(Ac 16' 18*, Ro 1"), although we also find it used
as a general designation for all who do not belong
to the Jewish race. Thus the foreigners who came
desiring to see Jesus at the Passover are referred
to as Greeks (Jn 12-") ; so the Ajwstle Paul divides
mankind into two classes when he says (Ro 10'^):
' There is no diflerence between the Jew and the
Greek' (cf. Ro l'». Gal 3-^). In these passages the
term is practically equivalent to ' Gentile' (y. v.).
See also art. GREECE.
The term ' Grecians ' (EWrjvtffral), on the other
hand (Ac 6^ 9^"), is applied to Greek-speaking Jews
as opposed to the Jews of Palestine, who spoke
Aramaic and are designated Hebrews. From the
days of Alexander the Great onwards, large
numbers of Jewish emigrants were to be found
all over the known Avorld. In Alexandria in
particular a great number had settled, but in all
the cities of the West, in all the centres of trade,
Jews found a home. Many of these Jewish settlers
acquired great wealth, and adopted (Jreek speech,
manners, and customs. They read the Greek
poets, and many of thein studied Greek philosophy,
while at the same time they adhered to the Jewish
hopes and regarded Jerusalem as the centre of
their life and worship. They were free from the
narrowness and provincialism of the native .Tews
of Palestine, and the message of the Christian
missionaries found much more Avilling hearers
among this class than among the prejudiced and
exclusive Palestine Jews.
A question of considerable interest has been
raised regarding the proper reading in Ac 11*".
Are we to read here 'Grecians' or 'Greeks'?
Were those to whom the men of Cyprus and Cyrene
preached Jews or Gentiles, Grecians or Greeks?
Internal evidence and the ma-ss of MS authority
seem to conflict. The reading 'EXXrji/iords of TR is
upheld by B D^^ L and indirectly by K*, and has the
support of almost all the cursives. It is al.so
retained by WH. On the other hand, internal
GREECE
GREECE
615
eviilence seems to demand the reading 'EWrjpei
of K' A D, which is accepted by Scrivener, Lach-
mann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and the text of the
RV. Wliy call attention to the fact that the men
of Cyprus and Cyrene preached to Grecians when
that had already' been done ? If the writer intends
to refer to a new departure in missionary enter-
prise, the context seems to demand the reading
* Greeks ' (cf. F. H. A. Scrivener, Introd. to Criti-
cism of NT*, 1894, ii. 370 f.; for the other point of
%-iew see Westcott-Hort, Introd. to Gr. NT, 1882,
A pp. p. 93 f.). W. F. Boyd.
GREECE (or Hellas ; Lat. Grtecia, Gr. "EXXaj).—
The southernmost part of what is now called the
Balkan Peninsula was the cradle of a race whose
ideas contained the germs of our present Western
civilization. As the religious life of mankind
divides itself into the time before and after the
dawn of Christianity, so the rational and political
life of mankind divides itself into the time before
and after the expansion of Hellenism. The mental
activity of the Greeks in the great classical period,
culminating in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.,
made not only the Hellas of later times but all the
world their debtor. The language they spoke, the
art and literature they created, the spirit of liberty
they fostered, and the philosophical temper in
which they faced the problems of life, form essential
elements in the finest modem culture. If criticism
is, as M. Arnold said, 'a disinterested endeavour
to learn and propagate the best that is known and
thought in the world '{Essays in Criticism, London,
1895, i. 38), the contribution of Greece can never
be neglecteil.
Like Palestine, the other ancient home of great
ideas, Hellas proper was a small country. The
Hellenic part of the peninsula (to the south of
Macedonia and Thrace), with the isles of Greece,
was much the same in extent as the modem Greek
kingdom — aljout 250 miles in greatest length and
180 in greatest breadth. In a large sense, hoAV-
ever, Hellas was an ethnological rather than a
geographical term, for it embraced every country
inhabited by the sea-loving and enterprising
Hellenes — all their settlements on the coasts and
islands of the Mediterranean, on the shores of the
Hellespont, the Bosporus, and the Euxine Sea. As
the west coast of the homeland was mountainous
and harbourle-ss, while the east was full of gulfs,
bays, and havens, Greece turned her back on Italy
and her face to the .'Egean and Asia Minor, so
much so that in the 6th and the beginning of the
5th centuries B.C. the centre of gravity of Hellenic
civilization is to be looked for in Ionia rather than
in Attica, the most famous names in science,
philosophy, and poetry being at that time associ-
ated Avith the Asiatic coast or the neighbouring
Cyclades. But the Ionian Greeks, isolated by the
estranging sea and weakened by internal jealousies,
were unable to oflFer a successful resistance to the
Persian advance, and the glory of saA^ing European
culture is due to the Athenians who fought at
Marathon and Salamis.
In the classical period, Greece was an aggregate
of self-governing city-States, of which Aristotle
surveys no fewer than 158. These States combined
for once, with brilliant results, in face of the
Asiatic peril, but they never afterwards seemed to
be capable of united action. Wasting their
strength and resources in fratricidal wars which
gave now Athens, now Sparta, now Thebes, a
temporary hegemony, they proved in the day of
reckoning too feeble to resist the military power
either of the Macedonian monarchy or of the
Roman republic. The career of Alexander, tlie
pupil of Aristotle, closed the Hellenic and opened
the Hellenistic period of history. It created a
world-Empire and a world-culture, both of which
borrowed their best features from a Greece which
was 'living Greece no more.' While the new
order reinforce<l the old Hellenic elements in Asia
Minor, it brought into being a va.st number of
Greek cities — the conqueror himself is said to have
founded seventy— in lands hitlierto barbarian. It
made Greek the language of literature and religion,
of commerce and administration, throughout the
Nearer East. And when the Romans became the
sovereign people, it was Greek rather than Roman
ideals that they sought to make effective through-
out their Oriental dominions. ' The desire to
become at least internally Hellenised, to become
partakers of the manners and the culture, of the
art and the science of Hellas, to be — in the foot-
steps of the great Macedonian — shield and sword
of the Greeks of the East, and to be allowed
further to civilise this East not after an Italian but
after a Hellenic fashion — this desire pervades the
later centuries of the Roman republic and the
better times of the empire with a power and an
ideality which are almost no less tragic than that
political toil of the Hellenes falling to attain its
goal' (T. Mommsen, The Province* of the Bom.
Emp.-, 1909, i. 253).
Neither the Macedonians nor the Romans ever
treated the conquered Greeks as ordinary subjects.
The sacred land of art and poetry was not ruled
like Egypt or Gaul. There was a province {of
Achaia, but never of Hellas. Such cities as Athens
and Sparta were spared the humiliation of being
placed under the fasces of a Roman governor and
having to pay tribute to Rome. New Corinth,
Caesar's Roman colony, the least Hellenic of the
cities of Greece, became the seat of government.
Nevertheless, the free communities had little more
than a simulacrum of their ancient power. The
Roman governor could always make Ids voice
heard in their councils, and a rescript from him
brooked no delay in obedience. The right of
bringing a proposal l^efore the Ecclesia no longer
belonged to every citizen, but was confined to
definit« officials, and the conduct of business was
placed in the bands of a single <rrpaTrjy6s. The
citizens were always liable to be called to account
for their proceedings (cf. Ac 19**), while the sovereign
power could at any moment cancel the constitu-
tion of a free city, and take the offenders under its
own direct administration. Atthebest, Hellenistic
life was now sorely cramped by the limitation of
its sphere ; ' high ambition lacked a corresponding
aim, and therefore the low and degrading ambition
flourished luxuriantly' (Mommsen, op. cit. i. 283).
Shadowy a.<semblies still convened, engaged in
grave debate, passed solemn resolutions, made
appointments, and distributed honours. But
political life of a serious kind was a thing of the
past. Hellenism as described by such a writer as
Plutarch already suggests ' a gilded halo hovering
round decay' (Byron, The Giaour). 'The genersd
effect produced by the many pictnres, allusions,
references, illustrations which he takes from the
Greek world of his times is that romantic adven-
tures, great passions, monstrous crimes, were
foreign to the small and shabby gentility of Roman
Greece. The highest rewards he can set before
the keenest ambitions are no better than if we
should now fire our youths' imagination with the
prospect of becoming parish beadles, vestrymen,
or at most town councillors' (J. P. Mahafly, The
Silver Age of the Greek World, 1906, p. 349).
The twenty years' civil war, which ended in the
transfomiation of the Roman Republic into an
Empire, was calamitous to the Greeks, who seemed
fat^ to be always on the losing side. They pre-
ferred Pompey to Ca'.sar, Brutus to Antony, and
they were compelled in the end to raise levies for
516
GREECE
GRIEF
Antony's campaign against Octavian. The three
decisive battles of the war — Pharsalus, Philippi, and
Actiuiu — were fought on the soil or the coast of
Greece, and the contending armies almost hied the
Soor country to deatli. Many of its cities fell into
ecay, vast tracts of arable land were turned into
pasture or reverted to the state of Nature, and
'Greece remained desolate for all time to come'
(Mommsen, op. cit. i. 268). The dawn of the Chris-
tian era saw the nadir of her fortunes, the hour
in which she was most neglected and despised.
Thinking that an improvement might be eliected
by a change of administration, the Greeks peti-
tioned Tiberius in A.D. 15 to transfer Achaia from
the senatorial proconsul to an Imperial legate.
This arrangement was sanctioned, and lasted till
A.D. 44, when Claudius restored the province to the
senate ; whence there Avas once more a proconsul
(ivdviraroz) in Corinth (Ac 18'^). Nero, who posed as
a Philhellenc, was accorded so flattering a reception
during a progress through Greece that he bestowed
freedom and exemption from tribute upon all the
Greeks ; but Vespasian found it necessary to re-
store tlie provincial government in order to avoid
civil war. Greece received its greatest Imperial
benefactions in the beginning of the 2nd century.
'As Hadrian created a new Athens, so he created also a new
Hellas. Under him the representatives of all the autonomous
and non-autonomous towns of the province of Achaia were
allowed to constitute themselves in Athens as united Greece, as
the Panhellenes. The national union, often dreamed of and
never attained in better times, was thereby created, and what
youth had wished for old apre possessed in imperial fulness. It
is true that the new Panhellenion did not obtain political pre-
rogatives ; but there was no lack of what imperial favour and
imperial gold could ^ve. There arose in Athens the temple of
the new Zeus Panhellenios, and brilliant popular festivals and
games were connected with this foundation, the carrj'ing out
of which pertained to the collegium of the Panhellenes, and
primarily to the priest of Hadrian as the living god who founded
them ' (Mommsen, op. cit. i. 266).
Even in the period of greatest depression Hellas
still maintained her old pre-eminence in education,
though for a time the univer.sities of Rhodes,
Alexandria, and Tarsus rivalled that of Athens.
The life of studious ease was to be enjoyed in the
cities of Greece as nowhere else, and Plutarch
cheerfully turned back from the vulgar splendour of
Imperial Rome to the quiet refinement of his native
Chteroneia. In all that pertained to good taste and
humanity the Hellenes continued to bear the palm.
Gladiatorial shows were never popular in Greece,
except in the Roman colony of Corinth, and Dio
Chrysostom (i. 385) expressed his disgust and horror
when these barbarities began on occasion to be seen
even in Athens.
In religious rites and ceremonies Greece was re-
markably conservative. Pausanias {Description of
Greece [ed. J. G. Frazer, 6 vols., London, 1898])
records {passim) that as he went through the
country in the 2nd cent, of our era he found the
primitive worships faithfully maintained in every
city and village by the simple, unquestioning
natives. And the great religious festivals — Olym-
pic, Isthmian, Pythian — never failed to attract
crowds. It is a familiar fact that religious beliefs
which science has discredited may still have a long
life before them. Ever since the days of Plato
the traditional religion of Greece had been ' a
bankrupt concern ' (Gilbert Murray, Four Stages
of Greek licligion, 1912, p. 107). And among those
who not only doubted or denied the existence of
the Olympian gods, but turned in weariness and
disappointment from Stoic, Epicurean, and Aca-
demic systems alike, tliere was a thirst for some
deeper satisfaction of the soul's wants. When
Alexander's empire extended tlie bounds of know-
ledge, attention began to be directed to foreign
faitiis, and Oriental mysteries gradually came into
vogue. Sacrilice and prayer to Hera or Athene
were replaced by the orgiastic worship of Cybele or
the mystic rites of Isis. The Eleusinian Mysteries
— the cult of Demeter and Cora — constitute ' the
one great attempt made by the Hellenic genius to
construct for itself a religion that sliouid keep pace
with the growth of thought and civilization in
Greece' (W. M. liamsay, EBr^ xvii. [1884J 126).
The only native gods of Greece who could hold
their own against foreign rivals were the mystery-
deities, Dionysus and Hecate. The cult of Isis
secured a foothold in the yEgean islands, spread
to Attica in the 3rd cent. B.C., to Rome in the 1st, and
ultimately established itself throughout the wide
Roman Empire, as the adoration of the Madonna
has done in the Catholic world. * The great ])ower
of Isis "of myriad names" was that, transfigured
by Greek influences, she appealed to many orders
of intellect, and satisfied many religious needs or
fancies' (S. DiUyliomanSoricti/froniJVcro to Marcus
Aureliiis, 1904, p. 569). Christianity was preached
in some of the leading cities of Greece soon after
the middle of the 1st cent, (see Athens and
Corinth), but made slow progress throughout the
country, where paganism, in one form or another,
maintained itself till about A.D. 6(X).
Ionia (Javan) was known to the later Hebrew
prophets (Ezk 2V^, Is 66i»), and the Jews of the
2nd cent. B. C. came into touch with Greece proper.
References to Atlienians and Spartans occur in
1 Mac 12-14, 2 Mac 6> 9" ; a long list of Greek
cities is found in 1 Mac 15^ ; and, according to
1 Mac 12", Jonathan the Hasmona3an greeted tlie
Spartans as brethren and sought an alliance witli
them against Syria. During the Maccabwan conflict
the term ' Greek ' came to be used by strict Jew.s
as synonymous with anti-JeAvish or heathen (2 Mac
410.15 ga 1124)^ and 'Hellenism' as identical with
heathenism (4^"). See Hellenism.
Literature.— A. Holm, Uistory of Greece, Eng. tr., London,
1894-98 ; J. P. Mabaffy, A Survey of Greek CioUusation, do.
1897, Rambles and Studies in Greece^, do. 1897, and Progrens
of Hellenism in Alexander's Empire, Ao. 1905; J. G. Frazer,
Pausanias and Other Greek Sketches, do. 1900 ; J. A. Symonds,
Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, do. lb!)8 ; L. R.
Famell, The Cults of the Greek States. 5 vols., Oxford, 1S9(V-
1909, The Higher Aspects of Greek l{eligion,*London, 1912 ; artt.
'Graecia' in Smith's DGRG, 'Greece 'in HDB, EBi, 'Griechen-
land ' in iR6r'G. JaMES STRAHAN.
GRIEF (ir6vo%, obvv-q, \vT-n, irivOos, and cognate
forms). — In additionto the common vexations of life
(Ac 4- ; cf. 16'^) and the griefs arising from mis-
fortune (2 Co 12'') and human mutability (death>
and partings, Ac 20^), there are certain cases ot
mental distress recognized in the NT, which are
significant of the life and thought of the early
Church.
(1) To the sorrows of transgression the Church is
naturally sensitive. Sin reaps grief among its sad
harvest. Esau's carelessness is followed by un
availing tears (He 12"). Those lustful after riches
pierce themselves with many sorrows (1 Ti 6'").
Proud Babylon despises God ; a day of sorrow and
mourning is at hand for her (Rev 18). The wide-
spread pain caused by transgression is illustrated
by the case of the incestuous member of tli<'
Corinthian Church (2 Co 2i-^). First, St. Paul, ;i
a spiritual father of the Church, has been com
pelled to write with tears, in deep suffering and
depression of spirits (2 Co 2* : ffXi^is Kai awoxh
Kapdias), to admonish the careless Churcli whicli
has allowed tlie outrage to pass unrebuked (1 Co 5-);
then the Church itself, realizing its shame, is
plunged into sorrow (2 Co 2^ ; cf. 7**"); and tin
actual oft'ender is in danger of being driven to
despair by his excess of grief (v,'). Such distress
has, however, a redeeming feature, inasmuch a>
it leads to repentance (T"'-)- There is a worldly
sorrow {toO Kbaitov Xvttt]) which, embittering and
GROANING
GROWTH, INCREASE
517
hardening insteatl of chastening (He 12^", 2 Co 7*),
worketli deatli (2 Co 7'^').
(2) But the Christian life has Us own set of mental
distresses. The anguish of persecution at the hands
of the world (Ro S» ; cf. 1 P 2i») is but one of the
sorrows of the Christian's Via Dolorosa ; his in-
creasinfr moral sensitiveness enlarges the possibility
of mental pain. The spiritual life is one of travail
(Ro S--* 2 Co 5"*; see art. CJROANING). The
richer soul also bears the cross of a wide human
sympathy (2 Co 11^, Ph 2^™); and a conscientious
ministry is one of suffering, anxiety, and tears (Ac
2019. 31^ 2 Co 2>-*, Ro 93 ; cf. He 13").
(3) For the Christian conquest over grief see art.
Comfort.
(4) The grief of God over human perversity is
recomiized in He 3^**" {rfxxroxdi^io), and in Eph 4**
the Christian is warned against grieving the Holy
Spirit.
(5) The grief of Jesus is cited in He 5^"** as an
indication that, so far from taking the priesthood
to Himself, He shrank from the sacrificial function
and ' accepted it only in filial submission to the
will of Gotl,' or ' that the offering of prayers and
supplications with strong crjTng and tears corre-
sponded to the high priest's offering for himself on
the Day of Atonement (Hofmann, Gess). . , . An
interesting parallel (also noted by Davidson) is
Hosea's reference to Jacob's wrestling (12*), in which
he speaks of him as weeping and making suppli-
cation to the angel, of which we read nothing
in Genesis ' (A. S. Peake, Hebrews [Century Bible,
1902], p. 134).
LrrsRATCRB. — A. Maclaren, Exposition* : ' 2 Cor. ch. vii. to
end,' 1909, p. S ; J. Martineau, Eiidearoiin after the Christian
Life, 1S76, p. 44: 'Sorrow r.o Sin'; A. W. Momerie, Thf
Orimn of Evil, 1885, p. 12 ff.: "The Mystery of Suffering';
H. Bushnell, Jforai Uses of DarkThings,lS77 ; B. H. Streeter,
' The Suffering of God,' in HJ xii. [April, 1914] ; D. W. Simon,
The Redemption of Man, 18S0, ch. vii. H. BULCOCK.
GROANING.— The verb ffrevd^a occurs three
times in Ro 8 (w.**- ®- ^) and twice in 2 Co 5
(w.2- *), denoting the distress caused apparently
not so much by physical suffering and material
decay as by the conflict in the present order between
matter and spirit. The whole creation is conceived
as involved in this painful struggle — it ' groaneth
and travaileth in pain together until now ' (Ro 8-).
St. Paul's figure may have been suggested by the
Jewish tradition of the ' birth-pangs of the
Messiah': --prn 'h^r. (F. Weber, Altsyn. Tkeol.,
Leipzig, 1880, p. 350 f, ; cf. Mt 24"-« : ' Nation shall
rise up against nation, and there shall be famines
and earthquakes in divers places. These things
are the beginning of travail'), although the
Apostle's thought is more psychological. For the
sympathy of Nature with man's fall and restoration
see Weber, pp. 222 f., 380 f., 398.
The larger life of the Spirit presses painfully
against t he limitations of the present material world.
Not creation's physical sufferings under the bondage
of corruption, but her ' earnest expectation ' of
deliverance from it, creates the sense of almost in-
tolerable strain ; the ' firstfruits of the Spirit' for
the moment intensify the burden of the flesh ; the
deepest groanings of the saint arise from his sense
of exile, from his ' longing to be clothed upon \tith
his habitation from heaven ' (2 Co 5-). The soul
in its holiest moods groans in its impotence. Its
highest yearnings, though kno^^•n to the Searcher
of hearts, have no language but a painful cry.
'The groanings which cannot be uttered' with
which 'the Spirit' maketh intercession for us (Ro
8*) seem to be those of the saint's spiritual nature.
In St. Paul, man's higher faculties take highly jier-
sonified forms — the indwelling Divine is the Spirit
of Christ (cf. Philo's Logos, identified with the
archangel, etc., or the Logoi, identified with Jewish
angels and Greek daimons. See J. Drnmmond,
Philo Judo- us, 1888, ii. 235 f., for a discussion
of 'the suppliant Logos,' rbr iKtryfv Xoyov). The
• Spirit ' of Ro 8 is distinguished from God ; the
'heart' of man and the ' mind of the Spirit' seem
i synonj'mous, and the * unutterable groanings ' suit
better a limited human soul than a heavenly power.
But the stirrings of the Spirit which make the
soul conscious of earth's ' broken arcs ' give
the promise of heaven's • perfect round ' — of ' the
glory which shall be revealed to us-ward ' (cf. St.
Augustine's Confessions, bk. ziii. ; also Browning's
Abt Vogler). H. BuLCOCK,
GROWTH, INCREASE (Gr. aij^ii).—ln most of
the passages in which the idea of growth, growing,
increase, occurs in the NT the words in use in the
Greek are either parts or compounds of the verb
av^dru. The abstract noun 'increase' (aS^u) is
found in only two passages — Eph 4^*, Col 2" — but
the root of tlie word and the idea underlying occur
frequently all through the apostolic writings. We
also find -repuraeva, ' abound,' xpoKoxrw, ' advance,'
xXeovofw and ivSvpafi6u, ' strengthen,' translated by
the word 'increase.' Originally and in classicai
Greek the word av^dvu signified 'increase by
addition from the outside,' used e.g. of a State
increasing by adding to its territory, but in the
NT the word is mainly used of seminal growth
from ^vitllin, such as the growth of a plant, animal,
or person. The Hebrew writers were fond of com-
paring things natural with things spiritual, and
found frequent analogy between natural and
spiritual processes. They had a great wealth of
words to express the idea of growth, and most of
them signify the organic growth of living objects.
According to Hebrew ideas, the natural laws of
physical growth are made to apply to the spiritual
realm. God is supreme in the world of Nature and
the world of spirit alike. In both there is growth,
and that is represented as the gift and working of
Gtod. He causes grass to grow (Ps 104" 147*), while
the growth of restored and penitent Israel (Hos
14*-^) is regarded as the result of the gracious
operations of the forgiving God who is ' as the dew
unto Israel.'
These ideas are carried forward to the NT, and
we have frequent references to the phenomena of
growth, while the comparison between growth in
the natural and in the spiritual world is fully de-
veloped. Four separate connexions in which the
idea of growth is applied can be distinguished.
1. In Jn 3** the word au^dpu is applied to the
growing power and authority of Jesus Himself as
a religious teacher. ' He must increase.' The
same idea is expressed in Ac 9" where the growing
spiritual power of St. Paul as a preacher of the
gospel is referred to. The word used, however, is
evSwafjidu, which emphasizes the aspect of power
rather than the growth of it.
2. In the Acts of the Apostles the idea occurs in
connexion wth the progress of the Church as an
external organization. The phrase in Ac 6" 12**
19**, ' The word of God increased ' or ' grew,' which
seems to be a formula used to close the various
sections in the historj', refers to the growth of the
number of believers. Here the word used is av^pu.
The statement in Ac 16*, ' The churches increased
in number daily,' wliich also closes the precetling
section dealing ^vith the second \Tsit of St. Paul to
Asia, varies slightlj-. The verb used is repuraeita,
but the idea is the same. As a result of apostolic
labours the number of believers increased. In the
same way we read in St. Stephen's speech that the
people of Israel 'grew and multiplied in Egypt'
(Ac 7'-).
3. We find the word used in a theological con-
nexion referring to the growth of individual be-
518
GUARD
GUARD
lievers in Christian character and {graces. The
apostolic preachovH did not regard tlieir work as
finished wlien they had converted Jews or lieathon
to Christianity. The Cliristian life hail to be lived,
and Cliristian character had to be formed. Growth
and increase must follow the new birth. Tliis
OTOwth is, on the one hand, regarded as a natural
development from the new seed implanted in the
new birth. The new creature must grow in faith,
in knowledge, in grace, in righteousness, in Chris-
tian liberality and brotherly love. Thus the Apostle
Paul rejoices that the faith of the Thessalonians
' groweth exceedingly ' (2 Th 1*). He prays that
the Colossians may increase in the knowledge of
God (Col P"), and beseeches the Thessalonians that
they increase (or lit. ' abound,' Gr. 5re/)i<r<rei5w) more
and more in brotlierly love, by which he means
Christian liberality (1 Th 4^"). For the purpose of
furthering this growth, God has given apostles,
prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers (Eph
4'"'"). In the same way St. Peter instructs his
converts to desire the sincere milk of the word, that
they 'may grow thereby' (1 P 2-), and directly
exhorts them to ' grow in grace and in the know-
ledge of our Lord and Saviour ' (2 P 3^**). On the
other hand, tliis increase in grace or Christian
character is at the same time the work of God.
Thus St. Paul prays that the Lord may make the
Thessalonians to increase and abound in love (1 Th
3'^). In writing to the Corinthian Church, he com-
pares the work done by himself and A polios, and
declares, ' I planted, Apollos watered, God in-
creased' (1 Co 3"). The object of all three verbs
is the faith of the believers in Corinth, which St.
Paul's preaching had kindled and Apollos had
nourished ; but the work of both Avould have been
ineli'ective but for God's working, His making the
seed to grow and increase (1 Co 3^). Likeness to
Christ is regarded by the apostolic writers as the
end of this growth (Eph 4'^).
4. But not only is the idea of growth applied to
the Church as an outward organization, the visible
Church which grows in numbers, and to the Chris-
tian cliaracter of individual believers; it is also
applied to the Church as a spiritual unity which
the Apostle Paul describes as the ' body of Christ.'
According to the Apostle, all believers are members
of that body ; but the growth of the individual
members in Christian character and especially in
love leads to the growth or increase of the body as
a whole. The Churcli will finally reach consum-
mation and completion by a long process of growth
and development. The nature, law, or order of this
growth of the Church as the body of Christ is de-
scribed in Eph 4'" as 'proceeding in accordance
with an inward operation tliat adapts itself to the
nature and function of each several part and gives
to each its proper measure. It is a growth that is
neither monstrous nor disproportioned, but normal,
harmonious, careful of the capacity, and suited to
the .service of each individual member of Christ's
body' (S. D. F. Salmond, ' Ephesians,' in £6^2', p.
338). All the members are united to one another
and to Christ the Head, and draw nourishment
and inspiration from Him and from one another,
and thus increase ' with the increase of God ' (Col
2'"), by which we may understand either the in-
crease which God supplies, or, better, simply the
increase such as God requires.
Literature.— S. D. F. Salmond, ' Ephesians," in EGT, 1903;
A. S. Peake, 'Colossians.' in EGT, 19<)3 ; H. A. W. Meyer,
Dererstc Brief an die Korinther* (Kommentar, 18G1), Der Brief
an die Epheser^ (do. 1859), Die Brief e an die J'hilipper, Kolosser,
nnd an Philemon^ (do. 186.1) ; J. B. Lightfoot, Colvusians and
Philemon, 1876; B. Whitefoord, art. 'Growini,',' in J)CG.
W. F. Bo VI).
GUARD.— (1) In Ac 5=3, 12«- "» the AV renders
4>v\aKfs ' keepers,' which the IIV retains in the
former passage, where the watchmen are Jewisli,
but changes into 'guards' in the latter, where
they are Roman. Arrested by the high [)riest
Annas, and put ' in public ward' (Ac r>"* : iv Tiqprfcftt.
Srjfiofftq.), Peter and Jolm were not chained ; their
keepers merely shut the prLson-liouse (defffiorr-fipiov)
and stood on guard outside. But when St. Peter
was arrested by Herod Agrippa, and imprisoned
in the fortress of Autonia or the adjoining barracks,
he was chained to two .soldiers, while other two
kept watch at the door of the prison (^uXokij, Vulg.
career). The station of the latter two was appar-
ently 'the first ward' (<f>v\aK^, Vulg. custoaUi),
which the prisoner had to pass before he could
eflect his escape. The four soldiers together made
a quaternion (rerpaSiov), and four such bodies of
armed men were told oil" to mount guard in suc-
cession during the four watches into which, in
lloman fashion, the night was divided.
(2) The above-named Agrippa himself, having
incurred the disi)leasure of Tiberius, once had the
experience of being chained as a prisoner for six
months to soldiers of the Imperial bodyguard in
Home. It was fortunate for him that the Emperor's
sister-in-law Antonia, who used her influence with
Macro, the prcrfcctus prcetorio, ' procured that
the soldiers who kept him should be of a gentle
nature, and that the centurion who was over
them, and was to diet with him, should be of
the same disposition' (Jos. Ant. xviir. vi. 7).
Tiberius' death restored him to liberty, and Cali-
gula consoled him witli tlie gift of a chain of gold,
equal in weight to the one of iron which he had
worn (ib. vi. 10).
(3) To another such iron chain, which coupled
St. Paul to one soldier after another of the same
Imperial guard, allusion is made in each of the
Captivity Epistles. Thanks to the favourable
report given by the centurion Junius on handing
over his charge to the prtufect of the Praetorians,
St. Paul probably received better treatment than
an ordinary prisoner ; but the fact remained tliat
in his own hired house he was the Siafxioi of Christ
Jesus, always weai-ing galling ' bonds ' {Seanol, Ph
17. 13. 14. 16^ Col 418^ Philem i"- ", 2 Ti 2"), called also
a ' chain ' (aXwty, Eph 6-", 2 Ti V^). Great good,
however, resulted from his imprisonment ; for
through the frequent relief of the guard, and the
Apostle's skill in changing an enforced fellowsliip
with armed men into a spiritual communion, the
real significance of his bonds — tlieir relation to his
faith in Christ — gradually became known among
all 'the Praetorians,' the finest regiment of the
Ivoman army (Ph l^^. isj "phe arguments for this
interpretation of the word irpatrupiou are fully
stated by Liglitfoot, Fhilipplans*, 1878, p. 99 f.
Other possible explanations will be found under
Palace.
In the llepublican days the cohors pra-torin, or
cohortes prcetorice, formed the bodyguard of the
prcetor or proprcetor, who was governor of a
province with military powers. Under the Empire
the Praitorians came to be the Imperial Iwily-
guard, whicli, as constituted by Augustus, was
made up of nine cohorts, each of a thousand picked
men. They were distinguished from other legion-
aries by shorter service and double pay, and on
discharge they received a generous bounty or grant
of land. Tiberius concentrated the force in a
strongly fortified camp to tiie east of Rome, on a
rectangle of 39 acres, where the modern Italian
army also has barracks. One cohort, wearing
civilian garb, was always stationed at the
Emperor's house on the I'alatine; others were
often sent to foreign service. The Praitorians
were under a prcrfcctus prcetorio, or more often
two, sometimes even three pr<r/ccti. These were
originally soldiers, but ultimately the office was
mostly filled by lawyers, whose duty it was to
GUARDIAN
HAGAB
519
relieve the Emperor in certain kinds of civil and
criminal jurisdiction. One of Trajan's rescripts to
Pliny (Ep. 57) indicates that the proper conrse to
take with a certain Bithynian prisoner is to hand
him over in chains 'ad pnefectos praetorii raei,'
and the case seems to be parallel to that of the
Apostle, who made an appeal unto Ca?sar (Ac
25"-^). James Strahan.
GUARDIAN.— See Tutor.
GUARDIAN ANGELS.— See Angels.
GUILE. — Gnile is the usual translation of d6\oj
(Lat. dolus), which meant tirst ' a bait for fish ' {Od.
xii. 252), and tlien, in the abstract, 'wile,' ' craft,'
• deceit.' Guile is traced to the workings of that
* abandoned mind ' which is itself the punishment,
natural and in a sense automatic, of those who
reject God (Ko l-®). The guile which character-
ized Jacob the Jew as well as Ulysses the Greek
was indeed often admired as a national trait by
which duller races could be outwitted. But it is
one of the unmistakable marks of a Christian
convert that he puts away all guile, and, like a
new-bom babe, desires the milk that is without
guile {d5oXo»» ydXa, 1 P 2'-). Henceforth he refrains
his lips that they speak no guile (3"*). People who
! are themselves guileful find it difficult to believe
j that auylxxly can be disinterested, and St. Paul
I the Apo.stle (like many a modem missionary) was
i often supplied to be cunningly seeking some
I personal ends. * Being crafty, I caught them with
guile ' (2 Co 12'*), is a sentence in which he catches
up some wiseacre's criticism of his actions, ami
gives it a new turn. His own conscience was clear ;
uis 'guile' as a soul-winner was not only innocent
but praiseworthy. His exhortation (xopdcXi^rw,
• evangelical preaching') was not of error nor (in any
bad sense) in guile (1 Th 2») ; he was neither de-
ceived nor deceiver, neither fool nor knave. But he
had not infrequently encountered men of the latter
I type. Bar-Jesus the Magian, who tried to under-
j mine his influence at the court of Sergius Paulns (Ac
13*), was actuated by a mad jealousy, realizing as he
did that the position which he had skilfully won
I was fast becoming insecure. Driven to his wits'
i end, and seeing that exposure was imminent, he
' felt the ground shaking beneath his feet. His
; punishment had a Dantesque appropriateness.
i ' Full of all guUe,' he was yet made a spectacle of
I pitiful impotence : ' there fell on him a mist and a
darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead
him by the hand ' (13">- "J. James Strahan.
GUILT.-See Six.
H
HADES. — Hades b a Lat. word adopted from
the Gr. 'AiSi]s (^5ijj), which is used in the LXX to
translate the Heb. Skeol and in NT Gr. to denote
the same idea as was expressed by Sheol in the OT,
viz. 'the abode of the dead.' The word has been
consistently used in the RV of the NT to render
4Si]s on each of the 10 occasions of its occurrence
(Mt 11^ 16i«, Lk 10'* 16-% Ac 2»^-« [in 1 Co 15»
critical texts give davare for aSij of TR], Rev 1'^ 6*
20^- "), in place of the misleading ' hell ' of the AV.
In Mt 11-^ (Lk l(y*) the word is employed in a
purely figurative sense. Capernaum, 'exalted unto
heaven,' is to 'go do^\Ti unto Hades,' i.e. is to be
utterly overthrown. Figurative also is the state-
ment in Mt 16'* that ' the gates of Hades shall not
prevail against' the Church of Christ. As the
strength of a walled city depended on the strength
of its gates, ' the gates of Hades ' is a metaphor for
the power of death, and the promise amounts to
an assurance of the indestructibility of the Church.
In Lk 16^ the rich man lifts up his eyes in Hades,
being in torment, and sees Abraham afar ofl' and
Lazarus in his bosom. Hades is used here in its
traditional sense of the under world of the dead,
whether righteous or unrighteous. Not only Dives
but Lazarus is there. But it is no longer conceived
of in the negative fashion of the OT as a realm
of undillerentiated existence in which there are
neither rewards nor penalties. In keeping with
the pre-Christian development of Jewish thought
(cf. 2 Mac 12*5, Eth. Enoch, 22), it is represented
now as a scene of moral issues and contrasted ex-
periences— the selfish rich man is ' tormented in
this flame'; the humble beggar is ' comforted ' in
Abraham's bosom. The moral lesson that the
recompense of character is sure and that it begins
immediately after death is very clear ; but it is
going bej-ond our Lord's didactic intention in a
parable to find here a detailed doctrine as to the
circumstances and conditions of the intermediate
state.
Ac 2"^ is a quotation from Ps 16" which in v."
is applied to Christ, of whom, as lisen from the
tomb, it is said that He was not ' left in Hades,'
i.e. in the regions of the dead. In the same
general and ordinary sense the word is used in
Rev 1^* : 'I have the kej's of death and of Hades ' ;
cf. the close association in the OT of death with
Sheol (VslW, Pro').
In Rev 6* Hades is personified as a follower of
Death upon his pale horse. In the author's vision
of the Judgment (20"^) the sea and Death and
Hades give up the dead which are in them (v. '3),
and finally Death and Hades are themselves cast
into the lake of tire (v.").
LiTKRATTRK.— H. CremcT, Bib.-Theol. Lexicon of ST Gr.,
Ejig. tr.-*, Edinburgh, ISdo, s.r. aSjji; G. Dalman, art. 'Hades'
in PHES; S. D. F. Salmond, Christian Doctrine of Im-
inortalit]/*, Edinboigta, 1901, p. 277 ff., also art. 'Hades' in
BDB. J, C. L-4MBERT.
HA6AS {'Ayap). — After the manner of the later
Jewish interpreters of OT history, of whom Philo
is the best representative, St. Paul treats the story
of Hagar (Gn 16''" 21*-^) as an allegory (arwd
i<rrw aXXijyopoi'fiei'a, Gal 4-^).
' AUe^ry (oAAos, other, and ayopcvetr, to qpeakX a figrnrattre
representation convening a meaning other than and in addition to
the literaL . . . An allegory is distinguished from . . . anana-
loffy by the fact that the one appeals to the imaginatioD and
the other to the reason ' {EBr^ L 6S9*>).
St. Paul neither affirms nor denies the historicity
of the Hagar narrative, but his imagination reads
into it esoteric meanings, which make it singularly
effective as an illustration. Ishmael the elder
brother, the son of Hagar the bondwoman, the
seed of Abraham by nature, persecuted Isaac the
younger brother, the son of the freewoman, the child
of promise and heir of the birthright, and Mas
therefore cast out and excluded from the inherit-
ance of the blessing. This is interpreted as mean-
ing that the Christian Church, the true Israel of
520
HAIL
HALLELUJAH
God, endued with the freedom of the Spirit, is
Kraecuted by the older Israel, which is under the
ndage of the Law. Hagar, tlie mother of bond-
men, answers to the present Jerusalem (rg vvv
'lepowraXiJyu), but the Jerusalem which is above (^
di'w 'Iepovffa\-/iix) is the mother of Christian free-
men.
Luther wisely says that ' if Paul had not proved the righteous-
ness of faith ajrainst the righteousness of worlts l)y Htronp and
pithy arjrunieiitH, lie should have little prevailed by this allegory.
. . . It is a seemly tiling Hoiuetinies to add an alle;;ory when
the foundation is well laid and the matter thoroiij^hly proved.
For as painting is an ornament to set forth and garniHh a house
already budded, so is an allegory the ll(rht of a matter which is
already otherwise proved and conlirmed ' (<ralatiani>,in loe.). So
Baur : ' Nothing can be more preposterous than the endeavours
of interpreters to vindicate the arvrument of the Apostle as one
objectively true ' (/'aufw«2, lam, ii. 312, Eng. tr., 1875, ii. 284).
If the words ' Now this Hagar is mount Sinai in
Arabia' are retained, they aluide to the historical
connexion of the Hagarenes (Ps 83*) or Hagarites
(1 Ch 5'"), the 'Aypaioi of Eratosthenes {ap. Strabo,
XVI. iv. 2) — of whom Hagar was no doubt a personi-
fication— with Arabia. (In Bar 3^ the Arabians
are called the * sons of Ilagar.') But the Greek is
extremely uncertain, and Bentley's conjecture, that
we have here a gloss transferred to the text, has (as
Lightfootsays [Gal^, 1876, p. 193]), much to recom-
mend it. The theory that ' Hagar ' (Arab, hajar,
' a stone ') was a name sometimes given to Mt. Sinai,
and that St. Paul, becoming acquainted with this
usage during his sojourn in Arabia, recalls it here
(A. P. Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, new ed., 1877,
p. 50, following Chrysostora, Luther, and others),
IS unsupported by real evidence. Such an etymo-
logical allusion would certainly have been thrown
away upon St. Paul's Galatian readers.
To atiirm that the Jews, who were wont to say
that * all Israel are the children of kings,' were the
sons of Hagar the bondwoman, was to use language
which could not but be regarded as insulting and
offensive. But in lighting the battle of freedom
St. Paul required to use plain speech and forcible
illustrations. If he was convinced that men might
be sons of Abraham and yet spiritual slaves, he
was bound to say so (cf. the still stronger terms
used on the same point in Jn S"). St. Paul Avas
far too good a patriot to jibe at his own race, and
too good a Ciinstian to wound any one wantonly.
But he saw the unhappy condition of his country-
men in the light of his own experience. He had
lived long under the shadow oi Sinai in Arabia,
the land of bondmen, before he became a free citizen
of the ideal commonwe<h^ Hierusalem qum snr-
suin est — the mother of all Christians. Only an
emancipated spirit could write the Epistle to the
Galatians, or (as its sequel) Luther's Freedom of a
Christian Man. James Strahan.
HAIL (xiiXafa). — The invariable biblical con-
ception of hail is correctly represented in Wis 5^^ :
'As from an engine of war shall be hurled hail-
stones full of wrath.' Typical instances of the use
of hail as a weapon of Divine judgment and war-
fare are found in Ex 9^"-, Jos 10'^. Like other
destructive natural forces, it is a familiar category
in apocalyptic prophecy. It is always regarded as
a 'plague' (irXtjyrj, Rev 16^'). 'Hail and lire,'
'lightnings . . . and great hail,' occur together
(8' IP"), as in Ex 9-"' : ' hail, and fire mingling with
(flashing continually amidst) the hail.' Thunder-
storms often arise ' under the conditions that are
favourable to the formation of hail, i.e. great heat,
a still atmosphere, the production of strong local
convection currents in consequence, and the passage
of a cold upper drift' {EBr^^ xii. 820). True hail,
which is to be distinguished from so-called 'soft
hail,' is formed of clear or granular ice. Impinging
hailstones are often frozen together, and sometimes
great ragged masses of ice fall witli flisastrous
results to life and propertj'. Tlie stnenth angel
having poured his bowl upon ilnair, 'great hail,
every stone about a talent m wci-lit, (Huaetli down
out of heaven upon men' (Rev IG*'). Diodorus
Siculus (xix. 45) writes of storms in which 'the
size of the hail was incredible, for the stones fell
a mina in weight, sometimes even more, so that
many houses fell under their weight and not a few
men were killed.' The mina was about 2 lbs. — the
sixtieth part of a talent. James Strahan.
HAIR. — By primitive and ancient peoples in
general, the hair (0pl^, rplxe^) is regarded as a
special centre of vitality, and to this belief the
various forms of the hair-ottering are ultimately
due. The only examples of this practice in the
literature under review are atiorded bjy^ St. Paul's
vow, according to which he cut off his hair at
Cenchreje (Ac IS'"), and by the similar vows of the
four men at Jerusalem, whose expenses St. Paul
paid as an evidence of his Jewish piety (21^).
These are to be explained from the Nazirite vow
of the OT (Nu 6). Josephus writes of his own
times that ' it is usual with those who had been
attli(;ted either with a distemper, or with any other
distresses, to make vows ; and for thirty days
before, they are to offer their sacrifices, to abstain
from wine, and to shave the hair off their head '
{BJ II. XV. 1). St. Paul would accordingly oiler
at Jerusalem the hair that had grown during the
month since the vow began at Cenchrefc. The
same belief in the peculiar vitality of the hair may
underlie the proverbial reference to it : ' there
shall not a hair perish from the head of any of
you' (Ac 27^* ; cf. 1 S 14«, 2 S 14", 1 K P\ Mt 10*>,
Lk21'^), though the number and minuteness of the
separate hairs are also implied.
The elaborate arrangement and adornment of
the hair are found in primitive as veil as in
advanced civilizations (e.g. see the illustrations of
male Fijians in Lubbock's Origin of Civilization^,
1902, pi. ii. p. 68). The art was highly developed
amongst Greek and Roman women, as may be seen
from coins, etc., belonging to this period (reproduc-
tions in Seytlert, Diet, of Classical Antiquities,
1906, pp. 26(5, 267 ; J. E. Sandys, .1 Companion to
Latin Studies, 1910, p. 198). Ovid, in his instruc-
tions to Roman ladies on the art of winning lovers,
emphasizes the effect of an artistic and appropriate
arrangement of the hair (de Art. Am. iii. 136 f.;
cf. Bigg, St. Peter and St. Jude, 1901, p. 152).
Judith 'braided the hair of her head' when she
set out to fascinate Holofernes (Jth 10^), and there
are Talnindic references to the art (Buxtorf'a
Lexicon, 1639, col. 389 ; Cheyne, EBi ii. col. 1941).
Against such elaborate adornment and all that it
might imply, the apostolic warnings (1 P 3', 1 Ti
2" ; see art. Adorning) are directed.
The greater abundance of hair posses.sed by
woman as compared with man is mentioned by
St. Paul in an argument against the practice of
unveiled women praying and prophesying (1 Co
1 1^*' ^*, k6ht}). Nature's covering, he says, shows
that the veil should be employed ; to be unveiled
is no better than to be shorn (vv.^-''). The same
sexual difference is in view in the description of
the Apocalyptic locusts : ' they had liair as the
hair of women' (Rev 9*). In the Apocalyptic
vision of Christ, His hair is said to be ' white as
white wool, as snow' (Rev l^''), a detail of dignity
borrowed from the OT picture of Jahwen, as
' ancient of days ' (Dn 7").
H. Wheeler Rorin.son.
HALLELUJAH.* — ' Hallelujah,' ' Praise ye
Jahweh,' is used as a doxology m some OT Psalms,
e.g. 104*' 105^'. In the song of the redeemed (Rev
• The form ' Alleluia' conxes from tlm TAX.
HAMOR
HARDENING
521
19''") it appears as a triumphant acclamation
at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. In later
Christian use it was attached to tlie Paschal Feast
as among the Jews to the Passover. If the Odes
of Solonum may be ascribed to an early dat« (see
axt. Hymns), we may quote the frequent use of
' Hallelujah ' at the end of these hymns as a mark
of the joyousness of early Cliristian worship.
Tertullian {On Prayer, xxvii.) quotes its use with
certain {)salms, aft«r the Jewisli manner, said or
sung by the whole congregation. A. E. BuRN.
HAMOR.— See Ser:ch£M.
HAND. — Amongst the members of the body, the
hand (x"'p) is named by St. Paul as being superior
to the foot, and necessary to the eye (1 Co 12"* ^).
The work of human hands has its definite limita-
tions, whether the product be idols (Ac 7** 19*) or
temples (17-^ ; cf. Ep. Barn. xvi. 7) ; but, within
its true sphere, manual labour belongs to man's
dignity and duty (Eph 4=s, 1 Th 4"). St. Paul
could display his toil-marked hands to the Ephesian
elders, as evidence of his example of unselfish
ser\ice (Ac 20** ; cf. 1 Co 4^). To defend them-
selves from political suspicion as descendants of
David, the grandchildren of Jude showed their
homy hands of toil to the Emperor Domitian (Eus.
HE III. XX. 5).
The hand is employed in significant gestures
both of ordinary life and of religion. It hangs
down in despair (He 12^), is outstretched in
oratory (Ac 26') or appeal (of God, Ro 10*^), is
waved to gain silence (Ac 12" IS'* 19» 2i*>), is
lifted in praver (1 Ti2*; cf. Ps 134-) or in taking
an oath (Kev'lO* ; cf. Gn l^^). The giving of the
right hand {Be^io^) in token of fellowship (Gal 2* ;
cf. Pr 6') is not a specially Jewish custom, and may
be due to Persian intiuences (cf. Lightfoot, ad loc.).
The Odes of Solomon show the early practice of
prayer with arms extended in the manner of the
cross : ' I stretched out my hands, and sanctified
my Lord ; for the extension of my hands is His
sign ' (xxvii. 1 ; cf. xxi. 1 and J. H. Bernard's notes
in TS viii. 3 [1912] ad loc). In a similar spirit
of symbolism, continuing that of OT prophecy,
Agabus (j.r.) binds his o\vn hands and feet with
St. Paul's girdle (Ac 21" ; see art. Feet). Those
who belong to the Apocalyptic Beast receive his
mark on hand and forehead (Rev 13'« \A? 2(>»).
Deissmann has given eWdence for connecting this
mark with the Imperial seal placed on documents
of thLs period (Bible Studies, Eng. tr. , 1901, p. 241 f. ).
"We may perhaps compare the three seals placed
on the disciple of Mani, i.e. on mouth, hand, and
bosom, as a converse dedication of the members to
purity.
The term 'hand' is employed in a number of
graphic or figurative phrases, relating either to
man (Ac 2P 12\ He 8», 1 Jn 1', Ja 4») or to God.
The Hand of God appears in the activities of
creation (Ac 7*^, He 1"> ; Ep. Barn. v. 10, xv. 3 ;
1 Clem, xxvii. 7, xxxiii. 4), or of pro\-idence (Ac
428 1121 1 p 56j^ or of judgment (Ac 13", He l(fi\
1 Clem, xxviii. 2).
The most striking and important references to
the hand in apostolic Christianity occur in con-
nexion with the ' laying on of hands.' This oc-
curs for three purposes, which help to elucidate
each other. By contact with apostolic hands is
wrought healing of the sick (Ac 3" 5'^ 9'- *' 14' 28*),
transmission of the Spirit (Ac 8"- '* 19*), and ordina-
tion to ' office ' or special work (Ac 6* 13*, 1 Ti 4"
5**, 2 Ti 1*, He 6-). If these passages are ap-
proached, as they should be, from the general
standpoint of the OT, and from the particular
circle of ideas which constitutes primitive and
ancient psychology, the imposition of hands will
prolmblj' be seen to imply more than an outward
sign (ct. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the ST, 1909,
p. 384). In each of the three applications, the
conclusion reached by Volz in regard to the OT
seems fundamental in regard to the NT also : ' the
laying on of hands is the process by which the
sacred substance is conducted from one body into
another . . . the power passes not primarily
through the spoken formula, but through the
physical contact itself (ZATW, 1901, pp. 93, 94 ;
cf. P. Volz, Der Geist Gottes, 1910, p. 115).
H. Wheeler Robinson.
HANDKERCHIEF, NAPKIN The word aovS&piop
(=Lat. sudai-ium) is translated by 'handkerchiefs'
(plur.) in Ac 19*^ but elsewhere in the NT by
* napkin' (Lk 19«>, Jn 11« -20^). See DCG, s.v.
'Napkin.' Its equivalent appears in Talmudic
literature as an article of clothing (one of the over-
garments), which might be worn round the neck
(cf. Suet. Nero, 51) or carried upon the arm or
over the shoulder. It was also in use as a head or
face cloth, approximating in idea to ' veil ' (cf. Suet.
Xero, 48 ; Quintil. Instit. VI. iii. 60). The ffovddpior
appears among the items of dowry in marriage
contracts of the 2nd and 3rd cent. A.D. (A. Deiss-
mann, Xeue Bibelstudien, 1897, p. 50). According
to the derivation of the word, it was a sweat-cloth,
corresponding in use to our handkerchief. Catullus
{Carm. xiL 14) speaks of the joke of abstracting a
neighbour's napkin at meals. According to this
passage the articles were of Spanish manufacture,
and the material linen. The ffovSaptoy was em-
ployed for waving in public assemblies. It served
humbler purposes as a strainer and as a wrapper.
See especially S. Krauss, Talmudische Archciologie,
i. [1910] 166 f. Cf. also art. 'The Aprons and
Handkerchiefs of St. Paul,' by E. Nestle, in ExpT
xiii [1901-02] 282, and see art. Apron.
W. Crockshank.
HANDS, LAYING ON OF.— See Ordixatiok.
HANDWRITING.— See Bond.
HARAN (AY ' Charaan,' Ac 7- *).— Haran was a
city of some importance, on a tributary of the
Euplirates. From Ur the ancestors of Abraham
emigrated to Haran (Gn 11'^). Here one division,
under Nahor, remained. Hence it is called 'the
city of Nahor ' (24^*). It was a famous seat of the
worship of Sin, the moon-god. Abram left it to
enter Canaan. J. W. DUNCAN.
HARDENING.— The discussion of this subject
relates to a single striking case, which St. Paul
and later theologians have taken as typical. The
dramatic interest of the legend of the Exodus
(Ex 5-14) centres in a conflict between the Di\-ine
and the human will. Pharaoh's successive pro-
mises and refusals to let the Israelites go into the
wilderness are the outward signs of an inward
vacillation under the alternate influences of in-
sensate pride and abject fear. It is stated that
his heart was hardened (7"- '*• ^ 8'» 9^ 9**), that he
hardened his heart (S'*-** 9**), and that Jahweh
said He would harden (4-^ 7* 14*), and did harden
(9'- 10^ 20-27 i]io 148)^ his heart. In the NT the
proposition that God hardens the heart occurs
only in quotations from the OT («-&rp<iw being used
in Jn 12*^ and ff/cXrjpi'vw in Ro 9'*).
Critical exegesis makes no attempt to soften or
evade the natural meaning of this language, which
afiirms, not that God merely permits (as Origen
and Grotius thought), or that He foreknows, but
that He effects, tlie hardening of the heart. If
such a statement is not to be explained awa\-, can
it be explained in such a manner as to be credible ?
The difficulty of accepting it is a particular phase
of the general difficulty of reconciling human
522
HARDENING
HARDENING
freedom with Divine sovereignty. It has been
truly said tliat
' the relation of man, as a free moral personality, to Ood is even
more difficult to conceive than his relation to nature ; theolopy
has more j)eril3 for human freedom than cosmoloifv. To think
of God as all in all, and jet to retain our belief in human
freedom or personality,— that is the real metaphysical dilli-
culty ' (J. Seth, Ethical Principles^, WdH, p. 395).
The assertion that God hardens a man's heart
shocks our moral sense, because it seems to deny
Divine love on the one hand and liuman freedom
on the other. It is partly explained by tlie
Semitic habit of recognizinjj the l^irst Cause of all
events and ignoring second causes. In Nature,
history, and ]iersonal experience the controlling
and directing hand of God was discerned by tlie
Hebrews. Now, 'piety demands such an em-
phasizing of God's action as would logically take
away man's freedom. Moral consciousness, on the
other hand, demands a freedom which, looked at
by itself, would exclude all divine co-operation
and order' (H. Schultz, OT Tlieol., Eng. tr., 1892,
ii. 196). The authors of the Exodus narrative,
most of wliich is by J or E, are typical OT writers,
in tliat tliey set the doctrines of sovereignty and
freedom side by side without betraying any con-
sciousness of a contiict between them and a need
to harmonize them. Their teaching is not fatal-
istic, for fatalism is the assertion of a superhuman
activity which leaves no room for moral freedom.
They take for granted that responsibility which
the conscience, unless corrupted by sophistry,
regards as the prerogative of every human being.
The tyrant whom they depict is anything but a
puppet in the hands of an absolute and arbitrary
will. The Divine sovereignty never excludes the
possibility of initiative on his part. In every
retrospect of his own conduct he feels that he
could, and ought to, have chosen a difierent course.
He knows that he has failed to ' lay to heart ' the
judgments of God (Ex 7^). He confesses again
and again that he has sinned (9-'' 10'"), and he asks
Moses to forgive his sin and pray for him (10'^).
He might at any moment humble himself before
God, but he stubbornly refuses to do it (10*). His
will is never coerced ; it is by his own deeds that
he merits the penalty which is ultimately inflicted
upon him. He sins and suffers, not as the victim
of a Divine good-pleasure which hardens whom it
will, but as a tyrant who, ' being often reproved,
hardeneth his neck,' and wlio is therefore ' suddenly
broken, and that without remedy' (Pr 29^).
While the religious leaders of Israel assert the
efficiency of God in unqualified terms, they lay no
foundation for that high predestinarianism which
maintains the Divine sovereignty and leaves only
a semblance of freedom to man. The theology
of the OT is not deterministic, as 'the accepted
Muhammadan theology is undoubtedly determin-
istic' (II. P. Smith, The Bible and Islam, 1896,
p. 137). All the prophets and prophetic writers,
among whom J and E may be included, accentuate
moral obligation ; they regard virtuous and vicious
acts as originating in the human will ; their whole
teaching is based on the conviction that men and
nations deserve rewards or punishments, and are
in a real sense the authors of their own destiny.
The figure of the clay and the potter (Jer 18®,
Is 64^ llo 9^'), which clearly recognizes 'a divinity
that shapes our ends,' says nothing of the prin-
ciples according to which these ends are shaped
(A. B. Davidson, Thcol. of OT, 1904, p. 131), and
all apparently predestinarian language is meant
to be moralized.
' Nor does any one doubt that it is an effect intended by Ood,
when, at a certain stage in sin. His revelation makes the heart
harder. God's word can never return unto Him void. Where
it ia tiindered from blessing, it must curse. Light must make
weak eyes weaker ; nourishini,' food must ajf^fravatc the viru-
lence of disease. That is a necessary moral ordinance — in
other words, one willed by God from eternity ' (H. Bchultz,
op. cit. ii. 207).
Moses' experience of the hardening effect of
Divine truth in the case of Pharaoh was one
which almost all prophets liave shared with him.
There is biting satire, but not predestinarian
doctrine, in the command which Isaiaii (6'") puts
into the moutii of God : ' Make the heart of this
people fat, and make their ears dull, and besmear
their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear
with their ears, and their heart understand, and
they turn again and be healed.' This propliet's
language is quoted witli approval by our Lord
in Mk 4'-, Lk 8^" ; and with an important modi-
lication in Mt W*- ^\
' It is conceivable that Jesus might use Isaiah's words in
Isaiah's spirit, i.e., ironically, expressing the bitter feeling of
one conscious that his best efforts to teach his countrymen
would often end in failure, and in his bitterness representing
himself as sent to stop ears and blind eyes. Such utterances
are not to be taken as deliberate dogmatic teaching. If, as
some allege, the evangelists so took them, they failed to under-
stand the mind of the Master' (A. B. Bruce, EGT, 'The
Synoptic Gospels,' 1897, p. 19G).
The hardening of Pharaoh's (or of any other
guilty man's) heart is a judicial, not an arbitrary,
act of God, who never hardens a good man's heart.
The process is, in Western language, natural and
inevitable. ' By abuse of light, nature jjioduces
callousness; and what nature does God does'
(M. Dods, EGT, ' The Gospel of St. John,' 1897,
E. 812). If He gives men up to punishment, it is
ecause they have deliberately given themselves
up to sin (lio 12*- 28- 28). The story of Pharaoh's
overthrow has great and permanent value as a
tlrama of freedom abused, and its moral effect
would be ruined if we were to interpolate in it at
any point the words of the Qur'an (x. 88) :
' And Moses said, O our Lord, Thou hast given Pharaoh and
his nobles pomp and riches in this world, to make them wander
from Thy path ; O our Lord, destroy their riches and harden
their hearts, that they may not believe until they see exemplary
punishment.'
St. Paul uses the case of Pharaoh, as well as the
figure of the clay and the potter, to establish his
doctrine of God's sovereign right and power of
disposing of men's lives as He will. In the keen-
ness of his dialectic the Apostle employs expressions
which seem harsli : ' So then he hath mercy on wliom
he will, and whom he will he hardeneth ' (fiv di 04\ei
(TKXrjpiji'ei, Ro 9'8). St. Paul
' has none of that caution and timorousness which often lead
writers perpetually to trim and Qualify for fear of being
misunderstood. He lays full stress upon the argument in hand
in its bearing upon the idea to be maintained, without con-
cerning himself about its adjustment with other truths ' (G. B.
Stevens, The Pauline rhcolugy, 1892, p. 120 ; cf. C. Gore, Si.
Paul's Epistle to the Jiomaiis, ii. [1900] 37 f.).
He approaches the painful subject of the harden-
ing of the Jews under the preaching of the gospel
from two different sides. When his object is to
humble their pride and pretension, he emphasizes
(what no Jew would deny) the absoluteness of
God ; when his aim is to silence their excuse-s he
shows them that it is for their own sins that they
are rejected.
'The hardening . . . against the gospel, which in Rom. ix.
and xi. he considers as a divine destiny, he characterises in
chap. X. as the self-hardening of Israel' (W. Beyschlag, ST
Theol.t, Eng. tr., 1896, ii. 118).
There is, however, always a danger in the
dialectical use of the language of absolutism. If
the conversion of some and the hardening of
others are ascribed to the mere will of (Jod, it is
clearly open to the hardened to say, ' Why dotli
he yet find fault ? ' (rl (n fxifjuperau, Ro 9'») ; and if
an inspired prophet is then quoted, ' Sliall the
thing formed say to him that formed it (rd irXdafia
HARLOT
HARLOT
523
r(^ T\dffavTt), •' Wliy didst thou make me thus?"'
the answer must be that 'a man is not a thing,
and if the wltole explanation of his destiny is to be
sou<,'lit in the l»are will of God, he toUl say. Why
didst thou make me thus? and not even the
authority of Paul will silence him' (J. Denney,
£GT, ' Romans,' 1900, p. 663). If the Potter is a
God of infinite love, it is well with the clay, as
Rabbi Ben Ezra sees ; but if the Potter is a God
who for His mere good pleasure makes ' vessels of
wrath,' who would care to worship Him ?
* We must affirm that freedom is the fixed point that must be
held, because it is an inalienable certainty of experience, and
that predestination can be only such as is consistent with it :
else there is no rational and responsible life. . . . Predestination
in other fields of existence need not trouble us ; but perplexity
and anguish unutterable enter if we admit the supposition, or
eren the genuine suspicion that God has so foreonlained our
actions as to take away our freedom. To this the history of
CSiristian experience bears abundant witness' (W. N. Clarke,
An Outline of Christian Theoloijy, 1896, p. 146).
It Ls certain that in his general teacliing St. Paul
held fast both Divine sovereignty and human
freedom (see Ph 2^-). It is equally certain that he
left the si)eculative (question of the relation of the
two where he found it — as an antinomy which he
could not transcend. Nor have any later theo-
logians or philosophers solved the enigma. Finite
thought is unable to comprehend that Divine
activity which works in a higher way than any
other energy in the world. But ' even though the
ultimate reconciliation of divine and human
personality may be still beyond us' (J. Seth, op.
cit. 396), it is practically enough if Christianity
maintains that in relation to free beings the will
of God is never an arbitrary will, enforcing itself
without moral means.
' God shows respect for his creatures, and for himself as their
creator, and upon the independence that he has 0ven them be
makes no attempt forcibly to intrude ' (W. N. Clarke, op. cit.
P.13J5).
"While the Qur'an (xiv. 4) teaches that 'God
leads astray whom He will and leads aright whom
He will ; He is the Powerful, the wise,' the God
revealed by Jesus Christ 'wishes not that any
should perish, but that all should come to repent-
ance' (2 P 3»).
LiTERATURR. — In addition to books named in the art. see
Calvin, Institutes, ed. 1S63, i. 198 ff. ; B. Weiss, Bib. Theol.
of ST, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1882-83, ii. 3ff. ; A. B. Brace, St.
I'auVs Conception of Christianity, do. 1S&4, p. 121 ff.; F.
Godet, Ronxang, Eng. tr., do. lSSl-82, iL 15Sff.
James Strahan.
HABLOT (-rdpv-q, masc. xdpvos).— The RV has
dropped the words whore and whoremonger.which
the AV used intercliangeably with 'harlot' and
' fornicator ' to translate the Gr. words Tdpmj and
TOpPOS.
1. The word xo'pvjj is used in two passages (He
11", Ja 2^) to describe Rahab. This Rahab is
mentioned (Mt 1') in the genealogy of Jesus ; and
although, as Calvin says (on He 11"), the term
'harlot' is applied only to her former life ('ad
anteactam vitaui referri certum est'), yet dLBBculty
was early felt as to the propriety of giving her such
an honoured position as she has in the NT.
Theophylact in the 12th cent, expressed doubt
as to the correctness of identifying her with the
Rahab of Jos 2' ('There are some who think that
Rachab was that Rahab the harlot who received
the spies of Joshua the son of Nave ' [Enarratio in
Mt 1^]). He has been followed in this by others,
notably the Dutch professor, G. Outhov ('Disser-
tatio de Raab et Racliab,' in Bibl. hist. -phil. -theol.
Bremensis, Bremen and Amsterdam, 1719-25, class
iii. p. 43S), C. T. Kuinoel (Nov. Test. lib. hist.,
Grace, London, 1835, i. 2), and H. Olshausen (Com.
on Gospels and Actsr, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1852-
54, in loc.). Valpy also contends that the two
cannot be the same (Greek Testament, London,
1836, i. 4). There is no reason, however, for doubt-
ing that the two are identical. Jewish tradition
makes the identification, although her entrance
into the Israelitish community is variously related
(see John Lightfoot, Horce Hebraica, ed. Gandell,
Oxford, 1859, ii. II, for details).
Various reasons have been suggested for Rahab's
inclusion among the Saviour's forbears (cf. also
Tamar, Ruth, Bathsheba). Grotitis suggests that
it IS & proludium oi the gospel of Him who saved
idolaters and criminals ; Wetstein, that it might
meet Jewish objections to Mary's position — auid
this seems most likely.
There have been attempts also to weaken the
force of vopvT] as applied to her. Josephus (Ant.
V. i. 2) speaks of her house as a KaTa-yur/iov. She
is described as an inn-keeper in the Targum on
Jos 2^ — Kn'pTJTS (vavdoKeirrpui). In the NT also in
some texts of Heb. (K^) she is so described, and in
Clem. Rom. (Ep. ad Cor. L 12) various readings
show a tendency towards softening down rbprrf (see
J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, 'Clem. Rom.,'
iL [1890] 46 1£). The term, however, is really used
in the ordinary sense, and has to be so understood.
In He 1 1" Rahab has a place in the catalogue of
the heroes of faith ; while in Ja 2^ she is referred
to, beside Abraham, as an example of good works.
In the description given of her by Clem. Rom. she
is praised for both faith and works : ' For her faith
and hospitality Rahab the harlot was saved ' (i. 12).
The scarlet thread which she hung out from her
house became typical, 'showing beforehand that
through the blood of the Lord there shall be re-
demption unto all them that believe and hope on
God.'
Zahn thus describes the reason why James
adopted her case beside that of Abraham : * The
lesson from Abraham's example is developed to its
completion and finally stated in Ja 2"^ ; then follows
the example of the heathen woman Rahab, which
neither substantiates what has been said before nor
develops a new phase of the truth, and appears to
be dragged in without purpose. It does have
point, however, if referring to a number of Gentiles
who had been received into the Jewish Christian
Churches, and if designed to say : the example of
Rahab has the same lesion for them that tlie history
of Abraham has for his descendants' (Introd. to
the NT, Eng. tr., 1909, i. 91). J. B. Lightfoot
(loe. cit.) thinks that Clement is trj-ing by her
example to reconcile the Judaistic and Gentile
parties in Corinth. The truth is that Rahab's case
was weU known and might easily suggest itself to
any one (along with Sarah, Abigail, and Esther,
she was considered a historic beauty). To try to
fix the date of James's Epistle from this incident is
precarious.
The term is not applied to any other person in
the NT unless, with some, we interpret He 12'* in
such a way as to make the rdpros descriptive of
Esau. Wetstein (iti loc.) gives citations to show
that later Jewish tradition regarded Esau as a
fornicator. The text is not decisive (see Alford,
ad loc.). It is probable, however, that Damaris
('heifer ') belonged to the class of educated Hetairai
(see W. :M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 1895,
p. 252).
2. The attitude of the Christian Church in the
Apostolic Age towards fornication is given in art.
FoRXICATION. In Hermas we find stress laid on
the sinful thoughts, while from the few references
to overt fornication it is thought that Christian
morality had succeeded in showing in practice its
victory over this sin. Hermas is concerned with
the question of divorce, from the point of view of
fornication ; and his teaching is that the husband
whose vrife has been divorced for adultery should
524
HAE-MAGEDON
HARP
not re-many, so as to give to the repentant
wife an opportunity of returning, and vice versa
(Mand. iv. i. 4-8) ; see K. Lake m Expositor, 7th
ser. X. [1910] 416 fl"., for an attempt to reconcile
Hernias and the Gospels on divorce, and C. W.
Emmet in reply (Expositor, 8th ser. i. [1911] 68 ff".).
In the Apocalypse (chs. 17-19) we have the
description and the doom of ' the great harlot ' —
Babylon. There can be no reasonable doubt that
this Babylon is Imperial Home. Tliat tlie term i.s
allegorical is proved by 17", ' On tlie forehead of
the woman was written a mystery — Babylon tlie
Great.' In the OT, Tyre and Nineveh have this
title of 'harlot' (Is 23i»-", Nah 3<) ; and even
•lerusalem is so called (Is 1-^). How and when the
title was first applied to Rome we cannot say, but
the OT would easily supply the analogy ; and very
likely this mysterious title would save the readers
of the book from persecution, because the term
would be intelligible only to the initiated (see A.
Souter in Expositor, 7th ser. x. [1910] 373 fl".). The
term is used in the Sibylline Oracles, bk. v. lines
137-143 and 158-160 (ed. Geffcken, Leipzig, 1902),
the date of wliich is disputed.
The harlot of the Apocalypse has, like a high-
born Roman dame, a band round lier forehead.
Her dress is royal purple — emblem of luxurious
firide (Juv. Sat. lii. 283). Like the harlot, she has
ler name exhibited (see quotations in Wetstein,
who refers to Juv. Sat. vi. 123 and Seneca, Controv.
i. 2). She has a cup in her hand to intoxicate her
paramours. J. Motliitt (in EGT, 'Revelation')
quotes a parallel from Cebes' Tabula : ' Do you
see a woman sitting there with an inviting look,
and in her hand a cup? She is called Deceit; by
her power she beguiles all who enter life and makes
them drink. And what is the draught? Deceit
and ignorance.' Her dress is luxurious, with gold
and pearls (cf. Test. Jud. xiii. 5, where the harlot
once more has pearls and gold). She rides on a
wild beast, like a Bacchante ; and kings are her
paramours. But the harlot's doom awaits her
(17'®). The wild beast on which she rides has seven
lieads (the seven hills of Rome [see Wetstein, in
loci) 8.nd ten horns. We cannot enter here on the
vexed question of the seven kings, on which the
date of the book depends. The harlot is doomed.
Rome shall perish in the blood that she has spilt.
Her fall will cause lamentation among her allies,
but jubilation among saints on earth and angels
in heaven.
The language in which the harlot's doom is
described by the seer has been criticized as un-
Cliristian. ' He that takes delight in such fancies
is no whit better than he that first invented them '
(P. Wernle, The Beqinnings of Christianity, Eng.
tr., i. [1903] 370). liut tlie downfall of O/Spts in a
State or individual eased the conscience in the
ancient world, and here it vindicated the existence
of a righteous God who avenged the slaughter of
His saints. The lanj^uage must not be interpreted
apart from the situation.
Literature. — For Commentaries on the Apooalvpse see J.
Moffatt in EGT, 'Revelation,' 1910; A. B. Swete (21907) ;
H. J. Holtzmann (in JIand-Commentar, TUbinfjen, 1908); W.
Bousset C'Cidttiiitjen, 1906). For Ilahab see J. B. Mayor,
Epistle of .Jame.s'->, 1910 ; A. Martin, Winning the Soul, 1S97,
p. 47. DoNALu Mackenzie.
HAR-MAGEDON (RV ; Armageddon AV).— Ac-
cording to Rev 16'* this is the name in Heb. of the
scene of ' the war of the great day of God, the
Almighty ' (v.^*), against whom the three unclean
spirits (v.") have gathore<l together 'the kings of
the whole world' (v.'''). There are variations in
the form of the name in the Gr. texts and very
different interpretations of its meaning, but li'Ap
Ma7e5wi' is accepted as the correct form, the most
satisfactory explanation is that which takes it to
mean 'the mount of Megiddo' ("Ap = IIeb. nrr 'a
mountain '), By its geograi)hical conformation and
strategical situation the plain of Megiddo was
Itetter suited than any other place in the Holy
Land to be the arena of a great battle, and the
liistorical memories that gathered round it would
fill the name with suggestion for the readers of the
A]iocalypse. The primary reference, no doubt,
would l)e to Israel s victory ' by the waters of
Megiddo' over the kings of Canaan (Jg .'5'®), which
niiglit be taken as typical of the triumph of God and
His Kingdom over tlie hostile world-powers ; but the
defeat and death of Saul and Jonathan at the eastern
extremity of the plain (1 S 31'), the disastrous
struggle of Josiah on the same held against Fharaoh-
necoh (2 K 23»', 2 Cli 35-'-''), and Zechariah's
reference to ' the mourning of Hadadrimmon in
the valley of Megiddon ' (Zee 12'^), would heighten
the suggestion of a gi'eat day of overthrow and
destruction. The chief objections oflcred to tiiis
interpretation are that a mountain is an unsuitable
battlefield, and that the historical battles are
described as taking place ' by the waters of
Megiddo' (Jg o'") or 'in the valley of Megiddo'
(2 Ch 35"). Against this, however, must be set
the statements that Barak with his 10,0{X) men
' went down from mount Tabor ' to meet Sisera
(Jg 4''*), that Zebulun and Naphtali 'jeoparded
their lives unto the death in the high places of the
field' (5'**), and that Saul and Jonathan fell 'in
mount Gilboa' (1 S 31'- «; cf. 2 S 1-'). And the
place given to ' the mountains of Israel ' in Ezekiel's
prophecy of the destruction of Gog and Magog
(Ezk 38"--' 39-- ^•'^), to which the Apocalyptist
subsequently refers in his description of the final
overthrow of Satan and his hosts (Rev 20*), may
have served to confirm the idea that a mountain
would be the scene of ' the war of the great day of
God, the Almighty.'
Of recent years considerable support has been
given to the view, first propouncled by Gunkel
(Schopfnng und Chaos, 268), that ' Har-Magedon'
f (reserves the name of the place where in the Baby-
onian creation-myth the dragon Tiamat was over-
thrown by Marduk, the passage Rev 16'^"'* being
{)resumably a fragment from some Jewish apoca-
yijse in which the Babylonian mythology had
been adapted to an eschatological interest. This
theory, however, rests upon grounds that are very
speculative, and even its supporters admit that
the author of the Apocalypse would be ignorant of
the mytiiological origin of the name, and would
probably understand it to mean ' the mountain of
Megiddo.'
LiTERATURK. — The artt. ' Ilar-Maj^edon ' in HDB and ' Arma-
geddon ' in EBi; J. Moffatt, E(,T, 'Revelation,' 1910; H.
Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos, ls9o. J. C. LAMBERT.
HARP {Kiddpa, also KiBapl^eiv, * to harp,' and KiOap-
ifiddi [KiOap + doidSi] ' a harper'). — The word and its
two derivatives occur only in 1 Corinthians and
Revelation. In 1 Co 14^ : ' Even things without
life, giving a voice, whether pipe or harp, if they
give not a distinction in the sounds, how shall it
be known what is piped or harped?' St. Paul
by this musical illustration criticizes a prevalent
and unedifying speaking with tongues, thougli,
in the light of the phrase eandcm cantilcnata
recincre, his figure of 'harping' has come in col-
loquial use to represent ratlier monotonous per-
sistency. In Rev 5" the four living creatures and
the four and twenty elders Avho abased tliemselves
before the Lamb have each of them a harp ; and
the voi(!e which wiis heard, as the Lamb and the
hundred and forty and four thousiaud stowl on
Mount Zion, is described as that of ' harpers
harping witli their harps' (14-). The victors over
the beast, his image, and his mark, who stand by
HARP
HARVEST
525
' the glassy sea mingled with fire ' and sing the
the song of Moses, have ' harps of God ' to sing
His praise (15-). In 18- the angel who doome<l
the great city of Babylon declared that it would
hear no more the voice of liarpers (cf. Is 23'*).
When we attempt to describe exactly the design
and manipulation of musical instruments in use
tliroughout the Apostolic Age, we are met with
almost insuperable difficulties. The apocalyptic
character of the book, which, as we have seen,
contains, Avith but one exception, the references to
harps, turns (one to Jewish music ; but, though
there is much relevant information in Chronicles
and other OT writings, it is lacking in precision.
It is easier to describe the instruments of ancient
Egypt and Assyria, for we are helped by sculptures
and pictures, the like of which have not been found
in Palestine. We must rely, therefore, on analogy
guided by our inexact OT descriptions.
' To accompany singing, or at all events sacred
singing, stringed instruments only were used, and
never wind instruments '(Appendix to Wellhausen's
' Psalms ' [Haupt's PB, 1898]). It may be too much
to say that they were the only accompanying in-
struments, but they were certainlj' the principal.
In the OT there is mention of only two stringed
instruments (if we except the curious list which
appears in Daniel), and these are the nis? and h^i.
The former is the older, and tradition points to
Jubal as its inventor (Gn 4-') ; while the second
does not appear before 1 S 10^. Tliese are trans-
lated in the EV" as 'harp' and 'psaltery' respec-
tively. From 1 K 10'- we learn that their frame-
work was made of almug or algum ; from 2 Ch
20^ that both were portable, and from many OT
passages that they were much used at religious
and festive gatherings. It is difficult to determine
with exactness the difference between these stringed
instruments ; but, although later tradition con-
fused them, they were certainly not identical,
nor were their names used indifferently to denote
the same instrument. There are several reasons,
however, for the belief that the lia? resembled a
lyre, and that the V^l was a form of harp (the
question is discussed in HDB iii. 458 f. ). Amongst
these are (1) the fact that in the LXX Kiddpa, or its
equivalent Acti't/xx, isthealmost invariable translation
of T32 ; (2) the evidence of Jewish coins pointing to
a decided similarity of ni3? and Kiddpa (see F. W.
Madden, Coins of the Jeicsr^, 1885, pp. 231, 243) ;
and (3) the distinction emphasized by early Chris-
tian writers between instruments which had a
resonance-frame beneath the strings and those
which had it above (see St. Augustine on Ps 42).
Josephus, who has a description of the frame-work
and strings of these instruments in Ant. VIII. iii. 8,
distinguished the Kivvpa as ten-stringed and struck
with a plectrum from the va^\a. as twelve-stringed
and played with the hand.*
The Kiddpa was the traditional instrument of
psalmody, and the Ki0apif)56s, along with the av\r)-
TTjs, performed at the festive seasons of Hebrew
life (cf. H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John-,
1907, pp. 80, 239). Being lighter in weight than
the h^i, the lyre was much played in processions,
and, as we leam from Ps 137-, it could be hung on
the poplar trees of Babylon when the Hebrew
exiles were in no mood for songs of rejoicing.
The Kiddpa was of Asiatic origin, and was probably
introduced into Egypt by Semites. The earliest
representation of a stringed instrument is that
excavated at Telloh in South Babylonia, which
in size resembles a harp but is shaped like a lyre,
i.e. it has a resonance- body on which are set Wo
almost perpendicular posts between which are the
strings, upright and fastened to a cross-bar. A
* See S. R. Driver, Joel and Amos (Cambridge Bible, 1898),
p. 231ff.
picture which better illustrates the ordinary lyre is
that of three Semitic captives guarded by an Assy-
rian warrior while they played ; but perhaps the best
illustration is that on the Jewish coins mentioned
above. Archibald Main.
HARVEST {e€pi<T/j.6s, ^ep/fw).— 1. Use of the word
in the NT.— The Gr. verb (Oepil^eiv) for ' to harvest '
or ' to reap ' properly means ' to do summer work '
(from depoi, 'summer'). In addition to the numer-
ous allusions to sowing and reaping contained in
the Gospels, there are several other references to
harvest-time in the pages of the NT. Thus St.
Paul, when finding it necessary to upbraid the
Corinthian converts for their meanness in regard
to this world's goods, sarcastically asks : ' If we
to you did sow {i.e. when Ave planted the church in
Corinth) spiritual things, is it a great matter if we
of you should reap material things?' (1 Co 9").
The sower is entitled to expect a harvest of the
particular crop which he sows — in this case a
spiritual harvest ; how much more is he entitled
to a mere worldly harvest as the compensation for
his toil, inadequate though the compensation be.
In 2 Co 9* St. Paul reverts to the same metaphor
and in the same connexion. Niggardliness would
appear to have been a besetting sin of the
Corinthians, as seemingly also of the Galatians
(cf. Lightfoot, Galatians^, p. 219). The proposi-
tion here set forth is similar to that enunciated in
Gal 6^ though the application is somewhat dili'er-
ent. 'He that soweth sparingly shall reap also
sparinglj', and he that soweth bountifully shall
reap also bountifully.' In Gal 6'' this is compressed
into the single sentence : ' Whatsoever a man
soAveth, that shall he also reap.' The Apostle then
proceeds to apply the truth embodied in the proverb
to the subject to Avhich he is devoting his particular
attention : ' For he that soweth unto his own
flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he
that soAveth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap
eternal life.' The proverb itself is a common one,
and is found not only in the Bible but also in the
classical writers (cf. Lightfoot, op. cit. p. 219),
and the aptness of the simile is too obvious to
require any comment. Without abandoning his
metaphor, the Apostle next addresses those Avho,
though faithful up to a point, are apt to be faint-
hearted : ' in Avell-doing, let us not lose heart, for
at its proper time (i.e. at harvest-time) we shall
reap if Ave faint not.'
In Gal 6~- * the harvest is made to depend on the
nature of the ground into Avhich the seed is cast,
but in 1 Co 9" the reference is rather to the par-
ticular kind and quality of the seed soAvn (cf. Job
4*), Avhile in 2 Co 9® the amount soaa'u is the point
emphasized.
In Ja 5^ Ave have another allusion to the agri-
cultiiral operations incidental to harvest-time :
' Behold, the hire of the labourers Avho moAA'ed
your fields, Avhich is of you kept back by fraud
{i.e. comes too late from you), crieth out : and the
cries of them that reaped have entered into the
ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.' The same love of
money evidently prcA'ailed among those here
addressed as in the Galatian and Corinthian
churches. The particular manifestation of it
Avhich the Avriter singles out as the object of his
special denunciation is the omission to pay the
labourers their Avages promptlj'. In the eyes of
the laAV this Avas a heinous oflence ; thus in Lv
19'* it is enacted that ' the Avages of a hired serA-ant
shall not abide Avith thee all night until the
morning ' (cf. also Pr 3^-^, Jer 22'*, Mai 3^).
In Rev 14"- '•* the Parousia is represented as
ushering in the great harvest of the Avorld's fruit
(cf. Mt 13^ ' the harvest is the end of the Avorld ').
In Mt IS^^"* the harvest consists in gathering up
526
HARVEST
HATRED
the tares as well as the wheat with a view to their
subsequent separation ; here, however, only the
wheat is reaped, and the evil, whicli in the Parable
appears as tares, is treated under another metaphor
in llev 14''^"-. In the Parable again tlie anj^'els are
the reapers, but here the Son of Man Himself
gathers tlie fruit. Of tiiat hour, ' the hour to
reap' (v.'"'), 'l^nnweth no man, no not the angels
which ari! in lii'.ivcn, neither the Son, but the
Father" (Mk lo'-), who sends an angel to announce
to llu' Divinely-commissioned reaper that 'the
hour to reap is come ; for the harvest of the eartli
is over-ripe' (better perhaps 'fully ripe,' though
the word used [i^rjpdvd-r]] properly refers to the
' drying up' of the juices of the wheat).
After the gathering in of all the wheat, another
angel conies forth fr<»m the Temple, ' he also
having a sharp sickle,' and a second rcaiiing
follows the first. This second reaping follows the
first just as the vintage, with whicli it is liere
associated, succeeded the wheat harvest (cf. Jl 3'^).
It will be observed that the Son of Man reaps the
wheat, Imt the work of destruction is fittingly
consigned to an angel. The ' children of the king-
dom ' are in this chapter identified with the wheat
as elsewhere in the NT, but the wicked are identi-
fied with the clusters of the vine destined to be
trodden in the winepress ' of the wrath of God '
(cf. ' the vine of wrath ' in Rev H"* ^").
2. The harvest in Palestine. — Of the various
harvests in Palestine, that of barley takes place
first. Generally speaking, it begins about the
middle of April, but in the Jordan valley in March,
while in the coast districts, on the other hand, it
commences about ten days later, and in the
elevated regions sometimes as much as a month
later. Hence the labourers from the hills are free
to assist in reaping the harvest of the coast-
dwellers, while the latter in turn can lend a hand
in gathering in the harvest in the hill-countiy.
The wheat harvest commences about a fortnight
after the barley harvest ; the gathering of fruit
and vegetables takes place in summer, the
gathering of olives in autumn, and the vintage
from August onwards. The harvest of course
depends on the rainfall, which, to render the
best results, must neither be very large nor very
small.
Barley is the universal food of asses and horses
and is also the staple food of the jxxjr, Avho, how-
ever, generally mix it with wheatcn meal when
they can aflord to do so. Wheat thrives well
in Palestine, thirty-fold being quite an average
crop. It is reaped with a sickle, and gathered
into bundles which are generally carried off at
once on the backs of camels to the threshing-floor,
whei'e the heads are struck off the straw by the
sickle. The threshing-floor is generally common
to the whole village, and consists of a large open
space on the side of a hill, the surface of the rock
being levelled for the purpose, or, failing this, an
artificial mortar floor is prepared. The grain is
usually separated from the chaff by oxen treading
it as they are driven round and round a circular
heap of corn in the centre of the floor. The oxen
as a rule are not muzzled (cf. l)t 2'>*, 1 Co 9", 1 Ti
5^*). Sometimes, however, the wheat is threshed
by means of a heavy wooden wheel or roller, or
else by a kind of drag consisting of two or three
boards fastened together, the under-surface of
which is studded with pieces of iron, flint, or stone.
It is drawn by a horse or an ass. This machine is
seen more frequently in the northern jiarts of tlic
countrj'. After threshing comes the process of
winnoA\iii,u. -\s smni as tlie strnw li:is Ihmmi re-
moved, tlic i-(ii-iL i-- t lirowii nj) into ( lie air iiy sli()\cl<,
when the wind blows away the chatl .'uid the m-ain
falls back. When tlieie is no wind, a hir;;e tan is
employed (cf. Mt. .S'-). The cliopped straw, called
tibn, is used as fodder for the eaiile.
IJiit, even after the a\ inndw in-, the grain is still
iiilxeil wiih Miiail :..iir , ],\: ' : i>i clay, unbruised
ears and tares, al! ni Wlmli niut be removed be-
fore the corn is ready tor u-e. lleiiee the neee-.-ity
of the further j)roee-s ol siftiii;;. Tlii^ work is
done by women. The sieve generally consists of
a wooden hoop with a mesh made of camel-hair.
The sifter is seated on the floor and shakes the
sieve containing the grain until the chaff comes to
the surface ; she tiien blows it away, removes the
stones and other bits of refuse, after which the
grain is ready for the granary. In modern times
it is always stored in underground cliambers,
generally about 8 feet deep ; they are cemented
on the inside to keep the damp out, the only
opening being a circular mouth, about 15 inches
in diameter, which is boarded over and, if conceal-
ment is desirable, coverc'd with earth or grass.
The grain thus stored will keep for years. See
also Sickle, Vine, Vintage.
Literature.— H. B. Tristram, Eastern Customs in Bible
Lands, 1894, p. 123 f. ; J. C. Geikie, The Holy Laml and the
Bible, 1903, pp. 53, 244, 252 ; W. M. Thomson, The Land and
the Book, 18(54, p. 543 f. ; G. Robinson Lees, Village Life in
Palestine, 1897, ch. iv. ; T. S. Evans, in Speaker's Commentary,
iii. [1881] 302; J. B. Lightfoot, Galatians^, 1870, p. 219 f.;
J. B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. Jame^, 1910, p. ir,7f. ; H. B.
Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John^, 1907, p. 18s ff.; ElU i.
80 f. ; HDB i. 49flE. ; DCG i. 40 ; SDB 16.
P. S. P. Handcock.
HATRED.— In the time of Nero the Christians
of Rome ' were accused, not so much on the charge
of burning the city, as of hating the human race '
('baud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio
humani generis convict! sunt' [Tac. Ann. xv. 44]).
The indictment was the opposite of the truth.
Christianity is amor generis hxtmani. Christ's new
commandment is 'that ye love one another' (Jn 13**,
1 Jn 2*), and it is fulfilled when an outward cate-
gorical imperative {e.g. Lv 19^^) is changed into an
inward personal impulse, the dynamic of which is
His own self-sacrificing, all-embracing love. ' We
love, because he first loved us' (1 Jn 4^'), and it
would be as right to insert ' the human race ' as
' him ' (AV) after the first verb. By precept and
example Christ constrains men to love one another
as He has loved them. To be Christlike is to love
impartially and immeasurably. Love is the sole
and sufficient evidence that a man ' is in the light'
(1 Jn 2^"). There is a silencing finality in St. John's
judgment of that profession of Christianity which
is not attested by love : ' He that saith he is in the
light, and hatetli his brother, is in the darkness
even until now ' (1 Jn 2^). The negative htj Ayairav
is displaced by the positive fxiaelv, for there is no
real via media, cool indifference to any man being
quickly changed under stress of temptation into
very deciilcii dislike. 6 fiicrCiv tqv a.5e\<pbv avrov is
guilty of an uiiiiat ural hatred, and though ' brother'
refers in the first instanet; to thosi; w ho are members
of the body of Christ, it is inipossilije to evade the
wider ap])lication. ' The brt)ther for whom Christ
died' (1 Co 8") is every man. In the searching
language of the Apostle of love, hatred is equiva-
lent to murder (1 .hi S") : the one concept lacks
no hideous element that is present in the other;
the animating ideas and passions of the hater and
the murderer are tlie same. The Christians of the
Apostolic Age could not but love the world which
'(lod so loved' (Jn 3'"), and for whose sins Christ
is the propitiation (1 dii L' ). 'i'luMr ' world' hated
I hem, .'Uid. in many iii-;t ance^. (Milled liy iiiunhn'in^;
tlieiii : liul perseeulioii and hlooiUhed only con-
strained them t<)l()\e the more, in aeedidanee with
the i)reee])ts of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt .">■").
The early Church exioileil trom tliai ]iaL:an wdild
the beautiful tribute. -See how these ('hri^liaiis
HEAD
HEAD
527
love one another ! ' The Spirit of Christ moved
His followers to ' put away all bitterness and wrath
. . . with all malice,' to be ' kind one to another '
(Eph 4"'*), and 'put on love as the bond of perfect-
ness'(Col 3"). While they could recall the time
when they were 'hateful, hating one another'
{oTiryTjTol, fitffovtrrts dXXi)\oit, Tit 3' ; Vulg. ' odibiles,
odientes invicem '), the spirit of the new life was
<pi\ad(\<pia (love of the brethren), to which was added
a world-wide oTtitnj (2 P 1").
To orthodox Judaism, as well as to cultared
Hellenism and the hard pagan Roman world, it
seemed natural to love only one's friends. When
the Rabbis quoted Lv 19'®, 'Thou shalt love thy
neighbour,' they did not hesitate to add, on their
own account, the rider, 'Thou shalt hate thine
enemy ' (Mt 5^). To Aristotle the only conceivable
objects of love were the persons and things that
were good, pleasant, or useful {Nic. Eth. viii. 2).
Sulla, a typical Roman, \»ished it to be inscribed
on his monument in the Campus Martins that
' none of his friends ever did him a kindness, and
none of his enemies ever did him a wrong, without
being fully repaid' (Plut. Sulla, xxxviii.). Into a
world dominated by such ideas Christianity brought
that enthusiasm of humanity which is the reflexion
of Christ's ovra redeeming love. Associating the
ideas of hatred and death, it opposed to them those
of love and life. ' We know that Ave have passed
out of death into life, because we love the brethren.
He that loveth not abideth in death' (1 Jn 3'*).
Cicero defines hatred {odium) as ' ira inveterata'
(Tusc. Bisp. iv. 9), a phrase which Chaucer borrows
in Persones Tale, ' Hate is old MTathe.' But ira is
in itself a morally neutral instinct, which becomes
either righteous or unrigliteous according to the
quality of the objects against which it is directed.
The ^I'^j itai ipyfi which the Christian has to put
away include all selfish kinds of hatred. But he
soon discovers that in his new life he must stUl be
a 'good hater' if he is to be a true lover. He
must, with Dante, ' hate the sin which hinders
loving.' ' What indignation '(d7aFd*crT;<rts) is wrought
in him by a sorrow after a godly sort ! (2 Co 7").
The love which he feels as he comes nearer God is
hot with Avrath against every 'abominable thing
which God hates.' The capacity for hatred is set
down by Christ to the credit of the Church of
Ephesus : ' Thou hatest tlie works of the Nico-
laitans, which I also hate' (Rev 2*). To Christ
Himself the words of Ps 45" are applied, 'Thou
hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity ' (He 1*).
The writer of Revelation does not conceal his
loathing of pagan Rome, calling it ' a hold of un-
clean and hateful birds' (Rev 18-), and Jude (v.^)
bids evangelists who snatch brands from the burn-
ing ' have mercy with fear, hating even the garment
spotted by the liesh.'
If hatred not merely of evil things but of wicked
persons is anywhere ascribed to Gwi, a difficulty is
at once felt. It is probably a mistake to take
exOpoi in Ro 5'" (cf. Col 1^', Ja 4*) in a passive
sense, though Calvin, Tholuck, Meyer, and others
do so. The meaning is ' hostile to God,' not ' hate-
ful to God ' (Ritschl, Lightfoot, Sanday-Headlam).
God, who hates the sin, loves the sinner, and it is
only in the alienated mind of man that a Ka.TaXKa~fTi
needs to be effected. But in Ro 9^' the words are
quoted which Malachi (l'^-) attributes to Jahweh :
'Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.' The
saj'ing may be interpreted in the light of Lk 14**,
where ' hate ' evidently means ' love less ' ; or it
may be taken as an imperfect OT conception,
which St. Paul uses in an argumentum adhominem
without giWng it his own imprimatur.
James Strahan.
HEAD. — The im]X)rtance attributed to the head
in ancient psychology must not be supposed to
spring from scientific knowledge of the function of
the brain and nervous system. 'The psychical
importance of the head would be an early result of
obserA"ation of the phenomena and source of the
senses of sight, hearing, taste, and smell, and of
such facts as the pulsation of the fontanel in infants
and the fatal effect of wounds in this complex
centre of the organism ' (A. E. Crawley, The Idea
of the Sold, 1909, p. 239). Plato assigned reason
to the brain, ' the topographically higher region
being correlated with the reason's higher worth '
(Aristotle, Psychology, tr. W. A. Hammond, 1902,
Introd. p. xxvi) ; but, to Aristotle, ' the brain is
merely a regulator for the temperature of the
heart (ib. p. xxiv). By the time of Galen (2nd
cent. A.D.), sensation was located in the brain,
acting in conjunction with the nerves ; but there
is no evidence that such technical Greek knowledge
is implied in the literatureofapostolicChristianity.*
We are there concemed^n general with an extension
of Hebrew psychology, for which the brain was of
no psychical importance. In fact, there is no
Hebrew word for ' brain,' and we must suppose
that it would simply be called, as it actually is in
Syriac, the ' marrow of the head.' Certain (Ara-
maic) references to ' the visions of the head ' in
the Book of Daniel (2"* etc.) merely refer to the
position of the organ of sight, and the phrase is
actually contrasted with ' the thoughts of the
heart ''(4*; cf. 2*').
The head (/ce^XiJ) is named as a representative
part of the whole personality in St. Paul's words
to blaspheming Jews at Cormth : ' Your blood be
upon your oavu heads' (Ac 18® ; cf. Jos 2", 2 S 1",
etc.), and in the proverb that kindness to an enemy
heaps coals of tire on his head (Ro 12*" ; cf. Pr 25*^).
The mourning custom of casting dust on the head
(Rev 18^* ; cf. Ezk 27**) may spring from the desire
to link the dead with the living, if the dust was
originally taken from the grave itself, as W. R.
Smith and Schwally have supposed. (As to cutting
off the hair of the head, because of a vow, see art.
Hair.) St. Paul argues against tlie Corinthian
practice of allowing women publicly to pray or
prophesy with unveiled heads, on three grounds
(1 Co ll**-) : (1) there is an upward gradation of
rank to be observed — woman, man, Christ, God ;
(2) woman was created from and for man, and so
she must show by her covered head that she is in
the presence of her superior — man (cf. the covering
of the bride in presence of her future husband, Gn
24®*) ; + (3) the long hair of woman shows that the
covering of the veil is natural to her. If she unveils
her head, therefore, she dishonours it by making a
false claim for the i>ersonality it represents, as well
as by outraging decency, which should be the more
carefully observed because of the presence of the
angels in public worship. (No satisfactory explana-
tion of the phrase ' authority [^loivia] on her head '
[1 Co 11^**] seems yet to have been given, but the
context seems to imply that the veil expresses the
authority of man over woman, in accordance with
which the RV inserts the words ' a sign of before
'authority.' See art. AUTHORITY.) It should be
noted that it Ls the whole head, and not simply
the face, that is covered in the East : ' The women
of Egypt deem it more incumbent upon them to
cover the upper and back part of the head than the
face, and more requisite to conceal the face than
most other parts of the person ' (Lane, Modem
Egyptians, 1895, p. 67).
The custom of anointing the head is mentioned
(figuratively) in 1 Clem. Ivi. 5 ; Ign. Eph. xvii. 1 ;
•Even if it were, Galen's ascription of psychical attributes
to organs other than the brain would show the wide gulf
between ancient and modem psychologv.
t The orisrinal motive of this wide-spread practice is probably,
as Crawley suggests {ERE v. 54X ' the impulse for concealment
before an "object of fear.'
528
HEAD
HEART
it is crowned in token of lionour (Rev 4* 9^ 12' 19'- ;
cf. lU'). The frequent references in tlie Odes of
Solomon to a crown on the CiiristiaTi's hi.ul are best
explained from the Eastern practicr oi iilacinj,' a
garland on the head of candidates for bajjlisni (i. 1,
ix. 8, XX. 17, 8, and J. H. liernard's notes hiTS viii.
3 [1912] ad locc. ). Tlie seven heads of the Ajioca-
lyptic red (ha;,'on (i.e. Satan [Rev 12-']) apparently
denote the abundance of his power ; tlie seven lieads
of his agent, the Beast (13^ 17"), are explicitly re-
ferred both to the seven hills of Rome and to seven
Emperors. The head smitten to death, but healed
( 13*), appears to be Nero, who was widely believed
not to have died in A.D. 68 (see Swete, ad loc).
The lion-heads and snake-headed tails of Rev 9"- '*
merely heighten the horror of the scene.
The most remarkable use of the term 'head'
in apostolic literature is its ap[iU(ation to Christ,
the 'body' being the Church. This analogy is
more than illustration ; it forms an aimiment, like
the psychological analogies of AugusLiiie in regard
to tlie Trinity. Just as the lower level of primitive
thought represented by symbolic magic often finds
a real connexion in acts, because they are similar,
so ancient theology (cf . the ' Recapitulation ' doc-
trine of Irenams) often liiuls positive argument
in mere parallelism. In the Pauline use of the
analogy between the human body and the Church,
Christ is sometimes identified with the whole body,
and sometimes with the liead alone ; this will
occasion no difficulty to those who remember St.
Paul's doctrine of the believer's mystical union with
Christ, so that his life is Christ's. In the most
detailed application of the analogy (1 Co 12'-'- ; cf.
Ro 12^- '), the liead is simply contrasted with the
feet, without special reference to Christ, the whole
Church-body being identified with Him. NT com-
mentators,* whilst often crediting St. Paul with
the knowledge of modern physiology, usually over-
look the contribution of Hebrew psychology to the
elucidation of this analogy. In the OT the body
is regarded as a co-operative group of quasi-inde-
pendent sense-organs, each possessed of psychical
and ethical, as well as physical, life (see artt. Eye,
Ear, Hand, and cf. Mt b"^- ^). This gives new
ix>int to tlie comparison witli the quasi-independent
life of the members of the Church ; in the social
as in the individual body, health depends on the
(voluntary )subordination of thisquasi-independence
to the common good. This unity of purpose St.
Paul elsewhere traces to the Headship of Christ.
The Apostle can identify the head with Christ,
without at all thinking of the brain, because the
head is the most dignified part of the psyclio-
physical personality. As a centre of life (cf. Mt
5**), not specially of thought or iWi^ion (which St.
Paul located in the heart), the head dominates the
body, the separate organs of which each contribute
to tne whole personality ' according to the working
in due measure of each several part ' (Eph 4'* ; cf.
Col 2'9). Christ is ' the saviour of the body ' (Eph
5'-*), as it is the head on which the safety of the
whole body depends, because of the special sense-
organs located in it. On the other hand, the body
is necessary to the completion and fullness of the
life of the head, as is the Church to Clirist (Eph
jz:. 23) Elsewhere, this Headship of Christ over tlie
body denotes simply His priority of rank (Col 1'*),
and this is extended to His dominion over the
'principalities and powers' of the unseen world
(2'").
The bodily union of the members with Christ the
Head is conceived in close relation with the initial
* E.g. .J. Arinitajje Itobinsoii {Ephesiatu, liW,"}, p. 103), who
bases the Pauline thoui^lit of Christ as Head of the body on the
fact that ' that is tlie seat of the brain which controls and unifies
the orjjanisin,' and goes on to speak of ' the complete systeni of
nerves and muscles by which the limbs are knit together and
are connected with the head ' (p. 104).
act of bai)tism : ' in one Spirit were we all baptized
into one body' (1 Co 12'*). St. Paul's doctrine of
the Spirit of God (or of Christ) as creating the
si)iritual unity and efliciency of the body through
which it circulates from the head has an interest-
ing parallel in the Pneuma doctrine of contem-
porary physiology. According to this, ' spirit ' was
conveyed by the arteries to tlie different sense-
organs (H. Siebeck, Gcsch. der Psychologic, 1884,
ii. p. 130 f. ; G. S. Brett, A History of Psychology,
1912, p. 286 f.). Something of this popular doctrine
may, of course, have reached St. Paul through tlie
physician Luke. It would certainly have appealed
to him as an example of ' spiritual ' law in the
' natural ' world, conlirming and enforcing his own
moral and spiritual conception of the Hebrew doc-
trine of the Spirit.*
The Pauline analogy of ' body ' and ' Church '
is employed by Clement of Rome, though without
explicit reference to the Headship of Christ, the
head being named here simply as a higher member :
' The head without the feet is nothing ; so likewise
the feet without the head are nothing : even the
smallest limbs of our body are necessary and use-
ful for the whole body : but all the members con-
spire and unite in subjection, that the whole body
may l)e .saved' (1 Clem, xxxvii. 5). The same
analogy re-appears in several of the Odes of Solomon.
Thus Christ says, ' I sowed my fruit in hearts, and
transformed them into myself ; and they received
my blessing and lived ; and they were gathered to
me, and were saved ; because they were to me as
my own members, and I was their Head ' (xvii.
13, 14 ; cf. xxiii. 16). Similarly, Christ speaks of
His descent into Hades, where He gathers His
saints and delivers them : ' the feet and the head
he [Death] let go, for they were not able to endure
my face' (xlii. 18). These passages continue the
mystic realism of Pauline and Johannine thought,
and throw an interesting light on the earlier ideas
of the relation of the believer to Christ, even though
they belong to the 2nd century.
H. Wheeler Robinson.
HEALINGS.- See Gifts.
HEART ((copSi'o). — 1. Its physical sense. —
' Heart,' which in the OT is frequently employed
to denote the central organ of the body, is not
found in the NT in this primary sense, though we
have an allusion to it in St. Paul's 'fleshy tables
of the heart ' (2 Co 3*). But the influence of tlie
old Hebrew view that ' the life of the flesh is in
the blood' (Lv 17") still persists; and in Ac 14",
Ja 5' ' heart ' is used to express the physical life
that is nourished by food or surfeited with luxury.
Owing, however, to the close connexion in the
Hebrew mind between body and soul (see art.
Body), the transition was easy from the physical
life to the sjiiritual ; and in the NT it is a spiritual
use of ' heart ' with which we have almost wholly
to do.
2. Its psychological sense. — (1) The word is
frequently employed in a general Avay to designate
the tvhole inward life of thought and feeling, ciesire
and will, without any discrimination of separate
faculties or activities (Ac 5*, 1 Co 14**, 1 P '3*,
He 13"). (2) In some cases it applies especially to
the intellectual powers (Ro P', 1 Co 2", 2 Co 4*,
2 P 1"), though elsewhere (He 8'" 10'«, Ph 4^) the
heart and the mind are distinguished from each
other. It is in this intellectual reference that the
scriptural use of 'heart' differs from the ordinary
usage of English speech ; for though with us, as
with the biblical writers, the word is employed
with a wide variety of application as descriptive
* From this ' biological ' Headship of Christ must be distin-
(Hiished the purely architectural fl(jure of Him as 'the Head of
the corner ' (Ac 411, 1 P 'Z').
HEATHEN
HEATHEN
529
of the inner life and its various faculties, it is not
used so as to include the rational and intellectual
nature, from which, on the contrary, it is expressly
distinj^uished, as in the common antithesis between
the heart and the head. (3) In a few cases it
denotes the will or faculty of determination (I Co
7", 2 Co 9^). In 1 Co 4* ^ovXal tGiv KapSiwv, which
EV renders ' the counsels of the hearts,' would be
more exactly translated by ' the purposes (or re-
solutions) of the hearts.' (4) It stands for the seat
of feelings and emotions, whether joyful (Ac 2^*)
or sorrowful (Ro 9^, 2 Co 2*), and of desires,
whether holy (Ro 10^) or impure (1-^). Especially
is it used of the aflection of love, whether towards
man (2 Co 7^ 1 P l-") or towards God (Ro 5^
2 Th 3').
-3. Its ethical and religious significance.— (1)
Occasionally ' heart ' represents the moral faculty
or conscience (Ac 2", He 8'" lO^^, 1 Jn 3^). In He
1(P, 'having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience,' the conscience, if not identified with
the heart, is thought of as inhering in it. (2) As
the centre of the personal life the heart stands for
moral reality as distinguished from mere appear-
ance (2 Co 5^-). The 'hidden man of the heart'
(1 P 3^) is the real man, the obedience that comes
from the heart (Ro 6'^) the true obedience. Hence
'heart' becomes equivalent to character as the
good or evil resultant of moral activity and ex-
perience. Thus the heart may 'wax gross' (Ac
28^) or may become 'unblameable in holiness'
(1 Th 3>3); it may be hardened (He 3^^^ 4') and
'exercised with covetousness ' (2 P 2"), or it may
bear the stamp of simplicity (Eph 6', Col 3^) and
be purified by faith (Ac 15®). (3) But, as this
mention of faith reminds us, the heart in the NT
is especially the sphere of religious experience. It
is there that the natural knowledge of God has its
seat (Ro 1-^), and there also that the light of the
knowledge of His glory shines in the face of Jesus
Christ (2 Co 4^). There faith springs up and
dwells and works (Ro 10^-^", Ac IS'*), and there
unbelief draws men away from the living God (He
3^-), It may become the haunt of unclean lusts
that make men blind to the truth of God (Ro 1-*) ;
but it is into the heart that God sends the Spirit
of His Son (Gal 4®), and in the heart that Christ
Himself takes up His abode (Eph 3^"). This life
of the heart is a hidden life (1 P 3*, 1 Co 4^), but it
lies clearly open to the eyes of God, who searches
and tries it (Ro 8^7, 1 Th 2*). And the prime
necessity of religion is a heart that is 'right in
the sight of God ' (Ac 8*'). Such a heart can be
obtained only through faith (Ac 15^, Ro 10^", Eph
3") and as a gift from God Himself (cf. the OT
saying, 'A new heart also will I give you,' Ezk
36-'*) in virtue of that new creation in Christ Jesus
(2 Co 5^") whereby a heart tliat is hard and im-
penitent (Ro 2^) is transformed into one in which
the love of God has been shed abroad through the
Holy Ghost (5*).
LiTERATUKE.— H. Crcmer, Lex. of ST Greel^, Edinburgh,
18S0, s.v. KopSCa, and PRE^i vii. 773; J. Laidlaw, Bible
Doctrine of Man, new ed., Edinburgh, 1895, p. 121 ; B. Weiss,
Biblical Theology of the ST, Eng. tr., do. lSS-2-3, L 343.
TOT* \r R 17 "D T'
HEATHEN.— The word 'heathen' still finds a
measure of favour with the OT Revisers, and, in
order to prevent it from being entirely excluded
from the NT, it might well have been retained in
at least one or two of the passages where it occurs
in the AV (Mt 6' 18^ Ac 4^5, 2 Co ll^s, Gal l^* 2»
3*). 'Gentiles' is substituted for it throughout in
the text of the RV. It first appears in the Gothic
Version of Ulfilas (a.D. 318-388) in Mk 7^, where
"E\Xi;vts is rendered by haipno. The etymology is
uncertain. It was long believed to have come
from the Gothic haipi, 'heath,' and to have de-
VOL. I.— 34
noted the 'dwellers on the heath,' who, on the
introduction of Christianity, stood out longest in
their adlierence to the ancient deities (cf. Trench,
Study of Word^, p. 77). Doubt has been cast,
however, on this derivation by S. Bugge {Iiuloger.
Forschungen, v. [1895] 178), who takes haihnd as
indicating a masc. hat)pans, which he reiers to
Armenian hetanos, 'heathen,' an adaptation of
Gr. Idvoz (cf. OED,\o\. v., s.v. 'Heathen,' where
Bugge's theory is not accepted).
A similar etymological uncertainty presents itself in the
case of the synonym, 'pagan.' The application of this word to
uon-Christiaus was long thought to be due to the fact that ' the
ancient idolatry lingered on in the rural villages and hamlets
[pagi] after Christianity had been generally accepted in the
towns and cities of the Roman Empire' {OED, vol. vii., s.v.
' Pagan '). But the application to non-Christians probably
arose at an earlier dat«, and in a different way (£Bril xx. 449).
In the course of the 1st cent., paganus came to mean in
classical Latin, 'a civilian,' as opposed to a miles. The 'raw
half-armed rustics who sometimes formed a rude militia in
Roman wars' were not looked upon as a regular branch of the
service, or as deserving the honourable appellation of mitiUt,
soldiers of the standing army. They were pagani (Tac. Hist. i.
53, ii. 14 : ' pag^norum manus . . . inter milites ' ; ii. 88,
iii. 24, 43, 77, iv. 20: 'paganorum lixarumque'; Pliny, Ep.
X. 18 : ' et milit€s et pMtgani '). Christians, then, having taken
the title of milites Dei or milites Christi for their own, which
St. Paul had warranted them in doing (Eph 6i*f-, 2 Ti 23), and
for which they found a further warrant in the early application
of the word sacramentum, 'the military oath,' to baptism, re-
garded as pagani ('outsiders,' not soldiers at all)* those who
had not abandoned heathenism and committed themselves to
Christ as their leader. This derivation seems to have been first
suggested by Gibbon (Decline and Fall oj the Roman Empire,
ed. Bury, ii. 394 n., 176X and has been adopted by Zaho (SKZ
X. [1S99] 2Sf.) and Hamack {Expansion, oJ Christianity, L 315,
iL22).
Our Lord's three allusions to the heathen (oi
€6viKoi,f TO iOvrj) in the Sermon on the Mount were
designed to illustrate His teaching respecting the
righteousness of the Kingdom of God, as a right-
eousness which demanded, in loving one's neigh-
bour, much more than that reciprocity of courtesy
which even heathens practised (Mt o*'') ; in prayer,
a childlike trustfulness of asking, unlike the wordy
clamour of heathen worship (6^) ; and in work, a
loving dependence on God, which would exalt
work, and make it quite a different thing from
heathen drudgery (6^-).
The closing words of Mt 18" (^otw aoi uxnrep 6
idviKbs Kai 6 reXwinis) must give us pause. Had they
stood alone, we might have inferred that Jesus
acquiesced in the judgment which put the heathen
and the publican under the ban. But a publican
had already been taken into the number of the
Twelve (9*), and he is the very apostle who reports
these words. St. Matthew has also recorded before
this how Jesus had put forth His miraculous power
in response to the ' great faitli ' of a heathen
centurion and a distressed heathen mother (8**
15"^). That the words imply personal contempt
or dislike for the heathen and the publican, or
pronounce a sentence of exclusion upon them,
is, accordingly, out of the question. This saying is
to be regarded as an obiter dictum of our Lord's,
spoken to His disciples from their present Jewish
standpoint, and therefore of use to them at the
moment in interpreting His meaning. Current
Jewish opinion is made the medium of conveying
moral and evangelical guidance.
The healing of the Syrophcenician's daughter is
another occasion on which our Lord appears to
speak the language of His time. Here, however,
the severity of the words, ' It is not meet to take
the children's bread and cast it to the dogs' (Mk
7^), is intentionally mitigated by the use of the
diminutive Kwapia, which is just ' doggies ' in onr
language — no word of scorn, but one of aflection
* Cf. Fr. pekin — a name originally given by the soldiers under
Xapoleon i. to any civilian {OED vii. 622).
t eflKucos occurs in the NT 4 times (Mt 5" 67 1817, 3 Jn 0-
Neither t^iitos nor iBviKit^ (Gal 2") is found in the LXX.
530
HEAVEN
HEAVEN
and tenderness. Nor should we forget that the
saying which iiinncdiately precedes is, ' Let the
children _^rs^ be hlled.' Ihe Syrophcenician, witli
the quick penetration of faith, perceived that the
two sayings were to be taken together, and knew
that she was not really repelled (cf. Wendt, The
Teaching of Jesus, ii. 347).
The Tliird Epistle of St. John is ' a quite private
note' {EBi ii. 1327), recommending to the kind
attention of Gains, a friend of his, some ' travel-
ling missionaries,' described as men who ' for the
sake of the Name went fortli, taking nothing of
the heathen ' (v.' : fitibiv Xafi^dvofres dirb run idvi-
kG)v). Seeing that these itinerant preachers of the
gospel deem it most prudent not to accept hospi-
tality from ' them that are without' (cf. 1 Co 5'^
Col 4') — a course which St. John approves — they
are the more dependent on the (f>i\o^€via of the few
fellow-Cliristians who come in their way (cf. Zahn,
Introd. to the NT, iii. 374). The cutting question
which St. Paul addressed to St. Peter in the pre-
sence of the congregation at Antioch (Gal 2'"') waa
justly aimed against the moral inconsistency of his
first eating with the Gentile converts {ai . . . idvi-
Kuis f^s; cf. v.^2) and then withdrawingjfrom table-
fellowsliip with them. This vacillation, had it
been allowed to go on without remonstrance,
would have arrested the progress of the work of
Christ among the heathen. Few occurrences in
Church history are more full of warning than this
memorable crisis, which might have divided more
than the Christians of Antioch into two opposing
camps, and made the Lord's Supper itself a table
of discord (cf. HDB iii. 765'^).
Over against the dark picture of heathenism
which he draws in Ito P*"^^ St. Paul sets a very
different presentment in 2''"-, wlicre he depicts
heathen human nature as bearing witness to a law
written within, and being guided by it to well-
doing. The Apostle also does justice to heathen
ethics in Ph 4^ — 'an exhortation,' as Weizsiicker
says (Apostolic, Age, ii. 354), ' whose cliarm to this
day rests on the appeal to the common feeling of
humanity,' and on the principle that ' that which
was valid . . . among heathens was also truly
Christian' (cf. art. 'St. Paul in Athens' by Ernst
Curtius, in Expositor, 7th ser. iv. 441 f.).
LiTERATURB.— £Bi ii. [1901] 1327; KBAi xiii. [1910] 159,
XX. [1911] 449; E. Curtius, in Expositor, 7th ser. iv. [1907]
441 f.: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of Roman Empire, ed.
Bury2, ii. [1S97] 394 ; A. Haxnack, Expansion of Christianity,
Eng. tr., 1904-5, i. 315, ii. 22; E. Hatcii-H. A. Redpath, Con-
eordance to the LXX, ii. [1893] a.v. tOvo^ ; UDB iii. 760b ;
J. Facciolati-A. 'FotctMmx, Latin Lexicon, l^tH,\\., s.v. 'pa-
Ifamis'; OKD v. [1901] ».u. ' Heathen,' vil. [1909] 8. i;y. ' Pajfan,'
'Pekin' ; W. A. Spooaer, Histories of Taeitm, 1891, iii. 24; R. C.
Trench, Stvdj/ of Word^, 1858, p. 76 f. ; C. von Weizsacker,
The Apostolic Aqe?, Enp. tr., ii. [1895] 352-354 ; H. H. Wendt,
The Teaching of Jesus, En jr. tr., 1892, ii. 347 ; T. Zahn, Introd.
to the HT, Eng. tr., 1909, iii. 374. JaMES DoNALD.
HEAVEN. — Introductory. — The subject of
heaven is difficult to treat fully without diverging
into the di.scussion of kindred subjects and tres-
passing on the province of other articles. The
reader is referred to the artt. EsCH atolog Y, Hades,
Immortality, Paradise, Parousia, and Resur-
rection, in this and other Dictionaries for discus-
sion of various matters which are relevant to the
treatment of the conception of heaven.
Two broad general lines of development in tilings
eschatological were already at work at the begin-
ning of the Christian era. Palestinian Judaism
on the whole tended towards literalism and more
material conceptions of tlie Last Things, while
Alexandrian Judaism was moving towards a
spiritual ization of the principal elements in the
future hope. Both these tendencies are discernible
in the development of Christian eschatology during
the Ist century. But the most important element
is the influence of the primitive apostolic beliefs
concerning the Kesurrectitm of Cnrist and His
state of existence after deatli. Special attention
is directed in this article to the influence of tiiese
beliefs on the development of the Christian con-
ception of heaven.
1. Jewish apocalyptic. — (a) Alexandrian. — The
principal foaturcs of Alexandrian Jewish escha-
tology in relation to heaven are tlie view that the
righteous enter at once into their perfected state
of happiness after death, and the view that the
resurrection of the righteous is of the spirit only.
Hence the conception of heaven is wholly spiritual-
ized, and the tliought of it as an intermediate
place of rest disappears. But it must not be sup-
posed that a wholly consistent view can be found
in the apocalyptic literature of the period, any
more than in the NT writers. It was a time of
change ; new forces were at work mollifying the
older beliefs, and the above statement is simply a
broad generalization of the trend of Alexandrian
Judaism. When particular passages are examined
the difficulty of constructing a homogeneous
scheme of the Last Things becomes apparent at
once. The principal difficulty is the recurrence
of the idea of the earthly Messianic kingdom (cf.
Wis 3'"- with S"''), whicii is incompatible with a
purely .spiritual conception of resurrection and of
heaven. The chief passages are : Wis 3^"" 4''"'*
515-16^ 2 £fi. iii.-xxii. (account of the ten heavens
in order ; Paradise is in the third heaven, and also
the place of punishment for the wicked), Iv. 2,
Ixvii. 2, 4 Mac. xiii. 16, v. .37, xviii. 23 (note the
phrase ' Abraham's bosom ' used for the place of
rest for the righteous after death).
{b) Palestinian. — The two important writings
belonging to this period are Apoc. Bornch and
2 Esdras. For a fiill treatment of their critical
analysis and eschatological system see Charles,
Eschatology, ch. viii., also Box, 'The Ezra-Apoca-
lypse, 1912, and the edition of both in Charles, Apoc.
and Pseudepig. of the OT. The general view of
heaven in Palestinian apocalyptic as illustrated bj'
these two writings is as follows.
Heaven, also identified with Paradise, is the
final abode of the righteous (Apoc. Bar. Ii., S Es.
vii. 36, viii. 52). An intermediate place of rest for
the righteous (Apoc. Bar. xxx. 2) is described as
' the treasuries,' ' in which is preserved the number
of the souls of the righteous' (cf. also 2 Es. iv. 41).
Messiah comes from heaven to establish a tem-
porary Messianic Kingdom, and returns to heaven
at the close of it. The righteous in heaven are
made like to the angels (Apoc. Bar. Ii. 10).
2. Pauline literature. — In dealing with any
eschatological conception in the NT it is necessary
to consider first of all how mucli is due to the
Jewish background of thought ; then, in the case
of each writer, to see how far the conception
belongs to the common stock of primitive Christian
tradition, and how far it is peculiar to the writer
under discussion. In dealing with St. Paul it is
also necessary to examine the question of a possible
development of thought. In general the ortho<lox
Jewish view of heaven represented in the Synoptic
Gospels forms the background and starting-point
of all the NT writers. The principal points which
call for examination in St. Paul's correspondence
are the relation of the conception of heaven to
Christ, and the conception of heaven as the future
place of abode for believers.
(a) Heaven in rclatioji to Christ. — Two main
questions arise from St. Paul's treatment of this
subject. F'irst, the question of the pre-existent
life of Christ ; and second, the question of His pre-
sent state of existence.
(1) For the first point the chief passages are
1 Co 15*^, Ro 10*, and possibly in this connexion
HEAVEN
HEAVEN
531
Ph 2« and Col 1»»-". In 1 Co 15", reading 'the
second man is from heaven,' it is quite possible to
interpret the passage as referring to the Parousia
ratlier than to the doctrine of a pre-existent
Heavenly Man. Ro 10*, an application of Dt
30'- " to Christ, may be referred to the present
place of Christ ; i.e. it is unnecessary to bring
Christ do^vn again after His Resurrection and
Ascension. Ph 2* is also capable of being inter-
pretetl as referring to Christ's moral likeness
to God. Thus St. Paul's testimony to the pre-
existent life of Chri.<t as in heaven is not clear,
though it may be upheld on the ground of the
above passages.
(2) The second point is far more vital to St.
Paul's thought, and has largely influenced liLs view
ol heaven in relation to the future condition of
believers. The words ' ascended into heaven '
clearly represent the consensus of primitive apos-
tolic tradition. To the Jewish ^'iew of the tran-
scendence of God, and of His dwelling in heaven as
in contrast to earth, the primitive tradition added
the doctrine of Christ's present existence there
with God. It is evident that St. Paul lield the
common Jewish views of heaven (cf. 2 Co 12- : the
third heaven, or Paradise, regarded as God's
dwelling-place ; Ph 2^'* : the division of the uni-
verse into things heavenly, earthly, and infernal ;
Gal 1* : an angel from heaven ; Ro 1'* : God's
wrath revealed from heaven, etc.). But it is still
more evident that he had also thought deeply on
the question of Christ's Resurrection, its nature,
His present state of exbtence, and the bearing of
these questions on the future state of believers.
This is not the place to discuss the possible con-
clusions at which St. Paul may have arrived. But
we can see tliat his thinking on this point tends
in the direction of a spiritualization of the whole
conception of heaven. He conceives of Christ's
present existence as spiritual ; Christ and the
Spirit are identified ; Christ is for the present
'hid in God' (Col 3') ; the dead believers are 'at
home with the Lord' (2 Co 5*). It is generally
conceded that Ephesians, even if not St. Paul's,
is certainly Pauline. Hence we may xise it here
as evidence for the elaboration of the conception
of a quasi-material, quasi-spiritual rerion, ra
irovpdvta. Here Christ is seated at God's right
hand ; believers have here their proper home and
their characteristic blessings ; and here is being
waged the age-long conflict between the spiritual
powers of good and evil (Eph 6'-).
Lastly, the link which connects this side of the
subject with the more purely escbatological use of
heaven as the future abode of believers is the
passage in 2 Co 5'-. Here we have the conception
(possibly developed directly from St. Paul's view
of our Lord's Resurrection, although the conception
of a ' body of light ' fotmd in Jewish and Gnostic
sources may have influenced his thought) of a
spiritual body laid up in heaven for the believer.
This body was evidently after the pattern of our
Lord's Resurrection body or mode of existence (cf.
Ph 3-», 1 Co 15«). In thinking of it as laid up
or reserved in heaven, St. Paul is no doubt using
Rabbinical categories of thought. For example,
the Rabbinical tradition could think of the Law,
the Temple, and other central ideas of Judaism as
laid up with God before the creation of the world.
(6) Heaven as the future abode of believers. — This
conception is conspicuous by its absence from St.
Paul's thought. The Parousia is always 'from
heaven,' alike in the earliest (1 Th l'") and in the
latest (Ph 3-») of St. Paul's letters. But when he
speaks of the future place of existence of the
Christian it is always ' with the Lord,' ' witli
Christ,' and apparently he has been chiefly occupied
with the fresh question of the mode of the Chris-
tian's future existence as determined by Christ's
existence. Possibly, also, he so takes it for granted
that believers will have their place in a Messianic
earthly kingdom that he does not think it necessary
to mention it. The grief of survivors in 1 Th 4"
seems to imply this clearly, also the reference to
the judgment executed by believers in 1 Co 6*.
But what seems most evident is that St. Paul
passed almost unconsciously from the traditional
and more material view of the future state implied
in 1 Th 4" to the simpler and more spiritual con-
ception of future likeness to Christ, and a blessed
existence with Him. This takes the place of all
sensuous joys of heaven.
3. Pe trine liter atore. — If the Lucan record of St.
Peter's speeches may be taken as at least represent-
ing Petrine material, then we have one or two
passages relating to Christ's present place in
heaven. Ac 2**"^ interprets Ps llO' of the Ascen-
sion of Christ, and 3*^ adds that it was necessary
for the Messiah to return to heaven because the
droKaTdoToaii had not yet arrived. Both passages
show that the belief in the Messiah's present exist-
ence in heaven was an essential part of primitive
apostolic tradition, and also that the early tradi-
tion was very little occupied with heaven as a place
of abode in the future, but rather as the place whence
God would intervene by sending the Messiah again
to establish the kingdom on earth. The few
passages in the First Epistle which speak of heaven
add nothing to this position. 1 P l* echoes Col P :
heaven is the place where the inheritance incor-
ruptible and undefiled is kept with care until the
moment for the revelation of Messiah. 1 P 3^
re-aflBrms the doctrine of Eph 1^ 4'*, etc. : the
Ascension of Christ to heaven and His Exaltation
over all the spiritual powers in the heavenly sphere.
Hence, as far as the literature attributed to St.
Peter is concerned, we do not find anything peculiar
to him, but only a confirmation of the two main
elements of primitive Christian tradition — the
present existence of Christ in heaven conceived of
in a quasi-material way as a place or sphere con-
trasted with earth, and the revelation of Christ
from heaven bringing the accomplishment of all
hopes of blessing, all that is comprised in aumfpia.
The connexion of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven
with the eschatological expectation of the early
Church is also characteristic both of the speeches
in Acts and of the Epistle (cf. Ac 2^^^^, 1 P 1").
The same thought is frecjuent also in St. Paul
(Ro 8^, where the Spirit is the dxapxi?, an anti-
cipatory guarantee of the blessings yet to come ;
and Eph 1", where the Spirit is the appa^wv).
i. Hebrews. — The author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews contributes much of importance to our
inquiry. Possibly he is the only one of the NT
writers who shows clearly the influence of Alex-
andrian Judaism in his views on the Last Things.
St. Peter represents the primitive Jewish Christian
eschatologj' in its simplest form ; even in the First
Epistle, silthough Charles finds an advance on the
eschatology of Acts, the hope is still rather for the
kingdom on earth ; the heavenly nature of the in-
heritance is not to be understood as referring to
the place where it is enjoyed, but rather to the
place from which it comes. Even in St. Paul's
case, in spite of the clear advance towards a greater
spiritualization of the eschatology, this advance
seems to consist in the increasing emphasis laid on
the spiritual assimilation of believers to Christ as
the goal of hope, rather than in an abandonment of
the hope of an earthly kingdom. The idea of the
kingdom falls into the background, but its abandon-
ment cannot be proved conclusively from St. Paul's
writings. But the author of the Epistle to the
I Hebrews seems to have arrived at this stage of the
> development. There is no passage in lus letter
632
HEAVEN
HEAVEN
which points clearly to the belief that the riphteous
share with Christ tlie joys of a kingdom on or over
the earth. The principal passages for consideration
are :
(a) Those which confirm the primitive apostolic
tradition of the present session of Christ in lieaven
{4" 728 81 923- !"). The writer lays stress on the fact
that Christ is higher than the ' heaven ' ; he implies
a contrast in the phrase ' heaven itself,' avrbv rbv
ovpa.v6v, the special dwelling-place of God, with the
heaven of Jewish theology. Jesus has passed
' through the heavens.' Of course this thought
is found in Eph 4i<* also, (b) The eschatological
passages (3^ IP" 12^-*»). Believers are partakers
of a ' heavenly calling.' This might be understood
as the source of the calling, but in the light of the
subsequent passages it is more naturally understood
as referring to the place and goal of the calling.
In 11'^ the writer represents the believers of old as
seekinga better and a heavenlj' country, and declares
that God has prepared a city for them. In 12^'^^,
the climax of his appeal, he depicts the heavenly
city, the home of the Christians whom he is address-
ing. ' Ye have come,' he says, implying that the
city exists already, and that it contains the myriads
of angels, the assembly of first-begotten ones whose
names were enrolled in heaven (Lk lO-""), the spirits
of righteous men who have been ' perfected,' and
finally Jesus Himself, the Leader and Completer of
the faith. The sense of TereXeiwu^voi is a difficulty,
but its interpretation is clearly suggested by the
author's use of the word with reference to Christ
in 2'» 58 7^. The author implies that Christ's
present existence in heaven in a perfect state is the
result of Ills experience on earth. He is morally
and spiritually perfected as Man, and hence fitted
to be the Leader and Completer of the faith. His
present state is the witness and the guarantee of
the future state of those who follow His leadership.
God will do for them what He has done for Christ.
This order of things constitutes the heavenly
kingdom, the ' unshakable kingdom ' which will be
manifest at the Parousia, when everything that can
be shaken will be removed. The writer evidently
regards the Parousia as the moment when the
material heaven and earth will disappear, the
wicked and apostates will receive the just judg-
ment of God, and nothing will remain but the
heavenly order of things already revealed to faith
by the Resurrection and Attainment of Christ.
Here we have St. Paul's line of thought carried to
a clear and triumphant conclusion. Moral and
spiritual progress and ultimate full conformity to
the character of God are the true goal of hope.
The old words ffwTTjpia, Attis, KKfipovoixla are being
filled with a definitely spiritual content, and have
practically lost their temporal and material signi-
ficance.
The Pastorals, James and Jude add nothing of
importance for the study of this particular con-
ception.
5. Johannine literatare. — The treatment of the
Johannine literature as a whole is of course
impossible. While it still remains a tenable posi-
tion to regard the Apocalypse, the Epistles, and
the Gospel as the work of the same author, repre-
senting three ditierent stages of his spiritual
development (Ramsay), the question is too com-
plex to discuss here, and too undecided to assume
any position as certain. It will be sufficient,
therefore, to treat our subject as it appears in
each of the three divisions of the Johannine litera-
ture separately. On the surface, the diflerence
between the Apocalypse and the Epistles seems
to represent the extreme movement of Christian
thought from the most material form of Jewish
apocalyptic to the most deeply spiritual form of
the Christian hope.
(a) The Apocalypse. — The following is a summary
of the chief^ points regarding heaven as the writer
of the Apocalypse uses the conception. (1) There
is the current division into heavenly, earthly, and
infernal (5^-1^). (2) The principal part of the vision
implies a sharp contrast oetween heaven and earth
as spheres of moral activity. In heaven is the throne
of God ; His will is done in heaven ; Christ is
there ; the angels, and the OT symbols of the
power and presence of God in Creation, are seen in
lieaven. The redeemed are seen there. Heaven is
the source of every action directed against the
power of evil. On the other hand, earth is the
scene of conflict between good and evil. Those
who maintain the cause of God and Christ are
a suffering and persecuted minority. From the
abyss comes the moving power of the enmity
against God. In the writer's view, earth is ruled
by the abyss rather than by heaven. Even heaven
itself is invaded by the powers of evil, and we have
the war in heaven (12^) and the victory of Michael
and his hosts over the dragon and his hosts ; the
heavens and all those that dwell therein are sum-
moned to rejoice over the victory and the final de-
liverance of heaven from the powers of evil (12").
(3) The heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, the
dwelling of God, of Christ, and of the saved, comes
down from heaven, after the earthly kingdom is
over. It is only the new heaven and earth that
the prophet's vision conceives of as fit for the
coming of the holy city. Apparently during the
millennial reign, the city, in so far as it is conceived
of realistically, remains in heaven. We have, on
the one hand, a description of the earthly blessing
of the risen saints and martyrs during the mil-
lennial kingdom (20'*"®) ; on the other hand, the
vision itself supposes that those who have attained
are already in heaven. The elders probably re-
present those who are ' perfected ' in the sense of
Hebrews. There are the multitudes of the re-
deemed (7^'^^) ; the souls of the martyrs are seen
under the altar in heaven ; they are granted white
robes, and rest until the appointed number of the
martyrs is made up. Further, the description of
the heavenly city supposes that there is built up
of the apostles and saints a spiritual city whose
place is heaven. The difficulty of distinguishing
between symbol and the literal meaning of the
vision makes it a hard task to sum up clearly the
writer's position. He is obviously lieir to all the
visions of the prophets and the apocalyptists, and
master of them all. The spiritual and tlie symbolic
are so subtly blended that it is hard to think that
the writer is the slave of his symbols. He seems
rather to have brought all the symbols of the
previous apocalyptic, from Babylonia and Egypt
in the remote past down to the almost contem-
porary visions of Ezra and Baruch, under the sway
of the spiritual conception of the kingdom of God.
If we may read him so, then his view of heaven
must be so interpreted in terms of the ulti-
mate and fundamental contrast between good
and evil, progress and perfection, struggle and
attainment.
(6) The Epistlex.— These add practically nothing
to our inquiry, although they are of importance
for the study of the Parousia {q.v.). The only
passage that calls for comment is 1 Jn 3'■^ where
the ultimate hope of the believer consists in being
like God {avri^ really has 0eov in v.^* as its ante-
cedent, but it is characteristic of the writer's
method of thought that he often passes from Gotl
to Christ without apparently being aware of a
change of subject; m 2^, e.*/., the Parousia is
naturally interpreted as Christ's, but ' born of
him ' in v.^ must refer to God ; cf. also 3-* with
4"). We have already noticed the tendency in
St. Paul and Hebrews to represent the ultimate
HEAVEN
HEBREWS
533
goal of the Christian as conformity to Gtod or
hrist.
(c) The Gospel.— In the Gospel we have : (1) the
passajres which unequivocally represent heaven as
the dwelling-place of the pre-existent Christ — 1'*
3" (which retains the implication, even if we omit
6 dv ip Tifi oi'pavif with NBL 33 and good Western
support) 3'' 6*^ ^. Unlike the Pauline passages,
these examples are quite unequivocal evidence of
the writer's belief on this point.
(2) The escliatological passages — 14'*' 17*^"^. Here
it is worthy of note that the use of the term 'heaven'
is avoided. The nearest approach to a suggestion
of a place is the phrase ' in my Father's house are
many abodes,' Avhich maj' perhaps be taken as a
spiritualizing of the Temple (cf. 'my Father's
house' in 2'*). Apart from this, the idea of a
place of material joy or rest does not appear.
We have instead the phrases ' where I am,' * witli
me,' * receive yon unto myself.' The satisfaction
of a i>ersonal relation is presented as the hope.
The enjoyment of Divine love without hindrance
is the ultimate goal, a spiritual union of character,
will, and atieetions whose type is the union that
exists between the Father and the Son. These
things constitute heaven. But a resurrection state
in the future is also implied by 6^- **. Neverthe-
less, the enjoyment of the spiritual blessings
described in chs. I-t and 17 does not apparently
depend on this at all. For the writer of the Fourth
Gospel death is a mere incident that does not break
the continuity of eternal life ; and where such a
position is reached, the precise conception of heaven
has evidently become irrelevant.
6. The Apostolic Fathers. — (a) (Jlement of Borne.
— In 1 Clement we have the following passages:
V. 4 : Peter ' went to his appointed place of glory';
V. 7 : Paul ' departed from the world and went
unto the holy place'; 1. 3: 'they that by God's
grace were perfected in love dwell in the abode
of the pious (Ixow"' X'^po" evae^Qv), who shall be
manifested in the visitation of the kingdom of
God.' In 2 Clement we have — v. 5 : ' the rest of
the kingdom that shall be '; vi. 9 : ' with what con-
fidence shall we . . . enter into the kingdom of
God?' {to ^offiXeiov should perhaps be rendered
' the palace of God ') ; xvii. 7 : the righteous see
the torments of the wicked ; ix. 5 : the righteous
receive their reward 'in the flesh,' in the coming
kingdom.
No striking or original thoughts as to the future
Elace and state of believers are found here. We
ave the simple acceptance of the doctrine tiiat the
righteous enter after death into a place of rest and
glory with Christ. The resurrection of the flesh is
tauglit and apparently is referred to the Parousia,
but the nature of the intermediate condition is not
clearly stated.
(6) Ignatius. — In the Ignatian correspondence
there is no explicit doctrine of heaven, but the
implication of several passages seems to be that
immediately after death the believer is perfected,
•attains to God.' His emphasis is laid principally
on the resuiTection, which is after the pattern of
Christ's (rrs//. ix. 2). He looks forward to receiving
his inheritance ; he will rise unto God {Rcym. ii. 2);
' I shall rise free in Him ' (iv. 3); ' when I am come
thither then I shall be a man ' (^-i. 2). Death for
him is new birth (6 tokctoj fioi iiriKenai, vi. 1). It
is ditticult to avoid the conclusion that Ignatius
thought of the believer, or at least the martyr, as
entering upon his perfect state and full reward
immediately after death. His view of heaven
would seem to coincide with the developed Johan-
nine conception, though several phrases, ' attaining
to resurrection,' and so forth, are Pauline.
(c) The Marti/rdom of Poly carp contains one
interesting passage describing the condition of
Polycarp after martyrdom : ' Having by his en-
durance overcome the unrighteous ruler in the
conflict and so received the crown of immortality,
he rejoiceth in company with the Apostles and all
righteous men, and glorifieth the Almighty God
and Father, and ble^th our Lord Jesus Christ'
(xix. 2).
The Shepherd of Hernias lies outside our period,
and is more curious than valuable for information
as to the teaching of the Church of the Apostolic
Age. It is easy to see that we are no longer deal-
ing with a creative period. The doctrine of heaven
is becoming stereotyped. Such a man as Ignatius
is probably hardlj' representative of the general
thought of the Church. The passage from the
Martyrdom of Polycarp probably gives the com-
mon view of the state of the believer in heaven
after death.
Conclusion. — In conclusion, it may be said that
for the Church in general during the 1st half of
the 1st cent, the centre of interest was not heaven
but the Parousia of Christ. Heaven occupied the
attention of the NT writers principally as the place
where Christ was and whence He would come. St.
Paul and others, such as the author of Hebrews,
were interested principally in the spiritual conse-
quences of the Resurrection of Christ. The author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews presents the most
striking and consistent picture of the future state
of the believer.
As the century advances, the tendency appears
in the literature of the period to regard the Parousia
more as an article of the faith than as a fact of immi-
nent importance. Side by side with this tendency
we find the growth of firmly established ideas of
future blessedness based on the imagery of the
Apocalypse, crowns and harps, etc., and no search-
ing analysis of the reality of such ideas. It remained
for the fresh creative period of Clement of Alex-
andria and Origen to go over the stereotyped ideas
of heaven and transform them.
LiTKRATUKX. — R. H. Charles, Etehatdogj^, 1913, Apoaypha
and Piextdepigrapha of the OT, 1913; P. VoLe, Juditdu
Etekatoloffie, 1903 ; J. B. Liehtfoot, ApottUie Father*, 1 toL.
1891 ; C. Clemen, Primitive Chrittianity and xt» Non-Jewish
Source*, Eng. tr., 1912 ; E. F. Scott, The Fourth Gospel, 1906,
The Kingdom and the Messiah, 1911 ; W. O. E. Oesterley,
The Last Thing*, 1908; S. D. F. Salmond, The Chrittian
Doctrine of Immortality* 1901 ; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypge
ofSL John'3, 1907; B. F. Westcott, Gospel aee. to St. John, 1808.
Epistles of St. John, 1883 ; Sanday-Headlam, Romans^ (ICC,
1902) ; artt. in HDB and DOG. S. H. HOOKE.
HEBREWS.— The name 'Hebrew' (Lat. Heb-
roBus, Gr. 'E^poTos) is a transcription of the Aramaic
'ebrdyd, the equivalent of the original word '^sp,
the proper Gentile name of the people who were
also described as ' Israelites ' or ' Children of Israel.'
The people themselves preferred as a rule the
designation ' Israel.' The latter was the name of
privilege and honour given to the race as the
descendants of Jacob and the people of God's choice.
Frequently, too, in the OT the term ' Hebrew '
occurs where foreigners are introduced as speaking
or spoken to (e.g. Ex 2«- '• " 3^^ 1 S 4«- » 13» 14"
293, Gn 401', etc.). These facts have led to the
conjecture that the name ' Hebrews ' was originally
given to the race of Abraham by their Canaanite
neighbours, and that this name continued to be
the designation of the race by outsiders all through
their history, just as the Magyars are known as
' Hungarians ' by other nations of Europe. This
conjecture, although it has much to commend it,
does not meet all the facts of the case, for the
name ' Israel ' is often found in the OT in the month
of foreigners, and it even occurs on the Moabite
Stone, while Israelites are found describing them-
selves as ' Hebrews '(IS 133, jej. 34U) Robertson
Smith ix)ints out that the whole usus loquendi is
explaineil by the consideration that the regular
534
HEBREWS
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
Gentile name for a member of tlie race of Israel
is ' Hebrew ' and not ' Israelite,' the latter word
beinj^ rare and apparently of late formation (EBr^
xi, 594).
The derivation of the term does not render much
help in discovering its original signiticance. The
word presupposes a nonn Eber as the name of the
tribe, place, or common ancestor from wliich the
Hebrews are designated. According to one pas-
sage in the OT (Nu 24"), Eber figures as a nation
along with Asshur or Assyria, while in the genea-
logical lists of (Jn 10 f. Eber is represented as
ancestor of the Hebrews and grandson of Shem.
The names in the genealogical tables — Eber, Peleg,
Reu, Serug, Nahor, etc. — cannot be regarded as
names of persons. Some of them are names of
places near the upper reaches of the Euphrates
and the Tigris, ana the whole genealogy may be
regarded rather as a geographical account of the
wanderings of the Hebrews than as a statement of
racial aihnities. Eber means 'the further bank
of a river,' from a root nay, 'to cross.' The LXX
in Gn 14'* translates the term as 6 irepdrtji, * the
Grosser.' Jewish tradition gives the more accurate
form 6 irepatrris, ' the man from the other side,' i.e.
of the Euphrates. This theory, which has generally
been accepted by the Rabbis, carries with it the
implication that tlie name was originally given by
the original inliabitants of Canaan to the Hebrew
immigrants. A modification of this etymology is
found in the view which takes Eber in the Arabic
sense of a 'river bank' and makes the Hebrews
'dwellers in a land of rivers.' Ewald (Gesch.
Israels^, i. 407 ff.) discusses fully the meaning and
etymology of the term, and rejects the view that
the name was given by outsiders to the people on
their entry into Cansian. It was, he holds, rather
the name commonly in use among the people them-
selves from the earliest times up to the time of the
kings, when it was displaced by ' Israel ' as the
name of national privilege, which again was in
turn displaced in common use by the term ' Jews '
from the time of the Exile. In the period imme-
diately before Christ, an artificial interest in the
past and a revival of ancient learning, coupled with
the exaggerated reverence for Abraham ' the
Hebrew,' led to a revival in the use of this term,
and to the language of the race being designated
thereby, although Philo calls the language of the
OT, Ciialdee (de Vita Mosis, ii. 5f.).
In the NT the word ' Hebrew ' is seldom found
applied to members of the ancient race of Israel,
'Jew' having become the usual designation of the
period. In apostolic times the term became special-
ized, and was applied not to any member of the
ancient race, but to Palestinian Jews of pronoimced
national sympathies who spoke the Aramaic dialect
and retained the national customs, in contrast with
the Hellenistic Jews (AV 'Grecians' [q.v.]), who
were scattered over the world, spoke Greek, and
were interested in the thought and life of Greece
and Rome. In Ac 6' we read of a murmuring of
the Grecians against the Hebrews where this dis-
tinction obtains. In 2 Co IP- St. Paul, in con-
trasting himself with false teachers, calls himself a
Hebrew, and in Ph 3' refers to himself as ' a Hebrew
of Hebrews.' Probably in both cases the Apostle
wishes to emphasize his true Hebrew descent rather
than to distinguish between himself as a Hebrew-
speaking Jew and the Greek-speaking members of
the race. Eiisebius at a later date does not adhere
to the specialized use of the term as found in the
Acts, but designates Philo {HE ll. iv. 2) and Aristo-
bulus (Prcep. Eimng. XIll. xi. 2) as ' Hebrews,'
although both were Greek-speaking Jews witli
little knowledge of the Hebrew tongue.
The Hebrew language is on several occasions
referred to iu the NT. What is meant is not the
ancient Hebrew of the OT but the Aramaic dialect
of Palestine which was understood by the Jews of
Jerusalem at the date of the apostles (Ac 21*** 2'2'-
26").
LiTKRATORK.— H. Ewald,Ge«c/itcAted«« Volkea IiraeP, I. (1864]
407 ff. ; W. Robertson Smith, art. ' Hebrew language and
l.iterature ' in J-:nr'> xi. .'^.94 ff. ; J. B. Lightfoot, Philippiam^,
1809, p. 14.") ; J. H. Bernard, MiT, ' 2 Corinthians,' 1903, i>. 105;
H. A. A. Kennedy, JiUT, ' I'JiilippianB,' 1903, p. 451; artt, in
JIDIi and Mlii. W. F. BOYD.
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE.— 1. Form and
object.— Of all the NT writings whi(rh bear the
mime ' Epistle,' that which is commonly called tlie
Epistle to the Hebrews presents the nearest^pproxi-
mation to the form of an ordered treatise. The
writer pays great attention to style. His well-
balanced periods appeal to the ear as well as to the
intellect, and his argument is arranged with ex-
treme care. We do not find, as is sometimes the
case in the Pauline letters, several distinct ideas
all struggling for expression at the same time.
Each fresh notion comes in its logical order, and
the mind of the reader is first carefully prepared
to expect it.
' The whole argument is in view from the beginning. Whether
in the purely argumentative passages or in those which are in
form hortatory, we are constantly meeting phrases which are
to be taken up again and to have their full meaning given to
them later on. The plan itself develops. While the figures to
some extent change and take fresh colour, there is growing
through all, in trait on trait, the picture which the writer
designs to leave before his readers' minds ' (E. C. Wickham, The
Epiatle to the Uebrews, p. xxi).
Yet, notwithstanding these general characteris-
tics and the absence of any opening salutation, the
Epistle is not to be regarded as a theological essay
addressed to Christendom in general. It is a real
letter, written to meet the needs of a definite and
limited circle of readers. Such a circle is presup-
posed by the personal touches of 13^*- -^ and by the
repeated exhortations (2^-* 31^-'* 4i- "-i« 5"-6>- lO"-
12^), in which the writer displays too much personal
feeling and too exact a knowledge of the spiritual
conditionlof his readers to permit the supposition
that he is speaking to the Church at large. But
even if these passages could be struck out of the
Epistle, the remaining doctrinal portions would
still point to the same conclusion. The pains taken
by tlie writer to prove that the sufferings and
death of Christ were not only intelligible but also
a necessary part of His human experience, or again
that the Levitical order was a temporary, imperfect
arrangement, imply that the readers were doubtful
about these things. Such doubts may well have
arisen in a small band of Christians, but they were
never characteristic of the Church as a whole.
The readers for whom the Epistle was intended
were Christians (2^- *), who at the first liad shown
whole-hearted devotion to the faith (10^-""). But
their minds were dull. They seemed incapable of
understanding anything beyond the merest rudi-
ments of their profession (5"- ^^ 6>). The earthly
humiliation of Jesus, His sufferings and tempta-
tions, seemed to them unworthy of Messiah. To
tliem, as to the Jews, the Cross was a stimibling-
block, a suffering Christ no true Christ at all.
Nor was that their only difficulty. They felt the
novelty of Christianity. They found it hard to
believe that the new religion could really supersede
the ancient Divinely-given religion of the Jews.
They were conscious also of its lack of outward
aids to faith and worship. Christianity had, as it
seemed to them, no visible priesthood or sacrifice.
By these perplexities their faith in Christ was
being gradually undermined. Their minds began
to turn from their Christian inheritance, which
contained so much that was new and strange, to
the familiar sjjlendours of the Temple and the
teaching of Judaism. But it was impossible for
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE 535
them to remain in a state of hesitation. A crisis
was rapidly approaching which most determine
their course of action (9^ 1(P). The Epistle to the
Hebrews was written as a ' word of exhortation '
(13") to nerve them to meet that crisis. The
writer tries to explain their difficulties and to make
them realize the meaning of the earthly life and
death of Clirist. He urges them to make the
venture of faith and take their stand by the
Master's side (13^^), for there is no other place
where ' et«mal salvation ' can be found (6*"*). His
argument takes the form of a systematic contrast
between Christianity and Leviticalism. Yet its
logical conclusion is not simply that Christianitj'
is the better of the two, but that Christianity is
the best religion conceivable, the final, eternal
revelation of God to men.
2. Summary of contents. — (I) The theme: the old
dispensation and the new. — God has made two
revelations to men — the first partial and incom-
plete, the second perfect and therefore final. The
prophets at best could merely proclaim the will of
God, and that only so far as human limitations
allowed them to perceive it. In One who is Son the
very essence of the Father is revealed. Levitical
priests could only call attention to the sins of man ;
the Son has washed them away. In Him human
nature is raised to the right hand of God (1^~*).
(2) The mediators of the old covenant {angels,
Moses,Josh ua, Aaron) inferior to theone Mediator of
the neic. — The Law was spoken through angels.
The Son is greater than any angel, not only in His
Divine glory, but also in the glory of His humilia-
tion. For, as perfect man. He was the first to
achieve the high destiny of mankind set forth in
Genesis and in the Psalms (l'-2'*). Jesus is the
Moses of the new dispensation, but greater than
Moses, as a son is greater than a ser\ant. He
wrought a greater deliverance than that of Moses,
and led the way to a more perfect rest than that
which Joshua won for his people. To that rest He
will bring us, if only we remain constant. The
story of those who fell of old in the wilderness is
a solemn warning of the fatal consequences of
apostasy. Let us press on, remembering that the
Leader who has suffered with us is also our High
Priest who will bring us to the throne of grace
(3i-4'«).
(3) The Son revealed as Priest after the eternal
order of Melchizedek. — The essential conditions for
all priesthood are two — perfect sympathy with
sinful men, and a Divine call to the office of priest.
These conditions are perfectly fulfilled in Christ.
He is Priest not after the order of Aaron, but after
the eternal order of Melchizedek (5^"^"). Throw oft"
your dullness and lay hold on the meaning of
Christ's Priesthood, for therein lies the Christian
hope. Christ is man and one with us. We can
therefore follow Him into the inner sanctuary of
God's own presence whither as Priest He has gone
on our behalf (S^-e*). The Psalmist declared that
the Christ should be Priest after the order of
Melchizedek. Notice that the promise of this new
priesthood, spoken while the Aaronic priests were
in possession, shows that the order of Melchizedek
is better than that of Aaron. Its superiority is
emphasized by the Divine oath with which the
promise is introduced. The account of ^Melchizedek
given in Genesis declares both by its statements
and by what it leaves unsaid what are the marks
of this priesthood. It is royal, righteous, peace-
bringing, personal, dependent not on lineal descent,
but on the inherent fitness of the priest ; it is
eternal. Abraham, and by implication Levi, did
homage to this priesthood when they paid tithes
and received a blessing, thereby acknowledging
the presence of something greater than themselves.
These marks of the eternal priesthood find their
perfect fulfilment in Jesus. Perfect kingship is
manifested in the royal condescension of His
earthly humiliation, and ngbteoosness in His sin-
less life as man ; abiding peace is the result of His
cleansing of man's sin. He was not bom of the
tribe of LevL His Priesthood is inherent in Him-
self, working ' according to the power of an endless
life ' (7'*). It can never be superseded because it
has perfectly fulfilled the object for which all
priesthood exists (7).
(4) The priestly ministrations of Aaron and of
Christ: their sanctuaries, their basal covenants,
their stierifces. — ^We have, then, a High Priest who
has entered upon His regal state of Priesthood in
heaven, the true sanctuary. But priesthood im-
plies sacrifice. He must therefore have something
to offer ; but what and where ? Not in the earthly
'Holy of Holies' — that is already occupied. Be-
sides, the Bible warns us that the earthly sanctuary
is only a shadow of the heavenly reality. Christ's
priestly ministry and sacrifice belong to the realm
of realities, just as He is the Mediator of a new
and better covenant than that of the Jews. For
we must face the fact already realized by Jeremiah
— the old covenant was imperfect and must pass
away when the new and perfect covenant is estab-
lished (8). The Levitical service of the old covenant
was not lacking in outward splendour, but its
magnificence served only to emphasize its ineffec-
tiveness. The structure of its sanctuary was
specially designed to illustrate its weakness. The
entrance to the Holy of Holies was covered by a
veil beyond which not even priests might pass.
One man alone could ever enter there, and for him
the way was beset with danger and open only once
in the year. Even so his annual sacrifice was no
real atonement. The material offerings — blood of
bulls and goats — professed to deal only with ritual
errors {a'fvoTjfidTwp, 9'). They could not cleanse
the conscience or take away real sin. All these
things — the inaccessible sanctuary, the sin-stained
high priest, the annual ineflective sacrifices —
clearly indicated that the true atonement was not
yet found (Q^-i"). Christ our High Priest, on the
other hand, has found for men eternal salvation.
For He entered into no material sanctuary but
into the very presence of God once for all. His
sacrifice was no mexe symbolical cleansing of ritual
errors. It effected the actual taking away of the
accumulated sins of men, and opened the way of
free access to God. For it was not material but
spiritual, not annual but offered once for all ; it
was the oflering of His o^vn life (9^^"^').
Thus the new covenant rests on the death of its
Mediator. Does this idea seem strange? The
following analogies may help you to understand :
(a) a testament is a covenant, but it has no value
unless the testator die ; (6) the old covenant was
inaugurated with the oflering of the life of btdls
and goats ; (c) in the Levitical Law every atone-
ment is symbolized by the offering of the life of
beasts. By such oflerings the earthly sanctuary
was cleansed. But nothing short of the most
perfect conceivable offering is sufficient for the
perfect heavenly sanctuary, and what oflering could
be more complete than the voluntary laying down
of the High Priest's ovra life? Such a spiritual
sacrifice has eternal validity. It can never be re-
peated because by the taking away of sins it has
established for ever that perfect union with God
which all sacrifice symbolizes. When Christ next
appears it will be as Deliverer of those who are
expecting Him {9^*"^).
(5) Sum7ning up of the argument : the shadow
and the substance. — The Law was only an outline
sketch of good things to come ; its repeated sacri-
fices were symbols, calling attention to man's sins,
but incapable of cleansing, for blood of bulls and
536 HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
goats could never take away sins. Clirist long ago
aeclared this by tlio mouth of the Psalmist, and
added tliat the only valid offering in God's sight
is tile surrender of tlie will in complete obedience
to Him. Such an oflering Christ lias now made.
That is why, in contrast to the Levitical priest
ever oH'ering, never atoning, He sits enthroned at
the right hand of God, 'waiting till his enemies
become his footstool.' He has set up the perfect
covenant (10''^^).
(6) Practical applications to present difficulties:
appeal to the example of the Fathers : renewed ex-
hortation and final greeting. — Jesus has rent the
veil and opened for all tlie way to the heavenly
sanctuary over which as Priest He presides.
Where lie is, we too may go. Let us then imitate
His priestly consecration and press on in His foot-
steps, for our hope is certain. We must urge each
other on and not isolate ourselves, for the crisis
is very near (10^"'^). Under the Law of Moses
apostasj^ involved terrible consequences. How
much worse to reject the perfect sacrifice, to wound
the personal Saviour (10'^®'"') ! Ilemember your
former steadfastness under trial. Do not throw
away your boldness. To receive the promises, all
that is needed is patience. Think of the words in
which Habakkuk speaks of the promise. They
who shrink back forfeit God's favour. His 'right-
eous ones' live by faith (lO^-'-^"). The faith he
means is unshaken confidence in the certainty of
God's promises, even though their realization seems
far off. It was such faith as this that inspired the
long roll of Jewish heroes (11). Wherever we turn
in the sacred records we meet these examples of
faith in the unseen, and the chief of them all is
Jesus. Let us fix our eyes on Him, and, stripping
oil' everything that encumbers, run boldly the race
He has run before us (12^"*). Be not discouraged
at the prospect of suflering. SuHering sent by God
is a means of discipline ; it proves that we are really
His sons (12^"'^). Seek peace and sanctification ;
never give up j^our eternal birthriglit for mere
present enjoyment (12"-'^). As the glories of the
heavenly Sion eclipse tlie terrors of Sinai, so is our
responsibility greater tlian that of Israel of old.
Sion too has its earthquake and its lire which
shatter and consume all that is unreal (12'^'^).
Do not forget j'our mutual responsibilities as
brethren. God's help is sufficient for all (13^"®).
Follow the example of your old leaders now de-
parted (13''). Be constant in your belief, for Jesus
Christ is eternally the same. Break loose from the
associations which would draw you away from
Him. He suflered as our atoning sacrifice outside
the city gate. We must be content to bear the
same reproach and take our place by His side.
The only 'abiding city' is where He is. Let us
then offer to God through Him the spiritual sacri-
fices He loves (13^""). Obey your rulers ; pray for
us that we may be restored to you, even as we pray
for you that God may make you perfect in obedi-
ence and every good thing (13'^"^'). H.ave patience
with my letter of exhortation. Timothy has been
released. He and I may visit you together. Greet
your rulers and all the saints. 'They of Italy'
send their greeting to you. ' The Grace ' be with
you(1322-M).
3. Doctrine.-— (1) Conception of Christianity.
— The writer of the Epistle thinks of religion as a
coven.ant. The religion of Jesus Christ is the new
eternal covenant (13-"") of which the prophet spoke
(g8-i3j^ for He alone has established a perfect
covenant relation between God and man. He has
opened for man the Avay of free and unrestricted
access to God. He has removed the great obstacle
— sin. The symbolism of the 'old covenant'
pointed to this ideal. But what was there set
forth symbolically a.s an unrealized hope, Christ
has made actual. In Him God and man are per-
fectly united ; His one sacrifice takes away sin, not
in symbol but in deed ; as High Priest He is not
simply the representative of the people but their
irpddpofjLos (6*') — where He has entered they too may
go ; and the sanctuary to which He leads them is
no material 'Holy of Holies' but the eternal
presence of God (9-^). A covenant of this kind
leaves nothing to be added. It has eternal validity,
and must therefore supersede all the imperfect
religions which have gone before.
(2) CllRlSTOLOGY. — The finality of the new
covenant rests on the perfection of Him who is its
Mediator (8« 9"> 12^*) and Surety (7^). It is natural
therefore that the main theme of the Epistle should
be the person and work of Christ.
(a) Christ the Eternal Son. — Christ's perfection
may be expressed in one sentence — He is the Son
of God (P 4" 58 6« T^-'-* lO*). Others have been
described in the Scriptures as sons of God (cf. l"* *• "
2'"), but His Sonship is diflerent in kind from
theirs. He is the Son of God, inseparable from the
Father as the ray is inseparable from the light, re-
vealing the essence of the Father as completely as
the device engraved upon a seal is revealed by its
impress on wax {diraOyaafia ttjs Sd^rjs /coi x<*P*'f'?P
TTjs iiiroffTdaewi aiiTov, 1'). As Son He is the Creator,
the Sustainer, and the Heir of all things (P- *). His
Sonship raises Him far above angels (P'"), above
Moses (S"), and above Aaron (7'*). It gives Him
tlie right, now that His earthly task is completed,
to sit enthroned at the right hand of the Majesty
on high (P).
{b) The Incarnation. — Having once clearly stated
at the outset the eternal Divinity of the Son, the
Epistle dwells almost entirely on His life, work,
and exaltation as man. The reason for this is to
be found in the apologetic aim of the writer. His
readers' perplexities centred round Christ's earthly
life of suffering and temptation, which they re-
garded as unworthy of one who occupied His high
position. The Epistle declares that such humilia-
tion was not only in the highest degree worthy of
Him who bore it and of God who sent Him (In-pcirtv,
2" ; cf. 7^''), it was a necessary part of the ex-
Serience of one who fulfilled the office of universal
[igh Priest. It Avas the ground of His subsequent
exaltation (cf. Sid. t6 Trddrjfia toO Oavdrov . . . iare-
<f)av(j3p.ivoP, 2*).
Nowhere in the NT is more emphasis laid on the
realitj' of His human nature and human experience.
He who bore the simple iiunian name Jesus (2" 3' 4'*
620 722 1019 1312) was made like His human brethren
in all things (2"- "). He partook of flesh and blood
as they do (2^*) ; He could sympathize Avith their
sufferings and temptations, for He too, as man,
suffered and Avas tempted (2^^ 4") ; like them He
had to conquer human Aveakness before He could
learn the hard lesson of obedience to God's Avill {S'- *).
The only difference betAveen their struggle and His
lay in the issue. They sometimes fail, but He always
conquered, for He Avassinless(4"). By His participa-
tion in human Aveakness and suffering and tempta-
tion Christ Avas ' made perfect' (reXetw^eij, 5' ; cf. 2'*').
By experiencing them in His OAvn human life He
gainea the perfect sympathy Avith mankind Avhich
fits Him to be their High I'riest. By overcoming
them He realized in Himself as man the high
destiny of the race. He became the first-born of
many sons Avho shall be led to glory (2").
(c) The Priesthood and Sacrifice of Christ.— {i.)
The sufferings and death of Christ find their final
explanation in the thought of His High-Priestly
office. They are the necessary condition of His
call to that office. Any j)riest Avho is called to be
the representative of men must himself be man,
capable of sympathy Avitli human Aveakness and
error (5'). The Levitical priests possessed sym-
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE 537
patby with liuman weakness, but they were also
tainted with human sin (5*). The ideal priest must
combine jnirfect sj-mpathy with the sinner with
complete freedom from sin (4'*). These qnalitica-
tions were united in Christ. He was therefore
called by God to be Priest, not after the order of
Aaron, but after the eternal order of Melchizedek
(5^"*). The Aaronic order was only the shadow,
not the reality of priesthood. Only by way of
contrast could it set forth the character of the
eternal Priesthood. For the members of that order
held office by virtue of mere physical descent (7'*) ;
their ministry could call sins to mind but could not
cleanse them (10^"'); they could not unite the
people to God — even into the earthly symbol of
His presence the high priest himself could enter
only once a year alone (9") ; lastly, the Aaronic
priests were mortal — their work was confined to
one generation (7**).
B\- contrast with the Aaronic priesthood, it
follows that the perfect priest must be really, not
ritually, holy, his office resting on his own perfect
fitness to perform it ; he must be able to take away
sin and to unite men to God ; lastly, he must be
eternal — placed beyond the reach of sin and death.
The essential features of this perfect priesthood
are set forth, as in a parable, in the biblical por-
trait of the priest-king Melchizedek. The name
Melchizedek, which means ' king of righteousness,'
indicates the personal, not merely official, holiness
of the true priest ; his connexion with Salem,
which means ' peace,' points to the abiding union
between God and man which he efiiects; the
absence from the record of any mention of Melchi-
zedek's parentage and of any references to his
birth or his death suggests that the perfect priest-
hood is eternal and exercised by right of the per-
sonal qualification of the priest (7^"*). Abraham,
the father of Levi, acknowledged the superiority
of the eternal priesthood when he paid tithes to
Melchizedek and received his blessing (7'''^''). The
eternal priesthood ' after the order of Melchizedek,'
as the Psalm foretold, is perfectly realized in
Christ. His office rests not on ' the law of a carnal
commandment ' (7^*) — for according to the flesh He
was not bom of a priestly family (7^^) — but on ' the
power of an indissoluble life ' {7'"'). He has perfect
sympathy with human weakness and temptation,
for He has felt them (2'8 4"), yet He is not tainted
with human sin (4^* 7-^). He is really, not ritually,
holy and without blemish, blameless in His rela-
tion to God and to man (7^). In His own Person
He has inseparably united man with God, and
opened a way of access into the Divine presence
which can never again be closed (6^ 10^^- *). For His
Priesthood is inviolable and eternal (7^). He has
passed into the world of eternal realities, far be-
yond the reach of sin and death (P 6^ 7* 9**).
There He ever liveth to make intercession for us
{7»),
(ii.) The central function of priesthood is to oflFer
sacrifice. If Christ be perfect Priest, what has He
to oSer (8^)? — The eternal Sacrifice which corre-
sponds to the eternal Priesthood. Once more theidea
is worked out by means of a contrast Avith Levitical
institutions and the exposition of a verse from the
Psalter. LeWtical sacrifices were material and fre-
quently repeated. Frequent repetition was neces-
sary because they had no efficacy in the spiritual
sphere ; they could not take away sin or cleanse
the conscience (9^ lO^-^). Long ago the Psalmist
recognized their futility and indicated the nature
of valid sacrifice. True sacrifice, he declared, is
spiritual ; its essence consists in self-sacrifice
the complete surrender of the will in voluntary
obedience to God (lO*-!"). Christ's oblation was a
sacrifice of self, the complete surrender of a per-
fect self in willing obedience (7^ 9"). ' The (^vs
of His flesh' were one long period of self -dedication,
and in the culminating moment on the Cross His
sacrifice was made complete (5'- ^ 9" lO*"*- "). Self-
sacrifice could be carried no further. Christ's
perfect spiritual Sacrifice — the entire devotion of a
perfect will — although its manifestation took place
on earth, belongs in all its stages to the world of
eternal realities (cf. SiA xvei'/iOToj aiwviov, 9"). It
has the power ' to cleanse the conscience from dead
works' (9") and 'to make perfect for ever them
that are sanctified' (10"). Because it possesses
eternal validity it can never be repeated (1" 9**"*).
The 'indissoluble life' (7^*) of the Priest- Victim is
made available for all men by the one off"ering.
The new covenant-relation between God and man
is established (9^^). Henceforth Christ sits en-
throned in the heavenly sanctuary in token that
His task is done, waiting ontil His enemies become
His footstool (10'»-").
(rf) The Death of Christ.— The supposition that
the death of Christ was a real stumbling-block to
the first readers of the Epistle is justified by the
evident pains taken by the writer to find reasons
for that death. Firstly, Christ died ' by the grace
of God ' (2») ; God willed that it should be so.
Secondly, Christ died as true man. To die once
and once only is part of the common lot of men
(9f). Thirdly, Christ died as testator, that we
might enter into the inheritance He has bequeathed
to us (9^*). Fourthly, the death of Christ was the
necessary climax of the experience of human
sufl'ering which qualified Htm to be 'captain of
salvation' (21"). Fifthly, Christ died to free ns
from the fear of death. From the time of the Fall,
death was terrible because it was regarded as the
penalty of human sin. Jesus Christ, by dying
though He was sinless, broke the connexion be-
tween death and sin, and so robbed death of its
enslaving terrors (2"- ^). Finally, Christ's death
was the foundation of the new covenant, the
priestly act of self-sacrifice by which ' he hath
perfected for ever them that are sanctified' (9"
10").
That the voluntary laying down of Christ's life
was a sacrificial act is regarded as self-evident,
and no direct answer is given to the question, ' How
does His sacrifice make perfect His followers ? ' Yet
the writer provides the material for an answer
when he dwells on the principle of Christ's ' solid-
arity with sinners.' ' He that sanctitieth and they
that are to be sanctified are all of one' (2", sc.
' one piece, one whole ' ; cf. Davidson, Hebrews, p.
66, n. 2). Christ's High-Priestly acts were not the
acts of an individual but of the representative
man. It was human nature which in Him was
perfected through obedience, entered the heavenly
sanctuary, and sat down on the throne of majesty.
^^^lat was actually efi'ected in Him, was effected
IK)tentially in those who foUow Him (cf. 10^**).
Christians 'are included in that purpose of love
which Christ has realised ' (Westcott, Ep. to the
Hebrews', p. 314). The High Priest is also the rp&-
Spofios (6^), one of many sons who are being brought
to glory (2^*'), who becomes the cause of salvation
to His hnman brethren because in Him the perfec-
tion of human nature has been realized (5*).
(e) The Parousia. — The Epistle speaks of ' the
day which is approaching' (ICP), when God 'will
shake not the earth only but also the heavens ' (12*),
and the glorified Christ ' shall appear unto salva-
tion for them that await him' (9*). 'The day' is
unquestionably the prophetic ' Day of Jahweh,'
but the idea of the day intended by the writer
seems to be that of the older OT prophets (cf. Am
5^*, Is 2^}, rather than that of the later apocalj-p-
tists. It is 'a coming' rather than ^ the Coming'
of the Christ. About the final Coming the Epistle
has nothing to say. But a crisis is at hand ; the
538 HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
readers can already see its approach. To the
writer it is a real coining of Christ.
' The Master had said that He might come at even or at mid-
night or at cock-crowing' or in the morning (Mk 13*). To the
writer of this letter the thought has occurred that those hours
may be not merely alternative but successive. And now that
the first of them has sounded warning, he bids his friends be
ready ' (Naime, The Epistle oj Priesthood, p. 210).
(3) The Christian Life.— The 'great salva-
tion ' (2*) wrought by Christ is variously described
in the Epistle as the realization of man's lordship
over creation (2*- "), deliverance from the fear of
death (2"-"), entrance into the perfect Sabbath-
rest of God (4^). But its essence consists in cleans-
ing and consecration, the taking away of sin (9"),
and the opening of a way of free access into the
Divine presence (10-"), or, as it is expressed in one
passage, ' the perfecting for ever of them that ai-e
sanctihed by the one ottering of Christ' (lO''*). In
one sense this ' perfecting ' is already accomplished
{T€T€\do)K€v, 10'*). FroHi anotlicr point of view it
is regarded as a hope yet to be realized. For there
is nothing mechanical about its working. Each
individual Christian must make it his own. If we
are to be perfected, our will must be united with
the will of Christ in perfect surrender to God (S"
10'"). Seen from this standpoint, the Christian life
is a progressive sanctification (2" 10'* 12''*), which
may be figuratively represented as a race or a
pilgrimage. Hence arises the need of solemn
warnings. It is possible to drop out of the Chris-
tian race before the goal is reached, or to set out
on the pilgrimage and yet never arrive at the
heavenly city. The great danger which besets the
Christian is faint-heartedness {amaTla, 3'-), the loss
of the vision of the land of eternal things, and
want of confidence in Him who leads us to that
land. The Christian safeguard is ' faith. ' Faith
is the power which lielps us to grasp the abiding
realities which lie behind the world of sense, and to
test the existence and character of things which
are for us as yet unrealized (11'). It is the faculty
by which, for example, we recognize the eternal
issues which were decided by the earthly life and
humiliation of Christ, and the futility of all hopes
that stand apart from Him. The practical result
of such faith will be unswerving devotion and
obedience to our Captain in the face of all trouble
and difficulty (5"), for He Himself has run the race
before us and stands waiting for us at the goal
(12^). If our eyes are fixed on Him, and all things
which might impede our progress are thrown aside.
He will make perfect the faith which He has
fiven (12^), He will grant us the ' full assurance of
ope' (6"), which will bring us safely along the
path whicli He has trodden to the end, where the
fullness of His salvation is revealed in the eternal
sanctuary, the very presence of God (cf. 6'*-^).
4. Date. — Tlie first generation of Christians had
passed away (2^ Vi') ; members of the Church had
already suffered persecution, imprisonment, and
loss of property (10^-"^*); the relation of Gentile
and Jewish Christians was no longer a burning
question of the day. The Epistle cannot therefore
have been written long before A.D. 70. On the
other hand, it cannot be placed much later than
A.D. 90, for it was extensively used by Clement of
Rome in his Ejnstle to tfie Corinthians, c. A.D. 95-
96 (cf. ad Cor. 9, 12, 17, 36, 45).
Any more precise determination of the date
must rest chietty on the view taken of the crisis
with which the first readers of the Epistle were
confronted. If the approaching 'day' (lO'") be
taken to mean the Final Coming of Christ, the
exact date of tlie Epistle must be left uncertain.
But if it be rightly interpreted as an allusion to
the inevitable culmination of some national move-
ment already active — a movement wliich forced
upon the readers u final choice between Christian-
ity and Judaism — it is most naturally regarded as
referring to the outbreak of the Jewish war which
led to the Destruction of Jerusalem. The date of
the Epistle would then fall between A.D. 63 and 70.
No chronological argument can be based on the
fact that the writer of the Epistle generally uses
the present tense in speaking of Levitical institu-
tions (7*- ■•* 8^- » 98- »• " 13'"). The use of the present
tense does not necessarily imply that the Temple
was still standing when he wrote. Similar lan-
guage is frequently employed in reference to the
Temple service in writings much later than A.D.
70 (e.g. Clem. Rom. ad Cor. 40-41 ; Justin Martyr,
Dial. 117; Epistle of Barnabas, passim). But
what the writer to the Hebrews has in mind is not
the service of the Temple but that of the Taber-
nacle. 'The references [of the Epistle] to the
Mosaic ritual are purely ideal and theoretical, and
based on tlie Law in the Pentateuch' (Davidson,
op), cit. p. 15).
Some commentators have found a further indica-
tion of date in the writer's application of the words
of Ps 95 to the circumstances of his own day (3'"").
Special emphasis is laid on the fact that he departs
from the construction of the original passage in
connecting the words ' forty years ' with the pre-
ceding clause ' they saw my works,' instead of with
that which follows. It is suggested that the
change was made intentionally, because the writer
wished to point out that, as he wrote, another
period of ' forty years of seeing God's works ' was
rapidly drawing to a close, namely, the forty years
which followed the Crucifixion (c. A.D. 30-70).
Yet, even if it be permissible to take the number
forty literally, this argument has little value.
The language of the Psalm might equally well be
applied to the period A.D. 30-70 at a much later
date by a writer who considered that the ' to-day '
of unbelieving Israel's opportunity closed with the
Destruction of Jerusalem. The passage has even
been used to prove that the Epistle must have been
written some years later than A.D. 70 (Zahn,
Introd. to the NT, Eng. tr., ii. 32Ifr.). But it
seems unlikely either in the original Psalm or in
the quotation that 'forty years' means anything
more definite than the lifetime of a generation.
5. The readers. — (1) Jews or Gentiles? — A unan-
imous tradition, reaching back to the 2nd cent,
and embodied in the title invariably given to the
Epistle, asserts that it was addressed irpbs'E^palovi.
It may be granted that the title does not go back
to the original writer, and that it represents
nothing more than an inference from the contents
of the letter, but the inference is probably correct
if not inevitable. The traditional view remained
unquestioned until the 19tli cent., but since then
it has frequently been maintained that the Epistle
was addressed to Gentiles, or at least to Christians
generally, without regard to their origin. By
isolating certain incidental statements contained
in the Epistle, it is not difficult to present a
plausible case for this opinion. It has been said,
for example, that no Jewish convert would need to
be taught the elementary doctrines enumerated in
6'* ^ ; that conversion from Judaism which the
>vriter believed to be a Divinely-given religion,
would never have been described by him as turning
' from dead works to serve a living God ' (9'*) ; that
the faults against which the readers are warned
(12'* 13*) are the faults of heathen rather than of
Jews. It must be recognized, however, that the
details on which the argument rests are capable of
more than one interpretation, and that similar
passages, equally dubious perhaps (e.g. the use of
the terms ' seed of Abraham ' [2'"] and ' the nation '
[2'^], where the argument rather requires ' man-
kind '), may be quoted on the other side.
But the traditional opinion is most strongly
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE 539
supported by the general drift and tendencj* of the
Epistle taken as a whole. The writer appeals to
the OT as to an independent authority which may
be quoted in supiwrt of the Christian faith. He
assumes that his readers take the same view of
the OT. This would be true of Jewish but not of
Gentile converts. To the Gentile the OT had no
meaning apart from Christianity. In the same
waj* the main argument of the Epistle, while in-
volving the conclusion that Christianity is the
perfect and final religion, yet formally proves only
that Christianity is superior to Judaism. This
method of reasoning, unaccompanied by any refer-
ence to paganism in any form, is only intelligible if
addressed to men avIio were either Jews by birth or
who had adopted Jewish ways of thinking so com-
pletely as to be indistinguishable from bom Jews.
(2) Place of residence. — The Epistle contains no
opening salutation, and no direct information as to
its destination. This lack of evidence makes it
very difficult to locate the readers for whom it was
intended. The ancient title -rpds "ESpoiow throws
no light upon the question, for the term ' Hebrews '
is national, not local. Many suggestions have
been made of probable places where such a circle
of readers as the Epistle presupposes may have
existed. The claims most widely upheld are those
of (a) Jerusalem or some other Palestinian or Syrian
community, (b) Alexandria, (c) Rome or some other
church in Italy.
(a) In favour of the first hypothesis, it is argued
that Jerusalem, or at least some Palestinian city,
would ]je the most likely place for a purely Jewish
community, and that there too the practical problem
with which the Epistle deals would be most keenly
felt. But the language used in the Epistle (2*),
which implies that the community addressed had
had no opportunity of hearing the gospel from
Christ's own lips, certainly does not favour the
theory of any Palestinian destination, nor do the
suggestions of the comparative wealth of the
readers (6'" 10^-) agree with the known poverty
of the primitive church of Judaea. Palestine again
is not a place where Timothy might be expected to
have much influence (13^), and the absence of any
distinct mention in the Epistle of the Temple as
opposed to the Tabernacle would be, to say the
least, remarkable if it were addressed to Judsea.
(b) Alexandria has been suggested chiefly on
account of the affinities of thought and language
between the Epistle and Alexandrian Judaism as
represented by the writings of Philo and the Book
of Wisdom. Such affinities undoubtedly exist, and
may perhaps contain a hint concerning tlie writers
own birth-place, but they supply no eWdence as to
the destination of the Epistle. It must be remem-
bered also that the Alexandrian type of Judaism
was by no means confined to Alexandria. The
theory that the Epistle was written with particular
reference to the worship of the Jewish Temple at
Leontopolis falls to the ground when it is realized
that the WTiter had in view not the worship of any
particular Temple, but the Levitical service as it
is described in the Pentateuch (K. W'ieseler, Unter-
snchung iiber den Eebrderbrief, 1861).
(c) What little evidence the Epistle itself supplies,
may be quoted in favour of Rome or some other
Italian community. For the words ' They of Italy
send greeting ' are most naturally taken as imply-
ing that the letter was sent either to ox from Italy,
and some less vague expression than oi arb r^j
'IraX/as (13-^) might reasonably have been expected
if the writer were actually in Italy at the time of
writing. Corroborative evidence for regarding
Rome as the destination of the Epistle may be
found in the fact that the earliest known quotation
of its language occurs in the letter of Clement of
Rome.
But the question of the Epistle's destination
must remain without a final answer. It seems
clear tliat it was addresseil not to a mixed com-
munity, but to Jews, and the general impression it
gives is of a limited circle of readers rather than of
a large and miscellaneous gathering (Zahn, op. cU.
ii. 349 ff.). Whether that circle was 'the cnorch
in so-and-so's house,' or ' a group of scholarly men
like the author' (Nairne, op. cit. p. 10), cannot be
finally determined.
6. Author. — 'But who wrote the Epistle (Jod
only knows certainly ' (rt's Si 6 ypdfas -nnv erurrok-liw
rb tthf &kiidh Qfbi otSev, Origen, ap. Euseb. HE vi.
25). These words were originaJly spoken with
reference to the amanuensis or translator of the
Epistle. Most modem scholars are content to ex-
tend their reference to the actual author. The
Avriter keeps tumself in the background, and later
research has never finally discovered his identity.
In this respect students of the 2nd cent, were as
much in the dark as those of the present day. It
is significant that the Roman Church, which was
the first to make use of the Epistle, refused for
more than three centuries to grant it a place
amongst the XT Scriptures, on account of the un-
certainty of its authorship (Euseb. HE iii. 3). If
Eusebixis is to be tnisted, Roman opinion on the
subject did not go beyond a denial of the author-
ship of St. Paul. The only positive statement
made by any early Latin writer occurs in a work
of TertuUiau, who attributes the Epistle without
question to Barnabas (de Pudiciiia, xx.). This
belief may perhaps represent a Montanist tradition
generally current in North Africa. It is difficult
to see why it vanished so completely from the other
churches, if it had ever been more widely circulated.
It was in Alexandria, after the Epistle had
already been accepted as canonical on its own
merits, that the theory of Pauline authorship
gradually arose. The writings of Clement of
Alexandria (c. A.D. 200), Origen (c. A.D. 220), and
Eusebius {c. A.D. 320), display the theory in process
of formation. Clement put forward the suggestion
that St. Paul wrote the Epistle in Hebrew, and St.
Luke afterwards translated it into Greek. The
latter conjecture is based on the resemblance of
style between the Greek of the Epistle and that of
the Acts (Euseb. HE vi. 14). Origen expresses
his own opinion thus : ' The thoughts are the
thoughts of the Apostle, but the language and
composition that of one who recalled from memory,
and, as it were, made notes of what was said by
the master' (avotunniofewawrbi tikk to, dxotrroXurd
Kal u<nrepe( crxoXtcrypa^iTcrayrosret eip^/ura irrb toO diSaH'
KoXov, ap. Euseb. HJS vi. 25). Eusebius himself,
while admitting that the Roman Church did not
accept the Epistle because it was not St. Paul's
{HE iii. 3), yet declares that it is reasonable ' on the
ground of its antiquity that it should be reckoned
with the other wTitings of the Apostle* (iii. 37).
Clearly, none of the three writers regarded the
Epistle as being Pauline in the full sense, yet for
the sake of convenience it was their practice to
quote it as *of Paul.' Later Alexandnan writers
adopted this title as being literally true, and from
Alexandria belief in the literal Pauline authorship
of the Epistle spread throughout the Church. In
this, as in other matters, the Western Church
followed the lead of St. Hilarj-, St. Jerome, and
St. Augostine.
It is easy to imagine how the Epistle became
coimected with St. Paul's name. When once an
anonymous letter bearing the simple title rpbi
'K^palovs was appended to a collection of acknow-
ledged Pauline Epistles, the addition to the head-
ing of the words toO UavXov would only be a matter
of time.
Nevertheless, as Origen already felt, internal
540 HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
evidence makes the theory of I'auline authorsliip
untenable. It is incredible that St. Paul, who in-
sisted so strongly that he received his gospel by
direct revelation (Gal 1), coxild have written the
confession of second-hand instruction contained in
He 2^ Nothing, again, could be more unlike St.
Paul's method of expression than the elegant and
rhythmical style of the Epistle to the Hebrews ;
and behind the difference of style lies a real
diflference of mental attitude. The characteristic
Pauline antitheses 'faith and works,' 'law and
promise,' 'fiesli and spirit,' are replaced by new
contrasts — ' earthly and heavenly, ' shadow and
substance,' ' type and antitype.' The difference of
thought which separates the two writers becomes
apparent when they meet on common ground.
' Faith ' and * righteousness ' are key-words in St.
Paul's theology. The Epistle to the Hebrews also
speaks often of ' faith ' and sometimes of ' righteous-
ness' (P 5" 72 IV- 33 121'), lJ^t the words have lost
their 8])ecial Pauline sense. ' Faith ' no longer
means intimate personal union with Christ, but
e.xpressea the more general idea of ' grasp on unseen
reality. ' ' Righteousness ' is stripped of its forensic
associations. It simply means ' ethical righteous-
ness,' not ' right standing in the eyes of God.' The
same contrast is visible in the different applications
made by the two writers of the only two OT pas-
sages quoted by both (Dt 323«, quoted in Ro \2^^,
He 103" ; Hab 23 quoted in Ro 1", Gal 3", He 1037- 38),
The theory of Pauline authorship being therefore
necessarily abandoned, all attempts to discover the
author's name are reduced to mere conjecture.
Such conjectures have usually started from the
assumption that his acquaintfince Avith Timothy
(13''3) places the writer of the Einstle amongst the
circle of St. Paul's friends. The early Church sug-
gested, as having at least a share in the authorship,
St. Luke (Clem. Alex. ap. Euseb. HE vi. 14), or
Barnabas (TertuUian, de Pudicitia, xx. ), or Clement
of Rome (' some' known to Origen [ap. Euseb. HE
vi. 25]). Luther {e.g. Enarr. in Gen. 48^, Op.
Exeg. xi. 130) supported the claim of Apollos.
More recent conjectures have been Silas (e.g. C. F.
Boehme, Ep. ad Heb., 1825); Aquila (suggestion
mentioned but not approved by Bleek, Der Brief
an die Hebrder, i. 42) ; St. Peter (A. Welch, The
Authorship of Hebrews, 1898) ; Prisca and Aquila
in collaboration, Prisca taking the lion's share
(Harnack, ZNTW, 1900); Aristion, the Elder
known to Papias (J. Chapman, Revue B6nidictine,
xxii. [1905], p. 50) ; and lastly, Philip the Deacon
(Ramsay, Expositor, 5th ser. ix. 401-422). The
evidence in favour of any of these conjectures is of
the flimsiest description. The affinities of language
and style between the Epistle and the Acts, or
the resemblances of thought between the Epistle
and 1 Peter, are quite insufficient to prove com-
nmnity of authorship. The quotation of long pas-
sages from the Epistle by Clement of Rome serves
only to emphasize their difference from his own
way of thinking and writing. Barnabas, Silas,
Aquila, IMiilip, Aristion remain as possible authors
chiefly because next to nothing is known about
them. Apollos, the learned Alexandrian Jew,
mighty in the Scriptures (Ac 18^), companion of
St. Paul, is the sort of man who might have written
the Epistle, but no shred of positive evidence exists
which would justify the assertion that he actually
did write it.
That a leaf has been accidentally lost from the
beginning of the Epistle which would ])erhaps have
told of its authorship and destination (Fritz Barth,
Einleitung in das NT-, 1911, p. 114), is a hypothesis
which cannot be verified. It is at least more
probable than the suggestion that the author's
name was intentionally removed by the prejudice
of a later generation which demanded that all
canonical Epistles should be of apostolic origin.
But it is not necessary to assume that the Epistle
ever had a formal address. It is clear from the
contents that the readers knew who was addressing
them and by what authority, and many reasons
for the omission of any formal superscription can
be easily imagined (cf. Jiilicher, Introct. to NT,
Eng. tr., p. 153).
7. AfHnities of thought and language.— (1) T/u
OT. — The Epistle makes extensive use of tlie OT.
Twenty-nine distinct quotations occur, twenty-one
of which are not found elsewhere in the NT, and
there are frequent allusions to i)assage8 of the OT
which are not definitely cited. The writer shows
no acquaintance with the Hebrew text, but follows
the LXX even where it differs materially from the
Hebrew (e.g. Ps 95^°, Jer Spi^-, Ps 4(fi-\ Hab 2»-*,
Pr 3", quoted in He 3» B*"" lO*"'- 3'-3» i25- «). Three
of his OT quotations differ both from the LXX and
from the Hebrew (Gn 22i«'-, Ex 24», Dt 323* ; cf.
He 613'- 920 103"). The last of these occurs in the
same form in Ro 12'". Amongst the more general
allusions to the language of the Greek Bible may
be noticed the reference to stories contained in 1
and 2 Mac. (He U^-^; cf. especially 2 Mac 6. 7),
and the possible reminiscence in He P of the words
of the Book of Wisdom in which Wisdom is de-
scribed as dTra&yafffia . . , (pwrbi d'lSiov . . . Kal eUuv
TTJs dyaO&rrjTos avrov (sc. rov deou, Wis 7^).
The mode of citation employed in the Epistle
is worthy of note. The name of the individual
writer is never mentioned, but in every case (except
2^°'-, where God is directly addressed), the words of
the OT are ascribed to God, or to Christ (2"- '3
IQe^-), or to the Holy Spinfc (3^^- lO'^). In striking
contrast to the allegorical method of Philo, and to
St. Paul's custom of adopting OT phrases to express
ideas different from those of the original writer
(e.g. 'The just shall live by faith'), the author of
the Epistle is true to the historical method of inter-
pretation, and uses OT passages in the exact sense
which the first writer himself put upon them. This
is true even of the chapter dealing with Melchizedek
(He 7), where the Epistle seems to approximate
most closely to the Philonic method of exegesis.
Melchizedek remains the priest-king of Salem. He
is not a mere symbol, still less is he identical with
Christ. Lastly, it may be observed tiiat the Epistle
lays stress on the continuity of revelation. The
same God who spoke by means of the prophets
speaks in the Son, and the principles wliich the
prophets revealed in part are the same i)rinciples
which He reveals in full perfection. Thus, it
appears to the writer, Christhood is not a new
thing. The eternal Son 'inherited' the name of
'Christ' from partial and imperfect Christs who
went before Him (P; cf. Nairne, op. cit. pp. 16 f.,
153, 24911.). Words, therefore, which in the first
place were spoken of God's anointed ones of past
ages — the king (p-e. 8. ». la^^ ^y yjg nation (2'-), or
the prophet (2'3)— are unliesitatingly applied to
'the Christ' in whom that which they dimly
shadowed is at last fully realized. (On the use of
the OT in the Epistle, see Westcott, op. cit. pj).
471-497 ; Nairne, op. cit. pp. 248-289.)
(2) Philo. — Much has been written about the in-
fluence exercised on the writer of the Epistle by
the Alexandrian school of pre-Christian Judaism,
whose chief representative is Philo. The evidence
bearing on the question may be arranged as follows.
(«) Itcsemblances. — (i.) Both use tlie LXX in a
recension closely resembling Cod. A (Bleek, op.
cit. i. 369 ff.). (ii.) The custom in the Epistle of
quoting the OT as tlie <Ureet utterance of Go<l,
without mentioning tiie writer's name, finds an
exact parallel in the works of Philo. (iii.) Striking
and unusual words and phrases used in the l^pistle
occur also in Philo's writings, e.g. dra&yaafjM (He P ;
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE 541
(fc Mundi Op. 51 ), xapasT^p (He 1' ; dc Plant. iV oc, 5),
(ivfiia-n^piov in the sense of ' altar* (He 9* ; Quis rer.
iliv. htrr. 46), xopaTXijtrI(i«(He2'* ; cf. rbiraparX^ffiov,
Quis 7-cr. div. hcer. 30), utTpioTaOeiv (He sfi ; deAbrah.
44), rpaxnWieiv (He 4" ; de Vita Mos. i. 53), Se^ets
re xal 'iKmipias (He 5^ ; de Cherubim, 13), Ifiadev dip
&» ftro^ei' (He 5* ; cf. 6 raOuv ditp</3ws l/uiOev, de Somn.
ii. 15), Ixpfxfv used of God (He 2'" ; de Leg. alleq.
i. 15), l\a(rT7ipiov applied to the lid of the Ark (He 9^ ;
de Vita Mos. iii. 8). The Epistle describes Christ
as rpwTOTOKot and dpxtepfvs (He 1* 2" 3') ; Philo
applies the terms rpea^vrepos vi6s, trpuniiyovo^ {de
Agricidt. 12), apxi-epevs (de Somn. i. 38) to the Divine
Logos, (iv.) Both display the same habit of inter-
weaving doctrinal and practical passages, the same
unusual transposition of words (cf. xaXiv, He 1*; de
Leg. alleg. iii. 9), the same use of S-q rov (He 2^* ; e.g.
de Leg. alleg. i. 3) and wy #Toy eiTuv (He 7' ; e.g. de
Plant. Noe, 38). (v.) Both argue from the silences
as well as from the statements of Scripture, attach
imjwrtance to the meaning of OT names, and
emphasize the same particular aspects of the lives
of Abel, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, (vi.) Philo
speaks of an eternal universe (6 Kdafws vojjroi, de
Mundi Op. 4-6), of which the visible universe (6
KOfffios aiffd-rjToi, ib. ) is a transitory copy. The writer
of the Epistle mentions the 'heavenly 'Tabernacle,
a copy of which Moses reproduced on earth (8'),
and frequently alludes to earthly institutions as
copies or shadows of heavenly realities (9^^^).
(6) Divergences. — (i.) While the Epistle resembles
Philo in its mode of citation of the OT, it presents
a radical ditierence in its method of interpretation.
Men and institutions remain what they are said to
be in the OT. They do not become mere symbols
of transcendental ideas, (ii.) In the Epistle stray
expressions may be applied to the Son which Philo
applies to the Logos, but the personal 'Son' of
Hebrews is essentially diflerent from the abstract
impersonal 'Logos' of Philo. (iiL) The ^vrite^ of
the Epistle uses language which recalls the Alexan-
drian notion of the real invisible world which cor-
responds with the unreal world of sense. But that
idea is not the basis of his conception of Christianity.
'He does not identify Christian truth with an already exist-
ing system of thought : his Christian thought merely possesses
itself "of the outlines of a mode of conception existing, which it
fills with its own Contents" (Davidson, op. eit. p. 201).
It appears, then, that the Epistle does show some
affinities with Philo and the Alexandrian school.
It is at least probable that the writer was acquainted
with their ideas and their philosophical termino-
logy. But his message is all his own ; he owes little
to Alexandria beyond the outward expression. So
far as he borrows thoughts, he borrows from the
gospel tradition and the OT Scriptures (see G.
>IilJigan, The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebretcs,
pp. 20:i-211 ; Bruce in HDB ii. 335).
(3) The Synoptic tradition. — The author shows
considerable acquaintance with the facts of our
Lord's life on earth. He knows of His human
birth (2"), of His descent from the tribe of Judah
(7"), of His human development (5*), of His tempta-
tion (2^8 415), of His fidelity (3=), of His sinlessness
(4"), of His preaching (2^), of His gentle bearing
towards sinners (2''"), of the contradiction He
endured at the mouth of ignorant men (12^), of
His circle of disciples (2^ -*), of His agony in the
Garden (5"), of His Ascension (6» 7=* 9=*). Though
the Resurrection occupies no large place in the
writer's doctrinal teaching, it is not because he
is ignorant of the fact (13^). These things are
mentioned in the Epistle quite incidentally and
because of their bearing on the general argument.
It is not likely, therefore, that they represent the
whole of the ^Titer's information concerning the
earthly ministry of Jesus. The additional fact
that he takes it" for granted that his readers need
no explanation of his allusions indicates that an
evangelic tradition, not unlike that of the Synoptic
Gospels, was already in circulation, but whether it
had yet taken the form of a written record cannot
he ascertained (see Westcott, op. cit. p, 465 ; Bruce,
The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 63 f.).
(4) St. Paul. — Allusion has already been made
to the differences between the Epistle and tlie writ-
ings of St. Paul, Attention must now be directed
to their similarities. Definite reminiscences of the
language of Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians,
and Philippians have been discovered in the follow-
ing passages. He 1* || Ph 2?*- ; 2» || Gal S'* ; 2* ;!
lCol2"; 2"||lCol5»; 5»l|lCo3»; 5"i|lCo2*:
6^0 il 2 Co 8*; 10» ii Ro 12"; lO^s ij 2 Co IS*; 10»
il Ro 1" ; 12" II Ro 14"» ; 12" 13« || Gal 4«- ; 13" il
Ph 416.18 . 131M. ji 2 Co !"• " ; 13» ii Ro 15=3 ; 13=* ||
Ph 421- a (Moffatt, LNT, p. 453). It may be doubted
whether direct literary connexion can be proved in
any of these cases. Even where such connexion
seems most certain — when the two writers agree
with each other, while diflering both from the
LXX and from the Hebrew, in the text of an OT
passage (He 1(P, Ro 12i9)— it is possible that they
are quoting independently an interpretation which
is at least as old as the Targum of Onkelos. Yet
in many ways the Epistle presupposes the work
of St. Paul. Though they see things from a
different point of view, the two are in fundamental
agreement. Both display ' the same broad concep-
tion of the universality of the Gospel, the same
grasp of the age-long purpose of God wrought out
through Israel, the same trust in the atoning work
of Christ, and in His present sovereignty' (Westcott,
op. cit. p. Ixxviii). That the writer to the Hebrews
can take up an attitude of wide universalism Avith-
out mentioning the question of circumcision or even
naming the GentUes at all, and can calmly put
aside the Law almost as though its futility were
self-evident, implies that the Pauline battle of
Galatia and Rome has been fought and won.
(5) The Fourth Gospel. — In point of time the
Epistle to the Hebrews stands midway between
the Pauline Epistles and the Johannine writings.
In the development of apostolic theology it occupies
precisely the same place. St. Paul had a hard
struggle to establish the principle of the universal
application of the gospel to Jew and Gentile alike.
The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Fourth Gospel
both take this for granted. St. Paul, though he
does not dwell on the idea, occasionally speaks of
Christ's death in terms of sacrifice (Eph 1^ 2^* 5-,
1 Co 5", Ro 3^ 83 etc.). The Epistle to the
Hebrews deals fully with the sacrificial aspect of
Christ's death, and sets forth at length the corre-
sponding conception of His Priesthood. The root-
ideas contained in the doctrines of Christ's Priest-
hood and Sacrifice find their final expression in the
seemingly simple and unstudied language of the
Fourth Gospel, even though the terms ' priest ' and
'sacrifice' are never used (cf. Jn 10^"=^ 12^ 16^ 17).
Lastly, the description of the person and work of
Christ given in the opening verses of the Epistle (He
V'*) might almost be taken to be a first sketch of
the completed picture of the ' Divine Word made
flesh' contained in the prologue to the Fourth
Gospel.
' The teaching which St. John has preserved offers the final
form of the Truth. St. John's theorj' (if we may so speak) of
the work of Christ is less developed in detail than that which is
found in the Epistles of St. Paul and in the Epistle to the
Hebrews ; but his revelation of Christ's Person is more complete.
He concentrates our attention, as it were, upon Him, Son of
God and Son of man, and leaves us in the contemplation of facts
which we can only understand in part ' (Westcott, op. eit. p. Ixf.).
8. Importance. — The Epistle to the Hebrews has
an interest peculiarly its own. It is the earliest
exposition of the Christian tradition by one who
had all the instincts of a scholar and a philosopher.
542 HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE
HEIFER
Wherever the author may have been born, he may
be regarded as the NT representative of the type
of mind wliicli afterwards appeared in the great
teachers of tlie Christian school of Alexandria.
At the same time he is altogether free from the
particular limitations of that school. He agrees
with the Alexandrians in his philosophical bent
and his love of cultured and scholarly expression,
but he is also of one mind with the school of
Antioch in his appreciation of the importance of
fact. His doctrine of the Person of Christ com-
bines the two central truths, the isolation of one
of which was the cause of disaster both to Alex-
andria and to Antioch. For while he insists,
equally with the Alexandrians, on the cosmic work
and pre-incarnate glory of tiie Son, he is not less
emphatic than the Antiochenes in his statement of
the completeness of His participation in human
suffering and temptation and His exaltation in
human nature to the right hand of power. The
Epistle to the Hebrews rendered permanent service
to the Church by showing tliat the way to under-
stand something of the meaning of the Person of
Christ is not to minimize either the Divine or the
human nature, but to emphasize both.
In his interpretation of the OT, the writer of
Hebrews seems to be in sympathy much more with
Antioch than with Alexandria. His exegesis is
based on principles which iiave never been forsaken
without disastrous consequences. He recognizes
the OT as a Divinely-given revelation, and yet a
revelation which is partial and incomplete. He
realizes the true method of historical interpretation :
a passage of Scripture must be explained in the light
of its context ; its real meaning is that which the
writer intended it to bear. These are the principles
which lie at the root of all sound biblical criticism.
But the greatest service which the Epistle to the
Hebrews has rendered to the Church is its inter-
Eretation of the Death of Christ in terms of Priest-
ood and Sacrifice. The ideas so familiar to us
were new when the Epistle was written. The
writer was 'not repeating but creating theolo^'
(Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 10). He
offers no formal theory of the Atonement, but he
reveals principles on which it rests, and states them
in a way which appeals to the common instincts of
mankind. Salvation of others can be wrought only
through sacrifice of self. The priest must be also
the victim. He must give his life to others as well
as for others, and his life hecomes available for
others only through death — the death of self. The
priest who offers the perfect sacrifice must himself
be perfect — perfectly one with humanity in nature
and in all human experiences ; else the sacrifice
would be impossible. He must be personally sin-
less ; otherwise the offering would be incomplete
and of partial efficacy. If his act of self-sacrifice
is to be eternally valid, he must himself be eternal.
Christ has fulfilled these conditions, and He will
never change : ' Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever ' (13*). The principles here set
forth leave some things unexplained, but they are
sufficient to strengthen faith to lay hold on what
must always remain deeply mysterious — the in-
expressible Divine love which made the Eternal
Son lay down His life as man. To enkindle faith
was the sole object of the writer. In one sense he
may be called a visionary, but it is a practical
vision that he sees — the vision of a few weak, halt-
ing Christians brought safely through an earthly
crisis by the outstretched hand of the eternal High
Priest who is enthroned in the heavenly sanctuary.
' Every student of the Epistle to the Hebrews must feel that
it deals in a peculiar degree with the thoughts and trials of our
own time. . . . The difflcullies which come to us through
physical facts and theories, through criticism, through wider
views of huiuan history, correspond with those which came to
Jewish Christians at the close of the Apostolic age, and they
will tlnd their solution also in fuller views of the Person and
Work of Christ" (Westcott, op. cit. Pref. p. v).
LiTERATURR.— I. COMMENTARIES: F. Blcck (1828-40); F.
Delitzsch (Eng. tr., 18CS-70); A. B. Davidson (1882); F.
Rendall (1883); C. J. Vaughan (1800); H. von Soden(1892);
B. F. Westcott (31903) ; E. C. Wickham (1010).
II. Articlks : ' Hebrews, Epistle to,' bv A. B. Bruce in UDB
ii. (1899); 'Hebrews (Epistle),' by W. Robertson Smith and
H. von Soden in Elii ii. (1901).
III. NT Introductions: G. Salmon (71894); A. Jiilicher
(Eng. tr., 1904) ; T. Zahn (Eng. tr., 1909) ; A. S. Peake (1909) ;
J. MofTatt (1911).
IV. Special Studiks : E. K. A. Riehm, Der Lehrbegriff det
Ilebriierbrie/es, 1807; E. M6ndgoz, La TMologie de CipUre
aux Hibrenx, 1894 ; A. C. McGiffert, A nistory of Christianity
in the Apostolic Age, 1897 ; G. Milligan, The Theology of the
Epistle to the Ilelrrews, 1899 ; A. B. Bruce, The Epistle to the
Hebrews : the First Apology for Christianity, 1899 ; G. B.
Stevens, The Theology of the A T, 1S99 ; W. P. DuBose, High
Priesthood and Sacrifice, 1908; A. Nairne, The Epistle of
Priesthood, 1013. F. S. MaUSH.
HEIFER (5dMa\tj = .Tj9, *a cow') — The >vriter
of Hebrews finds a parallel between ' the water (for
the removal) of impurity ' (C5ap pavTio<rfiov = rni 'O,
'water of exclusion') and the blood of Christ (He
9"'-). The former element was a mixture of run-
ning (living) water with the ashes of a spotless
heifer slain and burnt according to the ritual pre-
scribed in Nu 19. As contact with a dead body,
a bone, or a grave involved defilement, and en-
trance into the sanctuary in a state of undeanness
made the offender liable to excommunication, the
use of this holy water was prescribed as a means
of purification. Every detail in the ceremonial
leads the student of origins back to the childhood
of the Semites. ' Primarily, purification means
the application to the person of some medium
which removes a taboo, and enables the person
purified to mingle freely in the ordinary life of his
fellows ' ( W. R. Smith, IiS\ 1894, p. 425). In those
days there was probably a cult of the sacred cow,
while juniper, cypress, and aromatic plants were
supposed to have power to expel the evil spirits
which brought death into the home. It is certain,
however, that, when Israel began to put away
childish things, the ancient consuetudinary laws
in regard to defilement came to be viewed by the
more enlightened minds as mere ' symbols of
spiritual truths.' To the awakened conscience
' sin was death, and had wrought death, and the
dead body as well as the spiritually dead soul were
the evidence of its sway ' ; while cedar-wood,
hyssop, and scarlet may ultimately have been
regarded — though this is more doubtful — as 'the
symbols of imperishable existence, freedom from
corruption, and fulness of life' (A. Edersheim,
The Temple, 1909, p. 305 f. ). Discarding all magical
ideas, the worshipper of Jahweh thus endeavoured
to change the antique ritual into an object-lesson
or sacramental means of grace. The writer to the
Hebrews uses it as a stepping-stone to Christian
truth. Rejecting the Philonic distinction between
Levitical washings as directed to the purification
of the body and sacrifices as intended to effect
a purgation of the soul, he views the whole ritual
of lustration and sin-offering alike as an opus
operatum which can at the best purify only the
body. Accepting this idea on the bare authority
of Scripture, he makes it the premiss of an ar^-
ment a minori ad majtis. Jj (a particle which
posits a fact, and scarcely insinuates a doubt) the
Wood of goats and bulls and tiie ashes of a heifer
cleanse the flesh, defiled by contact with death,
much more does the life-blood of the Messiah
cleanse the conscience from dead works.
LiTKRATURK.— Malmonides, Uoreh, iii. 47 ; K. C.W. F. B&hr,
Symbolik des mosaischen CuUw, Heidelberg, 1837-39, i. 493 ff.;
W. Nowack, Lehrbuch der hebruischen Archiiologie, Krciburg i.
Ii. and Leipzig, 1894, ii. 288; art. 'Bed Heifer' in IIDH and
JE. James Strahan.
HEIR, HERITAGE, INHERITANCE
HFJR, HERITAGE, INHERITANCE 543
HEIR, HERITAGE, INHERITANCE.— 1. Conno-
tation of the terms used. — The words K\r]poi>6nos,
K\r]f>ovofila, K\r]pofofi(u (derived from K\ijpoi, ' a por-
tion ') have, like the Heb. verbs trv, hr.) and their
derivatives, which they render in the LXX, the
idea of a possession rather than of a succession, i.e.
of something obtained from another by gift (and
not gained by oneself, KTTjfw.) rather than of some-
thing that one has become possessed of through the
death of another (see Westcott, Hebrews, 1889, p.
168). This is especially the case when Israel is
regarded as the 'heir' of the land of Canaan ; suc-
cession to the Canaanites is not prominent in the
idea of this inheritance, for Israel inherited from
God, not from the i^eople of the land. In this sense
K\T]povo/jda is nearly equivalent to ' the promise' ; it
is a free gift from God — a fact emphasized in Ac 7*,
where Canaan is spoken of, and 20**, where the
Christian promises are in question. We can trace
in the OT (see Sanday-Headlain on Ro 8^") the tran-
sitions of meaning, from the simple possession of
Canaan to the permanent and assured possession,
then to the secure possession won by Messiah, and
so to all Messianic bles.sings.
On the other hand, tlie Latin heres with its
derivatives, used by the Vulgate, being a weak form
of x^/x's, ' bereft,' has the idea of succession ; it
means literally ' an orphan,' and so hints at the
death of the father. The English ' heir,' derived
from heres, usually suggests that the father is alive,
and that the son has not yet come into possession ;
while the verb ' to inherit ' and its derivative
' inheritor ' usually suggest that the father is dead
and that the son has come into possession. In all
the.se English words the idea of ' succession ' is
prominent. We must, therefore, be careful to
bear in mind that they are not quite equivalent to
the Gr. and Heb. words, and that their connota-
tion is slightly different.
It may, however, be noticed that when K\Ttpov6fio%,
etc., are used in the most literal sense (see below,
3 (a)), the idea of succession is not altogether
absent ; it certainly is present when biadr\Ki] is used
in the sense of ' a will,' as in He O^^'- (it is disputed
whether in Gal 3^'*^-, etc., it means 'covenant' or
' will ' : for the latter meaning see W. M. Ramsay,
Galatians, 1899, p. 349 ff. ; also art. CovEXAxf).
But it is obvious that where Kkrjpovofjioi is used of
Israel's inheritance in Canaan, or metaphorically of
the Jewish and Christian promises of salvation
(below, 3), the idea of succession must pass into
the background, for the Heavenly Father does not
die ; and this fact causes the difficulty in the other-
wise more natural interpretation or SiAd-qKij as a
'testament ' or ' will.'
The word KXripos in Ac 26'* and Col V- is rendered
' inheritance ' in the AV and the RV ; and in 1 P
5' Kkripoi. is in the AV ' [God's] heritage,' which is
the same thing. In the latter passage the RV
renders ' the charge allotted to you,' i.e. the per-
sons who are allotted to your care. It is easy
to see how icX^pos, ' a lot, came to mean ' that
which is obtained by lot' (Ac 1'^ 8-'), and so 'an
inheritance ' with the connotation ^ven above. In
Col 1'* the fjieph Tov K\r)pov is equivalent to the /lepls
TTft KXrjpovoijdas of Ps 16'. In Eph 1" iK\TipdidTi/j.ev,
which in the AV is rendered ' we have obtained an
inheritance' (this appears to have no good justiti-
cation), is translated in the RV ' we were made a
heritage,' i.e. ' we have been chosen as God's por-
tion ' (J. A. Robinson, Ephesians, 1903, p. 34 ; for
the metaphor see below, 3 (i)).
2. Laws of inheritance. — (a ) According to Jewish
law each son had an equal share, except that the
eldest son had double the portion of the others
(Dt 21"). This law did not apply to a posthumous
son, or in regard to the mother's property, or to
gain that might have accrued since the father's
death (A. Edersheim, LT*, 1887, ii. 243 f. note).
Thus the Prodigal Son (Lk I5"''), if he had only
one brother, would have received on his father's
death one third of the property. The father could
not disinherit by will, but in nis lifetime he could
dispose of his property by gift as he liked, and
so disinherit. Wills might be made in writing or
orally (ib. p. 259). Daughters were excluded if
there were sons ; but if there were no sons, the
daughter — or, presumably, daughters — inherited,
failing whom brothers, failing whom father's
brothers, failing whom the next of kin (Nu 27*"").
This is later legislation, for at first daughters
could not inherit ; when they were allowed to
become heiresses in the absence of sons, they
married in their own tribe, so as to keep the
inheritance within it (Nu 36-"'*). In the ordinary
case, however, wherethere were sons, the daughters
would naturally marry into another family, and
cease to belong to that of their father.
(6) The Roman and the Roman-Greek laws of
inheritance considerably affected the XT language.
St. Paul, writing to persons who would not be
familiar with Jewish law, refers to customs and
laws which they would at once understand. Ac-
cording to Roman law, sons must inherit, and a will
leaving property away from sons was invalid
(Ramsay, op. cit. p. 344). Sons and daughters
inherited alike (Lightfoot on Gal 4"). Ramsay
draws out the differences between strictly Roman
law and the law^ in hellenized countries conquered
by Rome, which was founded on Greek law : the
Romans left much of the latter in force. Accord-
ing to Greek law, a son could be disinherited (Ram-
say, p. 367). In Asia Minor and Athens a daughter
could inherit, and an adopted son probably married
the heiress {ib. pp. 340, 363). Daughters in Greek
law had an indefeasible right to a dowry (ib. p.
367). A minor came of age at the time fixed by
his father's will ; if there was no will, the law fixed
the period of nonage, but the Greek (Seleucid) law
diflered from the Roman as to the period (ib. p. 392).
See RoMAX Law.
These facts help us to understand some passages
in St. Paul which speak of the connexion between
sonship and heirship. In Ro 8'', Gal 3^ 4^
the latter is deduced from the former. We are
God's cliildren, and therefore His heirs. ' Thou
art no longer a bondservant but a son ; and if a son
then an heir through God.' ' If ye are Christ's then
are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise.'
Or the sonship is deduced from the heirship ; in
Gal 3" ' they which be of faith ' — who succeed as
heirs to Abraham's faith [here the idea of succes-
sion may be faintly seen] — ' the same are sons of
Abraham.' In Col 3^ bondservants are promised
'the recompense of the inheritance,' but this is
because by becoming Christians they become the
sons of God. Similarly in He 12*, though the idea
of inheritance is not explicitly mentioned, the
promise ( 1 1^) can be attained only by suffering (cf .
below, 3 {/)) ; and if Christians refuse this, they are
'bastards and not sons.' Bastards cannot inherit
the promise.
3. Usage in the NT. — (a) The words KX-npovo/jxn,
KXrjpovo^Lia, etc., are used literallv, as in the Parable
of the Vineyard (Mk 12^, Mt 21^, Lk 20'*), where,
however, tliere is a metaphorical interpretation
(see (c)) ; so in Lk 12'^ where Jesus is asked to
divide the inheritance between two brothers,
apparently to settle a dispute, and in Gal 4', where
the son, the heir, is as a servant during his nonage,
though lord of all the property, the reference being
to the Law and the Gospel. The words are also
used literally in the NT of Canaan as the land of
promise ; cf . Ac 7', where it is meant that Abraham
did not actually enter into possession ; and He 11"-,
where Isaac and Jacob are fellow-heirs (avyKXrip-
544 IIEIE, HERITAGE, INHERITANCE
HELL
ovofioi) with Abraham ; and He 12", where Esau
failed to inherit tlie blessing. So in Gal 4"" (a
quotation from Gn 21'") Ishniacl, the son of the
handmaid, may not inherit with Isaac, the son of
the f reewoman ; this also is applied to tlie Law and
the Gospel.
(b) From the literal sense the passage is easy to
the metaphorical — the idea of the Messianic hope.
Noah became ' heir of the righteousness which is
according to faith' (He IF). Abraham was
promised that he should be ' heir of the world '
(Ko 4^^) — a passage which has given some difficulty
to commentators, as there is no such promise
explicitly made in the OT ; the reference is pro-
bably to Gn 12^ 22'" and similar passages : in
Abraham's seed all the nations of the earth should
be blessed ; cf. Gn 18'8, and [of Isaac] 2Q*. This
promise is quoted in Ac 3^' by St. Peter, and in
Gal 3'* by St. Paul. The reference in Ko 4'^ can
hardly be to the possession of Canaan, which would
not be called ' tlie world ' (see also {d) below). By
a somewhat ditl'erent figure Israel is said in the OT
to be God's inheritance or portion ( Dt 9-** -^ 32") ;
and in the LXX addition at the end of Est 4 the
Jews are spoken of as ' thy [God's] original inherit-
ance' (rrjp i^ apxv^ KXrjpovo/xlav ffov). Conversely,
God is said to be the inheritance of the sons of
Aaron or of the Levites (Nu W, Dt 10», etc.). In
the sense of the ' Messianic hope' (as in the more
literal sense of the possession of Canaan) the words
' inheritance ' and ' promise ' become almost identi-
cal, as in Gal y\ He 6".
(c) The ' promise ' is fulfilled by Jesus becoming
incarnate. He describes Himself as the Heir in the
Parable of the Vineyard. He is the Heir because
He is the Son, the First-born, as opposed to the
servants — i.e. the prophets. In He 1^ Jesus is
called the ' heir of all things ' because He was the
Instrument in creation through whom the Father
made the worlds (ro!>s alQvas). So in v.* He is said
to have ' inherited ' a more excellent name than
the angels. The metaphor is doubtless based on
Ps 2" : the nations are given to Messiah as His
inheritance (see Westcott, op. cit. p. 8).
{d) In Jesus, Christians are Abraham's heirs,
whether of Jewish or Gentile stock (Ro 4'"'- ). They
inherit Abraham's faith, and are therefore his sons ;
the promise did not depend on Abraham's circum-
cision, but was before it, though it was conhrmed
by it ; nor was it dependent on the Law. Thus all
nations are blessed in Abraham, and he is the heir
of the world (see above (A)). In Eph l^'* St. Paul
uses in regard to Gentile Christians the very words
which described Israel's privilege : ' promise,'
' inheritance,' ' emancipation,' ' possession (Robin-
son, op. cit. p. 36). By adoption Ave were made
fellow-heirs with Christ (Ro 8'''), and a lieritage
(Eph 1"). Gentiles are fellow-heirs Avith Jews
(Eph 3*', Ac 26'") ; and Christians are fellow-heirs
together of the grace of life (1 P 3^) — e.g. husbands
and wives are fellow-heirs because they are Chris-
tians. See art. Adoption.
(e) The inheritance is described as ' eternal life '
in Tit 3^ ('heirs according to the hope of eternal
life' ; cf. the Gospels : Mt ID^^, Mk 10'^ [where |1 Mt
19^6 substitutes 'have' for 'inherit'], Lk 10'-« W^);
as 'the kingdom' in Ja 2', Eph 5' ('kingdom of
Christ and God'), and by inference in Col P'^'-
(these seem to be founded on our Lord's words
recorded in Mt 25**, where the predestination, and
the giving, of the kingdom are emphasized ; cf.
Dn 7^ and the Slavonic Secrets of Enoch, §9 [' for
(the righteous) this place is prepared as an eternal
inheritance']). In He l"the inneritance is ' salva-
tion,' and so by inference in 1 P !•"•. In He 6'-
it is ' the promises.' In 1 P 3" it is the ' grace of
life,' i.e. the gracious gift of eternal life (Alford,
Bigg); in v.* it is 'a blessing.' It is the portion
(K\7/poj)of the saints in light (Col 1"), and is eternal
(He9">), incorruptible, undefiled, unfading (1 P I*).
With the NT idea of an ethical inheritance or
portion we may compare Wis 5', Sir 4'^ (glory) 37»
(conlidence among his people), the f^thiopic Book of
Enoch, Iviii. 5 (the heritage of faith), Psalms of
Solomon, xii. 8 (inheritance of the promise of the
Lord), xiv. 7 (life in cheerfulness).
(/) One condition of inheriting is self-denial (Mt
19-'«, where ' receive' of Mk l(Pand Lk 18** becomes
' inherit' when applied to ♦ eternal life '). We are
'joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer
with [him] ' (Ro 8''). We must imitate those who
' through faith and patience inherit the promises '
(He 6'^); 'he that overcometh shall inherit and
become God's son' (Rev 2F — the only instance in
Rev. of K\r)povofjAti)). Other conditions are meek-
ness and humility (1 P 3*, ' not rendering evil for
evil or reviling for reviling, but contrariwise bless-
ing; for hereunto were ye called that ye should
inherit a blessing ' ; cf. Mt 5', Ps 37'^) and sanctifi-
cation (Ac 20^^). The inheritance is forfeited by
self-indulgence ( 1 Co e**'-, Gal 5''"), and is not reached
by ' flesh and blood 'or by ' corruption ' (1 Co IS"")
— a spiritual regeneration is necessary for its
attainment.
(g) In a real sense the inheritance is already
entered upon.* In He 6'^ the present participle
K\r]povo/jiovi>T(t)v is used : 'those who are inheriting'
(the Vulg. has the future hereditabunt , but some
old Lat. MSS have the present j90<iMnij<r) ; so in 4*
' we which have believed do enter — are now enter-
ing {el(Tepx6fieda) — into that rest,' not as Vulg. in-
grediemur, 'shall enter' (see Westcott, op. cit. p.
95). The kingdom has already begun (>It 3*^, and
the parables of ch. 13). Yet the inheritance will
not be fully attained till the Last Judgment (Mt
2b^% In Eph 1'* St. Paul speaks of the sealing
' with the Holy Spirit of promise 'as 'an earnest
{dppa^ibv) of our inheritance,' and in the same con-
text (v. ^"'•) uses language which shows that in some
sense it is entered upon already (cf. 2 Co 1^ 5*).
The same thing is seen in Col 1'-'- ; Avhile in 3**
the promise to Christian bondservants that they
should receive from the Lord the ' recompense of
the inheritance ' rather points forward to the world
to come. So in IP !*'• the reference seems to be
to the future : ' an inheritance . . . reserved in
heaven for you' (so Bi<'g ; but this is denied by
Hort and von Soden). In this connexion we must
be careful not to confuse our thought by connect-
ing 'inheritance' with our own death, or the
' death ' of this age. There is no idea here of ' suc-
cession ' (see above, 1). A. J. Maclean.
HELL. — 1. Context. — The word most frequently
so rendered in the EVis the Gr. ^'Stjj (see HADES).
In the NT, outside the Gospels, ' liell ' is also used
in translating the two Gr. words -yiewa (' Gehenna ')
and the very rare verbal form raprapAw ('send into
Tartarus').
The former occurs only once, viz. in Ja 3®,
where it is obviously used metaphorically for the
evil power Avhich is revealed in all forms of un-
licensed, careless, and corrupt speech. In the
figurative phrase 'set on fire of Gehenna,' the
author of the Epistle has clearly in mind the
original idea of tliat name in the a.ssociations of
the Valley of Hinnom, witli its quenchless fire and
its undying Avorm (2 Ch 28^ 33« Jer 7").
The name ' Tartarus ' (2 P 2^) carries us out of
the association of Hebrew into the realm of Greek
thought. It is the appellation given by Homer (//.
viii. 13) to that region of dire punishment allotted
to the elder gods, Avhose sAvay Zeus had usurped.
» Cf. the concpption of the heavenly citizenship and eternal
life having already begun in this world : Eph 2i9, Jn :fl* XT', 1 Jn
3U 6l2f..
HELL
HELL
545
'I will take and cast him into misty Tarurus,' says Zeus,
• right far away, where is the deepest guU beneath the earth ;
there are the 'g^te of iron and threshold of bronze, as far be-
neath Uades as heaven is high above the earth.'
The Greek word passed into Hebrew literattire,
aiid is found in En. xx. 2, where Uriel is said to
have sway over the world and over Tartarus (cf.
Philo, de Ex.iecr. % 6). The passage in 2 Peter
shows evident traces of the effect upon it of the
Book of Enoch, so it is not necessary to go further
aheld in order to discover the source of the word.
In the Christian sections of the Sib. Or. the word
is of frequent occurrence, and appears sometimes to
be used as equivalent to Gehenna and at other times
as the name for a special section of that region.
Cf. i. 126-129 :
' Down they went
Into Tartarean chamber terrible.
Kept in firm chains to pay full penalty
In Gehenna of strong, furious, quenchless fire.'
With this passage should be carefully compared
En. cviii. 3-6, where some exceptional features
occur in the description of heU. The passage is
in a fragment of the earlier Book of Noah, now in-
corporated in the larger work.
'Their names,' sa\-s the seer, 'shall be blotted out of the book
of life, and out of the holy books, and their seed shall be de-
stroyed for ever, and their spirits shall be slain, and they shall
cry and make lamentation in a place that is a chaotic wilderness,
and in the fire shall they bum ; for there is no earth there. And
I saw there something like an invisible cloud ; for by reason of
its depth I could not look over, and I saw a flame of fire Uazing
brightly, and things like shining mountains circling and sweep-
ing to and fro. And I asked one of the holy angels who was
with me, and said unto him : " What is this shining thing? for
it is not a heaven but only the flame of a Mazing fire, and the
voice of weeping and cr>'ing, and lamentation and stroi^ pain."
And he said unto me : "This place which thou seest — here are
cast the spirits of sinners and blasphemers, and of tiioee who
work wickedness, and of those who pervert everything that the
Lord hath spoken through the mouth of the prophets." '
As Charles points out in his notes on this passage,
the writer has confused here Gehenna and the hell
of the disobedient stars, conceptions which are
kept quite distinct in the earlier sections of the
book (cf. chs. xxi. and xxii.).
2. The idea in apostolic and sab-apostolic litera-
ture.— We have to pass beyond the strict use of
the word ' hell ' to discover the wider range of the
conception in the literature of the NT that comes
within the scope of our examination. There are
two or three terms found in the Apocalypse, to
which we must now turn.
(a) The Apocahjpse of John. — (1) In Rev 9' 'the
pit of the abyss' (see Abyss) is regarded as the
special prison-house of the devil and his attendant
evil spirits. This conception is probably derivable
from similar sources to those from which Tartarus
comes, though there are pecnliarand interesting feat-
ures abput it, details of which will be found in the
special article devoted to its explanation. Closely
connected with the idea of the abyss is its demonic
ruler Abaddon (v.^i, see Abaddox), whose name
figures frequently in the Wisdom -literature, and
is generally translated in the LXX by a-riL\eia =
' destruction.' According to one Hebrew authority,
Abaddon is itself a place-name, and designates the
lowest deep of Gehenna, from which no sonl can
ever escape (see H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St.
John, in loco). In the Asc. Is. iv. 14 is a somewhat
similar passage : ' The Lord wiU come with His
angels and with the armies of the holy ones from
the seventh heaven . . . and He will drag Beliar
into Gehenna and also his armies.'
(2) 'The lake of fire' is an expression found
several times in Rev. (cf. 19^, etc.). It is described
a.-i the appointed place of punishment for the Beast
and the False Prophet, for Death and Hades them-
selves, for all not enrolled in the Book of Life, and
iinally for those guilty of the dark list of sins given
in 21*. It is questionable whether the original
VOL. I.— 35
imagery underlying the expression is derived from
the story of the Cities of the Plain, or the Pyri-
Khlegethon— the fiery-flamed river — one of tlie tri-
utaries of the Acheron in the Homeric vision of
the under world (cf. Od. x. 513). Probably elements
from both enter into it. A passage in the Book of
the Secrets of Enoch, x. 1-6— remarkable for the fact
that hell is here set in the third heaven (see W.
Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums, Berlin, 1903,
p. 273 n.) — has close parallels with the passage in
Kev 21^ The following extracts will show how
close and suggestive the imagery is — and as it
probably dates before a.d. 70, the actual connexion
is not improbable.
'They showed me there a very terrible place . . . and all
manner of tortures in that place . . . and there is no light
there, bat murky fire constantly flameth aloft, and there is a
fiery river coming forth, and that whole place is everj'where
fire . . . and those men said to me : This place is prepared Utt
those who dishonoor God, who on earth practise . . . magic-
making, aachantments, and devilish witchcrafts, and who bout
of their wicked deeds, stealing, lies, calumnies, envy, ranooor,
fornication, murder . . . for all these is prepared thia place
amongst these, for eternal inheritance ' (cf. also Ate, I*, iv. 15).
In the Sib. Or. we have similar language, e.g. iL
313:
' And then shall all pass through the bdmlng stream
Of flame unquenchable.'
Again, in iL 353 ff. we have :
' And deathless angels of the immortal God.
Who ever is, shall bind with lasting bonds
In chains of flaming fire, and from above
Punish them aU I^ scom^ most terribly ;
And in Gehenna, in the gloom of night.
Shall they be cast 'neath many horrid beasts
Of Tartarus, where darkness is immense.'*
(3) In Rev 20^* ' the lake of fire ' is further defined
as 'the second death' — a phrase which recurs in
other passages of the book {e.g. 2^'). The phrase
seems traceable to Jewish sources, for it occurs
frequently in the Targums (cf. Wetstein on Rev
2"). It seems likely that the Jews, in turn, de-
rived it from the ideas of Egyptian religion, since
we find Ani, seated on his judgment throne, say-
ing, ' I am crowned king of the gods, I shall not die
a second time in the tinderworld' {The Book of the
Dead, ed. E. A. Wallis Budge, London, 1901, ch.
xliv. ; cf. Moffatt in EOT, 1910, on Rev 2").
(b) St. Paid. — This idea of the 'second death'
leads naturally to St. Paul's use of ' death ' in such
passages as Ro 6^^. When the Apostle uses the
word, he evidently intends by it ' something far
deeper than the natural close of life. . . . For him
death is one indivisible experience. It is the cor-
relative of sin. . . . Death is regarded as separa-
tion from God. ... So death, conceived as the
final word on human destiny, becomes the synonym
for hopeless doom' (Kennedy, St. PavTs Concqih
tions of the Last Things, 1904, pp. 113-117).
(c) Other NT books. — This idea is also strongly
and strikingly put in Ja 1": 'Sin, when it is full-
grown, bringeth forth death' (cf. 2 Ti l^". He 2").
In Jude *• ^^ and 2 P 2" we have the expressions
' darkness ' and ' the blackness of darkness ' used as
descriptive epithets of the place of punishment.
Once more we are face to face with the peculiar
imagery of apocalyptic, and we recall how the
word is employed in the Gospels, especially in the
phrase 'the outer darkness' (cf. Mt 8^). In En.
X. 4 we read, ' Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast
him into the darkness,' and throughout that book
the imagery frequently recurs. The figure is_ a
natural one, and needs no elaboration to make its
force felt.
(rf) Apostolic Fathers. — In turning to the Chris-
tian literature of the 1st cent, that lies outside the
NT, we do not find any very striking additions to
* These translations are taken from the English version by
M. S. Terry, New York, 1899.
)46
HELL
HELL
the ideas contained in the pages of the canonical
books. In Did. 16 we read, 'All created mankind
shall come to the fire of testing, and many shall be
offended and perish,' which is only a faint reflexion
of the Synoptic statements. In the Epistle of
Barnabas, xx., the way of sin is described as 'a
way of eternal death with punishment,' and then
follows a list of sins reminiscent of Rev 2P. In
the 8th Similitude of the Sliepherd of Hernias —
that of the tower-builders — there are many refer-
ences to judgment, but they are couched in such
general terms as 'shall lose his life,' 'these lost
their life finally,' or ' these perished altogether
unto God.' In Sim. ix. xviii. 2 there is a striking
passage differentiating between the punishment of
the ignorant and those who sin knowingly : ' They
that have not known God, and commit wickedness,
are condemned to death ; but they that have
known God and seen His mighty works, and yet
commit wickedness, shall receive a double punisli-
ment, and shall die eternally.' In ix. xxviii. 7 it
is said : ' Confess that ye have the Lord, lest
denying Ilim ye be delivered into prison (eJs
decr/xuT^piov).' There can be no doubt here that
' prison ' is meant to signify the place of punish-
ment beyond death. Tiie imagery may be derived
from the saying in Mt 5-''-^, but we must remember
that ' bonds and imprisonment ' were frequently
the terms in which the ai)ocalyptic literature
figured future punishment.
(e) First-century apocalypses. — The conception
that meets us in tlie Parable of Dives and Lazarus,
viz. that the places of bliss and torment are visible
the one from the other, meets us in two or three
apocalypses of the 1st century. In the section of
2 Esdras discovered in 1875, we have one of these
passages (vii. 36-38) :
' And the pit (Lat. " place") of torment shall appear, and over
against it shall be the place of rest: and the furnace of hell
(Lat. "Gehenna") shall be shewed, and over against it the
paradise of delijfht. And there shall the Most High say to the
nations that are raised from the dead, See ye and understand
whom ye have denied, or whom ye have not served, or whose
commandments ye have despised. Look on this side and on
that : here is delight and rest, and there fire and torments.'
In Ass. Mos. X. 10 occurs the passage :
'And thou wilt look from on high and see thine enemies in
Gehenna, and thou wilt recognize them and rejoice, and thou
wilt give thanks and confess thy Creator.'
Very similar passages are found in the Booh of
the Secrets of Enoch, chs. x., xl., and xli.
This idea is even more clearly set forth in the
Apocalypse of Peter, and forms the beginning
of the famous passage in which is set forth the
punishment of sinners, in the manner that to later
ages is most familiar in the pages of Dante, wliere
the forms of torment bear an appropriate relation
to the sins committed. The passage begins at
§ 20, and follows immediately on the description of
Heaven, with these words :
'And I saw another place over against that, very dark : and
it was the place of punishment : and those who were punished
there and the punishing angels had a dark raiment like the air
of the place. And some were there hanging by the tongue:
these were those who blasphemed the way of righteousness, and
under them was fire burning and punishing tiiein. And there
was a great lake, full of flaming mire, in which were certain
men who bad perverted righteousness, and tormenting angels
afHicted them."
In these verses we trace the similarity to ideas
and figures we have already discovered in the Apoc.
of John and elsewhere, but the furtlier descriptions
of this Inferno borrow elements from Greek and
other sources, and are considerably more extra-
vagant than anything within the limits of the 1st
century. It may, however, be onlj' a development
of the conce))tions found in such 2nd cent, docu-
ments as Jude and 2 Peter.
(/) Josephns. — An interesting witness to con-
temporary Jewish thought in the 1st cent, is
Josephus, who has two references to the belief of
the Pharisees in the matter of future punishment.
In Ant. XVIII. i. 3 we read :
'They also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in
them, and ' ha . under the earth ihere will be rewards or punish-
ments, acc< rd ng as they have lived virtuously or viciously in
this life; aid the latter are to be detained in an everlasting
prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live
again.' Again in BJ u. viii. 14, quotuig the doctrine of the
Pharisees, he claims their view to be ' that the souls of bad men
are subject to eternal punishment.'
{q) Testament of Abraham and Pistia Sophia. —
Before our survey of the literature closes, note
must be taken of two striking and somewhat
fantastic conceptions contained in two works,
which probably set forth, among their obviously
later material, elements of an earlier tradition.
The first is found in the Testament of Abraham,
which may date in its origin from the 2nd cent, of
our era, and doubtless some of its contents are
from a much earlier period. In its present form it
appears to issue from a Jewish-Christian source,
and its place of origin seems to be Egypt. Ele-
ments of Egyptian thought enter into its literary
form, among the most striking of which is the idea
of the weighing of .souls— a scene that often occurs
on the Egyptian pagan monuments. The trial of
souls is tlireefold — once before Abel, at a later
time by the twelve tribes of Israel, and finally by
the Lord Himself. Abraham is permitted to wit-
ness the procedure of judgment, and he finds two
angels seated at a table. The one on the right
hand records the good deeds, and the one on the
left the evil deeds of the soul to be tested. In
front of the table stands an angel with a balance
on which the souls are weighed, while another
has a trumpet having within it all-consuming fire
whereby the souls are tried. These more elaborate
.and somewhat mechanical methods form a link
Avith the imagery of medirevalism, but also prove
the manner in w'hich Christianity was proceeding
along eclectic lines, and taking to itself ideas and
figures from other religions.
In the curious work known as the Pistis Sophia,
probably of Valentinian, and certainly of Gnostic
origin, we have a bizarre conception of the place
of punishment — described as 'the outer darkness.'
It is presented in the form of a huge dragon with
its tail in its mouth, the circle thus formed en-
girdling the whole earth. Within the monster are
the regions of punishment — ' for there are in it
twelve dungeons of horrible torment.' Each
dungeon is governed by a monster-like ruler, and
in these are punished the worst of sinners, e.g.
sorcerers, blasphemers, mv.rdcrers, the unclean,
and those who remain in the doctrines of error.
To express the awfulness of the torture, it is said
that tbe lire of the under world is nii^e times
hotter than that of earthly furnaces ; the fire of
the great chaos nine times liotter than that of the
under world ; the fire of the 'rulers' nine times
hotter than that of the great chaos ; but the fire of
the dragon is seventy times more intense in its
heat than that of the 'rulers' ! In S Baruch, iv.
and V. there is the mention of a dragon in close
connexion with Hades, and in the latter chapter
Hades is said to be his belly (cf. Hughes' notes
on the passage in Charles' Apoc. and Pseudepig.).
We are at least reminded by such passages of the
Jonali legend, and it maj' well be that behind all
three is a conmion origin. The dragon is obviously
an old Semitic myth, and this particular form of it
{irobably gives fresh significance to the words in
iev 20^: 'the dragon, the old seri>ent, which is
the Devil and Satan.'
8. General considerations.— Several points of
importance emerge from our study of these refer-
ences in the literature of the 1st century.
(1) The surprisingly few passages in the NT in
HELL
HELLENISM
647
tchich the tcord 'heir (or even the idea it conveys)
occurs. — Outside the Gospels and the Apocalypse,
there are practically no occasions on which we tind
it employed. Its a'bsence from the writings of St.
Paul, Hebrews, and the Epistles of John is most
noteworthy. Our surjirise is not lessened by the
recollection of the fact t hat, according to the Rabbis,
• seven things were created liefore the world —
Torah, Ge/tenna, the Garden of Eden, the Throneof
Glory, the Sanctnarj',*Repentance, and the Name
of Messiah.' In St. Paul at least, six of these are
frequently in evidence, and this gives more signifi-
cance to his silence about the seventh.
(2) The re-if rained sanity of the references that
do occur. — When we compare even the lurid
images of the Apocalyiise with those we have cited
(and even more ^^nth those that may be found else-
where in the same books) from contemporarj' works
of a similar character, we cannot but be impressed
with the soberness of the language. There is noth-
ing of the morbid curiosity and unpleasant linger-
ing on horrors, to say nothing of the sense of gloat-
ing over vengeance and cruelty, tliat we find in
so many kindred passages. TeiTible imageiy is
sometimes employed, but it is clearly imbued with
a high moral aim, and designed to convey a clearly
spiritual purjwse. The absence of such allegoriz-
ing methods as those of Philo is also noteworthy.
Imagery is the method in which the truths are here
conveyed, not allegor}-.
(3) T/ie obvious dependence on the teaching of the
Gospels for all that is said about hell. — It would be
hard to point to any passage in the NT that con-
veyed any fresh or fuller ideas about the place of
pimishnient, its nature and purpose, than are to be
found in words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels.
This is certainly noteworthy and significant, even
if the Gospel teaching on Gehenna is an echo of
current ideas. In form it probably is, but in
ethical content it surely goes deeper, and we are
made to feel that in the conception of the speaker
this place also is founded by the Eternal Love — it
too is part of the Father's Universe. Dante, the
greatest aiwcalyptist of subsequent ages, had caught
the true evangelical spirit of this most awful doc-
trine when he ^^Tote :
' Jastice incited my sublime Creator ;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love "
(Inferno, ill. i).
(4) The permanent spiritual lessons to be derived
from the descriptions of future punishment. — (a)
All evil powers—death, sin, and their forces — are
to be finally destroyed in the fires of Divine judg-
inent (Rev iO*"- ^•^, 2 P 2*. Jude i'). According to
St. Paul, all powers that make against Christ and
His Kingdom are to come to final ruin (cf. 2 Th
28-10, 1 Co lo-*-^).
(b) Evil in the heart of men must entail punish-
ment and, if persisted in, eternal loss and shame,
and a death that is more than death (Ko 6^**, Rev
21»). The terrible nature of moral evil, and of the
heart's persistent rebellion against God, is the ap-
palling reality that renders these pictures of judg-
ment truly significant, and reileems them from
being the mere pageantry of a heatetl imagination.
Whatever we may say of their outward fonn, there
is an inexpressible giandeur behind them that rests
in a true conception and representation of the
pi\-ine Holiness. ' The fear of hell ' in these pages
is much more than ' the hangman's whip ' ; it is the
cry of the soul in the presence of Him who is re-
vealetl as of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,
but who is, nevertheless, the Ketleemer of His
Universe.
LiTKRATCRE. — See artt. Hade-s, Abtss, Lifk axd Death, etc.,
in this Dictionary, and also in HDB, DCG, EBr, and EBi. In
addition to the works referred to in the body of the article,
the following should be consulted : R. H. Charles's separate
editions of the various apocalj-pses, the great work edited by
him. The Apocrypha and PteudepigrapM oj the OT, Oxford,
1913, and Between the Old and Sew Tetlament*, London, 1914 ;
E. Hennecke, Heutett. Apokryphen and Handbuek zu den
neutett. Apokrfphen, Tubingen, 1904 ; J. A. Robinson and M.
R. James, The Gogpel aec to Peter and the Reflation of
Peter, London, 1892; A. Harnack, IJler da* gnotl. Btiek
PistisSophia {=TU \u. 2X Leipzig, 1891; R. H. Charles, A
Critical UUtory of the Doctrine of a Future Lije\ London,
1913 ; S. D. F. Salmond. The Chrigtian Doctrine of Immor-
talittf*, Edinburgh, 1901 ; E. C. Dewick, Primitive Chrigtian
Etehatotogv, CambridKe, 1912; W. O. E. Oesterley, The
Doctrine of the Last Thittgs, London, 1908 ; A. Schweitzer,
The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Eng. tr., do. 1910 ; G.
Dalman, The Words of Jesus, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1902 ; P.
Volz, Judisehe Eschatologie, Tubingen, 1903.
G. CuRPJE Maetix.
HELLENISM The word ' HeUenisra,' which in
Greek writers stands for Greek civilization, has
now come to be used with a four-fold meaning.
(1) Since Droysen, it describes a particular peri«i
of Greek history and civilization ; (2) it is a name
for the influence of tliis Greek civilization on the
Oriental world ; (3) it marks a certain stream in
Judaism ; and (4) it denotes a party in primitive
Christianity. (1) and (2) are closely related to one
another, and so are (3) and (4).
1. Hellenism as a period.— The reign of Alex-
ander the Great marks a period in Greek history,
not only by reason of the expansion of Greek
influence but also owing to the rise of a new spirit
which affected language, literature, art, philosophy,
science, civilization in general, and religion.
See J. G. Droysen, Gesehichte des Hellenistnus-, Gotba,
1S77-78 ; J. Kaerst, Geschiehte des keUenistisehen Zeitalters,
Leipzig, 1901-09 ; P. Corssen, ' (Jber B^^riif und Wesen des
HeUenismus,' ZSTW ix. (1908) 81-96.
(a) Language. — The Greek tribes, hitherto
separated by rivalry and diflerence of dialect and
customs, became mixed. A common language, the
so-called ' Koine,' combining in its vocabulary and
its grammatical forms elements from various dia-
lects, took the place of the local dialects, and
succeeded even in robbing the Attic of its domin-
ating position in literature. Words never used by
Attic writers but found in Ionic poets or in Doric
inscriptions became current : as, e.g., yoyyv^ia, kX/-
pavos, and so did forms like Xadj, va6s, fin.yiv instead
of IjP, olSafief instead of Ifffier. The formation of
compounds went on ; as the prepositions had lost
somewhat of their meaning, two prepositions were
combined : efaxoorAXw. eriSiaTdcffw, e-rurwdyw ;
and again nouns were formed from these com-
pound verbs : e|axo<rroX-ij, eTrididrayfia, eTuTvyaytiryri.
On the other hand, there was a tendency to use the
simple where in former times a compoimd would
have been used. The grammar lost certain moods
and tenses : the dual and the optative became
almost obsolete ; the pluperfect was rare. The
syntax tended to become more simple ; the beauti-
ful periods constructed by the Attic cla-ssics by
means of particii)les and infinitives used as nouns
disappeared ; the infinitive was generally expressed
by tva or 5s-a« used without a final sense.
Most of these changes can be explained from
the point of view of the evolution of the Greek
language itself. A language is always growing
and changing, and the Koine marks only a step in
a long process from the Greek of Homer's time to
modern Greek. Of course this development did
not always follow a straight line : there was a
constant reaction, on the part of certain authors,
against the popular current, in favour of culturecl
literary forms ; besides the rich and flowery
Asianism an artificial Atticism wa*< cultivated by
the ^vriters of the Hellenistic period.
Moreover, it is evident that an admixture of
Oriental elements also influenced the Greek
language. The vocabulary of this period shows
Persian words {rapddeuros, dyyaptveir), as well as
648
HELLENISM
HELLENISM
Hebrew ami Aramaic; (irdo-xa, aafi^aTov), Egyptian
(irairvpos, 'I'apaw), and Koman (Srivdpiov, KovaruSia).
Many of the grammatical and syntactical pheno-
mena may be explained more readily by refer-
ence to the ])arallel.s in these languages. One
Hebraism is vpoaioirov tivos \afipdveiv, whence come
wpoffwTroXz/Trrwp and npoffUTToKrjxf/ia.
See H. A. A. Kennedy, Sonrcen of NT Greek, Edinbur^'h,
1895 ; A. N. Jannaris, An Ilistorical Greek Grammar, London,
1897 ; A. Deissmann, art. ' Uellenistisches Gricchisch ' in J'JiE'->
vii. 627-039, J'hUolony of the Greek Bible, Eng. tr., London,
1908 ; A. Thumb, />("« griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des
Hellenismus, Strassburg, 1901 ; J. H. Moulton, Prolegomena
to the Grammar of the JiT3, Edinburgh, 1908. See aiso next
article.
{b) Literature. — The period of Hellenism marks
a decrease in skilful composition, and at the same
time e.xhibits much artificiality. The writing be-
comes more popular in form as well as in contents :
romance and novel attain to a large circulation ;
there is a demand for biographjy, special history,
travellers' guide-books, and the like ; many subjects
are treated in the form of letters. Pseudepigraphy,
i.e. writing under an assumed name of some great
authority of former times, is very common. By
indulging in this practice, writers acknowledge
their own lack of authority and originality. To
imitate classical models well is the gieat aim of
most of them, and this is what they are trained to
do in the schools. As a matter of fact, they do
their best work when MTiting in the ordinary style
of popular talk ; but they are not aware of this,
and always aim at something more artistic, taking
the artificial for the artistic. Many Hellenistic
writers show a special interest in strange countries,
peoples, languages, and customs.
See U. von Wilamowitz-MoellendorfF, &'e«cfcicfc(edergfriecA-
ischen Litteratur'i (Kultur der Gegemrart, i. 8, Leipzig, 1907) ;
F. Susemihl, Geschichte der griechigchen Litteratur in der
Alezandrinerzeit, do. 1891-92 ; W. Christ, Geschichte der
grieehischen Litteratur^, ed. O. Stiihlin and W. Schmid, Munich,
1908-09.
(c) Art. — The same holds true of the fine arts.
It is a period of decadence, a natural decrease of
physical and mental energy following on a period
of highest achievement. In this special case the
movement was determined by Oriental influences.
The idealism of classic Greek art gave place to
realism and symbolism ; natural brightness was
turned into austere solemnity, beauty into mag-
nificence, charm into sensuality.
See Springrer-Michaelis, Uandhuch der Kunstgesehichte, i.
(=Z)a«.(i«ert!<»i!<), Leipzig, 1911; L. vonSybel, Weltgcschichte
der Ktinst im Altertum^, Marburg, 1903; S. Reinach, The
Story of Art throughout the Ages, London, 1904 ; J. Strzy-
gowski, Orient oder Rom, Leipzig, 1901 ; E. A. Gardner, art.
' Art (Greek and Roman) ' in Ji'JiE i. 870.
{d) Philosojyhy.— The philosophers of Hellenism
are mostly eclectics ; the general tendency is to-
wards the practical questions of life. Stoicism
and Cynicism are the leading schools ; their
teacliing is popular and, indeed, is very often a
kind of preaching. Philosophy becomes a sub-
stitute for religion : it is moral education. Here
again the lack of originality makes itself con-
spicuous by tlie fact that recent products appear
either under old names or as commentaries on old
books. There is a tendency to rely on the authority
of the ancients. Homer and I'lato are treated as
the divine te.vt-books from which one has to derive
all doctrines by means of allegorical inter))retation.
Mythology is turned into metaphysics and physics,
or psychology and morals. There is a particular
interest in psychological analysis.
See Ed. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen*, Leipzig, 1909,
vol. iii.
(e) Hi.s'/ori/ and science. — The Hellenistic jieriod
is one of collecting : Aristotle's work is continued,
but the i)ower of pervading the materials collected
with a real constructive spirit is absent. There-
fore history becomes a collection of single tales of
various kinds and often of very difierent value, not
sifted critically, but put to^'ctiier without even an
effort to connect them. Similarly science is no-
thing but a vast pile of collected materials, all
kinds of real observations being mixed ui> with the
most ridiculous superstitions. Great store is set
by what is extraordinary, anil only the miraculous
is regarded as of any importance.
See J. P. Mabaffy, Greek Life and Thought from the Death
of Alexander to the Roman Cotujuenl'^, London, 1896.
(/) Civilization in general. — Hellenism marks
a period of the highest civilization, in the .sense
that all the comforts of life were highly developed.
Travelling had become fairly easy, and whatever
luxuries a refined life required were brought by
tradesmen from the remotest parts of the worlci.
Houses were furnished in the most costly way,
marbles, metals, ivory-carvings, and mural paint-
ings being frequently used in decoration. Even
the cheap furniture in daily use by poor ixjople
was seldom without decoration.
The social differences were enormous : there were
a few very rich people while the majority of men
were poor. Production was carried on by slaves,
who were imported in great numbers from the
East ; although there was also room for the Avork of
free labourers. Politics did not occupy the citizen
much, for power had passed from the democracy
to the monarchy. The free citizen devoted his
time mostly to athletics, and the games were
always attended by a large crowd. These people
were accustomed to be fed and entertained by the
government or by rich politicians. To musical and
theatrical performances were added competitions
between orators. The cruel and sometimes vulgar
amusements of the circus came more and more into
vogue, and the people even wanted criminals to be
executed in the arena. Hellenistic civilization
made people unfeeling and at the same time Aveak
and effeminate ; in spite of the humane doctrines
of the Stoa, many people were cruel to their slaves
and employees. Human life was not valued, and
suicide was frequent.
See p. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-rmnische Kultur'^^(\n H.
laetzmann's Z/anrf6?(cA 2«»n. Ay, new ed., Tubingen, 1912); F.
Baumg:arten, F. Poland, R. Wagner, DiehellenischeKuitun^,
Leipzig, 1913 ; J. P. Mahaffy, The iiilver Age of the Greek World,
Chicago, 1906.
ig) Religion. — The old family-cults and State-
cult were continued as a matter of course ; but
there was a notable reduction of local cults, the
greater gods, so to speak, swallowing up the minor
heroes. On the other hand, a tendency towards
deification and hero-worship was alwaj's introdu-
cing new objects of worship. The most prominent
was the worship of the kings, and, in the Koman
period, of the Emperor.
As early as Plato the old Greek religion had
changed from a more or less cheerful worship of
Nature into a kind of gloomy mysticism. The
influence of the Oriental cults strengthened this
tendency. Man tried to get rid of his own mortal
nature by entering into mystical union with tiie
divine nature. Immortalitj-, continuation of life,
became the prominent notions, and this brought
to the front the conceptions of the hereafter and
of the judgment, of a life of bliss and of penalties
in the other world. The feeling of guilt became
stronger and stronger. Men tried by all means to
get rid of sin, wliich, however, did not mean to them
moral so much as physical evil. Thus the Oriental
rites gained all the greater influence, because they
promised to relieve men from sin and death by
letting tliem share in the life of the deity. The
means to this end were mostly sacramental, »'.'•.
l)hysical : communion with the god was efl'ected by
eating and drinking at certain sacred meals, witii
the use of certain sacred vessels, and certain sacred
HELLENISM
HELLENISM
549
fominlsp, by froin<» throngh a number of synilwHoal
performances and keeping many roles, the reason
of which nobody could explain. The individual
rite ventured to give full assurance of life, but the
faithful usually resorted to a variety of rites, and
the prie.sts could not object to this ; their religion
was tolerated and must be tolerant : this is implied
in the system of jxdj'theism. The important feat-
ure is not the individual rite, but the whole attitude
of mind produced by these Mysteries.
See F. Ctunont, Le* Reliwms oruntales dans le paqanittne
romain^, Paris, 1909; R. Reitienstein, Die kellenuUtiehen
MffUrienreliaumen, Leipzig, 1910 ; L. R Famell, art. ' Greek
Religion ' in ERE \i. 42i>-5.
2. Hellenism as hellenization of the Orient. —
Alexander had conquered the Orient, i.e. Asia
Minor, Syria, Egypt, Persia, etc., and his suc-
cessors founded there several kingdoms. But his
idea was not only to subdue the Orient by force for
political purposes, but to pervade it with the spirit
of Greek civUization, and at the same time to make
Oriental and Greek culture a unity. A marriage
between East and West, symbolized by his own
wedding with Roxane at Persepolis, was his aim.
In fact, the Greek dynasties of the Attalids, Seleu-
cids, Ptolemys, etc., succeeded in imposing on their
respective dominions a veneer of Greek culture :
the Greek language was used at the court, in the
army, on the coinage, in inscriptions, and as the
common language in many of the colonies and towns
founded by these kings ; Greek law was used — with
local modifications ; Greek cults were officiall}' in-
troduced beside the native ones ; Greek artists
constructed the palaces and public buildings, and
decorated them in the Greek style with sculptures
and pictmes.
This Greek culture, however, was but a veneer ;
it was only on the surface, and had only a temporary
existence. Underneath, the old Oriental civilization
still persisted, and came to the surface after a short
time — more especially in the 3rd cent. A.D. We
find many of the artihcial Greek names of localities
disappear and the old place-names reappear ; we ■
find the vernacular, so far spoken only by illiterate
country folk,* recapture the cities and create a i
national literature. The cosmopolitan feeling of
the Hellenistic period was replaced by an outburst
of nationalistic enthusiasm, which made it easy for
Muhammadanism to over-run all these Eastern pro-
vinces and sweep away the last remainders of the
Hellenistic civilization.
In the meantime, Hellenism had not only assimi-
lated many Oriental notions and beliefs : it had
opened the West itself to Oriental influence. This
is in fact what is usually called Hellenism — that
mixture of Greek and Oriental civilization which
characterizes the culture of the last centuries B.C.
and the first centuries A.D. We have already seen
how it influenced Greek language, literature, art,
science, etc. The most significant feature was re-
ligious syncretism. Not only were the Oriental
gods called by Greek names (Ammon and Baal
became Zeus ; Melkart, Herakles ; Astarte, Aphro-
dite ; Thoth, Hermes, etc.) — what is usually called
theocrasy — but the Oriental gods themselves under
their own names were introduced into the West and
worshipped by Greeks and Komans with no less
fervour than by their own countrymen. But it
was not the plain Egyptian cult of Isis, or the
Phoenician cult of Adonis, or the Phrygian cult of
the Magna Mater and Attis, or the Persian cult of
Mithra that made so many proselytes among the
Greeks and Romans : on their way to the West
these cults had been transformed into Greek
Mysteries, and it was in this form that they proved
* When St. Paol arrived at Ljstra, the i)eople there spoke
Avcaofta'Tt (Ac 14^), bot St. Paul pr»ched in Greek and was
understood.
<o attractive. The Greek notion of a Mvstery — i.e.
the idea of a community of initiated believers who
sought to enter into union with the god for the
Curpose of obtaining divine immortality — took
old of these Oriental cults, whose myths were ex-
cellently adapted for this ptirpose, and whose strange
rites lent themselves to the sacramental methods
of such a communion. Moreover, the Orient had
produced a priestly wisdom which was easily trans-
formed into a Greek gnosis: Hellenism identified
the objects of this speculation with its philosophical
notions, hellenizing even their strange names into
psychological terms.
It is the special character of this Oriental Hellen-
ism that one can scarcely distinguish its separate
elements : they are borrowed from all parts of the
Eastern world, and so mixed up with Greek elements
that^the whole mass appears as a homogeneous unity
in substance and form. Many of its features may
be explained as readily from the Greek as from
the Oriental point of view.
3. Jewish Hellenism. — Into this melting-pot of
Oriental and Greek civilization Judaism was throwm
in diflerent ways.
(a) Babylon, where the largest number of Jews
was settled, felt the Greek influence, after the
Persian period, but only for a comparatively short
time. Thus some Greek elements, besides the
Persian ones, may have been introduced even
here.
(6) Palestine itself, the native soil of Judaism,
came under the political and cultural influence of
the Ptolemys of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria,
and this influence became so strong that we find the
religious leaders of the Jewish people, the priestly
aristocracy, calling their sons by Greek names
(Menelaus [Menahem] or Jason [.Joshua, Jesus]),
and making them practise athletics according to
the Greek usage. They came very near to a hellen-
izing of their religion as well, untU the ill-timed
attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C. to
introduce Greek idol-worship in place of the Jewish
cult caused a reaction, when the Maccabees re-
volted and succeeded in delivering their country
from the political domination of the Seleucids.
They were less successful, and probably less zealous,
in their attempt at getting rid of Hellenistic civil-
ization. To learn the Greek language, to be in
touch with the Western culture, was still an aim
of most cultured Jews. All the time, until the
destruction of Jerusalem, two tendencies were at
work side by side : the tendency to isolate Judaism
by prohibiting all relations with Hellenistic sur-
roundings, and tlie tendency to give Judaism more
influence by encouraging Jewish boys to learn the
Greek language and to assimilate Greek ideas. It
is rather diflicult to estimate the exact measure of
the Hellenistic influence on this Palestinian Juda-
ism ; but that it was great there can be no doubt.
We see it in the vocabulary of Rabbinical Aramaic
which includes terms like Stotfijoj, Ka-Hfywp, etc., ; we
see it further in many notions of Jewish psychology
and even eschatology : it is Hellenistic individual-
ism which distinguishes later from earlier Jewish
theories.
(c) The Greek Diaspora. — TherealJewish Hellen-
ism, however, was to be found among the colonies
of Jews scattered all over the Grseco-Roman world,
the so-called Diaspora.* These Jews, who in some
filaces — as, e.g., Alexandria and the Cyrenaiea —
ormed a third of the population and had a power-
ful organization, had opened their minds to the
spirit of Greek civilization. They not only spoke
* Besides the Jewish Diaspora there was a smaQer Samaritan
one, which developed the same Hellenistic tendencies — « Greek
translation ot the Bible, a poem on the history of Scbeni,
chronicles, etc. (Schiirer, GJV* iii. [Leipzig, 19091 51, 481 ff.;
P. Glaue and A. Bablls, Fragmente einer grieek, Vberuteunn
dea tamaritan. Pentmteueka (tiGG, 19U, 167 B.J).
550
HELLENISM
HELLENISM
the Greek language in addition to their vernacular ;
it was their vernacular : they used it in Divine
service, when they gathered in the synagogues to
worship the God of Israel ; they hatl the Holy
Scriptures, the Law of their God, translated into
Greek ; they had writers among themselves who
had as great a masteiy of the Greek language as
any Greek author ; they produced poems on the
history of the Jewish people in the style of Homer,
and even dramatized tlie Scriptures after the model
of Euripides. They made a real study of Greek
philosophy, and themselves contributed to the
development of philosophical thought. While the
unknown author of the Book of Wisdom under the
name of Solomon sets forth the Jewish wisdom as
it was influenced by Greek ideas, Philo, the famous
Jewish philosopher, finds in Greek philosophy the
real meaning of the Jewish Scriptures. He is, of
course, a Jew, and he remains so ; his heart belongs
to his people and to its religion, but his head is
filled with Greek notions and speculations, and it
is from the Greek philosophers that he derives what
he sets forth as the teaching of the ideal law-giver,
Moses.
This Jewish Hellenism of the Diaspora was in
fact Judaism, akin to the true Palestinian Judaism
in substance, but it was a special kind of Judaism.
Its horizon Avas widened, and its strictness weak-
ened. Starting from an ejirlier form of Judaism,
it did not share in the specific Eabbinical develop-
ment of later Palestinian Judaism ; on the other
hand, it developed in its own way. Many things
were possible to these Hellenistic J ews which would
have been intolerable to the Palestinian Kabbis ;
and many things were uncertain to the former
regarding which there was no question among the
latter.
Hellenistic Judaism, therefore, was regarded by
pious Palestinians as a Judaism of lower rank, a
semi-heretical second-class Judaism. Nevertheless,
it was a very influential pioneer of Judaism anion"
the Greeks and lloinans. The broader views proved
to be more attractive to the heathen. They took
the moral injunctions from the Law without being
compelled to take circumcision and other strange
rites ; they accepted these moral views, together
with the great Iiope of the Jewish people, from the
Greek Uible. They had thus the guarantee of an
old revelation transmitted in a most venerable
book, and yet it sounded quite modern when inter-
Sreted by men like Philo. The language of this
ook was, of course. Oriental, but was this not in
itself a sign of something Divine or an evidence of
venerable age ? Thus many a heatlien became an
adherent of this broad Judaism, being admitted as
a worshipper and supporting the Jewish congrega-
tion by means of his wealth, and lending it his
influence. It was for the benefit of such faithful
proselytes that the Jews composed a moral cate-
chism in poetical form under the name of Phoky-
lides, or wrote the Sibylline Oracles, embodying
the hope of the Jewish people, or interpolated
hints to Jewish believers into the works of the
famous Greek authors. This Jewish propaganda
succeeded in gathering around the synagogues of
the Diaspora numbers of proselytes who approached
Judaism in various degrees.
Comparatively few Jews were led by contact
with Hellenism to apostasy, like Philo's nephew
Tiberius Alexander. For the most part the Jew
remained a Jew, faithful to his people and its re-
ligion even amidst Hellenistic surroundings ; and
the hatred which the average Greek population
felt for this strange element in their midst caused
the Jews to cling togetlier even more. The ideal
of many Jews of the Diaspora was to go to Jerusa-
lem, not only for a short pilgrimage, but with the
purpose of staying there and being buried there at
their death. Thus a considerable colony of Hellen-
istic Jews from all parts of the world settled in
Jerusalem : they had their own synagogues ; they
retained the habit of speaking Greek, and nourished
their peculiar notions about the Law and the uni-
versalism of salvation. It is from these circles
of Hellenistic Jews in Jerusalem that the name
' Hellenist ' is derived (Ac 6' 9^).
See C. Siegrfried, ' Bedeutung und Schicksal dcs IlcUenismus
im Judischen Volk," in ./J'Th, Ism, p. 2-'8 ff. ; E. Schurer, GJV*
iii. [Leipzijf, 1909J ; W. Bousset, Vie JMiaioa des JuUnUuins
im neuteitt. Zeitalter'^, licrlin, 1?K)G ; O. Holtzmann, ycitlest.
Zeitgeschichte^, Tubingen, 190(5 ; W. Staerk, Xeutest. /.eitge-
schiehtc, Leipzig, 19<)7, also,' Jiidentum und Ilelleiiismus,' in Da»
Chrintentum, do. 1908 ; A. Deissmann, 'Die HellenisicrunK des
seniit. Monotheismus,' in jVeue Jahrlrucherfur das kUms. Alter-
turn, 1903, p. Itil ff. ; M. Friedlander, Die religumen Le.ieeg-
unqen innerhalb des Jiidentums im Zeitalter Jem, Berlin,
1905 ; F. Buhl, art. ' Hellenisten ' in FRE^ vii. 623-637 ; ct art.
PUILO.
4. Hellenism in primitive ChrlBtianity.— The
gospel of Jesus was a Divine message to Israel ;
Jesus Himself had confined His ministry to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel ; it was only occa-
sionally that He dealt with pagans such as the
centurion of Capernaum or the Syroplia-nician
woman ; it is an exceptional case also when we
read in Jn IS-" that there were certain Greeks who
wished to see Jesus. The primitive community
which arose in Jerusalem after Jesus' Death and
Kesurrection was a purely Jewish one. But it is
remarkable that very soon, if not from the very
first, Hellenistic Jews joined this community of
Galilaeans. The very tendency of the gospel, uni-
versalistic as it was, appealed to these broad-
minded people, and they were ready to deduce the
consequences.
(a) The Hellenists in Jerusalem. — The first time
we hear of * Hellenists ' is on the occasion of a
quarrel between the two sections of the Christian
community in Jerusalem, the 'Hellenists' com-
plaining against the ' Hebrews ' that their widows
were overlooked in the daily food-supply (Ac 6').
Here the term seems to point primarily to the
ditierence of language, but we remark a feeling
of solidarity, a certain party-spirit, among these
Hellenists as opposed to the Hebrews. The
leaders of the community deal with the matter,
and, in order to satisfy the complaining partj',
elect seven prominent men from among the Hellen-
ists to take care of the food-supply. The first
officials of the Christian Church — except the
apostles — were thus Hellenists.
It was the Hellenists that occasioned the first
struggle of Ciiiistianity with the Jewish authori-
ties ; St. Stephen, one of the Seven, was accused
of having spoken against the Temple and the Law,
and by a sudden outbreak of popular hatred he
was put to death (with no autiiorization on the
part of the Komans). Tliis was tlie signal for a
general persecution of the Christians. Again, it
was the Hellenists who spread the gospel, not only
among the Samaritans (Philip the Deacon, Ac 8*"^)
but also among the Greeks in Antioch (Ac 11^).
This is the beginning of the Gentile mission : the
nameless men from Cyprus and Cyrene who are
mentioned here are the forerunners of St. Paul, in
some sense the first apostles of the Gentiles, the
founders of tlie Gentile Church. The beginnings
were small, but the fact in itself is of great import-
ance. Having seen the propaganda carrieil on by
Jewish Hellenism among the Gentiles, we may
readily understand the attitude of the Christian
Hellenists. Their mission work was probably
of rather an occasional kind, and they did not
work systematically like St. Paul, but they were
creative.
(b) St. Paxil himself, the Apostle of the Gentiles,
was not a Hellenist strictly speaking. Born in the
Diaspora, at Tarsus in Cilicia, he was nevertheless
HELLENISM
HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK 551
'a Hebrew of Hebrews' (Pli 3*) ; he had Pharisaic
surroundings, and was brought up in the spirit of
the Palestinian Rabins : he even went to Jerusalem
to complete his Rabbinical education. In spite of
his writing Greek and using the Greek Bible, he
thinks in the way of a trained Palestinian Rabbi.
After a missionary period of about -25 years, he
was able to address the people of Jerusalem in
their own Hebrew {i.e. Aramaic) language (Ac 21''*'
22^). Whether Hellenism — apart from general
culture — had any notable influence u{)on him is an
open question. From time to time the Hellenism
of St. Paul is spoken of as a prominent feature in
early Christian history ; then again his predomin-
antly Rabbinical training is insisted upon by another
generation of scholars. The facts are that Hellen-
ism, as we have seen, was in itself a mixture, which,
in addition to the Greek element, included much
that was Oriental ; the Rabbinical education also
comprehended a good many Greek notions; and
the reasoning of the Jewish teachers was often
very similar to the Stoic philosophy, as the popular
Greek language of the Hellenistic period had a
Semitic tinge. Parallels to most of the Pauline
expressions may be adduced both from Rabbinical
and from Greek writers, as was sho\vn long ago by
J. J. Wetstein (1751). It is, therefore, very diffi-
cult to tell exactly how far the influence of Hellen-
ism may be tracetl in St. Paul. The one thiag
which seems certain, however, is that he did not
borrow consciously from the Mystery religions.
He is afraid of the demoniac influences in these ;
he tries to keep his faithful readers from any con-
taminating participation in idol-worship : for this
is the sphere where the demons exercise their
influence (1 Co lO^'**). Whatever may be said
about St. Paul's indebtedness to the Mysteries —
and a good deal has recently been said by Percy
Gardner, R. Reitzenstein, and others — this must
always be borne in mind.
(c) St. PauFs companions. — There is, however,
one point which has not hitherto received due
attention. That is the fact that St. Paul's com-
panions belonged more or less to the Hellenists,
and that he may thus have been unconsciously
subjected to the influence of Hellenistic notions.
Barnabas the Levite came from Cyprus (Ac 4*).
Silas (Silvanus) also was evidently a Hellenist.
Timothy wa.s the son of a pagan father and a Jewish
mother ; he had not been circumcised before St.
Paul took him into his company (Ac 16'*^* )• Titus
was a Greek (Gal 2^). ApoUos was a Hellenistic
Jew, bom and trained at Alexandria (Ac 18"-^).
Aquila and Priscilla were Jews from Rome, bom
in Pontus (Ac 18-). In none of these cases (except
that of Apollos) can we make out exactly how far
the Greek influence went ; but it is probable that
most of the people referred to were much more
Hellenistic in their training than St. Paul him-
self, while Apollos was certainly an out-and-out
Hellenist.
We see the difFerence when we turn from St.
Paul's letters to the Epistle to the Hebrews and
the so-called Catholic Epistles. Hebrews certainly
came from the pen of a Hellenist like Apollos : its
language and style, its interpretation of the OT,
its definition of faith (11'), its psychology (cf.
214. 18 57. Hj arg sufficient evidence of this. The
same is proved for 1 Peter by the metaphorical
language in 1'^- — 2', and the terminology taken
over from the Mysterv-cults (2* [diflerent from
1 Co 32, He 5'2-''] IS- ^3^-1). The language of
Jude '^ ^® points in the same direction. In 2 P 2^
a proverb is quoted which goes back to Heraclitus
(P. Wendland, Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Aka-
demie, 1898, pt. xlix. ), and the eschatology is partly
Stoic (this letter we should perhaps call Hellenistic
in the wider sense). The Epistle of James also is
Hellenistic in this broad sense, as may be seen in
the psychological analysis of temptation (1"),
in the de.scription of Go^'s unchan<,'eableness (1*^),
in the notion of regeneration (I"'), in the parables
(1-^- ** 3'- *) ; axoKi^y (!'*• '*) belongs to the termino-
logy of the Hermetic literature ; the * wheel of
nature ' (3*) is a Stoic term, etc. 1 Clement uses
tlie legend of the phoenix to demonstrate the
Christian hope of resurrection.
The Johannine literature, on the other hand,
originates in a Palestinian Judaism transplanted
into tiie soil of Asia Minor. There are Hellenistic
elements in it (e.g. the notion of the Logos), but
they belong to the latest stratum in the develop-
ment of the Johannine doctrine.
Christianity was thus influenced by Hellenism
in various ways: after the Jewish Hellenists of
Jerusalem had started it on its world-mission, the
Hellenism of tfie Jewish Diaspora came to their
aid, and the Hellenism of the Greek-Roman world
received it gladly, after having prepared a way for
it. In receiving it, however, Hellenism tumetl the
gospel into a ilystery as it had done with the
other Oriental cults. From this point of view
Gnosticism and Catholicism are to be understood
respectively as a rapid and a slow hellenization of
Christianity.
LiTERATCRE. — In addition to the works already cited, see
A. Hamack, Dogmengeaekiehte*, f. (TnbineeD, lw09]; E. voa
Dobschiitz, PrrMeme des apotioligeAtn Zeitalters, Leipzig,
1904, p. 97 a.; The ApogtoUe Age, London, 1909; 'Christentuiu
und Griechentuni," in Dot CkiiMentum, Leipzig, 190s ; G.
Hoennicke, Dag Judenekristentum, Berlin, 19(ji» ; C F. G.
Heinrid, ' Hellenismiis und Cbrlstentum,' in BM. Zeit- vnd
Streitfragen, Leipzig, 1909 ; W. Glawe, Dte HeUenisUnmg de»
Ckrittentums in der Gesehiehte der Theologie, Berlin, 1912. Cf.
artt. STfcPHES, Pacl. E. VON DOBSCHUTZ.
HELLENISTIC AMD BIBLICAL GREEK.— 1.
Definition. — The term 'Biblical Greek' denotes
the language of the Greek versions of the OT, and
more especially the LXX, as also that of the NT,
with which may be associated the Apocrypha and
the works of the Apostolic Fathers. This group
of writings, however, is separated from the world
of Hellenic culture not so much by any peculiarity
of language as by the ideas which find expression
in them. In point of fact. Biblical Greek is a
deposit of the widely-difiiised Hellenistic language
— the so-called Koine.
2. The term 'Koine.' — This term is used to
signify the Gr. language in its development from
the time of Alexander the Great to the close of the
ancient period, excluding, of course, the older dia-
lects so far as they survived at all, and excluding
also the language of the Atticists (2nd-5th cent.
A.D.), who sought to revive the Attic form of
speech, but, as children of their age, were unable
to free themselves wholly from the influence of the
living, i.e. the spoken, tongue. In designating the
common language of the Hellenistic period by
the single word ' Koine,' we are but following the
usage of the ancient grammarians, who employed
the expression ^ kootj StdXe/cTos to ditterentiate the
language used by aU from Attic, Ionic, Doric, and
/Eolic. * But as the words Kcnyij, koivov, koipQs were
not employed by the ancients in a uniform way,
we may venture to take the term ' Koine ' as
applying both to the spoken tongue and to its
literary form. The literary Koine, of which Poly-
bius may be called the most typical representative,
is a compromise between the spoken Koine and the
older literary language. This holds good of every
text written in the Koine, such works diflering
among themselves only as regards the degree in
which the two elements are intermingled. The
so-called Atticists, i.e. the grammarians, such as
* Cf. A. Maidhof, Zur Begrifsbettimmung der Koine,
Wnrzburjr, 1912, and the criticism of Thomb, in MontUttekrifl
fur hohere Sehulen, Berlin, 1913, p. 392 tt.
552 HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK
Moeris, wlio taught tlie rules of correct Attic,
usually distinguislied such words and forms of the
Koine as they rejected, by tlie term 'EWij^ej, as
contrasted witli the 'AttikoI, the linguistic forms
they approved of ; and hence iWrjvl^eiv means ' to
speak the Hellenistic language,' and the' E\\7]vi<Tral
of Ac 6' 9^ are 'Hellenistic-speaking Jews' (pos-
sibly applied also to other Orientals).
3. The geographical domain of the Koine.— The
native soil of Biblical Greek, i.e. Palestine, Syria,
and Asia Minor, formsbut a partof the great Hellen-
istic domain, the furthest boundaries of which
were nearly coincident with those of Alexander's
Empire. The hellenization of those parts of this
area which were originally non-Hellenic was, of
course, not uniform. It was most complete in Asia
Minor, which in the Middle Ages became the home
of Byzantine-Greek culture. Even in the Roman
Imperial period Asia Minor was almost entirely
Greek, and dominated by Greek civilization ; nor
is this contravened by the fact that the old in-
digenous languages, such as Piirygian, Cap-
padocian, etc., were still spoken sporadically
until the 5th and 6th centuries. Lycaonian is
referred to as a spoken language not only in Ac
14",* but, as late as the 6th cent., in the Legend of
St. Martha, while the Celtic dialect of the Gala-
tians was still a living vernacular in the time of
Jerome. HoU t rather overestimates the import-
ance of the evidences he gives of this fact, for the
dialects in question occupied a position in Hellenic
Asia Minor not very different from that of Albanian
in Greece at the present day ; and, in fact, the im-
portance of these tongues is hardly to be compared
with that of Welsh in England, the Phrygian
dialect alone surviving in a few short texts
(sepulchral inscriptions) dating from the Imperial
period. The influence of the ancient languages of
Asia Minor upon Greek (i.e. the Koine) was like-
wise of the slightest.^ In Syria, as in Egypt,
Greek was probably confined in the main to urban
districts. In the numerous Hellenistic towns situ-
ated between the Pliojnician coast and a line to the
east of the Lake of Gennesaret and the Jordan —
cities like Antioch, Acco, Damascus, and Gadara —
the Greek language prevailed, as also did Greek
administration, law, and culture. As regards
Jewish Palestine, on the other hand, it can hardly
be said that there was any real hellenization there
at all. The Jews certainly learned Greek as the
medium of intercourse and commerce and also for
literaiy purposes, but they retained their Aramaic
mother- tongue as well. Jesus and His apostles
spoke Aramaic, and preached in Aramaic, though
they may not liave been ignorant of Greek ; as a
matter of fact, the ability to use more than one
language is not uncommon in the East to-day, even
among the lower classes. § From the fact that Jesus
and the apostles spoke Aramaic it is to be inferred
that the X67ta 'Iriaov and the earliest records of
His life were originally composetl in Aramaic, and
here too there emerges a special problem regarding
the character of NT Greek (as also the Greek of
the LXX) — a problem which will engage our
attention below. But the general character of
Biblical Greek can be understood only in relation
to its basis in the Koine, and accordingly we must
here deal first of all with the sources, the origin,
and the character of the latter.
i. Sources for the Koine. — The Koine was a
* Cf. J. H. Moultoii, Einlfituiuf, p. 0.
t ' Das Fortlebeii der Volksspnichen in Kleinasicn in nach-
chriatlicher Zeit,' in Hermes, xliii. [lOOS] 240 ff.
I Thumb, Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellen-
ismus, p. 139 ff.
§ On the diffusion of HellenlsUc Greek cf. Thumb, op.
eit. 102 ff. ; Mahaffy, Th« Progress of Uellenism in Alexander's
Empire, Chicago, 1005 ; on the lang^uage of Jesus see, most
recently, Moulton, np. cit. p. 10 1.
natural outgrowth of classical Greek, yet in its
written form, as has been said, it exhibits a com-
promise between the traditional literary language
and the vernacular of the time, and accordingly the
extant texts of the Hellenistic period allord at
most but indirect evidence as to the true character
of the vulgar tongue. It is only what is new in
these texts, i.e. what dillers from Attic, that we
can without hesitation claim for the living language,
while, as regards the element in which the written
Koine agrees with Attic, we are uncertain to what
extent it is to be ascribed to tradition. Nor are
the various texts and chisses of texts all of the
same value for our knowledge of the true forms of
the vernacular.
(1) This holds good in a peculiar degree even of
the literary productions of the Hellenistic period.
The LXX, the NT, and the earliest Christian
writings approximate very closely, in a linguistic
respect, to the contemporary papyri and inscrip-
tions, and may as a whole be regarded as tlie most
faithful literary reflex of the spoken tongue, w hile
the Atticism which prevailed about the same time
took an entirely diflerent direction, and sought to
purge literature of all admixture with the ver-
nacular. But even the Atticists, of whom Lucian
of Samosata was the most brilliant representative,
were unable, with regard to either vocabulary or
syntax, to free themselves wholly from tlie influ-
ence of the speech of their day.* But they suc-
ceeded in arresting the movement that from the
time of Xenophon and Aristotle had been tending
to bring the literary language into line with the
cosmopolitan development of Attic, that is to say,
witii the Koine, a development which had been
followed even by the New Attic Comedy. The
language of Polybius is closely akin to that of con-
temporary inscriptions ; he does justice to the
demands which the spoken tongue in its develop-
ment laid upon literary diction. The philosopher
Epicurus, t and Teles the Cynic,t as also Pliilo of
Byzantium, the engineer (if lie was a contemporary
of Archimedes), § may be regarded as the immediate
forerunners of Polybius.
(2) Our best sources for the common tongue,
however, are the papyri of Egypt and the inscrip-
tions— more especially those of Asia Minor. A
comparison of these two documentary groups shows
that the Hellenistic Greek of Egj'pt dillers in no
essential respect from that of Asia Minor, and we
may therefore safely use the copious discoveries of
papyri as throwing light upon the general character
of the Greek spoken in the age in which they were
written (for details see below). Of papyri and in-
scriptions alike it may be said that, the less educated
the writers, the more faithfully do they reflect the
current speech, and accordingly we find great dis-
parity between, e.g., the documents of the Perga-
menian State and the sepulchral inscriptions of the
common people ; or, again, between the records of
the Egyptian government-offices and the letters
written by simple folk. These differences have
not yet been studied in detail.
An excellent survey of these sources, with copious references
to the literature, is found in Deissniann, Licht vom OsUn-, p.
(iff. (Eng. tr.*, 1911, p. 9 ff.). Detailed investigation of their
language has made remarkable jirogress in recent years, (o)
Inscriptions: E. Schwyzer (Schwclzer), Grammatik der per-
gamenischen Inschri/ten, Berlin, 18!»8 ; E. Nacbnianson, Laute
und Formen der magnetischen Inschriften, Upsala, 1!>03 ; Dienst-
bach, De Titulorum Prienensium sonix, Marl)iirjj;, 1910. A
special study of the numerous Cliristian inscriptions of Asia
• Cf. W. Schinid, Der Attteismvs in seinen Ilaiiptvertretern,
.5 vols., Stuttgart, 1887-97.
t Cf. P. Linde, De Epicuri voeabiilis ab optima Atthide
alienis, Brcslau, 1906.
t 3rd cent. B.C. ; cf. Teletis rdiqttia, ed. O. Hense, TUbingen,
1909.
8 Cf. M. Arnim, /V Philonis Bpzantii dieendi genere,
Greifswald, 1913.
HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK 553
Minor would be of great advantagre in relation to the NT. (>•)
Papj/ri : E. Mayser, GrammatiJc der qrUchUchen I'apyri au»
lUr Ptolemderzeil, Leipzig, 1906 ; W. Cronert, Memoria graeea
Hemilanentii, Leipzigr, 1903. (c) From the mass of epigraphic
material are to be disUngaished, as a special class, the impreca-
tory tablets, which are composed in a very low t>-pe of speech.
They have been collected by R. Wunsch in the Appendix to the
CIA, and by AudoUent, Defixionum tabeiUe, Paris, 1904 (cf.
Thumb, in Indogerm. Foneh. Ameiger, xviii. [1905-06)41 ff.) ; as
yet only the Attic tablets have been studied philologically : df.
E. Schwvzer, ' Die Vul^anprache der attischen Fluchtafeln,' in
Seue Jdhrbueherfurdat klam*ehe AUertum, v. [1900] 244 IL ;
Rabehl, De Sfmume defixufnum attic., Beriin, 1906.
(3) Excellent witnesses to the nature of the ver-
nacular are to be found also in the Grseco-Latin
conversation - books or colloquial guides (ipfirjvei-
pjiTo) and glossaries used for the purpose of learning
either language, as e.g. the Colloquium Pseudo-
Dotitheanum * and the Hermeneumata Pseudo-
Dositheana.\ The abundant Greek material found
in the Corpus glossarionnn latinor-um still awaits
expert investigation ; it yields much fresli infor-
mation regarding the vocabulary of the colloquial
language.
(4) The remaining sources for the Koine are of
second-hand authority, but are not less important.
Thus we have the references of the Atticizing
grammarians of the Imperial period, as in the
A^fetj 'ArrtKai of Moeris, extracts from the gram-
marian Phrynichus, and the ' AvTiaTTiKun-ii^. The
object of these writings was to formulate rules for
the correct use of classical Attic, and they contrast
the latter with the ' common ' language. What
they reject belongs to the Hellenistic vernacular,
as e.g. the forms fip.yjp (for fiv), Kpv^o) { = KpinrTw),
ypaia (ypavi), aiKXO-i-vofiat. (instead of ^SeKirrrofuii) ;
what they defend and explain is alien to it, as e.g.
fjv, f<TTT]v, veoTTOi (instead of vofftrSs).
(5) We have another source in the Greek elements
which have found their way into Latin, Gothic,
Ecclesiastical Slavonic, and Oriental languages.
These elements exhibit the features of the lan-
guage current at the time of their adoption. The
Greek words in Gothic, and especially in Old Slavic, J
reflect certain phonetic characteristics of the Greek
current in the North, while those in Armenian,
Rabbinical Hebrew, and Coptic exhibit features
of tlie Greek spoken in Asia Minor, SjTia, and
Egypt. These foreign sources have contributed
much to the Hellenistic vocabulary, which is en-
riched not only by fresh meanings, but al-so by
new words and new forms. The Greek elements
preserved in the Oriental sources are, as we should
expect, of special importance for the study of
Biblical Greek ; but so far Armenian alone has
been thoroughly studied in its bearings on the
history of the Greek langiiage.§
(6) The two foregoing sources are surpassed in
the value of their contributions by Modem Greek.
For the student of the Koine, and therefore also
for the investigator of Biblical Greek, a knowledge
of Modem Greek is as necessary as a knowledge of
the Romance languages for the investigator of ver-
• Ed. Krumbacher, in the Festschrift fiir W. von Christ,
Munich, 1S91.
t Ed. G. Goetz, in the Corpus glossariorum, iii. [Leipzig, 1892] ;
cf. J. David, in Comment. phildogcK Tenenses,v. [do. 18»4] 197 ff.
J Cf. Vasmer, Grceeo-Slavie Stitdies (Russ.), 2 pts., St. Peters-
burg, 1906-07.
J Cf. Thumb, 'Die griechische Elemente im Amienischen,'
in ByzanL Zntsehrift, vs.. [1900] SSS ff. For the other
languages, cf. S. Krauss, Griechische und lateiiiisehe Lehn-
worter in Talmud, Midrasch und Targum, 2 vols., Berlin,
1898-99 ; also Thumb, Indogerm. Fonch. Ameiger, vi. [1896]
56ff., xi. [1900] 96 ff. ; Perles, in Byzant. Zeitsehrift, viiL [1899]
539 ff . , X. [1901] 300 ff. ; A. Schlatter, ' Verkanntes Griechisch,' in
Beitragezur Forderung ehriMlicher Theolooie, iv. 4 [1900], 49ff. ;
Fiebig, ' Das Griechische der Misohna,' in ZSTW ix. [1908] ; O.
von Lemm, ' Griechische und lateinische Worter im Koptischen,'
in Bulletin de I'Academiede St. Petersbourg, 5th ser. xiii. 1 [1900]
45 ff. ; Wessely, ' Die griechische LehnwSrter der sahidischen
und boheirlschen Psalmenversion,' in Denkschriften der Wiener
Akademie, liv. [1909]; KahUs,' Griechische Worter im Koptischen,'
in SB AW, 1912, p. 1036 ff.
nucular Latin.* The more thorough the study of
the modem tongue, the greater the gain for its
earlier phase. For Modem Greek, witli its dialects
(exclusive, however, of the Tsaconic spoken in the
Pamon Mts. , a descendant of the Laconian dialect),
is a natural development of the Koine, and its
origins are to be sought therein. The knowledge
of Modem Greek, accordingly, enables us to under-
stand many features of the Koine, and to put a
proper estimate ujKtn its recorded forms. With
the help of the modern language we may reconstruct
its Hellenistic basis and thereby supplement in
many points the knowledge derived from the con-
temporary Hellenistic texts. The character of the
Koine as a whole is in fact to be inferred from the
character of Modem Greek ; for, since the dialects
of the latter are to be traced, not to the various
types of the ancient language, such as Doric, iEolic,
and Ionic, but to the Koine, the Koine, the direct
deposit of which we find in the inscriptions and
the papyri, must have supplanted the ancient dia-
lects, and must have been a common language in
the proper sense, i.e. a language spoken by all, as
is affirmed by the ancient grammarians. And
what holds goiod of the language as a whole, holds
good also of its elements in detail. Thus certain
forms in Hellenistic documents — as e.g. fKeyav, and
the like, in MSS of the LXX and other texts — are
proved to have belonged to the spoken Koine by
the fact that they survive in Modem Greek. This
is true also of words like aiKxaivoncu (Mod. Gr.
fftxaivo/Mi), which is rejected by the Atticists,
and of LJat. loan-words like KoXapSai (in inscrip-
tions ; Mod. Gr. ra KoXavra). Some Latin loan-
words, as e.g. (6)<rTtTt (hospitium), 'house,' may of
course be regarded as ha\ing been introduced into
the Koine not later than the close of the ancient
periotl. The Hellenistic substitution of Iva for the
infinitive culminates in the ilod. Gr. loss of the
infinitive, and it is therefore quite wrong to regard,
e.g., every Iva in Biblical Greek as having the force
of the classical final tva — a fact which has a direct
bearing upon biblical interpretation. Thus the
study of Modem Greek may likewise be of con-
siderable service to the biblical scholar, and may
often enable him to decide a doubtful case. If, e.g.,
the form i>eXos is attested as Hellenistic by the
ancients, while the NT has voXos, the Mod. Gr.
71'aXi (pron. yali) shows that the NT form too be-
longed to the Koine.
Moreover, the text of the Bible will occasionally
be elucidated by a knowledge of Modem Greek.
Thus Wellhausen (Das Ev. Matthtsi, Berlin, 1904)
conjectures that the ^ Sipa xapTJ\0ev of Mt 14'* means,
not ' the time is past,' but ' the time is advanced' —
an explanation which is supported by the Mod. Gr.
use of -rapa. in xapaToxw, ' above ' ; while the Greek
writer Pallis renders the ^pihfiara of Mk 7** not by
' meats,' but in the sense of the homonymous Mod.
Gr. word, i.e. as ' stench,' ' filth ' — an interpretation
which at least merits the attention of exegetes.
Modern Greek also tlirows light upon the question
of the Semitisms in Biblical Greek (see below).t
The projected thesaurus or idiotikon of Modem
Greek, the compilation of which is being subsidized
by the Greek Government, will accordingly prove
of great service in the study of Biblical Greek,
especially as regards the vocabularj-.^
5. Origin of the Koine. — In its essential character
' Cf. Thumb, ' Value of Mod. Gr. for the Study of Ancient
Greek,' in Class. Quarterly, viii. [1914] 181 ff.
t On the subject of this paragraph cf. Thumb, Die grieek.
Sprache im ZeitaUer des HeUerusmtts, p. 10 ff. ; also in Xeue
Jahrbucher fiir das klass. AUertum, xviL [1906] 247 ff. ; A.
Pallis, A few Notes on the Gospels, based chiefly on Modem
Greek, Liverjjool, 1903 (to be read with discrimination).
J Aids to the study of Jfodern Greek : G. X. Hatzidakis,
Einleitung in die neiigr. Grammatik, Leipzig, 1892; Thumb,
Handbook of the Jtodern Greek i'emactdar, tr. S. Angus, Edin-
burgh, 1912 (nith a bibliographical appendix).
554 HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GEEEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK
the Koino is the naturul development of Attic.
As early as the time of tlie Dclian Confetleratiuu,
Attic had spread beyond the coiiliiies of its native
region, and loiiie elements— an important feature
of the Koine — had already begun to lind their way
into the Attic vernacular.* In the Attic spoken
outside Attica — 'Great Attic,' as we might call
it — the process of rejuvenescence and fusion was
much more rapid, and it was here that the founda-
tions of the Koine were laid.f The resultant
modification of Attic appears most clearly in tiie
vocabuhuy. Similar features had already mani-
fested themselves in the diction of Xenoplion and
the New Attic Comedy. This modified Attic was
used at the Macedonian court before the time of
Alexander the Great. But it was in reality the
conquests of Alexander and the institution of
kingfloms by his successors that diflused the new
idiom througliout the Oriental world, and made it
the universal language of Hellenism. It is never-
theless quite wrong to assert that this language
was created by tlie Macedonians. The Macedonian
contribution is barely discernible, and cannot in
any case have been large ; it perhaps included the
surax -la-aa in fiacrlXiffaa. In this process of expan-
sion the Attic, as miglit be expected, lost some of
its characteristic features. Thus the aa- found in
most of the dialects, including Ionic, more and
more superseded the Attic tt (which is almost
obsolete in Mod, Or.), and non-Attic forms showing
fxr intermingled with forms sliowing pp. Hence ffo-
prevails — in accordance witli the papyri — in the
LXX, which, however, still retains r^rrwc and
iXaTTuv ; while we also find here Apffrjv and (rarely)
dppriv, dappGi, and (rarely) 6ap<ru. In the NT like-
wise TT occurs rarely, while e.g. OappQ and Oapa-Q
are both in use. That the use of pp was not due to
the influence of the literary language is shown
by Mod. Or. 6appCi alongside of (repviKds { = dp<TeviK6i).
The Koine develoi)ed more rapidly in the
hellenized lands outside Greece tliaii upon its
native soil, where the indigenous dialects ofl'ered
some degree of resistance to its growth. But by
the time when the uniform Ionic-Attic alpliabet
was adopted (400-350 B.C.), the Attic was asserting
its power everywhere, and from the 4th cent. B.C.
till about tile 2nd cent. A.D. the dialects were
gradually dispossessed, and at last swallowed up,
by the Koine ; in its foreign domains, however, the
lioine had prevailed from the outset, and had thus
gained a marked ascendancy alike as regards
culture and as regards the numbers of those who
spoke it. The absorption of the dialects did not
proceed everywliere at the same pace. The Ionic
succumbed most rapidly ; the Doric resisted longest :
in the Doric area, in fact, there emerged first of all
a Doric Koine, which wedged itself also into the
non-Doric Arcadia, between the ancient Arcadian
dialect and tiie common Attic tongue. The various
aspects of this wliole process of development may
be traced in tlie inscriptions. In many localities,
as e.g. Crete and Khodes, the gradual subsidence
of dialectic forms which is traceable in the inscrip-
tions reflects the changes in the living language.
In other parts, as e.g. Bocotia, the inscriptions
reveal a marked linguistic break, thus indicating
either that the local dialect, though no longer
spoken, was kept alive for a time as a literary
language, or that the Koine liad been introduced
as a written language before the dialect had en-
tirely disappeared.:;:
• Of. Xenoph. De Ilfpuhl. Atken. ii. 8.
t Cf. the researches of J. Schlageter in his Zur Laut- und
Formenlehre der axisserhalh Attikas ge/undenen attischen
Inschriften, ProK-ramm, Freiburir i. B., 1!K)8, and Der M'ort-
schaU der ausserhalb Attikas ge/undenen attisehen Inschriften,
Strassburg, li)12.
X Cf. Thumb, Die griech. Spraclie im ZeitaHerde* HeUenismxta,
p. '18(1. ; Wahrmann, Prolegomena ru einer Geschichte der griech-
The process of absorption, of course, could not
but react upon the Koine itself. But it is quite
wrong tosupiwse, witli I'. Kretsciimer (Die Entnlck-
■ung der Koine), that the Koine arose from a
manifold intermingling of the various (Jr. dialects.
This hypothesis finds no real support either in the
documents of the Koine or in Modern Greek,
'riius, to take but a single instance, Kretsciimer,
in citing the Mod. Gr. accentuation in dvOpCnroi
{ = &vdpuiroi), i(piyav ( = ((^yov) as a .survival of the
ancient Doric accentuation, overlooks the fact that
otlier Mod. Gr. accentual changes of the same kind,
as in AvOpuTTov, f(payafie, have nothing to do with
Doric at all ; so tliat, if the latter forms are due
to the operation of analogy (in conformity witli
dvdpwwoi, iipayav), the examples cited by Kretschmer
must be explained in the same way, i.e. as due to
accentual shifting on the analogy of dvOpwirovs,
((pdya/jLev. What took place in the districts of the
ancient dialects was simply that the Koine was at
first slightly coloured by the native idiom : and
doubtless this local character showed itself still
more plainly in the pronunciation, just as, e.g., the
domicile of those who speak t^nglish — whether it
be the north of England, the south of England,
Scotland, or North America — can be inferred from
their ' accent,' even though they use the forms of
the literary language. But the recognizable pro-
vincialisms of these local Koine types left only tiie
slightest traces in the process or development to-
wards Modern Greek, the reason being that they
had no source of support outside tiieir native
region. Thu.s, e.g., as early as the 3id cent. B.C.
the veterans in tiie Arsinoite Nome of Egypt — men
drawn from the most diverse quarters of Greece —
wrote the Koine without any aclniixture of dialectic
forms. Taken all in ail, the elements derived from
tlie local dialects of the Koine — apart from the
Ionic — are confined to certain forms, such as \a6s,
vadi, Xarofila, the preposition Ivavn, and a few
special words, as e.g. fiowSs (attested for Cyrene
and Sicily by the ancients).
We cannot easily determine the influence of the
vocabularies of the various dialects, as these voca-
bularies are much less known to us than that of
Attic. It was the Ionic dialect alone that, from
the period of the Attic naval league, made a
distinct contribution to the development of the
Koine. But even in the case of Ionic, the extent
of its dialectical influence cannot always be defined
with precision. Thus, while forms like fftpvpr)^ in
tlie LXX and the NT, or dpovpris in early Cliristian
literature, seem to bear a genuinely Ionic character,
they may well be later variations formed on the
analogy of S6^a, ou^tjs ; ddXarra, 0a\dTTr]^, find the
like (cf. Moulton, Einlcititng, p. 70 f.). On the
other hand, words like ^dOpaKos, vdOvrj, vcxrcroi in-
dicate clearly the phonetic form of Ionic, while,
again, e.g. the aorist fviKov (in the papyri) instead
of -^vEyKov, and the preference for nouns in -/ia are
Ionic, or at all events not Attic, features. A
specially characteristic indication of Ionic influence
appears in the inflexion of nouns in -aj, -aSos and
-oCy, -oOSos. Such syntactical usages a.s the pre-
ference of iva to Sttwj and the final infinitive (e.g.
Mt 5^^ : oi'K ffKdov KaraXvaai, dWb. irXr]pi2(rai) may
likewise be shown to be Ionic. Of most importance,
however, are the Ionic elements of the vocabulary,
as it is these that give the Koine a character
diflerent from that of Attic. Thus a calculation
of Schlageter (Der Wurtsclmtz, etc.) shows that
the Attic inscriptions outside Attica (till 200 B.C.)
contain 18% of Attic, 18% of new (Hellenistic),
and a little over 0% of Ionic, but only -75% of
ischen Dialekte iin Zeilalter des Ilellenismug, Projrramm,
Vienna, 1907; Kie<ker9, 'Das Eindringen der Koine in KreU,'
in Indogerm. Fomch. xxvii. [1910] 72fT. ; Buttenwieser, 'Znr
Geschichte des bootischen Dialekts," in ib. xxviii. [I91IJ Iff.
HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK 555
distinctively Doric words. Tiie proportion of Ionic j
words increases till about 250 B.C., and then de-
creases, so tliat the process of interfusion virtually
ceased about the middle of the 3rd cent. B.C.
This feature of the Koine appears, as we might
expect, also in Biblical Greek. Words like draprii^u
(in draprifffids), ^KTpwfia, Koxd^u (of the wind), SKwOos,
aavSdXtov, aKopirii'o), etc., in the LXX or NT are of
Ionic origin. The Ionic element includes, further,
the so-called poetical words of the Koine, i.e.
Hellenistic words which formerly were to be found
only in the poets, but which from the fact of their
occurrence in papyrus texts concerned with matters
of everyday life, and partly also from the fact of
their survival in Modern Greek, are now seen to
have belonged to the colloquial language. They
include, e.g., ^apiw, evrp^rofiai, Oafi^iw, fieaovvKTioy,
xeipdi^u, ItdKOi, upvo/iai in the LXX and the NT, and
d\(KT(i)p, j3a<rTdfw, fpi<pos, (pavrd^u, (pTjfjii^u in the NT.
Words of this class were imported, first, from the
literary Ionic of the earlier period into the language
of poetry, and then again from the vernacular Ionic
of the later period into the Koine, and there was no
direct link of connexion between the two processes. *
In the literaiy criticism of the Hellenistic wTiters,
and especiall}' of the biblical books, the facts just
indicated yield an important guiding principle,
viz. that their use of Ionic words does not argue
a knowledge of, or any dependence upon, the earlier
Ionic literature. The fact, e.g., that St. Luke makes
use of medical terms found in Hippocrates and
other physicians in no way implies a study of
medical writings ('Luke the physician'), but only
some acquaintance with the ordinary terminology
of his age ; many such medical words, indeed, as
e.g. tyKvoi, crreTpa, or ^eXovT} (' the surgeon's needle')
had passed into such general use in the vemaculai
that they prove nothing more than St. Luke's
familiarity with the language of his time.
6. The influence of foreign languages. — The
Koine may thus be defined as a development of
Attic under the influence of Ionic. But as it
spread to non-Hellenic lands, such as Asia Minor
and Egypt, we must, finallj% inquire as to the in-
fluence upon it of the languages of these countries,
and as to foreign influence generally. Just as
the Celts of Gaul exercised an influence upon the
grammar and vocabulary of French (the vtilgar
Latin of Gaul), so, we might expect, would the
Koine be aflected by the native populations of Asia
Minor and Egypt. The Greek spoken bj' these
* barliarians ' shows traces of their own manner of
speech in the confusion of i and e soimds, and of
tenues, mediiP, and aspirates (r, 5, d). Of such
modification, however, very little found its way
into the general development of Greek. Probably
the pronunciation of irevre as pende, and of \afnrp6s
as lambros, and the like, which make their first
appearance in the dialect of Pamphylia, as also
the development of v into t, arose in Asia Minor ;
the disregard of the distinction between long and
short vowels (w and o, etc.) perhaps in Asia Minor
and Egypt. It was once more the vocabulary that
was appreciably aflected by foreign languages —
the natural result of intercourse. Yet, after all —
apart from the local use of Egyptian words in
Egyptian Greek — the Oriental languages contri-
buted to the Greek vocabulary in Hellenistic times
hardly any more than in the classical period ; the
converse influence, e.g. in Rabbinical Hebrew, was
incomparably greater. In Biblical Greek likewise,
Semitic elements are scarcely more prominent than
elsewhere. We note, e.g., dyyapeOoj and irapd5ei<Tos,
which are of Persian origin ; dppa^up, Ori^ij, kojSoj,
• There exist aa yet no works (except those of Schlageter,
mentioned above) dealing specially with the vocabulary of the
papyri and the inscriptions. For the XT cf. T. Naegeli, Der
n'ortsehatz des AposteU PaiUus, Gottingen, 1905.
fd^Xa, ffupaKot (Sem.), and /Sdioi', ari/ifu (Egj'pt.);
but these words are also found in other documents
of the Koine ; while, of course, words like dp^di,
dfii^y, yievpa, xdirxjn, ad^^arop {<rd/ipaTOp) found their
way into the Greek world through the Jewish
Christian sphere of ideas. It was from this sphere
also that the names of the days of the week (ijXiov
ri/i^pa, ff€\Tjpr]s r]/M(pa, etc.), together with the week
of seven days itself, came to the Greeks, and then
spread to the rest of Europe.*
As contrasted with the Oriental, the Latin con-
tribution forms a noticeable element in the Koine.
Again, it is true, the grammatical influence was of
the slightest. A number of suftixes, such as -aroi,
-apis, -ovpa, -urios (Lat. -atiis, -arius, -ura, -ensis),
were introduced into Greek through the medium
of Lat. loan-words, and came to be used with Gr.
stems. From the beginning of the Roman sway
in Greece to the close of the ancient period, Roman
politics and traflic imported a constantly increas-
ing number of Latin words into Greek, and how
eti'ectively many of these became naturalized is
sho\Am by their survival in Modem Greek. In this
respect likewise Biblical Greek reflects the condi-
tions of the common Hellenistic language ; in the
NT we find, e.g., Kourap, Kfprvpiwp, \eyeusv, TpouTd'piop,
K'^vffos, KoSpdpTTfs, Srjvdpiop, fiiXiop, \4ptiov, ffovSdpiop,
(ppayiXXiov. That the influence of Latin on Pales-
tinian Greek was by no means slight is attested
indirectly bj' the number of Lat. words more or
less naturalized in the Rabbinical literature, and,
as appears from their form, introduced through
the medium of Greek. Latinisms were occasion-
ally formed by translation ('loan-renderings'),
and just as the Kevrvplwp is called a eKaTovrapxot in
Lk 23"", so we may regard t6 iKavov xoieiv (ilk 15^)
and epyaaiap oovvai as translations of Lat. satisfacere
and operant dare respectively. The extra-biblical
literature of early Christianity likewise shows the
influence of Latin, and is as yet free from puristic
tendencies ; thus, e.g., Ignatius does not hesitate to
adopt SeaepTwp, Serdcrira ('pledge') from military
usage, or i^efixXdpiop ('legally valid copy') from
the language of law.t
7. Local variations of the Koine. — In order to
answer the question whether Biblical Greek shows
a definite local character, we must first of all in-
quire whether local variations or even dialects
existed in the colloquial Koine. AVe certainly
cannot look for such diflerences in the written
texts of a cosmopolitan language, as it lies in the
very nature of a written language to tend towards
uniformity. Our investigation must therefore
carefully take accotmt of all phenomena that could
be regarded as pointing to local variation. In view
of the wide expansion of the Koine, it is natnral
to suppose that local varieties would exist, i.e.
that the common language would not be spoken in
exactly the same way in Egypt, Asia Minor (Syria),
and in the ancient Attic, Ionic, and Doric areas,
since the ancient dialects themselves or the lan-
guages of the barbarians who had just learned to
speak Greek would lend a certain colouring, in pro-
nunciation at least, to the Koine of the various
regions. And, as a matter of fact, we are able,
partly with the help of Modem Greek, to deter-
• Ct Thumb, ' Die Namen der Wochentage ini Griechischen,
in Zeitsehrijl fur deutsehe Wortfonehung, i. [1900J 163ir. ;
Schnrer, 'Die siebentagige Woche in der christL Kirche des
ersten Jahrhunderts," in ZSTW vL [1905] Iff.
t Cf. T. Ecking'er, Die OrtAographie latein. Worter in ffrieek.
Insehri/Un, Munich, 1893 ; We«ely, ' Die lat. Hemente in der
Graatat der Papyri,' in Wiener Strtdien, xiiv. [1902] 99 ff.. xxv.
[1903] 40S. ; D. Magie, De Romanontm iurit puMiei saerique
voealnilis toUemnibus in grceewn sermonem eontersis, Leipzig^,
1905 ; and especially L. Hahn, Rvm und Romanismus im
ffriediiseh^romisehen Osten, Leipzig, 1906 (reviewed by Thumb,
Indogerm. Forseh. Anzeiger, xxiL [1907-08] 30 ff.), also 'Znni
Sprachenkampf im romischen fieich,' in Pkitologus, Snppl. x.
(1907).
556 HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK
mine the existence of a niinilter of such local varia-
tions. Thus the Greek-hpeakin<; Egyptians juul
Asiatics could not keep the e and i sounds * distinct
(a phenomenon which, however, had notliing to do
with itacism), and confounded t€nucs, iiifdiM', and
aspirates, probably substitutinj,' tcmics, or un
voiced media;, for the last two groups, 'i'lic 77 li.id
a close and an open sound, the latter probably in
the East, as may be inferred from the pronuncia-
tion of rj as r, in the modern dialect of I'ontus ; v
was pronounced as t, ii and u {in), though it is im-
possible to define the local limits of tlic variations.
Similarly, the intrusion of an inter-vocalic 7 (as in
K\aiyu) [ = /iXaiw] found in a papyrus of the 2nd cent.
B.C.) was merely local, as is shown by Modern
Greek ; while the sound-change of X into p as in
dSfp<p6i=:dS€\<p6s, and the substitution of a single
for a duplicated consonant, cannot have been
universal in the Koine, since the X is still retained
in the East (Cappadocia and Pontus), and the double
letter in the south-east (Cyprus, Rhodes, etc.), of
the Modern Greek area. Einally, the retention
and omission of final v must each have had their
own local distribution. As regards inflexions, we
may draw attention to the Egyptian declension in
-ay, -aros as compared with the Ionic -as, -ados (im-
parisyllabic nouns of this class are not found in
the NT). Further, forms like y^yovav on the one
hand, and iirrjXdaa-i on the other, as also ijXdoaav
and the like, indicate that, as in Modern Greek,
different regions of the Koine levelled the per-sonal
endings in difterent ways. As yet, however, the
clearest evidence that by the end of the ancient
period the Koine had already split up into actual
dialects, in which lay the germs of the dialects of
to-day, is found in the imprecation- tablets of Cyprus
(3rd. cent. A.D.), tiie language of which shows
traces of both the ancient and the modern dialect
of that island. t
But while recent investigation has thus succeeded
in proving the existence of local varieties of the
Koine, it must refuse to recognize the so-called
varieties whose existence has been maintained
from ancient times, viz. the Alexandrian and
Macedonian dialects. What was regarded, alike
in ancient and in modern times, as characteristic
of these dialects is found to have belonged to no
special region, but to the common Hellenistic
language. Not even the stock example epavvdw
{ = ep€vvdo}) can be claimed for the Alexandrian dia-
lect— let alone Alexandrian Jewish-Greek — as that
phonetic form has been traced, e.g., in the Koine of
Thera.
8. Biblical Greek as a local variety of the
Koine. — We now come to tlie question how Biblical
(Jrcek is related to tliese local idioms. It is not
l)ossible to describe tiie Greek Bible as the monu-
ment of a distinct dialect of the Koine, and still
less as the monument of an Alexandrian or Pales-
tinian Jewish-Greek, or of a special ' Christian
Greek.' Of the existence of an Alexandrian Jewish-
Greek there is no real evidence at all, as was first
explicitly proved by Deissmann (see Lit.). Psichari
(see Lit.), who has recently investigated the prob-
lem, could find no support for tlie theory that in
]iarticular the trfuisl.itors of the OT spoke a Jewisli
Greek, and so occasionally introduced Hebraisms
into their version. The language of the LXX is
in reality a 'translation-Greek,' and cannot there-
fore be adduced as proving the existence of a
Jewish variety of the colloquial Koine ; nor is all
our wider knowledge of the Greek spoken in
Palestine, whether derived from direct or indirect
sources, sutHcient to warrant us in speaking of it
as a distinct type ; at most it may be described as
* Vowels (a, e, i, etc.) as in Oerinan.
t Cf. Thumb, ifeite Jahrbiicher fur das klau. AUciinui. w ii.
[1906] 257.
tlie Syrian Koine. Bil)lical Greek, moreover, is
Iiv no means identical with what we have been
able to establish regarding the Greek of tiie Pales-
tinian Jews, for the particular change of meaning
which certain Greek words underwent in llabbini-
cal usage tlocs not appear in those words as used
in Biblical (Jreek; thus, e.g., Xtirovpyia in the
Rabbinical literature means ' service rendered ' ;
in the Bible (as in Greek generally), 'religious
service.'
It is a controversy some centuries old whether
the language of the I Jibic bears a ' Hebrew ' colour-
ing or not ; tiie so-cailcd ' Purists' sought to demon-
strate the classical, the Hebraists the hebraizing,
character of Biblical (!reek. The theory of the
'specific quality' of NT Gr. acquired a certain
theological importance in virtue of the jiointed ex-
pression which it received at the hands of R. Rothc,
viz. that the NT speaks in the language of the Holy
Giiost, who 'framed for Himself a quite distinct
religious idiom by trarisfonaing the linguistic
elements which lay ready for Him, as also the
already existent concepts, into a medium appro-
priate to Him.' * The research of the last fifteen
years has shown more and more conclusively that
the question in debate was wrongly put, since
neither classical Greek nor a supposed .Jewish
Greek is to be regarded as the foundation of Biblical
Greek. To Deissmann (see Lit.) is due the merit
of having brought clear j)rinciples to bear upon the
subject, inasmuch as he showed that Biblical Greek
cannot be treated as an isolated plienomenon, and
assigned it a place in the general process of a great
natural development of language. First of all, as
regards the so-called Hebraisms, or, more accur-
ately, Semitisms, the examples usually adduced
are either simply fallacious or else indecisive.
Leaving out of account the pedantic and barbarous
literality in translations of certain parts of the OT
(as e.g. the tr. of Aquila, who renders "nx, the
sign of the Heb. accusative, by cr6i>), we must admit
that the syntax of the LXX has not been modified
Ijy the original in any undue degree ; thus even
the construction irpotTTidivai. witli the infinitive
(Heb. -) loi'i with inf.) cannot be regarded as non-
Greek.t Detailed investigation shows that the
translators were quite able to keep themselves free
from bondage to their original, and that they
strove with success to represent the Hebrew form
of expression by an excellent Greek diction (cf.
Johannessohn, in Lit.). In the NT, again, evi-
dences of a Hebrew giound-colour have proved even
less cogent, as is now increasingly recognized. The
statement of B. AVeiss that the Fourth Gospel has
a ' hebraisierender Grundton ' has been recently
challenged by Wellhausen (Das Evangelium Johan-
nis, Berlin, 1908). In point of fact, the more
thoroughly we work through the papyri, the smaller
grows the number of alleged Hebraisms ; we need
cite only the constructions ey fj.axa.ipv ^^<i f" "''V
6v6/MTi. That modes of expression which really
occur in Greek, though but rarely, or only in sjjecial
circumstances, should be found more frequently in
Biblical Greek when they liappen to coincide with
Hebrew usage (as e.g. iSov) need occasion no sur-
prise ; it is natural enougii in translations or repro-
ductions from foreign languages.:;: Even the voca-
tive 6 <?e6j, the use of which in Biblical Greek is
explained by Wackernagel § as an imitation of
Hebrew, may be brought under this general law,
since 6 deSs occurs as a vocative — though with a
diflerent shade of meaning — also in Greek ; while
the predicative ei'j, and such expressions as xpiriii
* Cf. Thumb, Die griechisehe Sprache im Zeitalter det HtUtn-
ismtts, p. IS!.
t Hclbiiiir, Grammatik tier LXX, p. 4.
t Cf. also Moulton, Kinleiltinij, pp. 20, 31.
§ t/ber einige antike Anredefonnen, Oottinf^en, 1912.
HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK 557
dSiKtas, ' the unjust judge,' have likewise certain
)K>ints of contact with Greek, and therefore cannot
rightly be described as non-Greek Hebnii-ms ov
barbarisms.
In the NT, the phenomenon just ex])lained, viz.
that relatively rarer forms of expression occur
more frequently in Biblical Greek, is one that may
l>e expectetl with special frequency in those parts
that rest on an Aramaic original. But the ques-
tion whether certain parts of the NT go back to
an Aramaic original is one in which the Hebraisms
necessarily play a leading part, and which cannot
he ettectively solved until the full complement of
the Hebraisms has been established beyond dis-
pute. Thus, e.ff.. the monotonous sequence of nar-
rative by means of Kai clauses in no sense proves the
presence of the Semitic genius of language — oft^n
as that assertion has been made. Exact statistical
investigations, such as alone could avail us here,
are still lacking. Probably the best foundation
for such investigations would be the arrange-
ment of words, and especially the position of the
verb ; and, as a matter of fact, the frequent occur-
rence of the vei-b at the beginning of clauses in the
Gospel narrative seems to be at variance with
ordinary Greek usage, and to have been influenced
by the Hebrew diction, though at the same time it
is not unkno^vn in Greek.*
The influence of Hebrew upon the phraseology
of Biblical Greek is clearly manifest only in the
LXX, though there also every particular instance
demands the most careful scmtiny.t In the NT
the formation of new words to represent special
Christian ideas is quite an unimportant element.
Ueissmann estimates the number of ' biblical words'
in the NT as no more than one per cent. Chris-
tianity was able to formulate its distinctive con-
ceptions (e.g. ffwrrtp, evayyeXiov) in the spirit and
with the linguistic resources of the Koine ; as
Deissmann rightly observes, it had not so much a
word-forming as a word-transfonning ix)wer. But
such alteration in the meaning of existent words
takes place in all cases where a profound change
occurs in the civilization — including, of course, also
the concepts and ideas — of a people. The discussion
of such phenomena forms a chapter of ordinary'
semasiology, for Biblical Greek does not differ in
this respect from Gr. in general. In many cases
the NT merely carries forward in Christian con-
cepts the I'eligious signification which had already
b^n fully developed in the extra-Christian Koine,
as e.g. in ffwr-qp, ' saviour ' ; + for other examples see
the works of Deissmann.
How the study of the Koine texts furthers our knowledge in
this field is shown also by G. Thieme, Die Inschriften von
Magnesia am Maander und das ST, Gottingen, 1906, and J.
Rouffiac, Eeeherehes sur Us earaetires du grec dans U ST
d^apris Us inscriptions de Priine, Paris, 1911.
Biblical Greek, then, corresponds to the Hellen-
istic Greek of the age in phonetics, morphology,
syntax, and vocabulary. As, however, the LXX
took form in Egypt and the NT on Asiatic soU, it
is of course conceivable that the pronunciation and
idiom of the Egyptian and Asiatic Greeks would
now and again assert themselves, just as, e.g., the
literary German of the Austrians can be distin-
guished from that of the Northern Germans. But,
for one thing, the written text is too imperfect a
representation of the actual pronunciation, and,
for another, our knowledge of the finer provincial
differences in the vocabulary and syntax of tlie
Koine is too meagre, to enable us to trace abnor-
malities in the biblical Koine with certainty. In
* Cf. E. Kieckers, Die Stellung des Verbs iin Grieehisehen,
Sttassburg, 1911, p. 5.
t Cf., f.3.. Thackeray, A Grammar of the OT in Gredt, L (Gam-
bridge, 1909], i>. 31 ff.
t CL especially Wendland, ZA'TW y. [19(M] 335 ff.
one resi)ect, however, we may speak of a dialectical
raoditication in biblical texts : the MS tradition of
sounds and forms is not homogeneous. Each par-
ticular MS betraj-8 the influence of the language,
the period, and the country of the writer ; while
in certain phonetic features, such as the confusion
of mediae, tenues, and aspirates, or the confusion
of i (et, t) and v, «, and of e and ij, some of the older
MSB of the NT {e.g. A and K) indicate their
Egyptian or Asiatic origin. It should also be
noted that in the LXX we find, e.g., the Xesdinj of B
appearing as XaKai-ij in A ; that accusatives like
vvKTav and ^offiXiar are met with only in A and K,
and that diflerences appear even in the selection of
words, as where Kovovy and ivexeev in A correspond
to k6<Pivov and f^aXev in B. To what extent the
original text itself was afiiected by the local idiom
of the writers (or translators) can be determined
only by means of a detailed investigation of the
MS'S. Thus the accusative form pvtcrav may qnite
possibly be due to the translators of the OT, or to
some of them, but that they actually used it (as
Psichari * believes) is meanwhile difficult to prove.
In view of the fact that the linguistic form of the
several MSS still awaits precise investigation, such
apparent trifles as, e.g., the v iipeXxvariKoif or the
dropping of y between vowels, and such variants
as fKafiap, ekd^offi, eXd^offOM, must not be overlooked.
Possibly, however, we may be more succes-sfnl
with the question regarding the provincial idiom
of the biblical writers, if we examine the syntactical
features, as the MS tradition would be less likely
to infringe upon the original text in that respect.
A noteworthy fact, observed by Radermacher.t is
that the use of the article as a relative — a usage
authenticated in Attic inscriptions of the 4th cent.
A.D. and here and there in Koine texts — seems to
be foreign to the NT. Further, the final infinitive,
which is a favourite construction in the Ionic of
Homer, but is seldom used in Attic, appears with
great frequency in the NT, though the substitution
of ipa for the infinitive in other constructions had
developed in a marked degree. Now it is a re-
markable fact that the final infinitive is found to
depend upon verbs of the same class alike in the
NT, in the early Byzantine author Malalas of
Syria, and in the Pontic dialect of to-day (the only
dialect that still retains the infinitive). This
suggests the inference that there was an eastern
Koine dialect marked ititer alia by its retention of
the infinitive, and that the language of the NT
was more closely akin to that dialect than to the
other branches of the Koine, which discarded the
infinitive altogether, and in this respect paved the
way for Modem Greek usage. Another and per-
haps even more characteristic phenomenon is that
the Fourth Gospel makes very frequent use of
the adjectival pronoun efuts, and that similarly the
Acta Johannis and Acta Philippi prefer the ad-
jectival a6s, while the rest of the NT writings, like
Modem Greek, usually employ the genitives iiov
and aov. As the adjectival possessives are now re-
tained only by the dialects of Pontus and Cappa-
docia, we may regard the authors of the Fourth
Gospel and the other two works just named — in
view of their preference for e/«os and <t&% — as having
belonged to Asia Minor.
It is therefore possible, with the aid of gram-
matical characteristics, to assign a particular book
of the Bible to a definite portion of the Koine area.
We thus at the same time trench upon, and, in
principle at least, give an affirmative answer to,
the question whether the various constituent parts
of the Greek Bible ma}— not only as regards their
style but aLso as regards their grammar— be dis-
* ' Esai sar le Grec de la Septante,' in Remte dts eludes
juives, 1908, p. 164 f.
t XeuUsL Grammatik, Tiibingen, 1911, p. 62.
558 HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK HELLENISTIC & lilBLICAL GREEK
tin<ruishc(l from one another in such a way as to
warrant lis in associating their writers with ditlerent
districts. Investigation of tlie local varieties of
the Koine (see above) has not yet yielded such
results as would enable us to deal witli the problem
on a comprehensive scale. So far as individuality
of diction has as yet been noted in tlie various
biblical writers, it would seem to involve nothing
more tlian diflerences in culture and in stylistic
tendencies : compare, e.^., the Gospels, the Pauline
Epistles, and tiie Epistle to the Hebrews. J. H.
Moul ton has called attention to such diflerences,*
while H. St. J. Thackeray t has successfully utilized
the occurrence or non-occurrence of certain words
as a means of breaking up the Greek version of
the OT into groups whicli must have come from
distinct hands. The next task of the investigator,
liowever, will be to examine the syntax and voca-
bulary of the several parts of the Greek OT and
NT with reference to the question Avhether they
cannot be brought into relation also with local and
chronologiciil modifications of the Koine. A begin-
ning has been made in tiie works of Thieme and
lloufTiac already named.
9. The more important grammatical peculi-
arities of Biblical Greek. — The definition of
Biblical Greek as a monument of the Koine is in
no way affected by the discussions of the foregoing
paragraph, and a grammatical study of the former
gives us a good idea of the Koine in general as
contrasted with Attic Greek. :J:
(A) Phonetics. — (1) Itacism had become a fairly
common feature of Greek pronunciation in Asia
Minor and Egypt by the beginning of the 2nd
century ; et was pronounced as i, at as e (a), and
01 as i^ (a sound resembling it, but incapable of being
more precisely determined ).§ The rj was stili an
c sound, but in the countries named was sometimes
confused Avith i (t, ei), as tlie latter had there a very
open pronunciation. The itacistic development is
reflected in such biblical modes of spelling as HSov
(elSov), AaveiS, dvdireipos = &v(iirrjpo'i, paLSr} (also piSrj),
dv6yu) (also Avoiyu}). Probably av and ev were still
pronounced as true diphthongs, i.e. as au, eu. Of
the consonants, <p, x, /S, and y still retained their
original values, \iz.p + k, k + h,b and g ; the native
Egyptians and Asiatics made no distinction between
these and the corresponding unvoiced explosives /)
and k (see above), though the Modern Greek
aspirate pronunciation of /S and y had already
found a footing : cf. dvoUi for dvoiyei in LXX ; and
for 5 and 0, the English pronunciation of voiced
and voiceless th would seem to have prevailed in
NT times, t was like the English z (voiced s) ; cf.
the MS form *Z/xu/)i/a. (2) The distinction between
long and short vowels Avas no longer maintained in
colloquial speech ; but in the LXX o and u are
seldom confused. (3) Peculiarities in the usage of
vowels : *Teffj€pdKovTa (for T€<x<xapdKovTa) ; *Tndj^u
( = 7ri^fw), 'I seize'; *Tafieiov — Tafiie'ioi>; *vyeia =
i/yleia ; *vo<ra6i = veo(Tcr6s. (4) Consonantal peculi-
arities : *y'ivoiJ.ai and *yi.vib(TKiji ; Kad'^rot, *Ka0'iSlav ;
i<l)i\irLda {i<t>7)\iri<jev, IjXX) ; *d0i5e?»' (the spiritus
aspcr is transferred from vfiipa., d(popdu). The relation
of *&pKo% to &pKTo% is obscure. Examples of ovdeU
{oiideis also used) are more frequent in the LXX
than in the NT, and this corresponds to the usage
of tlie Koine in their resi)ective periods.
(B) Inflexion. — (1) For the vocative 6 de6i see
• Especially in his 'New Testament Greek in the Light of
Modern Discovery ' (Cambridge liiblical Essays, London, 1909.
p. 4GI flf.).
t op. cit. i. C ff .
X In what follows, a 8tar(') pLiced before llic word indiiutcs
that the form is found in both the LXX and the NT ; forms not
80 distinguished are in the NT.
§ The occasional use of v for ov in papyri (cf. 4CAo< for JoOAos
in LXX, 1 K 1421) Hhows that it was al<m to u ; b\it at an earlv
|>eriod it had also the value of t in Asia and Egypt.
above, § 8. Observe tA (for 6) ^Xeos, and the like.
vovi is declined vo6i, vat after the example of povi,
/3o(5s. (2) For vvKTav, *xetpoi', fia.ai.\4av, etc., sci
above. (3) rb fiXaj (for 6 aXj) ; 6pvi^ for 6pvi.% i
perhaps a Dorism. (4) Verbs in -fii went gradually
out of use, as is attested by the MS readings lardw
(LXX),J(rTd»'w, *d<t)LU), *<rvviw, 6fjLV\jw. In the inflexion
of flfj.1 we find an imp. mid. ijfivy- The earliest un-
mistakable use of Ivi ( = ii>eari), from wiiich aroM
the Mod. Gr. eIfo«, ' he is,' instead of ^a-ri is found
in the NT ; the imperative is iJTu (for fcrrw). (5)
ffTifiKu (Mod. Gr. ariKU)), the use of which is better
attested in the NT than in the LXX, is an innova-
tion formed from IffrrjKa, and on tlie analog}' of
iJKw, which could be inflected like a perfect (LXX
flKa/xev and T/zcare). (6) Contracted verbs : *irtivdv
and *5ii/'av, but *f^f ; the Hellenistic xP°^Oo-'- i*^ !•"•
meagrely attested in Biblical Greek. (7) Tin
spelling xi^«'i'w (LXX x''"'^) ^^ of special interest, a^
presents with w occur also in the Cyprian dialect
of to-day, i.e. in P^astern Greek. (8) Personal
endings : (a) the ending -aav extends far beyond
its original usage, but occurs more frequently in
the LXX (-^XOoa-av, ((pipoaav, iytvvCjaav, C^^iikovcav)
than in the NT (dxoffav, idopvfiovaav) : in Mod. Gr.
it is confined to contracted verbs ; (h) the termina-
tions of the first and second aorists be^in to coa-
lesce, e.g. *e'vpaixev, *etSafi{v ; as found in the im-
perfect {e.g. *l\fyav), we cannot be so sure tiiat
they belong to the original text; (c) in 3rd plur.
perf. we sometimes find -ai' for -act, as in *iupaKav,
yiyovav.
(C) Syntax. — (1) Indications of the decreasing
use of the dative are tlie occasional confusion be-
tween eh with ace, and iv with dat., the preference
for the gen. and the ace. after prepositions taking
three cases, and the growing use of the ace. after
verbs like *xpo.o0O''; Karapaadai, ivedpeveiv. After
certain verbs, moreover, the ace. tends to supersede
the gen., as e.g. Kparelv, KaradiKd^eiv rivd. (2) A pre-
positional construction sometimes takes the place
of simple noun with case, as e.g. iadUiv iK toD iprov,
dvixeffdai dird. (3) The aorist, in comj)arison witli
the imp. indie, is more frequentlj'' usea than in the
classical period ; the use of the aorist in a perfective
sense is made distinct by prejiositions, thus -n-pay-
fiaTe{i(Tac6ai (Lk 19'^), ' trade with,' but diairpaynaTfv-
ffaadai (v.^'), 'gain by trading.' This force of the
])reposition explains also why a preposition is more
frequently attached to the aorist than to the pre-
sent stem ; but presents with aoristic force could
be formed in a similar way : cf. rbv fuadbv dirixovffi
(Mt 6^'l** '*), 'they have received their reward';
dWxw is used in a like sense in receipts found
among the paiiyri. A characteristic feature of the
LXX and NT is that they always employ the
aorist imperative in invocations of God — a usage to
which we find an analogy in Homer. (4) The ex-
tent to which the perfect was used in Biblical
Greek with tlie force of the aorist is disputed ; the
usage of Hellenistic Greek generally rather favours
the aoristic function (as e.g. of *el\r)<pa, •^crxv^a) in
Biblical Greek as well. (5) The optative was
obsolescent, alike in principal anil in suliordinate
clauses ; its disuse is more marked in the NT than
in the LXX. (6) The infinitive shows no sign of
decay in the LXX ; but in the NT it is widely (as
in Mod. Gr. always) .superseded by fvo, hence e.g.
^r)Tu iVa, irapaKaXw 'iva ; to look for a i)urposive
force in every iW in Biblical (Jreek is a mistake.
The infinitive with the article, however, is common
also in the NT, and it may be remarked that a
number of old infinitive forms survive in Mod. Gr.
as nouns, e.g. Tb<pi\l = rb ^piXelv, 'the kiss.' (7) The
present jjarticiple active shows a tendency to be-
come rigid (the Mod. Gr. X^yovra^ is indeclinable),
an e.g. in Jn 15': fiivwv iv (fiol Kayw (fi^vu) ifaiWifi.
A remarkable feature is the use of the participle
HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK HELLENISTIC & BIBLICAL GREEK 559
without copula as a predicate.* As this usage is
not only found in papyri, but is still very common
in Malalas, it was probably a peculiarity of the
Eastern Koine. (8) The wealth of particles char-
acteristic of the classical lanj^ia^e has been largely
lost. The Gosi>els, like the popular tales of Modern
Greek, generally exhibit a simple co-ordination of
clauses, either without connectives or connected by
/cot, T6Te, S(, firra rovro, 4v iKtlv<^ ri^ #caip<p. As already
said, it is quite wrong to regard this feature — and
in particular the frequent use of Kal — as a Hebraism,
the paratactic sequence of clauses bein^ in reality a
characteristic of simple popular narrative.t (9) In
Biblical Greek the verb would seem to head the
sentence more frequently than in Greek generally.
Its initial position may well be due in part to
Semitic influence (see above), but we must on this
point await the results of a more searching and
detailed investigation.
While the LXX and the NT belong to the same
linguistic milieti, yet, as has been more than once
noted in the foregoing grammatical sketch, they
exhibit features indicative of their respective stages
of development. In general, we may regard the
contemporary papyri as providing the nearest
parallels to each, though the LXX is occasionally
more archaic than the papyri of its age ; thus, while
we find in it the forms iJKafiev, ^/tare, iJKaffi, we do
not find as yet riKei>cu, tjkotuv. No comparison has
yet been made between the LXX and the NT as
to the relative frequency of the linguistic changes
in each — an tmdertaking for which the MS tradi-
tion would have to provide the basis ; such a
comparison would be the most reliable means of
measuring the interval between the two groups
of texts.
10. Post-Biblical Greek. — In certain productions
of early Christian literature outside tlie NT canon
(the NT Apocrypha, the Apostolic Fathers) the
neologisms of the Koine bulk more largely than in
the biblical ^^Titings, so that these non-canonical
works must be regarded as belonging to a later
linguistic stratum ; with regard to particular
books, however, it is more difficult than in the
case of the LXX and NT to determine what is to
be set down to the MS tradition, i.e. to decide
whether forms like \iyow { = \iyoi'<Ti) in the Acts
of Pilate, or ■fiyairoi'v { = iydru}i> in the Acts of
Thomas, were not originally due to later copyists.
Apart from this, the linguistic differences found
in the several writings of this group themselves,
and the linguistic differences between this group
and the NT canon, are marked only by larger or
smaller concessions to the literarj' language of the
educated. It is no doubt true that, even in the
NT, Luke is distinguished from the other Gospels
by a certain inclination to Atticism, and that
other early Christian productions likewise reflect
the literary tendencies of the age. Nevertheless,
there was at the outset a sharply marked contrast
between Biblical Greek and the literary language
of the period ; the Atticism (see above) then coming
into vogue aimed at the revival of the classical
(Attic) diction, and the cultured heathen looked
down scornfully upon the ' barbarous sailor-speech '
of primitive Christianity (|3op,Sapifoiva fcord Kpdro^
Kal aoXoiKL^ovaa and dvo/JLaToirouai^ ^ivan avm-eray-
tUyr]).t But just as in the succeeding centuries the
youthful and revolutionary spirit of Chri.stianity
allied itself more and more witli Greek philosophy
and culture, and came at length to be quite hel-
lenized, so too the lan^age of Christianitj- soon
lost that charm of originality and naive freshness
♦ Moulton, Einleitung, p. 352 ff.
f Elxamples from the papjri are given by WiticowBki, Glotta,
vi. (1914] 2-2 f.
X See E. Nordea, Antike Kunslprota, Leipzig, 1898, ii. 616 ff.
which is chai-acteristic of Biblical Greek. It is, in
fact, only in the Lives of the Saints and similar
productions that we still hear the speech of the
simple people to whom the earliest preachers of
the gospel appealed.* The great teachers of the
Church turned aside from the unschooled language
of the Gospels, and adopteil the style of cultured
heathenism ; in other words, they followed the
literary fashion of Atticism. Even the early
apologist Tatian aspired to be an Atticist, though
his success in that direction was but meagre ; t
while Chrysostom actually gave an Atticistic form
to his quotations from Scripture.iJ: The develop-
ment in the language of Greek Christianity from
the NT to the close of antiquity is a faithful re-
flexion of the process through which the Christian
religion itself passed. In the course of a few cen-
turies the faith of humble fisher-folk became the
dominant religion of the Grieco-Roraan world,
and, passing from its native lowliness to the high-
est places, it paid its tribute to the culture of its
new sphere.
LrrERATTRR.— Books and articles already fully cited in the
course of this art. are not further mentioned here.
I. Bibliographical isformatios. — Earlier lit. in G. Meyer,
Grieehisehe Grammatiki, Leipzig. 1896; more recent in A.
Thumb, ' IHe I'orschungen uber die hellenistische Sprache in
den Jahren 1896-1901,' in Arehir fur Papynn/vrsclmng, ii. [1902]
396fr., '. . . in den Jahren 1902-1904,' ib. iiL [1903] 443 ff.
(al<o Indoaenn. Forsch. Anzeiper, i. [1892] 4S, vi. [1896] 224ff.);
Witkowshd, ' Bericht iiber die Literatur zur Koine ans den
Jahren 1S9S-1902,' in C. Bursian's Jahregbtricht uber die Pvtt-
sehritte der klass. AUertumsurmen*eha/l, cxx. [19W] 153 ff.,
'. . . ans den Jahren 1903-1906," ib. clix. [1912] Iff. ; J. H.
Moolton, ' Hellenistic Greek,' in The Year's Work in CtasMcal
Studies, ed. for the Classical Association, latest art. in 1913, p.
187 ff. ; A. Deissmann, ' Die Sprache der griechischen Bibel,'
in Theologische Rttndsehau, I [189S] 463 fl., ix. [1906] 210 ff., xv.
[1912] 339ff. ; further, the section 'Das Neue Testament* (in
recent years by R. KnopO >n the 3rd dinsion of the Theolog.
Jahresberieht, ed. G. Kriiger and il. Schian, Leipzig, 1809 ff.,
deals very fully with the linguistic side.
II. Grammar op thk Koisk.— K. Dieterich, UnUnuekungen
zur Geichiehte der grieehiteJten Sprache, Leimdg, 1898; G.
Meyer (as aboveX Thnmb-Brag^maim, Gritehisehe Grammatik*,
Munich, 1913 ; A. N. Jannaris, An Historical Greek Grammar,
London, 1S97 (not in the modem method); also the various
works mentioned above and below.
III. Problems axd History. — C. D. Buck, 'The General
Linguistic Conditions in Ancient Italv and Greece,' in Clasgieal
Journal, i. [1906] 99ff. ; J. P. Mahafiy, The SUeer Age of the
Greek Wortd, Chicago, 1906 (deals \i-ith the cultore and expan-
sion of Hellenism); A. Thnmb, Die grieehisehe Sprache im
Zeitalter des HeUenittnus, Strassburg, 1901, ' Prinzipienfragen
der Koine-Forschung,' in Sette Jahrbueher fxir das klastisehe
Altertum, xviL [1906] 246 ff. ; P. Kretschmer, J>ie Entstekung
der Koine, Vienna, 1900; D. C. Hesselingr, De Koine en de
nude dialekten ran Grieienland, Amsterdam, 1906 (in the
publications of the Koninklijke Academie); cf. also the works
of Deissmann and Moolton in section IV. below ; a sketch of
the Koine in connexion with the general historj- of the Greek
language is given in J. Wackemag-el, Die grieehisehe Sprache
(=:Kultur der Gegemeart, pt. i. vol. riiL [^Leipidg, 1912]X and A.
Meillet, Aper^ d'uixe histoire de la langue greeque, Paris, 1913,
; p. 259 ff.
J IV. Biblical Grbbk. — (1) General. — G. A. Deissmann, Bibel-
i $tudien, Marbui^, 1S95, Seve Bibelstudien, do. 1S97 (Eng. tr.,
Bible Studies^, Edinbui^b, 1903), Die spraehliehe Erfortehvmg
der grieehisehen Bibel, Oiessen, 1898, Jiew Light on the XT,
Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1907, The Philology of the Greek Bible, Eng.
tr., Ix)ndon, 1908, Lieht torn OsUn'^^, Tiibingen, 1909(Eng. tr..
Light from the Ancient East^, London, 1911), Die Urgeschiehte
des Chriitentums im Lichte der Sprach/orschung, Tubingen,
1910 ; A. Thnmb, ' Die sprachgeschichtliche Stellung des bib-
lischen Griechisch,' in TheologUehe Ruitdsehau, v. [1902] 85 fL ;
J. H. Moulton, A Grammar of ST Greelfl, Edinbaigfa, 1908
(Germ. tr. [in reality a new ed.], Binleittntg in die Sprache des
ST, Heidelberg, 1911), The Science of Language and the Study
of the ST, Manchester, 1906 ; • S. Dickey, ' The Greek of the XT,'
in Princeton Theological Revietr, i. [1903] 631 ff. ; H. Lietymann.
• Die klassische Philologie und das NT,' in A'eue Jahrbiieher fiir
das klassische Altertum, xxi. [190S] Iff. ; S. Angns, 'Modem
Methods in NT Philology,' in Uarcard Theological Review, ii.
[1909] 446 ff., also Hellenistie and Hellenism in Our Universities,
• Cf. "Vogeser, Zur Sprache der griechischen Beiligenlegenden,
Munich, 1907.
t Cf. Heiler, de Tatiani apologette dieendi gentre, Marbaig,
1909.
I It mav be observed in this connexion that F. Blass, who in
his edd. of the Gospels of Matthew and John uses these quota-
tions as a means of ' emending ' the MS tradition of the NT, is
here working on entirely wrong lines.
560
HELMET
HERESY
Hartford, Conn., liXM), also 'The Koin6 : the Ijinjfuage of the
NT,' in Princeton Tlteo/i>;jical Jieview, viii. [1010] 4.SfT.
(2) Oramniars. — R. Helbing, Grammatik der LXX, Gotlin-
gen, 1907; H. St. J. Thackeray, A Crmnmnr of the OT in
Greek, i., (Janibridge, 190S) ; Winer-Schmiedel, Grammatik di's
neutent. Sprachidioinn, tiiitthitfon, 1804 fT. (not ji-t coniplfted) ;
F. Blass, Grammatik den neutcst. Gri-echiKcli (4th ed. hy A.
Debrunncr, Oottinfcen, 11)13 ; Kny;. it. by Thackeray-, London,
1905); L. Raderniacher, Ncntrnt. Grammatik (in llandlnwh
ztim XT, ed. liicl/.niann, i. 1), Tiibinfren, 1011 ; E. A. Abbott,
Johannine Grammar, London, 190C (Conybeare-Stock, Selce-
tioiisfrom the LXX, Uuslon, 1905, and J. Viteau, Etudr gur le
iirec (in NT compari avec celui des Septaute, Paris, 1897, are
out of dato).
(3) Important monof^raphs.—H. B. Swete, An Introduction
to the OT in Greek, Cambridjte, 1900, p. 289 fif. ; R. Meister,
' Prolejfoinena zu einer Cirunnnatik der LXX,' in Wiener Studien
xxix. [1907] 228 flf., also lieitriii/e zur Lautlehre der LXX,
Vienna, 1909 ; J. Psichari, ' Kjaa&\ sur le Qrec de la Septante,' in
Revue des Mvdes jiiires, 1908, p. 161 fl. ; M. Johannessohn,
Der Gehranch der Kasus ■una Prdpositionen in der LXX,
Berlin, 1910 ; E. de W. Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Temes
in NT Grcek-\ Chicago, 1898 ; Th. Vogel, Zxir Charakteristik
des Lukas nnch Spraehe und Stil, Leiiizij;, 1897 ; M. Krenkel,
Josephtis tind Lukas, do. 1894 ; A. Schlatter, Die Sprache und
Heirnat des U. Evangclisten( = Be.itru(/e ztir Fiirderung chrisl-
ticker Theolofiie, vi. 4 [1902]), andT. C. Laughlin, The i>oleci»)ns
of the Apocalypse, Princeton, 1902 (the last two of little use) ;
W. Heitmiiller, Im Narnen Jcsu, (iottingen, 1903.
(4) Lexicoftraphy. — As supplementing the standard Greek
lexicons the following are of importance : E. A. Sophocles, A
Greek Lexicon of the lioman and Byzantine Periods, New York,
1887, and H. van Herwerden, Lexicon qrcecum suppletorium.
et dialecticum'^, Leiden, 1910 ; for the LXX, Hatch-Redpath,
Concordance to the LXX, C vols., Oxford, 1892-97 ; for the NT,
Grimm-Thajrer, A Greek- English Lexicon of the NT^, 1890 ;
F. Zorell, Noci Testamenti lexicon grcecum, Paris, 1911 ; E. A.
Abbott (as in IV. (2) above); Naegeli (as cited in art.); the
' Lexical Notes from the Papyri' (of great importance for the
vocabulary of the NT), by J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, in
recent years of The Expositor, are not yet completed, and are
to be collected and published separately.
V. PosT-HiBUCAL Grkek. — H. Reinh'old,De grcecitatepatrum
apostoliconim librorumque apocryphorum { = Dissert, philolog.
Halenses, xiv. [Halle, 189S]) 1 flf. ; F. Rostalski, Sprachliches
zu den apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, 2 pts., Programm,
M3'slowitz, 1910 and 1911 ; E. j. Goodspeed, Index patristicus,
Leipzig, 1907 ; T. M. Wehofer, Cfntersuchtmgen zur altchrist-
licheti Epistolographie, Vienna, 1901 ; J. Compernass, De
sermone greeco volgari Pisidire Phrygiteque meridionalls,
Bonn, 1895 ; X. Hiirth, De Gregorii Nazianzeni orationibus
funelirihiis { = Dissert, philolog. Argent, selectee, xii. 1 [Strass-
burg, 1907]), p. 71 fl. A. Thumb.
HELMET.— See Armour.
HELPS. — ' Help ' (di/WX7?ja^is) is fairly common in
the LXX, in tlie Psalms, and in 2 and 3 Maccabees.
In Sir IV^ 5V we have persons who are in need of
ivrlKyjufis. The plural dvTi\-^/i\l/eii occurs in 1 Co
12^*, coupled with 'governments,' and nowhere else
in the NT. The verb from which it comes {avri-
Xafi^dveffdai) is found in Lk 1^ in a quotation from
the LXX, where it is frequent ; also in Ac 20^ in
a speech of St. Paul. Tlie verb means ' to take
firm hold of some one in order to help (1 Ti 6^ is
ditterent) ; and by ' helps ' or ' helpings ' St. Paul
probably means the succouring of those in need,
as poor, sick, and bereaved persons. Perhaps the
helping of those in mental perjdexity or spiritual
distress, and all whom St. P<aul calls 'the weak,'
is also included. H. Cremer (Bibl.-Theol. Lcx.^,
1880, p. 38G) is mistaken in saying that this sense
of ' helping ' is ' unknown in classical Greek ' : it is
frequent in pajtyri, in petitions to the Ptolemys
(G. A. Deissmann, Bible Studies, Eng. tr., 1901,
p. 92). The Greek commentators are also mistaken
in interpreting ' helpings ' as meaning deacons,
and 'governings' as meaning elders ; such definite
official distinctions had not yet arisen. St. Paul is
speaking of personal gifts. He is not speaking of
select ijersons whom he or the congregation had
appointed to any ofllice ; and neither he nor they
can confer tiie gifts ; that is the work of the Spirit.
He exhorts the whole congrejiation to ' continue to
desire earnestly the greater gifts' ; and individuals
might receive more than one gift from the Spirit.
We have an instance of the gift of ' helping ' in
Stephanas and his household (1 Co IG'"'"), and it is
expressly stated that tiiey ' appointed themselves
to minister to the saints.' The Apostle did not
nominate them to any oHice of 'heli)er,' nor did
the congregation elect them to any sucii post. A
person who believed that he possessed the gift tried
to exercise it. Ff he was right in this belief, the
people accepted his ministrations. There was no
otlicr appointment, and there was no class of
oHicials into wliich he cntere<l.
LiTKRATURK.— F. J. A. Hort, The Christian Eccieaia, 1897,
pp. 166-160; Robertson and Plummer, 1 Corinthians, 1911,
pp. 280-284 ; H. A. A. Kennedy, Sotirces of NT Gre^k, 1895,
p. 90 ; H. B. Swete. The Holy ."ipirit in the NT, 1909, p. 186 f. ;
art. ' Helps ' in HDD and SDU. A. PlUMMER.
HERESY (a'ipeais). — The primary meaning of
a'ip€<Ti% is ' taking,' used especially of ' taking a
town' (Herod, iv. 1). Its .secondary meaning is
'choice,' 'preference.' From tliis it pa.sses to 'the
thing chosen,' and so 'a plan,' 'a purpose.' In
later classical usage it comes to mean a philo.sophic
school of thought, and hence a sect.
In the passages in which the word occurs in the
Acts, it has the meaning of a religious party, e.g.
Ac 5" : 17 aipiffis rijjv 1,a5dovKaluv ; 15' 26' : Kard, rrfv
dKpi§fCT6.Trjv aXpeffiv ttj^ 7]fitT4pa% 6pr](TKelas l^rjffa 4>apt-
(xaios. Thus it is used of the Chri.stians not by
themselves but by others, e.g. 24' : irpuToardrriy re
TTJs tQjv Na^ojpaicov alp^creus ; and again, v." : Kard rrju
odbv fjv \eyovaiv aipea-iv (see also 28-^). In the Epistles
it is used of the evil principle of party spirit, divi-
sion, and self-assertion. Thus in Gal S** it is
classed among the works of the flesh in company
with epiOelai and Sixoaraalai. In 1 Co IP"'- St.
Paul uses alp^creis as the natural outcome of o-xtV-
/tiara : dAcoiyw (rxiV/iara ey v/juv virdpxfty, Kal jiipoi ti
iriffTfOu. 8fL yap Kal aip^ffeis iv v/uy dyai, tya oi SoKifioi
(pavepoi yivuvrai iv vfiiv. So that, bad though these
things are, they may serve a providential purpose
in testing men's characters ana showing those that
can stand the test.
These divisions destroyed the harmony of the
Agape. The brotherly spirit which shouhl have
characterized the common meal was absent and
the sacredness of the Communion was lost in
general disorder. In this pas.sage 'heresy' and
'schism' {q.v.) approach very nearly to becoming
synonymous.
As St Augustine says : ' Haeresis auteni schismainveteratuni '
(c. Crescon. Don. ii. 7). And Nevin quoted by Trench (XT
SymmymsB, 1876, p. 359) says : ' Heresy and schism are not
indeed the same, but yet they constitute merely the different
manifestations of one and the same disease. Heresy is theoretic
schism : schism is practical heresy. They continually run into
one another, and mutually complete each other. Every heresy
is in principle schismatic ; every schism is in its innermost
constitution heretical.'
So far we have found no trace of atpean being used
in connexion with false doctrine but simply with
divisions and factious party spirit. But in 2 P 2'
a new meaning is introauced, and from the idea of
a party or sect we pass to the principles and tea(;h-
ing which characterize the sect, alpicreis dirwXe/ai
must refer to doctrines which lead to destruction ;
indeed the following words, ' even denying the Lord
that bought them,' point to a specimen of such
false teaching, implying either a rejection of
Christ as the Son of God, or a denial of His re-
demptive work. As this Epistle Mas written at
a much later date than the Acts, it marks the
gradual transformation that was going on in the
meaning of ' heresy ' .as it passed from party or
sect, first to schism and finally to erroneous teach-
ing.
There is no trace in the NT of either a'iptai^ or
(Txtffp.a denoting a party that had separated itself
from the main body. Pharisees and Saddncees
were sects in Judaism, not withdrawn from it.
Such sects were, so to sjjeak, recognized, not depre-
HERITAGE
HERMAS, SHEPHERD OF 561
cated, Aptain, the parties in the Corinthian Chnrch
which called themselves after the names of Paul,
Cephas, Apollos, and Christ were divisions in the
Church, not separated from it. It was the harm
done by strife and the absence of that spirit of
unity and charity, which is the very essence of
Christianity, that called for the Apostle's rebukes.
By the time that we pass into the sub-apostolic
period, aipfTi% connotes theological error and false
teaching, and the sense of a sect or party gradu-
ally recedes till it passes away entirely. Two
passages from Ignatius may be quoted in support
of this : 5x4 trivrtt Kara aXriOeiav ^ijre xai 5ti iw iifuv
ov8t/ila o?pf<rts KaroiKfi {ad Eph. vi.) ; and wapa/raXw
otv vfids . . . fi^y^ Tj 'KpiffTiatr^ fpfxp^ xp^^^^t <i^o-
r/xas 5^ /Sordj'ijs direx^ffOf, ijm e<rrU' alpeffts {ad Trail.
vi.). MoBLEY Stevenson.
HERITAGE.— See Heik.
HERMAS (Epfidi, Ro 16'^).— Hermas is a Greek
name, a contracted form of several names such as
Hermagoras, Hermeros, Hermodorus, Hermogenes,
etc., common among members of the Imperial
household (J. B. Lightfoot, Philippians*, 1878, p.
176). It is the last of a group of five names (all
Greek) of persons, and ' the brethren with them,'
saluted by St. Paul. Nothing is known of any
member of the group. It is conjectured that to-
gether they formed a separate iKKXrjaia or ' church,'
the locality of which we shall suppose to have
been Rome or Ephesus, according to our view of the
destination of these salutations. Cf. vv.^ " and
ferhaps v.", and 1 Co 16*' and perhaps Ac 20^.
ossibly these five men were heads of five separate
household churches, or leaders or office-bearers in
the Church. T. B. Allworthy.
HERMAS, SHEPHERD OF.— This valuable and
interesting relic of the life and thought of the early
Roman Church may be described as a manual of
fersonal religion, cast in an imaginative form.
t has been compared in the latter respect with
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, with Dante's Divina
Commedia, and with the visions of such mystics as
St. Teresa and St. Catherine of Siena. Whether
it be looked upon as a work of allegorical fiction,
or, as G. Salmon strenuously maintains {Historical
Introduction to the NT^, p. 529 S. ), a record of actual
dream experience, or again, as may well be, a com-
bination of both, its strong moral earnestness and
its didactic purpose are equally apparent. It is
primarily a call to repentance, addressed to Chris-
tians among whom the memory of persecution is
still fresh (Vis. iii. 2, 5, Sim. vs.. 28), and over
whom now hangs the shadow of another great
tribulation ( Vis. ii. 2, iv. 2). From the first Vision,
with its revelation of the sinfulness of sins of
thought, and of neglect of responsibility for others,
to the last Parable, where the greatness of the Shep-
herd, the supernatural Being ' to whom alone in
the whole world hath authority over repentance
been assigned' {Sim. x. 1), is ordered to be declared
to men, the theme is repentance and amendment
of life.
Indeed, the little book would almost seem to
have been written partly as an attempt to break
through the iron ring of despair resulting from a
rigorous acceptance of those words in the Epistle
to the Hebrews which speak of the impossibility
of repentance for sin committed after baptism (6*
and 12"). The subject is discussed in the Fourth
Commandment {Mand. iv. 3) in a curiously simple
manner. The authority of this teaching is admitted
verbally, and then an exception is made, which
covers the whole teaching of the book. ' I have
heard. Sir,' says Hermas, ' from certain teachers,
that there is no other repentance, save that which
VOL. I.— 16
took place when we went down into the water and
obtained remission of our former sins.' The Shep-
herd replies that this is so. They that have believed,
or shall believe, have not repentance, but only re-
mission of their former sins. He then, however,
goes on to say that, if after this great and holy
calling any one, being tempted of the devil, shall
commit sin, he hath only one (opportunity of) re-
pentance. This one opportunity, however, would
seem to be embodied in the Shepherd himself, who
was sent 'to be with you who repent with your
whole heart, and to strengthen you in the faith'
(xii. 6), and whose command to Hermas is, 'Go,
and tell all men to repent, and they shall live
unto God ; for the Lord in His compassion sent
me to give repentance to all, though some of
them do not deserve it, for their deeds' (Sim,
viii. 11).
1. Authorship. — There are a few references
scattered through the work to the circumstances
of its author. He had originally been a slave, and
was sold to one Rhoda, in Rome (Vis. i. 1). After
his freedom he had engaged in business and pros-
pered (iii. 6), but he had been corrupted by the
affairs of this world (i., iiL), practising deception in
the course of his business (Mand. iii.). However,
he had lost his riches, and become useful and
profitable unto life ( Vis. iii. 6). His worldly loss
seems to have been connected with the misdeeds of
his children (i., iii.), who had not been very strictly
looked after by him. His wife is represented as a
person who did not sufficiently restrain her tongue
(ii. 2). Hermas depicts himself as slow of under-
standing, but insatiable in curiosity (Mand. xii. 4,
Sim. V. 5), and at the same time as ' patient and
good tempered and always smiling,' ' full of all
simplicity and of great guilelessness ' ( Vis. i. 2).
The scene is laid partly in the house of Hermas
in Rome, partly in the country where he abides
(Vis. iiL 1), and once in Arcadia (Sim. ix. 1).
Mention is made of the road to Cumae, the Cam-
panian Way, and the river Tiber, in which Hermas
sees Rhoda bathing (Vis. i. 1).
To the question who Hermas was there are three
possible answers. (1) He may, as Origen supposes
in his Commentary on Romans (x. 31 [p. 683]), have
been the Scriptural character mentioned by St.
Paul as a member of the Roman Church c. a.d.
58 (Ro 16"). (2) Accoriling to the Muratorian
fragment (c. A.D. 180), he was brother of Pope Pius I.
during his Episcopate (c. a.d. 140-155). (3) He may
have been an otherwise unknown person who was
a contemporary of Pope Clement (c. A.D. 90-100).
This theory involves the identification of the Church
official mentioned in Vis. ii. 4 with the Bishop of
Rome. 'Thou shalt therefore write two little
books, and shalt send one to Clement. ... So
Clement shall send to the foreign cities, for this is
his duty.' Of these views Lightfoot with some diffi-
dence prefers the second, while G. Salmon, Zahn, and
others accept the third (see J. B. Lightfoot, Apos-
tolic Fathers, 294 ; G. Salmon, Introduction to the
NT^, 46, 534).
2. Date and use by the Church. — Whether the
work was written in the beginning or in the middle
of the 2nd cent., there is evidence of its wide circu-
lation soon after the latter date. Irenaeus, Bishop
of Lyons in A.D. 177, accepted it and spoke of it as
Scripture. ' Well did the Scripture speak, saying,
etc' (ap. Euseb. HE v. 8). Clem. Alex, quotes it
several times (e.g. Strom. I. xxix. 181), while Origen
in the passage above referred to speaks of it as a
very useful, and, as he thinks. Divinely-inspired
writing. Tertullian approved of it in his pre-
Montanist days, but afterwards condemned it (de
Piidic. 10). The author of the Muratorian Canon,
while seeking to deprecate the public reading of the
Shepherd in church, commends it for private use.
562 IIERMAS, SHEPHERD OF
HERMAS, SHEPHERD OF
' But the " Sheplierd " was written quite lately in our times by
Hermas, while his brother Pius, the bishop, was sitting in the
chair of the Church of the city of Rome ; and therefore it ouj^ht
indeed to be read, but it cannot to the end of time be publicly
read in the Church to the people, either among; the prophets,
who are complete in number, or amonf; the Apostles.'
3. Contents.— The book is divided up into five
Visions, twelve Mandates or Coinmandinents, and
ten Similitudes or Parables. The Visions form the
introduction to the rest, the Shepherd not appearinj;
until the last of these. The following outline will
give an idea of the purport of the work as a whole.
(1) Visions. — In the first Vision Hermas tells
how, while journeying to Cumse, he saw in the
opened heavens Ithoda, his former owner, whom
he had recently met again, and whom he had
begun to esteem as a sister. She rebukes him
for an unchaste thought towards herself, and
leaves him aghast at the strictness of God's judg-
ment. Then he sees a great white chair of snow-
white wool upon which an aged lady in shining
raiment seats herself. She tells Hermas that what
God is reallj' wroth about is his lack of strictness
with his family whereby his children have become
corrupt. She then reads from a book the glories of
God, but Hermas can only remember the last words,
for the rest is too terrible to bear. She rises, the
chair is carried away towards the east by four
young men, and two other men assist her to depart
in the same direction. As she goes, she smiles and
says, • Play the man, Hermas.'
The second Vision takes place a year later, and
in the same locality. The aged lady again appears,
and gives him a little book that he may copy its
contents and report them to the elect of God. He
copies it letter for letter, for he cannot make out
the syllables, and when he has finished, the book
is snatched away by an unseen hand. After fifteen
days the meaning is revealed to Hermas, who is
directed to rebuke liis children for their wickedness,
and his Avife for her faults of the tongue, as well as
to exhort the rulers of the Church. A great tribu-
lation is at hand, with danger of apostasy by
Christians. One Maximus, in particular, is to be
warned against a second denial. Then it is re-
vealed that the aged woman is not, as Hermas
supposes, the Sibyl, but the Church, created before
all things. He is directed by her to write two
copies of the book, after the revelation is finished,
and send one to Clement that he may send it to the
foreign cities, and one to Grapte that she may
instruct the widows and the orpiians. Hermas is
to read it to the city along with the elders that
preside over the Church.
The main part of the third Vision is the revela-
tion by the lady of the Church under the image of
a tower being built by angels upon the waters of
baptism. The stones of various degrees of suita-
bility (some of tliem castaway), are explained to
mean ditt'erent kinds of members of the Church,
among whom are 'apostles and bishops and teachers
and deacons,' and 'they that sufiered for the name
of the Lord.' The tower is supported by seven
women. Faith, Continence, Simplicity, Knowledge,
Guilelessness, Reverence, and Love. Hermas is
next commissioned to rebuke the self-indulgence
of the well-to-do and the ignorance and divisions
of the rulers of the Church. He inquires why the
lady was aged and weak in the first Vision, more
youthful and joyous in the second, and still
more so in the third, and learns that these appear-
ances were the reflexion of his own changing
spiritual state.
The fourth Vision occurs twenty days later, on
the Campanian Way. Hermas sees a huge cloud of
dust, which resolves itself into the form of a beast
like a sea-monster, emitting fiery locusts from its
mouth. Its length is about a hundred feet, and
its head ■was as it were of pottery, coloured black,
fire and blood-colour, gold and white. This is a
type of the impending tribulation, but it does not
harm Hermas, for the angel Segri has shut its
mouth. The colours represent this world (black),
the blood and fire in which it must perish, those
that have escaped from the world (gold), and tlie
coming age (white).
Tlie fifth episode is called a revelation {'AiroKd-
\v\f/is, not "Opa<ris). Tlie Shepherd, the angel of
repentance, now appears for the first time, glorious
in visage, with sheepskin wallet and statf. He
has been sent by the most holy angel to dwell with
Hermas for the rest of his life. Hermas at first
fails to recognize him as the being to whom he
was delivered, but on recognition proceeds to write
down the Commandments and the Parables dic-
tated by the Shepherd.
(2) Mandates. — The first Commandment is to
believe in and to fear the One God, the Creator,
the incomprehensible (&x'^PW^)f ^^nd to practise
continence ; the second to avoid slander, whether
by hearing or by speaking it, and to be generous
to the needy ; tlie third to abstain from falsehood ;
the fourth to be pure in thought as Avell as in
deed. An adulterous wife is to be divorced, if
unrepentant, but her husband may not many
again, for that would be committing adultery. If
she repents after divorce her husband sins if he
does not receive her again (after baptism only one
opportunity of repentance is given, over which the
Shepherd has authority). If a husband or a wife
die, the other may marry without sin, but to re-
main single is better. The fifth Commandment
enjoins longsuffering, the opposite of ill-temper
((5|i/XoXia), that most evil spirit which causes bitter-
ness, wrath, anger, and spite. The next three
Mandates expand the provisions of the first — faith,
fear, and temperance. Contrasts are drawn be-
tween the two ways (and the two angels) of
righteousness and wickedness, between the fear
of God and the fear of the devil, and between
temperance as to what is evil, and indulgence in
what is good. The ninth Commandment extols
faith in prayer, and condemns doubtful -minded-
ness, while the tenth exhorts Hermas to be clothed
in cheerfulness and to put away sadness. In the
eleventh striking descriptions are given of the false
prophet, who absents himself from the Christian
assembly, and is consulted as a soothsayer by men
in corners, and of the true prophet upon whom the
Divine afflatus comes in the course of the Church's
worship. The last Commandment is to banish
evil desire by the cultivation of desire which is
good and holy.
(3) Similitudes. — The first Parable is a simple
expansion of the theme that the Christian is a so-
journer in a foreign city, and should act as a citizen
of the city which is his true home. In the second
the duty of the rich to give to the poor is illus-
trated by the figure of an elm and a vine. The
former, though fruitless, supports the fruitful vine.
So the intercessions of the poor man prevail on
behalf of his wealthy benefactor. In the next two,
a similitude is drawn between trees in winter,
when all are leafless, and all seem equally withered,
and in summer, when some are sprouting, while
others remain withered. The winter represents
the conditions of this world, the summer those
of the world to come. The fifth Parable presents
the story of a vineyard, a master, and a faithful
servant, the exposition of which reveals an early
belief in the doctrine of works of supererogation,
and an Adoptianist conception of the personality
of the Son of God (see below). In the next, two
shepherds are shown, one of pleasant mien sport-
ing with his sheep, tlie other of sour countenance
lashing Ins flock with a whip and otherwise mal-
treating them. Tiie former is the angel of self-
nERMAS, SHEPHERD OF
HER^rAS, SHEPHERD OF 563
indulgence and deceit, the latter the angel of
Eunishment. A few days later Hermas is amicted
y this angel of punishment, and in the seventh
Parable he is taught that this is because of the sins
of his household. The next two are long and com-
plicated. First Hermas sees a great willow tree
(the Law of God, which is the Son of God preached
unto the ends of the earth) under which stands a
multitude of believers. A glorious angel (Michael)
cut3 rotis from the tree and gives them to the
people, wlio in due course return them in great
variety of condition — withered, grub - eaten,
cracked, green, some with shoots, and some with
a kind ot fruit. These last are those who have
suflered for Christ. They are crowned and sent
into the tower with some of the others. The re-
mainder are left to the care of the Shepherd, who,
as the angel of repentance, plants the rods in the
eai'th, and deals with the owners according to the
results. The ninth Parable is an amplification of
the third Vision. Hermas, seated on a mountain
in Arcadia, sees a great plain surrounded by twelve
mountains, each of w hich has a dillerent appear-
ance. These are the tribes of the world, varying
in understanding and conduct. In the midst of
the plain is a great and ancient rock, with a
recently-hewn gate in it. This is the Son of God,
older than creation, and yet recently made mani-
fest. Upon the rock a tower (the Church) is being
built by angels, of stones that are brought through
the gate. The first course is of ten stones, tbe
second of twenty-five, the third of thirty-five, the
fourth of forty. These are the first and the second
generation of righteous men, the prophets and
ministers, and the apostles and teachers. These
stones come from the deep, and the rest come from
the mountains. Some are suitable and others are
rejected. The Shepherd, as in the former Parable,
deals with the latter, to fit those that are capable
for a place in the building. A curious feature is
the introduction of the Son of Gk)d, already sym-
bolized bj- the rock and the gate, as the glorious
man who inspects the tov.er and rejects certain of
the stones. The purport of the concluding Parable
is an exhortation to Hermas to keep the Shepherd's
commandments and to publish them to others.
4. References to organization and doctrine of the
Church. — {a) Organization. — In the first respect,
the allusions are too slight to give more than a
general picture. We read of the rulers (1-^07701/-
/xevoi) of the Church, whom Hermas is directed to
exhort {Vis. ii. 2) and even to rebuke for their
divisions and their ignorance (iii. 9). There are
apostles, bishops, teachers, and deacons (iii. 5),
also prophets and ministers (diaKovoi ; Sim. ix. 15).
There are deacons who plunder the livelihood of
widows and orphans, and make gain from the per-
formance of their office ^ix. 26), and, on the other
hand, bishops who exercise hospitality and are
like trees sheltering sheep, receiving into their
houses the servants of God at all times, and shelter-
ing the needy and the widows in their visitation
(ix. 27). Clement, whose duty is to communicate
with foreign cities, may, as we have seen, have
been the bishop of Rome, while Grapte, who in-
structs the widows and the orphans, may have
been a deaconess ( Vis. ii. 4). Hermas, who is told
to read his book to the city along with the elders
who preside over the Church (/trra xQy vpeff^vripwv
tQv rpoCcFTanivuv t-^s eKAcXTjffi'os), may well have been
one of the order of prophets. Tlie office of a
prophet is held in estimation by the Church.
' W hen then the man who hath the divine Spirit
cometh into an assembly {(rwa-yurfrj) of righteous
men, who have faith in a divine Spirit, and inter-
cession is made to God by the gathering of those
men, then the angel of the prophetic spirit who
is attached to him, filleth the man, and the man,
being filled with the Holy Spirit, speaketh to the
multitude, according as the Lord willeth ' {Mand.
xi.). The false prophet, on the contrary, is dumb
in the Church assembly, and plies a wizard's trade
in comers. In view of the Roman character of
the Shepherd, it is interesting to note that the
tower which represents the Church is represented
as founded, not on Peter, but, in the third Vision,
upon the waters of baptism, and, in the ninth
Parable, upon the rock of the Son of God.
{b) Doctrine. — The doctrinal references reveal,
at least in the case of Hermas, a creed which is
simple and yet has its own peculiarities. Perhaps
the most striking of the latter is the conception of
the Son of God. In the Parable of the vineyard
(the fifth) the Son of God is represented as a slave
placed in charge, with a promise of freedom if he
fulfils his allotted duty. He does so much more
than is expected of him that the Divine master of
the vineyard resolves that he shall be made joint-
heir with His Son, who is represented as the Holy
Spirit. 'The Holy Pre-existent Spirit, which
created the whole creation, God made to dwell in
flesh that He desired. This flesh therefore, in
which the Holy Spirit dwelt, was subject unto the
Spirit. . . . When then it had lived honourably in
chastity, and had laboured with the Spirit, and
had co-operated with it in everything, behaving
itself boldly and bravely. He chose it as a partner
with the Holy Spirit ' (Sim. v. 6). This Adoptianist
conception, which illustrates early Roman specu-
lation on the Person of Christ, finds frequent
expression in phrases identifying the Spirit with
the Son of Goa, e.g. ' For that Spirit is the Son
of God' (ix. 1). In this same fifth Parable we
have an early trace of the doctrine of works of
supererogation, which, in mediseval times, was so
prominent in the Church's system. ' If thou do
any good thing outside the commandment of God,
thou shalt win for thyself more exceeding glory,
and shalt be more glorious in the sight of God
than thou wouldest otherwise have been' (v. 3).
Hermas also teaches that the first apostles and
teachers who had died, went like Christ, and
preached unto the Spirits in prison (ix. 16). His
eschatology is in one respect severe and narrow.
Not only are unrepentant sinners to be burned,
but also the Gentiles, because of their ignorance
of God (iv.). In the fifth Vision there is an
apparent leference to the belief in guardian angels.
When the Shepherd at first appears, Hermas fails
to recognize him, as apparently he should have
done,* to be the being to whom he was ' delivered,'
and only when the visitant changes his form does
recognition come. It seems curious that while
Baptism is plainly mentioned two or three times
{Vis. iii. 3, Mand. iv. 3, Sim. ix. 16) the Lord's
Supper does not appear to be alluded to. Fasting
is often mentioned, and once we find Hermas
keeping a 'station,' as the early fast-days were
called {Sim. v. 1), In this case he is commanded,
not to abstain entirely from food, but to take
bread and water.
While Hermas shows fewer traces of the influence
of St. Paul than of that of St. James, with whose
Epistle he shows great familiarity, he need not be
definitely classed as a Judaizer. His office is that
of a prophet, and his mission is to recall Christians
from the danger of too intimate contact with
Eagan social influence. He speaks of those * who
ave never investigated concerning the truth, nor
enquired concerning the deity, but have merely
believed, and have been mixed up in business
affairs and riches and heathen friendships, and
many other affairs of this world' (Mand. x. 1), as
specially without understanding and corrupt.
* Another explanation is that a previous Vision may have
dropi)ed out from the MSS which have come down to us.
564
HERMES
HEROD
Hence his standard of Cluistian duty is put in the
most practical shape : ' faith, fear of the Lord,
love, concord, words of righteousness, truth,
patience, , . , to minister to widows, to visit the
orphans and the needy, to ransom the servants of
God from their afflictions, to be hospitable, . . .
to resist no man, to be tranquil, to snow yourself
more submissive than all men,' etc. (viii.). The
indwelling of the Spirit of God is a feature of
Christian life prominently insisted on, and if in-
termediate beings like Faith, Continence, Power,
Longsuflering {Sim. ix. 15) seem to shape the
Christian cliaracter, these are declared to be
'powers of the Son of God' (ix. 13). God is the
Creator alike of the world and of the Church. ' Be-
hold, the God of Hosts, who by His invisible and
mighty power and by His great wLsdom created the
world, and by His glorious purpose clothed His
creation with comeliness, and by His strong word
fixed the heaven, and founded the earth upon the
waters, and by His own wisdom and providence
formed His holy Church, which also He blessed'
( Vis. ii. 3).
Hermas, who Avas evidently acquainted with the
contents of the Didache, does not directly cite
Scripture by name, but he continually uses
Scriptural words and ideas, handling them with a
light touch, and working them into new combina-
tions. C. Taylor (The Witness of Hermas to the
Four Gospels) has investigated tliese allusions
minutely, and considers Hermas to be a valuable
witness to the Canon, especially in the case of the
four Gospels. He finds in the four feet of the
couch in the third Vision (13), Avith tlie associated
cryptic utterance ' for the Avorld too is upheld by
means of four elements,' the source of the famous
saying of Irenajus that there can be neither more
nor fewer than four Gospels, because there are
four regions of the Avorld, and four catholic winds,
etc. (see p. 13 ft".). There is a citation of the lost
Avork Eldad and Medad ( Vis. ii. 3), and Segri, the
name of the angel who shuts the monster's mouth
in Vis. iv. 2, is a word derived from the Hebrew
verb in Dn 6^ ^ shut the lions' mouths' (The Johns
Hopkins University Circular, April, 1884, iii. 75).
8. Text and Yersions. — There is no complete
Greek text of the Shepherd. About the first
quarter of it is contained in the 4tli cent. Sinaitic
MS (K), Avhile the Athos MS (A) Avritten in the
14th cent, is the authority for the rest of the work,
except the concluding portion, from Sim. ix. 30
to the end, Avhich has to be supplied from the
Latin versions. These are tAvo in number, the so-
called Old Latin Version (L) found in about tAventy
MSS, and the Palatine Version (Lj) existing in one
MS of the 14th century. There is also an Ethiopic
Version (E) published in 1860 Avith a Latin trans-
lation (see J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers,
p. 295).
LiTKRATORE.— J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 1 vol.,
London, 1891; O. von Gebhardt and A. Harnack, Patnim
Apost. Opera, Kasc. iii., Leipzig, 1877; F. X. Funk, Patres
Apostolici. Tubingen, 1901; C. Taylor, The Hhepherd of
//«rma« (Translation, Introduction, and Notes), London, 1903-
1906; T. Zahn, Der Uirt des Hermas, Gotha, 18ti8 ; A.
Hilgrenfeld, Ilermce Pastor, Leipzig, 1887; C. Taylor, The
Witness of Hermas to the Four Gospels, London, 1892 ; [Bp.
Fell], Barnabas and Hermas, Oxford, 1C85 ; G. Salmon, His-
torical Introduction to iVT*, London, 1891.
A. Mitchell.
HERMES ('Ep/x7js, Ro 16'*). — Hermes Avas a very
common Greek name, being the name of the
popular Greek god. Lightfoot remarks that, in
the Imperial household inscriptions, not less tlian
a score of persons might be counted Avho bore this
name about the date of Romans (Philippians*,
1878, p. 176). In the NT it is found as the third
of a group of five names (all Greek) of Christians
saluted by St. Paul (see Hermas). It is significant
that a Christian should Iiavc no scruple in retain-
ing as las name the name of one of the gods.
Another instance is Nereus (v.'*).
T. B. Allwokthy.
HERMOGENES.— See Phygelus.
HEROD. — 1. Antipas, son of Herod the Great
by the Samaritan Maltliace. Made tetrarch of
Galilee and Pera;a after the death of his fatlier in
4 B.C., he ruled over these regions till a.d. 39,
Avhen, through the intrigues of Herod Agi'ippa and
his OAvn ambition, he incurred the disfavour of
Caligula, and Avas banished to Lugdunum in Gaul.
Capable and successful as an administrator, lie is
held up to reproach in the Gospels for the scandal
of his private life, and his treatment of John the
Baptist and Jesus (Mt 14'-i-, Lk IS^"- 23^-").
ElscAvhere in the NT there are only two references
to him. The first (Ac 4-^) occurs in the thanks-
giving of the early disciples over the release of
Peter and John from im[>risonment, and indicates
their vicAV of Herod's relation to the tragedy of
Calvary. The basis of the thanksgiving is a
Messianic interpretation of the 2nd Psalm and a
belief in its fulfilment in Jesus. Herod and Pontius
Pilate are represented as the kings and rulers of
tlie earth Avho conspired (Lk 23'-') against the Lord's
Anointed, and Avreaked their Avill on Him, Avhile
all the time they Avere being used by God to further
His purpose of redemption. The fact, hoAvever,
that God over-ruled their evil intentions for good,
and caused their Avrath to praise Him, though it
redounds to His OAvn glory and augments the
Avonder of His Avorking, is not regarded as any
alleviation of their guilt. The sin of Herod, as of
Pilate, in relation to Jesus, is clearly implied, and
evidently seemed as heinous to the early believers
as did his crime against John to the Baptist's
folloAvers, avIio saw in the disasters of his Arabian
Avar (A.D. 36) a Divine retribution for his murder
of their master (Jos. Ant. xvill. v.). The other
reference to Herod Antipas (Ac 13') is unimportant,
though of some interest for the sidelight it casts
upon the age of Manaen (q.v.), one of the leaders
in the Church at Antiocli, Avho is said to have been
his foster-brother or early companion.
2. Agrippa l., son of Aristobulus, Herod the
Great's son by the Hasmonrean Mariamne. After
his father's execution in 7 B.C. he Avas sent to
Rome Avith his mother Bernice, and lived on terms
of intimacy witli the Imperial family. In A.D. 23
his intrigues and extravagances had brought him
to such straits that he Avas forced to retire to tlie
IdumiBan stronghold of Malatha till he found an
asylum Avith Antipas in Galilee. Evading his
creditors, he returned to Rome in A.D. 36, and
shortly afterwards Avas committed to prison for an
incautious remark that had reached the ears of
Tiberius. There he lav till the folloAving year,
Avhen the death of the old Emperor and the acces-
sion of his friend Caius (Caligula) restored him to
freedom and fortune. The ncAv Emperor bestoAved
on him the eastern tetrarchyof his half-uncle Philip,
Avhich had been vacant for three years, Avith the
title of king, and added to it Abilene, the former
tetrarchy of Lysanias in north-eastern Palestine
(Lk 3') ; at the same time he commanded the
Senate to decree him prsetorian honours, and gave
him a golden cliain of the same Aveight and pattern
as that Avhich he had Avorn in his captivity. A fcAV
years later the tetrarchy of the exiled Antipas Avas
also conferred on him ; and in A.D. 41 Claudius, on
his succession to the throne, still further enlarged
his possessions Avith the gift of Samaria and Juda>a,
and raised him to consular rank. In the splendour
of his good fortune Agrippa did not forget his
Jewish countrymen, but fitfully at least, and prob-
ably from motives of policy, exerted his intluence
HEROD
HIERAPOLIS
666
at the Roman court to mitigate the wronjis and
restrictions entailed on them by their religion.
On assuming the government of his new dominions
— greater than Jewish king ever possessed — he set
himself to observe the laws of his country and the
practices of the Jewish faith (Jos. Ant. XEX. vii.).
During his three years of rule, he showed himself
sagacious, liberal, and humane ; though, in his
desire to propitiate the Pharisaic element among
his subjects, he raised his band against the followers
of Christ, killed James with the sword, and would
have sacrificed Peter also, had he not miraculously
escaped (Ac 12'"^'). ' He saw it pleased the Jews'
is the explanation given of this severity in Acts
{12^), and there is no reason to doubt its substantial
accuracy. The end came to Agrippa with tragic
srtddenness in A.D. 44, when his glory was at its
height. Between the account of his death given
in Acts (12"*-^) and that of Josephus {Ant. XIX.
viiL) there is no more inconsistency than might
have been expected from the different circles in
which they originated. The latter is more detailed,
and yet omits to mention the deputation from
Tyre and Sidon who sought reconciliation with
King Agrippa through the good offices of his
chamberlain. According to Josephus, the occasion
of Agrippa's display at Caesarea was a series of
games in honour of tlaudius ; no angel of the Lord
smote him, but an owl appeared as a portent
before the fatal seizure ; he was carried to his
palace, and lingered in agony for five days. There
is nothing about his having been ' eaten of worms,'
which maj' have been only a descriptive phrase
commonly used of the death of tyrants (2 Mac 9").
Both accounts, however, suggest the interposition
of a higher, avenging hand in the sudden death of
the king.
3. Agrippa II., son of Agrippa I. and Cypros, the
daughter of Phasael, a son-in-law of Herod the
Great. At the time of his father's death, he was
resident in Rome, and only seventeen years of age.
Disposed at first to grant him the succession to the
Jewish kingdom, Claudius allowed himself to be
dissuaded by his ministers, and re-transformed
it into a Roman province. Detaining Agrippa in
Rome, the Emperor compensated him six years
afterwards for the loss of his paternal inheritance
by giving him his uncle Herod's kingdom of Chalcis,
as well as the rights, whicli Herod had possessed,
of supervising the Temple and choosing the high
priest. A year before his death, Claudius allowed
Agrippa to exchange the meagre principality of
Chalcis for those parts of his father's dominions,
east and north-east of the Sea of Galilee, which
had formerly been the tetrarchies of Philip and
Lysanias (Batanaja, Gaulonitis, Trachonitis, and
Abila). In A.D. 56 Nero, who had meauMhile
succeeded to the throne and expected his aid against
the Parthians, added to his kingdom the regions
of Tiberias and Taricheie, with Julias, a city of
Peraea, and fourteen villages in its vicinity.
Agrippa showed his gratitude by changing the
name of his capital from Caesarea Philippi to Nero-
nias, in honour of the Emperor, on whose l)irthday
also he had Greek plays annually performed in a
theatre which he erected at Berytus. Precluded
by his position from independent political action,
he contented himself wth adorning his cities and
conserving his possessions. A Roman at heart,
and devoted by education and circumstances to the
Roman influence, he endeavoured to bring the
customs of his people into conformity with those
of the Gentiles. At the same time, he e\*inced
an occasional interest in the Jewish religion, and
sought to win over the Pharisees to his projects.
In the final straggle between the Jews and Rome,
which he did his utmost to avert, he maintained
his loyalty to the Imperial power, and at the close
of the war was rewarded with an enlargement of
his territories. We hear of him in Rome in A.D.
75, when he Avas raised to prsetorian rank. Later
on, he corresponded with Josephus about his His-
tory of the Jewish War. He died, Avithout issue,
a1x)ut the end of the century. It was this king,
Agrippa II., who was associated with Porcius
Festus, the Roman procurator of Palestine (A.D.
60-62), in the trial of^St. Paul recorded in Ac 25"-
26^. The remark imputed to him on that occasion
('almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,*
26^) is interesting for the evidence it affords of
the early currency of the name 'Christian.' The
character of Agrippa has caused doubt to be thrown
on its ordinary interpretation as an admission of
the profound impression made on him by St. Paul's
appeal. It has been taken to mean either * you
are persuading me somewhat to act the part of a
Christian,' or ' on slight grounds you would make
me a believer in your assertion that the Messiah
has come' (EBi i. 754 n., ii. 2037).
LrraKATmB.— The great authority for the lives of the Herods
is Josephus. E. Schfirer, 6JV*, heipzig, 1901-U (Eag. tr. of
2nd ed. = HJP, Edinbarjrh, 1885-90) ; A. Hansrath, A'TZG (Eng.
tr. of 2nd ed., London, 1895) ; and other Histories of ST Times,
give more or less fall accounts of the bmily. See also artt.
s.v. in HDB and EBi. D. FKEW.
HERODION ('BpuSiup, WH 'HfxpSiuy, Ro 16", a
Greek name, suggesting connexion with the family
of the Herods). — Herodion is sainted by St. Paul
and is described as ' my kinsman ' {rbp avfyani /xov).
Other ' kinsmen ' saluted in Ro 16 are Andronicus
and Junias (or Junia) (v."), whDe three ' kinsmen '
send salutations in v.-'. That St. Paul means that
these persons were relations of his is unlikely. It
is this interpretation which has given rise to one
of the difficulties felt in deciding the destination
of the passage vv.*-^. Almost certainly we should
understand ' fellow- Jews ' or ' fellow-members of
my tribe ' (see Ro 9'). Lightfoot connects Herodion
with ' the household of Aristobnlus ' saluted in the
preceding verse. He considers that Aristobulus
was a member of the Herodian family, and that
hLs ' household ' would naturally include many
Orientals and Jews, and therefore probably some
Christians {Philippians*, 1878, p. 175). Of the
latter, Herodion may have been one. Others have
conjecttired that Herodion belonged to ' the house-
hold of Narcissus' saluted in the verse which
follows. T. B. Allwoethy.
HIERAPOLIS ('lepdroXtj). — Hierapolis was a city
in the province of Asia, picturesquely situated on
a broad terrace in the mountain range which skirts
the N. side of the Lycus valley. On the S. side,
6 miles away, Laodicea was plainly >Tsible, while
Colossje lay hidden from \-iew 12 miles to the S.E.
Differing widely in history and character, these
three cities were evangelized together soon after
the middle of the 1st century. Hierapolis was
probably an old Lydian city, but in the Roman
period it was always regarded as Phrygian. A
change in the spelling of the name is significant.
"While the older form — Hieropolis, the city of the
hieron — limits the sanctity to the shrine, the later
form — Hierapolis, the sacred city — conveys the
idea that the whole place was holy.
In such an environment Christianity had to con-
tend not merely with a superficial Hellenic culture,
but with a deep-rooted native superstition. Politic-
ally of little account, Hierapolis was important as
the home of an ancient Anatolian nature-worship,
the cult of Leto and her son Sabazios. The strik-
ing physical phenomena of the place were clear
indications to the pruuitive mind of the dreaded
presence of a numen which reqtiired to be propiti-
ated. The numerous hot streams tumbling down
the side of the hill on which the city stood are
566
HIGH PRIEST
HOLINESS, PURITY
etronj^ly inii)regnate(l with alum, and the snow-
white iuciuslations whicli cover tlie rocky terraces
present the ai)i)earance of * an immense frozen
cascade, the surface wavy, as of water in its head-
long course suddenly petrified ' (R. Chandler,
Travels in Asia Minor^, 1817, p. 287). From a
hole in the ground — probably filled up by Chris-
tians after a.d. 320 — there issued fumes of mephitic
vapour, which seemed to come from Hades, so that
the awe-inspiring spot was called the Plutonion or
Charonion (Strabo xiil. iv. 14). On account of its
marvellous hot springs — re<jarded as a divine gift
— the city was associated with the medicinal art of
yEsculapius, and under the Empire it became a
famous health resort. It was the birth-place of
Epictetus the Stoic.
Hierapolis is mentioned once in the NT (Col 4"),
as a city causing grave concern to Epaphras, who
was apparently the fotinder and first pastor of its
church. The cities of the Lycus valley no doubt
received the gospel at the time of St. I'aul's pro-
longed mission in Ephesus, the citj' from which the
ligiit radiated over the whole province of Asia (Ac
1910. 26J Having acted as St. Paul's delegate in the
Lycus valley (Col V [RV]), Epaphras knew tliat
the Apostle regarded its churches as in a manner
his own, and after some years of strenuous labour
the 'faithful minister of Christ' made a journey
from Asia to Rome to seek counsel and help in
dealing with errors of doctrine and jiractice which
threatened to undo his work.
There is a trustworthy tradition which connects
the name of Philip the Apostle with Hierapolis.
Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus towards the end of
the 2nd cent. — as (juoted by Eusebius (HE iii. 31)
— ^states that Philip, ' one of the twelve,' Avas
among ' the great lights of Asia,' and that he was
'buried at Hierapolis along with his two virgin
daughters.' Theodoret (Commentary on Ps 116)
says that ' the Apostle Philip controverted the
error of the Phrygians.' St. John is also believed
to have preached at Hierapolis, and the progress of
Christianity there was represented as the victory
over the Echidna or serpent of ^sculapius, which
was identified with Satan. Hierapolis Avas made a
metropolis by Justinian. The ruins of the city are
extensive and well-preserved. The theatre is one
of the finest in Asia Minor. The white terrace
now bears the fanciful name of ' Cotton Castle '
(Pamhuk-Kalessi).
Literature.— W. J. Hamilton, Researches in Asia Minor,
1842, i. 507 ff. ; T. Lewin, Life and Epistles 0/ St. Paul\ 1875,
i. 356 f. ; W. M. Ramsay, Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor, 1890,
p. 84, and Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, i. [1895] 84-120.
James Strahan.
HIGH PRIEST.-See Priest.
HOLINESS, PURITY.— This article is intended
to include the conceptions of holiness and purity
as we find them in the literature of the Apostolic
Church. So far as the Gospels are concerned,
these have already been dealt with in separate
articles in the DCG, to which reference is now
made. There is a certain advantage in dealing
with both subjects in one article, as the two are
fundamentally connected ; and in the course of the
article it will be found that the tie is very close.
Both are primarily religions ideas, who.se ethical
significance diverges. In the NT holiness em-
phasizes rather tlie Divine side, and })urity the
human side of that comprehensive condition of
l)eace with and access to God the Father, along
with all the consequences for character which had
been mediated through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There seems to be no fundamental difference in
the use of tlie terms 'holiness' and 'purity' by
the various NT writers. Hence the metliod fol-
lowed in the article has been to use in illustration
of the general conceptions certain leading NT
])assages.
1. Holiness.— i. The general conception.— The
original idea is stated by A. B. Davidson (Ezekiel,
Cambridge, 1892, p. xxxix) to be 'not now recover-
able' (cf. Robertson Smith, RS^, London, 1894, p.
140). The most plausible suggestion is that it is
connected with a root=' separate.' Our idea of
holiness is misleading for the interpretation of
both OT and NT meaning. To us, holiness is
exclusively an ethico-religious quality, attaching to
persons, in so far as they are God-like in life and
character ; and applied (less accurately) to institu-
tions (including sacraments) on account of their
religious significance. In ancient Semitic religion,
the ' holiness ' of God or of men had nothing to do
with morality and ethical j»urity of life. Even in
Israel it came to be an appropriate epithet of,
almost a synonym for, Deity (cf. Am 4* 6^ where
God is said to swear ' by his holiness,' and ' by
himself,' without any real difierence of meaning).
In other words, ' holiness ' is a relative term in
ancient religion.
'The divine holiness was not so much an object of intellectual
contemplation as a fact borne in upon the mind by the constant
presence of things and persons that might not be touched,
places that might not be entered, and times in which ordinary
employments were suspended, because of their appropriation
to the service or worship of God ' (J. Skinner, UDB li. 397» ;
cf. H. Schultz, OT Theology, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1892, p. 168 ff.).
Holiness is not to be confused with transcendence
in its application to God. Jahweh, as holy, in
Hebrew thought is not originally opposed to the
universe, but rather is guarded or guards Himself,
on the one hand against the arrogance and pre-
sumption of man (1 S 6''"') and, on the other, against
the false deity of the national gods (Jos 4"'"'-). The
Hebrews, in transferring the epithet to Jahweh,
also took over the ancient idea involved in it, and
persisting in the NT, that any thing or person that
conies into any relation with Deity is ipso facto
holy. Any part of God Himself may be holy (e.g.
His arm. His spirit) ; or what constitutes His
property is ' holy (e.g. His sanctuary, land, people,
offerings, or ministers). Angels are also calletl
' holy ones ' (Job 5^).
The real antithesis to ' holy ' in this original
sense is, therefore, ' profane ' or ' common ' (hCI,
/S^/St/Xos, lit. ' that which is allowed to be trodden '
[Lv 10'», 1 S 21*, 1 Ti 4? 6^», 2 Ti 2i«] ; used in the
NT of men [1 Ti P, He 12'«]). The ' holy ' was also
accessible only under certain strict ceremonial
regulations. And it is just at this point that the
aflmity of holiness and purity or cleanness becomes
a])parent (see further under II. ).
2. The NT conception.— This idea of 'holiness'
as essentially a relationship between God and man,
in which God takes the initiative, persists all
through the NT ; and it is obvious that, as the
idea of God develojjcd, holine.ss would also tend
to carry with it ever-increasing moral demands on
character. We may therefore turn to the uses of
the word in the NT.
There are two main groups of words translated
'holy' in the NT: (1) the ^710$ group (d7i<lfw,
d7icw/i6j, a.fi.&rT)^, aynatrvvij) ; (2) the fi<r«oi group
(baiimji, oaius [1 Th 2'"]). Updi is also twice em-
ployed (e.g. 2 Ti 3'^ 1 Co 9'*), but it need not be
specially distinguished.
In the NT the terms 'holiness' and 'holy' are
applied (1) to Gotl ; (2) to Jesus; (3) to tlie Sjjirit
of God ; (4) to things and places ; (5) to men.
(1) The holiness of God.— Th&t 'holiness' and
•holy' are comparatively infrequent in this con-
nexion in the NT need occasion no surprise. The
Apostolic Church in the name 'Father' fcmnd a
term that included and transcended the holiness of
(!od. Je-sus' own description of God is the ' j)erfect '
One (Mt 5««), the 'good' One (Mt 19", Mk 10^*).
HOLINESS, PURITY
HOLINESS, PURITY
567
As we shall see later, however, the judgment of
Kitschl (Rei-htfertigung und Versohnung, Bonn,
1870-74, ii. 89, 101 ; Eng. tr. of vol. iii., Edinburgh,
1900, p. 274) that the Divine holiness, 'in its Old
Testament sense, is for various reasons not valid
in Christianity, while its use in the New Testament
is obscure,' cannot be upheld. Rather there are
whole tracts of the NT literature that would re-
main a sealed book were it not for the guidance
of this OT conception. 07105 is applied to God, or
to the 'name' of God (Lk 1*^, Rev 48). In both
these usages the significance is the same, and re-
calls the original meaning. The conception of the
majesty of God is most prominent. In Rev 4" it is
the ^tfia who otier the ascription of praise in the
form of the Trisagion. If they are taken as repre-
senting Nature, and the forces of the natural world,
&y'io$ here no doubt emphasizes the sense of
'absolute life and majestic power' (J. Moflatt,
EGT V. [1910] 381). There is a reminiscence of
Is 6*, but with a remarkable absence of the over-
whelming impression of moral purity in the
prophet's vision. The ethical content of the OT
conception is apparent, however, in Rev 6^". There
the thought has affinity with Is 5^*, where God is
said to ' sanctify ' Himself, by inflicting righteous
punishment on the sinners of Israel. The blood of
the martyrs cries for the Divine vengeance, and the
holiness of God must always express itself in the
form of intense antagonism to the sutiering of the
innocent and the sin of the oppressor. Probably
another side of the same idea is present in Jn 17 ,
where the Saviour appeals to the holiness of the
Father that, in view of the trials and persecutions
likely to come upon them, the disciples who are
'in the world' may be protected and vindicated
(cf. vv. ^^- ■^). The Father, as holy, transcends
and is separate from the world, but condescends to
the needs of the disciples — in other words, ' saves '
them (H. J. Holtzmann). The usage in 1 P l^*- is
interesting ; ayios ought to be translated as predi-
cate. The exhortation is based on Lv 11*^*, and
has no direct connexion with the more profound
thought of Mt 5''*. The 'holiness' inculcated in
the Leviticus passage involves the disuse as food of
certain 'creeping things' regarded as repugnant
and an ' abomination ' to God. As often, holiness
and physical purity tend to coalesce. God has
called Israel out of Egypt to be a ' separate ' nation,
and He is ' holy ' or ' apart from ' the impure usages
of heathen nations (cf. Skinner, BDB ii 397'';
E. Kautzsch, ib. v. 682). The idea in Leviticus
does not go beyond ceremonial purity (see under
II.). Similarly in 1 P l"**-, while the idea of God
has of course become moralized, and He is spoken
of as ' Father,' the exhortation is essentially to
abandon the ' former lusts,' on the ground that
they too are repugnant to the nature of God and
unfit men for the service of the ' living God.' The
stress is still on the outward behaviour. As regards
the expression wyuurdrfTb) rb 6vo/id aov in the Lord's
Praj'er (Mt 6^ Lk 11-), 'name' is of course used in
the ordinary biblical sense, and is equivalent to
the revealed nature of God, especially as revealed
in Jesus — His Fatherhood. There is an implied
contrast with a pagan type of prayer (v."-), which
consists in formal and ceremonial repetitions of the
same words. Jesus here applies the same revolu-
tionary principle to prayer, in so far as it implies
a conception of the character of God, as when He
abrogates the ceremonial in conduct as a term of
fellowship with God (Mt 15", Mk V% God is
' the Holy One of Israel,' and His name is hallowed
or sanctified, or ' counted as holy,' when men revere
His majesty (Is 29'^), by recognizing, in willing
and trustful submission. His Providence (Mt 6*).
The whole context in Mt 6^"* is useful as determin-
ing the sense in which holiness is here ascribed to
God by Jesus. The 'hallowing' of the name is
opposed to ostentatious worship, which profanes it.
The ethical content given to tne word (v.*) by our
Lord is profound and far-reaching. The God, and
Father, of Jesus is indeed ' exalted above ' men in
the perfection of His ' goodness ' (Mk 10>», Mt 19^^) ;
but He is also infinitely accessible to all those who
seek Him. Universalism is therefore latent in this
opening petition.
The noun af lirrr)^ is used of God (a) in 2 Co 1*' (^i*
ayi&rriTi Kal eiXucpiveiq. tov 6eov) ; and (6) also in He 12^'
(els t6 fieraXa^etv rrjs ayi&rrjroi airrov) (cf. 2 Mac 15*).
(a) Another reading is aT\anrri (K<=DEGL, the
Latin and Syrian VSS). ayioTTjri is supported by
K*ABCK_MP 17, 37, 73 and the Bohairic. St. Paul
is claiming that his conduct is characterized by these
Divine qualities, and ' in so far as they are displayed
in men they are God's gift, as he goes on to explain '
(J. H. Bernard, EGT iii. [1903] 42). Denney finely
paraphrases : ' In a holiness and sincerity which
God bestows, in an element of crystal transparency,
I have led my apostolic life ' {2 Corinthians [in Ex-
positor's Bible, London, 1894], p. 30). Here, agaio,
the affinity is apparent between the conceptions of
purity and holiness. St. Paul is claiming to have
walked 'in the light, as he is in the light.' The
thought is akin to the Johannine idea ' God is light,
and in him is no darkness at all ' (1 Jn 1').
(6) The word in Hebrews is used similarly to indi-
cate a holiness of God that can be imparted to men.
The conception here is not of a holiness that is
only possible after death (H. von Soden). We may
compare 12", ' without holiness, no man shall see
the Lord,' where, however, the word is ayiaafios, or
'consecration' (see SANCTIFICATIOX), the process, of
which oLyibTTji is the result. Here, again, we can
detect, shining through the depth of ethical mean-
ing, the fundamental idea of holiness as ' separa-
tion.'
' " Holiness " or sanctity in God is properly separation or dis-
tance from the world and elevation above it ; holiness in men
is separation from the world and dedication unto God ' (A. B.
Davidson, Hebrews, p. 238).
It is significant, as indicating the immense pro-
gress attained in the Christian idea, that in the
only two instances in the NT where the 071671/$ of
God is spoken of as an abstract t«rm, men are
represented as sharing in it.
Th. Haering (The Christian Faith, Eng. tr.,
London, 1913, i. 345) aptly cites the yfoiEs 'ye
would not' (Mt 23*^) as the expression of a love
that is also holiness, in its reaction against sin.
These are words, he says, 'which in their simple
seriousness are not surpassed by the awful say-
ing in He \2^.' The love of God in the NT is
awe-inspiring in its holiness, which, equally with
love, is a term that may be used to express the
glorious fullness of His moral excellence. Holiness
is the principle and standard of God's love, which
is His desire ' to impart ' Himself and all good
to other beings, and to possess them as His own
in spiritual fellowship (W. N. Clarke, Outline of
Christian Theology, Edinburgh, 1898, p. 98 f.).
The reaction of the nature of God against sin is
itself love, because thereby it exercises the means
for overcoming the opposition to love. The ' wrath '
of God (e.g. Ro P*) is a conception that can be ade-
quately expressed and understood only in terms of
the biblical conception of His holiness. Holiness,
it has to be remembered, is not strictly an attribute,
but the fullness of the Divine nature, as love is.
We cannot set these two conceptions naiveh" side
by side. One of the theological tasks of the pre-
sent is to procure an adequate adjustment of these
two aspects of the Divine nature to one another.
No theological writer of modem times has realized
and met the need so strikingly as Haering (see esp.
ii. 494 ff. of his work already quoted).
568
HOLINESS, PURITY
HOLINESS, PURITY
'We are . . . face to face with the mystery of the Divine
personality, of which we are compelled to think as life capable
of being moved to its utmost depths, without however being
able to press this necessary idea [of holiness] to its logical con-
clusions ' (ib. ii. 405).
We must recognize tliat the love of God, like all
perfect love, has 'height,' as well as 'depth,' if
we would be tilled ' unto all the fulness of God '
(Eph 3>»'-).
(2) The holiness of Jesus. — In Lk 1^ the child Jesus
in His pre-natal existence is called tA yewib/ievov
&yiov, ' tliat holy thing that is being generated ' (cf.
Mt 1-'*'). The expression has no special significance
in connexion with tlie subject of this article. The
Holy Spirit is regarded as the origin of the physical
existence of Jesus ; and tlierefore the embryo is
entirely holy, as deriving existence from God. The
application of the term to the physical nature of
Jesus must be regarded as the result of reflexion,
no doubt influenced by Hellenistic thought, and
perhaps in opposition to Docetic theories of His
Person. It belongs to a milieu where the theo-
logical idea of tlie pre-existence of Jesus has given
way to a more popular conception of His physical
birth (cf. Lk 1">) (see art. HoLY SPIKIT). We are
also faced here \vitli the problem of a jiossible inter-
polation in vv.»*»« (Motlatt, LNT, p. 2681!".).
Jesus is also referred to as ' the Holy One of God '
(Mk P*, Lk 43^ Jn G"" [ace. to the true reading]).
The phrase is evidently a designation of the Messiah.
The demons are represented as acknowledging that
Jesus is ' the Holy One of God,' i.e. One who has
been chosen, equipped, and consecrated for the
service of humanity against tlie might of the
demonic powers tliat brought disease and madness
by taking possession of the bodies of men. This
was regarded in contemporary Jewish thought as
a function of the Messiali. The epithet ' holy ' is
used in the same sense of consecration to special
service in Jn 6'^'', wliich again may be compared
with Jn 10^ : 6y 6 iraTijp r]yia<rev, i.e. set apart for a
siiecial mission. No feature, liowever, of the con-
sciousness of Jesus in the Johannine Gospel is more
marked than the emphasis on the idea that Jesus
in His essential nature transcends the ordinary
Messianic categories. Therefore, although 6 vlbs
ToD deoD cannot be regarded as the reading in Jn
6'*, the same conception of the moral and religious
relationship of Jesus with God, His unique Sonsliip,
as transcending Messianic categories (^o/'ovej'ijy), ex-
pressed so frequently in the Johannine writings by
6 vibs ToO 0eov, or 6 vl6s, must be regarded as implicit
in 6 dyioi Tov Oeov (cf. pi^fiara ^wrjs aiuviov ?Xf '^ [v^-**])-
Jesus is called 6 017105 absolutely in Rev 3' (6 1X7109 6
dXrjdivSs) and in 1 Jn 2-*. In the latter passage the
idea of the transference of the XP^"'/^^ may «r may
not have an aflinity with Hellenistic mystery-
religion (R. Reitzenstein, Die hdlenistischcn Mys-
terienrcligioncn, Leipzig, 1910, p. 206 f.); but in
any case the XP^<^M^ itself is to be connected with
such passages as Ex 29'' 30'^ and Jesus is ' holy '
because He has been ' anointed ' or set apart for
His particular mission, wherein He perfectly reveals
and perfectly does the will of God. In Johannine
thought, the Holy Spirit is conferred on Jesus with-
out measure (Jn 3^*) ; it ' abides ' in Him (P-'-). It
is the source of His unique filial consciousness, and
in this sense He is set apart by God for His mission,
and perfectly carries it out. It is extremely ques-
tionable if the Johannine writings ever contemplate
the metapliysical notion of the essential oneness of
the Father and the Son, however justifiable it may
be to deduce that conception from the main position
adopted, viz. a 'oneness' of love and will. The
Joliannine position, however, as to the 'oneness'
of God and Jesus is clearly developed in the face of
])hysical notions of union with deity, derived from
the Hellenistic mystery-religions (cf. W. Bousset,
Kyrios Christos, Gottingen, 1913, p. 18611'.). it is
significant that the relationship expressed by ayia-
^tiv between God and Jesus is one that may be con-
ferred on men by Jesus (cf. Jn 17"''").
In tlie Book of Acts Jesus is called rbv &yiov koI
SIkmov (3''*), where tlie epithet is simply an equiva-
lent for the Messiah ; and it lias the same meaning
in 4^ (rbv dyiov iraiSd ffov), where vaiSa is to be trans-
lated 'servant' in the sense of Is 52" 6P (see R. J.
Knowling, EGT ii. [1900], on Ac 3").
Hitherto we have been dealing with instances of
the use of dyioi. In Ac 2'" rbv &<iibv ffov follows the
LXX translation of Ps W°, and is rendered in the
AV and RV 'Thy holy one.' 6<nos is generally
used in the LXX to render hdsid (cf. Dt 33",
2 S 22^, etc.). Hdsid seems to be governed in its
primary meaning by that of hesed ( = ' loving-kind-
ness'), and to mean ' one who is the object of God's
loving-kindness.'
' In its priniarj' sense the word implies no moral praise or
merit ; but it came, not unnaturally, to be connected with the
idea of clwued as "lovin>,'-kindiies8" between man and man, and
to be used of the character which reflected that love of which
it was itself the object ; and finally was applied even to God
Himself ' (A. F. Kirkpatrick,/'iia/7/w, Cambridge, 1902,Appendix,
note I., p. 835 f.).
6(j-(os is applied to God only in Rev 15^ 16' in the
NT. It IS again applied to Jesus in He 7'-* (dpxiepevt
Saios (S/ca/cos), wliere the root distinction between
Sffios and dyios becomes apparent. The writer is
speaking of Christ's moral htness to be our High
Priest, and therefore lays stress on the fact that
He is bffios, as exhibiting a perfect filial reverence
and devotion to His Father's will, Scriot here is
the summary, and also indicates the common source
of those inward qualities that constituted the ' holy '
character of Jesus. It is interesting to note that
Strioy is conjoined with dlKaios (oo-iirijy with SiKaioavvyj
in Lk P* ; balus with 5t/caiwy in 1 Th 2'") in most of
the instances of its use in the NT. This is also
frequently the case in classical usage. The central
idea in both 6aios and 5lKa.io% is conduct sanctioned
by Divine Law ; and 6(noi seems to express tlie
God ward, Siratosthe manward, side of such conduct.
It is perplexing to find that in classical usage o<rio5 came to
mean also ' profane,' but this is accounted for if we remember
that a ' profane ' place is one that may be trodden by all without
doing violence to the majesty of the god; 'profane' conduct,
i.e., js conduct allowed by the god. Of the latter usage there is
no trace in the NT. The word used is always /3<'/St)Xos.
li<no%, therefore, comes to mean ' holy,' approaching
much more nearly to our use of the word in English.
In all the uses of the word in the NT, even in the
semi-technical applications to Messiah quoted from
Acts, tlie reference is to moral conduct, considered
as fitness for the service of God (cf. 1 Ti 2*). (For
the Greek conception of 6aios see art. ' Holiness
[GTQQ\iymERE.)
In Ro I* St. Paul says that Jesus was * designated
(almost = ' installed,' boKrOivTo^) Son of Goof with
power according to tlie Spirit of holiness (Kara,
vvevfia dyiucr6vr]s) by a resurrection of tlie dead.'
irffOfia dyiua-vvrji cannot here be merely an equiva-
lent of ' Holy Spirit ' (but see Feine, Nctitcst.
Theologie, pp. 346 t., 452). The expression ' charac-
terises Christ ethically, as Kara ffdpKo. (v.^*) does
physically' (Denney, EGT ii. 586). It is along
the lines of this clearly implied distinction between
wvev/xa and crdp^ that the meaning must be found.
There is, however, here no accurate and definite
theological distinction between tlie Divine and the
human nature of Jesus. St. Paul is thinking of
the complete Personality of Jesus (as also wlien
he says i>reviously Kara ffdpKa), and he means tlie
human Trvevfia (as the human <rd/)f) of Jesus, the
former distins:uished by a unique ' holiness ' (cf.
He 2'" 4'"). This ' holiness,' as always, consists in
comi)lete and unswerving consecration to (Jod, and
is manifested in all those qualities that <'on.stitutc(l
tlie Personality of Jesus. The Resurrection of
HOLINESS, PtTEITV
HOLIKESS, PUEITY
569
Jesus is the sip^al acknowledgment by God of the
fact. The idea is part of a Messianic apologetic
against current Jewish notions. The holiness of
Jesus is His complete response to the choice of God
in sending His Son to be the Saviour of men, and
evokes an equivalent response on the part of God
in the miracle of the Resurrection. It is the holi-
ness of men, as constituting an indestructible re-
lationship with God, that is the basis of the flicker-
ing hope of immortality in the sense of an endless life
with God that we find here and there in the OT.
Men have committed themselves to Him, with all
that the step involves for conduct, and the promise
of the future rests on His faithfiilness and power
(cf. Ps 73'', where 'sanctuary' is really 'the holy
things of God ' or ' the ultimate deeds of God in
the full character of His holiness' [G. A. Smith,
Modem Criticism and the Preaching of the OT,
London, 1901, p. 206]). It is not without signifi-
cance, both for the conception of ayiu>awn} in Ro 1*
as applied to Jesus and for the connexion of the
Resurrection of Jesus with human immortality,
that St. Paul here uses the phrase, strange in this
connexion, €| dyooTdo-ews vfKpQy, evidently meaning
a resurrection in which others will share.
(3) Holy Spirit (see art. HOLY SPIRIT).
(4) Holiness applied to things and places. — The
uses under this heading need no elucidation. We
have d7toi' xoKiv (Mt 27**, Rev 11» 21- '<») ; ayiai
8iadTjKri% (Us. V^) ; ayiov T6rK-ov{A.C&^)', ayicus ypa^xui
(Ro 1") ; 5710$ v6fio%, ayia ivToKii (Ro 7") ; ar/iV 0*M"
IJUTL (2 Co 13'-) ; a.yL(fi 6pti (2 P 1'*) ; 0710$ raos
(1 Co 3'"). In one or two of these {e.g. 2 P 1'^) we
seem to see the word assuming a formal or tradi-
tional sense. This usage is much more common
in the OT than in the NT. Over these things
and places, as specially related to the redemptive
economy of God, God is represented as [exercising
a watchful care. They ' belong ' to Him, as also do
His ' saints ' (see art. Satn'T).
(5) Holiness as applied to 7nen.—A large part of
what is appropriate to this heading will be found
under the article SAI^fT. This is a very common
term, especially in the writings of St. Paul,
Hebrews, and Revelation, for the ordinary member
of the Christian community. The 'saints' are
those 'consecrated' to the sei^-ice of God. The
word does not imply necessarily perfection of moral
character, but it does imply, and is used frequently
to enforce the teaching, that those that are ' holy '
in this sense must become daily more fitted, morally
and spirituallv, for the service to which they are
committed (Ro G''- '*• -, 1 P 1«- iS).
The usage of the word 07401 as applied to men
may be expected to be governed by the idea, applic-
able also to things and places, that what is related
to God or is used in His service is itself 'holy.'
Accordingly we find such usages as 0710* irpo<fnjTai
(Lk 1™, Ac 3-', 2 P 3-) ; 07101'$ dro<rr6\ovs (Eph 3«) ;
0710* 7iTar«rej (1 P 3'). All these are so spoken of,
primarily, as those who have been or are the special
instruments of the Divine will and in intimate
fellowship with Grod in the work of revelation and
redemption.
Those uses of a7«£j-« in the NT where the domin-
ant application of the term seems to be deliverance
from the guilt of sin by the death of Jesus are not
included in this article, but will be dealt with under
Saxctificatiox. In the OT ' guilt ' or the sense
of guilt is the objective effect of sin (see art. Six ;
Schultz, OT Theology, ii. 306 ff.). It is a state of
alienation from God, a rupture of the relationship
between God and man, or God and the nation,
which can be restored only by an act of expiation.
It must be carefully noted that where 57101 or
ayiai'u) is employed in the NT in this sense the
primary meaning of the words as='in relationship
with God ' is stiU retained. In one passage St.
Paul seems to use ayiaj^u as practically synonymous
with 8iKcu6o>(l Co 6") (cf. Feme, Neatest. Theologie,
p. 436). The Corinthians are 'justified' or 'ac-
quitted ' ' in the name of ' Jesns, i.e. restored to a
relationship of love with God (cf. Eph 5*, He 10'*- »)•
Christian holiness in its moral aspect is expressed
by KaOapi^eiw in He 9'* (cf. O. Pfleiderer, Paiuinitm,
Eng. tr., I^ndon, 1877, ii. 68 fi'.).
Two Pauline passages call for special mention :
Ro ll'« and 1 Co 7"-** (cf. Eph 5^). In both of
these the conception is that the sanctification of
the part involves the sanctification of the whole.
In the one case St. Paul is stating the grounds on
which he bases his confidence in the future of
Israel. He bases it upon the holiness of the
Patriarchs (v.") from whom they are descended.
' By the offering of the first-froits, the whole mass was con-
sidered to be consecrat«d ; and so the holiness of the Patriarchs
consecrated the whole people from whom they came ' (Sanday-
Headlam, Romant^, Edinbut];h, 1902, p. 328, m loco). The
thought is on the amlogy of Xu 15W-21.
In the second passage, the Apostle is dealing
with the problem of marriage with an unbeliever,
and argues against dissolution of the tie in such
cases, on the ground that the Christian partner, as
one member of the relationship, thereby ' sanctifies '
the other, in virtue of the fact that they are one.
The result attaches to the children also. We must
be careful, however, not to attach too great moral
significance to 'sanctify.' The thought moves
strictly within the biblical conception of holiness.
Only such marriages are contemplated as have
taken place before conversion (2 Co 6'*). The un-
believing husband is introduced by union with the
believing wife into the sphere of ' holiness.' Holi-
ness is not a moral but a religious condition. At
the same time, it is not going beyond the actual
thought of the Apostle to say that the effect of his
words on the believer would be to create a new
conception and a new sense of moral and spiritual
responsibility for the unbelieving partner. The
word ayidfu is in this passage, as it were, caught
in the act of passing from the ceremonial to the
moral meaning. It is a legitimate inference that
the Christian's friends, or i)ossessions, or abilities
— all that is indissolubly connected with his person-
ality— should in this sense be holy. At the same
time, the emphasis on physical descent in Ro 11'*
shows that St. Paul has not completely transcended
materialistic and ceremonial notions in the con-
ception of holiness ; and a similar emphasis may
be detected in the passage from 1 Corinthians.
The idea is still present that holiness can be trans-
feiTcd by physical contact (cf. Ex 29*^, Is 65*,
reading 'lest I make thee holy').
In conclusion, it is advisable to point out the
reason for laying stress on the primary conception
of 07105 in our interpretation of the term in the
NT. It is impossible to miss, in the application of
ayibxrvy-ri to Jesus in Ro 1'*, or in the frequent con-
junction of the iytos and KaOapos groups of words,
as in Eph 5^'-, He 9^*, or in many of the uses of
07101 [e.g. 1 P 1^*), the sense that perfection of
moral character is intimately bound up with the
term, and is never absent in the thought of the
NT writers. Wherein, then, consists the signi-
ficance of the fact that the piimary meaning of a
relationship to God or to ChrLst i« always dominant ?
Why is it so pre-eminently a religious rather than
an ethical conception ? It is very remarkable that
an idea common to all ancient religions, where
often it has an origin and expression in material-
istic forms of thought, should so persistently re-
appear in the early Christian religion. Undoubtedly
therebj- the content of the ideal Christian character
has been enlarged, deei>ened, and purified. Holi-
ness comes before moralitj', as the source before
the river. In the Christian ethics, there is no
570
HOLINESS, PURITY
HOLINESS, PURITY
divorce botwcen liolinej<s and virtue, nor can there
be. The choice of men by God, His call, and His
setting of them apart for liis service — an act some-
times conceived as not a thing of time merely, but
begun in the far-oil" moment of pre-mundane exist-
ence ' in Christ Jesus ' (Eph H)— must have increased
a thousand-fold tlie grandeur of the moral motive
presented even to the weakest, most despicable,
and most unworthy ' saint.' The thought is indeed
conceived in the Spirit of Him who invited all to
receive the love He came to reveal, and established
for all time in the heart of His Church the value
of each individtial life before God, the Father.
Moreover, the gift of the Holy Spirit meant essenti-
ally that all tlie graces of the Christian character
had their origin in the gift and grace of God Him-
self. The initiative lies with Him. Love is the
fullilling of the Law. Christian conduct is not a
task set by God, but a sharing of the Divine nature ;
not a doctrine, but a life.
' To the men who wrote the NT and to those for whom they
wrote, the Spirit was not a doctrine but an experience ; they
did not speak of beheving in the Holy Spirit, but of receiving
the Holy Spirit when they beheved ' (Denney, DCG i. 731»).
The gospel of Christ has ever been attended with
the risk of antinomianism, a risk that it has alwaj's
been willing to take and able to meet (Gal 5'*, Ho
6'^). The present-day phenomenon of ' practical '
Christianity, as distinct from spiritual and de-
votional— 'enthusiasm for humanity' — is really,
in its fundamental conception, out of accord with
the teaching of the NT on holiness, as a summary
of the Christian character. What characterizes
the NT writers everywhere is their ' enthusiasm
for God,' as revealed in Jesus, and the social
conscience is a manifestation from the same re-
ligious source. 'Thy brother for whom Christ
died' is the conception that has revolutionized
social life. The term liyioi in its moral demand
dredges the conscience of men, and reaches to the
very springs of human conduct (cf. 2 Co 7'). The
same predicate H-yi-os can be used of God and of
man ; and where the need of a substitute is felt,
none worthier can be found than in the great say-
ing, icF€<jde oZv v/jt,els riXeioi us 6 Tra-Trip vfjiCov 6 ovpavioi
T^Xetos ecrriv (Mt 5'**). The notion of ' Christian
perfection' found in 1 Jn (5^*, etc.) can only be
reached by realizing that in the Johannine thought
the or conception of holiness is for the most part
expressed in more or less mystical fasliion under
the influence of Greek thought as ' union with God
in Christ,' but that, notwithstanding, the Johannine
' sinlessness ' is not in the end faultlessness. It is
rather the inevitable issue in cliaracter of complete
loyalty to Jesus Christ (see Perfect, Perfection).
IL Purity. — There are two groups of words in
the NT that are translated ' pure,' ' purify,' ' purge,'
or 'cleanse.' In the ItV 'cleanse' is substituted
for ' purge ' of the AV in certain passages, but is re-
tained in 1 Co 5^ 2 Ti 2^1, He 1^ 9"- ^. (1) Kaeap6s,
KaOapii'u) (Hellenistic form of Kadalpu), Kadapia/ids,
KaOapdTTjs ; Kadaipu ; diaKadapl^u ; Kddap/xa, irepiKd-
dapfia ; aK&dapTos, dKaOapaia ; (2) ayv6i, dyvii^u, dyvb-
T7)s, dyvGis ; a7J'e/a ; ayvifffj-bs. In addition we liave
(iaiTTurfios, in the sense of ' cleansing,' in jSlk 7*,
He 6* 9'" ; pavri^u, pafricrpLos (tr. ' sprinkle,' ' sprink-
ling'), especially in Hebrews ; eiXiKpiv-fis ('pure').
The ideas of purity and holiness are most clearly
associated if we consider their joint affinity with
the ancient religious notion of tabu. The subject
cannot be fully entered upon here, but Robertson
Smith {RS"^, p. 152 if.) and A. S. Peake (' Unclean,
Uncleanness in HDB) should be consulted. It is
of advantage, for the sake of clearness of thought,
to note that in ancient religion the notion of ' un-
cleanness ' is primary and positive, and that ' clean-
ness' is really its opposite, and tlie negative form.
This consideration is of importance as being really
the origin of that negative morality connected with
Jewish ceremonial religion which Jesus abrogated
for ever (Lk ll«-»').
' In rules of holiness the motive is respect for the gods, in
rules of uncleanness it is primarily fear of an unknown or hostile
power, though ultimately, as we see in the Levitical legislation,
the law of clean and unclean may be brouglit within the sphere
of divine ordinances, on the view that uncleanness is hateful to
Ood and must be avoided by all that have to do with Him'
(Robertson Smith, Itffi, p. 153).
The attitude of Jesus towards ceremonial unclean-
ness does not i)roperly fall within the scope of this
article (see artt. ' Purification,' ' Purity ' in DCG
ii.). The scribes, by an elaborate system of casu-
istry, laid down minute regulations and interpreta-
tions of the ceremonial laws of purity ; and these
dominated the whole religion of Judaism in our
Lord's day. They became a grievous burden, under
which men became 'weary and heavy-laden.' The
gracious invitation of Mt 11'-* is also the herald of
a great religious revolution, and it is in connexion
with the ceremonial requirements connected with
hand-washing tiiat Jesus enunciates tlie great law,
repealing all the Levitical rules as to unclean meats
(Mk V'^, Mt 15*'''"). No longer ceremonial, but only
moral, defilement is possible.
As regards the practice of the Apostolic Church,
the incident of Ac 10*"^® is instructive. We may
be certain that St. Peter was not the only one who
was ' much perplexed within liimself ' as to the full
scope of Jesus' principle that the real seat of defile-
ment is within. The Apostolic Decree of Ac 15"
was essentially a concession to Jewish prejudices,
but at the same time was no doubt actuated by the
spirit of Christian love, which forbids one's doing
violence to the conscience of a brother, merely for
the purpose of asserting an abstract and selfish
liberty (1 Co S^^- lO^^ff-). It has to be borne in
mind : (1) that religious scruples are to be respected
(Mk 1*») ; (2) that when, for example, St. Paul be-
came a Jew to the Jews, and submitted to a rite of
purification (Ac 2P^), he did so all the more easily
that he himself did not cease to be a Jew (see art.
Fast). The instances of obedience to the Jewish
ceremonial Law in the NT are not entirely to be
explained by a theory of deliberate and conscious
concession or adaptation.
The conception of purity, however, in the NT
(as in the prophetic teaching of the OT) is entirely
ethical. If we are to make any distinction between
ayvbi and Ka6ap6s, it will be found in the direction
of the distinction laid down in Westcott's comment
on 1 Jn 3" (Ep. of St. John, London, 1883, p. 98) :
dyi/ds connotes the feeling, and KaOapdi the state.
dyv6$ implies a certain inward shrinking from pollu-
tion and is applied to Jesus, while Kadap6s ex-
presses simply the fact of cleanness (cf. HDB, art.
'Purity'). In the LXX d7J'6s and Kadap6s are
used indiscriminately to translate Heb. ttlhur (lit.
'brightness'); KaOap6s occasionally for bOr (lit.
' separate '). d7>'6s (as also ayvdrris) is always ethical
in meaning ; ayvlii'u has a ceremonial sense in Jn
U"*, Ac 21--«- ^^ 24>» ; ayvda=' chastity ' in 1 Ti 4" 5".
Ka9ap6s and its cognates vary in meaning between
the ceremonial and the ethical. In such a passage
as Jn 15^ we see the word in process of passing
from the ceremonial to the ethical meaning.
The word eiXt/cptj-^s (Ph 1", 2 P 3') and its noun
elXiKpivda (1 Co 5*, 2 Co 1'^ 2") are worthy of special
treatment. In the instance quoted from 2 Peter, it
is to be suspected tliat the usage of the writer is
not very accurate. He is fond of ' bookish ' words.
The etymology is very doubtful, but the sense is
abundantly clear. In Ph 1'" the mind that is eAj-
Kpivi]% is enabled doKifidi^eiv t4 diafpipovra (' to approve
the things that are excellent,' KV ; cf. Ro 2'*).
Bengel's note is ' non modo prae malis bona sed in
bonis optima.' There is a type of character which
may hold fast the good, anu miss the best (cf. our
HOLINESS, PURITY
HOLY DAY
571
Lord's Parables of the Treasure hid in the Field,
and the Pearl of Great Price). The character de-
scribed possesses such clear moral perception that
it is enabled to welcome and understand and love
the ' highest ' when it sees it. The goal and ulti-
mate standard of human conduct is the judgment-
seat of Christ — ' the day of Christ,' as the Philippian
passage has it. In Plato, Phctdo, 81 B, C, the ypvxri
(iXiKpivris is contrasted with the ^vxv nf/juaff/xivri Kai
oLKadapTo^, stained and polluted by its connexion
with the body. The use of etXtx/wi^s in the NT is
an example ot the way in which a word is ennobled
and enriched by being taken over into Cliristian
thought. The Orphic doctrine of the defilement
of the spirit by contact with the body (<rcD/ia ffijua —
the body the prison-house of tlie soul *), elaborated
by-Plato, is cast aside, and the great result of pure
ethical Wsion is attained through the discipline and
control of the passions. The meaning seems to be
that form of ethical purity which is expressed in a
mind uncontaminated and unwarped by sensual or
sordid passion. Clearly St. Paul uses it in this sense
in 2 Co 1*- and 2'". His motives are unmixed (cf.
the phrase 'the unleavened bread of e[\iKpivelai' in
1 Co 5^). All that he has done, or is doing, is worthy
to be seen as in an atmosphere of pellucid clearness,
(y ayi&rrp-i /cot eikiKpiveitf. Toy 0eod, ovk iv aoifiiq, aapKiK^
dXX' iv xap'" Oeov. The purity of which he speaks
must be regarded as a gift of God. It is remark-
able that in Phcedo 81 A the soul that is eiXiKpiy-^s is
compared with the experience by the initiated of
the Di\-ine Vision. In any case, the emphasis is on
the comprehensive ethical quality of purity, in the
sense of 'sincerity' or 'reality,' which plays such
a dominant part in the Pauline ethics (2 Co 13^ ;
cf. Weinel, Biblische Theologie des iVT, p. 349 f.).
(For the Stoic conception of elkiKpivela cf. Posidonius,
ap. Sext. Emp. adv. Math, ix, 71-4 ; Cicero, T%isc.
Disp. i. 40, 42, 43 ; and E. Bevan, Stoics and
Sceptics, Oxford, 1913, pp. 107-8.)
pajrrifffids {pami^ui • paLvdi in classical Greek) is
translated 'sprinkling' in the EV. It is applied
to the cleansing influence of the sacrifice of Jesus
on the human conscience (He 9^ -i 10^, 1 P l^). It
is frequently used in conjunction with at/xa. Its
use can be understood only if we remember that
' in the consciousness of the pious Israelite, sin,
guilt, and punishment are ideas so directly con-
nected that the words for them are interchangeable'
(Schultz, OT Theology, ii. 306). Guilt is a state of
impurity which manifests itself in a consciousness
of alienation from God, and antagonism to the
Divine Law, and it is from the sense of guilt that
the blood of Jesus is said to ' sprinkle' or ' cleanse '
men. We may also compare He 12"^, where 'a
blood of sprinkling' is spoken of as 'speaking
better things than that of Abel.' The blood of
Abel cried for vengeance (Gn 4^*) ; the life-blood
of Jesus is a more powerful appeal than the mere
martyr blood. ^Ve shall seek in vain for any theo-
retical principle, on the basis of which the NT
writers — especially the writer of Hebrews — apply
the symbolism of the OT sacrificial system to the
Death of Jesus. The situation is simply that w hat
was experienced in the worship of the OT was !
experienced in full and satisfjing reality in the '
conscience of the NT believer. The probabUitj- is I
that no principle suggested itself or Avas felt to be
needed (cf. A. B. Davidson, Hebreus, p. 176 fF.). !
This fact suggests a profound application to the
ft6s is the removal of the obstacle to taking a real part
in the religious services of the sanctuarj- (Nu 19).
In the NT the obstacle is conceived as a guilty con-
science, and the profundity of the NT conception
consists in the fact that a guilty conscience is
thought of as an obstacle to the service of God in
the fullest ethical sense. It is a hindrance arising
no longer in the external region of bodily defile-
ment, but in the inner sphere of a man's own con-
sciousness. Here we have another link connecting
the ideas of ' purity ' and ' holiness ' (cf . also Pflei-
derer, Paulinism, iL 66 ff., and art. Sanctifica-
TION).
LiTKiATURZ.— The literature cited in the article ; the Commen-
taries on the various passages; XT Theologies ot H. J. Holtz-
mann C^^bingen, 1911) uid P. Peine (Leipag, 1<J10>; H.
Weinel, Biblitehe Tkedogie des XT, Tnbingen, 1911 ; artt. in
DCG, BDB, and ERB. More practical works : F. W. Robert-
son, S^rmofU, 3rd ser., London, 1876, p. 122 ff. ; E. H. Askwith,
The Christian Coneefiion of Holiness, do. 1900 ; G. A. Smith,
Isaiah, do. 188&-90, L 63ff. ; J. H. Jowett, The Epistles of St.
Peter, do. 1905, p. 45 ff. ; Amiel's Journal, tr. Urs. Humphry
Ward, do. 1891, pp. 138, 207 ; J. R. Seeley, Eeee Homo, do., ed.
1895, p. 358ff. ; A. C McGifiert, ChristianUy in the ApottoKe
Age, Edinborgh, 1897, p. 508 ff. ; A. Madaren, Sermons preaithei
in Manchester, 2nd. ser.a, London, 1S73, p. 112 ff.
R. H. Strachan.
HOLT DAY. — The term was employed in the
Jewish Law to denote a day set apart for the
service of God. Especially is it used of the Sabbath.
It might be a day on which certain restrictions
were laid on individual liberty. The scope of this
article is confined to the attitude adopted by the
Apostolic Church towards the Jewish ' holy days.'
The subject is really part of a much larger one —
the question of its attitude towards the Jewish
Law. Jesus, while completely abrogating the
ceremonial Law (see art. HoLDiESS), yet attended
JeAvish feasts ; and St. Patil, notwithstanding his
attitude towards the Jewish Law, is represented
in Ac 20^® as hastening his sea-journey, in order
to be at Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost.
To discuss the whole question of the Sabbath in
relation to the Apostolic Church would be to trans-
gress the limits of this article, but the position that
must in general be adopted is that there is no trace
in the NT of an arbitrary and conscious substitu-
tion of the Lord's Day for the Jewish Sabbath.
The process of early Christian thought in this
connexion, as in connexion with hoh* days in
general, was really determined not by enactment,
but by the action of the great guiding principles
of spiritual freedom and brotherly love. Indeed,
the original motive of the institution of the Jewish
Sabbath, before its observance was overlaid with
minute Rabbinical details, was not so much that
the Israelite should rest himself, as that he should
give others rest. The life and work, the example
and precept, and above all the Resurrection of
Jesus, implied the complete abrogation of the
Mosaic dispensatton ; but as that dispensation was
still pait of the personal environment, and eventu-
ally bound up Avith the personal religion of indi-
vidual Christians — both Jew and Gentile — for many
generations, it is not to be expected that its cogency
would at once cease to be felt. ' The dead leaves
of Judaism fell off gradually, they were not rudely
torn oil' by man' (HDB iiL 139^). It is only by
keeping the principle laid down by Jesus Himself
in Lk 5® fully in view that the relationship of the
Apostolic Church to holy days in general, and to
the Sabbath in particular, can be understood. As
vnR be seen, the determining factor in the gradual
question of religious unity to-day, esiiecially in [ displacement of the Sabbath by the Lord's Day, in
r>nnTit.vinn wifh caoT^onionf ^ o,,ri r^^^^irc, T^ i^\,w. ^jjg Christian Church, determined also the general
attitude to all holy days. That factor was the
Resurrection of Jesus, the experience of the New-
Creation, and the inevitable sense of victory over
all that would fetter Christian freedom (see further,
art. Sabbath).
Bearing in mind what has been said, we are not
region, emphasis on the necessity of principles
tends to disimion, on common experience to real
and fundamental unity. In both OT and NT
thought the ' cleansing' that is denoted by parrtcr-
* Cf. J. Adam, The Religious Teachers qf Greece, Edinburgh,
1908, p. 96 ff.
572
HOLY DAY
HOLY DAY
sui'prised to discover a certain amount of com-
promise, wherever the Apostolic Church had to
give conscious expression to its views and to give
guidance to its members on the question of tlie
observance of holy days. The Apostolic Decree of
Ac 15'*"^' has only a very general bearing on our
particular subject, btit the matters with wliich it
deals — the proolems of meals and heathen religious
practices — are closely connected. We must also
remember that as Christianity in the course of its
missionary expansion came in contact with Hellen-
istic Judaism, the Pagan religious spirit, with its
insistence on the observance of heathen festivals,
would encourage a return to and an emphasis upon
' holy days.' There are three [jass.ages in St. Paul's
writings tliat may be adduced in illustration.
1. Gal 4^"*. — ' Ye observe days, and months, and
seasons, and years.' St. Paul is really combating
the influence of those who were making the
attempt to judaize, insisting that submission to
Jewish rites was necessary for salvation, and dis-
crediting the freedom of the Pauline gospel as
antinomianism. At the same time, it is apparent
from the context that the Galatians had, no doubt
through the influence of Pagan festivals, laid great
stress on the observance of these days as connected
with deliverance from the power of the aToixela,
which are undoubtedly intermediate beings, con-
nected with the gTowth of angelology in later
Judaism, and readily identified by the Galatians
with heathen demonic powers, in which they once
believed (cf. A. S. Peake, EGT, 'Colosaians,'
London, 1903, p. 522 f.; following F. Snitta, Dcr
zweite Brief des Petrus imd der Brief dcs Judas,
Halle, 1885, p. 263 f.). They were in bondage to
them which by nature are 'no gods' (v.^). Such
observances would destroy the spirit of sonship
(v."), the privilege of immediate access to the
Father, wliich constituted the gospel he had
preached to them. Accordingly we may conjecture
that, apart from the demand for circumcision, St.
Paul is not here condemning the observance of holy
days as such, but only as leading, by way of a
revived Judaism, back to Paganism. The Gala-
tians are accused not so much of wickedness, as of
'foolishness' [a.v6r]Toi YaKirai, 3^), or want of judg-
ment. No doubt it was really moral earnestness
that led them astray. To follow the definite moral
precepts of Judaism, taken over into Christianity,
impressed them as a safer course than to venture
on the broad sea of Christian freedom and the
guidance of the Spirit.
2. Ro 145-^. — The situation in Rome was some-
what difl'erent. The reference here to the observ-
ance of 'days' is connected with the question of
the responsibility of the strong for the conscience
of the weak (v.^). The weak in faith are those
who have an inadequate grasp of the great principle
of salvation by faith in Christ. They are the
' scrupulous ' in conscience, who, like the Galatians,
are afraid to be guided except by definite legal
enactments. It is interesting to note that St. Paul
does not call the weak brother aaOivr)^, but speaks
of Tov do-flevowra = ' one who may become strong'
(F. Godet, Com. on Romans, Eng. tr,, Edinburgh,
1881-82, ii. 329). He is one whose conscience lias
to be considered, but within limits, as the rebuke
to his censoriousness in v.* shows. The days men-
tioned are not necessarily Sabbath days, but may
be any lioly day — a fast or a feast. It is held
by some (E. von Dobschiitz, Christian Life in the
Primitive Church, Eng. tr., London, 1904, p. 126;
J. Denney, EGT, ' llomans,' 1900, p. 702) that St.
Paul has in view a definite sect of vegetarians. If
that be so, the days in »iuestion would be days on
which flesh might or might not be eaten, while in
some cases complete abstinence from flesh might
be demanded. In any case, it is significant that
'eating' is closely conjoined with the observance
of the ' day ' ; and whether the day were feast or
fast or Sabbath, the principles inculcated by St.
I'aul apply equally well. The day in itself, like
the eating, is indiilerent, and therefore the Chris-
tian is free to observe it or not according as the
spirit of Christian brotherhood and a regard for
the unity and peace of the Church may dictate.
By inditt'erence to external observances, a ' free '
Christian may injure the conscience of another.
At the same time conduct here, as always, is deter-
mined ultimately not by direct reference to the
'weak' brother, but by reference to Christ. No
man liveth to himself, but ' to the Lord' (v.''). It
is His interest alone that is to be considered, and
the weak brother is to be considered as one ' for
whom Christ died.' St. Paul, in his impartial
fashion in dealing with all such questions, rather
creates an atmosphere in which the elements for
decision are clearly seen than lays down any legis-
lative enactment. The authority of the Church is
neither more nor less than the authority of Jesus,
interpreted by the individual conscience, in close
Christian relationship to those Avho constitute the
Church a body of believers. There is nothing
whatever that is purely legal and statutory in the
Christian religion. 'AH shall stand Ijefore the
i"udgment-seat of God,' and St. Paul asks the
lomans to remember that both those who observe
the * days,' and those who do not, are striving for
the same end. They both are regarding the day
'to the Lord,' or with His interests in view (v.^).
The particular difficulty in Rome was probably of Essene
origin, .ikin to that in Colossaj (B. Weiss, Introd. to XT, Eng.
tr., London, 18S7-88, i. 330 ; Denney, loe. eit.). A. C. McGiffert
{Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 3C8) contends that it was
due to some form of Alexandrian Judaism. Certainly the
difficulty is not occasioned by Pharisaic Legalists, as in Galatia.
3. Col 2^5 (in the AV eoprTjs of this verse is
translated ' holyday,' the only instance of the word
in the EV of the NT). The argument is practically
the same as in Ro 14'. ' Let no man judge you on
tlie basis of eating and drinking, or in the matter
of a feast or a new moon or a Sabbath.' St. Paul
means that such ground is inadequate for moral
judgment of a man. ev fiipei fopriji, kt\. cannot be
translated 'in the partial observance of (Chrysos-
tom). As regards the character of the movement
which is opposed by St. Paul, and finds its ex-
pression in the legal observance of holy days, it
seems to have been a theosophy, consisting of a
blend of Judaism with some form of syncretistic
religion. It is impossible to identify the foreign
element exclusively with Essenism or Mithraism.
It is simply the product of that ' Hellenism' which
everywhere confronted the Christian missionary
(cf. E. Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics, Oxford, 1913,
cli. iii.). The 'days' were evidently connected
with the worship of aroixfia or ' intermediate
beings' (see above), whose functions were ' not only
creative but also providential, in a sense, resembling
those of the saints in Roman Catholicism ' (Moflatt,
LNT, Edinburgh, 1911, p. 152). One result seems
to have been asceticism (2-''-)- The material was
contrasted unfavourably witli the spiritual, and
the body was considered as the tomb of the soul
(the ultimate issue of the o-w/ia ffrjua of Plato).
Moreover, this insistence on 'days' carried with it
an emphasis on individual speculative anil mystical
attainments which destroyed the universality of
the gospel (3").
Tlie aim of this article has been to indicate the
complexity of the movement in the Aiwstolic Churcli
that issued in the gradual weaning of Christianity,
as interpreted by St. Paul, and those who adhered
to liim, from the observance of Jewish holy days.
Missionary activity made plain in experience that
the multiplied observance of 'days, and months,
and seasons, and years ' as legal enactments formed
HOLY OF HOLIES, HOLY PLACE
HOLY SPIRIT
573
a congenial soil on whicli heathen conceptions of
deity uiiglit take fresh root within the Christian
Church. The missionary activity of the Christian
Church to-day is also exercising a similar profound
inlluence ou Christian thought. No one ought to
pretend that the discipline of the Church, so far as
It is expressed in the weekly day of rest and worship,
or in tlie observance of seasons or sacraments, is
without signiiicance for the Christian life. It
directs attention to asfjects of the Christian faith
that would otherwise find no place in the mechanical
routine of ordinary life ; yet not even the religious
observance of the first day of the week ought to be
regarded as legal or statutory. An act of faith
was the source in which it originated, and its
maintenance must be conducted in the free atmo-
sphere of faith. Many things are yet to break
forth upon the mind of the Church from the Word
of God, and none are more significant than the
principles relating to holy days that were brought
into being through the contact of the apostolic
faith with contemporary practice and thought. It
is only by ' being fully assured in our own mind,'
by contracting the habit of deciding for ourselves
in such matters, and at the same time by having
regard to the mind of Christ, as expressed in the
constraint of Christian brotherhood, that true
Christian freedom of conscience will be developed,
and that fear, which so often manifests itself in
scrupulosity, obscurantism, and legalism, will be
cast out.
Literature. — Besides the works mentioned in the article
reference may be made to J. B. Mozley, L'nirersity Sermons,
London, 1876, serm. ii. : ' The Pharisees ' ; F. W. Robertson,
Sermons, 3rd ser., do. 1S76, p. 246 ff. ; J. H. Newman,
Parochial and Plain Sermons (Selection, ed. Copeland', do.
1891), p. 189 ff. : J. R. Seeley, Ecce Homo, do., ed. 1S95, ch. xiii. ;
Tracts for the Timfs, ii. (1S34-35), do. 1840, no. 56 ; J. LL Davies,
The Example of Chriit, do. 1S60, p. 350.
R. H. Steachax.
HOLY OF HOLIES, HOLY PLACE.— See Taber-
nacle, Temple.
HOLY SPIRIT.— The community brought to-
gether by the disciples of Jesus was sustained by
the conviction that it possessed the Spirit of God,
and in that possession it saw the peculiar feature
which distinguished its members alike from the
Greeks and from the Jews. This is a fact of
fundamental importance for the entire subsequent
history of Christianity.
I. The presuppositioss of the convic-
tion. — 1. The Jewish doctrine of Scriptope as
the sole medium of the Spirit. — The term ' Holy
Spirit,' r'pri nn, was coined by the theology of
the Palestinian Synagogue. The adjunct 'holy'
was rendered necessary by the fact that the word
' spirit ' was also applied to the force from which
emanated man's inward life generally. The addi-
tion of the adjective ' holy ' signifies that the spirit
so distinguished belongs to God. The phrase
derives its content from what the prophets say
regarding the nature of their prophetic experience,
which they ascribe to their being movea by the
Spirit of God. Hence the tradition of the Syna-
gogue associates the conception with the writings
by which the message of the prophet is mediated
to the community. By the time the Church of the
New Testament took its rise, the doctrine of In-
spiration was already formulated as a dogma, and
dominated the whole religious life of Judaism.
The expression ' Holy Spirit,' in its connexion
with the wTitten word, was at once taken over by
Christianity (Mk \2^, Mt 22«, Ac l^^ 28^, He 3^ 9«
10", 1 Ti 3^ 2 P 121). The absolute bondage of the
SjTiagogue to the Scriptures had the result that the
Holy Spirit was assigned only to the prophets of
past times, and not to persons then living. As the
community now possessed no prophets, but was
wholly dependent upon Scripture, its tradition
included the principle that ' the Holy Spirit had
been taken away from it.' But as the communion
of God with His people had not Ixien broken oil',
that principle did not exclude the possibility that
the Holy Spirit might be bestowed upon indi-
viduals (cf. Lk 2^) — at times, namely, when the
gift of prophecy was vouchsafed to them— or that
the conduct of the people as a whole might be
directed by the Holy Spirit (cf. the saying of
Hillel, Tdsephtd Plsuhim, iv. 2). The actual scope
of this idea, however, was circumscribed by the
fact that the nation's portion in God was based
upon the Law. It was therefore necessary that the
individual should learn God's will from Scripture,
and practise obedience thereto by his own effort.
This excludes the idea of a Divine work manifest-
ing itself in the inner life of man. Hence even the
teachers of the Law abstained from tracing their
learning to the action of the Spirit, and based their
authority upon the experience which they had
derived from their knowledge of the Law and
tradition. When Scripture proved inadequate to
the clear ascertainment of the Divine will, recourse
was had to signs, and especially to voices coming
from above. These facts show clearly how far the
primitive Church's belief that it was guided by the
Spirit of Grod transcended the prevailing religious
ideas of contemporary Judaism.
2. The Messiah as the new vehicle of the
Spirit. — The second presupposition of the Chris-
tian conviction regarding the Spirit lay in the fact
that, in accordance with the promises, the Messiah
was expected to be the vehicle of the Spirit. Since
it was His function to bring perfection to His
people, the gift that distinguished the earlier
servants of God was His in a superlative degree.
Accordingly He has the Spirit ' not by measure '
(Jn 3^). By the Sx^irit He is one with God, and Ls
able to work the work of God in men. This
principle is common to the Messianic hope, the
preaching of John the Baptist, the witness of
Jesus to Himself, and the message of His disciples
in all its various forms. The conviction was in-
tensified by the culminating events of the life of
Jesus, since, as the Risen One, He reveals in Him-
self the work of the Spirit ; the Spirit giveth life.
Then, as He still maintains in His state of exalta-
tion His intercourse with His disciples, and does
this in such a way that, like God, He is present
with them and reigns over them, the Spirit becomes
the medium by which He consummates His work.
Thus the avowal of the Messiahship of Jesus
involved the doctrine that the Spirit of God is
effectively operative in man. The man whom
Christ rules is guided by the Spirit, and he who is
united with Christ partakes of the Spirit.
3. The prophetic idea that the Spirit would be
given to all. — The conception of the perfected
community connoted also the idea — derived from
prophecy — that in it the Spirit would be vouch-
safed to all. This idea likewise was ratified by the
life of Jesus, inasmuch as He placed His relation
to His disciples wholly under the law of love.
Between Himself and them He established a per-
fect communion, and thus all that belonged to
Him passed over to them. His filial relation to
God made them children of God ; His Word, with
full authority to do wonders, was imparted to
them too ; His passion called them to suffering
and death ; His risen life and His coming dominion
invested them also with glory. The perfect charac-
ter of the fellowship which Jesus instituted between
Himself and His disciples involved the conviction
that they likewise should receive the Spirit of
God, even as it had been imparted to Him. Thus
the events of Easter by which that fellowship was
consummated after His death were directly linked
574
HOLY SPIRIT
HOLY SPIKIT
with the holief that now the disciiilcs nl-o had
become possessed of the Spirit ; tlie bic.iili of tlio
Risen Lord imparts the Spirit to them (Ju 20'--).
II. The coming of the Spirit to tee
DISCIPLES OF Jesus— i. A fact of historical
experience.— In the primitive eoinmnnity's recol-
lections of its beginnmgs it stands out as a signifi-
cant fact that the descent of the Spirit is re<,'arded
as a particular experience, taking place on a
particular day, and associated with the founding
of the Church (Ac 2). The doctrine of the Spirit
thus becomes more than a theological inference
from the character of God or of Christ, and does not
remain a mere hope derived from the utterances of
Scripture or of Jesus ; on the contrary, it expresses,
for the religious consciousness of the primitive
Church, something that it had actually experienced,
and it possesses the certitude of historical fact. The
type of tradition given in Ac 2 appears also in
St. Paul, in the fact, namely, that he regards the
sending of the Spirit, no less than that of the Son,
as a work of God — as the work, indeed, by wiiich
the Advent of the Son was fully realized (Gal 4'*'®).
The same idea appears in St. John, who speaks of
the descent of the Spirit as the act of the Exalted
Christ ( Jn 1^ 14i«- ^ W% This interpretation of
religious history was fraught with most important
consequences, inasmuch as it dissociated the con-
ception of the Spirit from the subjective religious
states of the individual. Believers were now con-
vinced that their possession of the Spirit was not
dependent upon their purely personal experience.
The message of the Spirit's presence came to all
men as a historical fact no less secure than the
message of the Advent of Christ Himself. It is
true, of course, that the individual could recog-
nize the effects of the Spirit's presence in his
personal experience, and he might accoidingly be
asked whether he had on liis part received the
Spirit (Ac 19^; cf. 1 Co 3"), but his certainty in
the matter did not rest wlioUy upon his inward
condition. Hence the assertion of the Spirit's
operation still remained unshaken even when an
individual or a community j)roved unsteadfast ;
the belief that they were partakers of the Spirit
was safeguarded against every doubt (cf. Gal 3-
5" 1 Co 3^6 with 33 6*"). That belief flowed directly
from the Christology of the primitive Church, and
could become liable to doubt only by the dissolu-
tion of the union between the community and
Christ.
2, Connexion with the inauguration of apostolic
work. — It was, again, a matter of the utmost
importance for the religious experience of the
primitive community that it associated the coming
of the Spirit with the beginnings of apostolic
labour. The day of Pentecost was not, indeed,
included in the Easter period, though with the
glorified life of Jesus was associated the conviction
that the Spirit liad now laid hold of the disciples
too. But the occurrences which manifested to the
disciples the descent of the Spirit were distin-
guished from the events of Easter : tlic latter
perfected the fellowship of Jesus witii His dis-
ciples, while tlie former inaugurated their a))ostolic
work and laid the foundation of the Church. In
the NT doctrine of the Sjiirit this continues to
manifest itself in the fact that the Spirit is always
associated witii the task imposed upon the Church.
The Spirit equips the Church to witness for Jesus,
and endows it with power for its Divinely-given
work. The conception of the Spirit is not asso-
ciated with the personal blessings which the
individual craves for, as, e.g., with his progress
in knowledge, his felicity, or his moral growth and
perfection ; what was expected from the Spirit
was rather the equipment for the ellective work
necessary to the preaching of Christ and the insti-
tution of the Church. Hence the apostles were
regarded as in a supreme degree the mediators of
the Spirit (cf. Ac 8'^''- 19», 1 Co 12-», 2 Co 3«), this
pre-eminence extending also to such as were
actively engaged in die evangelization of the
nations (I P l'^, 2 Ti 2«'-, 1 Ti 4'*). In sending
forth evangelists and in defining their spheres
of lalx)ur (Ac 13'-' 16"'-), in the judicial procedure by
which they withstood sin (Ac 5^ Jn 2(P'-), in
prescribing the moral regulations which were to
prevail in the community (Ac 15*), their action
was at once appropriate and effective in virtue of
the Spirit's guidance. But this did not involve
any opposition between them and the community
at large, as the latter was called to full and com-
£lete fellowship with them as partakers of the
'ivine grace. Thus the possession of the Spirit
was not the exclusive privilege of an ofiicial class,
but was granted to the entire community entrusted
with the service of God, and baptism is accordingly
offered to all in view of the promise of the Spirit
(Ac 2=« 19='-, 1 Co 6").
3. The Spirit sent by Christ. — The community
believed that the sender of the Spirit was Christ
(Ac 2*^). Accordingly it sought to prove the
Messiahship of Jesus by the fact that the Spirit
was revealed in the community (Ac 5^- ; cf. art.
Paracletk). This made it impossible to separate
the doctrine of the Spirit from the doctrine of
Christ, or to regard the former as superseding or
transcending the latter. On the contrary, the
statements which set forth the operations of the
Spuit serve in reality to enunciate the presence
and work of Christ. The Spirit who animates the
community is the Spirit of Christ (Ro 8», 2 Co 2^\
Ac 16''). This inseparable union between Christ
and the Spirit, making it impossible for any one to
receive the Spirit except in personal connexion
with Christ, is clearly formulated by St. Paul in
the words: 'the Lord is the Spirit' (2 Co 3").
This point of view had two closely inter-related
consequences : first, that primitive Christian faith
continued to base itself upon the earthly life of
Jesus ; and, secondly, that it did not consist merely
of recollections of tliat life, but developed into
fellowship with the Exalted Christ. Had tiie
Spirit occupied a position independent of Christ,
the primitive faith would inevitably have acquired
that mystical tendency which finds the evidences
of Divine grace exclusively in the inner life of
man. But, as it is the Spirit's function to lead
men to Christ, the message which makes known
('hrist's life and death is the foundation-stone of
the community. Thus the conviction that one
was living in the Spirit involved no disdain of the
body, no opposition to nature and history ; on the
contrary, the sure token of the Spirit's influence
was not the belief which separated Christ, as the
mere semblance of a heavenly being, from nature
and history, but the confession that He had truly
come in the flesh (1 Jn 4^'-, 2 Jn ''). Nor, again,
did the believer's relation to Christ consist merely
in his knowledge of the Saviour's earthly career ;
and, in point of fact, that consciousness of un-
limited fellowship with Christ which forma one of
the essential characteristics of the NT Epistles is
based upon the belief that the earthly work of
Jesus is still carried on in the operations mediated
by the Spirit.
i. The Spirit imparted to the community by
God.— The doctrine that the Siiirit reveals Christ
implies another, viz. that it is God who imparts
the Spirit to the community, and that He Himself
dwells with it in the Spirit. That theological
type of Christology according to which Ciirist is
the Son wlio is one with God in the sense that God
works through Him passes over into the doctrine
of the Spirit. The forraulaj which speak of the
HOLY SPIRIT
HOLY SPmiT
575
work of Christ as a manifestation of Divine power
are therefore applied also to tlie work of the Spirit.
The Spirit is conceived, not as a substitute for the
action of God, but as its medium ; nor is it re-
garded as a power installed between God and man ;
its function, rather, is to bring to man the very
presence of God Himself. Thus the community
and its individual members are spoken of as the
Temple of God — as the place in which He dwells
(1 Co 3'«, 2 Co 6'«, Eph 2^, 1 Ti 3» 1 P 2», 1 Co 6").
In this we can trace tlie root of the Trinitarian
conception of God. Christ and the Spirit are
regarded co-ordinately as the two agents through
whom the grace of God completes its work in man,
and through both the one will expressive of the
Divine grace is realized. Thus the work of Christ
and that of the Spirit are in complete harmonj-
with each other and with the work of the Father.
It is this formulation of the Trinitarian conception
with which St. Paul introduces his enumeration of
the gifts of the Spirit (1 Co 12»^ ; cf. 1 Co 13^',
Eph 4*"*) ; and it appears also in the account of
what Jesus said to ]Sicodemus (Jn 3*"-'), where the
sequence is the new birth due to the Spirit, belief
in the Son, and the deeds 'wrought in God.'
Essentially the same formulation is found in the
salutation of 1 Peter (1-), and in a like sense we
must interpret the baptismal formula in Mt 28"',
where the one Name into which the nations are to
be baptized embraces the Son and the Spirit as
well as the Father, because the work of calling
man to God and of bringing him within the Divine
grace is etiected by Christ through the medium of
the Spirit.
It is supposed by many, indeed, that in Mt 23^9 we have a
formula from a later theology, dating from the post-apostolic
period, and interpolated into the Gospel. We must bear in
mind, however, that the teaching of Jesus certainly contained
the statement that He would work through the Spirit, and that
He would do so by impvarting the Spirit to His people. It is
inconceivable that in primitive Christian times there could have
been a form of baptism in which the Spirit was not named.
Moreover, even if in that age the Gospel still clung closely to
the Jewish expectation of the Messiah, dissociating Uie working
of the Spirit from the present, and assigning it wholly to the
coming dispensation — the idea being that the Spirit would
raise from the dead all who had been baptized into Christ — yet,
even on that hj-pothesis, the preaching of Christ must still
have embraced the promise of the Spirit.
Of a formulistic use of the Trinitarian designa-
tion of God the XT shows no trace. Thus, when
the Christian community is questioned regarding
the nature of its Deity, it may give a complete
answer by saying that beside the one Father it sets
the one Lord ( 1 Co 8®) ; and in baptism it was only
necessary to invoke the name of Christ (Ro 6*,
1 Co 1^', Gal 3"). But in such cases it is always
implied that Jesus manifests Himself to men as
Lord by acting upon them through the Spirit (cf.
Ac 2» 8^« 10« 195). Primitive Christianity, how-
ever, felt the overt recognition of the Spirit to
be of the utmost importance, because it saw the
crowning work of Di\-ine grace, not in its general
action upon human beings through the invisible
government of God, or in its manifestation in the
earthly work of Christ, but rather in its operations
in man himself — in its quickening of his thoughts
and his love, and in its enrichment of the inner
life.
5. The relation of the Holy Spirit to the human
spirit. — The relation of the Holy Spirit to the
spirit of man is not dealt with separately in the NT.
The principles which here guided the thoughts of
the apostles sprang directly from the distinctive
characteristics of Divine action. The intense
desire to clothe the knowledge of God in clear and
pregnant words never tempted them to seek to
solve the mystery that veils the creative operations
of God. Hence, too, they never tried to explain how
the Spirit of God acts upon the human spirit, how
it enters into and becomes one with it. St. John,
in intentionally placing near the beginning of his
Gospel Christ's reference to birth from the Spirit
as an insoluble mystery (Jn 3*), is but adhering to
a principle whicli the apostles in their teaching
never departed from. But the Divine action has
the further characteristic that it frames its perfect
designs with absolute certainty. Hence the action
of the Spirit likewise is set forth in unconditional
statements. The Spirit endows man with no mere
isolated gifts, but creates him anew. The Spirit
gives life ; by it men are bom of Grod (Jn 3* 7*,
1 Co 15« Tit 3*). Man's knowledge is guided hy
the Spirit in the way of perfect truth (1 Co 2"- ",
1 Jn 2**). The faith, hope, and love which the
Spirit bestows are enduring gifts (1 Co 13"). As
the Spirit makes the human will perfectly obedient
to the Divine will, the entire demand which is set
before believers may be summed up in the precept,
• Walk by the Spirit ' (Gal 5'*). Thus the operation
of the Spirit is not restricted to any particular
function, as, e.g., the increase of knowledge, or the
arousing of joy, or the strengthening of the will.
On the contrary, the Spirit lays hold upon human
life in its entire range, and brings it as a whole
into conformity with the ideal : it gives man
power and knowledge, the word and the work,
faith and love, the ability to heal the sick, to
raise the fallen, to institute and regulate fellow-
ship. It is in virtue of the efflux of the Divine
action out of the Divine grace that the work of
the Spirit reveals itself in the endowment which
raises man to his true life and true autonomy.
Thus the thought of the Spirit is associated with
the idea of freedom (2 Co 3", Ko 8*, Gal 5^), inas-
much as man receives from the Spirit a power and
a law that are really his own. It is this that dis-
tinguishes the operations of the Spirit from morbid
processes, which impede the proper functions of
the soul. The mental dLsturbances and the sus-
pension of rational utterance which may be con-
joined with experiences wrought by the Spirit are
not regarded as the crowning manifestation of the
Spirit. Its supreme work consists not in rendering
the human understanding unfruitful, but in en-
dowing it with Divine truth, and permeating the
human will with Divine love (1 Co W*^-, Ko 12* 5').
Hence the apostolic doctrine of the Spirit in-
volved no violation of human reason, as would
have been the case had it absolved the inteUectual
processes from the laws of thought ; nor did it
assign a mechanical character to the will, as it
would have done if the prompting of the Spirit
had superseded personal decision. The Spirit gives
man the power of choice, makes his volition effect-
ive, and induces him to bring his will into sub-
jection to the Divine Law. The thought of the
Spirit does not do away with the sense of responsi-
bility, but rather intensifies it, and the Law now
lays upon the soul a sterner obligation. As ' the
conscience bears witness in the Holy Spirit ' (Ro 9*),
its authority is inviolable. Those who live in the
Spirit are therefore reqtiired to walk after the
Spirit by submitting to its guidance (Ro 8*- ",
Gal 5^). Nor does the Spirit lift one above the pos-
sibility of falling away. If man receives the gifts
of the Spirit in vain, refusing its guidance, and in
selfish desire applying these gifts to his own ad-
vantage, his sin is aU the greater (Eph 4**, He 6**).
To this line of thought attaches itself quite con-
sistently the fact that the community suliers no
loss of 'liberty through the doings of those who
speak and act in the Spirit. The Spirit gives no
man the right to assume despotic power in the
community. Hence the injunction not to quench
the Spirit is conjoined with the counsel to test all
the utterances that flow from the Spirit (1 Th
5i»-« 1 Co 14»^», 1 Jn 4»).
576
HOLY SPIRIT
HOLY SPIRIT
As the government of God, the Creator, embraces
both the external and the internal, the operation
of the Spirit linally extends also to the body.
From the Spirit man receives the new, incor-
ruptible, and immortal body (Ro 8", 1 Co W*'*^).
This manifestation, however, does not take place
in the present age, but is connected with the re-
velation of Christ yet to come. As regards the
present, the experience of the Spirit generates tlie
conviction that the goal has not yet lueen reached,
and that the perfect is not yet come, for meanwhile
the Spirit makes manifest the Divine grace only in
the inner life of man. It is true that in the pro-
positions setting forth the action of the Spirit, the
Divine grace finds supremo expression. In them
the consciousness of being reconciled to God is
clearly set forth. Man's antagonism to God is at
an end, and his separation from Him has been
overcome. Fellowship with God has been im-
planted in tlie inner life, and this determines man's
whole earthly career and his final destiny. At the
same time, liowever, the doctrine of the Spirit lays
the foundation of hope, and sets the existing
Church in the great forward movement that presses
towards the final consummation. For it is but in
the inner man, and not in tlie body, or in that side
of our being which nature furnishes, that our
Earticipation in the Divine grace is realized,
[ence the Spirit is called the lirst-fruits, and the
earnest that guarantees the coming gift of God
(Ro 82», 2 Co I^ 55). Thus from the apostolic
experience of the Spirit, side by side with faith
there arises hope ; and, as botli have the same
source, they reinforce each other.
Here again, therefore, there was a profound
cleavage between the Christian doctrine of the
Spirit and the pre-Christian ideas regarding it.
The former dissociated itself not only from the
mantic phenomena that occupy a prominent place
in polytneistic cults, but also from the ideas with
which the Jewish Rabbis explained the operations
of the Spirit in the prophetic inspiration of Scrip-
ture. The intervention of the Spirit had been
universally represented as the supiwession of human
personality. This view was founded upon the as-
sumption that a revelation of God could be given
only in the annulment of the human, that the voice
of (Jod became audible only when man was dumb
or asleep, and that the operations of God were
visible only when man was deprived of volition by
an overpowering impulse. Such notions are far
remote from the propositions expressive of the
Spirit's work among Christians, although they may
to some extent .survive in the early Christian view
of the OT Scriptures, and the exegetical tradition
with which these were read. The profound re-
volution of thought seen here was not the result of
any merely psychological change, or of fresh theories
regarding the nature and action of the human or
the Divine Spirit, but was due to the transforma-
tion wrought in the conception of God by the
earthly career of Jesus. The faith that found its
object in Jesus penetrated all the ideas by which
the Christian community interpreted the govern-
ment of God, and subordinated them to its re-
collections of Jesus. The figure of Jesus became
the pattern to which all its thoughts about the
Holy, Spirit were conformed. The disciples had
seen in Him a human life marked by a clear
certainty, a solemn vocation, and a power of
freedom, which were quite individual and personal.
Yet that life was AvhoUy given to the service of
God, at once revealing liis character and fulfilling
His will, because the will of God manifested itself
in the life of Jesus as grace. This fact did away
with the idea that the Spirit of God operates in
man only as a force that lays hold of and over-
powers him — a view which could seem the sole
possible one only so long as the unreconciled mind
regarded God as an enemy t«) be feared. Similarly,
there was now no place for the thought that the
Spirit of God acted only upon the human "under-
standing, simply endowing the mind with ideas.
This view, again, rested upon the belief that the
will of man as such was evil, and incapable of being
used in the service of God. But Jesus had im-
planted faith and love in the hearts of His disciples,
and their sense of being reconciled to God trans-
formed their thoughts about the Holy Spirit. No
longer did they think of the Spirit as annulling
the human functions of life, for tiiey now realized
that the Holy Spirit made it possible for man to
live, not from and for himself, but from and for (jod.
6. The Spirit given in a special measure to some.
— With the belief that the Spirit lays hold of all
who accept Jesus was connected the fact that .some
were regarded as in a special sense 'spiritual'
{iTvevixa.TLKoi). That the Divine love made all men
equal was an ideal quite alien to the Apostolic
Church. It was expected that the Spirit would
establish the fellowship of believers in such a way
that each member should retain his own individual
type. The fact that the same Spirit operated in
all guaranteed the unity of the Christian body.
That unity, however, did not degenerate into uni-
formity, for, since the Spirit works in all as a life-
giving power, the community combined in itself
an infinite profusion of national', social, and in-
dividual diversities. From the one Spirit, accord-
ingly, proceeds the 'one body' (1 Co 12'-'-, Ro 12*,
Eph 4*), and this implies that the many who com-
pose the community have not all the same power
and function, but difl'er from one another in their
gifts and vocations. Hence, besides the continuous
activities which constitute the stable condition of
the Christian life — besides faith, love, repentance,
knowledge, etc. — there are special and outstanding
occasions on which the individual or even an
assembly is 'filled with the Holy Spirit' (Ac 4^"
13"). Similarly, certain individuals stand forth
from the mass as in a peculiar sense the vehicles of
the Spirit, and as making its presence and opera-
tions known to the community.
To the link with Israel and the acknowledged
validity of the OT was due the fact that the highest
position among the npevfiaTiKoL was assigned to the
prophet. The paramount gift for which the com-
munity besought God was the Word, and the
prophet was one in whom the Word asserted itself
in such manner as to be clearly distinguishable
from his own thoughts, and to give him the con-
viction that he spoke as one charged with a Divine
commission. We have here the remarkable fact
that prophecy once more arose with extraordinary
power in connexion with the founding of the
Church. It burst forth in Jerusalem — in Barnabas,
Agabus, Judas Barsabbas, Silas, the daughters of
Philip — and this fact shows conclusively that the
pneumatic character of the Church was not a result
of the Apostle Paul's work, but was inherent in
itself from the first. In the Gentile communities
too, however, prophecy manifested itself immedi-
ately upon their foundation ; thus we find it in
Antioch (Ac 13^), probably also in Lystra (1 Ti 1'^),
in Thessalonica (1 Th o'"'-, 2 Th 2^), in Corinth (I
Co 14), in Rome (Ro 12^), in the Churches of Asia
(Ac 20-^) ; women likewise had the prophetic gift
(1 Co 11"). As the prophet did not receive the
word for him.self alone, but was required to make
the Divine will known to all, or to certain in-
dividuals (1 Co 14*"-), he came to occupy a position
in the community that had the dignity of an ofHce.
To his utterances was ascribed the authority of a
Divine commandment binding upon all. Still, the
term 'office' can be applied to the jwsition of the
prophet only under one essential restriction, viz.
HOLY SPIRIT
HOLY SPIRIT
677
that his function stood apart from anything in the
nature of judicial administration, being based upon
an inner experience wliicli was independent alike
of his own will and the decrees of the community.
Thus, besides the vocations of the prophets and
the rvevfMTiKoi, certain special offices — the epis-
copate and the diaconate — were created for the
discharge of functions necessary to the life of the
comniunitj" — offices which did not demand any
peculiar charismatic gift, but only an efficient
Christian life (1 Ti 3). From this development of
ecclesiastical order, however, it must not be inferred
that there was any secret antagonism to the
prophets, or any lack of confidence in the leading
of the Spirit. On the contrary, the procedure of
the apostles and the communities in instituting
these offices simply gave expression to the feeling
that special pro\'ision must be made for the activi-
ties which are indispensable to spiritual fellowship.
With that procedure was conjoined gratitude for
the prophetic gift which on special occasions helped
the community to form decisions without misgiving.
The Apostle Paul assisted his communities alike
in securing prophetic instruction and in instituting
offices (Ro 161, ph 11).
Correlative with the word which came from God
and was audible in the community was the worship
offered by the community ; and here, again, besides
the thanksgiving that united all before Goid, there
was a special form of prayer, which flowed from a
particular operation of the Spirit and was given
only to some. This was that form of religious
worship for which the community framed the ex-
pression ' speaking with a tongue.' It took its rise
m Palestine (Ac 2* 10**), and manifested itself also
in the Gentile communities, as in Corinth and
Ephesus (I Co 14, Ac 19"). This kind of prayer
was specially valued because it directed the
speaker's mind towards God with powerful emo-
tion (1 Co 14^^), and because its singular mode of
utterance broke through the ordinary forms of
speech. As on high the angels praise God with angelic
tongues, so the earthly Church worships Him not
only >vith human tongues, but with new tongues —
the tongues of angels (1 Co 13^). "With this was
associated the further idea that the utterance
given by the Spirit united mankind in the worship
of God, those who were meanwhile kept apart by
the diversity of tongues being made one in faith
and prayer (Ac 2).
As belief in the Spirit involves the idea that it
manifests the power of God, a place beside the I
prophet and the ' speaker with a tongue ' was as- '
signed also to the xcorker of miracles. The special
manifestations of the Spirit include that singular
intensification of trust in God which brings help to
those in special distress, and, in particular, to the
sick and those possessed with demons (1 Co 12**-).
The belief of the community regarding this aspect
of the Spirit's work was moulded by its memories
of the life of Jesus, and in part also by its ideas
regarding the OT prophets. The ' sign ' was an
essential element in the equipment of the prophet.
This appears from the fact that in the miraculous
narratives of the NT miracles are not represented
as every-dav events tliat may occur in the experi-
ence of all Ijelievers, but are valued as a peculiar
provision for the work of those who bear a special
commission. The Gospels, the Book of Acts, and
the utterances of St. Paul regarding his 'signs'
(2 Co 12'^), all show distinctly that miracles were
intimately related to the apostolic function.
Further, the wevfiarixoi as a special class bring
out the difference between the religious life of the
Christian Church and that of the Synagogue.
The prophet was then unknown in the latter, and
the Di\'ine word came to it exclusively through
the Scriptures. Now, however, the prophetic
VOL. I.— 37
word taken over from Israel was supplemented in
the Church by an operative ntt«rance of Go<i. And
just as the RabbLs did not arrogate to themselves
the inspiration of prophecy, so tney disclaimed the
power of working miracles. They did, however,
always recognize a supernatural factor in the order-
ing of human affairs, and in prayer, in dreams, in
times of distress, the thoughts oi the devout often
dwelt upon the Divine omnipotence. On the other
hand, the need of ascertaining the Divine will from
signs, of interpreting dreams, of listening for Divine
utterances, of inferring from one's feelings in prayer
that the prayer was heard, of deducing the eternal
destiny of the dying from their last words — of all
this the NT knows nothing, and that not in spite
of, but precisely in virtue of, its doctrine of the
Holy Spirit. Inasmuch as the Spirit brings men
into conscious union with God, there is no further
need for signs — such need having a place in religion
only so long as men bow before an unknown God
and an inscrutable will. The certitude of the NT
worker of mii-acles who felt that he had a right to
invoke the aid of Omnipotence forms the counter-
part to the certitude of the prophet who was con-
\'inced that he spoke under a Divine compulsion,
and it sprang from a con\-iction that held good for
all, viz. that God had revealed Himself in Christ
in such a w ay that the personal life of the believer
was rooted in His perfect grace.
III. DiPFEREST TYPES OF THE DOCTRISE OF
THE Spirit is the NT period.—!. The Pauline.
— The considerations by which St. Paul was led
towards his new and distinctive theology prompted
him also to frame a doctrine of the Spirit.
(a) The Spirit and the Laic. — For St. Paul the
religious problem had assumed the form : Either
the Law or Christ ; and he effected his union with
Jesus by a resolute turning away from the Law.
A religious life based upon the Law forms a clear
antithesis to life in the Spirit, for a law externally
enjoined upon man — the transgression of which was
guilt, and obedience to which was desert — excludes
the idea that God Himself acts upon man inwardly.
The Law, in short, sets man at a distance from
God, making him the creator of his own volition
and the originator of his own sin and righteousness.
In this fact the Apostle, as a Christian, saw the
plight of the Jews, and of mankind in general ; for
righteousness can be won, not by any performance
of the Law, but only by a manifestation of the
righteousness of God. Thus from man's own
spiritual state arises the problem of how he is
to be brought into that relationship with God
which is grounded in God's own work and the gift
of His grace. The gift of His grace cannot consist
merely in a change of man's external condition, as
if he had only to look forward to a transformation
of nature and a re-organization of the world. To
seek for help in that direction would be to deny the
Law, the holiness of which consists precisely in this,
that it makes obedience to God the condition of
His fellowship with man. Hence the grace of God
must move man from within, and must so act upon
him as to make him obedient to God. That opera-
tion of God in man in virtue of which man sur-
renders himself to God the Apostle finds in the
work of the Holy Spirit (Ro 8>-», Gal 5^). Subjec-
tion to the Law is thus superseded by subjection
to the Spirit (Ro 7*}, and legal worship gives place
to worship offered through the Spirit ( Ph 3»). Chris-
tians are thus absolved from the Law in such a way
that the Law is really fulfilled.
(b) The Spirit and the Scriptures. — The obedience
rendered by the Jews was based upon their belief
that the Duine will had been revealed to them in
the Scriptures. The knowledge of God was there-
fore to be obtained by study of the holy writings
delivered to them. The Law produced the scribe,
678
HOLY SPIRIT
HOLY SPIRIT
the theolofjical investigator (1 Co l*"). As a Chris-
tian, St. Paul, however, rejected this method of
seoking the knowledge of God as decisively as he
rejected the meritorious character of Pharisaic
works. How is man to become possessed of the
knowledge of God ? He knows God only when he
is known by Him. But how is he to acquire a
knowledge of God that does not come to liim
through Scripture or tradition, but is given by the
Divine leading of his inner life? The knowledge
of God is shed forth in man by the Spirit (1 Co 2^S
2 Co 2" ; cf. 3^). Here we have the root of that
vital contrast between the letter and the spirit
which forms one of the distinctive features of the
Pauline theology (Ro 7«, 2 Co S^).
(c) The Spirit and the flesh.— ^t. Paul uses theterm
' flesh' to denote man's incapacity to bring his de-
sires into conformity with the Divine Law. The
Apostle thereby gives expression to the idea that
the inner life of man is dependent upon bodily
processes. In deriving the evil state of man from
that dependence he was not simply thinking of
the impulses which are directly subservient to the
needs of the body, but he also recognized in the
dimness of man's consciousness of God and the
meagreness of liis religious experience that des-
fiotism of the flesh to which our whole inner life
ies in subjection. From ancient times ' flesh ' had
been used as the correlative of ' spirit.' How is
man to rise above himself, and be delivered from
the thraldom of sensuous impressions and bodily
appetites? The power that sets men free from
selfish desire — natural though such desire may be
— and turns him towards the Divine purposes, is
the Spirit (Ro 8»-8).
(d) The Spirit and the work of Christ. — St. Paul
recognized m the Death and Resurrection of Jesus
the factor which determined the relation of all
men to Jesus Himself. That the Messiah had
been crucified and raised again from the dead was,
in the Apostle's view, the good tidings of God.
What St. Paul saw here was not I^aw, which
dooms man to death, but Love, which dies for
man ; nor was it the separation of the guilty from
God, but rather the proffer of such fellowship with
Him as takes sin away by forgiveness ; it was not
the preservation of the flesh, but the comf)lete sur-
render of it — tlie judgment of the Divine Law
upon the flesh, and the beginning of a new life, a
lire no longer subject to natural conditions, but
one that makes manifest the glory of God. By
what means, tlien, can Christ carry on in man the
experience which He had consummated in His own
person, and so eflect the due issue of His Death
and Resurrection ? For St. Paul the only answer
that could be given to that question was that
Christ reveals Himself through the Spirit. Love
asks for the fellowship that rests upon an inward
foundation, and draws men to Christ not by force
but through their own volition. Thus love rises
supreme above the interests of the flesh, and is
directed to an end that wholly transcends nature.
Man now becomes a mirror of Christ's glory (2 Co
3^*), and his end is to know Christ as the power
which raises him from the dead (Ph 3'*'-).
(e) The Spirit and faith. — Once St. Paul had come
to recognize a revelation of God in the Death and
Resurrection of Jesus, it was for him a fact beyond
dispute that man's participation in the Divine
grace rests upon faith. Man's need of the Divine
forgiveness, as well as his actual experience of it,
finds its consummation in the fact that he gives
his trust to God, and possesses righteousness in
faith alone. This attitude implies, however, that
he is now delivered from self-centred desire, and
has renounced all the cravings of the flesh. But
the act of thus committing oneself wholly to the
Divine grace is the work of the Spirit. Only in
virtue of that work can our faith become our
righteousness. The very fact that faith has a
source lying above human nature makes it possible
for faith to influence our thoughts and desires, so
that we can now act hy faith, as those who no
longer commit sin, but do the will of God.
(/) TAc Spint and the Church. — St. Paul, in re-
garding the Church as the fellowship of faith,
thereby made the Church free — the sanctuary of
the perfect sincerity which safeguards each n-oni
undue accommodation to others, and the home of
that perfect love which actuates each to labour
with all his capacity on behalf of the common
fellowship. St. Paul's confident belief that the
communities maintain their unity, even though
that community is not protected by external force
or strengthened by an outward bond, could have its
source only in his conviction that tlie unity of the
Church Avas rooted in the Spirit. Because he
believed in the one Spirit he believed in the one
body.
Thus all the lines which exhibit the character-
istic tendencies of the Apostle's thought converge
in his doctrine of the Spirit. As St. Paul aspired
to a righteousness apart from the Law, and to a
knowledge of God apart from the wisdom of the
world ; as he sought to secure the victory over evil
by emancipation from the flesh ; as he drew from
the Cross the conviction that Jesus binds men to
Himself in a perfect union, and as he thus came
to have faith, and found fellowship with all through
faith, he could not make his gospel complete with-
out the doctrine that the Spirit of God dwells in
man. Apart from that principle, his doctrine of
sin becomes a torment, his opposition to the Law
would be antinomianism, his union with the Cruci-
fied an illusion, his idea of the righteousness of
faith a danger to morality, and his doctrine of the
Church a fanaticism. For the vindication of his
gospel it was therefore necessary that his Churches
should exhibit the workings of the Spirit ; only
in that way could they become the Epistles of
Christ and set tlieir seal upon the Apostle's com-
mission (2 Co 3» 11*, Gal 3").
The structure of St. Paul's theology renders
it unlikely that his doctrine of the Spirit was
materially aft'ected by his intercourse with philo-
sophically-minded Greeks. Nowhere in St. Paul
do we find concrete parallels either to the Platonic
repudiation of sense in favour of reason, or to the
Cynic protest against culture, or to the mystical
teachings which implied that the soul is an alien
sojourner in the body. It is certainly possible,
perhaps even probable, that the forceful way in
which he made use of the antithesis between flesh
and spirit as a means of evoking faith and repent-
ance was in some manner related to the dualistic
ideas whicli prevailed in Greek metaphysics and
ethics. But his conscious and successful rejection
of all the Hellenistic forms of doctrine in that field
is clearly seen in the remarkable fact that there is
not a single passage in his letters which would go
to prove that the antithesis between the materi-
ality of nature and the immateriality of God, be-
tween the concrete image of sense and the pure
idea, had any meaning for him at all.
2. The primitive type of the doctrine and its
relation to the Pauline type. — It would be alto-
gether erroneous to think that the conviction of
the Spirit's indwelling in believers was first intro-
duced into the Church by St. Paul. Every single
document of primitive Christianity implies that
the possession of the Spirit is the distinctive feature
of tlie Christian society. When Christians spoke
of themselves as ' saints,' and thus indicated the
difl'erence between them and the Jews, they had
in mind not the measure of their moral achieve-
ments, but the fact that they were united to God
HOLY SPIRIT
HOLY SPIRIT
579
through their knowledge of Christ. Their union
with God, however, was rendered effective and
manifest precisely in virtue of the Spirit's work
in their lives. But while St. Paul relates every
phase of the Christian life to the Spirit, so that
believers may learn to think of their entire Chris-
tian experience as life in the Spirit, and so that
the Church may recognize the working of the
Spirit in all that it does, the leaders of the Church
in Jerusalem keep tlie thought of the Spirit apart
from their own self-consciousness. It is certamlj
the case that here the Church's relation to God is
conceived as determined by the new covenant
which the coming of the Spirit has brought to
all. The individual believer, however, was not
encouraged to find the basis of that belief in the
work of the Spirit which he could trace in his ovra
e.\perience ; on the contrary, each found the ade-
quate ground of his conviction in that manifesta-
tion of the Spirit which is apparent to all. In the
eyes of the Church the apostles are those who
teach in the Spirit, perform miracles in the Spirit,
and administer judgment in the Spirit, and beside
them stand prophets who make manifest to all
the reality of the new Divine covenant. The
conception of the Spirit, however, was not thereby
rendered particularistic, nor was its action re-
garded as restricted to the special class of the
iryevfiariKol. It was, in fact, impossible for those
who confessed Christ, the Perfecter of the com-
munity, to divide the community into two groups
— those who know God and those who know Him
not, or those who obey Him and those who resist
Him. Only in the indwelling of the Spirit as
shared by all was it made certain that the mem-
bers of the Church were members of the Kingdom
of God. When all is said, however, the conscious-
ness of believers in which they know that they are
under the influence of Divine grace is much more
vigorously developed in the Epistles of St. Paul
than in the documents bearing the Palestinian
stamp, viz. the writings of James, Matthew, Peter,
and John.
(a) The Epistle of James. — St. James assures
those who draw near to God with sincere repent-
ance that God will draw near to them (4*). But
he does not describe how the presence of CJod
becomes an experience in the penitent. The wis-
dom that produces pride he reproves as sensual
(^uxtK^ [3^*]) ; the true wisdom, on the contrary,
is spiritual ; but he is content to say of it simply
that it comes from above. To one who is in
perplexity as to his course, St. James gives the
promise that he shall receive wisdom in answer
to prayer (P). Here too, therefore, a work of God
is said to take place in the inner life — a Divine
operation regulating the thoughts and desires of
man. That directing power of God acting from
within is just what St. Paul calls Spirit, but this
term is not used here. Again, man is bom of
God, through the word of truth (I^), and the doer
of the Law is brought into the state of liberty (1^).
Both of these assertions approximate to what is
expressed elsewhere in Scripture by statements
referring to the Spirit. We thus see that the ex-
hortations of the Epistle are nowhere based upon
the legalistic point of view. The injunction of
Scripture or the precept of the teacher is never
regarded as taking the place of one's own ethical
knowledge. Casuistry is set aside, as is also the
idea of merit. The indi^•idual is called upon to
submit to God in his own knowledge and love.
But the writer does not deal with the manner in
which this autonomous turning of the will towards
God is brought about.
(6) Matthew. — An obN-ious parallel to this ap-
pears in St. Matthew. Here baptism into the
Spirit implies that, besides the work of the Father
and the Son, that of the Spirit likewise avails for
all who are called to follow Jesus (Mt 28'^). Ex-
cept in this connexion, however, the Spirit is only
once referred to, viz. as a special support to those
who have to proclaim the message or Jesus before
the secular powers (10^),* Nevertheless, the voca-
tion of the disciples, in all its grandeur and its
solemn obligation, is realized with extraordinary
vividness and most impressively depicted in the
First Gospel. The disciples are the light of the
world, the stewards of the treasure committed to
them by Jesus, the loyal husbandmen tlirough
whose labours the vineyard yields fruit for God,
the tishers of men who must cast out the net, the
sowers to whose exertions the harvest is due. But
the Gospel does not show how Christians are to
acquire the inward provision for their task. In
the con\-iction that they are the guardians of the
commission of Jesus lies also their glad confidence
that they are able to discharge it.
(c) First Epistle of Peter. — ^As Matthew con-
cludes with a distinct reference to the Trinity, so
the First Epistle of Peter opens with one (1-). The
sequence of the Persons here — God the Father, the
Spirit, Jesus Christ — which finds a parallel in the
salutation at the beginning of Kevelation (1*), is
probably to be explained by the fact that Jesus is
quite unmistakably represented as man, even when
He is associated with the Father and the Spirit.
The same fact appears also in the statement that
Hb blood and His obedience are the means by
which the sanctification imparted by the Spirit
is won, in accordance with the foreknowledge of
God. The mention of Jesus, accordingly, foBows
that of the Spirit through whom the humanity of
Jesus was endowed with Divine power and grace,
just as believers are enabled to participate in what
the Cross of Christ secures for them in virtue of
the sanctification bestowed upon them by the
Spirit. In 1 Pet. the Spirit is spoken of sQso as
constituting the endowment of those who had
carried the gospel to Asia Minor (1'^), and as thus
setting them beside the prophets in whom the
Spirit of Christ spoke (I"). Since the new birth is
effected by the Word ( I**), it is not surprising that
the community should be called the Temple. The
sacrifices which it offers bear the impress of the
Spirit (2*). Those who are brought before secular
tribunals for Christ's sake are assured that the
Spirit of God rests upon them (4"), and here the
promise which Jesus gave to His disciples is ex-
tended to the Church at large. Those who after
death obtain the gift of life receive it through the
Spirit (4*), just as Jesus Himself, after being put
to death, was quickened by the Spirit (3^*). We
thus see that this hortatory Epistle proceeds upon
the idea that it is the Spirit of God that secures
for the Church its portion in the Divine grace.
But the Epistle furnishes nothing that can com-
pare with the great utterances of St. Paul regard-
ing the operations of the Spirit, as e.ff. in Ro 8,
Gal 5, 1 Co 2. 12, 2 Co 3. Its exhortations appeal
to the ethical knowledge and the power of volition
which reside in believers themselves.
(d) The Johannine tcrifings. — (1) Revelation. — A
similar representation is given in the Revelation
of St. John. That Jesus governs the Christian
society through the Spirit is attested here by its
having received the gift of prophecy. What the
Apocalypse speaks of figuratively as a writing of
Jesus to the angels of the Churches it also desig-
* It is true that in 12*1^ Christ and the Spirit are conjoined
as the revealers of Divine grace, and in guch a way as to imply
that the offer of Divine grace is consiunmated through the
Spirit, so that the guilt of those who speak against it is irre-
versible. Yet it is not distinctly said here that the Spirit will
become manifest also after the earthly mission of Jestis. The
primarj- reference of the passage is to the revelation of God
which 18 eSect«d by the works of Jesus.
580
HOLY SPIRIT
HOLY SPIRIT
nates literally as a speaking of the Spirit to the
Churches (2', etc. ; cf. 19'"). When consolation is
given to those who are dying in the Lord, or when
the Church prays for the Coining of Jesus, it is the
Spirit that speaks (14'^ 22'^). As every prophet
receives the Spirit in such wise as to possess Him
individually, the Spirit is also referred to as
plural : God is the Lord of the spirits of the
prophets (22« ; cf. 1 Co U^^). The relation of the
Spirit to Christ is set forth in the assertion that
the Lamb has seven eyes, which are the seven
spirits of God (5*) : the Spirit gives Jesus the
power of vision by which He surveys the world
from the throne of God. Tlie Spirit's relation to
God is expressed in the figurative statement that
the seven spirits burn as lamps before the throne
(4*; cf. 1*): the Spirit is tne light of heaven.
These figures do not imply, however, that St. John
regarded the Spirit as broken up into seven inde-
pendent and co-ordinate beings. That no such
idea was in his mind is evident from the fact that
he ascribes these seven Spirits to God and Christ,
in whom the unity of personal life is inviolable.
Whether the metaphor was in some way suggested
by astronomical conceptions, as e.g. the seven
heavens, or the seven planets, it is impossible to
determine, as other metaphors of the Apocalypse
speak only of a single heaven, and never refer to
the planets at all. On the other hand, it is clear
that the form of the metaphor was in some way
influenced by the Messianic interpretation of Zee
The Spirit, however, is not nearly so prominent
in St. John's prophetic visions as are the angels.
While the Spirit is the source of knowledge — of
the omniscience of Jesus and God, and of the
certitude of the Christian which surveys the Last
Things — yet, when the catastrophic interventions
of Divine power in the world's history are to be
portrayed, it is the angels who appear as the
agents of the Divine purposes. Still St. John
summons Christ's people to that heroic conflict and
that service of perfect love in which they are
ready to die for Christ's sake, and to stand against
the world even when, under a single head, it con-
centrates all its force to make war upon Christ.
In this, however, their eyes are not bent upon
their own spiritual standing ; rather they are
turned away from man towards the higher realm
where the Lamb seated upon the throne of God
rules all things.
(2) Gospel. — The great theme of St. John's
Gospel is the Divine sonship of Jesus ; the faith
of the disciples finds its oljject in Him, and their
love is service to Him. His credentials consist in
His possession of the Spirit (1*- 3**). The Spirit
is the medium through which Jesus accomplishes
His work. Hence the two metaphors with which
St. John expresses the work of Jesus, viz. ' life '
and ' light,' apply also to the work of the Spirit.
The Spirit is one with the word of Jesus, and
makes that word the source of life (6®^). It is
associated with baptism in such wise that the
water initiates the new life in man (3") ; it works
in the flesh and blood of Jesus, so that they can
be eaten and drunk, and thus give life to believers
(6"*). After the departure of Jesus, moreover, the
Spirit is the power by which the disciples complete
their task, for the truth dwells in them through
the Spirit (cf. art. Paraclete). The Spirit in-
stitutes the new type of worship in the community
(4^). In the Fourtii Gospel, therefore, the Spirit
is in its Divine pre-eminence exalted above the
human consciousness. It is manifested only in its
work, and this is simply the Christian life — the
faith directed to Jesus, and the love tendered
Him ; for the Spirit does not reveal itself, but
glorifies Christ.
(3) First Epistle. — According to the First Epistle
of St. John, again, it is the Spirit that bestows the
word — not only the word of propliecy, but also tliat
of confession (41'''). The Spirit Ijecomes maniiest
in leading men to confess Jesus. Hence it is con-
joined with the water and the blood as the power
that generates faith in Christ (5*), and therefore it
is also that gift which manifests and safeguards
the perfect fellowship of Jesus with believers (3**).
It keeps the community from the seduction of
error, for it teaches and reveals tiie truth (2'''' ").
The community must have absolute confidence in
the guidance of the Spirit ; by its possession of the
Spirit it secures fellowship with the apostle, since
tlie Spirit makes it submissive to him (4'*), and at
the same time it secures its independence, since
it discovers knowledge for itself, and is not
fettered to the apostle. The designation here
applied to the Spirit, viz. 'oil of anointing'
ixplff/j-a [2-*^]), reminds the readers of what im-
parted the Spirit to them : they possess Him as
the property of the Anointed (Xpia-rds), who con-
summates llis fellowship with them, and shares
with them His chrism, in the fact that the Spirit
leads them to knowledge and certitude.
The references to the Spirit in all the three
documents just dealt with reveal their specifically
Johannine colouring in their speaking of the Spirit
as the source of knowledge. As the Christian life
consists in the knowledge of God, it is the Spirit
also that brings about the new birth from God.
That point of view common to all the Palestinian
teachers, which distinguishes their utterances
regarding the Spirit from the Pauline doctrine, is
clearly related, both positively and negatively, to
the religious attitude of the Jews. From that
attitude sprang the Cliristian sense of being under
obligation to God, and the Christian estimate of
obedience as the chief element in religion. The
promise of the Spirit did not lead the Christians of
Palestine to observe its work in themselves, to
find their joy therein, and to enrich and perfect
their spiritual life thereby ; it prompted them,
rather, to do the will of God in obedience to Jesus.
It was therefore enough for them that the work of
the Spirit should be manifest in the existence of
the Church and the word that sustained it.
Simultaneously, however, their controversy with
the Jews wrought with profound eflect upon the
religious standpoint of the Christians. The Jew,
in virtue of his Divine calling, acquired a proud
self-consciousness, and, after every religious ettbrt
he put forth, he was inclined to display and admire
it. Thus the apostolic preaching came to be a
ceaseless striving against religious vainglory.
Might not the conviction that the Church possesses
the Spirit engender pride? Must it not prove
positively baneful that man shpuld discern the
workings of Divine grace in the movements of his
thought and will? With a humble but bold
sincerity the leaders of the Palestinian Church
sought to prevent believers from dwelling upon
their personal experiences of the Spirit, and dis-
countenanced introspection except as a means of
maintaining their union with Jesus in penitence
and obedience. In this attitude we see also the
strength of the hope which turned their longings
towards the coming world and the coming Christ :
in that consummation the work of the Spirit will
at length be fully manifested in those whom it
raises from the dead.
3. Hellenistic -Jewish tendencies. — The tend-
encies introduced into the Gentile Churches by
Hellenized Jews were fraught with important
consequences. The issues are seen with special
clearness in the Epistles to the Corinthians, but
it is evident from Ph 3 that similar plienomcna
had emerged in liome and Macedonia, ^^hile the
HOLY SPIRIT
HOME
581
Pastoral Epistles and the Johannine writings show
that they had appeared also in Asia Minor. In
this Gentile soil the gift of the Spirit was accounted
the supreme prerogative of Christians. But tlie
idea of perfection was taken over from the Greek
and Jewish religious tradition, and fused with
faith in the Spirit. In Corinth this led to the
zealous cultivation of glossolalia — partly because
of the state of devout exaltation to which the gift
raised the speaker and in which he experienced a
strange delight, partly because of the admiration
which its striking manifestations evoked. That
one who prays should be exalted above reason by
the Spirit was regarded as something eminently
desirable. Here too, however, Christianity simul-
taneously acquired an intellectualistic tendency.
The Spirit endows man with knowledge, and sets
liim among the wise who can interpret the work of
God. In his conduct, again, the weviiaTiKos attests
his privilege by the daring which enables him to
do what for others would be a sin. He enters
heathen temples without fear (1 Co 8^°); he does
not need to shun impurity (6*^), and he can even
contract a marriage revolting to ordinary human
feeling (5'). In Corinth, like^vise, the possession
of the Spirit was supposed to be attested by
contempt for the natural, and this in turn gave
rise to ascetic tendencies (7^). As the perfectionist
finds complete satisfaction in the communion with
God bestowed upon him by the Spirit, his hope for
the future dies away (15^^ 2 Ti 2'*) ; for naturally
such a religious attitude could have no final ideal
standing supreme above present attainment. It
thus tended to arrest that forward process into
M-hich St. Paul had brought his churches (Ph 3).
Moreover, the link with the earthly career of Jesus
was dissolved. The moral intensity of His call to
repentance was not realized, and, accordingly, His
Death upon the Cross lost all significance. The
Exaltation of Jesus could, therefore, no longer be
based upon the self-humiliation in which He became
obedient to the death of the Cross (Ph 2*""). The
immediate outcome of these views was a division
of the Church into distinct groups, since the wev-
tuariKol had sought to institute a spiritual despotism
over it (1 Co 3*-=», 2 Co 11-^), treating the rest—
tliose who did not possess the characteristic tokens
of the Spirit — as spiritual minors. These facts
explain the manner in which the later Epistles of
St. Paul speak of the Spirit ; and, with regard to
the Johannine wTitings as well, we must take into
consideration not only their relation to the Pales-
tinian type of Christianity, but also their opposition
to the irvev/jLariKoi Avho made the Spirit subservient
to religious egotism. Similar considerations must
be kept in view in our interpretation of the Epistle
to the Hebrews. This Epistle does not treat of
the doctrine of the Sjiirit with anything like the
elaboration we find in its Christology ; it says very
little of the Spirit's work in the Church. It refers
to it once as the power which lends authority to
the words of those who preach Jesus (2*) ; and,
again, it brings out the awful degree of guilt
incurred by those who fall awaj', by pointing to
the greatness of the gift they have despised (6* 1(P).
The apostles sought to maintain the purity of
their views regarding the Spirit and to prevent its
being made a mere tool of religious egotism by
making the Church subordinate to Jesus, and
engaging it in the practical tasks necessarj- to the
formation of pure and perfect fellowship within its
own circle and in all the natural relations of life.
It was the operation of that ideal that led to the
ranking of faith alx)ve knowledge, and to the
expulsion of the egoistic tendency from tlie religious
life of the Cliurch. The preaching of the Resurrec-
tion of Jesus as the act of Go<l that procures life
for the world (1 Co 15); the concentration of
personal volition on the one aim of knowing Christ
(Ph 3) ; the Johannine representation of the unity
of Jesus with the Father as that which exalts Him
above all ; the portraj'al of Jesus in Hebrews as
the One Priest, who, having Himself been made
perfect through sutierings, has also made us perfect
— all these converge in a single point : they show
that the essential element of the Christian life
is faith in Jesus Christ. Perfectionism with its
egotistic tendency is thus overcome, for faith turns
us away from ourselves, and looks to the grace of
Christ as the source of our righteousness and of
our spiritual life. In this way the Christian society
maintains its place in the great forward process
which presses towards the realization of the perfect
in the future age.
And with faith in Jesus the apostles co-ordinated
the commandment of love, calling upon the Church
to engage in the tasks that arise out of our inter-
course with one another. This, again, meant not
only the overcoming of the intellectualistic tendency
which would have made the Church the arena of
theological disputation, but also the repudiation of
all opposition to the natural relations of human
life, for love becomes perfect only when it takes
account of our neighbour's situation as a whole,
and cares for his natural as well as his spiritual
needs. Thus the labours and controversies of the
Apostolic Age had as their outcome the establish-
ment of the prijiciple that the Spirit of God
manifests His work in man by endowing him with
faith and love (cf. 1 Ti 1*).
LiTERATrRK.— I. (a) For the Jewish tradition : P. Volz, Der
GeiH GotUi, Tubingen, 1911 ; (fc) for the conceptions current in
Hellenism, H. Weinel, Die Wirkrtngen des Gtistes uiirf der
GeisUr tin naehapostolisehen Zeitalter bis auf Ireruetig,
Freiburg i. B., 1899. II. H. Gnnkel, IHe Wirtungen des
hriligen Geistes^, Gottingen, 1909 ; M. Kahler, Dofftnatiieke
Zeitjragen, i., Leipzig. 1S9S : ' Das schriftmassige Bekenntnis
zaxn Geiste Christi," p. 137 ; H. H. Wendt, Die Begrife Fleiteh
und Geist im biblisehen Sprachgebraueh, Gotha, 1S78. III. J.
Gloel, Der heilige Geist in der HeiUrerkiindigung des Paulus,
Halle, 18S8 ; H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the ST, London,
1909 ; F. von Hugel, Eternal Life, Edinburgh, 1912.
A. Schlatter.
HOME.— 1. The English word 'home ' represents
more than one Greek word ; most commonly oIkos
gives the idea. Thus Kar' oUov = ' at home ' (Ac 2**
RV and AVm, and 5*^ RV ; AV ' from house to
house ' and ' in every house ') ; while /cor oUovt in
2(P = 'from house to house,' AV and RV, private
as opposed to public teaching being referred to ;
and Kara rovs o&coiv in 8* = ' [entering] into every
house.' ' At home ' renders if olK(f in 1 Co 11** 14^.
In 1 Ti 5* widows' children are bidden evcrt^eiv t6i>
l5iov oTkop, ' show piety at home' (AV), or ' towards
their own family' (RV). In Tit 2^ RV the young
married women are to be oUovpyoi, ' workers at
home ' ( AV oUovpol, ' keepers at home ' ; the former
word is not found elsewhere, but is attested by all
the best MSS).
The same idea is given by rd fSia, lit. 'their
own belongings,' in Ac 21* (' returned home ') ; *
and figuratively in 2 Co 5*" ® by ivSriixeiv, ' to be at
home " (lit. ' among the people '), and iK5i],u€iv, ' to be
absent from home ' ; perhaps also by the phrase, ^i"
Tois Tov UarpSt fMv, ' in my Father's house ' (figura-
tively, or else lit. of the Temple), of Lk 2".
Again, xiXts (Lat. civitas) conveys the idea of a
'home' (cf. He ll"*- is los 13U and especially Mt
12^ : x<5\ts fi oMa). To us the word ' city ' conveys
the idea of streets and buildings ; to a Greek or
Roman, and so to an early Christian, it means an
organized society which is the home of those who
inhabit it (see B. F. Westcott, Hehreics, 1889, p. 388
tl".). So also we may paraphrase Ph 3** thus : ' Our
* Cf. 01 Miot, 'one's own people,' in 1 Ti 58, and especially in
Jn 111, where both expressions are joined together. The Incar-
nate came to His own home (ra cSta), but His own chosen
people, the Jews (oi litot), received Him not.
582
HONEST
HONEY
home (iroXis) is in heaven, while on earth we are
only tnavelleiH and passers-by.'
2. The idea of home is much dwelt upon in the
Pastoral Epistles. There is a striking ditference
in the NT between the qualifications of an
' apostle ' in the widest sense, of a travelling mis-
sionary having oversight of the churches (such is
also the meaning of ' apostle ' in tlie D'ulache), and
of the local ' bishop ' or ' presbyter ' and deacon.
The 'apostle' may l)e married (1 Co 9"), but his
liome life is not emphasized ; while in the case of
the local officials the home is much spoken of.
Thus in the Pastoral Epistles the bisliop must be
husband of one wife, given to hospitality, ruling
well his own house, having his children in subjec-
tion ; for ruling his family well leads to his ruling
his flock well ; a test or his having trained his
children well is that they believe, and are not
accused of riot and are not unruly (1 Ti 3'-', Tit 1«).
Deacons must be husbands of one wife, ruling
their cliildreu and their own houses well (1 Ti 3'^).
These Epistles also deal generally with Christian
home life ; the faithful are to provide for their
own households (1 Ti 5*) ; married women must be
good house workers (above, 1 ; cf. the virtuous
woman of Pr Sl'"*^), and must love their husbands
and children (Tit 2^'-). Among widows' qualifica-
tions is that of having brought up children, who
in turn are bidden to requite their parents by
supiiorting the widowed mother and grandmother
(1 Ti 5" ; cf. vv.*- 1«). We have several distant
glimpses of devout Christian homes in the NT — of
Timothy witii his mother and grandmother at
Lystra, of Philip with his daughters at Caesarea,
and of some otliers, for which see Family.
3. Hospitality is closely connected with the idea
of ' home.' Eor the large guest-rooms which made
this possible on a comparatively extended scale,
see House. Instances of hospitality are common
in tlie apostolic writings. Simon the tanner enter-
tains St. Peter (Ac 10*), Lydia at Philippi shows
hospitality to St. Paul (16''''-*'), the jailer there
brings the apostles into his house and sets meat
before them (16'^); Titus Justus at Corinth (18^),
Philip at Cajsarea (2P), Mnason of Cyprus at
Jerusalem, or at a village between Cajsarea and
Jerusalem (21'«; see W. M. Kamsay, St. Paul the
Traveller, 1895, p. 302 f.), Publius in Malta (28')—
all entertained the Apostle hospitably. In Ro 16^
Gaius is famous for this quality; he is the host
of the whole Church, apparently at Corinth (cf.
1 Co 1"). It is just possible that he may be the
same as the hospitable Gaius of 3 Jn ^- ", but the
name is a connnon one. With the last passage
contrast the want of hospitality shown by Dio-
trephes in 3 Jn ^'^
The duty of sliowing hospitality is insisted on
in the case of a ' bishop ' in 1 Ti ^^, Tit 1* (he is to
be tt>iK6i€vos), and in the case of a widow in 1 Ti 5'"
{i^evoZ^xyiaev) ; and Christians in general are bidden
to ' pursue ' (Ro 12'^) and ' not to forget ' (He IS'-*)
love unto strangers {tpiXo^evia), to be ' lovers of
strangers ' ((piXbievoi, 1 P 4"), i.e. not to be givers
of feasts but to receive strangers (C. Rigg, .S"^.
Peter and St. Jude {ICC, 1901], 173; cf. Job 3P^).
In these iniunctions there is a reminiscence of our
Lord's words, ' I was a stranger, and ye took me in '
(Mt 25^). See, further, art. Hospitality.
A. J. Maclean.
HONEST.— 1. Tlie word 'honest ' in the AV bears
the Latin {honestns, fr. /iono*=' honour') and the
older English senses of (a) 'regarded with honour,'
' honourable,' and (b) 'bringing honour,' ' becoming'
(art. 'Honest, Honesty' in. JJDB). It is used \n
translating (1) jxaprvpovnivoi (Ac 6^) ; the 'deacons'
must be men of 'honest report' (AV), i.e. of
honourable repute (cf. He 11-- *•, etc.). (2) /caXrft ;
it is a Christian duty ' to take thought for things
honourable (AV, ' honest') in the sight of all men '
(Ro 12"), i.e. to live morally above suspicion in
the eyes of the world. The same phrase (taken
from the LXX translation of Pr 3*) occurs in 2
Co 8^'. St. Paul's precautions to avoid slander in the
administration of Church funds provide an illus-
tration of the principle. Ka\6z is translated in the
RV 'honourable' (' honest,' AV) in 2 Co 13^ and
' seemly ' (' honest,' AV) in 1 P 2^2. Since integrity
wins men's moral respect, ' honestly ' is retained
as the RV translation of koKQs in He 13'*, and the
RVm rendering of ko.\C}v fpyuv in Tit 3'* is ' honest
occupations.' (3) eva-xvi^'"^^ (Ro 13'*, 1 Th 4'*) ;
both the AV and the RV translate ' honestly,' but
' becomingly ' or ' worthily ' seems preferable (the
same adverb is translated ' decently ' in 1 Co 14***).
(4) aefivd ; ' whatsoever things are honest (AV ;
' honourable,' RV) . . . think on these things '(Ph
4*). Various renderings have been suggested —
' reverend ' (AVm), ' seemly ' (Ellicott), ' venerable '
(Vincent), ' whatever wins respect' (Weymouth),
' the things which produce a noble seriousness '
(M. Arnold). The corresponding noun in 1 Ti 2"
is translated in the RV ' gravity.'
2. The idea of honesty in our modem sense is
fairly conspicuous in the writings of the Apostolic
Church (ct. the Gospels, where there is practically
no direct reference to this virtue ; see art. ' Honesty '
in DCG). Thieves and avaricious men shall not
enter the Kingdom of God (1 Co6*-'"). Liars cannot
enter the New Jerusalem (Rev 21=^ 22'') : their
part is in the fiery lake (21*). Deceit [5o\j\os) finds
its place in the black list of pagan vices (Ro 1^) :
it is one of the signs of an unregenerate world
(3'2; cf. 2^') ; the Christians, becoming new men,
must put away falsehood, and speak trutli, eac-li
man with his neighbour (Eph 4--'- -^ Col 3*). He
that stole must steal no more, but must work with
his hands ' in honest industry ' (Eph 4-''). None
must suffer disgracefully for thieving (1 P 4''').
The dishonesty of Ananias and Sapphira meets
with terrible punishment (Ac 5). Fair dealing in
sexual relations is recognized (1 Co 7"). A con-
temptible form of dishonesty is that of a relifjious
teacher whose motive is self-interest, and who is
so degraded as to trick his hearers (2 Co 2'^ ll'^, Ro
16'*, Eph 4'"). St. Paul, in contrast, asserts his
own purity of motive (1 Th 2'"-, 2 Co 7^ 12'«'-, Ac
20^) and honesty of message (2 Co 4=). The burden
of the social-reform prophets of tlie OT is repeated
in the denunciations of the unscrupulously rich —
' Behold, the hire of the labourers, who mowed
your fields, which is of you kent back by fraud,
crieth out' (Ja 5*). See furtlier art. 'Honest,
llonesty ' in HDB for literary illustrations of the
use of the Avord ' honest.' H. BULCOCK.
HONEY (AtAi).— The words of God are often
compared to food that is exceedingly agreeable to
the palate— sweeter than honey (Ps 19'» 119'<»).
The prophet of the Revelation received from an
angel s hand a little book (j3tj3Xapi5to»')— evidently
some special source, probably Jewish, which he has
incorporated in his own work — and was enjoined
to eat it (Rev 10*'-). In his mouth it was sweet as
honey (cf. Ezk 3'), but as soon as lie swallowed it
he felt its bitterness (Rev 10'"). To be taken into
God's council and made cognizant of His ])uri)oses
gave promise of the most delightful experiences;
but a prophet's sense of the reaction of Divine
holiness against the world's sin, and his call to
be the herald of Divine judgments, often made
his ministry anything but enviable. Jeremiah, to
whom God'^s revelation, when first received, was
the joy of his heart, afterwards found the truth
so bitter that he refused to publish it, until it l)egan
to be like a fire shut up in his bones (Jer 15"* 20»).
Every true messenger of God, resolute in facing
HONOUR
HOPE
583
hard facts, endured suHerings to which the false
prophet, optimistically predicting smooth things,
was an utter stranger. ' The persecutions, tlie
apostasies, the judgments of the Church and people
ot the Lord saddened the spirit of the Seer and
dashed his joy at the first reception of the mystery
of God ' (Alford on Rev 10»»). The alternation of
spiritual joy and sorrow — the fu\i and the riKpla
of evangelism — has been the lot of every true
prophet, ani.'ient and modem. ' Laughter was in
this Luther, as we said ; but tears also were there.
Tears also were appointed him ; tears and hard
toil. The basis of his life was sadness, earnest-
ness' (Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1872, p.
131). James Strahax.
HONOUR.— In the NT two Gr. words, in various
forms, are thus translated : (1) 5d|a, Sojdfeu', as in
the phrases ' by honour and dishonour ' (2 Co 6*),
and 'one member be honoured' (RVm 'glorified,'
1 Co 12^) ; the woi'ds are derived from SoKtlv, ' to
think,' 'hold an opinion,' or 'hold in repute or
honour ' ; hence the noun has the significance of
'good-repute,' 'honour,' 'glory'; (2) ti/*^, rifidy,
Tifiios (from the root riew, * to pay a price' and then
'to pay honour'), rifiri is the most frequent word
for 'honour' in the NT. Primarily it means the
price wliich is paid or received for something, as
in the phrase ' the price of blood ' (Mt 27*, also Ac
4** 5- 19^-'). The metaphorical sense, indicating
something of price, worth, or value, naturally
follows, like 'dignity,' 'veneration,' 'honour,' and
'ornament,' as in the expression 'a vessel for
honour ' (Ro 9^^), ' in honour preferring one another'
(Ro 12'"), ' honour to whom honour' (Ro 13"). The
verb Tifidv is used in the sense of valuing, as ' the
price of him that was priced, whom certain of the
children of Israel did price' (Mt 27') ; but elsewhere
it has the meaning ' to venerate,' ' hold in honour,'
as 'Honour thy father and mother' (Eph 6^),
' honoured us with many honours' (Ac 28''>).
The words 56|a and rt^^ and their verbal forms
are employed in the LXX to translate i-n, T-5 and
18% The two words ' glory ' and ' honour ' appear
together in descriptions of the Exaltation of Christ
— 'crowned with glory and honour' (He 2'- *, 2 P
1'^); of the bliss of the future world — 'glory,
honour, and immortality ' (Ro 2^-^") ; of what the
kings are to bring into the heavenJy Jerusalem —
'They shall bring the glory and honour of the
Gentiles {levoiv) into it ' (Rev 21*"). The two words
are also used together in the description of the
triumph of faith's trial 'that it might be found
unto . . . glory and honour at the revelation of
Jesus Christ' (1 Pi''), and in doxologies ascribing
' praise, honour, and glory ' to Christ (Rev 5^ "),
and to God (1 Ti l^". Rev 4 '• " 7^-).
Three passages where rifi-^ occurs require separate
treatment. In 1 Ti 5", 'Let the elders that rule
well be counted, worthy of double honour, especially
those who labour in the word and teaching' (RV),
the context plainly indicates that the ' honour ' is
to be taken as 'honorarium' or 'stipend.' The
reason given for such treatment is expressed in the
words which follow : ' For the scripture saith. Thou
shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the
com. And, The labourer is worthy of his hire'
(1 Ti 51* ; cf. J. R. Dumraelow, The One Volume Bible
Commentary, p. 999 ; H. R. Reynolds, in Expositor,
1st ser. vol. iv. p. 47 ; see also HDB v. 441).
In 1 P 2^ the phrase vtilv ovv i] ti/jltj tois xurrevovffiv is
variously translated : ' Unto you therefore which
believe he is precious ' (AV) ; ' For you therefore
which believe is the preciousness ' (RV) ; 'in your
sight ... is the honour' (RVm). In the preceding
context reference is made to Christ as a ' precious '
stone (1 P2*-*), and if that connexion is maintained
in vj, the sense would be ' unto you who believe
Christ is all that God had declared ; you have
seen Him as precious, the preciousness. But it
is possible to connect the words with the phrase
immediately before them, and read them by way
of amplification—' He that believeth on Him shall
not be put to shame ; unto you therefore who
believe he is the honour, or ornament,' i.e. 'in-
stead of shame you find the honour or ornament of
your life in Christ.' Our opinion favours the latter
rendering.
The other passage is in Col 2®, oix iw rifiy nwl xpAs
r\r)ffpu>pj)v TTJi ffapKdi, which is translated, ' not in any
honour to the satisfying of the flesh ' ( AV), ' not of
any value (honour, RVm) against the indulgence
of the flesh ' (RV). Both translations are unsatis-
factory : the AV because it does not give any
clear or practical meaning, and the RV because,
though it gives a good sense, it gives a some-
what strained force to x/x5s. Eadie's translation
and interpretation seem to us the best : ' Which
things, having indeed a show of wisdom in super-
stition, humility, and corporeal austerity, not in
anything of value, are for, or minister to, the
gratification of the flesh.' ' The apostle means to
condemn these precepts and teachings; his censure
is that they produce an effect directly the opposite
to their professed design' {Com. in loco). Other
commentaries on the passage may be consulted for
the various interpretations which are attached to
it. WH bracket the words along with the three
which precede them, as indicating a doubtful text.
It is possible that some word or particle has dropped
out of the passage.
The man of the world's conception of honour does
not appear in the NT.
IdXDLATDBE. — Wilke-Grimm, Clavu Xovi Testamenti, 1868,
«. vr. &>|a, iojo^w ; DCy L.art. 'Honour'; HDBii., art. 'Ok>ry';
J. R. Dmnmelow, The One Volume BibU Ccmauntary, 1909,
p. 999 ; H. R. Reynolds in Expotitor, 1st »er. toL iv. p. 47 ;
A. S. Peake, EGTy ' Coloesians.' 1903, p. 535; G. Jackson
in Sxpotitor, 6th ser. toL xiL pp. lSO-193.
JOHX REID.
HOPE (Axt'j). — 'Hope may be defined as desire
of future good, accompanied by faith in its
realization. The object both of faith and of hope
is something unseen. Faith has regard equally to
past, present, or future, while no doubt in Scripture
referring mainly to the future. Hope is directed
only to the future. Expectation difiers from hope
in referring either to good or evU things, and
therefore lacks the element of desire ' (J. S. Banks
in HDB, S.V.).
We shall divide our study of the word and idea
in the Apostolic Church into two parts: (1) the
Pauline conception of hope ; (2) the idea of hope
in other apostolic and sub-apostolic writings, ex-
clusive of the Gospels.
1. The Pauline conception. — According to St.
Paul, hope has for its object those benefits which,
though promised to the Christian Church, are not
yet within its reach (Ro 8^). It is therefore
described generally as the hope of salvation (1 Th
5* ; cf. Ro 8^**), as indeed the last term includes
generally deliverance from all e>"ils and the
bestowment of all good. It is the hope of the
resurrection (1 Th 4^*), inasmuch as the resurrection
is at once deliverance from death and the begin-
ning of future felicity. It is the hope of glory or
of the glory of God (Ro 5^ Col 1^^; cf. 2 Co 3"),
in so far as the happiness of the future state is set
forth under the figure of splendour and brightness,
involving the perfection of the outward as well
as of the inward life. Again, it is the hope of
righteousness (Gal 5*), i.e. of justification, inas-
much as justification, or the acceptance by God of
believers as righteous, is the necessary condition of
and prelude to final felicity. Once more, as all
these benefits are to be realized at the Parousia of
Christ, it is spoken of as the hope of the Lord
584
HOPE
HOPE
(1 Th P). Again, inasmuch as these same bless-
ings are to be enjoyed in heaven, our hope is said
to be laid up in heaven (Col 1") ; and as the
mystical indwelling of Christ is the earnest and
promise of future salvation (cf. the present writer's
Man, Sin, and Salvation, 95 If.), Christ in us is
spoken of as ' the hope of glory' (Col 1'").
Hope is also variously characterized by St.
Paul in reference to the foundation on which it
rests. It is the hope of the gospel (Col 1^), in-
asmuch as it is guaranteed by the gospel promises ;
it is the hope of the Scriptures (Ro ]5*), inasmuch
as it rests upon those of the OT. It is the hope of
the Divine calling (Eph P' 4*), in so far as it is
substantiated to the individual by the immediate
call of God. It is hope in Christ (1 Co 15**), as
founded in faith upon Him ; while God is the God
of hope (Ro 15'^), as its Object, Inspirer, and Giver
(cf. 2 Th 2'»).
In Ro 5 St. Paul has described the growth of
hope with experience. As justified, we already
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (v.^).
Tribulations, however, serve to intensify and deepen
our hope. Tribulation works patience, and
patience experience {SoKifiri, the approved character
of the veteran), and experience hope (vv.*- ^) ; and
this hope never disappoints, because the love of
God is shed abroad in the heart through the Holy
Spirit given unto us (v,*).
Finally, hope is one of the most distinctive
marks of the Christian life in opposition to the
hopelessness of the Gentile world (Eph 2^^; cf.
1 Th 413).
2. In the other apostolic and sub - apostolic
writings.— The only difierence between St. Paul
and the other apostolic and sub-apostolic writers is
that, just as they have less of a theological system
than St. Paul, so the references to hope in their
writings have a less distinctly theological char-
acter. But the sul)stance of the idea is the same.
Christians are heirs of salvation in hope (Tit
1=3^). Christ is our hope (1 Ti V, Tit 2^^; Ign.
Eph. xxi. 2, Magn. xi.. Trail. Introd. ii. 2, Phil.
xi. 2). We hope in Him {Ep. Barn. vi. 3, viii. 5,
xi. 11, xvi. 8), in His Cross (xi. 8). God has united
us to Himself by the bond of hope (He 7^*, 1 Clem.
xxvii. 1 ; cf. Ac 24^', 1 P P') ; we hope in Him
(lTi4i»5»6'7).
A striking expression for the value of hope in
the Christian life is found in 1 P 1^ : God has
begotten us again unto a living hope by the Resur-
rection of Christ from the dead. Cf. Ep. Barn.
xvi. 8, i\irlaa.vrei . . . ^yev6/j.eda Kaivol ; cf. also
Herm., Sim. ix. xiv. 3, 'When we were already
destroyed, and had no hope of life, (the Lord)
renewed our life.' Hope, in fact, is the content of
the Christian's life (1 P l'^ 3», He 3» 6" lO^^;
Clement, ad Cor. li. 1, Ivii. 2; Ep. Bam. xi. 8;
Herm. Vis. I. i. 9, Mand. v. i. 7, Sim. ix. xxvi. 2 ;
Ign. Magn. ix. 1, Phil. v. 2). In the beautiful
language of He 6" it is, moreover, ' an anchor of
the soul, both sure and stedfast, and entering into
that which is within the veil ; whither as a fore-
runner Jesus entered for us.'
Looking at the Apostolic and sub- Apostolic Age
as a whole, St. Paul included, we may say that
hope is one of its chief characteristics. ' We are
accustomed to describe the Apostle Peter as the
Apostle of Hope on the ground of the first letter
ascribed to him, but wrongly, in so far as the
strong emphasis on hope is not peculiar to him,
but can be demonstrated equally in all other
writings of this time, although indeed certain
nuance.i exist' (A. Titius, Die NT Lchre von dcr
Seligkeit, iv, 71). Tlie special fervour of hope in
the NT and the Apostolic Fathers is, of course, in
part traceable to the belief in the immediate near-
ness of the Parousia, Avhich is common to the
Apostolic and sub-AjK)stolic Age as a whole. The
hope of the Parousia Ijroiight the future vividly
into connexion with the present. Hence Titius in
the above-mentioned work thus describes the age
in question : ' The value of the present consists
(for it), though not exclusively, yet essentially, in
that tlie future belongs to it. If the expectations
of the future should turn out to be deceitful,
therewith everything wliich makes the nresent
religiously valuable would be annihilated ' {loc,
cit.). Christianity, therefore, difi'ers from what
has gone before it just in its 'newness of hope'
(Ign. Magn. ix. 1), its better hope (He 7'*).
We may ettectively illustrate tlie meaning of
St. Paul's contrast between the hopelessness oftlie
heathen world and the hope of the Christian
Church by a reference to E. Rolide, Psijche^, ii.
393 f. Here a dark picture is given of the later
Hellenic culture. There were certainly hopes of
continued existence after death, scattered abroad
in the Greek world. But thej' liad no delinite or
dogmatically defined content. ' And it is forbidden
to no one to give his dissentient thoughts a hearing
in his own mind and a voice upon his tombstone,
though they should lead to the oi)i)Osite nole from
these hopes. A doubting "If" frequently inserts
itself in tlie inscriptions on the graves before the
expression of the expectation of conscious life, full
sensibility of the dead, the rewarding of souls after
tlieir deeds : " if there below is still anywhere any-
thing." The like is to be found often.'
Sometimes even doubt is put on one side, and it
is definitely declared that there is no life after
death. All that is told of Hades with its rewards
and punishments is an invention of the poets.
The dead become earth or ashes, pay tlie debt of
nature, and return to the elements whence tliey
were made. ' Savage accusations of the survivors
against death, the wild, loveless one, who, without
feeling, like a beast of prey has torn from them
their dearest, allow us to recognize no gleam of
hope of the preservation of the departed life'
(p. 394). But, again, complaints are declared to be
useless, resignation alone remains. '"Be of good
cheer, my child, no one is immortal," runs the
popular formula, which is written on the graves of
the departed. "Once I was not yet, then I was,
now I am no more, what is there further?" says
the dead on more than one tombstone to the living,
who soon will share the same lot. " Live," he
cries to the reader, "since to us mortals nothing
sweeter is given than this life in the light " ' (ib.).
Finally we meet with the thought that the dead
lives on in the memory of posterity, in general
form and still more in tlie devotion of his family ;
this is the only comfort which many a one in this
late Hellenism can find to enable him to bear the
thought of his own transitoriness.
Over against this sombre background, then,
Christianity shines out in the ancient world like a
Pharos, radiating the light of a clear and certain
hope into the darkness. Nor is that hope absolutely
bound up Avith the nearness of the expectation of
the Parousia, though there is no doubt that it was
that which gave to the early Christian hope its
extreme keenness. The essence of the Christian
hope is the hope of immortality guaranteed by
God in Christ ; as the contrast with the uncertainty
of the decadent Hellenic culture well shows.
Literature.— E. Reuss, Hititory of Christian Theology in
the Apostolic Arje, 1S72-74 (particularly valuable for its treat-
ment of St. Paul's cou'-eption of hope ; it has been freely drawn
upon in this article); R. S. Franks, Man, Sin, and Halration,
1908, p. 95 fT.; A. Titius, Die ST Lfhrf ron rfcr SHifjkctt,
]8i».T-lS)09, iv. 71; E. Rohde, yXi/fA,-', 1903, ii. 393 f.; C.
Buchnicker, art. ' Jloffnmip,' in PHK^ viii. [1900] 232ff. ;
H. M. Butler in Cainl»i<lii>- Thcolnqical Essai/x, llKi.'., p. fi7.l;
J. R. lUingworth, Christian Chaiartrr, 1!)04, i>. W. W.
Adams Brown, The Christian Jlojie, 1912, p. 0; J. Armitagre
Robinson, Unity in Christ, 1001, pp. 123, 163, '2{ii> ; Mandell
HORN
HOfiSE
585
Creighton. The Hind (if SL PeUr, 19W, p. 1 ; P. J. MacUgan,
The Gomel Viev of Thing*, 1906, p. 203 ; R. G. Bury, The
Valut of Hope, 1S87. R. S. FKANKS.
HORN (/c^/xii). — Except in Lk 1® ('horns of
salivation '), the only allusions to ' horns ' in the
NT are in the Apocalyptic Visions (Rev 5* 9" 12*
13'" 17*- '•**•"). The horn as an emblem of
strength and power is obviously derived from the
animal world. The bull has always been recog-
nized among primitive peoples as a fitting symbol
for strength ; hence the horn of a bull, which is
the characteristic feature of that animal and its
natural weapon of otlence, acquired a special
significance. We thus find it used symbolically
by the Babylonians and Assyrians, the homed cap
being the distinguishing mark of the gods. The
first occurrence of its emblematic use in the OT is
in Dt 33'", where Ephraim is said to have the horns
of a wild ox (cxi). Other examples will be found
in 1 S 2'- " and also in 1 K 22", where Zedekiah is
said to have made ' horns of iron,' whereby Israel
would ' push the Syrians, until they be consumed.'
In the later books of the OT the horn is used as
'the symbol of a dynastic force' (cf. Zee 1'^-,
Dn v*^- S*^-), and it is used in the same sense in
Rev 12^ 131- " 17*^-.
In Rev 5* the * seven horns ' sjTnbolize the power
of the Lamb as the victorious Christ, and the
' seven,' which throughout the OT and the NT
represents fullness, here denotes the all-sufficiency
of that power. In the ' horns of the golden altar '
in Rev 9^^ we seem to have an echo of Ex 27'- - ; as
H. B. Swete says {The Apocalypse of St. Jokn^,
121), there may here be some allusion to the 'four
comers of the earth' mentioned in 7', and the
' single ' voice is a suitable mouthpiece for the
single-hearted and unanimous desire of the Church
throughout the world. In Rev 12^ the great red
dragon is furnished A\-ith ten horns. The horns,
however, are not crowned, and it is interesting in
this connexion to compare and contrast the account
of the wild beast of the sea (13*), where the beast
is represented as having ten diadems on its ten
horns. The ten crowned horns in the latter pas-
sage (13') denote ten kings and represent the forces
which, arising out of the Roman Empire itself, like
horns out of a beast's head, would ultimately bring
about its dissolution. The second beast (Rev 13")
is of a diflerent character : he has ' two horns like
unto a lamb,' but, notwithstanding his gentle and
docile appearance, ' he spake as a dragon.' He
represents a religious power, and at once recalls
the ' false prophets (Mt 7'') which come to you in
sheep's clothing, but inwardly aie ravening wolves.'
Lastly, ' a scarlet-coloured beast . . . having seven
heads and ten horns ' (Rev 17'), is the undoer of ' the
great harlot' (v.'*). The reference is again to the
doom of the Roman Empire. The ten homs are
' ten kings which have received no kingdom as yet '
(v. '2), but are destined to ' receive authority as
kings, with the beast, for one hour.' Both the
kings and the beast to whom * they give their
power and authority' will be impotent in their
attack against the Lamb, but nevertheless they
are destined to be the willing or unwUling agents
of tlie Divine purpose — ' they shall hate the harlot,
and shall make her desolate and naked, and sliall
eat her flesh and shall bum her utterly with fire.
For God did put in their hearts to do his mind.'
The harlot is the great city (i.e. Rome; v.'^), and
she was to receive her death-blow at the hands of
those who ' have received no kingdom as yet.' The
Seer's prediction was amply verified by the numer-
ous invasions of barbarian hordes, which blackened
the page of Rome's history in the 5th and 6th cen-
turies A.D., and finally laid its long-established
Empire in i-uios.
LiTERATTRX.— H. B. Swete, The Apoealgpte <ff St. John^,
1907, pp. 78, 120, no, 221 f., 224 t. ; Mumy's DB, 356 ; HDB iL
iBi L2O0f.
P. S. P. Haxdcock.
HORSE.— In the NT, as in the OT, the horse is
alwaj's the war-horse, never the gentle, domesti-
cated creature beloved by the modem Arab.
Asses, mules, and camels were the beasts used
by the Jews in common life, both for riding and
burden-bearing.
(1) When Cliristian art depicts the conversion of
St. Paul, it usually represents him as falling from
an affrighted horse to the earth. The narrative in
Acts does not state that be was riding at all, but
it seems probable that as the emissary of the High
Priest, engaged on important and urgent business
(Ac 9"-), he would not make a joumey of 150 miles
on foot. His task and his spirit were warlike — he
was breathing threatening and slaughter — and he
may have taken a small troop of horsemen with
him. Strict Pharisees, however, never rode on
horseback, and it is at least as likely that he and
his companions were mounted on asses or mules.
(2) W hen St. Paul was arrested in Jerusalem,
and had to be taken beyond the reach of con-
spirators, he was escorted to Csesarea by a company
of 70 horsemen (Ac 23^ **). These cavalry, which
had been temporarily assisting the Roman garrison
in Judaea, had their headquarters at Caesarea.
Josephus makes repeated reference to an ala of
Sebaistian and Caesarean horsemen that was at-
tached to the auxiliary cohorts (see Schurer, HJP
I. ii. [1890] 52). The single cohort which was
stationed in Jerusalem all the year round was
apparently re-inforced at the time of the Passover
by cavalrj- and infantry from Caesarea.
(3) St. James (3**-) uses the bridling of the horse,
whose 'whole body' is thereby turned at the
rider's pleasure, to illustrate the complete self-
control which a man achieves by merely bridling
liis lips. It is generally true tliat if the tongue
does not utter tne angry word, the hand does not
grasp the sword, the feet do not run to evil and
make haste to shed blood.
(4) The horse is conspicuous in the symbolism
of the Apocalypse (15 references). Like the fiery
steed in Job (39'*"^), he goes forth to meet the
armed men, and smells the battle from afar.
Whether he belongs to the Church militant, or to
some worldly power, or to the under world, he is
always the war-horse — always 'prepared unto
battle ' or ' running to battle ' (Rev 9"- '). He is
familiar -with ' the sounds of chariots ' (9*). When
he appears, we expect to see the rider's drawn
sword (19^) ; we are not surprised at the sight of
blood ; and in one gruesome scene the deep pools
of gore come up to the horses' bridles (14^). A
white horse represents victory, a red horse carnage,
a black horse famine, and a pale horse death (6*^
One victorious trooper carries a bow (6*) ; he is the
light-armed Parthian, whose shafts were so dreaded
by the Romans — ' fidentemque fuga Parthum vers-
isque sagittis' (Virg. Georg. iiL 31). A host of
liendish mounted horses, 200,000,000 strong, armed
with breastplates of red, blue, and yellow (of fire
and hyacinth and brimstone, 9'"), are more like the
steeds of those heavy-armed Parthians who ap-
pearetl at Carrhse 'with their helmets and breast-
plates flashing with flame . . . and the horses
equipped with mail of brass and iron' (Pint.
Crassits, 24). But these fiend-horses are monsters,
which have the heads of lions, and breathe fire and
smoke and brimstone (cf. Wis 11'*; Virg. ./En. vii.
281). Against the armies of earth and Hades
Christ comes forth from the openeil heavens sit-
ting on a white horse, and all His followers ride
on white horses and are clad in white uniform
I (Rev 19"'"). The combined forces of evil make
586
HOSEA
HOUSE
war in vain against this Rider and His horsemen
(19^®), who are, in the phrase of a later time,
Knights of tlie Holy Ghost.
James Strahan.
HOSEA (Uffjii). — This prophet's gracious words
in 2-'^, containing a Divine promise that faithless
Israel will be restored to God's favour and be for
ever His faithful people, receive in St. Paul's
revolutionary exegesis (Ilo 9'^'-) a new api)lication
to the Gentiles, wlio liad not, till the Christian
era, been the people or the beloved of God, but
who at length become the objects of His love and
are called tiie sons of the living God. Before the
coming of tlie Messiah there was probably no more
Christ-like teacher than the prophet of Mount
Ephraim, who provided our Lord with His favourite
quotation, 'I will have mercy [ = hesed, love] and
not sacrilice ' ; and it is evident that his prevision
of a new covenant, linking Divine and human love
in everlasting bonds, was scarcely less precious to
the Apostle of the Gentiles than to the Saviour of
the world. James Strahan.
HOSPITALITY (^i\o^evla, lit. ' love of strangers ').
— Hospitality, by which is meant the reception
and entertainment of travellers, is and always has
been regarded as one of the chief virtues in the
East ; it is therefore not surprising to find com-
paratively frequent references to the duty of its
strict observance throughout the pages of the NT
(Lk I**''; Ro 1213- 2", 1 Ti 3^ 5i«, Tit 1«, He IS^, 1 P 4»,
3 Jn"^-). The customs of hospitality were clearly
recognized as binding in the time of Christ (Lk l**^-),
and hospitality was regarded as the proof of right-
eousness, and the natural test of a man's character
in the final judgment (Mt 25^*). The conditions of
the time made hospitality practically a necessity
for travellers, while it was vital to the very ex-
istence of the early Christian Church. The ordin-
ary ties of friendship as well as kinship had in
many cases been severed, and Christians regarded
themselves and were regarded by the outside world
as aliens, bound together as the members of one
family. The coherence of that family required
that, whenever a Christian migrated from one
place to another, he should be received as a welcome
guest by the Christians residing there (cf. Sanday-
Headlam, Roman^ [ICC, 1902], 363) and, indeed,
witliout such hospitality missionary work would
have been out of the question (cf. Ac 10*^ 21^",
Ro 16-3). -yy-g accordingly lind it commended and
enjoined as a duty incumbent on the various Chris-
tian communities in the letters of the apostles, as
well as in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers
(e.g. Clement*). Thus St. Paul, in writing to the
Romans, urges them to ' communicate to the neces-
sities of the saints,' and to be ' given to hospitality.'
The duty of entertaining the ordinary wayfarer
was not indeed ignored. Thus in He 13^ the
faithful are enjoined not to forget ' to show love
unto strangers ; for thereby some have entertained
angels unawares,' while later on, the heathen
writer Luciant ridicules the liberality shown by
Christians towards strangers. Discrimination must,
however, be exercised, and no hospitality is to be
accorded to those who come as the heralds of
another gospel — ' receive him not into your house,
neither bid him God-speed : for he that biddeth
him God-speed is partaker of his evil deeds'
(2 Jni"'-).
But the Chiistian, though under an obligation
to strangers in general, was obviously under a
greater obligation to his fellow-Christian. The
distinction between these two obligations is recog-
nized in 1 Ti 5'", where tlie writer, in his enumera-
tion of the various virtues which qualify women
to be ' enrolled ' as widows, says, ' if she hath used
* ad Cor. i. 17. t de iluitc Pcrcgrini, § lb.
hospitality to strangers, if she hatli washed the
saints' feet,' i.e. accorded especial hospitality to
Christians as opposed to strangers. The washing
of a guest's feet by his host was a inark of honour
to the guest and of deep humility on the part of
the host (cf. 1 S 25") ; hence the significance of
our Lord's rebuke to Simon the Pharisee (Lk 7**),
and of His own action at the Last Supper ( Jn IS***).
Again, kissing was and is another act of courtesy
usually accorded to strangers of distinction, but
significantly denied to our Lord by His Pharisaical
host (Lk 7**). In Palestine to-day the natives may
be seen kissing the mouth, the beard, and even the
clothes of their honoured guests (cf. Geikie, The
Holy Land and the Bible, i. 143). They refuse all
remuneration for their services, but, after three
days, the host may ask his guest whether he in-
tends to prolong his stay, and, if so, the host may
provide him with work. For three days tiie hospi-
tality accorded is regarded strictly as a right to
which the guest is absolutely entitled, and the
guest can, of course, on the expiration of three
days, take up his abode in another tent in the same
place, and thus renew his right. During his so-
journ, the person of the guest is inviolable, and
this is the case even if he be the sworn enemy of
the man of whose hospitality he is partaking. The
Oriental view of the binding nature of this virtue
is well expressed in the two local proverbs — 'every
stranger is an invited guest,' and * the guest while
in the house is its lord.'
Literature. — B. F. Westcott, The EpUUe to the Hebrews,
1889, p. 429 ; E. C. Wickham, The Epistle to the Hehrewg,
1910, p. 123 ; C. J. EUicott, The Pastoral Epistles of St. PauP,
1864, pp. 73 f., 185; Sanday-Headlam, Romans^ (ICC, 1902),
363; Speaker's Commentary: 'Romans to Philemon,' 1881, p.
786 ; C. Bigg, St. Peter and St. Jttde (ICC, 1901), 173 ; W.
M. Ramsay, The Church in tlie Roman Empire, 1893, pp. 288,
368 ; W. N^lThomson, The Land and the Book,\nevf. ed., 1910 ;
J. C. Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, 1887, i. 143, 306, 443 ;
H. C. Trumbull, Studies in Oriental Social Life, 1894, pp. 73-
142 ; A. Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life, 1908 ; G.
Robinson Lees, Village Life in Palestine, new cd., 1905;
Smith's DB, ed. Fuller, vol. i. pt. i. pp. 1401-03 ; SDB 365-67 ;
I>CG i. 751. P. S. P. HaNDCOCK.
HOUR (figurative).* — As in the literal sense
' hour ' signifies a point in, or part of, the course
of a day, so in the NT it is used metaphorically to
signify a point or period in a course of historical
development. In Ro 13'^ the use is vividly real-
istic. The present time of trial is like the dark
and gloomy night, but 'salvation' draws nigh;
already, therefore, it is ' the hour to awake out of
sleep.' With this single exception, the metaphori-
cal sense of the word is peculiar to the Johannine
group of writings (cf. Jn 2^4'-^ 12^ 13', etc.), and
may be delined as the Jixcd time, in distinction
from Kaipdt, the ^^ time ('the boast of heraldry,
the pomp of power . . . await alike th' inevitable
hour'). Thus the Apocalypse speaks (14"") of the
' hour' for reaping the harvest of the earth, which
is the 'hour' of God's judgment (14^) upon the
pagan world. To the faithful church in Phila-
delphia (3'") safe-keeping is promised from the
' hour of testing ' which is about to come upon
the whole earth, i.e. the period of trial which
is to usher in the Messianic deliverance. This
is defined (13'*"") as a time of seduction to the
worship of the Beast (the Imperial cult) ; but in
1 Jn 2"* tlie sign of this ' last liour ' is already .seen
in the rise of Antichrist, yea, of ' many antichrists,'
i.e. the Gnostic propagandists. In many passa«?es
tlie appearance of false teachers is foretola or dis-
cerned as a symptom that the last hour of this
world's day is running its course (Mt 24'- "-^--^
Lk 218, 1 T'i 4'-', 2 P 3^, etc.). RouEUT Law.
HOUSE. — In this article the references in the
* For ' Uour ' in the literal sense see Timi:.
HOUSE
HOUSE
587
NT to the structure and appointments of a boose
will be collected together, and a description of a
house in apostolic times will be given, with illus-
trations from the present writer's observations in
his Eastern travels. For ' house ' in the sense of
those who inhabit the building, and of descendants,
see Family.
1. Foundations and materials. — Great attention
was paid to the foundations ; they were if possible
of stone, even if the walls were of mud. The foun-
dations (the apostles and prophets) and the comer-
stone (Christ) are the principal elements in the
spiritual house (Eph 2^). The importance of the
foundations of the wall of the holy city is illustrated
in Kev 21**'- by their being adorned with precious
stones. It thus happens in the present day that in
theordinary Eastern liouse the foundations often
cost as much as all the rest of the building put
together. In places where stone is plentiful all
houses are built of that material ; otherwise only
the very rich men's houses are of stone and all
others are built of sun-dried bricks (sometimes of
kiln-dried bricks, which are more expensive), or
even of mud set in layers, each layer being left to
dry hard before the next layer is placed on the top
of it. The sun-dried bricks are made sinaply of
clay with which chopped straw is mixed (Ex 5"),
ana aie set to dry in the sun for a few days before
they are wanted for the building. Thus brick-
making and house-building go on together on the
same ground. The perishable nature of the
material explains why, with the exception of
the royal palaces, which were built of stone,
nearly all Xineveh has completelj' vanished.
If Layard's rather doubtful theory is correct
(Nitieveh and its Bemains, London, 1849, vol. ii.
p. 236 ff. ), that vast city of ' three days' journey '
[round the waUs] (Jon 3') occupied the large area
betAveen the fortresses, Mliich alone remain to this
day, aiul was some 75 miles in circumference ; but
of the buildings in the centre of the area there is
not a trace. The same thing also explains the
references to ' digging through ' houses in Mt 6^
24'**, Lk 12^ ; this is quite an easy thing to do.
2. The roof (d^/xa; sometimes ar^yrj, Mt 8*,
Lk 7*). — This is flat, made of mud laid on beams
of wood, crossed by laths, and covered with mat-
ting. It is used in summer as a sleeping-place, and
by day (especialh' in the evening) as a sitting-room,
or often as a promenade, for roofs of adjacent houses
in the villages are frequently joined together. It
is possible sometimes to walk from one end of the
village to the other wthout descending the ladders
or staircases to the courtyards and streets. Hence
in time of persecution the fugitive would do well to
liee along the roofs rather than fall a prey to the
enemy in the streets (Mt 24»s Mk 12,^, Lk W^).
So St;. Peter goes to the roof to pray (Ac 10*). The
roof is a favourite place for village gossip ; this is
the 'proclamation on the housetops' of Mt ICF,
Lk 12^. The nature of the material of the roof
explains how easy it was to dig through it (Mk 2*,
efopi'la^res ; cf. Gal 4*') in order to let the paralytic
down ; the mention of tiles in H Lk 5'* is merelj' a
Earaphrase adopted bv St. Luke for the compre-
ension of his more ^Vestem readers — or at least
of readers less acquainted with the customs of
Palestine than those of St. Mark (W. M. Kamsay,
Was Christ born at Bethleliem/', 1898, p. 57 f.).
3. The windows {dvpidei). — In the East these
now usually look into the courtyard, not into the
street, as privacj- is of the greatest importance.
Such was probably the case in Ac 20®, where Euty-
chus, sitting in a window, falls from the third story
{drb Tov TpiffTe-iOv) ; as Eastern houses are usually
of two stories (for the kitchen see below), we must
here have an exception to the general rule. It is
not common for windows to be in the outside wall
of a town ; yet this must have been the case in
Ac 9^, 2 Co 11» where St. Paul is let down through
the town wall and escapes, in both cases from
Damascus, for both passages seem to refer to the
same incident (cf. also Kahab, Jos 2"). Except in
the better houses, no glass is used in the windows ;
oiled cotton or paper serves instead of glass in the
winter, being removed in the summer. Glass
(other than that used for mirrors) is mentioned in
the NT only in Rev 4' 15* 21'*- ** ; its costliness in
ancient times, as in the modem East, is seen by its
being coupled with gold in Job 28*^ RV.
4. The house - gate,— The door or gate itself
is dipa (Mk 2*, Jn 18*«, figuratively in Rev 3»),
but rvKibv is the gateway or entrj- of a house,
especially if large, as weU as of a city (Mt 26^',
Lk I6r", Ac Kfi'' 12*3^; in the last passage the
full expression 'door of the gate' {Ovpa toC vvX&kk)
is used, but in v.'* rvXuif includes dOpa, for it is
' opened ' by Rhoda ; cf. artt. DooB and Gate),
For a house-gate -ri/Xv is not ordinarily used ; it
is the gate of a city, and so of a public bmlding
like the Temple or a prison (Ac S*" 12i», but 3*
has 0vpa). The house-gate was naturally kept
locked in troublous times, as in Ac 10*' 12**"**, and
was guarded by a porter (Mk 13^, o dvpupii) or a
portress (Jn 18*«, ^ dvpiopos ; cf. Mk 14®, Ac 12*«-),
just as the figurative sheepfold in Jn 10* is guarded
by ' the porter,' probably the Holy Spirit (H. B.
Swete, The Holy Spirit in the NT, 1909, p. 146).
The entry {vvkdip) is either the same as, or else
leads into, the fore-court (rpoavXiov) of Mk 14**,
where i] Mt 26'* has rvXdiv. Outside the gate of the
great houses the beggars sit (Lk 16^, Lazarus), as
they did at the gate of the Temple (Ac 3-*'). Inside
the gate, perhaps in the fore-court, were the water-
pots for washing (Jn 2*); evidently not in the
guest-room.
5. The courtyard (oiJXi}). — This occupied the
centre of the house (Mt 26«^, Mk 14**- «). We
read of a charcoal fire in it — a brazier in the open
air (Mk 14«- '~, Lk 22»f-, Jn 18*«- ■^), in the middle
(Lk fS^). On this courtyard the rooms opened ;
bur Lord inside was visible to Peter in the court
(Lk 22**). The rooms, in places where there is
little cold weather, might be entirely open to the
court, as may be seen at the present day, e.g. at
Mosul ; or, in colder places, might open on the
court with doors and windows, with or without a
covered gallerj-.
6. The kitchen. — The kitchen itself is not men-
tioned in the NT, though the oven (Mt 6**) and
kitchen utensils (Mk 7*) are referred to. Yet in all
but the richer houses it is the most commonly used
part of the house, and the family ordinarily live in
it ; in some Eastern countries it is emphatically
called ' the house ' as opposed to ' the rooms.' The
oven is a hole in the floor ; the fire, of dried manure,
is kindled at the bottom ; and the sides are made
of hardened clay, to which the flaps of dough adhere
until they are baked and readj- to be hooked out as
bread. Other food is cooked over the tire in pots.
As there is no chimney (in our sense of the word),
tlie kitchen must necessarily be of one story only,
to allow of a hole in the roof for the escape of the
smoke.
7. The rooms. — («) There is not in the East, in
the ordinary houses, the distinction usually found
in the West between bedrooms and sitting-rooms.
The latter are turned into bedrooms by spreading
the bedclothes on the floor. Thus the ' bed-cnamber '
{koituiv, Ac 12*') of which Blastus was guardian
would be unusual except in a great house such
as that of Herod.
(6) Most houses, even of the comparatively poor,
have a fairly large room or rooms, often, out not
always, on the first floor, to entertain guests who
come unexpectedlj', for Eastern hospitality is great
588
HOUSE
HUMILITY
(see Home). Hence we read that tlie upper room
{dvuryfov or Avuryaiof or dvuyfuv or dvdyaiov) of Mk
14''"-, Lk 22'"- wa.s large, and it is expressly called
a 'guest-chamber,' KaTdXv/ia, i.e. a ]>lace where the
guests unpack their baggage ; it may be doubted
if KaTd\v/j.a in Lk 2^ is rightly rendered ' inn,' for
this in 1(P* is called iravSoxf'^ov. Probably the
KardXvfia was a guest-chamber in a house where
Joseph expected to lodge, but it is a word elastic
in meaning (see A. Plummer, St. Luke^[ICC, 1898],
54). The Tipper room of the Last Supper was very
probably the place where the Ten and the rest
were assembled on Easter Day, and if so must have
been somewhat large, though tlie word used (rjOpoia--
fiivovs, Lk 24^* 11 V ; cf. v.") suggests crowding, just
as the compounds cwriOpoKTixivoi, cwadpoiffas in Ac
1212 ]c)25 suggest a large assembly. In Acts the
word used for suoii an upper room is vrrep<^ov, P^
937. s» (Uoieas) 20' \,.t Troas). The room mentioned
in 1'* must have been large, for it held 120 i)eople ;
and it was perhaps the same as the coenaculum of
Mk 14'^'-, lor it is called 'the upper room ' (RV).
It has been suggested that as different words are
used, the rooms must have been different ; yet this
would not account for St. Luke's using dviliyeov in
his Gospel, and always virepi^ov in Acts. It was no
doubt in such a guest-chamber on the first floor
that Jesus healed the paralytic, for it was under
the roof. (With this arrangement for an upper
room we may compare the ordinary provision in a
caravanserai of <a room or rooms over tlie gateway
for the guests, while the stables are below, and
round the courtyard.) Such an upper room is j^rob-
ably the ^evia in Philem-"^, Ac 28'" — a lodging in
a private house. In response to St. Paul's request,
Philemon would doubtless otter his own guest-
room. When the Apostle arrived in Rome lie
probably at first lodj^ed, guarded by soldiers, in
the guest-room of a friend, though afterwards he
hired a i)rivate house dj-Ladufia, Ac 28''*'). For the
use of these guest-rooms as the lirst Christian
churches, see Family.
((•) Resides the above rooms we read in tlie NT
of a ra^etoj' (better rafxieiov) and an diroO-qKri. The
latter is a barn or granary (Mt 3'^ G-" 13=*", Lk 3"
1218.24). The former is properly a store-chamber
(Lk 12-^), and is usually used in that sense in the
LXX (Dt 28«, etc.). All Eastern houses have such
chambers, and for security they are usually placed
so as not to have an outside wall, but to open ott"
the kitchen. Hence any inner chamber used for
living in came to be so called (Mt 6" 242«, Lk 12^).
The Latin translations of ra/xeTov vary greatly
(Plummer, St. Luke", 318).
8. Paving of the rooms.— This is very seldom of
wood (except in Solomon's Temple, 1 K 6'*- **, where
the wood was overlaid with gold), but, even on the
upper floors, of beaten mud, sometimes of a sort
01 cement. In rich houses pavements of stone or
marble were used ; thus the (iabbatha {AiOdarpuTov)
of Jn 19'^ was probably a hall paved with stone.
9. Furniture of the rooms.— Very little is said
of this in the NT ; and, in truth. Eastern houses
need little furniture. Carpets (with straw mats
under them to jn-otect them from the mud floor),
mattresses, and bedclothes are practically the only
necessaries. When we read in the NT the various
words for a ' bed ' as used for sleeping in—KXlvrj (Mt
9-, Lk r>'8), kXiuIBiov (Lk 5»»- =" ; the same as KXivrj,
V.18), Kpd^liarov (Mk 2* 6», Jn 58)— only mattresses
and bedclothes are meant. The man wlio rises in
the morning ' takes up his bed,' and, rolling it up
in an outer cover, places it against the wall, where
it serves as a cushioa in the day-time. The same
is probably true of kUvti in Mk 7^, Lk 17**, Rev 2--,
where either sense is possil)le ; and of the KXtvdpia
' ~ 3aTa in Ac 5'* (inferior MSS substitute
K\lt>ai for the former word), where the sick are laid
in the streets. On the other hand, the low couches
{K\lyai, triclinia, rpiKXivia [the last not in the NT])
used for meals are clearly articles of furniture in
Mk 4^' 7* (here a ' Western ' addition, but it may
be genuine), Lk 8'" ; for a lamp may be put under
them (cf. dpxi-rpUXivoi, Jn 2"). On these couches
the people reclined ; hence dvdKeinai is ' to sit at
meat' (Mt 9'", etc.), and the jjuests are dvaKdp.evoi
(Mt22'*). It seems doubtful if ba/s-tcads axe ever
mentioned in the NT ; see, further, art. Rkd,
Couch. The * candlestick ' or lamp-stand (Xvxvla)
mentioned in the above nassages is also a piece of
furniture, set in the middle of the room to hold
the light. Chairs and tables are not much used
by non-westernized Orientals to this day ; but
sometimes a low stand is placed on the floor to hold
food at meals, though more often the meats are
placed on a tal)leclotli on the ground. Thus ' table '
in the Rible does not usually denote an article of
furniture, except in the case of the money-changers
in Mt 21'-, Mk 11^', Jn 2'*, where a house is not
being spoken of. The throne (/Sij^a), of a king is
mentioned in Ac 12*^ and figuratively tiie 0p6vos of
God and the dp6voi of angels or men (Mt 19'-'*, Rev
20*, etc.) are spoken of; but ordinary people sat,
as they still sit in the true East, on the ground, or
on cushions, thougii chairs or seats {KaO^dpai) were
not unknown (Mt 2V\ Mk 11"^).
Literature.— C. Warren in HDD ii. 431, art. 'House'
(especially for the OT) ; A. J. Maclean and W. H. Browne,
The Catholicos of the East and hii People, IjOiidon, 1892 ; A. H.
Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, do. 1849, especially pt. i.
ch. vi. and vii., pt. ii. ch. ii. A. J. MACLEAN.
HUMILITY (Ta.Treivo<t)po<xvvri). — 1. In the OT.—
The word is common in the NT, but, according
to Lightfoot {Fhilrppians*, 1878, p. 109), does not
occur earlier. ' Even the adjective raireivdippwv and
tlie verb Taireivo(ppovelv, though occurring once each
in the LXX (Pr 29^3, Ps 130-), appear not to be
found in classical Greek before the Christian era.'
Moreover, in lieathen writers raireivbs has almost
invariably a bad meaning : it signifies ' grovelling,'
* abject.'
' It was one great result of the life of Christ,' says Lightfoot
{loe. dt.), 'to raise " humility" to its proper level ; and. it not
fresh coined for this purpose, the word raTrnvo^potrvvri now
first became current through the influence of Christian ethics.'
All the same, it is to be recognized that the virtue
of humility is greatly commended in the OT, and
its place in the Christian ethic can only be properly
understood when we remember this. Especially
in the Psalms and Proverbs and some of the
I'rophets is the value of humility recognized, anil
tiie NT writers sometimes enforce wliat they have
to say on the sulnect by a quotation from the OT
(cf., for instance, Pr 2?*, Ja 4«).
2. In the NT. — The value of humility was a chief
point in the teaching of Jesus Himself, and the
ajiostolic writers follow Him in their estimate of
it. The root of humility, as it is descri)>ed in the
NT, is a true estimate of oneself as in the sight
of God. It presupposes, therefore, a knowledge of
our weakness. 'Recognizing this, man ceases to
hold himself of great account, and therefore easily
believes that others are more excellent than iiiiu-
self, nor takes it amiss that they are preferred
before him' (J. F. '[\\nU\e\ii^, Iiistitutioves Tlieotoijim
Moralis, Leipzig, ed. 1727, p. 141).
Above all, however, the. recognition of one's
position in the sight of God leads to humility
towards Him. Before Him no one can Iniast
(1 Co 4*) ; whatever merit one possesses rests nj)on
the Divine grace (1 Co 4"). • He is humble before
God, who attributes nothing to himself, or to his
own strength, and regards himself as .simply un-
worthy of all Divine benefits' (Duddeus, loc. cit. ;
cf. 1 P 6«, Ja 4'«, Ac 2»').
HOIILITY
HYMEX^US
589
But, as has been ah-eady indicated, humility is
.il>o to be exercised towards our fellow-men. St.
Paul and St. Peter alike enforce the need of such
humility (Ph •23\ Col 3'- ; cf. 1 Co 13*, 1 P 5').
St. Paul, moreover, adduces as the jrreat example
of such humility the humility of Christ in the
Incarnation, in that He laid aside the form of God,
and took upon Him that of a servant, becoming
obedient to death, even the Death of the Cross
(Ph 2*^). It is not necessary here, in simply treat-
ing of the virtue of humility in the apostolic writ-
ings, to go on to discuss the Kenosis, on which so
much has been said and written ; but it may
perhaps titly be pointed out how this instance of
the Lord's "humility in the Incarnation has been
made use of in Catholic Christianity from Augustine
onwards. Pride, according to St. Augustine, is the
root of all sins ; therefore to cure it God wrought
in the Incarnation by introducing into humanity
the antidote of humility. The humility of Christ
is the cure of man's pride. By St. Francis of
Assisi this humility of Jesus was connected, closely
with the thought of His earthly privations ; and
thus was struck the key-note of the peculiar
medineval piety of the imitation of the lowly Jesus.
3. In the Apostolic Fathers. — Among the sub-
apostolic writings outside the NT, 1 Clem, stands
out because of its particular emphasis on humility.
It may indeed almost be regarded as a sermon on
humility, with many instances, examples, and
exhortations. The emphasis on this particular
virtue follows naturally from the situation at
Corinth, which the Epistle of the Roman Church
through Clement is intended to deal with. A
contention has taken place in the Church, in which
two parties are involved. The majority of the
community are on the one side, led by a few head-
strong and self-willed persons (1^). On the other
side are the ofiicers of the Church, the presbyters,
with very little support in the Church. During
the conflict some presbyters have actually been
deposed by the Church (44®). The Epistle of the
Roman Church, indited by Clement, is intended
to bring about the submission of the Church to
its presbyters, and so restore unity. No wonder
then that such stress is laid on the virtue of
humility. "What is aimed at is to produce a proper
submission to constituted authority in place of the
present sedition against it. To quote the passages
on humility would occupy too much space, rawetyos
occui-s in XXX. 2, Iv. 6, lix. 3 ; ravewoippoveo) in ii. 1,
xiii. I, 3, xvi. 1 f., 17, xviL 2,xxx. 3, xxxviii. 2, Ixii.
2 ; Taireivo<ppocrvfr] in xxi. 8, xxx. 8, xxxi. 4, xliv. 3, Ivi.
1, Iviii. 2 ; raveivoippwv in xix. 1 ; rareifoa in xviii.
8, 17, lix. 3 ; and raTreivuan in xvi. 7, liii. 2, Iv. 6.
Two passages will give an idea of the general drift
of the exhortation and argument on the point of
humility. ' Let us therefore be lowly-mindetl,
brethren, laying aside all arrogance and conceit
and folly and anger, and let us do that which is
written. For the Holy Ghost saith. Let not the
wise man boast in his wisdom, nor the strong in
his strength, neither the rich in his riches ; but
he that boasteth, let him boast in the Lord, that
he may seek Him out, and do judgment and
righteousness' (xiii. 1 [Lightfoot's tr.]). 'For
Christ is with them that are lowly of mind, not
with them that exalt themselves over the flock.
The sceptre [of the majesty] of God, even our Lord
Jesus Christ, came not in the pomp of arrogance
or of pride, though He might have done so, but in
lowliness of mind, according as the Holy Spirit
spake concerning Him [here are quoted Is 5S^-^
and Ps 2'y--]. Ye see, dearly beloved, what is the
pattern that hath been given unto us ; for if the
Lord was thus lowly of mind, what should we do,
who through Him "have been brought under the
yoke of His grace ' {ib. xvi. 1, 2, 17).
The Epistle of Bai'nabas also commends humility :
it is a point in the way of light (xix. 3). Cf. also
Ign. Smym. vi. 1, « I^t no one's position putt" him
up ; for faith and love are everything, of which
things nothing takes precedence'' Cf. yet again
Hermes, Mand. xi. 3, where humility appears as
the mark of the true prophet, by which he may be
surely known from all false prophets.
4. St. Paul and false humility. — In conclusion,
mention must be made of St. Paul's condemnation
of a false humility in Col 2^-*. Certain false
teachers had appeared at Colossje, who maintained
that a perfection beyond that attainable by ordinary
Christians could be realized only by a yvQKii.z, which
paid special worship to the angelic powers, and
reverenced the particular ordinances enjoined by
them. ' Amongst these ordinances were Jewish
circumcision and the observance of Jewish feast-
days, new moons and sabbaths. We may remember
that Paul himself in Gal. (3^9 4?- «-iO) regards the
Jewish ceremonies as ordinances of the angels of
the Jewish law. But it was not merely the
Jewish law which was observed by the Colossian
teachers ; they added other precepts of their own
of an ascetic character by the observance of which
especially communion with the angels might be
attained. The idea is that, as the angels are above
this world, so the ascetic, by cutting himself off
from the things of the world, draws near to the
angels, and becomes fit to associate with them'
(R. S. Franks, Bible Notes an the Writings of St.
Paul, 1910, p. 76).
St. Paul declares all such subservience to the
angels to be a false humility, inasmuch as it
detracts from the true reverence due to Christ
alone, who is the Head of the angels, whose power
over the world, moreover. He has broken by His
Cross, by dying on which He annulled the bond
they held against men in the Law (Col 2^-'-^').
LiTERATCML— A. Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine ofJusti/ea-
tion and Reeoneiiiation, Enp^. tr., 1900, p. 632 ; W. Hemnaim,
The Communion of tie Christian yMk God, Eng. tr., 1906,
p. 267; E. Hatch, Utmorialt, ISQO, ^pp. 137, 213; H. P.
Liddon, Sermons preadud before the University of Oxford, 1st
ser., 1569, p. 139. 2nd ser., 1879, p. IS ; W. R.Jnsre, PaUh and
Knowledge, 1904, p. 107 ; J. Warschauer, The Way of Under-
standing, 1913. p. 140. R. S. FbaNKS.
HUSBAND.— See Family, Marriage.
HYACINTH.— See Jacinth.
HTHEN.£nS. — Hymenjeus is a heretic men-
tioned in 1 Ti 1^ in conjunction with Alexander
(q.v.) as one who had made shipwTeck of the faith
and, therefore, had been delivered to Satan. He
is also mentioned in 2 Ti 2'^ in conjunction with
Philetus as teaching a doctrine which ate into the
body of the Church like a gangrene — the doctrine
that the resurrection was past already. Nothing
further is known of the three teachers mentioned
in the two texts, and their sole importance to the
student lies in die nature of their doctrine. It
came from the masters of Gnosticism, who from
Simon Magus onwards had taught the inferior or
eWl character of matter, in opposition to the
fathers of the Catholic Chtirch, who assigned to
the world a sacramental character. According to
I Irenseus {adv. Hter. n. xxxi. 2), the followers of
i Simon and Carpocrates taught that ' the resurrec-
tion from the dead was simply an acquaintance
with that truth which they proclaimed.' Ter-
tnllian (de Ees. Cam. xix.) charged his adversaries
with alleging that even death itself was to be
imderstood in a spiritual sense, since death was
not the separation of body and soul, but ignorance
of God, by reason of which man is dead to God,
and is not less buried in error than he would be in
the grave.
590
HYMNS
HYMNS
'Wherefore that also must be held to ],c tho n?<urroctioii,
when a man is re-animated by access to thr trnih, ukI havinjf
dispersed the death of ifjnorance, and biinjf endowed with new
life by God, has biirst forth from the sepulchre of the old man,
even as the Lord likened the Scribes and Pharisees to " wliited
sepulchres" (Mt '.'.'J-'"). Whcin'e it follows (hat they who havo
by faith attained to tin- i ■ iiirri li.n ari' with the Lord aftiT
they have once put Him on in t li. ir h.qilisin.'
The ground for tliis spiritualizinj,' of death is
{jiven in a homily of Valentinus quoted by
Clement Alex. {Strom., iv. 13) :
" Ye are originally immortal, and children of leonian life,
and ye willed that death should be your portion, that you
might exhaust it and consume it, so that deatli niiifht die in
you and through you. For, when you release tiie world, you
yourselves are not undone, but are lords over creation and over
all corruption.'
According to Clement, Basilides also held that
a ' saved race ' had come down from above in order
to remove death, and that the origin of this death
was to be sought in the Demiurge. And a little
later in the same chapter Clement tells us that
the followers of Valentinus called the Catholics
' psychical,' as did the ' Phrygians,' the implica-
tion being that the Catholics thought, when death
was mentioned, of the death of the body, and the
Gnostics of the death of the soul. A further im-
plication is tiiat the moment of regeneration, or
of passing through the third gate, overshadowed
in the Gnostic mind the incident of physical death,
as not merely giving a change of status, but as
being an actual admission into the Divine world,
and therefore into a world over which physical
death had no jurisdiction. With this should be
compared the passage in Rev 20'- * which speaks
of ' the first resurrection ' and of the blessed and
holy state of him who had part in it. 'It is "the
souls " of the martyrs that St. John sees alive ;
the resurrection is clearly spiritual and not cor-
l>oreal' (H. B. Swete, Apocalypse of St. JohnP,
1907, p. 266). In agreement with this we have
Jn 5^^ Avhich says that both Father and Son
quicken the dead and raise them up ; and v.-^,
which declares that he who has come to put his
trust in the Son hath passed out of death into life.
(The clause which refers the resurrection to the
last day in Jn 6*- **• ^* may be suspected, with J.
Kreyenbiihl [Dns Ermifj. der Wahrhcit, Berlin,
1905, ii. 52], to be an interpolation.)
The delivering of llymenicus and Alexander to
Satan is to be understood as an excommunication
from tiie fold of grace and safety, and a conse-
quent transition into the world outside the Church
where Satan has his throne — the world of sufi'ering,
disease, and death. It is not impossible that
' Hynienreus ' is an ironical nickname denoting
that t!ie bearer was one wiio shared the Gnostic
dislike of marriage, or else scoHiiig at the Gnostic
doctrine of the mystic niiuriage of the soul with
the spirit. Cf. Antipas, Balaam, Nicolaitans.
W. F. Cobb.
HYMNS.— The hymns of the Apostolic Church
included the OT Psalms and the Evangelical Can-
ticles of Lk 1 and 2. We possess also some frag-
ments embedded in NT writings, which show
how they were used to express religious emotion
both in public and in private. St. Paul suggests
further that they should be used for instrticlion
and warning (Col 3'*). He distinL;iiislio^ (as in
Eph 5"*) between three kinds — i»saliii>. liymns, and
spiritual songs (odes) (see Psalms, Simhitual
Songs). The word 'psalm' (1 Co 14'*, Ja 5^*)
properly includes the idea of a musical accompani-
ment (Basil, Horn, in Ps. 44 ; Greg. Nyss., Horn, in
Ps., ch. iii.). The Avord 'liymn' might be used of
a song of praise to God wlictlicr accompanied or
not. The word ' song ' (' ode ') .^jplies to all forms
of song, and was in fact a general term for lyrical
poetrj'. In Eph 5'* the terms ' singing' and ' play-
ing' corre.spond with the words 'hvimi-' and
'psalms.' They ai<' to !»• uddr.'sscd 'f.'i tho l.wi,!,'
just as Pliny in his famous Irticr to I'lajaii [K/k
X. 97) describes the Christian- as meeting licfoic
dawn and singing a hymn to Chii-t as God anti-
phonally (secuin invicem).
The fragment in Eph 5^*
' Awake, thou that sleepest,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ shall shine upon thee '
is possibly a fragment of a hymn addressed to a
convert at baptism.
Another fragment is 1 Ti 3^* :
' He who was manifested in the fiesh,
Justified in the spirit.
Seen of ani^els.
Preached anioiiji the nations.
Believed on in the world,
Received up in jflory.'
Such examples throw light on the difficult question
of the source of the quotation in 1 Co 2^* which is
apparently a free translation or laiaplira-c from
the Hebrew ofis 64''. Clem. Rom. {'nl Cur. xxxiv.)
mixes it up with the LXX. According to Jerome,
the passage occurs in the A.^cension of Isaiah and
the Apocalypse of Ellas. Origen (on Mt 27* [Migne,
Patr. Grceca, xiii. 1769]) says St. Paul quotes from
the latter. As Lightfoot puts it {Notes on Epistles of
St. Paul, 1895, p. 177), ' If it could be shown that
these apocryphal books were prior to St. Paul, this
solution would be the most probable.' But they are
not. So we fall back on the suggestion that St. Paul
(and they also ?) quoted an early Christian hymn
based on Isaiali like the Sanctus of the liturgies.
The doxologies in 1 Ti 1" 6^^, 2 Ti 4'» may like-
wise have been fragments of hymns. Only one of
the hymns in the Apocalypse alludes to the situa-
tion described in the vision, i.e. 5-', referring to the
opening of the Book with the Seven Seals. The
rest express generally the praise which the Church
offers to God and to Christ. It is quite natural
that reminiscences of Christian hymns should find
their way into the seer's book. On the other hand,
if they are the first efibrt of an inspired imagina-
tion, we may regard them as types of future hym-
nody. The Song of Moses in 15', like the older
Song of Moses in Dt 32, which was used as a
Sabbath hymn in the Jewish liturgy, found its
way into the liturgical Psalter of Codex Alex-
andrinKS.
The Song of the living creatures in 4^ varies from
the Sanctus of Isaiah's vision which is followed in
the Liturgies and the Tc Deum. It is addressed
to God as Almighty, and evokes the response of
the elders, who in the words ' our God ' claim ' a
relation to Him which the Creation as such cannot
elaiiii' (H. B. Swete, The A/iocnh/pse of St. John^,
1907, p. 74).
In 5^^ the angels offer a fuller doxology to the
Lamb, and the response of all creation with a four-
fold doxology, and of the living creatures with
the familiar 'Amen' which ended the eucharistic
thanksgiving of the Clmreh on earth, is 'liigldy
suggestive of the devotional attitmli' of llie
Asiatic Church in tlie time of Domitian towards
the Person of Christ' (Swete, op. rit. p. sj). Of a
similar character is the Song insert iil in the pro-
phety (U''"'"'*') Avhen 'great voices' announce the
coming of the kingdom, and the elders respond :
' We give thee thanks, () Lord God, the Almighty,
Which art, and which wast ;
Because thou hast taken thy great power, and didst reign.
And the nations were wroth,
And thy wrath came.
And the time of the dead to be ju<Iirfd.
And to give their reward to thy sorwuif:. tlii> iimiilipts,
And to the saints.
And to them thnt fear thy name.
The small and the -rent ■
And to destro\ ihein tlint doetro\ tlic (artl:
HYMXS
HYPOCRISY
591
The writings of the Apostolic Fathers add
nothin" to our knowledge, though Ignatius de-
lights in the thought of the hymn of praise for
his martyrdom which the Church in Rome will
sing (ad Bom. 2) : ' that forming yourselves into
a chorus in love ye may sing to the Father in
Jesus Christ, for that God has vouchsafed that
the bishop from Syria should be found in the
West, ha^-ing summoned him from the East ' (of.
Eph. 4).
From these hints we may construct an ontline
of the psalmody of the early Church, to which we
may probably add a very interesting collection of
Srivate psainis recently discovered by Rendel
[arris and published by him in 1909 — the Odes of
Solomon (q.i\). He found them with the Psalms
of Solomon in a MS of the 15th or 16th cent, from
the neighbourhood of the Tigris. He thinks that
they were written in Palestine about the vear
A..D. 100 (Batiffol [Les Odes de Salomon, Fr. tf. by
Batilibl and Labourt, 1911] gives the date as 100-
120). On the other hand, Hamack {TL-, 3rd ser.
v. 4 [1910]) regards all the Christian allusions as
interpolations of the date c. A.D. 100 in an earlier
Jewish collection of c. A.D. 70. He calls the find-
ing of the Odes the most important discovery since
the Didaehe, and epoch-making for the higher
criticism of the Gospel of John, because these
Je\vish Odes (not only the Christian edition) con-
tain all the essential elements of the Johannine
theology, together with its religious tone. F. C.
Burkitt, however {JT/iSt xiii. [1912-13] 374), who
has found a Xitrian MS of the 15th cent, in the
British Museum, regards them as later, as * part of
the literary activity of the Syriac Monophysite
community in Egypt.' He attributes absence of
direct references to Baptism and the Eucharist to
the fact that the author was ' \\Titing in the style
appropriate for pseudepigraphical composition.'
One feels that superhuman skill would be required
by a writer who attempted to reconstruct the un-
developed theology of the Odes without betraying
his later standpoint.
Hamack, with justice, calls the writer an
original poet, whose metaphors and similes are
excellently chosen and arrest attention by their
beauty and strength. His mystical teaching on
peace and joy and liglit and living water is
thoroughly Johannine.
Ode i opens with a historical allusion to some attempt to alter
the site of the Lord's Sanctuary, probably a reference to the
cloeing and dismantling of the temple of Onias, at Leontopolis
in Egypt, by the Romans in a.d. 73 : ' Xo man, O my God,
cfaangeth thy holj- place ; and it is not [possible] that he
should change it and pat it in another place : because he hath
no power over it,'
As a specimen of the style Ode 7 may be quoted : ' As the im-
pulse of anger against evil, so is the impulse of joy over what is
lovely, and brings in of its fruits without restraint. My joy is
the Lord and my impulse is towards Him : this is my excellent
path : for I have a helper, the Lord. He has caused me to know
Himself, without grudging, by His simplicity : the greatness of
His kindness has humbled me. He became like me, in order
that I might receive Him : He was reckoned like mjrself in order
that I might put Him on ; and I trembled not when I saw ffim :
because He is my salvation. Like my nature He became that I
might learn Him, and like my form, that I might not torn back
from Him . . . and the Most High shall be known in His wnts,
to announce to those that have Songs of the Coming of the
Lord ; that they may go forth to meet Him, and may ang to
Him with joy and with the harp of many tones. The seers
shall come before Him and they shall be seen before Him, and
they shall praise the Lord for His love : because He is near and
beholdeth, and hatred shall be caken from the earth, and along
with jealousy it shall be drowned : for ignorance has been
destroyed, because the knowledge of the Lord has arrived.'
It would be easy to multiply quotations, but this
is impossible here. There are many phrases which
arrest attention, like the first words of Ode 34,
which Harnack calls the ' pearl of the collection ' :
•No way is hard when there is a simple heart.'
But even more attractive than the phrases and
the metaphors is the consistent spirit of joyful-
ness : ' Grace has been revealed for your salvation.
Believe and live and be saved.' Thus the last
words of Ode 34 lead np to the triumphant
* Hallelujah ' which closes each hymn. Whatever
may be the final verdict of critics as to the date,
the beauty of the thoughts is an abiding posses-
sion for all who are interested in early Christian
hymns.*
LmuuTUKX.— H. Leifiit Bennett, art. • Greek Hymnody,' in
Julian's Diet, of Hymnologjfi, 1907 ; F. Cabnd, art. ' CkntiqDes,'
in his Dia. d'anhMogie ekr^tienne tt d« Uturgie, 1909; E.
A. Abbott, Light <m the Cl<»pei/rom an andent Poet, 1912 ; see
also the series of artt. on ' Bynms (Christiaa) ' in SRJB.
A. E. Bimx.
HYPOCRISY (ux<kpt(r«). — The noun inroKpi-rni
does not occur after the Synoptic Gospels, but
vTOKpuris is found in Gal 2», 1 Ti 4», IP 2\ and
the compound verb avpinroKfAweadai, *to dissemble
along viith another,' is used in Gal 2^.
The development of the meaning of vrocptccvAot can be
clearly traced. In Homer and Herodotus it meant ' to reply,'
e. g. ' to give an oracular answer ' (Herod, i. 78, 91) ; then ' to
answer on the stage,' ' to speak in dialogue,' ' to play a part '
(Arist. Pol. V. xL 19) ; then ' to be an actor in real hfe," 'to dis-
semble,' ' to feign,' ' to pretend.' The last is probably U»e only
meaning of the word in the XT, though £. Hatch (JS^Mys tn
BibHeal Greek, 1889, p. 93) thinks that amoi^ Greek-spei^ing'
Jews vrotpunt had come to mean ' irreligion,' ' impiety.'
'Sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is
the first characteristic of all men in any way
heroic' (Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1872,
p. 42). The hypocrite does not dare to show him-
self as he is. His fear of criticism compels him to
wear a mask. inroKpurn includes both simulation
and dissimulation. Bacon's definitions (Essays,
vi. ) are clear and sharp as usual :
' There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's
self. The first. Closeness, Reservation, and Secrecy ; when a
man leaveth himself without obaerration, or without hold to
be taken, what he is. The second, IMssimuIation, in the nega-
tive ; when a man lets laJl sign* and ai^nments, that he is not
that he is. And the third. Simulation, in the affirmative ;
when a man industrioody and expressly feigns and pretends to
be that he is not.'
Gal 2"'" alludes to a crisis in which even the
Apostle Peter dissembled, the other Jewish Chris-
tians of Antioch dissembling with him (<rwrwr-
fKpl0i)aaf), and even Barnabas, against his better
judgment, was carried away by their vrftKptau.
The fear of offending the narrow guardians of
Judaistic orthodoxy was the cause of all this
inconsistency on the side of the party of Christian
liberty and progress. St. Peter did not really
believe that he would be defiled by eating Gentile
food. At Joppa he had learned to cast his cere-
monial scruples to the winds (Ac 10*"^®) ; at Caesarea
he had preached in the house of the Italian Cor-
nelius, keeping company with 'one of another
nation' (dXXo^iJX^ v.*), and witnessing a Gentile
Pentecost (w.**-") ; and with the Greek Christians
of Antioch he at first saw no more harm in eating
and drinking than in singing and praying. But
circumstances arose in which he had not the
courage to continue putting his principles into
practice. When he had to choose between giving
the cold shoulder to hb Gentile brethren and dis-
pleasing the circumcised, the vacillating weakness
of his character was illustrated once more. He
was not even yet quite worthy of his great name —
Peter, the man of rock. Concealing his liberal con-
victions, he behaved as if he were a strictly conser-
vative Jew. And his example proved infectious,
for he could not act as a mere private indi\idual.
The influential leader of the Twelve Apostles drew
after him many Jewish Christians, including even
* The Christian teaching indudes references to the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost (19, 23X the Son of God and Son of Man
(36, 3X born of a Virgin (19X the pre-existent (19), who became
Man (7), suffered (31>, died on the Cross (27, 42X descended into
HeU (42), was justified (31X and exalted (iXy.
592
HYPOCRISY
ICONIUM
St. Paul's fellow-.a])<istle, who had been liviiifr for
years in intimate fellowship with the ceremonially
unclean. Whatever excuses may be made for St.
Peter's conduct — which some moaern scholars (like
most of the Fathers of the early Church) are dis-
posed to regard in a much more favourable light
than St. Paul did (A. C. McGitiert, Apostolic Age,
1897, p. 206 f. ) — it was a betrayal of the cause of
spiritual freedom. His silent withdrawal from his
Gentile brethren was as eloquent as any words
could have been. It did as much harm as if he
had issued a proclamation, 'Before we Jews can
eat with you (ientiles, ye must bend your necks to
the yoke of tlie law.' It was becau.se in his heart
he no longer believed anything of the kind that
his action was rightly called virdKpia-is. But the
terms in which he is elsewhere spoken of in the
same letter (1'^ 2^'-) make it evident that liis
aberration was only temporary, and that there
remained no essential tliHerence between ' the
gospel of the uncircumcision ' and ' the circum-
cision ' {2'').
In 1 Peter, which many critics still accept as
genuine, this same Apostle enjoins his readers to
put away all hypocrisies, and to make a fresh
start as if they were new-born babes (2^'-). The
injunction implies the possibility. It is sometimes
pessiniistically said that tliere is no remedy for
hypocrisy. J. K. Seeley (Ecce Homo, 1873, p. 116)
calls it ' the one incurable vice.' The Divine
Comedy represents the hypocrite as clothed for
ever in a robe of lead — ' O in eterno faticoso
rnanto ! ' (Inferno, xxiii. 67). J. B. Mozley
(University Sermons^, 1876, p. 34) says: 'The
victim of passion then may be converted, the
gay, the thoughtless, or the ambitious . . . they
may be converted, any one of these — but who is
to convert the hypocrite? He does not know he
is a hypocrite. . . . The greater hypocrite he is,
tlie more sincere he must think himself.' It is
perhaps faitliless, however, to despair of any man,
and one may doubt whether our Lord would have
expended such a passionate energy of scorn —
which, in a heart like His, is a form of love— upon
incurables (Mt 23). ' Every son of Adam can
become a sincere man, ... no mortal is doomed
to be an insincere man' (Carlylc, op. cit. p. 116).
Jamks Strahan.
HYSSOP (ii<r<TWTros, 2^^). — Hyssop is a wall-
growing plant used by the Jews in ritual sprink-
lings. It is mentioned by the writer of Heorews
in his review of the ordinances of the OT (He 9'*).
Scarcely any other Scriptural plant has given rise
to so much discussion. The hyssop cannot be the
ifffffwiros of Greek authors (Ilyssopus officinalis),
which is not a native of Syria. Among the many
stiggestions that have been made (see J. G. B.
Winer, Bibl. Realworterbnch^, Leipzig, 1847-48,
s.v. 'Ysop'), the choice seems to lie between the
caper (Capparis spinosa) and a kind of wild mar-
joram (Satureja thymus) which the Arabs call
sdtar. Both these plants grow on Syrian rocks
and walls. Tristram argues for the caper (Nat.
Hist, of the Bible, 1867, p. 455 f.). One objection
to this plant is that its prickly branches and stiff
leaves make it unsuitable for forming a bunch or
wisp ; another, that it is ditlerently named in
Scripture (•■^JV5^? in Ec 12'). The sdtnr was first
suggested by Maimonides (de Vacca liufa, iii. 2),
followed by D. Kimchi (Lex. s.v.). It is excel-
lently adapted for use as a sprinkler. Its identity
with the hyssop is accepted by Thomson (La7id
and Book, new ed., London, 1910, p. 93), who
describes it as ' having the fragrance of tliyme,
with a hot, pungent taste, and long, slender stems,'
and by G. E. Post, who says (Smith's DB, Am.
ed., p. 1115, foot-note): 'The fact that many
stalks grow up from one root eminently fits this
species for the purpose intended. The hand could
easily gather in a single grasp the requisite bundle
or bunch all ready for use.'
James Sxbahan.
ICONIUM ("IkSvlov, now Kama or Konyeh). —
This city, wliich was partly evangelized by St.
Paul, occupied one of the most beautiful and fertile
inland sites of Asia Minor, compared by T. Lewin
(The Life and Ejmstles of St. PauP, 1875, i. 144 f.)
to the oasis of Damascus. Lying in a crescent of
Phrygian hills at the western limit of the vast
upland plain of Lycaonia, and watered by perennial
streams which, through irrigation, make it to-day
a garden-city, it must have been a place of import-
ance from the earliest times. Xenophon, the first
writer who mentions it (Anab. I. ii. 19), says that
Cyrus, travelling eastward, came ' to Iconium, the
last city of Phrygia ; thence he pursued his route
through Lycaonia.' The inhabitants always re-
garded themselves as of Phrygian, not of Lycaonian,
extraction, and the strongest evidence that they
were right was their use of the Phrygian language.
On the other hand, many writers— Cicero (ad Fam.
XV. iv. 2), Strabo (Xll. vi. 1 [p. 568]), Pliny (HN v.
25), and others — having regard to tlie later history
of Iconium, invariably designate it as a city of
Lycaonia (y. v.). During the 3rd cent. B.C. it was
ruled and, to a great extent, hellenized by the
Seleucids. After the battle of Magnesia (187 B.C.),
it was presented by the Romans to the king of
Pergamos ; but as he never took effective possession
of it, the Galatians appropriated it about 165 B.C.
Mark Antony, the 'king-maker,' gave it to Polemon
in 39 B.C. and transferred it in 36 to Amj'ntas, king
of Galatia, whose wide dominions, after his deatli
in 25 B.C., were formed into the lloman province
Galatia. Under Claudius the city was honoured
with the name of Claud-Iconium, a proof of its
strong Roman sympathies, but it was not raised to
the rank of a Colonia till the reign of Hadrian. It
remained a city of the province Galatia till A.D. 295,
when Diocletian formed the province Pisidia, with
Antioch as its capital and Iconium as its ' second
metropolis.' In 372 Iconium became the capital of
the new province Lycaonia, an arrangement which
held good all through the Byzantine period.
When St. Luke relates that the Apostles Paul
and Barnabas, being persecuted at Iconium, ' fled
into the cities of Lycaonia' (Ac 14®)— an expression
which implies that in his view Iconium was not
Lycaonian — he adheres to the popular and ignores
the oflicial geography. So central and prosperous
a city, traversed by a trade-route leading direct to
the Cilician Gates, and connected by a cross-road
with tiie great high-way to the Euphrates, natur-
ally attracted many tratlers and settlers from the
outside world. Well-chosen as a sphere of mission-
ary activity, the first attempt to preach the gospel
in it proved very successful, and though the enmity
of the Jews compelled the apostles to desist from
IDOLATRY
IDOLATRY
593
their efforts for a time, St. Luke speaks of the
faith of ' a great multitude both of Jews and of
Greeks' (Ac 14»).
Iconium figures largely in the Galatian contro-
versy. What is certain is that St. Paul and Bar-
nabas preaclied and made many converts in the
city during their first missionary campaign, and
that they re-visited it on their homeward journey,
' confirining the souls of the disciples ' (14'- ^). The
persecutions which St. Paul endured there are
alluded to in 2 Ti 3". On the South-Galatian
theory, he paid the city two more visits, if, as
Ramsay and others assume, Iconium is included in
'the region of Phrj'gia and Galatia' (16*) and in
' the region of Galatia and Phrygia ' (18^). In the
interval between the Apostle's last two visits, he
received the alanning tidings that his Galatian
churches — which, on this hypothesis, were Antioch,
Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe— were bein^ perverted
by Judaizers, whose fatal errors his Epistle to the
Galatians was immediately written to confute.
Some indication that his vehement letter and his
final visit accomplished his purpose is attbrded by
the fact that the Galatian Church contributetl part
of the Gentile love-offering to the poor saints in
Jerusalem (1 Ck> 16'). On the North -Galatian
theory St. Paul, using ' Galatians ' in the popular,
not the Roman, sense, \\TOte to churches which he
had founded in Galatia proper, which Livy calls
Gallo-Grsecia (see Galatia).
It is a mere legend that Sosipater (Ro 16*') was
the first and Terentius or Tertius (16-) the second
bishop of Iconium. The city is the principal scene
of the Acta Pauli et Theclce, which date back to
the 2nd cent, and have a foundation in fact (see
W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Born. Emp.,
1S93, p. 375 ff.). The Council of Iconium was held
in 235. When the city became the capital of the
Seljuk State, which was founded about 1072, its
splendour gave rise to the proverb, ' See all the
world ; but see Konia.' To-day it has a population
of 50,000.
LaiKRATCRE.— W. M. Leake, Asia Minor, 1S24; W. J.
Hamilton, Researches in Asia Miner, 1S42; Morrajr's Guide
to Asia Minor, ed. C. Wilson, 1895, p. 133f. ; W. M. Ramsay,
The Cities of St. Paul, 1907, pp. 315-382.
James Strahan.
IDOLATRY. — So deep-rooted was the Jewish
hatred of idolatry, and so general had been the
condemnation of the practice, that our Lord found
no reason for insistence upon the generally accepted
commandments on the subject. But as soon as the
gospel message began to be preached outside the
pale of Judaism, the matter became one of the
pressing questions of the day. Protests against
the popular practice had not been wanting from
the older Greek thinkers ; Heraclitus, Xenophanes,
and Zeno had all raised their voices against image-
worship. But the popular mind was not affected
by their teaching, and many were the apologists
who wrote in favour of the established custom. It
is not surprising to read (Ac 17'*) that, when St.
Paul visited Athens, ' his spirit was provoked with-
in him, as he beheld the city full of idols,' even
though the statement is not strictly accurate. His
whole training rendered him antagonistic to any-
thing approaching idolatry ; and in his letters the
same feeling is expressed. No Christian was to
keep company with idolaters (1 Co S"**-), who could
not inherit the Kingdom of God (6^ Eph 5'). He
reminds the Thessalonians that they had abandoned
the old idolatrous worship ' to serve the living God '
(1 Th 1'). Yet from the Christian point of view
there is only one God, and the true Christian can-
not but recognize that thus * no idol is anything in
thcAvorld' (1 Cos*).
But there are two aspects of idolatry which caused
the greatest anxiety in the primitive Church.
VOL. I. — ^8
(a) The decision of the Jerusalem Council as to the
duties incumbent upon heathen converts contains
the significant phrase, ' that they abstain from the
pollutions of idols ' (Ac 15"), ' from meats offered to
idols ' (v.^). The command is intended as a com-
prehensive one, meaning that idolatry in every
form is to be avoided ; ' participation in the idola-
trous feasts is especially emphasised, simply because
this was the crassest form of idolatry ' (A, Hamack,
The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., 1909, p. 257).
But it was also the means of subtle temptation,
which gave rise to a serious question. The proba-
bility was that most of the meat sold in the markets
as well as that set before the guests at Gentile
tables had been ' offered to idols. What was the
Christian to do ? Was he to buy no meat ? Must
he refuse all such invitations ? It must not be for-
gotten that the breach between St. Paul and the
Judaizers had never been really healed. The par-
tisans on either side were ever on the look-out for
opportunities to widen it. The leaders did their
utmost to heal the quarrel. Therefore, in dealing
with the questions raised by the Corinthian Church,
St. Paul was compelled to remember that he must
not give any offence to the Judaizing section, which
was evidently represented there (1 Co V^^-), since
he had acquiesced in the Apostolic Decree. It is
true that this was only in the nature of a com-
promise, but its recommendations must be carried
out as far as possible. On the other hand, the
Gentile section of the community, which was re-
sponsible for raising the question, wa.s in favour
of a broad-minded view. And St. Paul's dilemma
was increased by the fact that his sympathies were
with them. He lays the greatest stress, there-
fore, upon the principle that idolatry is wholly
hateful and must be carefully guarded against
(1 Co lO'*). In the worship of Israel, to eat the
sacrifices of the altar is to have communion with
the altar. It is true that the idol is nothing, and
the sacrifice therefore has no meaning, yet idolatry
among the heathen is demon-worship rather than
the worship of God ; would they wish to have com-
munion with demons? (1 Co 10''^). It was all
very well to shelter behind the fact that Christians
really know that there is only one God ; but aU
have not this knowledge : consequently the weaker
brethren — that is, those who are perplexed and
troubled by these questions — may be led into danger
by our actions. Yet a compromise is possible. They
are to buy what is offered, and eat what is set
before them, asking no questions (v.^^^-). If either
the seller or the host say, ' This has been offered to
idols,' w hether in a friendly or a hostile spirit, the
Christians must have nothing to do with it. It is
all a matter of expediency and, in part, of love.
God's glory must come first ; neither Jew nor Greek
nor the Church must be needlesslj' offended.
(b) The second aspect of idolatrj' afforded even
more grievous trials, and was eventually the source
of serious persecution : it was the rise of Emperor-
worship. It is not difficult to see that such a cult
was almost inevitable under existing circumstances.
There had always been a tendency among Greeks
and Romans to deify heroes of the past, but the
Eractice gradually grew up of erecting temples in
onour of living heroes (Plutarch, Lysander, xviii. ;
Herodotus, v. 47). It was perhaps not unnatural
that a cult of the all- victorious city of Rome should
arise, and as early as 195 B.C. there was a temple
in its honour at Smyrna. Taking all these facts
into consideration, the development of the Imperial
cult under the Empire was only to be looked for.
After the death of Julius Caesar a temple in his
honour was erected at Ephesus (29 B.C.), and it
was only a step to pay a like honour to Augustus
during his lifetime (Tacitus, Ann. iv. 37). Such
men as Gains and Doraitian were ready enough to
594
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
encourage the idea (Suetonius, Domit. xiii.). In
the province of Asia the cult was hailed withdelight,
and the result, as touching Christians, is seen in
the Apocalypse (13). Such a cult was bound to
change the whole relationship between Christianity
and the Roman power. As a general rule it would
be quite possible to escape oHending susceptibilities
with i-egard to the worship of the older gods, but
the new cult was so universal and so popular that
it soon became fraught with grave danger for
members of the Christian community. Antichrist
had indeed arisen, and fierce warfare could be the
only result.
LiTERATDRR. — For the whole subject: J. G. Frazer, The
GoWen JBowflrAi, 1900, also edition of Pausanias, 1898 ; V. Chapot,
La Province romaine procoimvlaire d'Asie, 1904 ; for (a) : Com-
luentariesof Heinrici (1890), Schmiedel (1892), Ellicott (1887),
Stanley (21858), Robertson- Plummer (1911) on 1 Co 8-10 ; and
for (6): H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. Johrfi, 1907, pp.
Ixxviii-xciii ; B. F. Westcott, Epp. of St. John, 1883, pp. 260-
282 ; E. Beurlier, Le Cidte imperial, 1891 ; G. Boissier, La
Religion romaine, 1892, i. 109-180; G. Wissowa, Religion und
KuUus der Romer, 1902, pp. 71-78, 280-289.
F. W. WonsLEY.
IGNATIUS.— 1. Life. — From the date of the
Apostolic Decree (Ac 15''^'--*) onwards, i.e. from
about A.D. 50, there is absolutely no evidence as
to the history of the Church of Antioch. In the
time of Origen and Julius Africanus, Ignatius was
considered as the second of the Antiochene bishops.
Between him and Theophilus (f c. 185) three
bishops were usually placed — Hero, Cornelius, and
Eros, of whom nothing was known but their
names. Euodius was regarded as Ignatius' prede-
cessor (Harnack, Chronologie, i., Leipzig, 1897, p.
210). But as a matter of fact, as Liglitfoot {Apos-
tolic Fathers^, pt. ii. vol. ii., London, 1889, p. 471)
says : ' The dates of the first century, the accession
of Euodius A.D. 42, and the accession of Ignatius
A.D. 69, deserve no credit.' The information
to be gleaned from the Apost. Constit. vil. xlvi. 4
(ed. Funk, Paderborn, 1905), such as that Euodius
was ordained bishop by St. Peter and Ignatius by
St. Paul, does not seem to be of any greater value
than the foregoing. St. John Chrysostom, in the
fanegyric which he pronounces at Antioch on St.
gnatius, supposes that Ignatius knew the apostles
and received the laying on of hands from them [in
S. Martyrem Ignatium, 1 and 2 [Migne, Patrologia
Graeca, 1. 587 f.]). The Apost. Constit. and St.
John Chrysostom represent the same legend in for-
mation. The extent of Eusebius' information {HE
III. xxxvi. 2) was that St. Peter was the first
bishop of Antioch and that Ignatius was his second
successor, Euodius being the first. He depends
for his knowledge on Origen (Horn, in Lucam, 6),
and is in turn folloAved by Jerome {dc Vir. illustr.
16).
Apart from the fact that he was bishop of
Antioch and the details furnished by his authentic
letters, the history of Ignatius is absolutely un-
known. Some critics have tried, with more zeal
than discretion, to fill up the gaps in the history
with conjectures, but these are quite worthless.
For example, E. Bruston {Ignace d Antioche, Paris,
1897, p. 112 f.) advances the theory that Ignatius
was neither Greek nor Syrian, but Roman, his
froof being that Ignatius' name is a Latin one (cf.
orcellini-De-Vit., Onomasticon, s.v. 'Ignatius =
Egnatius'), and that he has all the characteristics
of the Roman mind, which is essentially practical !
Von Dobschiitz {Christian Life in the Primitive
Church, ling, tr., 1904, p. 235 f.) says, with equal
justification: 'Ignatius is a genuine Syrian. His
Iliction, which, for Greek, is almost intolerably
affected, everywhere reveals the iiery rhythm of
Syriac poetrj- with its wonderful richness of colour-
ing ana imagination.'
In the signature of eacli of his seven letters,
Ignatius calls himself 'i-yvinoi 6 koJ Qeoipdpoi. On
tlie analogy of expressions like iiaCXos 6 xai llaCXot
(Ac 13"), we may suppose that Oeo<f>6poi is not an
epithet but a proper name (Lightfoot, p. 22).
Zahn (p. 3) compares it with Ovimos 'Eviyados in
Eusebius, HE V. i. 9. As to when and why
Ignatius took the name of Qeo<p6poi, we have to
confess complete ignorance.
The author of the Passion of Ignatius, entitled the
Martyrium Colbertinuni (Funk, ii. 276), calls him
a 'disciple of the Apostle John ' and 'a thoroughly
apostolic man,' but he gives no evidence for tlie
truth of his statements. In his Letter to Polycarp
(i. 1) Ignatius seems to say that he has just met
Polycarp for the first time (Funk, Kirchcngeschichtl.
Abhnnalungen, ii. [Paderborn, 1899] 340). As
Polycarp was an Asiatic disciple of St. John, this
would be a proof that Ignatius was not a co-
disciple of his. Besides, Ignatius is absolutely
silent on the subject of the Apostle John, which,
had Ignatius known him, would be very puzzling,
considering that Ignatius wrote a long letter to
the Ephesians.
An attempt has been made to find in Romans,
iv. 3, an indication that Ignatius was a slave. But
the text has probably a spiritual and not a literal
meaning (of. Philaddphian^, viii. 1 ; Lightfoot, p.
210). It is inconceivable that a slave should ever
have been jjut at the head of a Christian com-
munity.
Ignatius was not a Roman citizen, since he was
condemned to be thrown to tlie beasts. The
modest expressions that Ignatius uses in speaking
of himself suggest that he was not a Christian by
birth, but became one later on. His previous life
may have had some analogy with that of the
Apostle Paul before his conversion. ' But for mj'-
self I am ashamed to be called one of them [i.e.
the Antiochene Christians] ; for neither am I
worth3', being the very last of them and an un-
timely birth' {Romans, ix. 2).* There are similar
protestations of humility in Eph. xxi. 2, Trail.
xiii. 1, and Smyrn. xi. 1.
Eusebius places the martyrdom of Ignatius in
the time of Trajan (A.D. 98-117) — a wide choice of
date to which no objection can be raised (Light-
foot, p. 469 f.). There seems good reason, however,
for deciding on the last years of Trajan's reign as
the most likely date (Harnack, Chronologie, i. 406).
According to the Martyrium Colbertimim, ii.
1-2 (Funk, ii. 276), Ignatius appeared before
Trajan in the 9th year of his reign (26 Jan. 106-
26 Jan. 107), when the latter was passing
through Antioch on a march against the Parthians
(the war against the Parthians, however, only
began in 112). He was condenmed by the Emperor
and sent to Rome, Avhere he died on 20 Dec. 107,
in the consulate of Sura and Senecio (vii. 1, p.
284). This date is debatable, for the oldest known
reference to the ' natale ' of Ignatius, found in the
Syriac Martyrology publislicd by Wright, fixes
the anniver.sary as 17 Oct. (Bolland, AS, Nov. i. 1
[1894], p. Ixii. [text restored by Duchesne] : /cat ef ',
l7cdTtos iirljKOiroi 'Avrioxfias iK rdiv Apxaluv pLaprOpuv).
The place of the martyrdom is not mentioned.
Wright's Martyrology is certainlj' not later than
the middle of the 4th cent., and appears to have
been compiled in Antioch. This date (17 Oct.) is
confirmed by St. Jolm Clirysostom and other writers
and documents (H. Quentin, Les Martyrologes
historiques, I'aris, 1908, p. 548). Lightfoot says (p.
434) : ' The only anniversary, which iias any claims
to consideration as the true day of the martyrdom,
is October 17.' If, then, the date of 20 Dec. 'for the
martyrdom of Ignatius is not correct, no reliance can
be placed on the date of the consulate of Sura and
Senecio. The main part of the Martyrium Colber-
• The translations of the text of Igrnatius are taken from
Lightfoot.
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
59$
tinuin belong to the 5th or, at the earliest, the
end of the 4tn century. For its chronology it de-
j>enils on Eusebius' Chronicle, and even it gives no
guarhntee of absolute exactitude. All one can
say is that Eusebius i>lace<l the martjTdom of
Ignatius in the time ot Trajan. Nothing more
definite is given.
No historical value can be attached to the rest
of the Martyrium C'olbertinum, or to the Mar-
ti/rium Vaticanum (which is independent of the
foregoing and perhaps dates from the 5th cent.), or
to the Latin, Annenian, or Greek texts where the
two Martyria are combined (on this worthless
hagiographic literature see Bardenhewer, Gesch.
der altkirchl. Lift. i. pp. 14S-145).
Apart from these documents, we have no infor-
mation as to the circumstances in which the bishop
of Antioch was imprisoned and then sent to Rome.
Bat, if the martyrdom took place a.d. 110-117 we
have the evidence of Trajan for this period, in his
letter to Pliny (Pliny, Ep. xcviii. ) defining the legal
position of Christianity : Christianity is a religio
illicita, but public action can be taken against
Christians only by means of the delatio ; ' Puniendi
sunt, si deferantur et arguantur.' It may be sup-
posed, then, that Ignatius was ddatiis to the Roman
magistrates of Antioch.
In Eph. xxi. 2, he writes : ' Pray for the church
which is in Sj-ria, whence I am led a prisoner to
Rome — I who am the verj- last of the faithful
there ' ; in Bom. ix. 1 : ' Remember in your prayers
the church which is in Syria, which hath God for
its shepherd in my stead. Jesus Christ alone shall
be its bisliop — He and your love.' Some time after
— i.e. on his arrival in Troas — Ignatius seems to
have given up all anxiety about the Church of
Antioch : ' Seeing that in answer to your prayer
and to the tender sympathy which ye have in
Christ Jesus, it hath bee:i reported to me that the
church which is in Antioch of Syria hath peace, it
is becoming for you as a church of God, to appoint
a deacon to go thither as God's ambassador, that
he may congratulate them when they are assembled
together, and may glorify the Name ' (Philad. x. 1).
He ^^Tites to Polycarp : ' Seeing that the church
which is in Antioch of Syria hath peace, as it hath
been reported to me, through your prayers, I my-
self also have been the more comforietl since God
hath banished my care ' (vii. 1 ). To the SmymKans
he is even more explicit : ' It is meet that your
church sliould appoint, for the honour of God, an
ambassador of God that he may go as far as Syria
and congratulate them because they are at ijeace,
and have recovered their proper stature, and their
proper bulk hath been restored to them ' {to tSiof
ff(i]fJLaTeTov ; xi. 2) ; and he adds : ' It seemed to me
a titling thing that ye should send one of your
own people with a letter, that he might join with
them in giving glory for the calm which by God's
will had overtaken them, and because they were
already reaching a haven through your prayers'
(xi. 3). If it were a question of a persecution
limited to Antioch, it would not be very clear how
peace could have restored its stature to the Church
of Antioch, i.e. its spiritual stature, in the sense of
Eph. inscT. : eiXo-pifiev-r) if fie'/idn. W*e are, then,
led to suppose that it is not peace after persecu-
tion but peace after discord that is meant. With
Ignatius gone, the Church of Antioch was left
without a pastor, and the community (o-w/tarelby)
had become disunited and was in a state of schism.
The insistence with which Ignatius speaks of the
return of the repentant rebels to union with God
and communion with the bishop (Philad. iii. 2,
viii. 1, Sinyrn. ix. 1) is perhaps the consequence of
the painful experience he has just passed through
in Antioch.
Ignatius, though arrested aoid condeomed in
Antioch, is sent to Rome. He knows that he is
condemned to be thrown to the beasts (Rom. v. 1-2).
In Eom. iv. 1, he begs the Christians of Rome
not to intervene to rob him of the martyrdom he
awaits, and it is thus obvious that he must have
been tried and found guilty in Antioch. The iact
of his being condemncNd in Antioch and yet under-
going his sentence in Rome is not unique. Rome
gathered victims from all the ends of the earth
to take i)art in the cruel games of her amphi-
theatre.
In Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, we find
that Ignatius, on his arrival in Phiiippi in Mace-
donia, was no longer alone but in the same convoy
as other Christians in chains (Phil. L 1, ix. 1,
xiiL 2). The journey from Antioch to Rome
was made partly by land and partly by sea (Rom.
V. 1 ) ; Ignatius was in chains, and a squad of ten
soldiers guarded him night and day and spared
him no ill-treatment (Rom. v. 1 ; cf. Passio
Sanctce Perpettue, iii. 6 : * • . . concussurae mill-
turn').
The first to'wn we know of Ignatius' passing
through is Philadelphia in proconsular Asia(PAj7arf.
yiL 1). Of the itinerary he followed between
Antioch and that town we know nothing.
After Philadelphia we find him in Smyrna, where
Polycarp is bishop. Later he thanks the Smyr-
nseans effusively for the welcome they gave mm
and his two companions Pliilo and Rheus Agatho-
pus (Smyrn. ix. 2, x. 1). In Smyrna he made a
comparatively long stay — time enough to get to
know the Smyrnaean families he greets at the end
of his letter (xiii. 1, 2). WhUe he was in Smjrna
the neighbouring churches sent deputations to
greet him and console him in his imprisonment.
Prom Smyrna itself Ignatius writes a letter of
thanks to each of the churches who had sent dele-
gates : the first is the Epistle to the Ephesians,
the second the Letter to the Church of Magnesia on
the Maeander, the third the Epistle to the Trallians.
From Smyrna, too, Ignatius sends his Letter to the
Romans, which alone bears a date — the ninth day
before the Kalends of September, i.e. 2-4 Aag.
(Rom. X. 3).
The zeal of the neighbouring churches to greet
Ignatius is very remarkable. ' For when ye heard
that I was on my way from Syria, in bonds for the
sake of the common Name and hope ... ye were
eager to ^Tsit me,' writes Ignatius to the Ephesians
(i. 2). The Ephesians sent their bishop, Onesimus
(i. 3), their deacon, Burrhus (ii. 1), and several other
Christians — Crocus, Euplus, Fronto, etc. (ib.). The
Magnesians sent their bisliop, Damas, the pres-
byters Bassos and Apollonius, and their deacon
Zotion (ii.). At the end of his Epistle to the
Magnesians, Ignatius writes : ' The Ephesians from
Smyrna salute j'ou, from whence also I write to
you. They are here with me for the glory of God,
as also are ye ; and they have comforted me in all
things, together with Polycarp, bishop of the Smyr-
means. Yea, and all the other churches salute
you . . .' (xv.). The Trallians sent their bishop,
Polybins (i. 1). To them Ignatius writes : ' I salute
you from Smyrna, together with the churches of
God that are present with me ; men who refreshed
me in all ways both in flesh and in spirit ' (xiL 1).
The way in which these three Asian churches vied
with each other to pay court to Ignatius leads ns
to believe that other churches probably followed
suit : ' I write to all the churches, and I bid aU
men know, that of my own free will I die for God
. . .' (Rom. iv. 1) ; and again : ' My spirit saluteth
you, and the love of the churches which received
me in the name of Jesus Christ, not as a mere
wayfarer : for even those church^ which did not
lie on my route after the flesh went before me from
city to city ' (ix. 3).
696
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
The Epistle to the Romans is not a roi)ly to a
direct deputation sent to Ignatius by the Church
of Rome. Ignatius has been informed of tlie
Romans' feelings towards him and of tlieir desi^jn
to snatch him from martyrdom if possible, and he
forestalls them by begging tliem to do nothing.
He sends them the letter by the hands of Ephesian.s
who have apparently told him of the Romans'
plans (x. 1), and who have means of transporting
the letter to Rome. Ignatius uses this means,
although he knows that Antiochene devotees have
gone straight to Rome. He says of them : ' As
touching tliose who went before me from Syria to
Rome unto the glory of God, I believe that ye
have received instructions ; whom al.so apprise that
I am near ' (x. 2).
From Smyrna, Ignatius and his guard journey
to Troas, probably by sea. From there Ignatius
dispatches three letters : the first to the Church of
Philadelphia (' The love of the brethren which are
in Troas saluteth you,' xi. 2) ; the second to the
Smyrna^ans ; and the third to Polycarp, bishop of
Smyrna. In the last letter Ignatius apologizes for
not being able to write to all the churches, the
reason being that he has just been suddenly
ordered to embark at once for Neapolis in Mace-
donia, the port for Philippi.
Before leaving Troas, Ignatius receives comfort-
ing news of his beloved Church of Antioch. He
suggests that Polycarp should depute one of the
Smyrnjeans to go to Antioch to show the love that
the Church of Smyrna bears to the Church of
Syria (vii. 2). ' I salute him that shall be ap-
pointed to go to Syria,' he writes. ' Grace shall be
with him always, and with Polycarp who sendeth
him ' (viii. 2). He begs Polycarp to write to
the churches lying between Smyrna and Antioch,
enjoining them to send messengers or letters to
the Church of Antioch as a token of their love
(viii. 1). He writes to the same effect to the
Philadelphians. ' As a church of God ' they ought
to elect a deacon and commission him to cany
their congratulations to the devotees assembled
together at Antioch and to glorify ' the Name '
with them. If they do this, they will be following
the example of several churches, some of whom
have sent a bishop, and some presbyters or deacons
(X. 1-2).
From Neapolis Ignatius is taken to Philippi. A
few details of this journey may be gleaned from
Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, written in
reply to a letter sent from the Philippians to Poly-
carp (iii. 1): 'Ye wrote to nie, both ye yourselves
and Ignatius, asking that if any one should go to
Syria lie might carry thither the letters from you.
And this I will do, if I get a fit opijortunity, either
I myself, or he whom I shall send to be ambassador
on your behalf also ' (xiii. 1). From this passage
■we may infer that Ignatius wrote to Polycarp
during liis stay in I'hilippi ; and that the Philip-
pians wrote to the Church of Antioch at the same
time as to Polycarp. The Philippians had given
Ignatius a hearty welcome, and Polycarp com-
mends them for having ' received the followers of
the true Love and escorted them on their way . . .
those men encircled in saintly bonds which are the
diadems of them that be truly chosen of God and
our Lord ' (i. 1).
By the time Polycarp wrote this letter, Ignatius
had left Philippi .and was en route for Rome:
' Moreover, concerning Ignatius himself and those
that were with him, if ye have any sure tidings,
certify us ' (xiii. 2). It would be difficult to believe
that this request for news of Ignatius could by any
possibility be later than the receipt of the tidings
of his death. It is true that in another passage
Polj'ciirp commends the patience of ' the blessed
Iguatiu», and Zosimus, and Rufus,' and compaies it
with that of St. Paul and the other apostles, add-
ing : ' all these ran not in vain . . . they are in
their due place in the presence of the Lord, with
whom also they suffered ' (ix. 1,2); but it is not
unlikely that the last phrase refers only to St.
Paul and the other apostles. On this hypothesis,
then, Polycarp would not know the fate of Ignatius,
Zosimus, and Rufus till after the dispatcli of his
letter to the Philippians.
From the time he left Philippi we know nothing
further of Ignatius. Origen says that he fought
against the beasts in Rome during the persecution.
Eusebius (HE in. xxxvi. 3) repeats this statement,
and adds that in Rome Ignatius became ' food for
the beasts.' In this he was certainly influenced by
Ignatius' letter to the Romans (' I am God's wheat,
and I am ground by the teetii of wild beasts,' iv. 1),
This Epistle is the sole extant reference to the
martyrdom of Ignatius. Even in Rome itself
there seems to have been no note made of the
incident.
From Jerome we learn that Ignatius was buried
in Antioch : ' Reliquiie corporis eius in Antiocliia
iacent extra portam Daphniticam in coemeterio'
(de Vir. illustr. 16). This was written in A.D.
392, and, as far as we know, Jerome did not take
his information from any written source, but pro-
bably speaks de visu.
*In his panegyric on Ignatius pronounced in
Antioch (386-97), St. John Chiysostom cele-
brates the triumphal return of the martyr to his
episcopal city, and the honours tliat were paid him
by the cities on the route [Pair. Graeca, 1. 594].
The orator no doubt takes his clue from spectacles
of the same nature seen for some years previously
in diflerent centres of the Eastern Empire. It is
quite evident that the remains of the holy martyr
could not have been brought back in this way in
the very thick of the persecution' (H. Delehaye,
Les Origines du culte des martt/rs, Brussels, 1912,
p. 69 ; so also Lightfoot, p. 431 f.).
In the time of Theodosius ll. (408-450), Ignatius'
remains (or bones believed to be his) were trans-
ferred from the cemetery extra muros to the ancient
Temple of Fortune, now turned into a basilica
(Euagrius, HE i. 16 [ed. Bidez-Parmentier, London,
1899, p. 25 f.]).
The whole question of the transference of
Ignatius' bones from Rome to Antioch is a diflicult
one. Delehaye writes : ' It is diflicult to come to
any finding on the question of the reality of the
transference of St. Ignatius' remains from Rome
and of the period when this took place' (loc. cit.).
If St. Ignatius suffered martyrdom in Rome, and
if, as Euagrius says, * he met his death in the
amphitheatre of Rome, findin"; his tomb in the
bellies of the wild beasts in fulfilment of his own
wish,' one may suppose that nothing remained of
his body. In Rom. iv. 2 he wrote : ' Rather entice
the wild beasts, that they may become my
sepulchre and may leave no part of my body be-
hind.' Of course one may always agree with
Euagrius that at least Ignatius' 'tougher bones'
were saved.
As to the time of the transference, if it did take
place, we are equally at sea. By the end of tiie
4th cent., as we have seen above, public opinion was
quite decided that Ignatius' remains were in
ccemeterio in Antioch. But the transference of the
remains in the 2iid or 3rd cent, would be an ana-
chronism, and in the 4th cent, some note would
undoubtedly have been taken of the fact. We
must conclude, then, that, if the remains of Ignatius
preserved in Antioch are authentic, it is quite
possible that Ignatius did not suffer martyrdom in
Rome at all, but returned to Antioch and died
there. The existence of his tomb in Antioch is
more probable on this supposition than ou the
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
597
hypothesis of the transference of liis rtMiiains from
Rome to Antioch.
2. HSS and YSS of the Epistles.— The words of
Polycarps Epistle to tlie I'hilippians (xiii. 2) are
the earliest evidence of a collection of Ignatius'
letters : ' The letters of Ignatius which were sent
to us by him, and others as many as we had by us,
we send unto you, according as ye gave charge ;
the which are subjoined to this letter ; from which
ye will be able to gain great advantage. For they
comprise faith and endurance and every kind
of edification, which pertaineth unto our Lord.'
Eusebius (HE iii. 36) apparently knows of a col-
lection of seven of Ignatius' letters, vdtXi Poly-
carp's Letter to the Philippians, which is identical
with our present group of letters, even down to the
order in which the Epistles are given : Eph. , Magn. ,
Trail., Rom., Philad., Polyc, Smym., and Poly-
carp's Philippians.
This original collection of letters fell into the
hands of a forger, who made interpolations in the
text of the authentic Epistles and also manu-
factured six additional letters — Mary of Cassobola
(there is a Cilician town called Castabala, possibly
the same as Cassobola) to Ignatius, Ignatius to
Mary of Cassobola, to the Tarsians, to the Philip-
pians, to the Antiochenes, and to Hero the Deacon.
We have thus an Ignatian collection of thirteen
letters. The identification of the forger with the
unknown compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions is a
theory highly favoured by Funk. Heregards him as
having been a Syrian Christian of the beginning of
the 5th cent., probably belonging to an ApoUinarist
order, and he even finds in his work points of con-
tact \nt\\. Theodore of Mopsuestia (Pair, apostol.
opera, ii. pp. ix-xiii, and Kirchengeschiehtl. Ah-
handlungen, ii. [Paderborn, 1899], pp. 347-359).
Three other spurious letters of Ignatius may be
passed over quickly — one supposed to be addressed
to the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the Virgin's
reply, and two addressed to the Apostle John.
The oldest witness to these three Latin letters
is Denis of Chartreux (t 1471) ; the oldest MS of
them dates from the 12th century. These Epistles
are usually regarded as forgeries of Latin prove-
nance and of the Middle Ages.
In 1845, Cuieton published Eph., Magn., and
Earn, in a Syriac version, which comprises the three
authentic Epistles in an abridged form. Cnreton
put forward the hypothesis that the Syriac text
represents all that is authentically Ignatian, and
that consequently Trail., Philad., Pobjc, and
Smym. are spunous compositions. This theory
was accepted for some time by quite a number of
critics, but it has now been abandoned : the three
Syiiac letters are nothing more nor less than an
abridgment of the three Greek . Epistles. (These
apocryphal texts may be found in the editions of
Zahn, Lightfoot, and Funk.)
We may now turn our undivided attention to
the Greek collection of the seven authentic letters.
The authenticity of these Epistles was for long
a matter of keen controversy. At first only the
Latin collection comprising the Epistles to the
Apostle John and the Virgin Mary, or the three
apocryphal letters published in Paris in 1495, were
Imown. Three years later (1498) Lef^vre d'Etaples
published in Latin the collection comprising the
thirteen spurious or interpolated letters, the Greek
text of which was printed at Dillingen in 1557.
This collection was speedily recognizSi to be un-
authentic, but, though the Magdeburg Centnri-
ators repudiated the thirteen letters e» hloc, Bar-
onius and Bellarmin defended them en hloc. The
Protestant Scult«tus, in his Medullae theologiae
patrum syntagma (Neustadt, 1609) was of opinion
that only the seven letters attested by Eusebius
were authentic. In 1646 Vossins published the
authentic Greek text of six of the seven letters,
the Greek text of the seventh — the Letter to the
Romans — being published by Ruinart in 1689.
But it was a long time before the authenticity of
these seven letters was generally accepted. It
would be useless to retrace the history of this pain-
ful controversy with its tedious conflict of confes-
sional (Saumaise, Blondel, Daille)or pseudo-critical
(Baur, Hilgenfeld, Lipsius) prejudices, which was
finally terminated by Zahn s Ignatius von ArUi-
ochien (Gotha, 1873) and F, X. Yvink'a Die Eehtheii
der ignatianischen Brief e (Tubingen, 1883). E.
Bruston's objections and conjectures {Ignaee d'An-
tioche) were never taken seriously, nor were those
of D. Volter (Die ignatianischen Brief e, Tubingen,
1892). See, however, M. Rackl, Christologie des
heiligen Ignatius von Antiochien, Freiburg i. B.,
1914, pp. 11-86.
A reply to the diflBculties raised by the opponents
of the authenticity of the letters will be found in
J. Reville's Les Origines de Pipigcopat (pp. 442-81)
and in E. Hennecke's Handbuch zu den neutest.
Apokryphen (Tiibingen, 1904, p. 191 f.). Difficulties
naturally exist, writes R. Knopf, but they are not
to be weighetl against ' the uninventible form of
these writings, the originality of the man which
seems to speak forth from the pulsing lines, and the
wealth of personal references which entwine the
letters ' {Das nachapostolische Zeitalter, Tiibingen,
1905, p. 37; cf. O. Stahlin, Christl. griech. Litt.,
Munich, 1914, p. 975).
The seven Epistles of Ignatius are attested, as
we have said, first by the Epistle of Polycarp, and
then, at the beginning of the 4th cent. , by Eusebius.
Between these two witnesses we may insert
Irenaeus (adv. Haer. v. xxviii. 4), who does not
name Ignatius but cites his Letter to the Romans :
' Quemadmodum quidam de nostris dixit, propter
martyiium in Deum adiudicatns ad bestias,
"quoniam frumentum sum Christi et per dentes
bestiarum molor ut mundus panis inveniar." '
Hamack thinks that Clement of Alexandria is so
closely dependent on Ignatius that he must have
read him (cf. Paedag. I. vi. 38, ll. viii. 63, Excerpt.
Theod. 74 with Trttil. yuL 1, Eph. xvii. 1, xix. 2) ;
so also Origen (de Orat. 20=Eom. iii. 3 ; Horn. vi.
in Luc. = Eph. xix. 1; in Cant. Cantic. prolog. =
Eom. vii. 2). Hamack ignores all doubtful wit-
nesses like Melito, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Ter-
tullian, the Lyons Martyrs, and the Acts of St.
Perpetua. We shall pass over all attestations later
than Eusebius (see Hamack, Die Ueberlieferung der
altchristl. Litteratur, Leipzig, 1893, pp. 79-86).
The question whether Lucian the satirist, in lines 169-170 of
his d< MorU Pereyrini, was thinking of Ignatius or even had
direct knowledge of his letters is a point on which one hesitates
to decide. F^nk (Patr. apostol. L pp. Ix-lxi) and Reville
(Oriffine* de tipigeojpat, Paris, 1895, p. 448 f.) incline to an affir-
mative view, while Hamack {Ueberlie/erung, p. 79) remains
doabtful.
Smym. iii. 3-xii. 1 is preserved in the Papyrus-
kodex 10581 (5th cent.) of Berlin (see C. Schmidt
and W. Schubart, Altchristl. Texte, Berlin, 1910, pp.
3-12). The Greek text of all the authentic letters
except the Epistle to the Romans is given in the
Codex Laurentianus, Ivii. 7 (11th cent. ), fol. 242-252,
which was used by Vossius for the editio princeps.
The MS G. V. 14 (16th cent. ) in the Casanate Librarj-
is a copy of the Laurentianus. The letter to the
Romans is given in the Paris gr. 1491 (10th cent.),
which was used by Ruinart. The separation of
the Letter to the Romans from the six other
authentic letters is perhaps due to the fact that the
first collection of Ignatius' letters was made in
Asia — witness what Polycarp says in his Philip-
pians— and thus did not contain the EpLstle to the
Romans (so Hamack, Ueberlieferung, p. 76).
The Latin version published by Ussher (Oxford,
1644) was the work of Robert Grosseteste, bishop
598
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
of Lincoln (13th cent.) ; it was translated from an
excellent Greek MS now lost, and is an extremely
close renderinf^ of tiie orifjinal. Ussher had at his
disposal two Latin AISS — one the lost Codex
Montaciitianus and the other the existinj; Codex
Caiensis, 395 of Camhridge (15th cent.). Grosse-
teste'a version comprises the lirst six authentic
letters and the Martyrium Colbertinuia, including
the Letter to the Romans.
We also possess the seven letters in an
Armenian translation possibly dating from the
5tii cent., and some fragments of a Syriac transla-
tion which formed the bjisis for the Armenian
rendering. Lightfoot and Harnack think that the
Syriac collection of Eph., Mafjii., and Jlom. in an
abridged form published by Cureton is an excerpt
from this Syriac translation of the seven authentic
letters.
3. Ecclesiastical position.— (1) Church orgnniza-
tion. — If one had to prove that the Christianity of
the beginning of the '2nd cent, was a city-religion
one would find ample material in the letters of
Ignatius. The visible unity is the Church, and
each church bears the name of the city where it is
established : ' the church which is in Ephesus of
Asia,' ' the church which is in Magnesia on the
M?eander,' ' the holy church which is in Tralles of
Asia,' ' the church of God the Father and of Jesus
Christ which is in Philadelphia of Asia,' ' the
church of God the Father and of Jesus Christ the
Beloved . . . which is in Smyrna of Asia' — so
Ignatius styles the churches in the inscriptions of
his letters.
The Church of Antioch is called 'the church
which is in Antioch of Syria' (Philad. x. 1, Smyrn.
xi. 1), but it is also spoken of as ' the church which
is in Syria' [Mar/n. xiv., Eph. xxi. 2, Horn. ix. 1).
Ignatius calls himself ' bishop from Syria ' (Rom.
ii. 2). This has been taken as an indication that
Ignatius was bishop not only of Antioch but of the
whole province of Syria, Syria being understood
as including several lesser churches and several
lesser bishops (K. liiibeck, licichseintciliiiig tmd
Jcirchliche Hicrarchie dcs Orients, Miinster, 1901,
p. 43 ; Harnack, Mission und Aiisbreitung, Leipzig,
1902, i. 384). The text of Philad. x. 2, which
speaks of 'the churches which are nearest' (al
fyyiffTa iKKXtiffiai), does not say which city they are
near ; they may be churches of Asia or even of
Cilicia (H. de Genouillac, L'Eglise chritienne an
temps de saint Ignace d'Antioche, Paris, 1907, p.
67 1.). Even if it were proved that Syria contained
other churches than Antioch, e.g. the churches of
Apamia or Bercca, the bishop of Antioch might
still have considered himself emphatically the
bishop of Syria, without being in anj- sense a
metropolitan. To speak of a metropolitan bishop
in the time of Ignatius is an anachronism.
The Christian community bearing the name of
the churcli of such and such a city is not a purely
mystical body, but a visible unity having frequent
assemblies. ' Let meetings (a-waywyai) be held
more frequently,' Ignatius writes to I'olycarp (iv.
2, 3). ' Seek out all men by name. . . . Let slaves
not desire to be set free at the public cost' (d7r6
roD Kotvov eXevdepovcrdai ; note the expression r6 KoivSy,
a synonym for the local church [Philad. i. 1]. If
the community can buy out slaves, it must have
a common purse). In the Letter to the Smyrnaians
(vi. 2), the heretics are reproached for acting
contrary to the Spirit of God : ' They have no care
for love {uyd-irrt^), none for the widow, none for the
orphan, none for the afflicted, none for the prisoner,
none for the hungry or thirsty.' In these words
we have a r6sum6 of the gospel of love, and an
indication of the practical assistance rendered by
every Christian community to those in nee<i.
Ignatius begs Polycarp to call together the faithful
into a sort of deliberative assembly {ffvfifioi'fXiov) to
cle(;t ixfipoTovTJffai) a messenger to go to Antioch
(vii. 2 ; cf. Philad. x. 1 and Smyrn. xi. 2). The
church assembles dirl t6 avrd, 'in one place': not
to come firl t6 aiirS is to show pride and to stand
self-condemned {Eph. v. 2) : to come cirl rd oi)r6 is
to cast down the powers of Satan (xiii. 1). The
faithful must give the Gentiles (fOvtaiv) no occasion
to calumniate God's people (t6 eV 6{ip irXfidos, Trail.
viii. 2) ; they must abide in concord and in common
prayer (xii. 2) ; they must tlee evil arts (KOKorexi'taj) ;
women must be 'content with their husbands in
llesii and in spirit' {Polyc. v. 1). If a Christian
desires to abide in chastity to the honour of the
llesh of the Lord, he may do so, but on condition
that he does it without pride (v. 2 ; this is a some-
what remarkable recommendation, as it is a re-
pudiation of the Encratite conception of the Chris-
tian life). Each church has its widows, whom it has
to care for (Polyc. iv. 1 ; Smyrn. xiii. 1). Ignatius
recommends that those who marry — male or female
— should not enter into wedlock without the consent
of the bishop, for marriage should be 'after the
Lord and not after concupiscence ' (Polyc. v. 2).
Each church has a bishop at its head ; this is
true not only of Antioch, but also of Ephesus
(Eph. i. 3), Magnesia (Magn. ii.), Tralles (Trail, i.
1), Philadelpiiia (P/u7rrrf. i. 1), and Smyrna (.S'myrH.
xii. 1). Next to the bishop there is a irpfa^vripiov
or group of vpeff^vrfpoi : so at Ephesus (Eph. iv. 1 ,
XX. 2), Magnesia (Magn. ii., xiii. 1), Tralles (Trail.
ii. 2, xiii. 2), Philadclpliia (Philad. vii. 1), and
Smyrna (Smyrn. xii. 2). Under the presbyters,
there are deacons (Eph. ii. 1, Magn. ii., Trail, ii.
3, iii. 1, vii. 2, Philad., subscr., vii. 1, x. 1, Smyrn.
viii. 1, xii. 2).
The Epistles are a perpetual appeal to unity on
the part of the Christian community by submission
to tlie deacons, the presbytery, and the bishop.
Ignatius Avrites to the Ephesians : ' I have received
your whole multitude (iroXi'TrXTjOlav vfiwv) in tlie
person of Onesimus' (Eph. i. 3). They will 1-te
sanctified if they submit to their bishop and pres-
bytery (ii. 2), if they and tiieir bishop have but
one thought, if their presbytery is unitetl to tlie
bishop as ' its strings to a lyre ' (iv. 1). The bishop
is to be regarded as the steward, whom the pro-
prietor (olKooeariruTrjs) has entrusted with the manage-
ment of his house (oiKovo/xiap) ; and even as the
Master Himself (vi. 1). In Magn. (ii.) Ignatius
commends Zotion the Deacon for submitting ' to
tlie bishop as unto the grace of God and to the
presbytery as unto the law of Jesus Christ.' The
presbyters, again, are subject to their bishop, how-
over young he may be (iii. 1). The bishop is but
the visible bishop ; above him is the invisible
Bishop, God the Father, the universal Bishop
(6 navTuiv e ir la- k ottos, iii. 1, 2). The bishop presides,
and thus takes the jilace of God ; the luesbyters
represent the council ((xwidpiov) of the apostles ;
the deacons are entrusted with the diaconate of
Jesus Christ (vi. 1 : 'a service under Jesus Christ'
[Lightfoot, ii. 12U]). The Magnesians are to con-
tinue in union with their revered bishop, and ' with
the fitly wreathed spiritual circlet of the presbytery,
and with the deacons who walk after God ' (xiii. 1).
The same advice is found again in Trail, (ii. 1-2,
iii. 1, xii. 2, xiii. 2), Philad. (ii. 1, iii. 2, vii. 1),
and Smyrn. (viii. 1, xii. 2).
The ecclesiology of Ignatius does not reganl
union and discipline merely as a means of sancti-
fication but as the condition of Christianity. Some
call their chief 'bishop,' but 'in everything act
apart from him,' and 'do not assemble themselves
together lawfully according to commandment' (/irj
/ie/iafws Kar ivToXriv avvaOpoli'effOai, Magn. iv. ).
'Neither do ye anything witii<mt the bishop and
the presbyters' (vii. 1). Apart from the bishop,
[GNATTUS
IGNATIUS
599
the presbyterj-, and the deacons, ' there is not even
the name of a church' (x<«'P*s To&rwy eKK\r)<Tia ou
KaXeirai, Trail, iu. 1). Similar declarations may
be found in Philad. (iii. 2). To the Smymaeans
Ij^atius writes (viii. 1-2) : ' Let no man do aught
of things pertaining to the Church apart from the
bishop. Let that l^ held a valid (/Se.Sat'a) eucharist
which is under the bishop or one to whom he shall
have committed it. "Wheresoever the bishop shall
appear, there let the people (v\i)do%) be. ... It is
not lawful apart from the bishop either to baptize
or to hold a love-feast' (a-fivr); i.e. 'euchanst').
The Letter to Polycarp contains a still more
striking piece of advice : ' Please the Captain in
whose array ye serve, from whom also je will
receive your pay. Let none of you be found a
deserter' (vi. 2).
A. Michiels (IJOrigine de Vipiscopat, Louvain,
1900, pp. 396-98) has tried to show that Ignatius
regards this three-grade hierarchy — • and notably
the episcopate' — as of Divine institution. But
Ignatius does not look at the problem from this
point of view at all. He regards the Church as a
sort of extension of the gospel by the apostles : ' I
take refuge in the gospel as the flesh of Jesus and
in the Apostles as the presbytery of the Church '
(Philad. V. 1). The Church is the visible realiza-
tion of salvation : ' For a.s many as are of God and
of Jesus Christ, they are with the bishop ; and as
many as shall repent and enter into the unity of
the Church, these also shall be of God, that they
may be living after Jesus Christ ' (iii. 2). And ' if
any man followeth one that maketh a schism
(<7xt'fo»rrt), he doth not inherit the Kingdom of God.
If any man walketh in strange doctrine {iv iWorpiif
yvilifjLTi irepi-raTei) he hath no fellowship with the
passion ' (iii. 3). This is equivalent to saying that
union with the local church, under tlie authority of
the bishop, is the sine qua noti for justification by
the blood of Christ, for inheriting the Kingdom of
God, and for life after Jesus Christ. Union with
the Church is thus not a matter of ecclesiastical
law or of individual choice, but one condition of
salvation. If this is the view taken by Ignatius,
how could he help believing that the visible and
hierarchical Church was instituted by the will of
God ? * He has an intensely clear perception that
the mind of God for man's salvation has expressed
itself not in any mere doctrine but in a divinely
instituted society with a divinely authorized hier-
archy. This is the mind of God ... so clearly
that he who would . . . run in harmony with the
divine purpose must perforce have merged his
individuality in the fellowship of the Church and
submitted his wilfulness to her government'
(C. Gore, The Ministry of thi Christian Church\
London, 1888-89, p. 299).
J. Keville {Les Origincs de Vipiscopat, pp. 508-
519) is very firm on the authenticity of the Ignatian
letters, but sets himself the task of minimizing
the witness they bear to the three-grade hierarchy
and principally to the monarchical episcopate.
First of all he holds that this episcopate took its
rise in Asia, and that in the time of Ignatius it did
not exist or scarcely existed outside Asia ; he con-
cedes, however, that Antioch had a monarchical
episcopate. Let us say at the very beginning that
nowhere — not even in'his Letter to the Romans —
does Ignatius lead us to think that the monarchical
episcopate was found only in Syria or Asia : he
even suggests that such an episcopate exists every-
where, when he saj's to the Ephesians : ' Even as
the bishops that are settled in the farthest parts
of the earth are in the mind of Jesus Christ' (ol
(■K'ixTKovoi ol Kara. to. -repara opixrOeyrfs, Eph. iii. 2 ;
for the meaning of koto, rk repara, cf. Pom. vi. 1 :
rd xepara tov Kocrfiov). Reville is wrong in saying
that ' the monarchical episcopate makes its entry
into the history of the Church at the beginning of
the 2nd cent.,' for in Ignatius' letters it is already
an established institution. And even supposing
Ignatius ' gives us his ideal rather than the ecclesi-
astic reality of his time,' this ideal is merely the
submission, union, and perfect conformity of all
to the bishop in each church ; it is not the exist-
ence of a single bishop, for that is already an
accomplished fact in eacli church. ' Ignatius'
testimony presents us with the monarchical episco-
pate as firmly rooted, completely beyond dispute.
, . . He speaks of the bbhops as established in
the farthest parts of the earth. He knows of
no non-episcopal area' (Gore, op. cit., p. 300 f.).
Hamack's conclusions on this point are hesitating
{Entstehung und Entwickdung der Kirchenverfass-
ung, Leipzig, 1910, pp. 60-63).
Each church has common worship. ' If the
prayer of one and another hath so great force, how
much more that of the bishop and of the whole
Church?' (Eph. v. 2). The assembly is above all
a gathering together for prayer, ' for thanksgiving
to God and for his glory ' (awipxeffOax eU ei^xaptcfTioj'
deov Kal eis So^av, xiii, 1), prayer for all men
that they may find God (x. 1), for the other
churches (xxi. 2), or for any private individual
(XX. 1). In the assembly there is to be but one
prayer, one supplication, one mind in common
(3fugn. viL 1). 'And do ye, each and all, form
yourselves into a chorus (x^pos yiveffOe) that being
harmonious in concord and taking the keynote
of God (xp^lJ^ diov) ye may in unison (avfut>wvoi)
sing with one voice ' (gSip-e ev tfxairg fuf, Eph. iv.
2 ; this metaphor is to be understood of the
unanimity of the Christians in each church,
but it presupposes also the use of singing in
Christian assemblies). The bishop presides at the
assembly (Sviym. viii. 1-2) ; it is he w ho sits in
the chief place (rpoKa0r]fjiivov, Magn. vi. 1).
Ignatius does not tell us the procedure for the
election of a deacon, presbyter, or bishop, but
three times over (Philad. x. 1, Smyrn. xi. 2, Polyc.
vii. 2) the word x^'/x""*"*"' i^ used to express
the metljod by which the assembly elects an am-
bassador to go to some distant church ; it is not a
far cry to suppose that the members of the hier-
archy were elected in the same way by the general
vote. But Ignatius believes that God ratifies this
choice and the one elected is the elect of God ; he
congratulates the bishop of Philadelphia on having
been invested with ' the ministry which pertaineth
to the common weal (rrtv SiaKoviay rijy e/s rb Kotydf),
not of himself or through men, nor yet for vain
glory, but in the love of God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ' (Philad. i. ; this is not an
allusion to party factions, as Reville maintains,
but an echo of St. Paul [Gal 1'] and an assimilation
of the episcopate to the apostolate).
Nowhere in Ignatius' Epistles is there any
mention of Christians credited with personal
charismata, nor is there any word of local or
itinerant prophets such as we find in the apostolic
period (C. H. Turner, Studies in Early Church
History, Oxford, 1912, p. 22 f.). The bishop, ac-
cording to Ignatius, has the sole right of speaking
in the name of the Spirit. As von Dobschiitz says :
' It is interesting to see how in this quite Catholic-
minded bishop [Ignatius], who thinks only of the
great of the Old Testament past as prophets, there
yet speaks to the Churches of Asia Minor a
" minister of the spirit " (6eo<p6p(K), living wholly in
ecstasy and revelations (Eph. xxi.. Trail, v.,
Philad. vii., Polyc. ii.)' (Dotechiitz, Christian
Life in the Primitive Church, p. 238).
Baptism is mentioned (Polyc. vi. 2) as a compact
as binding as the relation of soldier to militia.
No baptism may take place without the bishop
(Smyrn. viii. 2). The Eucharist may not be cele-
600
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
brated without the bishop : ' Let that be held a
valid eucharist wliich is under the bishop or one
to whom he shall have committed it' (viii. 1).
The one to whom the Eucharist is committed is
someone lower than the bishop : apparently a
presbyter. To celebrate the Eucharist is called
dydvTjv iroielv (viii. 2). Mention is made of it again
in J'Jph. XX. 2 : ' . . . that ye may obey the bisliop
and the presbytery without distraction of mind ;
breakin<j one bread (iva dprov KXwvres), wliich is
the medicine of immortality ((f>6.piia.Kov a6avaala%)
and the antidote that we should not die but live
for ever in Jesus Christ.'
In the Letter to the Philadelphians, again, we
find : ' Be careful therefore to observe one euchar-
ist (for there is one ilesli of our Lord Jesus Christ
and one cup unto union in His blood • . . )' (iv.).
The text oi Smyrn. vi, 2-vii. 1 is less clear : the
heretics 'abstain from eucharist (thanksgiving)
and prayer, because they allow not that the
eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
. . . They therefore that gainsay the good gift of
God (Suspeq. Tov Oeov) perish by their questionings.'
By dupeg. TOV OeoO Ignatius means the Incarnation ;
'the "gift of God" is the redemption of man
through the incarnation and death of Christ'
(Lightfoot, ii. 307). To talk of the Eucharist
being ' the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ' is a
very direct expression of eucharistic realism, but
it may have a secondary meaning and be used as
a metaphor to designate the presence of Christ in
the Church (C. Gore, The Body of Christ, London,
1901, p. 292 f.). The ministry of the deacons
stands in close relation with the celebration of the
Eucharist. They are ' deacons of the mysteries of
Jesus Christ ' ; they are not ' deacons of meats
and drinks but servants of the Church of God'
(Trail, ii. 3). didKovoi fJLVcrrTjpiuv 'Irjffov Xpiffrov
might be taken to refer to tlie eucharistic liturgy,
but this interpretation is extremely conjectural,
and 'mystery probably means 'faith' (cf. Eom.
vii. 3, where the terms dpros and wdfia, adp^ and
al/ia refer to Christ in heaven).
(2) The false teachers. — The unity in each
church is contrasted with the divisions among
heretics. Onesimus, bishop of Ephesus, praises
his flock for their orderly conduct (iv detfi evra^lav),
for ' living according to truth,' and letting no
heresy ' have a home among them ' (ovdefila al'peo-is
KaroiKei, Eph. vi. 2). Ignatius, too, congratulates
the Ephesians on the fact that there lias never
been any dispute among them (fi7)8efila ?/)ij), and
that they have always 'lived after God' (viii. 1).
But there are false teachers, men who bear the
Christian name and yet act in a manner unworthy
of God. These men are to be ' shunned as wild-
beasts ; for tliey are mad dogs, biting by stealth '
(vii. 1). Ignatius praises the Ephesians for not
allowing them to sow bad seed among them and
for stopping their ears so as not to hear them
(ix. 1). Woe to him who 'through evil doctrine
corrupts the faith of God,' for he 'shall go into
unquenchable fire ; and in like manner also shall
he that hearkeneth unto him' (xvi. 2).
In his Letter to the Magnesians Ignatius gives
some more definite characteristics of these false
teacliers. He seems to make a distinction between
(1) irepodo^lai and (2) fivdeOfiara iraXaiA. dpw<pe\y
(Magn. viii. 1). But this antithesis is probably
purely verbal, fivOeiJuara being the equivalent of
irepoSo^iai, and both terms recalling 1 Ti 1* i'',
Tit 1". So dvu)^f\-/ii is probably an echo of Tit 3"
and vaXaid possibly of 1 Co 6^, Ignatius thus mak-
ing use of St. Paul's language to designate the
errors of his time. In tlie same Epistle Ignatius
adds : ' For if even unto this daj' we live after the
manner of Judaism, we avow that we have not
received grace' — an expression which might be
taken as meaning that the fivOevfiara are Judaistic
errors, but this would be an abuse of the term
lovSal'cTfi^s, which is also taken from St. Paul (Gal
I'*), and is diverted from its proper sense to signify
here life witliout tlie grace of redemption. The
Magnesians are to live * after Christ' and not ap-
peal to the ' prophets ' as an excuse for living
otherwise, for even the lioly prophets lived ' after
Christ' (viii. 2). They must no longer aafifSarl^eiv
{i.e. live as a Jew — without grace, ix. 1), but learn
to live * as beseemeth Christianity ' (/rari xptcrtaj/-
ifffidv ; the first example of the use of xpiffnav-
ifffids), knowing that ' whoso is called by another
name besides tliis, is not of God ' (x. 1). They are
to reject the old leaven {t'^p^V '''V" irdXaLudelffav),
and betake themselves to the new, which is Jesus
Christ (x. 2). It is absurd to pronounce the name
of Christ and practise Judaism (lov8atl;^eii>), for
' Christianity did not believe in Judaism, but
Judaism in Christianity' (x. 3). Ignatius con-
cludes his argument by saying : ' I would have
you be on your guard betimes, that ye fall not
into the snares of vain doctrine (KevoSo^ia) ; but be
ye fully persuaded concerning the birth and the
passion and the resurrection' (xi.). The homo-
geneity of this exposition suggests that the false
teaching Ignatius has in mind is Docetism, and
that it is the Docetists that he accuses of ' juda-
izing,' not that there was a party of Docetists on
one side and a party of Judaizers on the other.
In his Epistle to the Trallians, Ignatius returns
to the same subject : ' Take only Christian food
{ry xptc"""^ '■/'00s). and abstain from strange
herbage, which is heresy' (vi. 1). 'Not indeed
that I have known of any such thing [as heresy]
among you ' (viii. 1). Jesus Christ is a descendant
of David and the son of Mary ; He was born, ate
and drank, suflered, died on the Cross, and was
truly {dXridCos) raised from the dead (ix. 1-2). The
heretics Ignatius has in view deny the reality of
the humanity of Christ (\4yovffiv t6 doKelf ireirovddvai
a&r6v, X.), and herein lies their error — Docetism.
' Shun ye therefore those vile ofishoots that gender
a deadly fruit, whereof if a man taste, fortlnvith
hedieth'(xi. 1).
In Phil. ii. 1 we find similar advice with regard
to the KaKooida<TKa\la^, * those noxious herbs, which
are not the husbandry of Jesus Christ' (iii. 1). If
anyone interprets the prophets in the sense of
Judaism (idv rts lovdai<rfibv (p/j.r]V€vr] vixiv), the Phila-
delphians are not to listen ; ' for it is better to
hear Christianity from a man who is circumcised
tlian Judaism from one uncircumcised ' (vi. 1).
Tlie Docetists whom Ignatius accuses of 'juda-
izing ' are uncircumcised — apparently Greeks.
Again in Smyrn. ii., Ignatius repeats that Christ
suflered really (dXTjdQs firadev), really rose again
{dXrjdws dviarriaev kavrbv), and did not sutler only in
appearance (t6 Sokciu r-eirovd^vai) ' as certain un-
believei's say ' (here the reference is ap])arently to
the same Docetists as are described in Trail. ). If
it was only in semblance (t6 SokcIv) that Christ
lived His life on earth, then it is only in semblance
that Ignatius is in chains (KdyCi) to doKeiv S^Sffuu,
iv, 2) ; but Christ's Passion was as real as Ignatius',
and what ^jrofit is it to him if men praise him and
blaspheme the Lord, not confessing that He was a
bearer of flesh ? (v. 2). Here we have an indication
tliat Docetists were to be found in Smyrna and
that th^ were anxious to deal kindly with the
captive Ignatius, but he would have none of them.
The names of these men are the names of infidels
(ocd/tara diriffra), wliich he will not even write.
' Far be it from me even to remember them, until
tliey repent and return to tlie passion ' (v. 3), i.e.
to faith in the reality of the Passion of Christ.
Note that the Docetists he denounces had not
penetrated to Ephesus, they had met with no sue-
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
601
cess in Tralles, and Ignatius puts the Snijrm«ans
on their guard against these 'wild beasts in human
form ' (dvi tQv OripltiJi' tQv iy0purofU>p<f>(i)v). The
Smymreans are not to welcome them (xapo3ex«ff^ai),
nor even to meet them (ffwayrav), but to pray for
their conversion, however difficult such conversion
niaj' be (iv. 1). ' I have learned,' he writes to the
Ephesians (ix. 1), 'that certain persons passed
through you from yonder' {(KeWev : here again, as
in Smym., he mentions no names. Tlie heretics
may possibly have come from Smyrna, and, in any
case, they infest Asia and are an equal peril to the
Philippians. There is nothing to prove that Ignatius
did not become acquainted with them in Antioch).
In the Letter to the Romans, no heretics are
mentioned.
The heretics denounced by Imatius in Asia,
and perhaps more definitely in bniyma, are not
Judaizers in the proper sense of tlie word, for they
only ' judaize' to the extent of denying the flesh
of Christ and the redemptive power of His Passion.
They are at war with the hierarchy, are dissenters
from the Church, and seem to have separated them-
selves voluntarily. Ignatius speaks of them as
'outside the sanctuary' {iicros ffixricumjpiov), i.e.
•without the bishop and presbytery and deacons'
{Trail, vii. 2). Wheresoever the Bishop is, there
the people should be, 'even as where Jesus may
be, there is the universal Church' (^/cel ij KaOoXiKi)
iicK\riffia, Smym. viiL 2). Here we have for the
first time in history the terra KadoXticg iKKXr/aia in
the sense of ' universal Church,' the universality
of the Church throughout the world being con-
trasted with the local churches where each has its
own bishop (Lightfoot, pp. 310-312 ; cf. Smyrn. i.
2 : €v evi <Twfw,Ti t^s eKK\T)<Tias). The epithet KaOo-
XiKTi is used in a geographical sense, and not yet
in its ecclesiastical sense, where ' catholic ' is con-
trasted with ' heretical ' (cf. 1 Clem. lix. 2 and
Didache, ix. 4).
i. Sources of Ignatius' teaching. — Among the
sources of Ignatius' teaching, first place must be
given to St. Paul. In his letters Ignatius never
fails to do special honour to the churches he
addresses if they have received a letter from St.
Paul. e.g. the Ephesians (Eph. viii. 1, xii. 2) and
the Romans {Bom. iv. 3). In all his letters we
find reminiscences of the Pauline Epistles, esp.
1 and 2 Cor., Rom., Gal.^ Pliil., 1 and 2 Thess,,
Philem., Eph., Col., 1 and 2 Tim., and Titus (see
E. von der Goltz, Ignatius von Antioihien als
Christ und Theologe [=7'-Sxii. 3, Leipzig, 1894], pp.
17S-194. who gives parallel texts of Ignatius and
St. Paul). We might add 1 Pet. {ib. p. 194 f.),
but the dependence of Ignatius on Heb. and James
is not evident.
According to von der Goltz, Ignatius did not
know the Fourth Gospel, although his letters are
full of Johannine thoughts, but merely partici-
pated in the Johannine Gedankemcelt, without
actually reading the Gospel. It is more probable,
however, that Ignatius used the Fourth Gospel,
without quoting it. It is a very curious fact that
in his Letter to the Ephesians Ignatius makes not
the slightest allusion to the Apostle John. Ignatius
certainly knew the Synoptic tradition, for there
are clear traces of his dependence on Matthew,
although we have no sign of dependence on Mark,
and only one doubtful allusion to Luke.
Ignatius makes frequent appeal to what he calls
eia-y-y^oi', to the apostles, and to the prophets:
' takipg refuge in the Gospel as the flesh of Jestis
and in the Apostles as the presbytery of the
Church. Yea, and we love the prophets also'
{Philad. V. 1 f. ). The prophets are the OT (Smyrn.
V. 1) ; the Gospel gives us authentic knowledge of
Jesus Christ (xpurrofiAdiay, Philad. viii. 2). In this j
connexion Ignatius Amtes : ' For I heard certain I
persons saying, If I find it not in the charters
(dpxeta), I believe it not in the Gospel. And when
I said to them. It is written (yi-ypa-mxi), they
answered me. That is the question (xporetrcu) ' (no
doubt a reference to the Docetists). The gospel
is a written document about which there is much
controversy. Further on Ignatius describes the
contents of the gospel, ».c. the Incarnation or
rapovffiav rod ffurijpot, the Passion and the Resur-
rection (ix. 2). The gospel is a fulfilment of OT
prophecy {ib.). The Lord and the apostles are
nearly always mentioned together : • Do your dili-
gence therefore that ye be confirmed in the ordi-
nances (S&yfMTa) of the Lord and of the Apostles '
(Magn. xiii. 1), and Jiilicher was right in saying
that the words of Serapion (bishop of Antioch, c.
A.D. 200), ' We receive Peter and all the other
apostles as Christ' (Euseb. HE vi. xii. 3), might
have been pronounced a century earlier {Einleitiing
in das NT^- «, Tubingen, 1906, p. 430). Yet in the
time of Ignatius the canon of the NT was not ' a
purely ideal canon,' as Jiilicher thinks, and when
Ignatius speaks of yeypaTrat and dpx"* he is think-
ing of authentic documents, which have been
accepted by the Church. There is no doubt, how-
ever, that Ignatius accepts elements foreign to our
ecclesiastical canon, as e.g. the words of the Risen
Christ ; ' I am not a demon without body ' {ScufjLOPior
ourufiaTOf, Smyrn. iiL 2), which may have origin-
ated in the Kripv/fia Uerpov, in the Gospel of the
Hebrews, or in a gloss on Lk 24®. Another
foreign element is the description of the wonderful
Nati\"ity star {Eph. xix. 2), which is probablj' a
gloss on Mt 2- and an echo of Xu 24'".
5. Ignatius' theology, christology, and pneo-
matology. — The doctrine of Ignatius as shown in
his vocabulaiy and ideas gives no hint of Hellenic
culture, (rod is One ; but the philosophic implica-
tions of this statement are not to be sought for. God
manifested Himself through Jesns Christ His Son
and Word {eU deii itmr, 6 ifxwepdMrai iavrbw Sia 'Ii/troO
XpiffToO Tov vioO a^ov, 6s i<rrv a&rov \&yoi dxA tnyrjt
■rpoeXduv, Ss icard rdrra evtipi<rn)aa' T<fi -ri/vf/arri aird^,
Magn. viiL 2). Jesus Christ pre-existed in Gtod ;
He was with the Father before the worlds and
appeared at the end of time ( . . . 'Ii^roO Xpurrod,
Si -rpd cUuruir, -rapd -rarpi fiv koX iv riKti e<pdvTj, vi. 1).
Christ is One : * He came forth from One Father and is
with One and departed unto One ' (Jra 'Iij<row' Xpurrdr
rdr auft twos rarpds rpoeXdorra Kai et't Ira 6rra koX
Xuprficrarra, vii. 2 [the last phrase is an allusion to
the Ascension]). Christ was in God before time,
invisible, impalpable, impassible, and it was for
us He became visible and passible {Polyc. iii. 2).
Christ is the Word coming forth from the silence
of God, i.e. He is revealed to the world by the
Incarnation (there is no reference to the part the
Word had in the Creation) ; He comes forth from
the Father to reveal Himself (no reference to the
eternal generation of the Word — in fact, Christ is
in (iod dyiytnjTo^ as He is dxadi^, Eph. viL 2). See
J. Tixeront, Hist'^ire des dogmes, i. [Paris, 1905],
p. 136.
Ignatius' christology is presented as a refutation
of Doceti-sra, Avhich regards Christ as a pneumatic
being, and special stress is therefore laid on the
real humanity and the bodily and passible being
of Christ. Christ was conceived in the womb of
Mary {eKvo<j>op^0r} iTb 3Iapiaj), He is of the seed of
David and of the Holy Ghost (eV ffT4pfiar<K /jtiw Aavl8,
rvevfMLTos 8i ayiov) ; He was bom and was baptized
{Eph. x^-iii. 2). He was really bom of a virgin '
{yeyepmjfUyor a.\i}ffQs iK rapBevov, Smyrn. LI). ' He
was the son of Mar\% who was truly bom and ate
and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius
Pilate, was truly crucified and died . . . ; who more-
over was truly raised from the dead' {Trail, ix. 1,
2) ; ' truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under
602
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
Pontius Pilate iind Herod the tetrarcli' {Smijni. i.
2) ; ' He was in the Hesli even after the resurrection ;
and when he came to Peter and his company {rovs
irepi lUrpov) . . . they touched him, and they be-
lieved' (iii. 2).
Ignatius tcaclies the corjjoreity of Christ with
such insistence because Christ is by nature wvevfui
(Harnacic, Dogmciifjcschichte*, Tubingen, lOOfl, i.
213 ; W. Sanday, Chrlstolo(jics Ancient and Modern,
Oxford, 1910, p. 10). Christ is 'of flesh and of spirit,
generate and ingenerate, God in man, true Life (i.e.
God) in death (in a mortal body), son of Mary and
Son of God, lirst passible and then impassible ' (trap-
KiKbs Kal trvev/jiariKdi, yevfTjrbs xal ayivvrjros, iv avOpwirif
de6^, iv davdri^ ^wrj dXij^tvr}, Kal (k Mapi'aj Kal ^k deov,
irpCJTov ira9r}Tbi Kal T&re (XTradrjs, Eph. vii. 2 ; cf. Pvlyc.
iii. 2). Ignatius thus posits in Christ the dualism
of (rAf^ and irveviui : tlirough tlie aap^ Christ is
generate, born of Mary, passible and mortal ;
tlirough tiie irvevixa He is ingenerate (i.e. witliout
beginning). He is life, He is impassible, He is God ;
in a word, Christ is God come in the flesh (iv aapKl
yevdfievos $f6^}.
Tlie interpretation that Christ in the flesh be-
came God has the context against it, for Christ did
not become dyiwyiros, nor iK OeoO : He realizes at
one and the same time the two antinomial series
of predicates. Through the irvevfia which is iv a-apKl,
Christ is one with the Father : lie is irvevfiariKQs
7]vu3nivo<s T(p irarpi (Siuyrn. iii. 3), and yet after the
Hesli He is subordinate to the Fatlier ([vTrorayeU] rip
irarpl Kara ffdpKa, Maqn. xiii, 2) and has pleased
God who sent Him (evrjpi<rT7](Tfv rtp iri/jL\f/avTi aiir6v,
viii. 2), It is very difficult (in spite of Harnack
[Dogmengesch.* i. 21C]) not to recognize in these
statements of Ignatius all tlie presuppositions of
the doctrine of the two natures ; in any case,
adoptianism is excluded.
The union of man and God in Christ is nowhere
delined by Ignatius, but one passage may be taken
to have this meaning : ' If,' says Ignatius to the
Ephesians (v. 1), 'I in a short time liad such con-
verse (Toi.a(jrT}v avvT/jOeiav) witli your bishop, which
was not after the manner of men but in the Spirit,
how much more do I congratulate you who are
closely joined witli him (iyKCKpafiivovi) as the Church
is with Christ Jesus and as Jesus Christ is with the
Father, that all things may be harmonious in unity '
(IVa irdvTa iv ivoTTjri <n''fjL<l>uva §), Here we have the
union of Christ witii the Father compared to the
union of the Church with Christ, and the union of
the believers with the bishop. The two terms
ffwrjOeia and iyKpdffis are not equivalent, the second
being metaphorical, and only the first counting.
But it would be rather risky, especially when
dealing with Ignatius, to base a whole logical
theory on a single word.
Christ is called tfeo's, altliongh He is distinct from
the Father. Ignatius speaks, e.g., of ' the will of
the Father and of Jesus Christ our God' (iv deX-ri-
fiart roO iraTpbs Kal 'Irjixov XpidTov roD OeoO iipiCiv, Eph.
inscr.). Even in His Incarnation Jesus is called
Oeoi : b Oeb^ i)p.u!v 'lijaovi b Xpiffris iKvocpopi^Orj inrb
Mapi'ay /car' oiKovofiiav deov (Eph. xviii. 2 ; cf. Rom.
inscr. and iii. 3). Von der Goltz is quite justified
in saying that Ignatius distinguishes between
Christ and the Father in so far as He is a person,
pre-existent, historical, or exalted ; all modalism is
excluded, and only subordination remains possible.
In the opinion of the present writer Ignatius regards
Jesus Clirist as God in His own person. Von der
Goltz supposes that for Ignatius, Jesus Christ is
God in relation to us, but Ignatius himself excludes
relativism. In Eph. xv, 3 he writes : ' Nothing
is hidden from the Lord, but even our secrets are
nigh unto Him. Let us therefore do all things as
knowing that He dwelleth in us, to the end that
we may be His temples and He Himself may be in
us as our God, This is so, . . .' (ha SipLtv avroO vaol
Kal avrbi iv ii/xlv debs' 6irta Kal ((Ttiv), Christ is our
God not only in .so far as lie lives in us, but absolutely
(5ir«p Kal IffTiv). The expression debs rj/Awv does not
jjive God a purely subjective value. Again, .Jesus
Christ is not only our God or God for us, He is very
God : ' I give glory to Jesus Christ the God who
bestowed such wisdom upon you' (5o^dfw 'lr]<rovv
Xpiarbv rbv Oebv rbv outws ufids ffo<pl(Tavra, Siuyrn. i.
1); cf. Trail, vii, 1 and Smi/rn. x. 1, where the
designation dtoi is given to Christ absolutely. We
shall omit Smgrn. vi. 1, where a gloss has been
inserted in the text.
The work of Christ consisted in giving man a
knowledge of God. Jesus Christ is the X670J of
God, come forth from the silence of God (Magn.
viii. 2). He is the mouth which lieth not, and in
which the Father hath spoken truly (rb dfevdit
ffrb/xa iv ip b Trarrip iXdXrjcrev d\T)du)S, liom. viii. 2).
He is the knowledge of God : ' wherefore do we
not all walk prudently, receiving the knowledge
of God, which is Jesus Christ ' (Xa^bvres deov yvuxriv,
6 i(TTiv ' lrj(Tous Xpiarbs, Eph. xvii. 2 ; cf. iii. 2). The
teaching of Christ is a doctrine of incorruptibility
(8i5axi) dipdapalas, Magn. vi. 2). The incorrupti-
bility is not the fruit of the biSaxn but the fruit of
the Death and Resurrection of Clirist. The Cross,
' which is a stumbling-block to them that are un-
believers, is to us salvation and life eternal ' (o-w-
TT]pia Kal fwTj alcjvios, Eph. xviii. 1). God Ijecame
manifest in the flesh to prove the newness of im-
perishable life, and the destruction of death (Kaivb-
Trp-a aibiov i^cjrjs . . . davdrov KardXvffiv, xix. 3).
Tiie Passion of Christ and His blood shed for us
are an earnest of this renewal of humanity ; it is
what Ignatius calls olKOvofiias els rbv Kaivbv dvOpwirov
'Irjcrovv Xpurrbv, iv ry aiirov irlarei Kal iv t-q airrou dydwrj,
iv irddei aurou Kal dvacrrdaei (xx. 1). Ignatius gives
no explanation of this mystery — either of the
virtue of Christ's Passion or of the manner in
which this virtue is communicated to the believing.
But he lays great stress on tlie Passion of Christ
and on the d<f>dapala it procures — an insistence
which is explained when we remember not only that
he was refuting Docetism but also that this tenet of
Pauline theology was for him one of fundamental
importance.
That the Spirit stands in opposition to the flesh
we have already gathered from many examples.
Tills was a familiar article of faith to Ignatius :
the flesh is man, the Spirit is a principle which
comes from God and acts in man (rb irvevna ...
dTrb deov 6v) searching out his closest secrets (I'hilad.
vii. 1). The prophets were the disciples of the
Spirit (Magn. ix. 2). The Spirit inspires the
spiritual man, and Ignatius is conscious of being
so inspired : ' It was the preaching of the Spirit;
who spoke on this wise' [by my mouth] (rb irvev/xa
iKifpvaaev Xiyov rdoe, Fhilud. vii. 2). On this point
Swete shrewdly observes : ' It is interesting to
observe that Ignatius can combine a claim to pro-
phetic inspiration with a passionate zeal for a
regular and fully organized ministry' (The Holy
Spirit in the Ancient Church, London, 1912, p. 14).
The believers are the ' building of God the
Father' (oiKo5op.r\v Oeov irarpbs), 'hoisted up to the
heights through the engine of Jesus Christ (fiyjxavrjs
'I1JC0V XpiffTou), which is the Cross, and using for a
rope the Holy Spirit' ((rxoiviip xp'^'Mfo* Tip Trvev/xan
Tip ayiip, Eph. ix. 1). Ignatius adjures the Mag-
nesians to remain united in flesh and spirit (aapKl
Kal TTvevnaTt), by faith and love, in the Son, the
Father, and the Spirit (iv vltp Kal irarpl Kal iv irveO-
/xari, Magn. xiii. 1). The Spirit is named along
with the Logos (iv dfiupup irvev/jLan Kal Xoyip deov,
Smyrn. inscr.). The apostles were obedient rip
XpiffTip Kal T(p -Karpl Kal rip -irvevfiaTi (Magn, xiii. 2 ;
it is diflicult not to regard this as an example of
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
603
the trinitarian baptismal forniola [Hamack, Dog-
nicngesch.* i. 175]).
The Father is plenitude (rXiypw/ia, Eph. inscr.).
The Son is the Logos of God {Magn. viii. 2), the
thouglit of God (yvwiiri 6eov, Eph. iii. 2), and the
knowledge of God (yvwcis OeoO, xvii. 2). The Spirit
is the x'^P"^f^ of Christ (rb xapiaixa d v(voii<txv
dXijOws 6 (ci/ptoj, ib.), and in this sense the Spirit is
the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Philad. inscr.), although
one cannot identify Christ and the Holy Spirit in
any way, as Hamack would have us do (Dogmen-
gesch.* i. 214), basing his argnnient on Magn. xv.,
where dSidxpiTOP rvevfjia is a synonym of bfiovoia. and
not of a-yiov -ryevfjia. The Word and the Spirit are
not known except by their missions in time.
Christianity, in opposition to Judaism, is the
life-of Christ in us ('IijcroCs Xptirros to a.\-r]Bi.vbv rjfiQy
f^f, Smgm. iv. 1 ; cf. JEph. iii. 2, xi. 1, Magn. i. 2,
ix. 2), which is manifested through faith and love
{Eph. xiv. 1 ; cf. Smyrn. vi. 1, Philad. ix. 2), This
life is the fruit of the Spirit ; it is the Spirit in
contrast with the flesh. ' The ffapKucoL cannot do
t4 rvivfuiTiKd, neither can the iri'ei/.uaTiAroi do rd
crapKtxa.' (Eph. \ii\. 2), and Ignatius even goes the
length of saying, ' No man professing faith sinneth '
(oi"3eis irLffTiv exayyeWoftevoi afiaprdvei, Eph. xiv. 2).
As Christ is joined to the Father so the Church
is joined to Christ {Eph. v. 1), for Christ is in every
believer ( XV. 3). He 'breathes incomiption upon
the Church' (xvii. 1). He is the High Priest to
whom is committed the holy of holies ; to Him
alone the secrets of God are confided, He is the
door of the Father through which Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, the Prophets, tlie Apostles, and the
Church enter in {Philad. i. 9).
The time of the end is at hand ('These are the last
times,' i<rx,aToi Kaipoi, Eph. xi. 1). All those who be-
lieve in Clirist will rise again {Trail, ix. 2). The
believers are members of Christ through His Cross
and Passion, and the Head cannot exist apart from
the members, so that in the end there will be unity,
God Himself being Unity {toD 0eov evwaiv i-rayyeX-
\ofjiivov, 8s fffTiv avTos, Trail, xi. 2). We find no
trace of millennarianism and no apocalyptical
imagery. The things of heaven (ret i-rovpavw.) are
mentioned only in the abstract (Trail, v. 2), and
with them the angelical orders (ris Tovodeaias, rdj
a.yye\iKa.i, rdi o-itrrdcrety, rds apxovriKdi : terms whicii
seem to foreshadow Gnosticism). Cf. Polyc. ii. 2:
'And as for the invisible things, pray thou that
thej' may be revealed unto thee' (rd ok dopara airei
Lva (Toi <pav€pu6^).
This short analysis of the theologoumena of
Ignatius will have shown the justice of F. Loofs'
verdict {Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmenge-
schichte\ Halle, 1906, p. 102) that ' Johann'ine and
Pauline thoughts ring through the theology of
Ignatius ' ; but it is not correct to say that his
theology is 'a theology of Asia Minor' distinct
from ' ordinary Gentile Christianity ' (cl. Hamack,
Dogmengesch.* i. 16S). It is rather the theology of
the presbj-ters quoted by Irenaeus; his theology,
as Hamack says (op. cit. i. 241) is of the same
nature as that of Melito and Irenteus, ' whose pre-
decessor he is ' ; it is the tutiorist theology of
tradition Avhich afterwards triumphantly withstootl
the Gnostic crisis; it was not brought* into being
by that crisis, but must certainly have existed
prior to it although later than the monarchical
episcopate. Ignatius has no creative genius, but,
as Sandfly aptly says, ' the striking thing about
him is the way in which he seems to anticipate
the spirit of the later theology ; the way in which
he singles out as central the points which it made
central, and the just balance and proportion
which he observes between them' (Christoloqies,
p. 10 f.).
A\ hat has given authority to Ignatius' letters is
his martyrdom. His letters, written in an abnipt
and nervous stjie, overloaded with metaphors,
incoherent, popular, and lacking every Hellenic
grace, are yet endowed with such pathetic faith
and such passionate joy in martyrdom, with such
overwhelming love of Christ, that they are one
of the finest expressions of the Christianity of the
2nd centurj'.
6. Special points raised by the Epistle to the
Romans. — Some special questions raised by the
Letter to the Romans, whose authenticity we
assume as beyond question, have been reserved for
separate treatment.
Ignatius says that he has been most eager to
see the 'godly countenances' of the Christians of
Rome, and he hopes to salute them ' for wearing
bonds in Christ Jesus' {JRam. i. 1). He implores
them to do nothing to save him from martyrdom ;
he dreads their very love ; for ' it is easy for them
to do what they will ' {vfuv yap evxepii eany, S ffiXere
xoi^at, i. 2), t.e. the Romans were in a position
to ensure Ignatius' liberation. As Hamack says
(Dogmengesch.* i. 486; cf. Lightfoot, p. 196),
' Ignatius presupposes great influence on the part
of the separate members of the community in the
higher ruling circles.' The insistence with which
Ignatius endeavours to dissuade the Romans from
any possible intervention on his behalf would seem
to indicate that the Romans had some definite plan
in hand and that he had been informed of it.
Again, in the Letter to the Romans (iii. 1) we
And : ' Ye never grudged any one ; ye were the
instructors of others (dXXois eSiSd^art). And my
desire is that those lessons shall hold good which
as teachers j-e enjoin ' (iyd Se deXu Iva KdKtiva ;3e/Jaia
3 d fiadTjTfvoirTes eyreWeffde). The word nadrjTeveiy
means ' to make disciples,' as fiadrjreuecrdai means
'to be a disciple' (Eph. iii. 1). Thus the Romans
gave instruction, made disciples, and laid down
l)recepts. Ignatius is here probably thinking of
such documents as 1 Clement, where the Church
of Rome instructs other churches in their duty (so
Duchesne, Eglises siparees, Paris, 1896, p. 129 ;
Hamack, loc. cit. ; and Batiflol, Eglise naissante,
Paris, 1909, p. 170), or he may have had in mind
practical examples of martyrdom in the Church of
Rome (in Eph. i. 2 he hopes to be able to follow
the heroic example of these martyrs [ipa erirvxei"
Swijdio fiaOrjrTJi (Irat ; cf. Magn. ix. 2, Eom. iv. 2,
V. 3]). The second interpretation jierhaps suits
the context better (cf. Lightfoot, ii. 202).
In Rom. iv. 3 Ignatius says : ' I do not enjoin
vou, as Peter and Paul did. They were Apostles,
1 am a convict.' The word icardicpiToi (condemnatus)
is difficult to explain ; but it may at any rate be
taken as an expression of Ignatius' humility such
as is found in Trail, iii. 3 : ' I did not think myself
competent for this, that being a convict I should
order you as though I were an apostle ' (Iva Civ Kard-
KpiTos d's dirajToXos vfuv Siardaawfiai). The apostles
were, after Jesus Christ, the authorities of most
account. ' I do not command you, as though I were
somewhat ' (ov Siardiraoiuu vfuy (is Sjv tu), writes
Ignatius to the Ephesians (iii. 1 ; cf . 1 Co 7"). In
the quotation from Rom. iv. 3 given above Ignatius
mentions St. Peter and St. Paul because they alone
of all the disciples had any dealings with the
Romans : ' they had been at Rome and had given
commandments to the Roman Church ' (Lightfoot,
ii. 209). This allusion to St. Peter is generally
taken as evidence of the fact that St. Peter went
to Rome (cf. F. Sieflert, art. ' Petrus ' in PRE^ xv.
[1904] 200 ; F. H. Chase, art. ' Peter (Simon) ' in
HDB iii. [1900] 769).
"While Ignatius is still in Asia, Christians of
Antioch go directly before him from Syria to Rome
' unto the glory of Got!.' Ignatius is aware of this
fact, and he writes to the Romans (x. 2) : ' they are
604
IGNATIUS
IGNATIUS
all worthy of God and of you, and itbecometh yon
to refresli tliem in all things.'
From this we may luarn that there were great
facilities for communication between Antioch or
Ephesus (x. 1) and Rome. The Christiana from
Syria were most heartily welcomed at Rome, and
from that time onwards the Church of Rome was
known for its hospitality and generosity. In the
address of the Letter to the Romans, the Church of
Rome is saluted in most emphatic terms. If we
compare this with the addresses of the other letters
we shall find that this emphasis is part of Ignatius'
style (Polycarp, on the other hand, couches his
atfdress to the I'liilippians in the simplest terms) ;
but, all the same, he salutes the Church of Rome
with more emphasis than the other churches, which
shows the great consideration shown at this time
by other churches (esp. the Church of Antioch) to
the Churcli of Rome. As Harnack says : ' However
much one tones down the exaggerated expressions
in his Letter to the Romans, so much is clear — that
Ignatius assigns to the Roman community a posi-
tion of real superiority over the sister-communities
. . . the efTusiveness of the address shows that he
values and salutes this community as the fore-
most in all Christendom' (Harnack, loc. cit.).
Three of the predicates applied to the Roman
Church by Ignatius in the address may now be
considered.
(1) The believers are dirodivXicrfi^voi dirb iravrbs
aWorplov xp^yttaros, ' filtered,' 'pure,' 'free from all
polluting colouring matter ' (cr. Lightfoot, p. 193).
As we have already noted, Ignatius does not
think there are any heretics in Rome, and here he
praises the Romans for not mixing any foreign
colouring matter with the purity whicli befits them,
as elsewhere he expresses a wish that among the
Ephesians there may be no plant of the devil (Eph.
X. 3). In the case of the Ephesians it is a mere
wish, but with the Romans it is an accomplished
fact.
(2) The Church of Rome irpoKdOrjTai ev Towip
X'^piov'Vufialwi'. The verb ir/DOKd^T/yuat is translated
praesUho, TrpoKadiffis sessio {in throno, in tribtinali) ;
irpoKd0rjTai = ' has the chief seat, presides, takes the
precedence' (Lightfoot, ii. 190). Ignatius applies
tins epithet elsewhere to the bishop and the pres-
bytery {irpOKadrj/Mevov rod iiriffKdirov els rbirov deov, Kal
tQv irpec^vT^pwi' els rvwov crvveSpiov tCiv dwoaTbXwv
[Magn. vi. 1] ; and again ivdidriTe rQ ^iria-Kdircp Kal
Tois irpoKadr)fj.4i>ois els rvirov Kal Sidaxh" d(pdap<rias
[ib. 2]). Ignatius thus attributes to the whole
Roman Church a giavity comparable with that of
the bishop and the presbytery. Zahn thinks that
iv Tbirip is a bad reading, and suggests ^i* ruTrcf} :
' Ecclesia igitur Romana tamquam exem])lar, ab
omnibus imitandum, hominibus imjierio Romano
subditis praiest ' ( ' Ignatii et Polycarpi Epistulaj,' p.
57). Tliis correction has not been accepted by any
other critic, and indeed, if Ignatius had wanted to
say that, he would have written rather els t^ttov.
Then again, irpoKdO-nrai is not to be taken with
xupiov, as if Ignatius were saying that the Roman
Church presided over the Roman region and ' the
suburbicarian bishops ' (Lightfoot, ii. 190) ; but it
is to be understood absolutelj', and ev Tbirq) x^ptou
'VufiaLuv designates the place where the Church
presides. The curious tautology ev rbiri^ x'^P^ov must
be equivalent to iv rbiri^ rj x^p^V. "■nd thus sijmifies
the town of Rome. This interjjretation of l^unk's
seems more objective than Lightfoot's (p. 190 f.),
who prefers to give the text a ' suburbicarian '
meaning.
(3) The Church of Rome is called d^i60eos, di,U-
iraivos, diioeirirevKTOs, d^layvos Kal TrpoKaOrjfiivr) ttjs
dydirTjs, xpto'Tdvofios, iraTpwvvfios, This accumulation
of epithets is an example of, Ignatius' emjiliasis ; but
the expression irpoKadrifx^vif] ttjs dydirrjs does have a
more i)rccise meaning. This time irpoKaOrjpAvr) is not
to be taken absolutely but construed along with
dydirris : the Roman Church presides over love.
Lightfoot (p. 192) takes the meaning to be : ' the
Church of Fiome, as it is first in rank, is first also in
love,' but it is doubtful if dydirrjs has this cau.sative
sense of d7d7rj7 or iv dydirrj. The Latin version of
the interpolated Letters of Ignatius translates the
words ' fundatur in dilectione et lege Christi,'
but the verb irpoKdOrmai has not this meaning in
Ignatius. Harnack's interpretation ' itrocuratrix
fraterni amoris' is not exact either. The verb
irpoKddTjfiai with the genitive implies presidency
over a city or a region : iKelvos roiyapovv 6 ()\I/i(ttos Kal
p-iyiffTOS Zei/j, 6 irpoKadji/jievos rijs XanvpordT-qs vfiwv
ndXeus writes the Emperor Maximin Daia in a letter
to the people of Tyre (Euseb. HE IX. vii. 7). Eunk
(Pair, apost. i. 253) quotes from Theodoret tlie
expression applied to Rome : ttjs olKovfxivrjs irpoKa-
Orjfi^vT] ; and from John Malalas that applied to
Antioch : irpoKadrjfjL^vrjv rrjs dvaroKrjs. We may com-
pare also Philostorgius representing Constantine
irpoKaO-ripAvov tQv ewicFKbirwv [II E vii. 6 [ed. IJidez,
1913, p. 85]). Tims the word dydiry) must be a meta-
Ehorical word for some collectivity, which cannot
e the Church of Rome, because here the Church
of Rome is the subject of which irpoKadTjfiivr] is the
epithet. It would be very extraordinary if d7dir77
meant the Christian communities near Rome, or
even the Christian communities of Italy, for that
would be limiting arbitrarily the meaning of the
word dydirr]. We are left then with the explana-
tion that dydirr] is that in which tlie distant churches
like Antioch and Ephesus are united to the Church
of Rome. Ignatius writes to the Trallians (xiii. 1) :
dcTTrdferai vfids t) dydirVi HifMvpvaiuv Kal'K<pe<riu>v ; and
to the Romans (ix. 3) : dawd^erai vfids . . . rj dydinj rCov
eKK'Xrjffiwv Twv Se^apAvuv fxe (cf. Philad. xi. 2 and
Smyrn. xii. 1 : d(r7rdferat vixds 7} dyd-n-ri tCov dSe\(p(i!)v
Twv iv TpwdSt). Just as the collectivity of the
believers of one church is designated by the
expression dydirr) tQv d8eX<f>Qv, and two or three
churches are designated l)y the phrase dydirrj rdv
iKKXrjffiwv, so it is natural that irpoKaOrj/x^vr] ttjs
dydirrjs should mean irpoKadrjfiivr) ttjs dydirrjs tCjv
iKKk-qaiGiv, ' president of the love or <;ollectivity
of the, churches.'
The Letter to the Romans presents one difficulty
formulated by J. W'ordsworth {Ministry of Grace,
London, 1901, p. 126) in these words: Ignatius
' twice speaks of himself as "Bishop of Syria "or
"of the Church of Syria" (chs. 2 and 9) : but he is
entirely silent as to any such office in the Church
of Rome. . . . If then, Clement, or any other single
Church officer, had been " Rishop of Rome," in the
sense that Ignatius was "Bishop of Syria," the
language of the latter in writing to Rome would be
almost inexplicable' (cf. also J. Reville, Origines
de V^piscopat, p. 510). If we take the trouble to
read the Letter to the Romans carefully, we shall
find still more extraordinary facts, viz. that
Ignatius does not speak of presbyters or deacons
either, so that if the objection of Wordsworth and
Reville is valid, we should have to say that the
Church of Rome, at the time of Ignatius' Letter,
had no hierarchy, no deacons, no presbytery, no
bishop. As a matter of fact, Ignatius regarded
each church as having its unity in its totality, and
his letters are addressed to churches, to each church
as such (exc. the Epistle to Polycarp), just as the
Epistle of Clement <loes not bear the name of
Clement, but is addressed by ' the Church of (Jod
which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of (iod
which sojourneth in Corinth.' It is very probable
that Clement was vpoKaOrifievos, although in his
time the line of demarcation Itetween episcoimte
and presbytery was still blurred. It is difficult to
say when the monarchical episcopate strictly began
IGNORANCE
ILLYRICUM
605
in Kouie, but the episcopal lists of Rome, Antioch,
Corinth, etc., must have been nothing but forgeries
if there was not early in the communities a
primus inter pares, at the head of the presbytery,
such as Clement was when he wrote to tlie Church
of Corinth (Hamack, Entstehung und Entitnckel-
ting, p. 72). Thus the silence of Ignatius in his
Letter to the Romans cannot be taken as a proof
that Rome had no hierarchy at the time at which
it was written. On Ignatius and the Roman
primacy see A. Harnack, ' Das Zeugnis des Ignatius
iiber das Ansehen der romischen Gemeinde,' in
SBAW, 1896, pp. 111-131 ; J. Chapman, in Revue
Binidictine, 1896, pp. 385-400; ¥xixik.,\Kirchen-
geschichtl. Abhandlungen, i. [Paderbom, 1897],
pp. 1-23.
LrrKRATTRB. — This has been cited thronghoat the artide.
For general bibliography see O. Bardenhewer, Geich. der
aitkirchl. Litteratur, i, Freiburg i. B., 1902, pp. 119-145,
and M. Rackl, Ckrigtoloffie de* heiligen Ignatius, do. 1914,
pp. xv-xxxii. The best modem critiod editions are those of
T. ZaJin (' Ignatii et Polycarpi Epistols ' in P(Ur. apostoL opera,
ii., Leipzig, ls76) ; F. X. Fimk (in Opera pair, apoatolieorum,
Tiibingen, ISTSff.) ; J. B. Lightfoot (Apoitolie Fathers^, pu iL
vol. ii., London, 1889). See also A. Lelong, Ignaee d'Antioehe,
Paris, 1910. P. BaTIFFOL.
IGNORANCE.— As the apostolic writers dealt
mostly with moral and spiritual matters, they
usually spoke of ignorance in a sense that was not
merely intellectual. Thus (Eph 4^*) the ignorance
of the Gentiles was associated with vanity of mind,
darkening of understanding, alienation from God,
and hardening of heart, in a way that linked it to
the deeper faculties of the soul. Even voC-s is the
faculty for recognizing moral good as well as in-
tellectual truth, and Stdvota includes feeling and
desiring as well as understanding. Ignorance
arose, according to the aix)»tles, as much from the
condition of the conscience and the spirit as from
the state of the mind (cf. 2 Ti 3^). Holding this
conception, the apostles taught that ignorance
sprang either from the state of the heart or from
lack of the Christian revelation. The latter condi-
tion was much dwelt upon, for to a]l tlie apostles
the Coming of Jesus Christ was the shedding forth
of so great a light that all who had not seen that
light dwelt in darkness, while they insisted also
that light sufficient was given in the world to learn
about God, if only men had not been led away by
evil desires (Ro l-*). Thus arose the ignorance of
God (Ac \7^), the yielding to lusts (1 P 1"), the
rejection of Jesus of Nazareth (Ac 3^"), and, in St.
Paul's own experience, the persecution of the
followers of Jesus Christ (Ac 26^).
The double source of these sins of ignorance led
to God's method of dealing with them. As they
arose from evil in men, they were not left un-
punished by God (Ro 1^) ; but, as they were done
in ignorance of the full revelation, they were
•winked at' or 'overlooked' by^ God (Ac i"^), or
in the forbearance of God were passed over (Ro 3^).
This passing over (xdpeo-ts) did not exclude punish-
ment, and was not equivalent to forgiveness
(d^ffis) ; but it prepared the way for repentance
(Ac 3^) and for the receiving of the mercy of God
in Christ Jesus (1 Ti l^^).
The densest ignorance came to those who had
heard the gospel of Christ and had persisted in
rejecting it, for on them the curse foretold by
Isaiah was abiding (Ac 2S^). Such people, what-
ever their superficial knowledge might be, were
walking in such darkness that they were content
to live in sin and to be guilty of hatred of their
brothers (lJn3« 2").
Even in the experience of those who had come
to a knowledge of Christ as Sa\iour and Lord
there existed much ignorance.
(1) If Christ Himself knew not the day of the
Great Appearing, it was not to be wondered at
that the times and the seasons for the coming of
God's Kingdom in glory were hid from His disciples
(Ac 1^). It is evident from some of the apostolic
writings (cf. 1 Thess.) that many believed that the
Great Day was to come almost immediately, and
were totally ignorant of the delay that was to ensue.
(2) Another subject of which there was much
ignorance was the state of the dead. The apostles
in their eschatology did little to dispel the dark-
ness connected with the present condition of the
dead. Sometimes they referred to the blessedness
of those ' with Christ' (Ph 1^), sometimes to their
quiescence in a state of sleep (1 Co 15^), and some-
times to the activities carried on (1 P 4*), but the
intermediate state was comparatively uninterest-
ing to the Apostolic Age, as their main thought
centred in the Resurrection and the Paronsia.
Even with regard to these great events of the
future there was not always assured knowledge;
disciples of Christ were not only doubtful of the
Resunection, but even opposed to its teaching,
and St. Paul laboured to dispel their ignorance;
whUe many sorrowed about their brethren who
had passed away as if they had lost the opportunity
of being present at the Paronsia of Christ, not
knowing that both those asleep and those alive
would then together meet the Lord in the air
(1 Th 4«).
(3) According to the apostles, ignorance could
never be wholly eliminated from Christian life,
whUe the circle of knowledge must be constantly
enlarged. The apostles were never content to
leave even the humblest Christians in a state of
ignorance, and one indication of this desire may be
found in the phrase that recurs so often in the
Epistles of St. Paul : ' I wotdd not have you to be
ignorant, brethren' (Ro l^^ 11», i Co 10» 12', 2 Co
P, 1 Th 4'3). But the apostles acknowledged that
ignorance was found even in the most mature Chris-
tian experience. Thus they taught that there had
been revealed to all Christians the great end of
their life, viz. the perfecting of salvation, but they
indicated that there was constantly shown a real
ignorance of what was needed at any particular
crisis in life. Hence Christians knew not what to
pray for as they should at particular moments (Ro
8^), but in this ignorance the Holy Spirit helped
^vithin the heart by unutterable groanings. Still
further. Christian experience was limited by its
o^vn capacity in face of the boundlessness of the
Divine attributes. The apostles proclaimed that
the love of God was made known pre-eminently in
the life and death of Christ, but there were depths
in God's love that could never be fathomed by
human knowledge. Christians knew that love,
but even at the end they had to confess their
ignorance, for it passed knowledge (Eph 3^*). The
apostles had no hesitancy in believing in a real
knowledge of God, but they declared that a com-
plete or exhaustive knowledge lay beyond even
the most mature Christian experience. The only
thorough Agnosticism spoken* of by the apostles
was such as certain Corinthians were in danger of,
according to St. Paul, and was associated with
their low ethics, their heathen intimacies, and their
disbelief in the Resurrection. These character-
istics were liable to produce a persistent ignorance
of God (ayvoffia ffeoO, 1 Co 15^) which was shared
with the worst of the heathen and from which
they could be saved only by being aroused from
the stupor of pride and sensualism.
D. Macrae Tod.
ILLUMINATED.— See Exughtexmext.
ILLYRICUM {'IXKvpiK6p).—This was the name
of a Roman province botmded on the W. by the
Adriatic, and extending from Pannonia on the N.
606
IMAGE
IMAGE
t;^
to Macedonia on tlie S. Tliongh so m m (h Italy,
it was for long comparatively unknown. Strabo
writing about A.D. 20 says : ' lUyria was formerly
neglec ted, through ignorance perhaps of its fertility ;
but it was principally avoided on account of the
savage manners of the inhabitants, and their
)iratical habits' (VII. v. II). It was subjugated
jy Tiberius in A.D. 9. When St. Paul contem-
)lated a journey by Rome to Spain, he justified
lis desire for fresh fields by saying that from
Jerusalem and round unto Illyncum (Kal ki^kX^
/i^XP' '■oi' 'J\'>^vpiKou) he had fully preached the gospel
of Ciirist(Ro IS'").
Meyer, Gifford, and others (m Joco) explain icuxXwas the region
round Jerusalem, i.e. Judxa, Syria and Arabia. 'But in order
to bear this sense the word would re(|uire the article. The
meaning is rather that all the countries between Jerusalem and
lUyricum — Syria, Cilicia, Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, Achaia —
forming a rough arc of a circle, have been evangelized by the
Apostle.
The words * unto Illj-ricum ' do not necessarily
imply that he had i)reached within this province.
He may be indicating the exterior rather than the
interior limit. In his third journey he revisited
Macedonia, and ' having made a missionary pro-
gress through those parts' (dieXOuv 8^ to. fiipri sKdva)
he came to Greece (Ac 20^). 'Those parts' might
include the south of Illyricum, but probably meant
no more than the west of Macedonia. Strabo
(VII. vii. 4), describing the Via Egnatia, whicli
began at Dyrrachium (the modern Diirazzo), notes
that it traverses a part of Illyria before it enters
Macedonia, and that ' on the left are the Illyrian
mountains.'
' .St. Paul would have followed this road as far as Thessalonica,
and if pointinjr Westward he had asked the names of the moun-
tain region and of the peoples inhabiting it, he would have
been told that it was " Illyria." The term therefore is the one
which would naturally occur to him as fitted to express the
limits of his journey to the West ' (Sanday-Headlam, in loco).
Writing as a lloman citizen to Christians in
Rome, St. Paul avoids the ordinary Greek 'IWvpis
or 'IWvpia, and merely transliterates the Latin
provincial term Illyricum. In the second half of
the 1st cent, the name Dalmatia (q.v.), wliich had
formerly meant the S. part of the province of
Illyricum, began to be extended to the whole.
For a time Illyricum and Dalmatia Avere con-
vertible terms. Pliny has both ; Suetonius marks
the change from the one to the other ; and from the
Flavian period onward the term regularly iised is
Dalmatia. St. Paul, keeping pace with Roman
usages, emploj's the new provincial name in a part
of 2 Tim. which is generally accepted as genuine
(4'").
St. Jerome and Diocletian were Illyrians. The
region now comprises Bosnia, Herzegovina, Monte-
negro, and N. Albania, and is as wild and un-
settled as ever.
' The eastern coast of the Adriatic is one of those ill-fated
portions of the earth which, though placed in immediate contact
with civilization, have remained perpetually barbarian ' (T.
Arnold, Hist, of Rome, 1838-43, i. 492).
LrrERATURK.— T. Mommsen, Ui^t. of Rome, Eng. tr., 1S94,
Index, X.V.; J'ror. of Rom. Emp.^, 19()9, i. 199 ; artt. s.v. in IIDIi
(Ramsay), SDB (Souter), and Smith's DGRG (E. B. James).
J. Strahan.
IMAGE. — The use of this term in the apostolic
writings may be conveniently discussed under
three heads.
1. Connexion with idolatry. — Apart from Ro
1^, where St. Paul is reviewing the corruption of
the pagan world and the perversity with wliich
men neglected the living God for ' the likeness of
an image ' of men, birds, quadrupeds, and reptiles,
all our references are found in the Apocalypse and
concern the narticular form of idolatry that acutely
distressed the early Cliurch, viz. the wor.shiji of
the bust of Caesar. Tiiis ' image ' is first brought
forward in Rev 13"'- (but cf. 'Satan's throne' at
Pergamum, 2'"). The Seer has described the
Roman Empire in the guise of a monster rising out
of the sea (v.'"'-), and its counterjiart, a monster
from the land (afterwards described as the false
prophet), Avho represents the Ca;sar-cult and its
nriests in the Eastern provinces. This sacerdotal
land-mon.ster is plausible and seductive, and his
inducements to Cliristians toshow them.selves good
citizens are backed up by miracles. The image or
statue of the first monster, i.e. the bust of the
Emperor, is set up among the statues of the gods
to receive the oflerings and devotion of the citizens,
and tlirougli ventriloquy it seems to have the
power of speech. The cult Avas enforced with all
the resources that could be devised, and to counter-
act it an angel utters fearful judgment on all who
worship the monster and his statue (U"-"). The
supremely hapjiy fate of those M'ho resisted both
blandishment and compulsion is depicted in 15*'*
and 20* ; the punishment of those who conformed,
in 16"'' and 19^". See, further, art. Idolatry.
We may note at this point that the word tlxuiv (like tlSuXov)
in classical Greek usually stands for the portrait statues or paint-
ings of men and women ; seldom for images of the gods. An
instance of its use in the NT which may be regarded as focusing
the range of its varied application and as a transition from the
above discussion to those which follow, is found in He lOi,
where the Mosaic Law is spoken of as being a mere 'shadow '
of the coming bliss, instead of representing its reality or being
its ' very image.' 'The "shadow" is the dark outlined figure
cast by the object . . . contrasted with the complete representa-
tion (eiKuiv) produced by the help of colour and solid mass. The
cIkiov brings before us under the conditions of space, as we can
understand it, that which is spiritual ' (B. F. Westcott, in loc).
2. Christ as the image of God. — Two of tlic
passages where Christ is spoken of as the image of
God are Pauline — 2 Co 4* ( ' the image of God '), and
Col V^ ('the image of the invisible God'). The
first is in a context which clearly points back to
the Apostle's conversion experiences. All his
thought turns on his doctrine of the Divinity of
Christ, and the basis of that doctrine was the bright
vision he had beheld on the way to Damascus.
This was his distinctive gospel, that which marked
him oft" from tliose who simply knew the human
Jesus, blameless and pure though His life had
been. In the second passage he is concerned to
set before the people of Colossa; the overwhelming
superiority of Christ as a mediator between man and
God, over the many and strange spirits and forces
wliich they thought of as intervening between the
Divine and the human. Hence he uses the word
elKtiv, which, even in its material sense already
referred to, connotes|true representation rather than
accidental similarity, and representation of that
which is at any rate temporarily out of sight. His
thouglit is that Christ is the external expre.ssion as
it were of God : at once His representJition and
manifestation. ' Ethically and essentially He is
at once the Revealer and the Revelation of the
Eternal Spirit' (J. Strachan, The Captivity and
the Pastoral Epp. [Westminster NT, 1910], p. 41).
It is not simply that He is like God — He is God
manifest. And beyond the reference to the
earthly life and ministry of Christ, even primarily
perhaps, there is the implication tliat in the time-
less heavenly life He is the eUthv dead, God's repre-
sentative acting in the sphere of the visible (cf. Jn
1'*, He P). AVe may state it more fully thus :
Christ is the outcome of His Fatlier's nature, and
so related to Him in ''a unique manner ; and He is
especially tlie moans by which the Father has
manifested Himself to all that is without, from the
first moment of creation and for ever, though the
centre and focus of that manifestation is the Incar-
nation, We recall at once the Johannine doctrine
of the Logos ; the one is a manifestation to the
mind of man through Ear-gate, the otlicr ('Image')
through Eye-gate. A title given to the Logos in
the Midrash, ' the light of tlie raiment of tlie Holy
One,' is suggestive in this connexion. We are re-
minded also of Christ's own word recorded in
Jn 14": 'he that hath seen me hath seen the
IMAGE
IMMORTALITY
607
I'atlier' (cf. also {>"•■"). There are other modes of
the Divine manifestation ; through creation itself
lie who has an eye to see may behold ' the invisible
things of God' (Ro 1**), but there is no revelation
or manifestation so sure, so adequate, so satisfyuig
as that in Christ.
Al this point we may notice the striking- expression in He 13
where Christ, in a passage reminding us of Colossians, is spoken
o( as * the very image of God's substance.' The word used is
XafuxxT^p, which meant originally a graving tool and then the
impression made by such a tool, especially on a seal or die, and
the figure struck off by such seal or die ; hence the translations
' stamped with God's own character ' (Moffatt), ' the impress of
God's essence ' (Peake). The Son is thus the exact counterpart
of the Father, the exact facsimile, the clear-cut impression
which jKxssesses all the ' characteristics ' of the original. Again
it is noteworthy that Philo (rf< Plant. Hoce, § 5) speaks of the
Logos as the impression on the seal of God. Westcott (m loc.)
distinguishes x'ip°-Krrip from ciinuv by saving that the former
' conveys representative traits only,' while the latter ' gives a
complete representation under the condition of earth of that
which it figures ' ; and from iiop^-n, ' which marks the essential
form.'
3. Man as the image of God or of Christ— The
funilamental text, Gn 1^-^, is the basis of St. Paul's
statement in 1 Co IP (cf. Col 3^"). Man is the
image of God in those matters of rational and
moral endowment which distinguish him from the
humbler creation. St. Paul would no doubt have
subscribed to Justin Martyr's statement that God
'in the beginning made the human race with the
power of thought and of choosing the truth and
doing right, so that all men are without excuse
before God ; for they have been bom rational and
contemplative' (Apol. i. 28). In neither the OT
nor the NT are we to press for a diflerence between
'image ' and ' likeness,' which are used as synonyms.
The image has, however, been marred and obscured
by men's sin. Yet there is the glorious possibility
of its renewal and restoration. The new man in
Christ Jesus bears once more the image of his
Creator (Col 3^") ; he becomes akin to Gwl, is able
to know Him (ds ivi'^u<riv) and His wUl in all the
affairs of life. In this perfected likeness to God
humandistinctionSjWhetheroi nationality, religious
ceremonial, culture, or caste, fall away — 'in it there
is no room for Greek and Jew, circumcised and
uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free
man ; Christ is everything anH everywhere.' This
agrees with Ro 8^, in which the elect are spoken of
as sharing the image of God's Son — that He might
be the firstborn of a great brotherhood. Thus it
matters little whether we speak of bearing Christ's
image or God's, and it is fruitless to debate which
is prior in time. The two are one. To be con-
formed to the image of Christ is to share not only
His holiness but His glory — a thought brought
l)efore us in 2 Co 3'® (' \Ve all mirror the glory of
the Lord with face unveiled, and so we are being
transformed into the same image as himself, pass-
ing from one glory to another') and in 1 Co 15**
('as we have borne the image of material man so
we are to bear the image of the heavenly Man').
In the first of these passages the spirit of the be-
liever is likened to a mirror which receives the
unobstructed impression of the glory of the Lord.
That glory takes up its abode in the Christian, and
instead of fading as in the case of Moses, becomes
ever more glorious (cf. Ro 8"). The assimilation
of Christ's mind and character involves the assimi-
lation of His splendour. The outer man may
perish but the inner man, the real man, waxes more
and more radiant, strong, and immortal, till it
dwells, like its Lord, wholly in the light. With
these passages, and especially with the second,
which points forward, we may compare 1 Jn 3^-,
* W'e are to be like him, for we are to see him as
he is.' While the primary implication is ethical
and spiritual it is not the only one in the NT
thought of our likeness to Christ.
LiTKRATTRK. — Besides the Commentaries, especiallv A. S.
Peake, EGT: 'Colossians,' 1903; A. Menzies, The Second
EpittU of the Apoitle Paul to the Corinthiam, 1912 ; and B. F.
Westcott, Epistle to the Hebrew*, 1889 ; see, lor Christ as the
image of God, W. L. Walker, Chrift the Creative Ideal, 1913.
pp. 52 f., 60 f. ; H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine o/ the Perton of
Jftus Christ, 1912, pp. 65, 83 ; for man as the image of God. H.
Wheeler Robinson, Christian Doctrine of Han, 1911, p. 164 f. ;
on image-worship in the Roman Empire and its parallels to-day,
C. Brown, Heavenly Visiom, 1910, pp. 70f..l7&-183.
A. J. Grieve.
IMMORTALITY. — The subject of immortality
may be treated from many points of view — doc-
trinal, metaphysical, biological. But the scope of
this article is necessarily limited to the historical
method of treatment, and is further confined to a
definite portion of the historical field — the 1st cent,
of Christianity. Hence many aspects of the sub-
ject are excluded. For the previous development
of the belief in immortality the reader is referred
to the articles dealing with this and the related
subjects in HDB, DCG, and ERE. The following
is the outline of the treatment of the subject in
this article :
I. General discussion of the place occnpied in reUgions
thought at the beginning of the Apostolic Age by the
belief in immortality.
n. Particular history of the development of the belief daring
the Apostolic Age :
1. Pauline doctrine of immortality.
2. Petrine doctrine of immortality.
3. Johannine doctrine of immortality.
4. Apostolic Fathers' doctrine of immortality.
III. Conclusion. Literature.
I. Geseral DISCUSSIoy.— At the beginning of
the Apostolic Age the Grseco-Roman world might
almost be compared to the Pool of Bethesda at the
critical moment of the angelic visitation. There
was a troubling of the waters, and a steadily in-
creasing number of seekers after spiritual health.
The subject of immortality was, so to speak, in
the air. The various Mystery-cults, with varying
forms of ritual, all agreed in oflering to the
initiate the hope of a future life of bliss after
death. Abundant evidence for this may be found
in books and monographs dealing with the subject
of the Mystery-cults in the Roman Empire. At
the same time, along a totally different line of de-
velopment, the Jew had arrived at a conception of
immortality which was bound up with a spiritual
conception of God and man's relation to God. In
communion with God lay both the essence of im-
mortality and its gtiarantee for faith. In Alex-
andrian Judaism, as represented by Philo, we
have the blending of the Platonic doctrine of im-
mortality, based on the distinction between the
higher and the lower elements in man, with the
Pharisaic assertion of the value of the individual
to God and its grasp of the eternal character of
the soul's communion with God. Hence we can
discern at least three distinct elements at work in
the formation of current ideas about immortality.
(1) The view of a future life which rested upon
the Eastern dualistic attitude towards matter and
spirit. This Eastern, and especiallj- Persian, ele-
ment which entered so largely into the Mjstery-
cults of the century before and the century follow-
ing the birth of Christ, laid stress upon the
deliverance of the soul, by purificatory rites and
by asceticism, from the bondage of the body, and
thus pointed a way to ultimate salvation and im-
mortality by union with the god. The resem-
blance of the rites of the Mysterj-cults to various
elements in the Christian sacraments has led many
scholars to trace the influence of these cults of the
Gra?co-Roman world upon the form which Christi-
anity assumed as it developed a sy.stem of ritual
and doctrine. This point wUl be ai.scussed brieflj-
in dealing with St. Paul's doctrine of immortality.
(2) The Platonic element in Alexandrian
Judaism, modified by Stoic influence, laying stress
on the eternity of Reason, and hence offering an
abstract form of immortality in which the continu-
ance of personal identity was not involved.
608
IMMORTALITY
IMMORTALITY
(8) TIio 1
its illsisl<Mir
iaiis;ii(! doctrine <il iinnii
■r (in 1 In- ]t('niianeiu:c;(jt' |ii r-
11 ciiiiuiniiiiun witli G<)<l.
was iiui clearly defined,
of
ulalit \' \\ itli
iiiial idiiil it y
'I'hf pi:ir,. .;f
tiR' lidily was iiui clearly defined, as I'liaii-aic
Judaism held 1 lie iiiiiiioiiality "f the soul in com-
bination witli various l'(inii> of e-(liat()lu;;ical ex-
pectation, in ^\lliell a body, yj)iriLual or (luasi-
spiritual, was invohcd.
The Jewish \ iew w ;is, of course, not confined to
Palestine, but, ,is we know, was spreail thro>ij;i;li-
out Egypt, Asia Minoi-, ami all the Mediterranean
coasts by means of (he ^~yll,■l;^oL;■^^e. All these ele-
ments interniiii^led ami foniKHl the basis of the
popular attitude towards the future life, in the
1st cent, of Christianity.
But the form wliich tlie doctrine of immortality
took in jiriiiiiiive ( liristianity is by no means (ex-
plained M hen we lia\(', examined the conditions of
thought under which if ^rew up. It certainly
cannot be explained without them, but neither
can it be explained wholly by them. Christianity
gave its own definite form to all that it took up
from the current tlionuht of its time, Jind the out-
standing factor in IIk; form which the primitive
Christian hope assumed is the Resurrection of
Christ. It has been argued that the form which
the belief in the Resurrection took, especially in
S(. Paul. \vas determined by these external influ-
ences, es|ie( ially by the existence in various
Mystery-cults of the idea of the death of the god
ami his resurrection. But these ofler no true
])arallel to the belief in a historic Resurrection and
do not explain either its existence or the peculiar
moral value attached to the Resurrection of Christ
by the primitive Church.
When we come to the historical account of the
doctrine of immortality in the 1st cent, of Chris-
tianity, we find, in the first place, that it is in-
separably connected with the Resurrection of
Christ, and, secondly, that it is also inseparable
from primitive Christian eschatology. ' The
resurrection of the body and the life of the world
to come ' is the phrase which crystallizes the growth
of the idea of immortality for the popular mind
during the early stages of Christianity. We shall
find, however, in both I'auline and Johannine teach-
ing, much that transcends the form of belief as
crystallized in the credal phrase.
II. Particular historical development.
— 1. Pauline. — It is impossible to work through
the Pauline treatment of the subject without dis-
covering that St. Paul had no doctrine of immor-
tality, lie deals with the subject only so far as it
arises out of the question of salvation through
Christ and the implications of salvation. Hence
tin; most illuminating method of understanding
St. I 'aul's attitude towards immortality will be to
trace the bearings of his tlieory of salvation as
it is worked out in Uoinans, the most definitely
soteriolouical of his E{)istles. The following are
the jninciiial jioints that arise from the examina-
tion of the Epistle.
(1) Eschatological background. — There is an
eschatological background to the whole of St.
Paul's thinking on the subject of salvation. This
is not to say that tin; ethical nature of the sal-
vation is excluded; on tlii' contrary, the ethical
is in.separable from the eschatological, the con-
nexion between life and righteousness being of the
very essem e of St. Paul's thought. But from the
outset and right through, the eschatcdogical out-
look is apparent. In Ro •_''. one of t In; most general
statements on the subject. Si. I'aul says that in
the nnelation of God's righteous judgment He
will render eiernal life to ail those who are seek-
ing glory and honour and immortality (d^^a/jtr/a) ;
in 5'-, there is the just Hied lioast in the hoi)e of tiie
glory of God ; in 5'', those who receive the gift
oi 1 i-hteousness shall reign in life; in 8", the
iiioital bodies of those indwelt by the Spirit are
to be quickened.
This eschatological colouring is more apparent
in the e;irlier llpistl.'s, c.i;. 1 and 2 Thessaloiuans,
than in the later. IJut even in the later Efiistles,
i\<i. in Pialippians, it ajipears : ;{-"■-', 'for our
citi/.inship is in heaven; from whence aNu we
wait for a Saviour, the Lord JcsUs Clui-i : who
shall fashion anew the body of our liumiliation,
that it may be conformed to the lioily of hi- ;.lory,
aecoi'fling to t lie woi'kiTig whereli-v he i- .-i iile even
to suhject all things unto himself.
Thus the eschatologi<tal element in the liejief is
not secondary or non-essential; it shows in the
first place that St. Paul's sense of the nect;s.-,iiy (»f
a future glorified life is part of a larger scheme of
things — the future Kingdom of God and its mani-
festation on earth.
(2) Christ as an earnest of the future life. — The
present condition of Christ s existence is both the
pattern and the guarantee of the believer's future
state of existence. This is perhaps the most char-
acteristic and original part of St. Paul's thinking
on this subject, and requires the most careful
study. It is true that various elements exi-ted
in Apocalyjitic and Rabbinical systems of tliou;^liL
in St. Paul's lime which may have suggested in
details the form of his thought. For exam)>le, the
idea of a spiritual body was not new ; it occurs in
Midr. Bab. and in the Gnostic Hymn of the Soul
(see Rendel Harris's edition of the Odes and Psalnis
of Solomon, 1909, Introduction, p. 67 f.) and the
conception of the transformation of the righteous
into tne likeness of Messiah occurs first in Enoch
xc. 38.
But the Death and Resurrection of Christ as
historical facts are the decisive elements which St.
Paul lays hold of and works out in their relation
to the Kingdom of God, making new combinations
of old ideas, throwing fresh light on the purpose
of God, and filling the old categories of thought
with a new vital force. No apocalyptic scheme
ofi'ered any such conception as the Death and
Resurrection of Messiah, and the acceptance by
St. Paul of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus
as historical facts, together with his identification
of Jesus with the Mes.siah, set a train of thought
working in his mind which yielded entirely new
forms, not to be ex]ilained by any patch-work of
older elements to be found in them. 'I'liere are
certain essential points of St. Pauls s'lieme of
things which were never grasped by the Apologists
and the early interpreters of Apostolic Christianity.
This was partly because the eschatological element
was not understood, and perhaps still more because
St. Paul's attitude towards the human side of the
Incarnation was not understood. The side upon
which Irenaeus lays stress, the answer to the
question Cur Dens Homo? was fully grasped and
developed, viz. the ' deification ' of man through
the Incarnation of the Son of God. But owing to
the rise of christological controversies the emphasis
laid by St. Paul and the primitive Church on the
ethical value of the Resurrection of Christ and its
implications dropped out of sight.
(ffl) Fii-stof all, then, for St. Paul the Resurrec-
tion of Christ has an ethical value which is of
great importance in his view of I lie future life of
believers. The Resurrection of Christ was not a
foregone conclusion resulting from His Divinity,
but it was intimately connected with Christ's faith
and holiness as man. His Re.suriection was ac-
cording to the Spirit of holiness; He w;is rai-ed
from the dead by the glory of the I ;itlier. In 11 is
Resurrection the full working of the law of tin?
.Spirit of life was disjilayed. 'He lives to God.'
The word 'glory ' which St. I'aid uses to describe
KklMORTALITY
IMMORTALITY
609
the present state of the risen Christ as well as His
fnture manifestation has both an ethical and a
qnasi-niaterial significance. The full moral like-
ness to God which Christ displayed has its counter-
part in His present state of existence, ' the glory of
God in the face (ev -wpoaiinri^, possibly better rendered
' in the person ' [cf. 2 Co 2'"]) of Jesus Christ.'
(6) This resurrection state of Christ is spiritual.
The historic Christ retaining His moral character-
istics has passed into a spiritual condition, by
the operation of a law made manifest for the first
time in His case. Christ is identified with the
Spirit. He is no longer limited in manifestation
by time and space, but can dwell in those who re-
ceive Him by faith. It is the real Christ that
St. Paul conceives of as dwelling in believers and
thereby bringing into operation in them the same
law that resulted in His own Resurrection and
victory over ' the law of sin and death.'
(c) The ultimate result of this indwelling of
the Spirit of Chi-ist is to assert the complete
triumph of life over death even in the bodies of
believers (Ro 8"). The full manifestation of this
life will bring deliverance for creation (v.-^) from
the bondage of corruption (<p6opd). For St. Paul,
then, immortality is not aOavoffia, but atpdapffia.
It is an integral part of the triumph of the King-
dom of Gk)d, besnnning with the Resurrection of
Christ (1 Co 15**-23 . dirapxv Xpirros).
(3) The corporate nature of the future life. —
The last point that comes out from the study of
St. Paul's teaching on this subject is the corporate
nature of the future existence, in strong contrast
to the immortality presented by Plotinus and the
later Neo-Platonists — an immortality of ' the Alone
Avith the Alone.' The indwelling Spirit of Christ
is the ground of unity, as well as the assurance of
immortality ; the future life of bliss is the life of
a blessed community of glorified persons, united
to Christ and like Him morally and spiritually,
finding their joy in the activities of eternal life,
doing the will of God.
The Pauline view of the subject is also bound up with the
Parousia and with the closely aUied subject of the resurrection
of believers. Hence the reader is referred to the articles on
these subjects in this Dictionary for supplementarj- discussion
of the Pauline teaching.
2. Petrine and other primitiYe teaching.— For
the sake of convenience, the general teaching of
the Catholic Epistles and the Pastorals is taken
together with the Petrine doctrine of immortality.
The doctrine of 1 Peter may be said to represent
the general standpoint of the primitive Apostolic
Church on this matter, while the Pauline and the
Johannine teaching contain developments which
profoundly aflected the thought of the Church but
which were never wholly understood and accepted.
(1) The First Epistle of Peter shows the same
eschatological background that we find in St.
Paul and everywhere in the primitive Chtirch,
and the same view of the ethical value of the
Resurrection of Christ : ' who through him are be-
lievers in God, which raised him from the dead,
and gave him glory ; so that your faith and hope
might be in God' (I P \^).
But there is nothing of the extraordinary
development of the consequences of the Resurrec-
tion-life of Christ in the Spirit, and the resultant
view of the Kingdom as already manifested in its
working. The most important passage for our
purpose is 1 P 3^*-'-\ the 'Descent into Hell' of
the Creeds.
Rendel Harris {SideUghlg on ST Research, 1908, p. 208) has
proposed the emendation iv w <tai 'Ei^x '>n ^^^ supposition
that 'Eiiox has dropped out tj- haplography, and would refer
the passage to a reminiscence of the visit of" Enoch to the con-
demned watchers and his intercession for them (see Enoch xiL,
■sin.). But the interruption to the general sense of the passaj;e
is too serious, except on a very low estimate of the logical
VOL. I.— 39
sequence of thought in the Bpistle, to admit of the probabiHty
of this ingenious sugrgestion.
If the passage be interpreted to refer to the visit
of Christ to the souls in Sheol during the interval
between His Death and His Resurrection, then
this is the only NT passage which supports such
a conception, and it is a possible view that the
Christian interpretation of the passage has been
influenced by the strong belief which grew up in
the primitive Church in the descent of Christ to
Hades. But the passage requires fuller treatment
than space allows of here (see, further, art. De-
SCEXT INTO Hades). If the credal interpretation
be accepted, the passage is evidence rather for an
intermediate state than for any clearly defined
doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It does
not necessarily imply more than is implied in the
later Jewish view of Sheol. Still more perplexing
is 4®, if the same interpretation be attache to it.
But it is possible to interpret both passages of the
preaching of Noah to those who though dead now,
were alive at the time when the Spirit of Christ
in Noah preached to them. Then the last clause
of 4® may be evidence for the future state of the
condemned. Aft«r judgment they continue to
live in spirit in relation to God. Apart from
this the writer's attention is fixed on the coming
' glory,' ' the crown of glory,' to be revealed at the
Parousia.
(2) Hebrews. — The author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews retains the eschatological background
common to the early Church, but adds to our in-
quiry one important new conception — that which
is implied in the term TereXetw/w'j'oj. Christ in His
present risen state is spoken of as TereXeiofifvos
(7^) ; the spirits in the heavenly Jerusalem are
called the spirits of ' the perfected righteous,'
diKcdwv rereKeiufUvuv (l^^ ; cf. also o» 11«, Lk 13*»).
It is difficult to find the Pauline conception of a
glorified body here. It would rather seem to
present the Alexandrian Judaistic point of view
that the righteous immediately after death reach
their perfected state of bliss in full communion
with God. The writer undoubtedly believes in
the Resurrection of Christ and also in the ethical
aspect of it already mentioned, but he does not
seem to carry on, as St. Panl does, the conse-
quences of this to the bodily resurrection of be-
lievers. But he clearly looks forward to a ffop^ar-
uTjxSi for the people of God, a heavenly city, and
a corporate immortality, all based upon the pre-
sent risen life of Clirist.
(3) The Pastoral Epistles add one or two points.
The dogmatic conception of abstract immortality
— what Friedrich von Hiigel (Eternal Life) calls
' quantitative immortality ' — perhaps appears in
1 Ti 6^® : 6 ftovoi Ix'^" tidapturlar. In 4^ a sharp dis-
tinction is dra^vn between ' the life that now is
and that which is to come,' a sign of the passing of
the eschatological form of the distinction between
'the present age' and 'the coming age.' The
rich are charged to lay hold on what is truly life
(t^s Svtus for^s, 6^).
In 2 Ti 1^ we have the Pauline conception, ' the
promise of life which is in Christ Jesus ' ; 2", • if
we sufler with him we shall reign with him ' ; 4^,
living and dead are to be judged by Christ at His
appearing ; 4**, ' shall save me unto his heavenly
kingdom.' But the two most characteristic pas-
sages in this Epistle are 1^", where our Saviour
Jesus Christ has annulled death and brought life
and immortality [dtpdafxriav) to light, through the
gospel ; and 2'*, where speaking of ' the elect ' the
writer says ' that they too may obtain the salva-
tion that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.'
Tit 1^-2 echoes the phrase of 2 Ti 1^ the hope
of eternal life, still reflecting the eschatological
colouring. In Tit 2'-"^* ' the present age ' is con-
GIO
IMMORTALITY
IMMORTALITY
trasted witli * the appearing of tlie glory of the
great God and our Saviour Christ Jesus,' also
spoken of as * the blessed liope ' ; in 3^"^- the bath of
regeneration {vaXivyevea-la) and the renewing of the
Holy Ghost are connected with righteousness and
the hope of eternal life after the Pauline manner.
3. Johannine. — ^The three groups of Johannine
literature are here treated separately.
(1) The Apocalypse. — The phrase which is so
characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, 'eternal life,'
does not occur in the Apocalypse. For our subject
we have the following passages : 2", the overcomer
'shall not be hurt of the second death'; 3*, the
overcomer's name will not be blotted out of the
book of life. In 4* the ' elders ' (who may possibly
represent those who have attained — the 'elders'
of Ho 11) are seen in the symbolic garb of victors.
In 6" the souls of the martyrs are seen under the
altar, crying for vengeance. In 7^^'" there is a
description of those who have come out of great
tribulation and who enjoy perpetual bliss before
the throne of God. In 20'* those who are slain
during the great tribulation are raised for the
millennial kingdom, and reign with Christ for a
thousand years, 20' adds 'the rest of the dead
lived not again until the thousand years were
ended.' Then in 20"-^'' * the dead small and great,'
i.e. apparently ' the rest of the dead,' are raised
and judged according to their works, and all not
found Avritten in the iJook of Life are cast into the
Lake of Fire.
Here again the eschatological interest is para-
mount. The future existence of individuals is not
a question of psychological or philosophical interest,
but is determined by the view of the future King-
dom of God. Hence 'quantitative immortality'
does not appear. The righteous receive the reward
of their worlcs and patience, and enter on a blessing
which appears to extend beyond the millennial
kingdom, and at any rate reaches its climax there.
The writer is not so interested in anytliing after
that. But the future fate of the wicked is indeter-
minate. The view taken as to this depends upon
our interpretation of the writer's symbolism.
The lire may be destructive, purgative, or penal.
The torment of the beast and the false prophet is
spoken of, but the final end of the wicked is not ex-
plicitly stated. They are cast into the Lake of Fire,
(2) The Epistles.— In the Johannine Epistles the
Parousia still forms the background of Christian
hope, but the precise form of the hope is vague, and
shows signs of transformation into a purely spiritual
expectation. The contribution of the Epistles
belongs rather to the subject of the Parousia
(q.v.). The term 'eternal life' occurs frequently,
but never with the eschatological sense in which it
is used in St. Paul's Epistles and the Pastorals.
But the profound ethical implication of likeness to
God and to Christ tills the term Avith a new mean-
ing. ' The life of the coming age,' the original
sense of tlie term D^y ';n, has become the life of
God, expressed in Christ, imparted to the believer,
working itself out in moral likeness to God, and
perfected when Christ appears. He who dwells
in God and God in him can never die, and he who
loves dwells in God, and partakes of God's eternal
life. Immortality is 'qualitative' wholly here,
with no tiiought of duration.
(3) The Fourth Gospel. — Here the transformation
of the eschatological background is practically
complete. Subsequent developments really con-
sisted, not in a deeper and riclier spiritualization
of the eschatological view-point, with all its
stimulus and insistent pressure of the real world
surrounding and penetrating the phenomenal world,
but in the total abandonment of eschatology and
consequent im]>nverishinont of the Church's life.
But iu the Fourth Gospel the intensity and reality
of the hope are retained, while the particular
Jewish colouring and schemes of thought are
quietly dropped, with a few exceptions.
In this Gospel 'eternal life' is the principal
category under which the subject of immortality
falls to be considered. The most imnortant group
of passages is in the 6tli chapter. Here our Lorcl,
after the miracle of the loaves, and evidently, in
the mind of the author of the Gospel, explaining
the significance of the miracle, claims that He is
the living bread come down from heaven. Those
wlio eat of this bread live for ever. Continuing to
explain the saying, our Lord adds that the bread is
His flesh and 11 is blood, and that he who eats the
flesh and drinks the blood of the Son of Man has
eternal life, and Avill be raised by Christ at the
last day. Again, ' he that eateth this bread shall
live for ever. It is possible that we must accept
the predestinarianism of vv.***'^ as part of the older
eschatological colouring. But evidently a difficult
point is involved here. Schweitzer would explain
the passage as the expression of 'a speculative
religious materialism which concerns itself with
the problem of matter and spirit, and the per-
meation of matter by Spirit, and endeavours to
interpret the manifestation and the personality of
Jesus, the action of the sacraments and the possi-
bility of the resurrection of the elect, all on the
basis of one and the same fundamental conception '
(Paul and his Interpreters, p. 202 f.). That is,
broadly speaking, the immortality described in the
Fourth Gospel is sacramental, conditioned entirely
by participation in the sacraments which, through
the communication to them of the Spirit of the
Risen Christ, have received this potency.
Like so much of Schweitzer's exegesis, this is
brilliant and stimulating, but not wholly sound.
Throughout the Gospel the possession of eternal life
is independent of sacraments and connected simply
with faith in Christ : ' he that believeth on me
hath everlasting life,' 'he that believeth on me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that
liveth and believeth on me shall never die.' The
charge of 'unintelligent spiritualizing' is hasty
and unfounded. As in the Synoptic Gospels, .so
also in the Fourth Gospel, Schweitzer has not
recognized the peculiar ethical element which is
the real basis of the primitive Church's view of the
Resurrection of Christ, and of the resurrection and
future state of believers.
So in the Fourth Gospel the immortality implied
is at bottom ethical ; it is the life of God which
Christ is in Himself and has come to earth to
reveal, and in order to impart it in its fullness He
must enter upon the spiritual state. It is expedient
for them that He should go away. After His
departure they will know that He is in the Father,
they in Him, and He in them.
Hence, while in St. Paul we have the eager
movement of the new life towards its glorious
consummation, in the Fourth Gospel we have
rather the steady contemplation of the fully
revealed nature of the life of God in this world
now. In both cases all the interest is centred on
the purpose of God in its realization, rather tluan
on the individual man and his ultimate fate. So
that we have the api^earance of the conditional
immortality which is found in Athanasius, reall}'
only apparent, because the nature of immortality
as a dogma was not in question, but the wider
issue of the coming in of the Kingdom of God. In
the Fourth Gospel we have also the corporate
nature of the life insisted on. In St. Paul, spirit,
soul, and body are to be preserved to the day of
Christ; there is no immortality of the soul con-
ceived of as a mere abstraction, but the eternal
gain for the Kini^tlom of (iod of a person, whole
and entire, lu the Fourth tluspol there is not the
IMMORTALITY
mCENSE
611
same prominence given to the resarrection of the
body, but ultimately the l»ody of him who possesses
the life of God must pass under the law of eternal
life, although the author of the Fourth Gospel
never states the expectation in the same way ; it
is not ' your mortal bodies,' but ' I will raise him
up.' The incident of the grave clothes also shows
that the writer's conception of the Resurrection
was purely spiritual : the Lord had become a Spirit,
althougU capable of revealing His continued
personal existence to His disciples. So for the
Fourth Gospel the ultimate thing also is the gain
of the individual : 'no man is able to pluck them
out of my Fathers hand.'
4. The Apostolic Fathers. — Here we have much
less of vital importance. The creative impulse has
died away, and we can trace the process, already
mentioned, of the gradual abandonment of much
that was most characteristic of the teaching of St.
Paul. Ignatius oflers the closest affinities with the
point of view of the Fourth Gospel, as is well
enough known. The following are the principal
relevant passages :
{1)1 Clement. — The principal passage in this
Epistle is in chs. xxiv.-xx\i. The future resur-
rection is ba.sed on the Resurrection of Christ, and
the simile of the seed is used. Ch. xxvi. seems to
limit the resurrection to the faithful, ' those who
served Him in holiness, in the confidence of a good
faith.' Those who have died as martyrs or in the
faith are spoken of as having obtained the inherit-
ance of glory and honour (cf. v. 3, 7, xlv. 7). In
1. 3 ' those wlio were perfected in love by the grace
of God have a place among the pious who shall be
made manifest at the visitation of the Kingdom of
Christ.'
(2) -2 Clement has several interesting passages :
V. 5, ' our sojourning in this world in the flesh is a
little thin^ and lasts a short time, but the promise
of Christ is great and wonderful, and brings us
rest, in the kingdom which is to come, and in
everla-sting life.' In vi. 7 rest is contrasted with
eternal punishment (atwi'toi' KoXd^eow). The future
existence depends on the keeping of the baptism
undefiled ; the first occurrence of this conception
is in vi. 9, viL 6, ^^ii. 6. In ch. ix. there is the
assertion of the resurrection of the flesh to judg-
ment, based on the Incarnation and not on the Re-
surrection of Christ. Ch. xiL contains the curious
Agraphon possibly from the Gospel of the Egyp-
tians, ' When the two shall be one, and the outside
as the inside, and the male with the female, neither
male nor female.' It is interpreted by the author
as referring to the moral perfection and asceticism
suited to the kingdom.
In xiv. 5 we have an imjxjrtant passage. After
a somewhat strained analogy of the flesh as the
Church, referring to the Church as pre-existent and
possessing the Spirit, the author says : ' So great
a gift of life and immortality (i6a.vaalaif) has this
flesh the power to receive if the Holy Spirit be
joined to it.' In xix. 3, 4 we have a statement of
immortality in fairly quantitative terms, and the
expression ' the immortal fruit of the resurrection'
{tov addvaTOf rijs droffraaeois Kaprov). In XX. 5 Christ
is the Saviour and Leader of immortality (dpxTyo"
Tj}i d^apcias).
(3) Ignatius. — We owe to Ignatius the famous
phrase 'the medicine of immortality,' <(>dpnaKo»
ddavoffiai (Eph. XX. 2), which is so often repeated
by later patristic writers. Ignatius frequently uses
the word 'immortality,' but as frequently shows
that his conception is ethical — qualitative, not
quantitative. What he seeks is not mere duration
of bliss, but true life (to d\yfda>6p ^rjv, xi. I). Faith
and love constitute this true life, the life of God
(xiv. I). Christ has breathed immortality on the
Church (dtpeapaiay, xviL 1). At the Incarnation
'God was manifest as Man, for the newness of
eternal life ' (etr Koivimp-a dtStoy for^), a reminist'ence
of Ro 6^, but dtSiop is never used of life in the NT.
In XX. 2 it is the Sacrament, the bread, which is
the medicine of immortality.
Other passages are Magn. i. 2, ix. 2 : a reference
to the Descensus ; Trail, ii I, ix. 2 ; Jiom. vi. 2 ;
Phil. ix. 2 : the gospel is ' the perfecting of im-
mortality' (dxdpTUTfia dipdapaiai) ; Snif/}~n. xii. 2,
' resurrection both fleshlj' and spiritual ' ; ad
Polyc. IL 3, ' the prize is immortality and eternal
life.'
The remaining literature of our period adds
nothing of importance.
III. COXCLUSIOS.—The principal trend of the
teaching of the NT lies mainly along the lines laid
down by our Lord, and expanded by the original
thinking of St. Paul and St. John, if we may
assume a name for the author of the Fourth Gospel
for convenience' sake. The expansion followed lines
which were principally determined by the accept-
ance of the Resurrection of Christ as a historical
fact. The emphasis thus lies on the value of com-
plete personality brought into the sphere of the
operation of the Kingdom of Go<l. Those opera-
tions take on the form of eschatological expecta-
tions, but express fundamental and eternal realities
of religion. The pale and thin conception of mere
duration of existence is of no interest to the apos-
tolic writers. It was of fundamental importance
to p<ffisess true life, the life of God ; and as the
meaning of the Incarnation was explored, the con-
ception of eternal life grew in depth and breadth
and height.
LrTKBATTKB. — Sanday-Headlam, RoBunufi (ICC, 1903);
Robertson-Plnmmer, Corinthian* (ICC, 1911); J. Aimitag^
Robinson, Ephesians, 1903; F. J. A. Hort, 1 Peter, 1888;
B. F. Westcott, St. John, 2 vols., 1908. and The Spigllf* of
St. John, ISSa ; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse^, \9D~. See also
A. Sabatier, The Apostle Paul, Ei^. tr., 1891 ; P. Gardner,
The Religious Experience oj St. Paul, 1911 ; A. Schweitrer,
Paul and his Interpreters, Eng. tr., 1912 ; E. Underbill, The
Mystic Way, 1913 ; F. von Hiigel, Eternal Life, 1912 ; S. D. F.
Salmond, The Christian Doctrine o/Immortaliti~*, 1901 ; E. F.
Scott, The Kingdom and the ilemah, 19U, also The Fotirth
Gospel, 1906 ; W. Sanday, (Ariatdogiet, Andent and Modem,
1910 ; C. Bis^g:, The Christum PlattmiaU of Alexandria, rep.
1913; J. B. Lightfoot, The ApostoHe Father*. 1891; J.
Dmmmond, Philo Judceus, 2 toIs., 1888; H. J. Holtzmann,
AT Theologie, 2 vols., 1911 ; A. Hamack, HUtorv of Dogma,
Eng. tr.3, 7 vols., 1S91-99, also The Misgion aiid Expansion of
(Jhriatianitil, E^. tr.>, 2 vols.. 1908; R. H. Charles, Etchato-
^gjf—Hebretc, Jeurisk and Christian, 1899 ; G. Dalman, The
Word* of Jesus, Eng. tr., 1902; F. Cnmont, The Oriental
Rdigions in Roman Paganism, 1911 ; S. Reinacb, Orphau,
Eag. tr.. 1909. S. H, HOOKE.
IMPUTATION.— See Justification.
INCARNATION.— See Ghbist, Cheistology.
INCENSE (evfiiafia, generally plural).— The burn-
ing of aromatic substances on the altar of incense
was part of the daily Temple-ritual, and the office
for each occasion was assigned by lot to a priest
who had never before enjoyed the honour. The
moment for the beginning of the rite was carefully
fixed, and served to mark the time of day. When
the cloud of fragrant smoke ascended, the people
outside the Temple bowed in prayer, in accordance
with the ancient association of prayers and incense
(Ps 141-). In the primitive Semitic cultus the
perfume which rose into the upper air was supposed
to give a sensuous pleasure to the Deity ; but when
more spiritual thoughts of the Divine nature and
character prevailed, the incense, if it was to be re-
tained, hawi to be regarded as a symbol of the
prayers breathed from earth to heaven. In Rev
5**- (which maj', however, be a gloss) the golden
boMls full of incense are expressly identifietl with
the prayers of the saints. In Rev 8* the smoke of
incense'goes up before God out of the angel's hand
612
INCORRUPTIOK-
INSPIRATION AND REVELATION
for [so KViii, more accurate than with, IIV] the
prayers of tlie saints. Some internreters think
that the incense added by the angel is here Bup-
posed to give some kind of eflieacy to the prayers ;
out, while interceding angels and archangels
appear in the Book of Enoch (ix. 3-11, xv. 2, xl. 7,
xlvii. 2, civ. 1), the thought in Rev. is probably
no more than that the prayers of earth are ratified
in heaven. Tlie prophet's symbolism indicates
that the saints are praying for things agreeable to
God's will, so that their petitions cannot fail to be
granted. James Strahan.
INCORRUPTION.— See Uncorkuptnkss.
INSPIRATION AND REYELATION.— Definition
of terms. — llevelation is the ' discovery ' or ' dis-
closure' (d7roK(iXi'i|t'(j) of God (i.e. of the being and
character of God) to man. Inspiration is the
mode, or one of the modes, by which this discovery
or disclosure is made ; it is the process by whicli
certain select persons were enabled, through the
medium of speech or of writing, to convey special
information about God to their fellows.
It will be obvious that the two terms must be
closely related. To a large extent they are strictly
correlativs. Kevelation is in large part the direct
product of inspiration. The select persons of whom
we have spoken imparted revelation about God
because they were inspired to impart it. So far as
revelation has been conveyed by speech or writing
we call the process inspiration ; we say that holy
men of old spoke and wrote as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost (2 P 1"). What is meant by
this we shall explain later.
A. Revelation. — Revelation is the Avider term.
There is such a thing as revelation by facts, as well
as by words. And revelation by facts is again of
two kinds : there is the broad revelation of God in
Nature ; and there is also a special revelation of
God in history.
1. Revelation by facts. — («) Revelation of God
in Nature. — The Jew under the OT rose up from
the contemplation of Nature with an intense belief
in Divine Frovidence. For him the heavens de-
clared the glory of God, and the firmament showed
His handiwork. The sight of the heavens brought
home to him the contrast between the majesty of
God and the littleness of man. The phenomena of
storm and tempest heightened his sense of Divine
f tower and of the goodness which intervened for
lis own protection. The beneficent ordering of
Nature turned his thoughts to tliankfulness and
praise (Ps 65 104). The tendency of the Hebrew
mind was towards optimism. His religious faith
was so strong that the darker side of Nature did
not trouble him ; its destructive energies only filled
him with awe, or else he regarded them as directed
against his own enemies and God's. The questions
that perplexed him most arose not so much from
Nature as from the observation of human life.
The most pressing problem of all was the suffer-
ings of the righteous and the prosperity of the
wicked. To this problem are devoted several
Psalms and the whole Book of Job. But, how-
ever urgent the problem might be and however
imperfect the solution, it never shook the deep-
rooted faith that was Israel's greatest heritage.
The same may be said even of the complicated
questions w hich exercise the author of Eccfesiastes
— a late and comparatively isolated phenomenon.
{b) Revelation of God in history. — The truth
which Israel grasped with the greatest tenacity
was the intimacy of its own relation to God as tiie
Chosen People. Not all the shocks M-hich it en-
dured in its political career, tossed to and fro as a
shuttlecock between its more powerful neighbours,
could weaken its hold on this. It idealized its
history — emphasized its deliverances, dwelt on its
few moments of comparative greatness and pros-
perity, and explained its own decline as due to its
raithlessness and disoljcdienee. It saw the hand of
God throughout, even through suflering and failure,
guiding it in unexpected ways towards the better
fulfilment of its mission. The nation became a
Church ; and even in exile and dispersion Israel
still bore witness to its God. Then, on the toj) of
Jill this, comes Christianity. Another apparently
insignificant series of facts — the Life and Death of
One who lived as a peasant in an obscure comer of
the Roman Empire — is followed by enormous con-
sequences. A wave of religious enthusiasm jtassed
over an exhausted world, and its veins were filled
with new life which has lasted down to the present
day.
2. Revelation in word. — Ideally speaking, it
might be suj)po8ed that the historical panorama
roughly sketciied above would impress itself on
the mind of all observers ; that, so far as it con-
tained a revelation of God, that revelation would
be intuitively apprehended. But to expect this
would have been to expect too much, especially
when we think of the poor and low beginnings
from which the human race has gradually risen.
It has always needed leaders and teachers. Lar^e
and penetrating views, such as those involved m
the process we have been describing, have always
belonged to the few rather than to the many, and
have been mediated to the many through the few.
In this way it will be seen that revelation by facts
has had to be supplemented by revelation conveyed
in words. The facts have been there all the time ;
but, apart from Divine stimulus and guidance,
working upon minds sensitive to them, the great
mass of mankind would have allowed them to pass
unheeded. The pressure of mere physical needs is
so great that ordinary humanity would be apt to
be absorbed in them, if it were not for the influence
of a select few more highly endowed than the rest.
But these select few have never been wanting —
not in Israel alone but in every race of men, and
conspicuously in those races that we call the
'higher.' The Divine education of mankind has
always worked in this way — by an infinite number
of graduated steps, leading men onwards from one
truth to another, from truths that are simple and
partial and rude in expression to other truths that
are more complex ana more comprehensive, more
nicely adjusted to the facts which they embrace.
There is thus a natural transition from revela-
tion by fact to revelation by word. The fact comes
first ; it is there, so that all who run may read.
But it is not read, because it is not understood ; it
is a bare fact ; it needs an interpreter. And the
interpretation is supplied by the inspired man who
speaks and writes, who seizes on the secret and
then publishes it to the world.
3. Apostolic treatment of these matters.— This,
then, is substantially what we find in the OT, and
in the Jewish writings which follow upon the OT.
The prophets and psalmists and wise men lead the
way in expressing the feelings aroused by the con-
templation of God in Nature and in history. Such
Scriptures as Ps 19^"" 65 104, Is 40'--" are spontane-
ous outbursts excited by the external world ; such
passages as Job 38 39 (cf. 2 Mac 9*) enforce the
lesson of Ps S*'- ; Ps 77"-» 105 106, Hab 3 are
typical retrospects of the hand of God in Israel's
history; Pr ^^•^\ Job 28, Sir 24, Wis 7 8 are
equally typical examjdes of the praise of Divine
AVisdom as expressed m creation and in the order-
ing of human life.
All this the apostolic writers inherited, and they
go a step further in philosophizing upon it. They
not only give expression to the feelings which the
contemplation of the works of God excites in tbeni,
IXSPIRATIOX AJ^iD RFT^TXATIOX
IXSPIRATION AND REVELATION 613
but they distinctly recognize the difterent forms of
external revelation as pariaof the method of Divine
Providence in dealing \vith men. The most instruc-
tive passages from this point of view are to be
founci in the speeches of Acts, both in those ad-
dressed to heathen (as in Ac 14"*"" 17-"") and in
those addressed to Jews (as in Ac 7 13'*-*M. "We
need not enter into the question how far these
speeches represent what was actually spoken on
the occasions referred to, and how far they embody
what the historian thought appropriate to those
occasions. A comparison of tne speeches attri-
buted to St. Paul with the contents of the Pauline
Epistles would suggest that, however much the
shaping of the discourse may be due to the his-
torian, he probably had before him some authentic
notes or traditions of the discourses actually de-
livered (cf. JThSt xi. [1910] 171-173). In any case,
the views expressed seem to have been practically
common to all the leaders of Christian thought.
We may, therefore, proceed to set them forth with-
out discriminating between different circles. At
the same time the major jjart of the extant evidence
is derived (mediately or immediately) from St. Paul,
(rt) 0/ the revelation of God in Nature. — It is
to be noted that, although St. Paul shared to the
full his countrymen's horror of idolatry — both as
inherently wrong in itself and because of its cor-
rupting influences — he nevertheless clearly recog-
nized the elements of good in heathen religions,
and regarded them as having a place in the wider
order of Divine Pro\-idence. The heathen, too —
with God's revelation of Himself in Nature before
them — had ample opportunities of knowing God,
and it was only by their own deliberate fault that
they suppressed and ignored this knowledge (Ro
118-21).
And yet all was not lost. God had implanted
in the human breast the desire for Himsell ; men
were seeking Him, if haply they might feel after
Him and find Him ; even pagan poets had realized
that mankind was His offspring (Ac 17^'^). He
took care that they should not be left without
witness to His goodness, in that He gave them
from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling their
hearts with food and gladness (14").
We observe how the Apostle singles out at once
the best and the most prominent side of pagan
religion, making abstraction of its worst features.
The most urgent of human needs was that the
earth should bring forth fruits in their seasons.
Men were conscious of this, and they were really
thankful for the bounty of Nature. At the bottom
of most of the pagan cults that prevailed over the
East— as, for instance, in the wide-spread worship
under the names of Osiris, Adonis, Attis — was the
celebration of see<l-time and harvest. What there
was of evil mixed up with such worship was a pro-
duct of the root of evil in the human heart, and
was capable of being eliminated without loss to
the fundamental idea.
The revelation of God in Nature was thus not
altogetlier in vain. And there was another form
of revelation which came really imder this head.
There was a certain reflexion of God in the heart
of man : HLs wUl was made known through the
conscience. And here, too, there was many a
pagan who, though without the privileges which
the Jew enjoyed through the possession of a written
law, faithfully observed such inner law as he had.
St. Paul fully recognized this, and used it as an
a fortiori argument addressed to his own Jewish
converts, and to those whom he desired to make
his converts.
Another point that may be worth noting is that,
when St. Paul appeals to the revelation of God in
Nature, he singles out in particular those attri-
butes of God as revealed which the impression
derivetl from Nature is l»est calculated to convey :
' the invisible things of him since the creation of
the world are clearly seen, being perceived through
the things that are made, even his everlasting
power and divinity' (Ro 1»; cf. Wis 13^. The
truths that Nature can tell us about God are not
the whole truth ; it can tell us of His power and
majesty and Divine sovereignty, but it cannot of
itself make kno^vn the inlinite tenderness of His
love. Nature has its destructive aspect as well as
its aspect of beneficence ; and even Nature, as we
see it, appears to be infected with the taint which
is seen most conspicuously in man. To judge from
external Nature taken by itself, it might well seem
that a malign as well as a gracious Power was at
work behind it. Caliban on Setebos is not wholly
without reason. For a complete revelation of God
we must supplement the data derived from this
source by those Avhich are derived from history,
and especially from the culminating series of events
in all history — the events bound up in the origin
and spread of Christianity. It is these pre-
eminently, and indeed these alone, which bring
home to us the full conviction that God in the
deepest depths of His being is essentially and
unchangeably Love. (For strong indictments of
Nature as it actually exists, see J. S. MUl, Three
Essays on Religion, London, 1874, pp. 28-31 ; and
the hypothesis of a Cacoda;mon in R. A. Knox,
Some Loose Stones, do., 1913, p. 25 f.)
(b) Of the revelation of God in history. — When
the apostles or Christians of the first generation
preach to Jews, their preaching, so far as we have
record of it, is always an appeal to history, some-
times on a larger scale, sometimes on a smaller.
When the preaching is fullest and most systematic,
it starts from a survey, more or less complete, of
the history of Israel as a HeUsgeschichte or scheme
of Redemption, predetermined in the coimsels of
God and worked out in the history of the Chosen
People. This begins of right with the choice of
Abraham and the patriarchs (Ac 7*'^* 13" ; cf. 3^).
Then come Moses and the deliverance from Egypt
(7^*"*) and the royal line culminating in David
{7«f. 1323 1518) Uo'tii Moses and David prophesied
of One who was to come in the aftertime — Moses,
of a prophet like himself (S-^- 7**) ; David, of a de-
scendant of his own who should not see corruption
(.22S-31 1334-J7), This leads on to a bold affirmation
of the fulfilment of these and of other prophecies
in the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ
^cy^-n 313-13. a* los^-B 13:3-37 26^ 23)_ In the Epistles
especial stress is laid upon the two salient facts of
the Crucifixion and the Resurrection (1 Co 15^,
Ro 4^*, and in many other places). These two
great acts have a significance beyond themselves,
as the basis and guarantee of the Christian's hope
of salvation. The historic scheme is completed by
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, itself also a
fulfilment of prophecy (Ac 2^*"^^).
The long series of historical facts is given, and,
taken together, they constitute a broad, definite,
objective revelation. But if that revelation had
remained alone without comment and interpreta-
tion, it would have passed unregarded, or at least
imperfectly realized and understood.
(c) It is at this point that the other form of
revelation comes in — revelation by word. And at
the same point we may also cross over to the con-
sideration of that other great factor in our subject
— the inspiration by which the revelation is con-
veyed. There is what may be called a classical
passage in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, in
which the two conceptions meet in a way that
throws clear light upon both.
B. IssPlRATioy.—i. The fundamental passage
— 1 Co 2"'-". — We cannot do better than begin our
discussion of inspiration with this passage, which
614 INSPIRATION AND REVELATION
INSPIRATION AND REVELATION
must be given in full : • We speak God's wiwloni
in a mystery, even the windoni that liath lieen
hidden, which God foreordained Vjefore the worlds
unto our glory : which none of the rulers of this
world knoweth : for had they known it, they would
not have crucified the Lord of glory : l)ut as it is
written, Things which eye saw not, and ear heard
not. And which entered not into the heart of man.
Whatsoever things God prepared for them that
love him. But unto us God revealed them through
the Spirit : for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea,
the deep things of God. For who among men
knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of
the man, which is in him ? Even so the things of
God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. But
we received, not the spirit of the world, but the
spirit which is of God ; that we might know the
things that are freely given to us by God. Which
things also we speak, not in words which man's
wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth ;
comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Now
the natural man receivetli not the things of the
Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him ;
and he cannot know them, because they are spiritu-
ally judged. But he that is spiritual judgeth all
things, and he himself is judged of no man. For who
hath known the mind of the Lord, that he should
instruct him ? But we have the mind of Christ.'
2. The two modes of inspiration. — We have
seen that there are two distinct modes of revela-
tion, which may be called primary and secondary,
or objective and subjective : the one a series of
facts, the other embodying the interpretation of
those facts. Inspiration corresponds to the second
of these modes ; it has to do with interpretation ;
it is the process bv which God has made known
His nature, His will, and His purpose in regard to
man. But there is some diflerence in the way in
which inspiration works, according as it is (a)
intermediate between the series of facts and the
interpretation, dependent upon the facts and co-
extensive with them, or (6) as it were, a new begin-
ning in itself — what might be called a direct com-
munication from God. Speaking broadly, it may
be said that the prophetic inspiration of the OT
was mainly of this latter type, while the Christian
or apostolic inspiration of the NT was mainly of
the former. Sucli distinctions are indeed only
relative. The prophets also frequently presuppose
those objective revelations through Nature and
history of which we have spoken. And yet tlie
great difference between the prophets and the
apostles is just this, that the outstanding Christian
facts — the Incarnation or Life, the Death, and the
Resurrection of Christ — have intervened between
them. In the one case a preparation had to be
made, the first advances hud to be taken and the
foundation laid ; in the other case the foundation
was alre.-uly laid, and the chief task which re-
mained for the Christian teacher was one of inter-
pretation. We shall return to this distinction
presently, when we try to map out the course
which the Christian revelation as a whole has
taken. But in the meantime we must go back to
our fundamental passage, and seek with its help
to acquire a better understanding of the nature of
inspiration.
3. The psychology of inspiration. — We begin
by observing that the passage is descriptive speci-
ally of the Christian or apostolic inspiration. It
is, indeed, jwssible to generalize from it and to
treat it as applying to the inspiration of the OT
as well as oi the NT. Yet the passage implies
throughout what we have callecl the Christian
facts — the whole historical series of revelations
culminating in Jesus Christ. The preaching which
the Apostle has in his mind has for its object that
those to whom it is addressed might know — i.e.
intelligently know, grasp, and understand — the
things that were freely given to them by God,
the whole bountiful purjwse of God in Christ, the
Incarnation with all that led up to it and that
followed from it — its consequences nearer and
more remote.
And now we must try to analyze the jjassage
and see what it contains. There are two trains of
thought.
{a) The knowledge which inspiration imparts is
wholly exceptional and sui generis. It is not
possessed by the worldly-wise or by the most
jiowerful of secular rulers. It was their ignorance
of it which led to tiie terrible mistake of not
recognizing but crucifying the Messiah when He
came. It is a knowledge — chiefly of values, of
values in the spiritual sphere, of the spiritual
forces at work in the world. The knowledge of
these values is hidden from the mass of mankind.
Any criticism of those who possess it by those who
do not possess it is futile. It is as if the critics
were devoid of a natural sense — like the varied
hues of Nature to the colour-blind, or the world of
musical sound to those who have no ear. The
expert in this new knowledge stands apart by
himself : he can judge, but he cannot be judged ;
he is superior to the world around him.
(fj) If it is asked how he came by this know-
ledge, the answer is that it was imparted to him
by the Holy Spirit acting upon his own spirit. It
is a well-known peculiarity of the psychology of
St. Paul that he often mentions the Divine Spirit
and the human spirit together in such a way that
they seem to run into each other. It is often hard
to tell whether ' spirit ' should be spelt with a
capital or not ; the thought passes backwards and
forwards with the finest shades of tr.ansition. A
good example may be seen in several passages of
Ro 8 : c.(^. v.'*'- : ' But ye are not in the flesh, but
in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelletli
in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of
Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you,
the body is dead because of sin ; but the spirit is
life because of righteousness'; and again, v."'-:
' For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
these are sons of God. For ye received not the
spirit of bondage again unto fear ; but ye received
the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba,
Father.' In the former passage, the domination
of the spiritual part or higher self of man is
brought about by the operation of the Spirit of God
(or of Christ) which is described as 'dwelling in
liim,' and the result is that the human spirit is
instinct Avith life and immortality, and triumphs
over death. In the latter passage, a like operation
of the Divine Spirit results in an attitude of the
human spirit ; without any line of demarcation
between to indicate where the one ends and the
other begins. The reason for these subtle transi-
tions would seem to be that, while the subject of
them is conscious of Divine influence within him,
that influence is felt in a part of his being which is
beyond the reach of conscious analysis ; it is one
of those sub-conscious and unconscious motions
which are known only by their eflects and do not
come within the cognizance of the reflective
reason. There is something more than an affinity
between the human spirit and the Divine ; when
the one is in contact with the other, it is beyond our
power to distinguish the point of junction or to .say
with dogmatic precision, 'Thus far and no further.'
Sviien it is said that the Spirit searches the deep
things of God and then bestows a knowledge of
tliese deep things on men, it is not meant that
there Is a mechanical transference of information.
Tlie process is dynamic, and not mechanical.
What is meant is that the same Holy Spirit which
mirrors, as it were, the consciousness of Deity, so
INSPIRATION AND REVELATION
INSPIRATION AND REVELATION 615
acts upon the htuiian faculties, so stimulates and
directs them, as to produce in them a conscious-
ness of God which is after its own pattern. The
self-consciousness of God must needs be in itself
altogether transcendent and incommunicable ; the
reflexion of it in the heart of man is not absolute,
but rel.ative ; it is expressed in human measures ;
it is still a reaching forth of the human soul to-
wards Go<l, feeling after Him if haply it may find
Him. But it is such a reaching forth as is icord ffedv
(Ro 8^), what God would have it to be, a human
product stamped with Divine sanction and approval.
4. Prophetic inspiration. — The above is an ex-
planatiou — so far as explanation can be given — of
the process of inspiration. It really covers all the
varied forms that inspiration can take. But it is
natural to ask in what relation it stands to the
prophecy of the OT.
The prophetic inspiration is really the outstand-
ing phenomenon of the OT. It is the fundamental
attribute which gives to the OT its character as a
sacred book ; it marks the point at which God meets
man ; it is Israel's most characteristic possession.
Comparing what we know of OT prophecy with
the account just given of inspiration by St. Paul,
there is nothing that clashes or is essentially
diflerent. It is only the difference of a simpler
and a more advanced dispensation. OT prophecy
is best known by its eflects. The main note of it
is that certain men spoke with an authority con-
ferred upon them directly by God ; they were em-
powered to say, ' Thus saith the Lord.' In the
earlier documents stress is frequently laid on the
giving of ' signs ' as proofs that a prophet's mission
is from God (Ex i^<^- ^^-,1 S 2»», 1 K 13^ 2 K 19-='
20*''-, Is T^"*-)? and a test is laid down for distin-
guishing true from false prophecy in Dt 18^'-. But
in the days when prophecy was most active the
conhdence (■ir\ripo(popia) with which the prophet
spoke would seem to have been taken as creden-
tials enough. Even when the prophet was un-
popular and his message was resisted by king or
people (as in the case of Micaiah and Jeremiah), it
was with an uneasy conscience and with a sense of
revolt against the Divine will.
It should be remembered that the existence of a
prophetic order is characteristic of the NT as well
as of the OT. We read in Ac 13' of ' prophets and
teachers ' as collected at Antioch. Individual pro-
phets are repeatedly mentioned, as Agabus in
Ac 11^ 21'*^, Judas and Sila.s in 15^-, the daughters
of Philip in 2P. A passage like IS-'- supplies the
key to others such as 16"- 20^ ; when it is said
that ' the Holy Ghost ' or ' the Spirit of Jesus '
forbade such and such an act, or that the Holy
Ghost ' testified ' to such and such an eftect, what
is meant is the Holy Ghost speaking by the mouth
of inspired prophets. In the Epistles ' prophets '
are frequently mentioned along with, but after,
'apostles' as a standing office in the Church (1 Co
12^-, Eph 2--» 3' 4"). The diflerence between OT
and NT prophets lies, not in the nature of the
gift or of the functions in which it was exercised,
but only in the comparative degree of their import-
ance. The NT prophets M-ere overshadowed by
the apostles, who possessed the special qualifica-
tion of having been in the immediate company of
the Lord Jesus {Ac I''"-). Those who are men-
tioned expressly as ' prophets ' occupy as a rule a
secondary, rather than a primary, place in the
history of the Church. At the same time it was
quite possible for an apostle, and even a leading
a[)ostle like St. Paul, to be endowed with the gift
of prophecy along with other gifts (cf. 1 Co 14'»'-).
5. Apostolic inspiration.— We may really couple
together ' apostles ' and ' prophets ' as representing
the characteristic forms of inspiration in apostolic
times. But this inspiration must not be thought
of as sometliing isolated. It was not a peculiar
and exceptional phenomenon standing by itself ; it
was rather the culminating point, or one of the
culminating points, in a wide movement. This
movement dates in its outward manifestation from
Pentecost ; it was what we should call in modem
phrase a ' wave ' of religious enthusiasm, the
greatest of all such waves that history records,
and the one that had most clearly what we call
a supernatural origin. Language of this kind is
always relative ; it is not as if the su[jematural
was present in human life at certain periods, and
absent at others. The supernatural is always
present and always active, but in infinitely varied
degrees ; and the Incarnate Life of our Lord Jesus
Christ, with its consequences, is an epoch in the
world's history like no other that has ever been
before or since ; in it the Spirit moved on the face
of the waters of humanity as it had done before
over the physical waters of the Creation. This
particular movement was, in a higher sense than
any before it, spiritually creative.
The double character of the movement — a super-
natural impulse and energy working upon and
through natural human faculties — is well brought
out in 1 Th 2'^ : ' For this cause we also thank God
without ceasing, that, when ye received from ns
the word of the message, even the word of God, ye
accepted it not as the Avord of men, but, as it is in
truth, the word of God, which also worketh in you
that believe.' With this should be taken the con-
text immediately preceding, which shows how the
Apostle concentrated all the gifts of sympathy and
interest with which he was so richly endowed upon
the service of his converts. He moved among
them as a man among men ; and yet they were
conscious that there were Divine forces behind
him. They were conscious that he was an instru-
ment in the hand of God, the medium or vehicle of
a Divine message — a message that was in its ulti-
mate source none the less Divine because it was
shaped by a human mind acting in accordance with
its own proper laws.
Another very vivid picture of the apostolic
ministry is given in 1 Co 2'"^ : ' And I, brethren,
when I came unto you, came not with excellency
of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the
mystery of God. For I determined not to know
anything among yon, save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified. .4nd I was with you in weakness, and
in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech
and my preaching were not in persuasive words of
Avisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of
power: that your faith should not stand in the
wisdom of men, but in the power of God.' The
Apostle here discriminates, and the distinction is
constantly present to his mind, between the re-
sources which he brings to his work as man and
the effect which he is enabled to produce by the
help of the Spirit of God. He is nothing of an
orator ; he has none of the arts of rhetoric ; when
he first preached at Corinth, he was in a state of
utter physical prostration. But all this only threw
into stronger relief the success which he owed to a
Power Ijeyond himself ; the wisdom and the force
with which he spoke were not his but God's.
Besides these Pauline passages there is another
classical passage outside the writings of St. Paul.
This is contained in the opening verse and a half
of the Epistle to the Hebrews : 'God, having of
old time in many portions and in many modes
spoken unto the fathers in the prophets, hath at
the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son.'
Here we have a historical retrospect of the whole
course of revelation and inspiration. The history
is mapped out in two great periods. There is the
period of revelation by inspired men ; and over
against this there is the great concentrated and
616 INSPIRATION AND REVELATION INSPIRATION AND REVELATION
crowning revelation by Him who is not a prophet
of God but His Son.
It is to be observed that in each case the pre-
position used is not (as in AV) ' by,' i.e. * by means
of,' ' through the agency of,' but * in ' — in the
prophets and in the Son. In each case it is the
same internal process of which we have been
speaking above. The prophets spoke through the
operation of the Holy Spirit working upon their
own human faculties. The Son spoke through His
own essential Deity acting through the like human
faculties which He assumed at His Incarnation.
When we think of this internal process we are
reminded of the words of our Lord to the Samaritan
woman : ' Every one tliat drinketh of this water
shall thirst again : but whosoever drinketh of this
water that I sliall give him shall never thirst ; but
the water that I shall give him shall become in
him a well of water springing up into eternal life '
(irrjjT] iidaros aWofi^vov els fwJjv alibviov, Jn 4^*' ^*).
There are few natural objects to which the pro-
cess of inspiration can so well be compared as to a
spring of wliat the Jews called ' living,' i.e. running,
water. The cool fresh waters come bubbling and
sparkling up from unknown depths ; they gather
and spread and speed upon their way in a fertilizing
stream. Even so is the way of the Spirit.
We observe that the prophetic revelation is de-
scribed as taking effect ' in many portions and in
many modes.' This brings out a new point. It is
not in accordance with God's methods to reveal the
full truth all at once. He has revealed Himself
piecemeal, in portions, a bit here and a bit there,
' line upon line and precept upon precept.' There
has been a gradual development, a development in
steps, each step marking an advance upon what had
preceded.
For comprehensive illustration Ave only need to
turn to the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5^-**). This,
it will be remembered, is based upon an authority
no less venerable and commanding than the Deca-
logue. ' Ye have heard that it was said to them of
old time, Thou shalt not kill . . . Thou shalt not
commit adultery . . . Thou shalt not forswear
thyself ... ye have heard that it was said. An
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ... ye have
heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neigh-
bour, and hate thine enemy.' And then, in eacli
case, a corrected version of the commandment is
given ; a new commandment is placed by the side
of the old : * Ye have heard that it was said . . .
but I say unto you . . .' The last of these com-
mandments brings home to us in a very vivid way
at once the greatness and the limitations of the
older inspiration. The old version was, ' Thou
shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.'
The new version is, ' Love your enemies and pray
for them tliat persecute you.' Again, there is the
well-known incident of the Samaritan village which
in accordance with the Til used to run : ' And
when his disciples James and John saw this, they
said, Lord, wilt thou that we command lire to come
down from heaven, and consume them, even as
Elias did ? But he turned, and rebuked them, and
said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's
lives, but to save them. And they went to another
village' (Lk Q^'^). The reading may not be
original, but the sense is rightly given ; the longer
version does but expand the meaning of the shorter.
Such instances may show how far our Lord Him-
self went in correcting or modifying portions of
the older Scriptures, which in their original con-
text had been truly inspired, but on a lower level.
It is difficult to exhaust the significance of this
great passage from the Epistle to the Hebrews ;
but a word must just be said about that other
phrase, 'In many modes.' It miglit bo takon as
including the different classes of persons through
whom God spoke ; not only prophets, but also
psalmists and wise men. Tliese classes too shared
in a genuine inspiration, though they did not
exactly use the special fornmla ' Thus saith the
Lord.' The whole nation, as the Chosen People, was
really a medium of Divine communication, though
as a rule such communication was conveyed
through individuals who were specially inspired.
Then there is the further question oi the manner
of the communication. There is a large body of
evidence which goes to show that, under tlie New
Dispensation as well as under the Old, the Holy
Spirit made use of vision and trance and dream.
Some of the examples — as, for instance, those from
the • we-passages ' of the Acts — are very well attested
indeed. Another strong example would be tlie vision
of the Apocalypse, though that is probablj' the case
of a book basedupon a vision, rather than co-extensive
with the actual vision. The book itself would seem
to have been constructed uj>on literary methods.
That would be another instance of the ' many
modes.' The Gospels are really a new and special
form of literature. The Epistles are of more than
one kind. Some are what we should call genuine
letters, others are rather treatises in the form of
letters. When once the epistolary type was iixed
it would be natural to employ it in different ways.
Before we leave the passage from Hebrews, we
must go back to the main point : the distinction
between revelation ' by ' or ' in ' the prophets, and
revelation ' by ' or ' in ' the Son. The distinction
is sufficiently explained by the words that are
used. The prophets were ' sjjokesmen ' of God ;
the Son was the Son — none other and none less.
His inspiration came to Him as the Son. It was
the product of His direct and constant filial com-
munion with the Father. The nature of this
inspiration is explained in that other famous
verse : ' All things have been delivered unto me
of my Father ; and no one knoweth the Son, save
the Father ; neither doth any know the Father,
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth
to reveal him' (Mt 1P^ Lk 10").
For a further exposition we may turn to the pro-
logue of St. John's Gospel, where the correct read-
ing perhaps is : ' No man hath seen God at any
time ; God only begotten, who is in the bosom of
the Father, he hath declared him ' ( Jn 1'*). The
phrase ' who is in the bosom of the Father ' denotes
exactly that close and uninterrupted communion
between the Son and the Father of which we have
been speaking. The Son is admitted to the inner-
most counsels of the Father ; and therefore it is
that He is able to communicate them to men.
6. The historical setting.— When we were quot-
ing above from the First Epistle to the Corinthians,
we were really extracting a page or two from the
autobiogi-aphy of St. Paul ; but the Apostle gives us
plainly to understand that his experience was shared
by many other Christians. That groupof phenomena
which we call insjjiration Avas part of the movement
described in general as the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit ; and St. Paul, with his natural bent for
analysis, classifies and labels the different forms of
manifestation which the gift of the Spirit assumed
(1 Co 12*'"). Some of these concern us, and .some
do not ; but the ' word of wisdom,' the ' word of
knowledge,' ' prophecy and the discerning of spirits '
are all directly in point. In these various wavs
the men of that day might have been seen to be
carried out of and beyond their natural selves ;
and we possess a permanent written expression of
the movement in the books of the NT. The gift
(if 'speaking with tongues' was a by-product of
the same movement.
Like all other spiritual forces, these too needed
to be regulated ; they needed the controlling hand
INSPIRATION AND REVELATION INSPIRATION AND REVELATION 617
to lit them in orderly fashion into their place in
the organized life of the society. Left to them-
selves, the exuberant outgrowths of spiritual ex-
altation were apt to run riot and cross and interfere
with one another. It is such a state of things that
St. Paul deals with in 1 Co 14. From a chapter
like that we may form a good idea as to what the
primitive assemblies for worship were like in a
community that was, perhaps rather more than the
average, subject to religious excitement. The
Apostle lays down rules w hich, if observed, would
keep this excitement within due bounds.
Great movements such as this which we have
seen to be characteristic of the Apostolic Age do
not come to an abrupt end, but shade off gradually
into the more placid conditions of ordinary times.
Hence, though it was natural and justihable to
regard the sphere of this special inspiration as co-
extensive with the literature which claims to be
apostolic, the extension of the inspiration to the
whole of that literature and the denial of its
f)resence in any writing that falls outside those
imits, must not be assumed as an exact and
scientific fact. The Epistles, e.g., of Ignatius of
Antioch are not inferior to those which pass under
the names of 2 Peter and Jude. There are two
places in the Epistles of Clement of Rome to the
Corinthians (lix. 1 and Ixiii. 2) which appear to
make what we should call a definite claim to in-
spiration ; and Ignatius reminds the Philadelphians
(vii. 1) how, when he was present in their assembly
he had suddenly exclaimed, under an impulse which
he could not master, ' with a loud voice, with the
voice of Gk)d: "Give heed to the bishop, to the
presbytery, and to the deacons.'" He clearly re-
garded this utterance as prompted by the Holy
Spirit. He certainly did so in complete good faith ;
and there is no reason for disputing his claim, any
more than there would be in our own day in the
case of one who spoke under strong conviction,
with deep emotion, and with a profound sense of
direct responsibility to God. It would not follow,
even so, that the claim, standing alone, was in-
fallible— it would, like all such claims, be subject
to ' the discerning of spirits ' — but it would at least
have a prima facie right to a hearing.
7. False claims to inspiration. — As in the case
of the OT, so also in the case of the NT, we have
to reckon with false claims to inspiration. There
were prophets who were not deserving of the name.
In both Testaments the prophets are regarded as
forming a sort of professional class, which contained
unworthy members. There is more than one
allusion to false prophets of the elder dispensation
(Lk 6=», 2 P 2'). The Jew Bar-Jesus (or Elymas)
is described as a magician or false prophet (Ac 13*).
But there are special warnings against false
prophets (Mt 7"), more particularly in connexion
with the troubled times which precede the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem (Mk 13" = Mt 24--'; cf. v.").
False prophets are a fixed feature in the eschato-
logical scheme. As a matter of fact, they must
have been numerous towards the end of the
Apostolic Age (1 Jn 4^, 2 P 2>) ; and hence it is
that in the Book of Revelation the class is summed
up in the personification of the False Prophet (Rev
13Uff. iQiu. i9» .2oio)_ The dangers from this source
were met by a special gift of discernment between
false inspiration and true (1 Co 12^'^).
8. Temporary element in the apostolic con-
ception of inspiration.— The apostolic conception
of inspiration did not difler in kind from that which
prevailed in Jewish circles at the time. It was the
Eroduct of reflexion upon the earlier period of the
istory when prophecy had been in full bloom.
Under the influence of the scribes from Ezra on-
ward, the idea of prophecy and of Scripture gener-
ally had hardened into a definite theologoumenon.
It was not to be exi)ected that the doctrine thus
formed should be checked by strict induction from
the facts. The prophets spoke with authority,
which they claimed to be Divine. They did not
enter into any precise psychological analysis in
accordance with which they distinguished between
the human element in the process and the Divine.
They knew that the impulse — the overpowering
impulse and influence — came from outside them-
selves. It was only natural that they should set
down the whole process to this. Thus there grew
up the belief that the inspired word was in all
respects Divine and endowed with all the properties
of uiat which is Divine. The word of God, whether
spoken or written, must be as certain in its opera-
tion as the laws of Nature. ' As the rain cometh
down and the snow from heaven, and retumeth
not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh
it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the
sower and bread to the eater ; so shall my word be
that goeth forth out of my mouth : it shall not
return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that
which I please, and it shall prosper in the tiling
whereto I sent it' (Is 55^*'- )• It was perfectly true
that the broad Divine purpose as such was in-
fallible. But it was a further step— and a mistaken
step — to suppose that every detail in the human
expression of that purpose shared in its infallibility.
Yet the step was taken, and gradually hardened
into a dogma (for the Jewish doctrine see W.
Bousset, Die Religion des Judentumsr, Berlin, 1906,
p. 172). The apostles in this respect did not difler
from their countrymen. The infallibility of the
Scriptures — and indeed the verbal infallibility — is
expressly laid down in Jn ICP (where the Evangelist
is si)eaking rather than his Master). Yet the as-
sertion of the doctrine in this instance is associated
with an argument which, to modern and Western
logic, is far from infallible. And the same must
be said of St. Paul (Gal 3**), where he argues after
the manner of the Rabbis from the use of the
singular 'seed' instead of the plural 'seeds.'
There is more to be said about the minute fulfil-
ments which are so often pointed out by St.
Matthew and St. John (Mt 1- etc., Jn 2^ etc.);
on these see esp. Chevne, Com. on Isaiah, London,
1S81, ii. 170-189.
Broadly speaking, it would be true to say that
the application of the OT by the apostles shows a
deepened grasp of its innermost meaning (e.g. St.
Paul's treatment of ' faith,' of the election of Israel,
the call of the Gentiles, the nearness of the gospel
[Ro 10^-] and the like). But these are instances
of their deepened insight generally, and are not
diflferent in kind from the Rabbinical theology,
which, though often at fault, from time to time
shows flashes of great penetration.
Summary. — In regard to the conception of reve-
lation and inspiration as a whole, the same sort
of gradual shading oft" is to be observed. The
idea itself is fundamental ; it must hold a per-
manent and leading place in the mind's outlook
upon the world and on human history. There is
a certain amount of detachable dross connected
with it, but the essence of it is pure gold. And
this essence is not to be too closely circumscribed.
There were adumbrations of the idea outside Israel.
In Israel itself, in the prophetic order, the idea
received its full provisional expression ; but the
coping-stone was placed upon it by Christianity ; God,
who in time past had spoken to the Chosen Race
by the prophets, at the end of the ages spoke, not
only to them but to all mankind, by His Son (He 1').
LrreRATXTRB. — The present writer is not aware of any work
dealin? specificaUy with the apostolic conception of Inspiration
and Revelation : but on the general subject reference may be
made to artt. • Bible ' and ' Bible in the Church ' in ERE,'\o\.
ii. ; to B. Jowett on 'The Interpretation of Scripture* in
Esxay* and Rteiftet, London, 1S60 ; G. T. Ladd, What U the
618
intp:rcession
INTERCESSION
Bible f. New York, 1888 ; C. A. Briggs, The Bible, the Church,
and the Benson, Edinburgh, 18!}2 ; R. F. Horton, lievetation
and the Bible, London, ISU'J; W. Sanday, InKiiiration^
(Bampton Lectures for ISOJ), do. ISQQ ; B. B. Warfield, artt.
'"It says": "Scripture says": "God says,"' in I'resb. and
Ref. Review, x. [lSt>i»] 472 ff., and ' "God-inspired .Scripture,'" in
ib. xi. [1900] 89 ff. ; F. Watson, Inapiralion, I^iidou, 1906; J.
Orr, Revelation and Inspiration, do. 1910 ; A. S. Peake, The
Bible, do. 1913 ; W. Koelling, I'roleijomena zur Li-hre von der
Theopnewstie, Hreslau, 1890; H. Cremer, art. ' I napi ration,' in
PRE^ ix. [Leipzig, 1901] ; M. Kahler, Wisgemchaft der christl.
Lehre, Leipzig, 1905 ; H. Vollnier, art. ' Inspiration,' in RGG
iii. [Tiibingon, 1911]; also, on tlie nature of Inspiration, H.
Gunkel, Dii- Wirknnaen des heiliyen Geistett'^, Gottin^cn, 1899 ;
H. Weinel, Die Wirkunyen des Geistes und der Geuter, Frei-
burg i. 13., 1899 ; P. Volz, Der Geixt Gottes, Tiibingen, 1910.
W. Sanday.
INTERCESSION.— Tlie word Ivrev^n, translated
' intercession ' (1 Ti 2' 4"), means literally ' drawiufj
close to God in free and familiar intercourse.' But
the modern use of the word, which limits the
meaniiiji: to prayer for others, need not obliterate
the original meaning. It is in proportion as the
person praying for others is able to enlarge his
own intercourse witli God that he can be, like
Moses, Samuel, Elijah, able to uphold others.
In the NT human capacity for this work is seen
to be immeasurably incre.'ised through the example
and teacliing of the Lord Jesus, and by the co-
operation of the Holy Spirit, who intercedes ' with
groanings which cannot be uttered ' and ' according
to the will of God ' (Ho 8-*- ^). We may expect,
therefore, to find that the work of intercession
will grow as the Church grows, with great widen-
ing of experience and influence. The enlarged
teaching of St. Paul in his later letters corresponds
with the facts narrated in the Acts, where inter-
cessory services are quoted at all great crises. The
apostles and brethren pray for guidance in the
appointment of a successor to Judas (Ac !-■*), as
when they appoint the Seven (6" ; cf. 13^), or pray
for the deliverance of St. Peter from prison (12^).
The farewell prayers with the elders of Ephesus
(2(P), and the Avhole congregation of Tyre (2P- "),
are typical in all probability of many similar
services.
The teaching and the practice of the mother
Church in Jerusalem are retiected in the Epistle of
James (5^*), where the prayers of the elders of the
Church on behalf of the sick are definitely en-
joined ; nor is sickness of the soul forgotten in
prayer for forgiveness (5'").
1. The Epistles of St. Paul help our imagination
to go further in reproducing the method of inter-
cession in the Apostolic Church. Intercession is
continually linked with thanksgiving. Making
mention of the Thessalonians in his prayers, he
refers to their faith, hope, and love (1 Th 1^- ^),
and their acceptance of his message as the Word
of God (2'^), ' praying exceedingly that he may see
their face and may perfect that which is lacking
in their faith ' (3'"). So in 2 Th I" he prays that
God may count them worthy of His calling and
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in
them. In response he asks for their intercession
that ' the word of the Lord may run and be glori-
fied,' and lie himself may be delivered from un-
reasonable and evil men (3^''). There is a striking
phrase in 2 Co 1", when he has received the good
news from Corinth, and pictures their prayers
for his deliverance from peril : ' Ye also helping
together on our behalf by your supplication ; that,
for the gift bestowed upon us by means of many,
thanks may be given by many persons on our
behalf.' J. A. Beet (ad loc.) translates 'from
many faces,* a graphic word-picture of the up-
turned faces of the whole congregation.
To the Roman Christians, whom he has not yet
seen, St. Paul writes that he makes mention of
them unceasingly (llo 1*'^^), praising God for their
faith, and praying that he may be enabled to come
and impart to them some spiritual gift of grace.
They can help him by mutual encouragement.
In Eph I"*''-, rejoicing, as always, in what is
fairest in the character of his friends, he prays
that they may have ' a spirit of wisdom and revem-
tion,' growth in that knowledge of God which
alike proves our efficiency and increa-ses it in our
use of His revelation, when our eyes are opened to
see the wealth of the glory of Ilis inheritance in
the saints, and the greatness of His power. He
speaks from liis own experience of knowledge
issuing in power.
In his next prayer (Eph S'- "•") St. Paul puts
the need of Divine power first as ' a condition of
ability to iij)prehend " the whole range of the
sphere in which the Divine wisdom and love find
exercise'" (Chadwick, p. 290). His social teach-
ing here is noteworthy. Every family is enabled
to live its common life in proportion as the in-
dividuals live up to their personal ideal. So he
prays that Christ may dwell in each heart, for the
strength of Christ is conveyed only to those who
are fully strong enough to know the love of Christ.
Again, writing to the Colossians (P"^*), he prays
that they may be ' endowed with all wisdom to
apprehend [God's] verities and all intelligence to
follow His processes, living in the mind of the
Spirit — to the end that knowledge may manifest
itself in practice ' (J. B. Lightfoot, ad loc. ). Hav-
ing this sure grasp of principle, he can dare to pray
for them as patient and long-suttering, and always
thankful despite discouragement.
In Ph P" he prays that love and knowledge
and discernment may inspire them to approve
things that are excellent with a pure conscience
that offends none, and a life filled with the fruits
of righteousness.
Thus the method of St. Paul is exactly parallel
to the method of our Lord's High-Priestly prayer
(Jn 17**), in which intercession is concentrated first
on the needs of those given to Him out of the
world. The hope of the future depends on the
strengthening oi Christian centres before anytiiing
is said about those ' who shall believe througli
their word.' The beauty of the Christian life is
the irrefragable proof of the truth of Christian
teaching ; so it is to uphold the ideal of Christian
character that St. Paul prays most earnestly. But
this does not mean that tiie corporate intercessions
should not take also a wider range. In I Ti 2"-
he exhorts that 'supplications, prayers, interces-
sions, thanksgivings, be made for all men, for
kings and all that are in high place,' a direction
which, as we shall see presently in the letter of
Clement, was fervently followed in the Church in
Home, from which city he wrote this last Epistle.
It is a strange commentary on this teaching of
St. Paul that Josephus should actually ascribe the
origin of the war which ended with the destruction
of Jerusalem to the refusal of the Jews, at the in-
stigation of Eleazar, to offer prayer for Gentile
rulers (BJ li. xvii. 2).
2. In the Epistle to the Hebrews (7^) there is
an important passage on the intercession of the
Lord Jesus as our High Priest. ' In the glorified
humanity of the Son of man every true human
wish fincfs perfect and prevailing exjjression' (B. F.
Westcott, ad loc). In reliance n\)on Christ's ad-
vocacy as both social and personal, the writer
naturally asks for the ]irayers of his readers (13'^''),
and especially that he may be restored to theiu
the sooner.
3. In 1 John (5") intercession is regarded as the
expression of j)erfect boldness in prayer which
consciousness of a Divine life brings to believers :
'The energy of Christian life is from the first
social' (Westcott, ad loc.). Its prevailing jwwer
is assured on behalf of all who sin a sin not unto
intercp:ssion
IXTERPRETATIOX
619
tleath, sins which How from human imperfection.
In regard to sin whicli wholly sei>arates from
Christ, the Apostle does not forbitl, tliough he
cannot enjoin (v.").
4. The teaching of the Apostolic Fathers follows
the lines already laid down by the NT writers.
(a) Clement j,'oes to the root of the troubles at
Corinth when lie asks that intercession should be
made ' for them that are in any transgression, that
forbearance and humility may be given them ' (Ep.
ad Cor. Ivi.). And he shows what a prominent
place in the eucharistic prayers of the Church was
given to intercessions (lix.): 'Save those among
us who are in tribulation ; have mercy on the
lowly ; lift up the fallen ; show Thyself unto the
needy ; heal the ungodly ; conveii; the wanderers
of Thy people ; feed the hungry ; release our
Erisoners ; raise up the meek ; comfort the faint-
ear ted. Let all the Gentiles know that Thou art
God ahme, and Jesus Christ is Thy Son, and we
are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture.'
The prayer for rulers and governors may also be
quoted (Ixi.) : ' Grant unto them therefore, O Lord,-
health, peace, concord, stability, that they may
administer the government which Thou hast given
them without failure. . . . Do Thou, Lord, direct
their counsel according to that which is good and
well-pleasing in Thy sight, that, administering in
peace and gentleness with godliness the power
which Thou hast given them, they may obtain
Thy favour.'
(6) The joy of intercession finds striking expres-
sion in Hernias (Mand. x. 3), who teaches our need
of cheerfulness and maintains that the intercession
of a sad man hath never at any time power to
ascend to the altar of God. He paints also in the
Parable of the elm and the vine (Sim. ii.) the diffi-
culties of the rich man, who in the things of the
Lord is poor, and his confession and intercession
with the Lord are very scanty, because he is dis-
tracted alx)ut his riches. As the vine seeks the
support of the elm, let him help the poor man, who
is rich in intercession, and gain the support of his
prayers.
(c) Turning from the Church in Rome to the
Church in Antioch, we find Ignatius on his way to
martyrdom asking for intercession in the Eucharist
that he may succeed in lighting with wild beasts
{Eph. i.), and 'for the rest of mankind (for there
is in them a hope of repentance), that they may hnd
God ' (ib. 10). He requests prayer for the Church
in Syria in all his letters. 'For, if the prayer
of one and another hath so great force, how much
more that of the bishop and of the whole Church '
(ib. 5). To the Romans he writes : ' Only pray that
I may have power within and without' (ib. 3).
These quotations may suffice to show how
thoroughly the practice of intercession was carried
out by the primitive Church.
(d) Aristidcs in his Apology says: 'I have no
doubt that the world stands by reason of the inter-
cession of Christians ' (ch. 16).
(e) In the Martyrdom of Polycarp (A.D. 155),
viii., it is recorded how the aged Martyr remem-
bered ' all who at any time had come in his way,
small and great, high and low, and all the Uni-
versal Church throughout the world.'
(/) A little later Tertullian wrote these beautiful
words (de Orat. 29): '[Christian prayer] has no
delegated grace to avert any sense of suffering ;
but it supplies the sufiering, and the feeling, and
the grieving, with endurance : it amplifies grace
by virtue, that faith may know what she obtains
from the Lord, understanding what — for God's
name's sake — she sutlers. . . . Likewise it washes
away faults, repels temptations, extinguishes per-
secutions, consoles the faint-spirited, cheers the
high-spirited, escorts travellers, appeases waves,
makes robbers stand aghast, nourishes the poor,
governs the rich, upraises the fallen, arrests the
falling, confirms the standing.'
LiTERATCRK.— A. J. Worlledge, Prayer, 1902 ; W. H. Frere
and A. L. Illingworth, Surmm Corda, 1905 ; W. E. Chad-
wick, The Pastoral Teaching of St. Paul, 1907 ; see also under
P«^^KK- A. E. BUBN.
INTERMEDIATE STATE.— See Eschatology.
INTERPRETATION. — This word is used in
difterent senses by Christians in the Apostolic Age.
(1) St. Paul applies it to that spiritual ' gift ' which
enabled one to expound the unintelligible utterance
known as ' tongues ' (ep/xriveia [ 1 Co 12^" 14"'*], diepfirjvevu
[1 Co 12*' 145. 13. 27-]^ 8iepfir,vevr^s [1 Co U^). (2) Later
writers 'interpret' a foreign word by giving its
Greek equivalent (epntjvevu [Jn 1^ 9', He 7-], Supurfv-
(v(o [Ac 9^], fjiedep/jLvvevu [Mt 1^3 Mk 5*^ 15- »*, Jn
138- «, Ac 4^ 138]). When Papias calls St. Mark St.
Peter's interpreter {epfjL-nvevri^s [Euseb. HE iii. 39]),
he may be supposing that St. Peter preached in
Aramaic (or Hebrew) and that St. Mark translated
the sermon to the Greek audience. This is histori-
cally improbable, hoAvever, and possibly Papias
means only that St. Mark, since he composed his
Gospel on the basis of St. Peter's sermons, is there-
by St. Peter's 'expounder.' (3) In the sense of
Scriptural exposition, the word ' interpretation ' is
rarely used in the NT. The meaning of ' private
interpretation ' in 2 P I* (iSlas e-iri\v(X€oii) is doubt-
ful, though, in view of what follows, it seems to
signify the prophet's complete subordination to
God's will. In Lk 24'^ (diepfirivsvw) direct reference
is made to Christian interpretation of the OT
Ixjoks — a practice which was very general and very
important in the apostolic period.
The OT occupied a unique place in the life and
thought of the first Christians. St. Paul pre-
supposed his readers' acquaintance with its writ-
ings, which he assumed to be the final court of
appeal in all argumentation. Apollos, whom
certain Corinthians set up as St. Paul's rival, was
also 'mighty in the scriptures' (Ac 18^^). OT
language and thought are frequently appropriated
by the NT writers. According to H. 13. Swete
(Introduction to the OT in Greek, Cambridge, 1900,
p. 381 f.), there are 78 formal quotations in St.
Paul, 46 in the Synoptists, 28 in Hebrews, 23 in
Acts, 12 in John, and about a dozen in the remain-
ing books. Even where formal quotations are
lacking, OT phraseology is sometimes frequent
(e.g. Rev.). The early Christians, like the Jews,
believed in the Divine origin and authority of
Scripture. In spite of his breach with Judaism,
St. Paul still held the Law and the Commandments
to be holy, righteous, and good (Ro 7'-), and he
repeatedly affirmed that these things were written
' for our sake ' (Ro 4-»'- 15^ 1 Co 9^«- 1U«- "). Here
he found a clear revelation of God's purposes and
an infallible guide for Christians in matters of
conduct and doctrine (cf. Ro 1^ 3^- 1"^- 43^- 8^ 9«*-
lQ6fl; 119f. i6 1311 i5!»ff. 21^ 1 Co 6i« 9^- 1* IQi* 11^'- 14-1- «
153. 40. M^ 2 Co 12» 3i=»' 6i«ff- 8^3 99, Gal 38- 1*- 22). The
Evangelists saw in the OT foreshadowings of Jesns'
career and proof of His Messialiship (e.g. Mt l-
•25.15.23 414 gi7 iiTff. 12" 1333 2P, Mk 1=^- 4»"- ll**-
1.210f. 36 1427^ Lk 421 727 .2444^ Jn 1238 1525 1712 1924. 28. 36)^
For Matthew OT prophecy is virtually a 'source'
of information about Jesus' career, as when Mk
11^''' is made to conform to the first evangelist's
interpretation of Zee 9^ (Mt 21i-^ ; see also Mt 1-^
2*'- 151^'- etc.).
OT language serves other important purposes in
the Gospels. God speaks in this language at Jesus'
Baptism, and again at His Transfiguration ; it is
used in the conversation between Jesus and Satan ;
and it furnishes phraseology for some of Jesus'
620
INTERPRETATION
ISAAC
most forceful and solemn pronouncements, where
sometimes the sound of Holy Writ seems to be
prized above perspicuity {e.g. Mt lO**"-, Mk 4''^
12^ 1534). fhe history of the early community is
also Scripturally authenticated (Ac 1* 2'*"'- 4^*-)-
Thus the NT writers derived not only incidental
and descriptive details, but on occasion more im-
portant features of tlieir narratives from the OT.
riuH was only natural, since these sacred books
were believed to be inspired of God, prolitable for
teacliing, reproof, correction, and instruction, and
able to make njen ' wise unto salvation ' (2 Ti 3""- ;
cf. 2 P I'^f). Christians gave to the OT all the
prestige it had in Judaism, Ijelieving that they,
througli their faitli in Christ, had come into
possession of the <mly key to all true interpretation.
The exact content and text of the first Christians'
' Bible ' are not known. They were doubtless
familiar with the three-fold division of the Jewish
canon — the 'Law,' the 'Prophets,' and the 'Writ-
ings ' (Lk 24^^ [?]), but they probably did not discuss
questions of canonicity. Iheir feeling of spiritual
elevation left no room for such academic discus-
sions. And in tlie portions of Scripture used in-
dividual choice seems to have had free play. The
evangelists favour the Prophets and the Psalms,
while St. Paul and the author of Hebrews cite
mainly from the Pentateuch. But there is scarcely
a book of the OT with which some NT writer does
not show acquaintance. Obad., Ezr., Neh., and
Est. are the only exceptions (according to Toy,
Quotations in the NT, p. vi, n. 1). Apocryphal
books and popular legends are also used (cf. 1 Co
10^, Gal 3'», Ac 7**, 2 Ti 3», He 2- ll^^, Jude^-*-").
Textual problems seem to have been ignored.
Quotations are mostly from the LXX, though use
of the Hebrew text has sometimes been supposed.
This is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove,
since we do not know the exact form of Greek text
which a NT writer may have used. A part of the
early community ordinarily spoke Aramaic (Ac 6'),
but Greek writers naturally followed the LXX
rendering, even when the original tradition was in
Aramaic or Hebrew. In fact, there seems to have
been little thought about slavish adherence to any
text. Cliristians possessed a superior understan(l-
ing, whiclx allowed them to alter phraseoloii:y, to
paraphrase freely, or even to cite loosely from
memory.
Thus tlieir methods were more spontaneous than
those of scribism, yet the general character of their
internretation was predominantly Jewish. Its free
handling of the text, its disregard for the original
setting, its logical vagaries, its slight tendency to
become artificial, were all Jewish traits. To illus-
trate from tlie NT, Mk 1^'* changes the wording of
prophecy and disregards its natural meaning in
order to make the Christian application possible.
A logical non sequitur is illustrated in Mk 12-^'-,
where an original statement about the historic
earthly career of Abraham is made the basis for
an inference about his future heavenly career.
St. Paul's argument from ' seed ' and ' seeds ' (Gal
3'®), his comparison between Hagar and Sarah (Gal
A^*^-), and his interpretation of the OT injunction
against muzzling tlie ox (1 Co 9"'), all tend to be-
come artificial. Christians appropriated and imi-
tated Jewish Midrajihim seemingly without hesita-
tion, as when St. Paul made Cln'ist the spiritual
rock (1 Co lO-*; cf. 'Kabbah' on Nu P). They
argued from word-derivation (Mt P'"^-), and from
the numerical value of letters (Rev 13'*; cf. art.
' Gematria ' in JE) ; and they freely employed
figures, types, analogies, allegories (q.v.). They
also copied the more sober type of Haggadic Mid-
rashim. Their emphasis upon the example of tlieir
Master, their preservation of His teaching, their
harking back to the ancient worthies, are all in
line with Jewish custom. The work of the NT
interpreter is not so very unlike that of the ideal
scribe of Sir 39"^-. Yet early Christian interpreta-
tion did not run to the same extreme of barren
artificiality as that of the scribes, nor was it
pursued merely for its own sake. As the hand-
maid of the new faith, it was subordinated to the
consciousness of a new spiritual authority in
personal experience, a fact wliich may explain why
Christians were partial to OT pa.s.sages dealing
with personal religious life.
LiTKRATtiRB.— C. H. Toy, Qwtations in the NT, New York,
1884, where earlier literature is cited ; F. Johnson, The Quota-
tions of the A'ew Testament from the Old, London, 18JKJ; A.
Clemen, Ver Gelrravch de* A T in den netUest. Sehri/ten,
(Jiitersloh, 1895; E. Hiihn, Die alltest. Citate vnd Ilemiuiii-
cenzen im NT, Tiibiiigcn, 1!)(K); W. Dittmar, I'etux Teiita-
tnentum in Novo, Oottinfjeii, I'.iO'.i; E. Grafe, />«» UrehrUi-
tentum und das AT, Tiibingeii, 1007 ; P. Glaue, hie V'orletninij
lieiliger Schriften im Gottc^ienste, i., lierlin, IsXiT ; S. J. Case,
'The NT Writers* Interpretation of the OT," in BW xxxviii.
[1911] 92 ff. The more general treatises on Ilermeneutics
usually have a section on the apostolic period.
S. J. Case.
IRON {ffiSrjpo^; adj. ffiSvpeoi). — Iron, the com-
monest, cheapest, and most useful of heavy metals,
is mentioned (Rev 18'*) among the merchandise of
' Babylon ' ( = Rome). The Iron Age of civilization
succeeded the Ages of Copper and Bronze. *In
Egypt, Chaldaia, Assyria, China, it reaches far
back, to perhaps 4000 years before the Christian era.
Homer represents Greece as beginning her Iron
Age twelve hundred years before our era ' (EBr^^
xiv. [1910] 800). Rome was supplied with iron
from India, the shores of the Black Sea, Spain,
Elba, and the province of Noricum. The apoca-
lyptic Messiah is to rule the nations with a rod
of iron (Rev 2"" 12^ 19'»), a symbol of inflexible
justice (cf. Ps 29). The iron gate leading from the
Fortress of Antonia into the city of Jerusalem
opened to St. Peter and the angel of its own accord
{avTOfidri], Ac 12'") ; cf. Homer's avrd/JLarai Si irOXai
fivKov ovpavou, 8ls ix°^ ^iipai (II. v. 749), and Virgil,
jEn. vi. 81 f. James Strahan.
ISAAC (IffaiK). — Isaac, the son of Abraham and
Sarah, was supoiior in a variety of ways to his
half-brother Ishniael. He was ' the son of the free-
woman ' (6 5^ iK rrji eXevd^pas, Gal 4^ ; rov vlov riji
iXevd^pas, v.**) ; he was ' born through a promise '
(5i eirayyeXias, v.^) given to his parents in their old
age ; he was ' born after the Spii'it ' (Kara irvfCfia,
v.^-*), who gave the i)roniise and i)erhaps the strength
els KaralioXriv anipnaroi (He 11") ; and, as the true
son — even called the only-begotten (rbv fiovoyevrj,
v.'^) — he inherited the covenant promises given by
God to Abraham. His brother, on the other hand,
was ' the son of the handmaid ' (6 fikv ^k rrji iraiSiaKi^i,
Gal 4^ ; 6 vibs ttjs naiSiffKTjt, v.**) ; he was ' born after
the flesh ' (6 Kara ffdpKa yevvijOfU, v.^) ; and he could
' not inherit with the son of the freewoman ' (v.**).
St. Paul uses the relations of the two brothers to
their father and to one another to help him to make
good his distinction between ' the children of the
promise,' who are 'reckoned for a seed,' and 'the
children of the flesh,' who are not ' children of
God ' (Ro 9*). Grappling with the problem of the
incidence in his own day of tlie promises first given
to Abraham, he contends that while mere Jewish
birth and upbringing do not constitute a claim
of right to sjjiritual privileges, no barrier except
unbelief can prevent the Gentiles from inheriting
them. Compressing his teaching into a single
suggestive sentence, he says : ' We [the Christian
Church], like Isaac (Kard. 'IcradK), are children of
promise ' (eirayyeXlai r^Kva, Gal 4^ ; cf. tA rixva
riji ^wayyeXlai, Ro 9*). Born in tlie fullness of time,
made free by the gift of the Spirit, and destined for
a gi'eat heritage, the Christians of every land are
prefigured in Isaac. 'If ye are Christ's, then are
ISAIAH
ISAIAH
621
ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise ' (Gal
3^). The carnal Ishmael, who in tliLs daring
allegory represents orthodox Judaism, may ' per-
secute' the Spirit-bom Isaac (according to the
Itabbinic interpretation of the ori^nally innocent
word ' playing ' in Gn 21*) ; but, while the child of
the freewoman (the Church) is established for ever
in the Fatliers house by a covenant of grace, the
son of the bondwoman (the Jewish jpeople) is cast
out. If — as Luther says on Gal 4**—' allegory is
not ar^ment,' it may at least be extremely effec-
tive illustration. The Apostle's strong imagina-
tion makes the simple old folk-tale suddenly flash
with new meanings, which serve to illuminate a
complex and ditficult modem situation.
Two other incidents in Isaac's life are referred to
in He 11 *■''•. (1) He was virtually offered up as a
sacrifice to God (cf. Ja 2*') ; in a figure {ev rapa^ok-g)
he came back from the dead, passing through the
likeness of death and resurrection (see ABRAHAM).
(2) By blessing his son, he gave evidence of his
faith concerning things to come {repl fie\X6rTav).
His trust in God made future possibilities as real as
present certainties. His faith corresponded to the
definition in He IP: it was the sutetantiating of
things hoped for (iXri^ofiivwv inr6<rraaii).
James Strahan.
ISAIAH ('H<ro?aj or 'Ho-ataj, Vulg. Isaias, in the
Fathers also Esaias). — Isaiah, the grandest figure
among the prophets of Israel, is named 3 times in
Acts "(8^ » 28*) and 5 times in Romans (9^- ^
1Q16.20 1512) Nothing is said in the NT of his
personal history, except that i-rpiadTjcav in He 11*^
probably alludes to the tradition — found in the
Ascension of Isaiah (i. 9, v. 1), and repeated in
Justin's Trypho (ch. 120, rplon ^vXlrtp irpiffare) —
that he was sa^v^l asunder, a tradition which,
though not incredible, is without historical value.
Every NT reference to the prophet's name is ac-
companied by a quotation from liis writings, which
were for the Apostolic Age the words tnat 'the
Holy Ghost spake by Isaiah ' (Ac 28^). Yet cer-
tain spontaneous notes of appreciation from the
lips and pen of St. Paul are precious as indications,
slight but real, of the impression made upon one
master-spirit bj' the writings of another. ' Isaiah
crieth' (ic/>dj"et, Ro 9^) is an appraisement of the
emphasis of his utterance ; ' well (or finely) spake
the Holy Spirit through Isaiah' (koXws iXdXrjiTe,
Ac 28'^) expresses hearty sympathy with the pro-
phet's teaching and admiration of the language in
which it is conveyed ; and ' Isaiah is very bold '
('H<r(was 5^ a-roToX/tqi, Ro ICP) is one spiritual pro-
tagonist's tribute to another's personal courage. It
needed heroism for Isaiah to proclaim, in the face
of Israel's haughty exclusiveness, a gracious Divine
purpose which embraced all the Gentiles ; and St.
Paul, whose life-work it was to fulfil that purpose
in spite of fanatical Jewish opposition, was the
man to appreciate a splendid boldness inspired by
great faith.
The NT, of course, makes no distinction between
a First, Second, and Third Isaiah. The prophet's
name impartiallj- covers a variety of ^v^itings
which criticism now pronounces to be productions
of widely different periods. He is eqnsQly the seer
of the Root of Jesse (Is lli" : Ro 15**) and of the
suffering servant of the Lord (Is 53^!' Ac 8^). It
was a passage in ' Isaiah the prophet ' (ch. 53) that
the Ethiopian was reading in liis chariot when he
was joined by St. Philip, whose interpretation of
that mysterious utterance — the profoundest in the
OT — in the light of Christ's Passion led the eunuch
to faith and baptism.
Two NT ^mters had minds steeped in the pro-
jihecies of I>aiah — St. Paul and the writer of the
Apocalypse. (1) Tlie siieeches attributetl to St.
Paul in Acts furnish e>'idence of bis indebtedness
to those writings. When he announces to the
Jews cf Pisidian Antioch his epoch-making decision
to 'turn to the Gentiles,' it is in an utterance of
Isaiah (49") that he seeks the Divine sanction of
his action : ' I have set thee for a light of the
Gentiles' (Ac 13"). When he reasons with the
Athenians as to the error of making the Godhead
' like unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art
and man's device ' (Ac 17^), he seems to eclio the
words, if not the ironical tones, of the prophet of
the Exile (Is 40"). His experience among the Jews
of Rome reminded him of what befell Isaiah in
Jerusalem many centuries earlier. Both the pro-
phet and the apostle seemed to be sent to hearers
impervious to Divine truth, who cmild not be con-
verted and healed. The Epistle to the Romans
supplies the strongest proof of St. Paul's absorp-
tion in the prophecies of Isaiah. It is significant
that most of his quotations occur in the chapters
which contain his philosophy of the fall and rising
again of Israel (9-11), and that many of them are
taken from Deutero-Isaiah. His doctrine of elec-
tion inevitably suggests the clay and the potter
(Ro 9*^ II Is 45»). He is helped to face the Jemsh
rejection of the Messiah by the conception of the
Remnant {to Karakfifi/xa, Ro 9" 0 Is 10^) — a concep-
tion which seemed to the prophet so important that
he gave one of his own children the symbolic name
of ' Remnant-sball-retum ' (Is T'). The thought of
Christ as a stumbling-stone to the Jews is parallel
to that of Jahweh as a stumbling-stone to the
houses of Israel (Ro 9» !l Is 8"). While the uni-
versal proclamation of the gospel suggests the
' beautiful feet ' of those who preached deliverance
from Babylon (Ro 10'* || Is 52^), the sadness of
speaking to deaf ears prompts the question, ' Who
hath believed our report?' (Ro 10" || Is 53'). The
prevenient grace of God excites the wonder of both
the prophet and the apostle (Ro 10^ |; Is 61'), and
Israel's present insensibility seems to them both a
spirit of stupor (Ro 11* J! Is 29"'). The assurance of
the ultimate salvation of all Israel is based on the
advent of a Deliverer (Ro 11* fl Is 59*) ; but both
writers confess a reverent agnosticism in presence
of the mysteries of Divine providence (Ro 11** |1
Is 40"). The Epistles to the Corinthians also prove
the affinity of these great minds. Both writers
know the unprofitableness of mere earthlv wisdom
(1 Co l'» II Is 29'*, 1 Co 1* I! Is 38'8) ; both believe
in a spiritual creation which will make all things
new (2 Co 5" !' Is 43'«^) ; and both of them, with
all their breadth of outlook, recognize the impera-
tiveness of separation from heathendom (2 Co 6'" I!
Is 52"). Isaisih's hope of immortality, the strongest
that is found (apart from Daniel) in the prophetic
writings, is used to clinch St. Paul's great argu-
ment for the resurrection of the dead — 'death is
swallowed up in victory' (1 Co 15** Is 25®; eU
y'lKos, which takes the place of the prophet's 'for
ever,' is due to the Aram, sense of the Heb. word).
(2) The other NT writer who especially felt
Isaiah's spell was the author of the Apocalypse.
His Christ, as the First and the Last, is clothed
with the attributes of Isaiah's God (Rev 1" [\ Is 41*
44*). The trisagion of his living creatures was
uttered by the seraphim in the heavenly Temple
(Rev 4* i; Is 6'). His vision of the rolling up of
heaven as a scroll was Isaianic (Rev 6'* 11 Is 34*),
and his exquisite description of the final state of
the blessed — 'they shall htmger no more . . .
wipe away every tear from their eyes ' — is a cento
of prophetic phrases, which are now used to picture
the consummation of the redemptive work of the
Lamb (Rev 7'*'- : Is 49'" 2o«). ' Fallen is Babylon '
— a voice of scera indignatio reminiscent of Rome's
own ' Carthago est delenda ' — ^was the doom of the
real Babylon before it was pronounced upon the
mystical one (Rev 14* y Is 21'). The description of
622
ISRAEL
ISRAEL
tlie militant Messiah as clothed in a garment
sprinkled with blood is suggested by the attributes
of the Hero who came from the conquest of Edom
(Kev 19'" II Is 63"^-). The desire for a new heaven
and a new earth was not itself new (Rev 2V || Is
65'^), and tlie ideal city is depicted in Isaianic
colours (Rev 2V^- -"■ 11 Is BO'"- »• "). The free invi-
tation witli which the Revelation properly ends
(22"*-' being a harsh editorial jwatscript) only
echoes the words of welcome uttered by the evan-
gelical prophet (Rev 22" || Is 55').
James Strahan.
ISRAEL. — Israel was the nation to which God's
promises had been given. Generally the idea of
privilege is associated with the use of the word,
just as ' Israel' was originally the name of special
privilege given by God to Jacob, the great ancestor
of the race (Gn 322** 3510), it diflers from both
* Hebrew ' and ' Jew,' the former standing, at least
in NT times, for Jews of purely national sympathies
who spoke the Hebrew or Aramaic dialect (Ac 6') ;
the latter, a term originally applied to all who
belonged to the province of Judah, and, after the
Babyloni.an captivity, to all of the ancient race
wherever located. ' Israel,' on the other hand, is pre-
eminently the people of privilege, the people who
had been cliosen by God and received His covenant.
Thus frequently a Jewish orator addressed the
people as 'men of Israel' (Ac 2^2 3'2 48- 1» 5^ 13'«
etc.).
In the Acts of the Apostles we find the word
used historically with reference to the ancestors of
the Jews of apostolic times and also applied to
these Jews themselves. The past history of Israel
as God's chosen people is referred to in the speeches
contained in the Book of Acts, e.g. by St. Stephen
(723. 37. 4-2)^ and by St. Paul (13" 28^»). It is usually
assumed or suggested in the Acts that the Jews of
the time, to Avhom the gospel was being preached,
are the Israel of the day, the people for whom God
had a special favour and who might expect special
blessings (5=*^ 1323).
But tlie refusal of the message of the ajiostles by
many of those who by birth were Jews led to a
change in the use of the term, which gives us what
we may call the metaphorical or spiritual signifi-
cance of the word. The Apostle Paul's contention
with the legalistic Jews of his day led him to draw
a distinction between the actual historical Israel
and the true Israel of God. He speaks on the one
hand of ' Israel after the flesh ' (1 Co 10'*), or of
those who belong to the 'stock of Israel' (Ph 3^*),
and on the other hand of a ' commonwealth of
Israel ' (Eph 2'-), from which many, even Jews by
birth, are aliens, and into which the Ephesians
have been admitted (v.^*), and also of the 'Israel
of God ' (Gal 6'®). By this ' commonwealth of Israel '
or 'Israel of God' the Apostle means a true
spiritual Israel, practically equivalent to 'all the
faithful.' It might be defined as 'the whole
number of the elect who have been, are, or shall
be gathered into one under Christ,' or, in other
words, the Holy Catholic Church.
This true Israel does not by any means coincide
with the nation or the stock of Abraham. ' They
are not all Israel which are of Israel' (Ro 9^), i.e.
by racial descent. Branches may be broken off
from the olive tree of God's privileged people and
wild olive branches may be grafted into the tree
(Ro 11""-'). Sometimes it is difficult to determine
the exact application of the term in difVerent pass-
ages in the Pauline Epistles. Thus the sentence,
' All Israel shall be saved' (Ro IP"), refers not to
the true or spiritual Israel in the sense of an elect
people, as has been held by various commentators,
e.g. Augustine, Theodoret, Luther, Calvin, and
others, nor to an elect remnant, as is held by
Bengel and Olshausen. The Ai)ostle is speaking of
the actual nation of Israel as a whole, and contrast-
in" it with the fullness of the Gentiles. It is his
belief that, when the fullness of the Gentiles is
come in, Israel as a nation will also turn to God
by confessing Christ. Tiie phrase ' all Israel ' does
not necessarily apply to every member of the race,
nor does the passage teach anything Jis to the fate
of the individuals who at the Apostle's day or since
then have composed the nation (cf. Meyer, Kojn-
mentar, p. 520; Denney in EG'1\ 'Rom.,' p. 683;
H. Olshausen, liom., p. 373 ; Calvin, Rom., p. 330).
Just as the ancient historical Israel was the
recipient of special privileges and stood in a i)ar-
ticular relation to God, so the spiritual Israel of
apostolic times is the bearer of sj^ecial privileges
and stands to God in a unique relationsiiip. Ancient
Israel had ' the oracles of God ' (Ro 3-). They had
the sign of circumcision. To them, St. Paul
declares, pertained ' the adoption, and the glory,
and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and
the service of God, and the promises ; whose are
the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh
Christ came' (Ro 9^- ^). The great essential features
of these privileges are transferred to the spiritual
Israel, the believing Church which has been grafted
into the true olive tree. They have the adoption,
they are sons of God (Ro 8'*''"). They have the
glory both present and future (Ro 8'*). They are
partakers of the new covenant which has been
ratified by the death of Jesus Christ (1 Co ll^^).
The analogy between the Jirst and the second
covenant is fully worked out by the writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, who dwells upon the ritual
and ceremonial aspect of ancient Israel's relation-
ship to God, and shows the higher fulfilment of
that relationship under the new covenant, M'licre
there is direct personal access to God. Here the
human priesthood of the sons of Aaron and the
sacrifices of bulls and goats are superseded by a
Divine Mediator who ofTered Himself a sacrifice
once for all (V 10'"). The Mediator of the new
covenant has entered not into an earthly temple
but into heaven itself, there to make continual
intercession for His people (7*^). The writer
further emphasizes the superiority of the new
covenant relationship of the spiritual Israel as
being a fulfilment of the prophecy of Jer 3P'-^*,
which presupposes that the old covenant had proved
ineflective (He 8^). The Law is no longer to be
written on tables of stone, but in the mind and the
heart (v.'").
In the Book of Revelation ancient Israel is referred
to historically in connexion with Balaam, 'who
taught Balak to cast a stumblingblock before the
children of Israel' (2'^). On tlie other hand, the
symbolic or metaphorical use of the term applied
to the spiritual Israel is found in connexion with
the sealing of the servants of God which takes
place according to the tribes of the children of
Israel (7^*), and also in the description of the New
Jerusalem, where the names of the twelve tribes
are engraven on the twelve gates (21^-). The
author of the Apocalypse, following the usage of
St. Paul and the example of St. Peter (1') and St.
James (P), applies the passage 7'''*, regarding the
sealing of the tribes taken from a Jewish source,
to the true spiritual Israel, who are to be kept
secure in the day of the world's overthrow. It is
the same class which is referred to in 7''" who
apj)ear in heaven clothed in white robes and with
palms in their hands (cf. J. Mofiatt in EOT, ' Revela-
tion,'1910, p. 395 f.).
For the lustory and religion of Israel in apostolic
times see artt. Pharisees, Heroi>.
LiTKRATURK. — Joscphus, AiiL, HJ ; H. Ewald, Q^'seh. dea
Voltes Israel, Gottinjreii, 1SG4-60; E. Schiirer, (IJV*, I^eipzip,
lWl-11 ; C. von Weizsacker, Apostolic Atu; Enjr. tr., ISJM-
05. The following Coniine'iitaries on tlit rcknanl passages nioy
ISRAELITE
ITALY
623
be cited : on Rotnani : Calvin (1S44), Olshausen (1S66). Meyer
(1872X Denney (EGT, 1900X Sanday-Headlam (ICC, 1902) ;
on Hebretcf. A. B. Davidson (1SS2), Westcott (18S9X See
also the artt. ' Israel, Uistorv of,' in HDB, ' Israel, Israelite' in
DCG, 'Israel' in EBi, and 'Hebrew Religion' in EBr.
W. F. Boyd.
ISRAELITE. — An Israelite was one who belonged
to the nation of Israel, rerarded, raore especially
from the point of view or tlie nation, as the re-
cipient of DiWne favour and special privilege. An
Israelite is a member of a chosen people and as
such is the sharer of the blessings belonging to
that i»eople. It is a name of honour, and is to
be distinguished from both ' Hebrew ' and ' Jew,'
the former being, at least in NT times, a Jew iR-ith
Eurely national sympathies, who spoke the native
[ebrew or Aramaic dialect of Palestine ; while the
Jew was one who belonged to the ancient race
wherever he might be settled and whatever his
views. Every Jew, however, regarded himself as
a true Israelite, and prided himself on the privileges
which he, as a member of the favoured nation,
had received when other nations had been passed
by. The Apostle Paul refers to these privileges
when he describes his ' kinsmen according to the
flesh ' as Israelites ' whose is the adoption, and the
glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the
law, and the service of God, and the promises'
(Ro 9^). He knows the way in which the Jew
boasts of them, and claims that he can share in
that boasting as well as any of his detractors.
'Are they Israelites? — so am I. Are they the
seed of Abraham? — so am I' (2 Co 11^). This
feeling of exclusive national privilege led in many
cases to the rejection of the gospel by the Jews,
who did not wish their privileges to be extended
to the heathen world. This rejection of his mes-
sage by those who were Israelites by birth caused
the Apostle to conceive of a true or spiritual
Israelite as equivalent to a believer in Jesus Christ
— one after the type of Nathanael of Jn 1*^, an
Israelite indeed in whom is no guile (cf. art.
ISRAFX). The Apostle applies the term in its
natural sense to himself in Ko 11\ 'I also am an
Israelite,' in order to show that all the members
of the race have not been rejected by God, but
that there is a remnant according to the election
of grace — Israelites Avho are Israelites indeed, not
merely by outward physical connexion, but also
by moral and spiritual characteristics.
W. F. Boyd.
ISSACHAR.— See Tribes.
ITALIAN BAND.— According to Ac lO^, the
centurion Cornelius, of the (rreipa 'IroXticiJ, was in
Cresarea about A.D. 40. The adjective indicates
that the 'cohort' (RVm) consisted of native
Italians. Now, as a province of the second order,
Judsea, of which Cfesarea was the administrative
centre, was not garrisoned by legionaries, who
were Roman citizens, but by auxiliaries, who
were provincials. How, then, could an auxiliary
cohort be called Italian? Josephus states that
there were five cohorts, composed of citizens of
Cfesarea and Sebaste, stationed in the former city
at the time of the death of Herod Agrippa {Ant.
XIX. ix. 2, XX. viii. 7), and Blass suggests (m loco)
that one of the live may have been called the
cohors Italica, as being composed of Roman
citizens who had made their home in one or other
of the two cities. Schiirer has no doubt that one
of the five is the Augustan cohort mentioned in
Ac 27*, but he refuses to identify another (or the
same one) with 'the Italian.' Indeed, while he
produces monumental evidence that 'at some
tune or other a cohors Italica was in Syria,' he
thinks that the story of Comelitis lies under sus-
Eicion, ' the circumstances of a later period having
een transferretl back to an earlier i>eriod ' {HJP
I. ii. [1890] 53 f.). Ramsay regards this suspicion
as groundless, and makes effective use ( Was Christ
bom at Bethlehem ?, 1898, p. 260 f.).of an inscription
recently discovered at Camuntnm on the Upper
Danube — the epitaph of the young soldier, Pro-
cultis, a subordinate officer (optio) in the second
Italian Cohort, who died there while engaged on
detached ser\ice from the Syrian army. Syrian
troops, under Mucianus, were certainly engaged on
the Lower Danube, and probably on the Upper,
in 69 B.C. (Tacitus, Hist. iiL 46). When their
campaign was ended, they were doubtless sent
back to Syria ; and the same legions frequently
remained a very long period, sometimes for cen-
turies, in one province.
' The whole harden of proof, therefore, rests with those who
maintain that a Cohort which was in Syria Itefore [a.d.] 69 was
not there in 40. There is a stronjf probability that Luke is
right when he alludes to that Cohort as part of the Syrian
garrison about a.d. 40.' Besides, ' the entire subject of detach-
ment-service is most obscure ; and we are very far from being
able to say with certainty that the presence of an auxiliar}'
centurion in Caesarea is impossible, unless the Cohort in which
he was an officer was stationed there ' (Ramsay, op. eit. 285,
288). James Strahan.
ITALY ('iToXta). — The name was originally con-
fined to the extreme southern point of the Italian
peninsula. For the Greeks of the 5th cent. B.C. it
denoted the tract along the shore of the Tarentine
Gulf, as far as Metapontum, and thence across to
the Gulf of Posidonia. By the time of Pol3bius
the name had been extended to the whole penin-
sula, for he speaks of Hannibal crossing the Alps
into Italy, and of the plains of the Padus as part
of Italy (Hist. ii. 14, iii. 39, 54). At a later time,
it is true, Gallia Cisalpina was officially regarded
as part of Ca?sar's province, and therefore not
strictly in Italy, which he did not enter tiU he
cros.sed the Rubicon ; but from the Augustan Age
onward the word hatl its present-day meaning.
Scarcely any country has more clearly-marked and
obvious boundaries.
The Latin language was inscribed upon the Cross
of Christ, but none of the books of the XT were
Avritten in it. The founders of Christianity were
not so greatly influenced by Italian as by Hebraic
and Hellenic ideals. Nor did Italy herself dream
that she had any kind of evangel for the East which
she conquered. Her plain task was to give and
maintain law and order everywhere, and her Im-
perial ideal certainly found its counterpart in the
apostolic conception of a world-wide Church. But
her own spiritual mission, so far as she was con-
scious of having one, was merely to be the apostle
of Hellenism, of which she had for some centuries
been the disciple.
' The desire to become at least internally Hellenised, to become
partakers of the manners and the culture, of the art and the
science of Hellas, to be — in the footsteps of the great Mace-
donian— shield and sword of the Greeks of the East, and to be
allowed further to civilise this East not after an Italian but
after a Hellenic fashion — this desire pervades the later centuries
of the Roman republic and the better times of the empire with
a power and an ideality which are almost no less tragic than
that political toil of the Hellenes failing to attain its g^oal'
(T. Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empirt^, Eng. tr.,
1909, i. 253).
Some of the cities of Italy — certainly Rome and
Puteoli, and probably others, though there is no
definite information on the point — had felt the
presence of Judaism before they were offered Chris-
tianity. Josephus mentions the Jewish colony of
Puteoli in his story of the Jewish impostor who
claimed to be Alexander the son of Herod (c.
4 B.C.). ' He Avas also so forttmate, upon landing,
as to bring the Jews that were there under the
same delusion' (Ant. xvn. xii. 1), and 'he got
very large presents ' from them (BJ ll. \-ii. 1) ; but
Augustus himself was not so easily deceived (Ant.
XVll. xii. 2). Over half a century later, the fii-st
Puteolan Christians, whose fellowship St. Paul
624
ITALY
JACOB
enjoyed for a week on his way to Koine (Ac 28'^),
were evidently drawn from that same Jewish com-
munity and its proselytes. The presence of a great
Jewish colony in Home, dating from the time when
Pompey brought his prisoners of war from Jeru-
salem, is abundantly attested by Latin historians
and poets. It is egually certain that they made
many proselytes. The swindling of Fulvia, ' a
woman of great dignity, and one that had embraced
the Jewish religion' {Ant. XVIII. iii. 5), by another
Jew of the baser type was the signal for an out-
burst against the whole colony in the time of
Tiberius (Tac. Ann. ii. 85; Suet. Tiber. 36). Ac-
cording to Ac 18^ Claudius went the length of
expelling all the Jews from Home (cf. Suet. Claud.
25). Even if his decree only amounted to the
interdicting of their assemblies (Dio Cassius, Ix.
6), this milder measure would doubtless cause a
great exodus from the city. Some of the exiles
merely emigrated to the neighbourhood, perhaps
to Aricia (for the evidence see E. Schiirer, HJP
II. ii. [1885] 238), but others went abroad. This
was the occasion of the journey of Aquila and
Priscilla 'from Italy' to Corinth (Ac 18-).
Italy was the destination of the prisoner Paul
when he made his appeal to Cicsar (Ac 27'). The
narrative of his journey from point to point —
Cajsarea, Myra, Melita, Puteoli, and then overland
by the oldest and most famous of Roman roads,
the Via Appia — illustrates the fact that ' most of
the realms of the ancient Koman Empire had
better connections than ever afterwards or even
now.' Dangers could not be wholly avoided, but
'travelling . . . was easy, swift, and secure to a
degree unknown until the beginning of the nine-
teenth century ' (L. Friedliinder, Roman Life and
Manners under the Early Empire, 1908, i. 268).
In He 13^ 'they of Italy' (ot diriT^s'IraXfoj) join
the writer in sending salutations, ol airb denotes
persons who have come from the place indicated
(cf. Mt 15', Ac 6» 10^). It is a mistake to imagine
that the writer was himself in Italy, and that he
was thinking of the Italian Christians around him
there. On the contrary, the phrase implies
that the author was absent from and wTiting to
Italy, while there were in his company natives of
Italy who had embraced Christianity, and who
desired to be remembered to their believing com-
patriots in some part of the home-land. It is
not an equally .safe, but still a plausible, con-
jecture that Italy — probably Rome — was the
writer's own home (see art. Hebrews, Epistle
TO THE). James Strahan.
lYORY (adj. eXecpdvTiPos, noun to iXefAvrivov, fr.
i\i((>a% ; Skr. ebhns, Lat. ebur, Er. ivoirc). — Ivory
was prized by all the civilized nations of antiquity.
The OT contains a dozen references to its l)eauty
and value. ' Every article of ivory ' (Rev 18") was
found in the market of the apocalyptic Babylon
(Rome). It was used for the adornment of palaces,
for sculpture, for the inlaying of furniture and
chariots, for numberless domestic and decorative
objects. 'Ebur Indicum' (Hor. Car. I. xxxi. 6;
cf. Verg. Georg. i. 57) was known to everyone.
Statues (Georg! i. 480), sceptres (Ov, Met. i. 178),
lyres (Hor. Car. II. xi. 22), scabbards (Ov. Met. iv.
148), sword-hilts (Verg. ^n. xi. 11), seals (Cic,
Verr. ll. iv. 1), couches (Hor. Sat. II. vi. 103), doors
(Verg. ^n. vi. 148), curule chairs (Hor. Ep. i. vi. 54)
are samples of Roman workmansliip in ivory. As
the substance is so hard and durable, many ivory
works of art have come down from the ancient
world. James Stbahan.
JACINTH {voLKivOo^, Ital. gincinto). — Jacinth, or
hyacinth, is tiie colour of the eleventh foundation-
stone of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21^). The cui-
rasses of apocalyptic horsemen are partly hyacinth-
ine (9"). The vdKiydos of the ancients was probably
our sapphire (21'^" [RVm]). The modern hyacinth,
a vaiiety of zircon, of yellowish red colour, may
have been the stone known in Gr. as \oyi''pi.ov and
in lleb. as leshem (the RV of Ex 28'« 39'^ has
' jacinth ' where the AV has ' ligure ') ; but Jlinders
Petrie (HDB iv. 620) suggests that the latter was
yellow quartz or agate. Many Greek and Roman
' hyacinths,' used for intaglios and cameos, were
probably only garnets. James Strahan.
JACOB ('IaKW/3). — Jacob, the younger son of
Isaac, was the father of the twelve patriarchs who
were the heads of the tribes of Israel.
The story of the ante-natal struggle of Esau and
Jacob (to which allusion is made in Hos 12'), and
of the oracle spoken to their motlier (Ro 9" || Gn
25®), is a folk-tale which vividly reflects the rival-
ries of Israel and Edom. The Hebrews boasted of
their superiority to the powerful kindred race
which dwelt on their southern border. To be more
than a match for those hereditary foes, gaining the
advantage over them either by force of arms or by
nimbleness of wit, was a point of national honour.
By hook or by crook the Israelites rarely failed to
come ofr victorious over the Edomites. And the
popular mind liked to think that the character-
istics and fortunes of the two rival nations were
mysteriously foreshadowed before the birth of their
far-ofi' ancestors. From tiie beginning God chose
the younger son for Himself, and decreed that tlie
elder should be servant to the younger. In the
words of a prophet who on this matter expresses
the general belief, God loved Jacob, but hated
Esau (Mai P- *). St. Paul uses this Divine prefer-
ence to illustrate that principle of election whicli
he sees operating all through the history of Israel,
and of which he finds startling contemporary evi-
dence in the nation's apostasy from the Messiah,
and God's choice of the Gentiles. That the elder
brother (and nation) should serve the younger,
that the natural heir should be foredoomed to lose
the birthright and the blessing, that (apart from
good or evil) the one should ajppear to be accepted
and the other rejected — all this was evidence of an
inscrutable selectiveness, by which God works out
His universal purpose (^ kolt iKkoyi^v roO Oeov
irpddecns [see ESAU]). The election of grace {^KXoyrj
xdpiTos) is the central idea in St. Paul's philosophy
of history. It is an attempt to give a rationale of
the fact that ' Universal History, the history of
what man has accom))lished in this world, is at
bottom the History of the Great Men who have
worked here' (Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Wor-
ship, Lect. i.).
In a speech before the Sanhedrin, Stephen made
allusion to the story of Jacob's sending his sons
(lown to Egypt, of .loseph's sending for his father,
and of Jacobs descent into Egyjtt and death there
(Ac ?*• "• '*). As an evidence of Jacob's faith, the
JAILOR
JAMES AlfD JOHN
625
\\Titer of Hebrews selects a death- bed scene (11").
' He blessed the two sons of Joseph,' giving them
one of the finest benedictions ever uttered by
human lips, invoking the God of history, provi-
dence, and grace to be their Shepherd-God (Gn
4gi5. i6j Then ' he worshipped leaning upon the
top of his start".* In the original (Gn 47'^) this act
precedes the blessing, and while the LXX reads
'upon the top of his staff,' other versions, includ-
ing the English, have 'on the bed.' The differ-
ence of reading is due to Heb. punctuation {ns^n
'the start',' .Tp?n 'the bed'), and does not greatly
alter the sense. Jacob, who is here the ideal
Israelite, gives conscious or unconscious proof of
his faith by taking leave of life with a high dignity
and solemnity. Meekly submitting himself to the
will of God, he teaches all his posterity to worship
the ' God of Jacob ' with their latest breath.
Stephen refers (Ac 7*") to David's desire ' to find
a habitation for the God of Jacob.' Here, too,
Jacob is not an individual but a nation. The
usage was common in every epoch of Hebrew
literature : in the earliest period — ' Come, curse
me Jacob ' . . . ' Who can count the dust of
Jacob ? ' (Nu 23^- '*>) ; in the Exile—' Fear not, thou
worm Jacob' (Is 41") ; and in the Maccabsean age,
when Judas 'made Jacob glad with Ids acts' (1
Mac 3^) ; after which it was naturally taken over
into the NT. Jacob's other name ' Israel ' had the
same two senses, personal and national, a circum-
stance which gives piquancy to the Pauline dictum
(Ro 9*) : ' Not all who are of Israel {i.e. born of the
patriarch) are Israel' (i.e. the chosen people of
God). Many of them are only 6 'lo-paTjX xarit aapKa,
Israelites by birth, whereas in a higher sense all
Christians are 6 'Io-pa7j\ rod OeoO (Gal 6'*). Natur-
ally the name ' Jacob ' never acquired this new
meaning : Israel was the ideal people of God,
whether Jewish or Gentile, Jacob the actual
Jewish nation composed of very imperfect human
beings. The two words are appropriately com-
bined in St. Paul's prevision of a far-off Divine
event which must be the goal of history : ' All
Israel shall be saved, for ... a Deliverer . . .
shall turn away iniquity from Jacob' (Ro 11^).
James Steahan.
JAILOR.— The AY translates 8eff^Lo<f>v\a^ in Ac
16^ ' jailor,' and in vv.^^- ^ ' keeper of the prison.'
The RV adheres to the term ' jailor ' in all three
verses. The person so designated occupied the
position of supreme authority as governor of the
prison (cf. dpxioefffio<pv\ai, Gn 39^ LXX), and must
be distinguished from persons holding the sub-
ordinate position of guard or warder (0i/Xa|, Ac 5P
12® ; AV ' keeper '). It was to the custody of this
oflBcial that the duumviri at Philippi committed
St. Paul and Silas, with the strict injunction to
' keep them safely.' The fact that Philippi was a
Roman colony lends a certain amount of proba-
bility to R. B. Rackham's suggestion that he was
a Roman oflicer, occupying the rank of centurion
{Com. on Acts, 1901). Chrysostoms attempt to
identify him with Stephanas (1 Co 16") overlooks
the fact that Stephanas was among the ' firstfniits
of Achaia,' not Macedonia ; while a later suggestion
that he was Epaphroditus, though it is more pro-
bable, lacks adequate data to support it.
Modem criticism seriously questions the credi-
bility of the portion of the narrative (Ac 16^*^)
containing the account of the jailor's conversion,
on the ground of inherent improbabilities (B.
Weiss, Weizsacker, Holtzmann, Hamack, Bacon,
Cone). Most of the objections have been ade-
quately dealt with by W. M. Ramsay in St. Paul
the Traveller, 1S95, pp. 221-223 ; and a summary
of them, with their refutation, is given in an
article bv Giessekke (described in the ExpT ix.
[1S98] 274 f.). The legendary character of the
VOL. I. — 40
narrative has been maintained for the further
reason that it is not guaranteed by the ' we ' section,
which ends, it is alleged, with v.-^. 'Yet these
verses betray such unimpeachable tokens of the
style of St. Luke as to prevent us from even think-
ing of them as interpolated' (A. Hamack, Luke
the Physician, Eng. tr., 1907, p. 113). Nor does it
follow that the ' we ' section ends with v.**, because
the first person is no longer used. After his separa-
tion from St. Paul and Silas, owing to their arrest
and imprisonment, the narrator wo^d, of necessity,
Eroceed to describe the subsequent events, when
e was no longer in their company, in the third
person. The presence of the miraculous element,
if the earthquake is to be so regarded, in no way
militates against this assumption, for the 'we-
sections are fall of the supernatural' (Hamack,
Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., 1909, p. 144).
Leaving aside the alleged improbabilities, it must
be admitted that the description of the night-scene
in the prison is most vivid and life-like. Assume
the possibility of the earthquake, which in itself
is a natural occurrence, treated in this case as a
special instance of providential interference, and
there is nothing absolutely inexplicable in the
course of events which follows. The diflBculties
are largely due to the brevity of the narrative,
which does not allow of entering into minute
detaiL The author (whether St. Luke or another)
is not describing an ' escape ' from prison, miracu-
lous or otherwise, for the release of the captives
takes place next morning. The interest of the
narrative centres in the conversion of the jailor
and his household, and it is as leading up to this
most interesting and happy denouement that the
earlier incidents of the eventful night are depicted.
When the main object of the story is borne in
mind, the difficulties which it presents will not
be regarded as sufficient to justify its wholesale
rejection. W. S. Moxtgomzry.
JAMES AND JOHN, THE SONS OF ZEBEDEE.
— 1. In Synoptic Gospels. — The sons of Zebedee
are mentioned in the following passages in the
Synoptic Gospels. The call of the two orothers is
related in Mk l^^ ( = Mt 4^^, Lk 5"^-). After
the call of Andrew and Simon and their immediate
response, Jesus goes on further and sees the two
brothers James and John in their boat, mending
their nets. Their response to His call is equally
prompt ; they leave their father and the hired
servants in the boat and go away after Him. The
Matthsean account is practically identical with the
Marcan, save for the omission of any reference
to the hired servants, a characteristic cutting out
of unnecessary detail. In these two accounts the
call of the four disciples is the first event recorded
after the beginning of the ministry ; it is followed
by the account of the entry into Caperaaum and
the teaching in the Synagogue. St. Luke in his
Gospel places the incident later, after his record of
events at Nazareth and Capernaum. It is not
easy to determine whether his reason for the
change is historical, to account for the promptness
with which the call of an unknown stranger is
obeyed, or whether he is following a different tra-
dition. The relation of the Lucan account to the
Johannine Appendix (ch. 21) is also difficult to
determine. Competent scholars are found to main-
tain both the view that the Johannine narrative is
based on an account (similar to the Lucan) of the
call of Peter, and the view that St. Luke, in his
record of the call to discipleship, has borrowed
details from an account of a post-Resurrection ap-
pearance to Peter in Galilee. But the question
has no direct bearing on the call of the sons of
Zebedee, the Lucan additional matter having to
do with Peter alone. The only detail which he
626
JA^IES AND JOHN
JAMES AND JOHN
adds with reference to Jolin and James in that
they were partners with I'eter, which might liave
heen deduced from the Marcan account. And the
more obvious explanation of their prompt obeiiience
is that sug^'csted by the Ist chapter or St. John —
previous acquaintance at an earlier stage, probably
in connexion with the Baptist's preaching (cr.
below, § 8).
In St. Mark's Gospel the four are represented as
going with Jesus to Capernaum, and the same
Evangelist also notices the presence of the sons of
Zebedee in the house of Simon, on the occasion of
the healing of his wife's mother. This detail finds
no place in the other Gospels. Their names ap-
pear next in the calling of the Twelve where they
are found in all three lists among the Jirst four, the
only dillerenco being that St. Mark places tiiem
before, the other Synoptists after, Andrew ; and St.
Mark also adds the giving of the name Boanerges.
No thoroughly satisfactory explanation of either part of this
word has been found, ^oai'e is liardly a possible tranaliteration
of 'J5 ; it can only be accounted for on the supposition that it
is due to conflation, either the o or the a being a correction of
the other. The second half of the word has been connected
with Aram. Vin ( = Ileb. e'J";, tumultualus ext; cf. Ps 2i,
Ac 426, and for iiVil, Jl SJ'i, strepitun, see Payne Smith, Tlies.
Syr. 1879-1901). But the root never has the meaning of
'thunder.' U") has also been suggested; cf. Job 37^ iVfj ta'l?,
of thunder, and SO-'-* \ry\ V]]-}.'^. But the meaning of the word
is 'raging,' not 'thunder.' Burkitt has suggested that the
Syriac translator connected the word with Aram, k-^'m-] (1 K ISU
= I'lDH ' crowd ') of which he took 'g* JT for the status absolutus.
Jerome conjectured that the name waa originally ciTf 'J3 (on
Dn 18, 'emendatius legitur bene-reem'), in which case the ex-
planatory gloss, o ((TTiv viol Ppoi-TTJ?, is older than the corrupt
transliteration ; but it would be difficult to account for the cor-
ruption of a correct transliteration of Dyi '^3 into poavtpyei.
Wellhausen suggests tliat jiossibly the name Raqashal may
point to Ii('qes = ' thunder,' a meaning of which he says no other
trace is found (i'o. Marci^, 1909, p. 23).
We have no evidence as to the occasion of the
giving of the name. The incident recorded in Lk
9** may have suggested it, or the character of tlie
brothers. The later explanations which refer it to
the power of their preaching do not give us any
further information.*
The next mention of the brothers is in the story
of the raising of Jairus' daughter (Mk 5^, Lk 8"),
where St. Mark and St. Luke record the admission
of the three intimate di.sciples alone to the house
of Jairus, a detail which does not appear in St.
Matthew's account. All tiiree Synoptists record
the presence of the same three on the Mount of
Transfiguration (Mk 9», Mt 17^ Lk O^*). The next
recorded incident is that of the ambitious request
(Mk W^"-, Mt 202"'^), attributed by St. Mark to
the brothers themselves, by St. Matthew to their
mother on their behalf. Tiie later character of
the Matthaean acccmnt is clearly seen in .some
details (use of irpoaKwovaa ; elire for St. Mark's dds
i)iuu ; the omission of reference to the ' baptism '
[?]), but the approved critical explanation of the
change in the si)eaker is hardly convincing. To
do honour to the sons of Zebedee by making them
sliield themselves behind their mother is a strange
kind of reverence ! The bearing of this incident
on the question of the martyrdom of John must be
discussed later. The indignation of the other dis-
ciples against the brothers is retained in both
accounts. St. Luke omits the incident altogether.
In Mk 13' (cf. Mt 24^ Lk 2F) the question wliich
leads to the eschatological discourse is attribute<l
to the four disciples, for which St. Matthew has
ol iJLa6r)ral, St. Luke nvei. In connexion with Getli-
semane, tlie three are mentioned by name in Mk
14» and Mt 26^. St. Luke only mentions tiie
disciples generally (22^" ; cf. v.'").
* Of. Cramer, Catena, 1844, i. p. 297, 4io to fitya xai iia-
npv<r^ov, r)\fi<rai rn oixov/Lietq^ tijs 0to\oyi<n to SoyiLara, and see
Suicer, s.v. Ppovni.
To these references, where the Synoptists seem
to be almost wholly dependent on the Marcan
account, we must add Lk 9**, the desire of James
and John to call down lire from heaven on the in-
hospitable Samaritans, a story which may be con-
nected with at least the interpretation of the name
' Boanerges.' On two occasions only is John men-
tioned without his brother. St. Mark (9*) and St.
Luke (9*") record his confession that the disciples
had ' forbidden ' one who cast out devils in Jesus'
name because he followed not with them. And
St. Luke (22*) adds the detail that the disciples
who were sent forward to prepare for the Passover
were Peter and John.
In the Synoptic narrative, then, the sons of
Zebedee are represented as forming with Peter,
and occasionally Andrew, tlie most intimate group
of the Lord's disciples. No special prominence is
given to John ; he almost always appears with his
brother ; thrice in St. Mark and once in St.
Matthew he is characteristically described as ' the
brother of James.' His position is very clearly
tliat of the younger brother, who takes no inde-
pendent lead. There is no reason to suppo.se that
' Q ' contained any additional information about
the brothers. The special sources on which St.
Luke drew added a few details. It is noticeable
that in the Lucan list of apostles the name of John
precedes that of James. This corresponds with
the history of the Acts, which must next be con-
sidered.
2. In Acts. — The sons of Zebedee are placed next
to Peter in the list of apostles (Ac 1"), the name of
John being placed before that of James, as in the
Lucan Gospel. This is in accordance with the
author's view, who assigns to John a place of im-
portance second only to Peter in the history of the
growth of the Church in Palestine. He is still
the companion of Peter, as in the Gospel he was
the ' brother of James,' but in Peter's company he
is present at the healing of the lame man in the
Temple (S^*^* ; see csp. v.* : dreviffas di Jl^rpos eli
avTov avv rqi'luavji, and v."), and during the speech
of Peter which follows. Apparently he is arrested
with Peter (4'- ') ; at their examination the Rulers
are said to notice the irappr]<rla of Peter and John
(4'^), and he shares Peter's refusal to keep silence
(4""-). In 8'* Peter and John are sent to Samaria
in consequence of the spread of tiie faith there.
After the imposition oi hands, and the episode
of Simon, their return to Jerusalem is recorded.
There is no further mention of John in the Acts,
except that in the account of his martyrdom James
is described as the brother of John (12^). But the
position assigned to John is fully l>orne out by
the single reference to him in Gal 2", as one of the
'pillars' who gave the right hand of fellowship to
Paul and Barnabas, a jiassage which alone is ade-
quate refutation* of the strange theory of E.
Schwartz ( Ueber den Tod dcr Suhne Zebcatri), who
finds in the prediction assigned to Jesus in Mk 1(P
proof that both sons of Zebedee must have been
killed by Herod on the same day ! The account
in Acts (12'^) of the martyrdom of James at the
Pa.ssover of the year 44 has been supposed to show
traces of modification by cutting out any mention
of the death of his brotlier (E. Preuschen, Apostel-
gesrhichte, in Leitzmunn's Ifandhiirh zum Nl , 1912,
p. 75). The construction of v.', if harsh, is how-
ever not impossible, and the ' Western ' addition
in V.', ■i) iirix^ip-qini ai)roO iirl toi)s viarovs (D Lat. [vf*
ygcodj gyy [lil'"8]), even if original is adequately ex-
plained by the language of v,' {KaKwaal Tiva%).
3. Evidence of martyrdom of John. — The other
evidence, however, fur tlie martyrdom of John
deserves serious consideration.
• Except on the hypothesis of a very early date for the
Epistle to the Galatians.
JAMES AND JOHX
JAMES AND JOHN
627
{I) Papias. — So long as we had only the state-
ment of Georgius Hamartolus (c. a.d. 850), or
perhaps of some corrector of his text, whose addi-
tions are found in the Paris MS, Coislin. 305 :
I'ludvinii] ixapTvpiov KaTTj^iurai. IIair/aj ydip 6 'lepa-
ir6Xf wj (ir iff KOTOS, airT&imjs ToCrovyevdfievos, ivrtfi Sevrdpip
Xoyip tQv KvptaKwy \oiyluv ipdffKet, 5t< irrd 'lovSaluv cunj-
pidrjt it was possible, in the light of his reference
to Origen, to explain the statement as due to
homoioteleuton omission in his source of the Papias
quotation, 'Iwdv^nji [fiif ito toO 'Pupuiiwv paatXiuK
KareSiKd/rSri fiaprvpCiP eU TldTfiov, 'IdKujSo; 5^] irrb
'lovdaiup avripi&r). De Boor's discovery of the
excerpts, protwibly going back to Philip of Side, in
Ckxl. Baroccianus 142 (Oxford), among which is
found the sentence, Ilaxjas iv t(^ 5ewe'/Xfj \&Y<p "SJyei,
OTt 'Iwdj'j'i/j 6 ^eoXo^oy koI 'IdicwjSos 6 doeX^os a&rov
inrb 'lovSaiwp dvripidjfaaf places the matter in a
wholly ditierent position. There must have been
some such statement about the death of John, the
son of Zebedee, at the hands of the Jews, in Papias'
work. As C. Clemen, whose discussion of the
whole evidence should be consulted {Die Ent-
stehung dcs Johannesevangelittms), says, this does
not prove the historical accuracy of the statement,
but it is important evidence of a different tradition
from that which represents the son of Zebedee as
living on in Ephesus to an advanced old age, and
dying a peaceful death. Zahn's suggestion (Introcl.
to NT, Eng. tr. , iii. 206), that the statement referred
to John the Baptist, is hardly satisfactory in spite
of the clear evidence of confusion between the two
afforded by the Martyrologies. In the light of the
common tradition, why should anyone have made
the mistake? The silence of Eusebius is an im-
portant factor in the case, but it is not conclusive,
as Hamack (Chronologic, Leipzig, 1897, p. 666)
suggests, against the presence of such a sentence
in Papias. Eusebius might well suppress as
fivOiKwrepov a Statement so completely in contradic-
tion to the received tradition on the subject. The
real difficulty is to account for the growth of a
different tradition at Ephesus, if the tradition of
John's martyrdom was known at Hierapolis in
Papias' time.
(2) The evidence of Heradeon (see Clem. Alex.
Strom. IV. ix. 71) should never have been brought
forward. Heracleon is distinguishing between
those who confessed ' in life ' and ' by voice ' before
the magistrates. No one could have included
John among those who had not made the confes-
sion 5td ifxavris, in view either of Patmos or of the
legend of the cauldron of oil. His absence from
Heracleon's list therefore proves nothing.
(3) The evidence of the tract de Rebaptismate
(Vienna Corpus, iii. p. 86), which shows that the
saying of Mk 10^ was interpreted of the baptism
of blood, and the testimony of Aphraates {Homily
21), who speaks of James and John following in
the footsteps of their Master, if they point to the
tradition of martyrdom, also suggest the natural
explanation of its ori^, if it is not historical, viz.
the attempt to find a literal fulfilment of the words
of the Lord.
(4) The evidence of the Martyrologies also points
to the same tradition, even if they are capable of
another explanation. The Syriac Calendar which
Erbes {ZKG xxv. [1904]) dates 411, and 341 for
the part concerned, gives for Dec. 27 : ' John and
James, the Apostles, in Jerusalem.' Bernard's
explanation that such a celebration does not
necessarily imply martyrdom (see Irish Church
Quarterly, i. [1908] 6<jff.) is not altogether convin-
cing. The Latin Calendar of Carthage also gives
for Dec. 27 : ' Sancti Johannis Baptistse, et Jacobi
Ai)OPtoli, Cfuem Herodes occidit," which may
]x)ssibly point the same way. as June 24 is the day
uf commemoration of the liapliiiL. And according
to Clemen (op. cit. p. 444) tlie Gothic Missal, ' which
represents tlie Galilean Littirgy of tlie 6th or 7th
century,' represents James and John as martyrs.
The evidence is certainly not negligible. Whether
the tradition owes its existence to attempts to in-
terpret the Synoptic saying, or is a reminiscence of
actual fact, is in the light of our present knowledge
difficult to determine. From the available evidence
we must regard the martyrdom of John the son of
Zebedee as probable. But as to time and place our
ignorance is complete. Erbes' suggestion that the
son of Zebedee met his death in Samaria in the
troubles of the year 66 {ZKG xxxiii. [1912]) cannot
be discussed fully here. It cannot be said to have
risen above the class of ingenious conjectures, out
of which it is unsafe to attempt to reconstruct
history. The Synoptic saying about the cup and
baptism (Mk 10**) is certainly insufficient proof of
actual martj-rdom. St. Mark, and even the other
Synoptists, have much matter which later reflexion
found it necessary to modify or did not care to
emphasize. But everything was not cut out which
caused difficulty. And we may perhaps venture
to say that there are traces of modification and
omission in regard to this very saying which
suggest that it did cause difficulty. St. Matthew
drops the mention of the baptism, retaining only the
drinking of the cup, and St. Luke omits the incident
altogether. The position assigned to John, as
compared ^\ith James, in the Acts would be difficult
to explain if he met with an early death.
4. John's residence in Ephesus. — Even if the
story of John's death at the hand of the Jews is
historical, it does not exclude the possibility of his
residence at Ephesus, though it certainly over-
tlrrows the traditional account of his long residence
there tUl the reign of Trajan and his wonderful
activity in extreme old age as the last surviving
apostle and ' over-bishop ' of Asia.
In the question of the Apostle's residence in
Ephesus we are confronted with another problem
of which our present knowledge offers no certain
solution. The absence of any reference to such a
residence in the later books of the XT affords no
conclusive evidence against the possibility that
John \-isited Asia and resided there. The sUence
of the Ignatian letters is more significant. Why
are the Romans reminded {Ep. ad Rom. iv. 3)
of what Peter and Paul did for them, and the
Ephesians addressed as llai\ov avfifi^rai {Ep. ad
Eph. xii. 2), while there is no mention of John in
the Ephesian Epistle? The immediate occasion
of the reference to Paul — the passing through
Ephesus of martyrs ' on their way to God ' — pre-
cluded the mention of John. But the reference in
the preceding chapter to the presence of apostles at
Ephesus (xi. 2 : oZ Kai rdls dirooriXoiJ irdrroTe ffvy^trav)
— even if aimTJaop and not ffw-gveaav be the true text
— is not much to set against the absence of any
direct reference.
The fact that Polycarp never mentions him in
his Epistle to the Philippians has very little bear-
ing on the question. The natural interpretation
of Papias' Prologue is that at the time when he
was collecting his information {c. A.D. 100) John
the son of Zebedee was dead. His name occurs in
the list', introduced by the past tense rt elrev ; as
contrasted with the are \eyovffir which follows.
But this does not preclude an earlier residence at
Ephesus.
It is probable that Polycrates of Ephesus, in his
list of the fieyd\a rroixeia. of Asia which he gives
in his letter to Victor of Home (A.D. 190), regards
as the son of Zebedee the John whom he places —
no doubt in the chronological order of their deaths
— after Philip 'the Apostle.' But his account of
the friffTTidtoi is clearlj' legendary, and sufficient
time had elaj)sed since the death of the John of
62d
JAMES AND JOHN
JAMP:S, the LORD'S BROTHER
Ephesus (? 110), to whom he refers, for the ji^rowth
oi confusion, whether ' deliberate ' or unconscious.
The evidence aj^ainst the Asiatic residence of
the Apostle winch Corssen (ZNTW v. [1901], p.
2tf.) finds in the Vita Polycarj)i has been carefully
discussed by Clemen (p. 421). It is not conclusive.
It is impossible to repeat in detail the well-
known evidence of Irenieus, TertuUian, and
Clement of Alexandria, for the accepted tradition
of their time. It is too wide-spread to be derived
from any one single source, and is difliciilt to
reconcile witli the view that tlie son of Zebedee
had no connexion at all with Asia and Ephesus.
However we interpret the relation of Irenceus to
Polycarp, and the former's account of the latter in
his Letter to Florinus, we cannot be sure that the
John of whom Polycarp used to speak was really
the Apostle and not the ' Elder,' or the author of
the Apocalypse (if these two are not to be identi-
fied). Justin's attribution of the Apocalypse to
the Apostle proves that the tradition connectinj,'
his name with Asia is at least as old as the middle
of the 2nd century. And if Irenseus derived from
Papias not only the words of the Elders but also
the description which he gives of them, the words
' non solum Joannem, sed et alios apostolos ' (Iren.
II. xxii. 5) would show that Papias also knew of
the tradition.
On the whole, the least unsatisfactory explana-
tion of the evidence, with all its difficulties and
complexities, is the hypothesis that the Apostle
did spend some years of his later life in Ephesus,
where he became the hero of many traditions
which belonged of right to another or to others.
S. The Fourth Gospel. — The use which may be
made of the Fourtii Gospel as a source of informa-
tion about the sons of Zebedee depends on ques-
tions of authorship which cannot Le discussed in
this article. They are never mentioned by name
in the Gospel, and only once in the Appendix (21-).
Probably the author of this Appendix identified
the ' disciple whom Jesus loved ' with the younger
son of Zebedee, and not witli one of the &\\oi 6vo,
unless indeed he intends to introduce a new-comer
in v.^. He certainly identilies the loved disciple
with the author of the Gospel (v.''*, if this verse
comes from his pen). The natural interpretation
of 19** distinguishes between the author and that
disciple, if the ' witness' of that verse is to be iden-
tified with the loved disciple. The only other
definite references to the disciple whom Jesus
loved are 19** ('Behold thy son') and 13'-^ (the un-
masking of the Traitor). The customary identifi-
cation of him with the dXXos /xadrjT-^s of 18^^'- (known
to the high priest who gained admission for Peter
into tlie ai'Xri) and of 20^'- (who went with Peter to
the Tomb), is probable but not necessary. He is
usually found in the other disciple of the Baptist,
who at his suggestion followed Jesus (1^). The
phrase rbv dSfX^dv rbv t5ioi> Tili/jiwva cannot be pressed
to indicate this. In the Greek of the period tdios
is hardly more than synonymous with the posses-
sive pronoun. And the natural interpretation of
the passage is tiiiit Andrew Jirsf finds his (own)
brotiier Simon, and next day, when wishing to
return home to Galilee, Philip, to whom Jesus says,
' Follow me.' At the same time the whole story
of Jesus' first meeting with the disciples who came
over to Him from John contains much which is
difficult to explain (see, however, M. Dibelius,
Die urchristl. Uberlieferung von Johannes d.
Taufer in Forschungen zur Religion und Litteratur
des alien und neticn Testaments, Gottingen, 1911,
]). 106 ft. J as apologetic invention. It suggests the
recollection of early and treasured experiences,
and gives a Avholly probable account of the rela-
tions between Jesus and John, and the undoubted
connexion between the two, to which the Synop-
tists bear witness, though other and later elements
in the story are abundantly clear.
On the whole, though the pre-eminence of John
in the Synoptic account is hardly such that he
must have appeared in the Fourth Gospel, if he
were not the author, yet the facts of the Gospel
and the traditions of later times about it are most
easily explained by the view that ' behind the
Gosjiel stands the Son of Zebedee ' (see Harnack,
Chronologie).
LiTRRATURK.— In addition to the ordinary Commentaries on
the Synoptic and Fourth Gospels, the following books and
articles may be mentioned : T. Zahn, Introduction to the KT,
Entf. tr., London, 1909; C. Clemen, Vie Entstehung den
Johannesevangeliums, Halle, 1912; J. B. Mayor, art.
'James 'in II DB (where the usual references will be found for
the legendary history of St. James in Spain); P. W. Schmiedel,
art. 'John, Son of Zebedee,' in EBi ; B. W. Bacon, The Fourth
Gospel in Rcxnarch and Debate, London, 1910 ; J. R^ville, Le
Quatrihne fJvanf/ile, Paris, 1901 ; E. Schwartz, Ueljer den
Tod der Suhnn jiehedcei (AGG, new ser. vii. 5), Berlin, 1904,
also art. 'Johannes und Kerinthos,' in ZNTW, x\. [1914);
W. Heitmiiller, ' Zur Johannes-Tradition,' ib.
A. E. Brooke.
JAMES, THE LORD'S BROTHER.— In Mk Q^
( II Mt 13") James is mentioned first, presumably
as the eldest, among the brethren of Jesus. In
Mk 321- 8"^- (llMt 12*«-, Lk 8""-) we hear of an at-
tempt on the part of Jesus' mother and His
brethren to restrain Him as being 'beside himself.'
In Jn 7' we are told that ' his brethren did not
believe on him.' In 1 Co 15^, however, St. Paul
mentions an appearance of the risen Jesus to
James.
According to the curious story which Jerome (de Vir. lllustr.
ii.) quotes from the Gospel of the Hebrews, James (repre8entc<l
as present at the Last Supper) had vowed not to eat until he
should see Jesus risen from the dead. Jesus accordingly ap-
peared to him first and took bread and blessed and brake,
saying, ' My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen
from them that sleep.'
In Gal 1^* we find James closely associated with
the apostles at Jerusalem, and in Gal 2" we hear
how those who were ' accounted jnllars ' — James
and Cephas and John — wished God-speed to Paul
and Barnabas in their mission to the Gentiles.
There is perhaps a hint of irritation in St. Paul's
reference, a few verses earlier, to those ' who were
accounted somewhat' (2*), as though the accord
had not been reached without some difficulty, and
in v.12 -vve find that St. Peter's vacillation in
the matter of intercourse with the Gentiles is at-
tributed to the fear of certain who came ' from
James,' though it does not follow that they repre-
sented his attitude. In Acts, James always ap-
pears as a leader. St. Peter sends the news of his
escape 'to James and the brethren' (12"). At
the Apostolic Conference he sums up the discus-
sion, proposes a policy, and apparently drafts the
decree (IS'^"-'). In 2p8'- he receives St. Paul at
the close of his Third Missionary journey, and, it
is implied, approves the fateful proposal designed
to conciliate the legalist Christians.
He is understood to be meant by the modest
self-designation ' James the servant of the Lord '
(Ja 1'), and the author of the Ep. of Jude is con-
tent to describe himself as the ' brother of James.'
In view of the fact that he seems to have remained
constantly at Jerusalem, it is at least uncertain
whether he is included among the brethren of the
Lord who ' led about' a wife (1 Co 9*).
That the ' brethren of the Lord ' were the sons
of Maiy and Joseph is the natural, though not in-
evitable, inference from the language of Scripture
(Mt I**, Lk 2^ Mk 6», etc.). Those who prefer to
believe otherwise, hold cither (1) that they were
the sons of Joseph by a former marriage, or (2)
the sons of Mary's sister. These three views are
sometimes called, respectively, from their early
defenders, the Helvidian, Epiphanian, and Hier-
onymian. (For discussion see J. B. Mayor, TIic
JAMES, EPISTLE OF
JA^rES, EPISTLE OF
629
Ep. of St. James', pp. vi-xxxvi ; J. B. Lightfoot,
Galatians^, 1876, pp. 252-291 ; and art. ' Brethren
of the Lord' in HDB, DCG, and SDB.)
Turning to the extra-canonical references, we
find in Josephus {Ant. XX. ix. 1) an account of the
circumstances of the death of James. The high
priest Ananus (a son of the Annas of the Gospels),
a man of violent temper, seized the opportunity
of the interval between the death of Festus (c.
A.D. 62) and the arrival of his successor Albinus to
bring to trial 'James the brother of Jesus who
was called Christ and some others ' as law-breakers,
and delivered them to be stoned. This account is
inherently probable. It is sometimes rejected as
an interpolation, on the ground that Josephus
makes no other mention of Jesus or of Christian-
ity ; but it may be noted that F. C. Burkitt has
Fately defended the genuineness of the famous
reference to Jesus in Josephus, Ant. xviii. iii. 3
{ThT xliii. [1913] pp. 135-144). Hamack has
signified agreement (Internationale Monatsschrift,
vii. [1913] pp. 1037-1068). If this be accepted,
the present passage presents little difficulty.
Hegesippus (ap. Euseb. HE ii. 23) gives a much
more highly colouretl account of James's mar-
tyrdom, representing him as hurled from the
pinnacle of the Temple because he refused to
make a pronouncement against Jesus (which the
Scribes and Pharisees had confidently expected of
him !). Among other personal traits Hegesippus
mentions that James was a Nazirite and strict
ascetic, and that, so constant was he in prayer,
his knees had become hard as a camel's. There is
a variant of the martyrdom story in Clem. Rccog.
1., Ixix., Ixx., where, after James has shown 'by
most abundant proofs that J^us is the Christ,' a
tumult is raised by an enemy, and he is hurled
from the Temple steps and left for dead, but
recovers.
The tendency to exalt the position of James in
later times is seen in the statement of Clem. Alex.
(ap. Euseb. HE ii. 1) that Peter and James and
John chose him to be bishop of Jerusalem ; while
in the letter of Clement prefixed to the Clem.
Horn, he is addressed as 'lord,' and 'bishop of
bishops.'
LiTERATCRB.— To J. B. Mayor, The EpUtle of St. Jamais,
1910, Introduction, ch. i. : 'The Author,' and the other litera-
ture mentioned above, add T. Zahn, ' Bnider und Vettern
Jesu,' in Forgehungen zur Gfschichte da nerttestamentliche-n
Kanons, vi., Leipzig, 1900, rp. 225-363 ; A. E. F. SiefFert, in
PRE3, viii. 574 ff. ; F. W. Farrar, Earl}/ Datj* of Chrigtian-
ity, 18S2, Tol. i. chs. six., xx. _ W. MONTGOMERY.
JAMES, EPISTLE OF.— 1. Literary character-
istics.— The Epistle strikes us at once as the ex-
pression of a vigorous personality. The author
plunges into his subject A\ith a bold paradox, and
his short, decisive sentences fall like hammer-
strokes. He constantly employs the imperative,
and makes much use of the rhetorical question.
His rebukes contain some of the sharpest invective
in the NT (4^~* 5^'*), and he knows when irony will
serve him best (2'®). He piles up metaphor upon
metaphor until the impression becomes irresistible
(3*"i-), and multiplies attributes with the same effect
of emphasis {e.g. ' earthly, sensual, devilish ' [3^* ;
cf. I''- *• ^*]). Like most vigorous writers, he
delights in antithesis (cf. \^ 1— ^ 3' 4"). In his
illustrations he uses direct speech with dramatic
effect ( ' sit thou here in a good place,' etc. [2^ ; cf .
216 4i3j) Every here and there are struck out,
like sparks from the flint of this rather hard-edged
style, phrases of arresting beauty and significance :
' the crown of life which the Lord promised to them
that love him ' (1^-) ; ' the grace of the fashion of it
perisheth' (1") ; 'mercy glorieth against judge-
ment ' (2'') ; ' What is your life ? For ye are a
vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then
vanisheth away ' (4") ; ' Behold, the husbandman
waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being
patient over it, until it receive the early and latter
rain '(5^); 'the supplication of a righteous man,
when it puts forth its strength, availeth much'
(5«).
The form is, in the main, the terse, gnomic
form of the Wisdom literature, but the spirit
that inspires it has deeper roots. It goes back to
OT prophecy. It is an Amos that we seem to hear
in the vigorous denunciation of 5^"* ; Isaiah is the
direct inspirer of the stately passage in l'**-, and
the writer has distilled the quintessence of the
prophets into that fine saying which sums up his
teaching and comes home with special force to the
modem world : ' Pure religion and undefiled before
our God and Father is this, to succour (cf. Lk 1*®)
the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
to keep oneself unspotted from the world' (1^).
It is in part, at least, owing to this gnomic style ^
and prophetic t«mper that the Epistle does not
form a logically constructed whole, according to
"Western theories of composition. This is not to
say that it has no cohesion. A considerable part
of it Ls grouped round three or four main ideas —
temptation, the bridling of the tongue, the danger
of lip-religion, the relation of rich and poor.
Within and between these groups the movement
is determined, to an extent which seems curious to
our wajs of thought, by verbal associations. The
emphatic word of one sentence becomes a catch-
word linking it to the next.
It may be worth while to analyze a paragraph with a view to
bringing this out. The salutation, 'James . . . to the twelve
tribes . . . giveth joy ' (V), snppUes the key-word for the ap-
parently abrupt opening : 'And joy unmixed count it, brethren,
when . . .' (v.^ Again, ' that ye may be perfect, Uieking fioth-
itig (y.*y. And if any lack wisdom [for the apparently abrupt
introduction of wisdom, see belowj, let him a^i . . . (v.S), bat
let him a^ in faith ' (r.^ This idea is then developed up to
the end of v. 8. The transition to v.9, 'Now let the lowly
t>rother,' etc., is apparently again abrupt (see below). Verse 12
returns, as though w.-t-n might be considered as a digresaon,
to the idea of temptation, and, passing from the sense of ' trial '
to that of ' inducement to evil," deals with some diflSculties con-
nected therewith. It is interesting to note that two abrupt
transitions in the above can be explained, with considerable
protebility, as due to Uteraiy reminiscence. In v.s we want a
connexion between ' wisdom,' which appears unexpectedly, and
the ideas of 'perfect' and 'lacking' ; and this certainly seema
to be supplied by Wis 9* : ' For even ii a man be perfect among
the sons of men, yet if the tci-sdotn that cometh from thee be
not icith him, he shall be held in no account.' Again in v.^,
where the transition appears quite abrupt, a connexion with
the central idea of wisdom is supplied by Sir 111 : • The wisdom
of the lowly shall lift up his head,' and with the next verse Sir
318 may be compared: "The greater thou art, humble thyself
the more, and thou shalt find favour before the Lord ' (cf. also,
for the double antithesis. Sir 20ii).
2. Religious attitude and teaching. — The main
purpose of the Epistle is to protest against pre- ►
vailing worldliness (4*), which finds expression in
avarice (4^ 5*), pleasure-seeking (I" 4^), the vaunt
of a barren orthodoxy (2^**-), social arrogance and
sycophancy {2}^), bitter contentions (4^*-), sins of
the tongue (1* 3^^"). Against these the author
holds up the ideal of a life inspired by the ' wisdom
which is from above' (3'"), which here plays the
part assigned to the Spirit (as gift) in St. Paul and
the NT generally. (With 3" cf. Gal 5*^, and with
1* cf. Lk 111* and jn 3M ) xiijs heavenly wisdom
is above all things ' pure ' (a^i^), primarily no doubt
in the sense of unstained loyalty to God (cf. the
reference in 4* to the worldly-minded as /totxaX'Sei,
and see 2 Co 11-), and expresses itself in humility
(1"), meekness (1^- 3'^>, reasonableness (3^'), peace-
ableness {3^'^), mercifulness (2^* 3^'), whole-hearted
earnestness (3" 5*-*), active beneficence (1"^ 3^"),
dependence on the Divine will (4"- 1"- ^^), obedience
inspired by faith (2^^-^). It has often been re-
marked that purely theological conceptions occupy
little space in the Epistle. And this is literally
true ; but there is a good deal of compressed
630
JAMES, EPISTLE OF
JAMES, EPISTLE OF
tlieology in expressions like ' of his own will lie
^ brought us to birth by the word of truth, that we
should be a kind of firstfruits of bis creatures'
(1»«; cf. Jn V 6®, Ro 10" 8"«), «the implanted
word, which is able to save your souls ' (V^^ ; cf.
Ro 1"), *the perfect law of liberty' (1^; cf. Mt
5"'*", Ko 8'), ' heirs of the kin},'doni wliich he pro-
mised to them that love him ' (2"), ' the parousia of
the Lord is at hand ' (5*) ; not to mention 2^ if
with some very good scholars we take Trjs Sd^rjs
as in apposition to roD KvpLov ruiGiv ' \i}(jod Xpurrod, and
understand ' our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory ' (in
J conformity with 2 Co 4«, He l^ Jn 1"), as a refer-
ence to the Incarnation. It is remarkable, how-
ever, that the Epistle contains no reference to the
Death and Resurrection of Jesus, or, in connexion
witli such a passage as 5^"^-, to His earthly life.
The writer is apparently little interested in
Juestions of organization (ct. the DidacJie, Clement,
gnatius). It is only incidentally that we hear of
the ' elders of the Church ' (5")— the only officials
mentioned ; and we infer, rather than are told,
that the teaching office was not strictly regulated
(3>). Incidental, too, is the mention of the meeting
for worship (2^*), and we hear nothing as to its
conduct. ( For awayuyi^ in the sense of a Christian
assembly cf. Herm. Marul. xi. 9 ; Ignat. ad Polyc.
iv. 2.)
3. Reception in the Church. — Re-ascending the
stream of tradition from the point at which our
present NT canon may be considered as definitely
established in the Western Church (Third Council
of Carthage, a.d. 397), we find that the acceptance
*- of the Ep. of James long remained dubious.
Jerome, de Vir. Illustr. ii. (A.D. 392) says that,
while some asserted it to have been issued by
another under the name of James (' ab alio quodam
sub nomine eius edita'), it had gradually, as time
went on, established its authority. Eusebius, HE
iii. 25 (c. A.D. 314) mentions it along with Jude, 2
Peter, 2 and 3 John, among the books which,
although widely known, Avere ' disputed ' (avrCKey-
6neva). Again, in ii. 23, after mentioning the
martyrdom of James, he proceeds : ' whose epistle
that IS said to be which is first among the Epistles
styled Catholic,' adding that it was not free from
suspicion (lit. 'is held spurious' {sc. by some]),
because many ancient writers make no mention
of it, as was also the case with Jude, though all
the Catholic Epistles were publicly read in most
churches. Origen (c. 240) suggests the same un-
certainty when he refers to it as the Epistle ' which
goes under the name of James ' (^ (pepofiivr) 'laKw^ov
iiri<TTo\ri [in Joann. xix. 6]), though according to
the Latin version of the Homilies he elsewhere
quotes it as Scripture (Com. in Ep. ad Rovi. iv. 1),
and as by 'James the Lord's brother' {ib. iv. 8).
It is noteworthy that in his Com. in Matt. (x. 17)
he mentions the Ep. of Jude but not that of James.
The Muratorian Canon omits it, along with Heb-
rews and 1 and 2 Peter (on the other hand, the
Feshitta includes it, while omitting Jude, 2 Peter,
2 and 3 John, and the Apocalypse). Clement of
Alexandria is said to have incUmed a commentary
on ' Jude and the rest of the Catholic Epistles ' in
his Hifpotyposeis (Euseb. HE vi. 14) ; but, while
his notes on 1 Peter, 1 and 2 John, and Jude are
extant in a Latin translation, James is wanting.
As regards the indirect evidence of quotations, the
earliest work for which a dependence on James
can be established with any high degree of proba-
bility is tlie Shepherd of Hernias, which is variously
dated between A.D. 10<) and 150. (For Hernias'
use of James see the art. by C. Taylor in JPh
xviii. [1890] 297 ff. on the priority of the Didache
to Hermas.) Some critics are inclined to see in
Clement of Rome evidences of the use of James.
But none of the passages are decisivei and in an
extended reference to the faith of Abraham (lul
Cor. X. 1 fi.) Clement quotes Cn 15* in its proper
context, followin" St. Paul ; and, tliough he leferh
to the sacrifice o? Isaac, he speaks of it as offered
5i' viraKori^ and not Sik irlarfus.
4. Date and authorship. — As might perhaps have
been expected from the character of the external
evidence, the internal evidence is enigmatic. This
will appear from a statement of some of the various
theories, with the difficulties which each involves.
A. Take first the theory which, accepting tin;
traditional authorship,* makes the Ep. prior to
the main Epp. of St. Paul ami unrelated to his >
teaching. Against this the following objections
are alleged.
(a) There is strong evidence, it is held, that the
passage in 2^*"- has in view St. Paul's teaching in
Ro 3 and 4, and is therefore subsequent to that
Epistle. The arguments advanced in favour of
this position are as follows. (1) In denying that
a man is saved by faith without works, James is
attacking a paradox ; but no one is at pains to
attack a paradox unless someone else has previously
maintained it. Now there is no evidence that this
paradox had been maintained previous to St. Paul.
Faith had been praised and works had been praised,
and, if we may accept 2 Esdras (whatever its actual
date) as a witness to pre-Christian Jewish beliefs,
the combination of taith and works had been
praised (13^; cf. 9'^), but the antithetic opposition
of faith and works, to the apparent disparagement
of the latter, originated, so far as our evidence
goes, Avitli St. I'aul. (2) The Scripture example
to which both writers appeal is much more favour-
able to St. Paul's arfjument than to James's. In
Gn IS** ' Abraham believed God,' etc., refers specifi-
cally to belief in God's promise ; James by an
exegetical tour deforce gives it a prospective refer-
ence to Abraham's 'works' in the sacrifice of
Isaac. This is the procedure, not of a writer who
is choosing his illustrations freely, but of one who
must at all hazards wrest from an adversary a
formidable weapon. (3) The passage is written in
a technical phraseology : BiKaiovaOai t'/c irto-rewj,
diKaiovadai c^ epyoov, irLcxTii X'^P'^ ■'■'^'' ^py^", PfKpds
(applied to faith, where St. I'aul applies it to
works). It is less probable, it is urged, that this
terminology was invented by James, who only
employs it in this controversial passage, than by
St. Paul, for whom it is the necessary expression
of some of his fundamental doctrines.
{b) In a number of other passages there are
points of contact, and in some of them the sugges-
tion of literary priority is distinctly on the side of
St. Paul. For example, if we compare St. Paul's
statement in Ro 8-', ' the law of the Sjjirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free (-fjXfvO^puai /ue [v.l.
ere]) from the law of sin and death,' w ith James's
references to the law of liberty (vofios ttjj f\(v6(pias
[133 2'^]), the latter succinct, technical-looking ex-
pression has the air of an already coined and
current phrase, while St. Paul seems to be stating
a fact or experience, t
(c) With the exception of the language of
Hebrews, the Greek is the most accomplished in
the NT. There is a certain amount of rhetorical
elaboration ; there is an unusual proportion of
non-LXX classical words ; there are many allu-
sions to the Hellenistic Wisdom literature, and
apparently some to Greek classical literature.
This is not exactly the style we should have ex-
* The tenn ' genuineness ' is strictly inapplicable, since the Ep.
ni.ikes no explicit claim to be by James the Ixird's brother. It
has occasionally been attributed to James the son of Zeliedee.
Pfleidorcr (PriTnitive Christianity, Eng. ir., London, 1906-11,
iv. 311) thinks of some unknown James.
t Other parallels which have been noted are Ja l^- i Ro S^^- ;
Ja l-'2 '.a li Ko L'i3 ; Ja 41 t 1 Co 33 143;i, iio 7=3 ; Ja 4< | Eo 8^ ;
Ja lur. g Rq 14-1 ; Ja 3" ( Qal ga^
JA^IES, EPISTLE OF
JAMES, EPISTLE OF
631
pected from the James of tradition, who was of
intensely Jevt'ish sympathies and presided over the
Aramaic-speaking church of Jerusalem. On the
other hand, the possibility of its being a transla-
tion is denied by the great majority of those com-
petent to speak on the i)oint (whatever their
opinion as regards the authorship).
{(l) The constitution of the membership of the
Church, including a considerable proportion of rich
people, does not point to an early date.
(e) While it would be rash to affirm that a de-
clension of Christian life such as the Epistle implies
could not have taken place within two or tnree
decades, the vices of avarice and worldliness which
are most prominent suggest a more settled and
prosperous community than we should have ex-
pected.
(/) In the rebuke of the rich merchants for the
irreligious temper in which they laid their plans,
we should have expected, in these early decades, a
reference to the imminence of the Parousia, rather
than merely to the uncertainty of the individtial
life.
ig) We should also have expected some reference
to the Death and Resurrection of Christ, and to
Messianic doctrine, which, as all the evidence
seems to show, formed the staple of early Christian
preaching.
(A) The address itself constitutes a difficulty.
If, as seems natural in a Christian writing, it
means Jewish Christians in the literal Diaspora,
where were these to be found prior to the Pauline
missions? Moreover, there is no hint that the
churches addressed contained Gentile Christians.
But were there ever any purely Jewish-Christian
churches except in Palestine? And how could
they be described as in the Diaspora?
To these objections the following answers are
given :
(a) (I) While we have no evidence on the point,
it is not improbable, in view of the stress laid
upon faith in the teaching of Jesus, that the faith-
and-works paradox may have come up in early
Christianity prior to St. Paul. (2) Abraham was,
in the Jewish schools, a stock example of faith
(see Ligbtfoot, Gal.^, London, 1876, p. 159 f.), so
that James and St. Paul might have introduced
him quite independently of one another ; and the
following passage shows that James's rather loose
employment of Gn 15® is not peculiar to himself :
1 Mac 2*-, 'Was not Abraham found faithful in
temptation, and it was reckoned unto him for
righteousness ? ' Mayor reverses the point of the
argument by remarking that it is inconceivable, if
James wrote after St. Paul, that he did not make
an attempt to guard his position against so formid-
able an attack {Ep. of St. Jame^, p. xcviii). (3)
The technical language may have been already in
existence (see under (1)). Moreover, some of the
terms used occur in a more clearly defined form in
St. Paul (cf. Ro 3». 2*. as. 18 . f^g^ vdfiov, tuxtis
XpiffTov or 'iTjffoO XpurroD) — which ptoints to a later
date and a deliberate guarding against misunder-
standing.
(6) Arguments of this kind depend so much upon
subjective impression that no great stress can be
placed on them.
(c) There is a good deal of evidence that Gali-
laeans were generally bilingual ; and, as there was
certainly a large Greek-speaking element in the
church at Jerusalem, the leader of that church
would need to acquire some facility in using Greek.
Moreover, it is quite possible to exaggerate the ex-
cellence of the authors Greek. He avoids periods
of any length ; and, though more ' correct,' does
not give the impression of writing with the same
ease as St. Paul.
(d) (e) We have no stifficient evidence to enable
us to pronounce definitely on these points, and
individual estimates of probability are not an
adequate ground on which to base arguments.
Mayor refers those who are impressed with the
declension of Christian morals ' to a study of the
life of Fox or Wesley, or of any honest missionary
journal' {op. rit. p. eliii).
(/) The author may lie here using an argumentum
ad hominem. Individual mortAlity was an un-
deniable fact ; a reference to the imminence of the
Parousia would depend for its impressiveness on
the liveliness of the faith of those addressed. A
little further on, when encouraging the faithful
oppressed to patience, the author does refer to the
Parousia.
{g) These facts were the staple of missionary
preaching; here the author can assume them as
known.
(A) Zahn {Introd. i. 76 f., 91 f.) takes the address
as referring metaphorically to Christians generally,
the existing Christians being, as a matter of fact,
those of the Palestinian churches. Mayor (p.
cxxxvii) refers it to the Christians of the Eastern
Diaspora (cf. Ac 2* and St. Paul's raid on the
Christians of Damascus [Ac 9^]).
Farther positive arg:ninent8 in favour of the ' genuineness '
and early date of the Ep. are : (a) the unassuming character of
the writer's self-designation, whidi makes against forgerj-, while
his authoritative tone implies a position of influence ; (fi) the
number of apparent echoes from sayings ol Jesus, which yet
never take the form of quotations from die Gospels : (y) the
number of linguistic coincidences \rith the speech of James at
the Apostolic Conference, and Uie Decree, which was apparently
drafted by him (salutation x"^"' l^^ i -^^^ IS^ ; name called
' upon ' persons [LXX] [27 I Ac 1517] ; « hearken. breUiren ' 13* I
Ac 1513] ; iwuTniwTtotfmt. (l^ I Ac 151'] ; iwurrpt^itir {S^^ | Ac
1519] ; rigpctr, 2utTi|pcu> covrovs. ami Pl27 | Ac 1529] ; repetition
of brethren (brother) [411 1 Ac 15M]). (In taf«ar of the histor-
icity of the Decree see Lake, Earlier Bpp. of St. Paul, 1911,
pp. 30 £f., 48 ft.) (2) In favour of an early date we have the
unorganized character of the teaching office {ifi), the mention
of elders only (S^'X the anointing of the sick with a view to
healing (51*), the confession of sins one to another (516).
B. Those who, while holding the traditional
view as to the authorship, feel obliged to recognize
in Ja 2^**- a reference to Pauline teaching, have
recourse to the hypothesis that the Ep. was written
either after the appearance of Romans or at least
after James had received reports as to the Pauline
teaching. Against this, the objection lies that,
once the controversies raised by St. Paul's preach-
ing had begun, it is inconceivable that an Ep.
wnitten to Jewish Christians of the Diaspora
should contain no reference to the burning ques-
tions about the relation of Gentile converts to
circumcision and the Law (cf. Mayor, pp. ex, cxlv f.,
and Zahn, Introd. i. 136 f.). The present writer is
not aware that any satisfactory answer has been
given to this objection,*
C. The hj-pothesis that the Ep. is an originally
Jewish work adapted by a Christian writer has
been maintained by Spitta and Massebieau (see
Literature below) on the grormd of (I) the scanti-
ness of specifically Christian doctrine — an immis-
takably Christian reference is admitted onlj- in 1^
and 2^ ; (2) close affinities with Jewish literature ;
(3) the suggestion of tnteri>olation in the curious
position of r^i So^s in 2', where a simplification
would be introduced by omitting iiiiwp^lrjffod XpurraS.
To this it is replied (1) that there is more specifi-
cally Christian doctrine than these writers admit :
e.g. in 1** the combination of the ideas of ' beget-
ting,' 'word of truth,' and ' firstfruits' is much
more naturally referred to Christian doctrine than
to the original creation (as Spitta) ; and phrases
like ' the coming (Parousia) of the Lord ' (5""*), ' the
* Felne, who feels its force (Jakobu^nief, p. 58X tries to evade
it by the hypothesis that the £^ was originally a homily
addressed to'the church at Jerusalem, which was only later, as
a kind of afterthought, circulated in the Diaspora (p. 95). For
criticism of Feine, see E. K. Kuhl, SK ixvu. [ISW], esp. p. 813 ff.
632
JAMES, EPISTLE OF
JAMES, EPISTLE OF
perfect law of liberty' (l'"), 'the elders of the
church ' (5'*), ' the goodly name by which ye are
called' (2^), 'my beloved brethren*^ (P*-" 2*), cer-
tainly suggest a Christian atmosphere. No evi-
dence is produced that a faith-and-works contro-
versy sucli as that implied in 2'*'" had arisen in
pre-Christian Judaism. (2) That the work should
show close uttinities with the OT and with Jewish
Hellenistic literature is in no way surprising if
the author was a Jewish Christian. (3) That a
Christian interpolator should have been content to
interpolate only in 1' and 2^ is hardly conceivable.
Accepting the text of 2^ as it stands, there is
nothing very violent in taking Ttjs SS^rjs as an ap-
pellation of Christ, in apposition with toO KvpLov
ilnQv 'l7)<rod XpiaToC ; cf. Lk 2*^ and perhaps 1 P 4'''
(so Mayor and Uort, following Bengel ; see Mayor*,
p. 80 tr.).
Two further considerations against this view
have to be added : (a) that, if there is little that
is distinctively Christian, there is nothing distinct-
ively Jewish. Hamack writes : • Spitta has for-
gotten to consider what the Epistle does not con-
tain.' Christianity was a reformation of Judaism
which discarded a mass of religious and ritual
material. Now of this Jewish material which
Christianity discarded the Ep. contains no trace
(Chronol. 489 n.). (b) Again, the apparent echoes
from the teaching of Jesus are hardly satisfactorily
accounted for by the hypothesis of a common
source.
D. A theory which shares with the last the
hypothesis that the name of Jesus in P and 2' is
not original is that of J. H. Moulton, who holds
that the Ep. was written by James the Lord's
brother, but for non-Christian Jews, and that
therefore distinctively Christian phraseology was
deliberately omitted. The mention of the name
of Jesus came in by way of a gloss [Expositor, 7th
ser. iv. 45-55). This tlieory has the advantage of
accounting for the textual difficulty in 2*, for the
Judaistic tone combined with the presence of (un-
emphasized) Christian thoughts, and for the ulti-
mate though late and disputed reception of the
book.
Against this it is urged that (1) the curious
subtlety of mind involved in the writing of the sup-
posed veiled tract harmonizes ill with the sternness
and vigour of the writer. (2) It is not clear what
the writer could have hoped to accomplish by it.
(3) Moreover, some of the more definitely Christian
phrases quoted above are not easy to dispose of,
and the difficulty about 2"^- remains, for those
who cannot find its presuppositions entirely in
Judaism.
E. There is the type of theory according to
which the Ep. was written, not by James the
Lord's brother and not in the Apostolic Age, but
by an unknown autlior, late in the Lst or early in
the 2nd century. The attractions of this type of
theory are that it gets rid of the difficulty arising
from the knowledge of the Pauline Epistles com-
bined with absence of reference to the controversies
about the Law, as also of that arising from the
knowledge of Jesus' teaching combined with ab-
sence of reference to His life. It accounts for the
moralism, the absence of Messianic doctrine, the
slightness of the reference to the Parousia. It
accounts, better than the early date, for the con-
dition of the Church, with its worldliness and lip-
religion.
Of the theories of this type the most definite is
that of Hamack. He finds a positive indication
of date in the references to persecution in 2"-. He
understands this of the apostasy of worldly Chris-
tians and their betrayal of their fellow-Christians.
To this lie finds an exact parallel in Hernias, Sim.
ix. 19, where the 'mountain black as soot' (ix. 1)
represents those who have revolted from the faith
and spoken wicked things against the Lord, and
betrayed the servants of God (cf. also chs. 21, 26,
'28). Such delations, as frequent occurrences, can-
not be placed earlier than about A.D. 120. On the
other hand, there is nothing in the Ep. which
would require us to bring it down beyond the first
tliird of the 2nd century. He therefore dates it
between 120 and 130. But it is not to be thought
of as a forgery, for (1) anyone composing an os-
tensible letter would have taken more pains to
cast it into epistolary form ; (2) a forger would
have made it clearer who he professed to be ; and
(3) he would not have contradicted the generality
of the address by the particularity of some of the
references. The most probable hypothesis is,
therefore, that it was a compilation from the
writings of one of those prophetic teachers who,
far down into the Post- Apostolic Age, still spoke
with a sense of inspiration and an admitted autlior-
ity. Shortly after his death this was issued by a
redactor, anonymously. In its an(mymous form
it had a limited circulation among Palestinian
Christians. About the end of the 2nd cent, it
found its way into ' the early Catholic world,' and,
in view of the conceptions then prevailing as
to the primitive apostolic type of doctrine, it
is not surprising that it should have been attri-
buted to James. (In addition to Chronol. ii. 1.
p. 485 f., see the excursus on the Cath. Epp. in TU
li. 1. p. 106 f., where the general presuppositions of
the hypothesis are more fully and lucidly set
forth.)
Against this theory the following objections are
ofFered. (1) The hypothesis is unduly complicated.
(2) The religious spirit of the Ep. gives tlie im-
pression of being very much earlier than that of
Hernias. (3) The ultimate association of the Ep.
with James of Jerusalem and its consequent re-
ception are not fully accounted for. The passage
relied on to prove the date (2®'-) is susceptible of a
difi'erent interpretation. The rich man and the
poor man of '2^ apparently both come into the
Christian assembly as strangers, and there is
nothing to show that the rich of v.® are Christians
rather than outsiders. In fact, the latter relation
is suggested by the fact that they are said to
blaspheme the name by which ' you ' (not ' they ')
have been called.
As is sufficiently apparent from the number and
variety of the theories (of which this survey is by
no means exhaustive), the problem of date and
authorship admits of no easy and convincing solu-
tion. In a work of the present character it seems
best simply to be content to say so.
LiTERATCRB (grouped according to the critical theories noticed
above. Where other theories are advocated, some indication is
given). — A. J. B. Mayor, Ep. of St. James, London, 1S92
(S1910); R. J. Knowling:, Ep. of St. James, in Westminster
Comm., do. 1904 ; T. Zahn, Introd. to AT, Eng. tr. of 3rd ed.,
Edinburgh, 1909, i. 73-151.
B. F. J. A. Hort, Ep. of St. James (as far as 47 ; ed. J. O. F.
Murray), London, 1909; P. Peine, Der Jakobusbrief, nach
Lehranschautmgen mid Entiiti'huit;isrerh(iltnii-iien uiitersucht,
Eisenach, 1893; A. Plummer, T/ie General Epi>. of St. James
and St. Jude (Expositor's Bible, London, 1S91) (date either
A.D. 45-49 or 53-62).
C. F. Spitta, Zur Geseh. m. Litt. des Urchristentttms, ii.,
Gottingen, 1S96, pp. 1-155; L. Massebieau, 'L'Epitre de
Jacques, est-elle I'oBuvre d'un Chrtitien?' in RUR xxxii. [1895]
249-283.
D. J. H. Moulton, 'The Ep. of James and the Sayings of
Jesus,' in Expositor, 7th ser. iv. [1907] 45-55.
E. A. Harnack, Die Chronoloijie, Leipzig, 1904, ii. 1. p. 485 ft.,
TUii. 1 [1884] 100 f. ; A. Jiilicher, Introd. to XT, Eng. tr., Lon-
don, 1904 ; J. Moffatt, LA'T, Edinburgh, 1911 ; B. W. Bacon,
Ititrod. to St, New Yorlt, 1900; A. S. Peake, A CrU. Introd.
to the NT, London, 1909.
Other views : G. Currie Martin, ' The Ep. of James as a
Storehouse of the Sayings of Jesus,' in Exponitor, 7th ser. iii.
[1907] 174-184 (Ep. woriis up collection of S.iyings made by
James); W. Briickner, Die chronol. Reihcufolfie, in vrlrher
die Briffe. des A'T verfasst sind, Haarlem, 1890, pp. 2^7-29.')
(addressed to a conventicle of Jewish Christians of h>sene
JANXES AND JAMBRES
JEPHTHAH
633
Bympathies at Rome in the nign of Hadrian) ; O. Pfleiderer,
Primitice Christianity, iv. (Eng. tr., London, 1911) 293-311
(2nd bAlf of 2nd cent.). W. MONTGOMERY.
JJLNMES AND JAMBREB These two men are
referred to in 2 Ti 3* as having withstood Moses ;
they are traditionally identitied with two leading
men among the magicians (Ex 1^^ ^ ; of. Gn 41^ *•).
They are mentioned in the Gospel of JS'icodemus
(eh. o) in the warning given to Pilate by Nicodemus
that he should not act towards Jesus as Jannes and
Jambres did to Moses. Origen [c. Cels. iv. 51) says
that Nuraenius (2nd cent. a.d. ; probably following
Artapanos, an Alexandrian Hellenist of the 2nd
cent. B.C.), related the story also ; and in his com-
mentary on Mt 27* he says that the reference In
2 Tim. was derived from a 'secret book' (perhaps
the 'Liber qui appellatur Poenitentia Jamnte et
Mambras,' an apocryphon referred to in the De-
cretum Gdasiannm), as he suggests was the case
with 1 Co 2« and Mt 27' itself {Pair. Grceca, xiii.
1769). Eusebius also quotes Numenius in his
Prcep. Ev. ix. 8 as relating the story to Jannes
and Jambres, two 'Egyptian scribes' (cf. csc-in
' magicians ' above, where the primary meaning is
'scribes,' and the secondary 'magicians'). The
Acts of Peter and Paul (Ante-Nicene Christian
Library, xvi. [1873] 268) makes the two apostles
warn Xero against Simon Magus by the example
of Pharaoh, who was drowned in the Red Sea
through listening to Jannes and Jambres. The
Apost. Const, (viii. 1) compares the action of Jannes
and Jambres to that of Annas and Caiaphas. It
is possible that the two magicians were identified
by hostile Jews with John and Jesus (cf. Levy,
Chald. Worterbuch, p. 337), but the story seems
older.
The licentious play of fancy which meets us
everywhere in the superstitions about magicians
throughout the two centuries before and the two
centuries after Christ, is responsible for the varie-
gated and contradictory legends about Jannes and
Jambres. They were sons of Balaam, and accom-
panied him on his journey to Balak ; they perished
in the Eed Sea ; they were among the ' mixed
multitude ' ; they were killed in the matter of the
golden calf ; they flew up into the air to escape
the sword of Phinehas, but were brought down by
the power of the Ineffable Name and slain. All
these legends are in the style of the Midrash, pious
but groundless, and serve only to illustrate the
mind of the period in which they rose and took
form. Whether the author of 2 Tim. is quoting
from oral legend or from an apocryphal work is
uncertain. Origen suggests the latter, Theodoret
the former. Nor is there any final certainty
about the origin and meaning of the names. The
first has been identitied with Johannes or John,
and may have contained an allusive reference to
Heb. .-;:;, 'to oppress' (cf., further, artt. BALAAM,
NiCOLAlTAXS). Jambres occurs in the form Mambres
also (the b in both is probably euphonic only), and
may have been treated as if from Aram. »c!??,
'rebellious' (cf. the opprobrious ;•?, 'heretic').
But the polemic use of the two terms as=' op-
pressor' and 'rebellious' does not explain their
origin. H. Ewald (Gesch. des Volkes Israel, 1864-
66, I. ii. 128), F. J. Lauth (Moses der Ebrder,
1869, p. 77), and J. Freudenthal {Alexander Poly-
histor, 1875, p. 173) regard the names as Graeco-
Egyptian. In 1 Mac 9*^ the ' children of Jambri '
are mentioned, an Arab tribe, and perhaps not
Amorites, but there is no good ground for tracing
Jambres to this.
We can only conclude, therefore, that all that
is certain about Jannes and Jambres is that they
were the names of two men who were believed in
the Apostolic Age to have been the leaders of the
magicians who withstood Moses, and that they
have been made the centre of pious legends and
the cause of much critical ingenuity.
W. F. Cobb.
JASON ('ItUrwr).— Jason is a Greek name, often
adopted by Jews of the Dispersion, sometimes as
not unlike the names Joseph or Joshua.
1. In Ac 17**-, the host of St. Paul and Silas at
Thessalonica, who was seized with other converts
and dragged before the politarchs. These authori-
ties bound over Jason and his friends in security
that there should be no further disturbance and
perhaps that St. Paul should leave the city and
not return (see Ramsay, St. Pavi the Traveller and
the Boman Citizen, 1895, p. 230 f.).
2. In Ro 16^, a person whose greetings St. Paul
sends to his readers with greetings from Timothy,
Lucius, and Sosipater, all of whom he describes as
his ' kinsmen,' i.e. fellow-Jews or perhaps members
of the same tribe. It is quite probable that 1 and
2 are the same man. T. B. ALLWOKTinr.
JASPER (fao-xts, from Assyr. aspHi). — The king on
the heavenly throne is like a jasper stone (Rev
4') ; the luminary of the New Jerusalem is like a
stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear
as crystal (21") ; and the first foundation stone of
the wall is a jasper. The jasper of mineralogy is
an opaque, compact variety of quartz, variously
coloured — red, brown, yellow, or green. As this
stone does not answer the description ' clear as
crystal,' some think that the diamond is meant
(Smith's DB s.v.), while others suggest the opal
(EBi s.v.). The taans of the LXX (Ex 28-'^) may
have been the dark green jasper, which was known
to the Egyptians and the early Greeks.
jAJfES Stbahan.
JEALOUSY. — Jealousy, as the translation of
f^Xoj (vb. fTjXo'w), denotes the state of mind which
arises from the knowledge or fear or suspicion
of rivalry. (1) It is often begotten of sell-love.
Those who have come out of heathen darkness into
Christian light should no longer walk in strife and
jealousy (Ro 13"), which are characteristics of the
carnal or selfish mind (1 Co 3*). Bitter jealousy
ipiXop -riKpov) and faction, in which rivals are ' each
jealous of the other, as the stung are of the adder'
{King Lear, Y. 1. 56 f.), and exult over {KaraKaifxaffOf)
every petty triumph achieved, are an antithesis of
Christianity, a lying against the truth (Ja 3").
Where jealousy and faction are, there is anarchy
(dicoraoTaffta) and every vile deed (3'^). The Jewish
opponents of the gospel were tilled with jealousy,
e.g. in Jerusalem (Ac 5") and Pisidian Antioch
(13«). 'Jealousies' (j-^Xw, 2 Co 12», Gal 5») are
the inward movements or outward manifestations
of this un-Christian feeling.
(2) But the heat of jealousy (cf. njcp) is not
always false fire. To the Corinthians St. Paul
says, ' I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy '
(fijXw Tip vfids deoD i^riXif, 2 Co 11-), i.e. with a
jealousy like that of God. In the OT Jahweh is
the husband of Israel, loving her and claiming all
her love ; in which sense He is a jealous God.
A somewhat similar jealousy is once ascribed to
Christ (in Jn 2", i^Xos, ' zeal ') ; and St. Paul, who
has betrothed the Corinthian Church to the Lord,
and hopes to present her as a pure bride to Him,
ia jealous over her on His behalf, feeling the bare
thought that she may after all give herself to
another to be intolerable. Some take deov fi)Xy to
mean ' with a zeal for God,' but the context de-
mands a stricter sense of the word.
James Strahax.
JEPHTHAH ('le^^de).— Jephthah, the Gileadite
warrior who became the conqueror of the Ammon-
ites, and whose vow compelled him to sacrifice his
own daughter (Jg 11-12), is named among the men
634
JERICHO
JERUSALEM
uf the (JT who achieved great things by faith (He
ll"*-). Ho is mentioned after Samson, though he
was historically earlier, the author probably trust-
ing his memory, or not being over-studious of
minute accuracy. James Strau AN.
JERICHO i'lfpiyci, WH 'Icfpfix*^).— The fall of the
walls of Jericho is mentioned as an illustration of
the miracle-working ]>ower of Israel's faith (He
1 !*•). Enervated by the heat and fertility of tlie
deep valley in which the city stood, the inhabitants
of Jericho were always un-warlike, and the story
in Jos 6 gives an idea of the astonishing ease witli
whicli their stronghold was captured. The site of
Jericho shifted several times. The Canaanite city
has been identified witii a tell or mound, 1200 ft.
long and about 50 ft. high, beside Elisha's Fountain.
This has now been carefully e.xplored under the
direction of E. Sellin of Vienna, and the mud walls
of the old town laid bare. See ' The German Ex-
cavations at Jericho,' in PEFSt, 1910, pp. 54-68.
James Strahan.
JERUSALEM. —1. The name.— Two forms occur
in the NT : (a) lepoyo-aXij/x, the 'genuinely national
form,' ' hieratic and Hebraising,' used ' where a
certain sacred significance is intended, or in solemn
appeals ' ; it occurs forty times in Acts, and is also
found in the letters of St. Paul, in Hebrews, and in
the Aj)ocalypse ; it is indeclinable, and without
the article except when accompanied by an adjec-
tive ; (b) lepoff6\v/j.a, the hellenized form, favoured
by Josej)hus, and occurring over twenty times in
Acts, and in the narrative section of Galatians.
As a rule it is a neuter plural, with or without the
article. In each case the aspirate is doubtful.
For a discussion of the forms see G. A. Smith,
Jerusalem, i. 259 11'. ; W. JNI. Kamsay, Luke the
Physician, London, 1908, p. 51 If. ; and T. Zahn,
Introduction to the NT, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1909,
ii. 592 ir.
2. Topography. — The chief autliority for Jeru-
salem in tiie 1st cent. A.D. — its topography no less
than its history — is the Jewish writer Josephus.
His historical works cover the period with which
we have here to deal, and it is to the details there
furnished that we owe most of our knowledge of
the fortunes and aspect of the city in the Apostolic
Age. Any account of the topography of Jerusalem
at this time must necessarily follow the descriptions
of Josephus, as interpreted by the majority of
modern scholars. It has always to be kept in
mind, however, that there is considerable difl'erence
of opinion on many points, and tiiat the views of
the minority, or even of an individual, although
we may not be able to accept them, are to be re-
gai'ded with respect.
i. The City Walls, as they existed at the time
of the siege in A.D. 70, first claim attention.
(a) First Wall. — In historical order, but not
according to the standpoint of the besiegers, for
whom the first wall was the third, the walls of
Jerusalem on the north side proceed from the in-
terior to the exterior of the city. At all times the
.south side of the city had only one encompassing
wall, but during most of our period there were
three walls — the third only in part — upon the
north side. The first of these northern walls com-
menced on the W. of Jerusalem near the modern
Jaffa Gate, and ran in an easterly direction along
the northern face of the so-called S.W. Hill, cross-
ing the Tyropocon Valley, which then markedly
divided the city from N. to S., and joining the W.
wall of the Temple enclosure. At its W. extremity
it was marked by the three towers of Herod the
Great — Hippicus, Phasael, and Mariamne (or
Mariamrae) ; and at the Temple end it ran near to
the bridge which gave access from the S.W. Hill
to the outer court of the Temple. This point is
now marked by the modern Bab cs-Silsileh, and
Wilson's Arch found here stands over tiie remains
of an older bridge whicii is doubtless the viaduct
of Josephus's time. From the Tower of Hipj)icus
the wall ran southwards and followed approximately
the line of the modern W. wall, but it extemled
further south, turning S.E. along Maudslay's Scarp
and proceeding in a straight course to the l*ool of
Siloam, at the mouth of the Tyropceon Valley,
At this time the pool possibly lay outside the wall
(F. J. Bliss and A. C. Dickie, Excavations at
Jerusalem, 1S94-1897, pp. 304, 325), although G,
A. Smith places it inside (Jerusalem, i. 224).
After crossing the Tyropceon, at some point or
other, the wall was continued in a N.E. direction,
running along the slope of Ophel to join the Temple
enclosure at its S.E. angle. A considerable part
of this wall upon the S. side of the city has
been excavated by Warren, Guthe, Bliss, and
Dickie. The last two explorers found remains of
two walls with a layer of debris between. Bliss is
of opinion that the under wall is the one destroyed
by Titus, and he says further : ' There is no evid-
ence, nor is it probable, that the south line was
altered between the time of Nehemiah and that of
Titus' (Excav. at Jerus., p. 319).
We are here concerned with the subsequent
history of the wall upon the S. side only in so far
as after the destruction by Titus it appears to have
been rebuilt on a new line to form the S. side of
the Roman camp upon the S.W. Hill, tliis being
the line of the modern city wall on the S. The
part upon the W., together with Herod's three
towers, was spared by Titus and utilized by him
for the ' Camp.' So also, we may infer, was the
wall skirting the W. side of the Tyropceon, running
N. and S. from the neighbourhood or the bridge to
the region of the Pool of Siloam to form the E.
boundary of the S.W. Hill. This Avail is not
mentioned by Josephus, but its presence may be
concluded from the ract that Titus had to commence
siege operations anew against that division of the
city which stood on the S.W. Hill ('The Upper
City'). According to C. AV, Wilson, the ground
enclosed by the walls of the Upper City extended to
74^ acres. The new wall drawn on the S. side over
the summit of the hill reduced the area to about
48J acres, only a little short of the normal dimen-
sions of a ' Camp ' {Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre,
p. 143 f.).
(b) Second Wall. — According to Josephus, this
commenced at the Gate Genath (or Gennath) in
the First Wall, and circled round the N. quarter of
the city, running up to Antonia, the castle situated
at the N.W. corner of the Temple area. It had
fourteen * towers, compared with sixty on the
First Wall and ninety on the Third. Its extent
was therefore limited in comparison with the others.
There is much discussion as to its actual line in
view of the importance of this for the determina-
tion of the site of Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre.
This is a question that falls to be treated under
the Gospel Age, although we have an interest in
the projection of the wall towards the N., since
upon this depends the view taken of the line of the
Tnird Wall. With the majority of modern in-
vestigators we decide for a limited compass, no
part being further N. than the extremity which
went up from the Tyropceon to Antonia. The
Gate Genath has not been located, but it must
have been in the neighbourhood of the three great
towers, and perhaps lay inside of all three. C. M.
Watson concludes from a study of the records and
from personal investigation of the site that the
Second Wall was most probably built by Antipater,
father of Herod the Great. He interprets Josephus
• Ti<raaaa.<i itou ie'ica (Xiese) ; Whiston reads ' forty ' {BJ v.
iv. 8).
.,^SCA.LE,^
■2 2S40 feet ^'i Mile
636
JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM
as spcakinp of ' a new constniction necessitated
by tlie growth of the new suburb on the north-
western liill ' (The Story of Jerusalem, p. 85). The
Second Wall is usually identified with the North
Wall of Neheiniah (Smith, Jerusalem, i. 204). In
the opinion of Smith 'we do not know how the
Second Wall ran from the First to the Tyropoeon ;
we do not know whether it ran inside or outside
the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ' (i6.
p. 249). Wilson also leaves the question open
{Golgotha, n. 137).
(c) Third Wall. — As already noted, the line of
the Third Wall is bound up with the question of
the line of the Second Wall. Following Robinson,
both Merrill (Ancient Jerusalem, ch. xxiv. ) and
I'aton (Jerusalem in Bible Times, pp. lll-llo)
place it a considerable distance N. of the modern
city wall. Most other students of the subject are
content to accept the present North Wall as
marking the site of the Third or Agrippa's Wall.
Conder (The Uittj of Jerusalem, pp. 16'J-166) occu-
pies an intermediate position, giving a northerly
extension beyond the present limits only on the
side W. of the Damascus Gate. The wall was
commenced about A.D. 41 on a colossal plan ; but,
suspicion having been aroused, operations had to
be suspended bv order of Claudius. The wall was
liurriedly completed before the days of the siege.
The main purpose of the Third Wall was to enclose
within the fortified area of the city the new suburb
of Bezetha, which had grown up since Herod the
Great's time on the ridge N. of the Temple and
Antonia. The most conspicuous feature on the
wall was the Tower of Pscphinus at the N.W.
corner, which is named in conjunction with the three
great towers of Herod, and may have existed at
an earlier time (Smith, Jerusalem, ii. 487), being
also tiie work of Herod (EBi ii. 2428). The W.
extremity of the wall was at Hippicus; the N.W.
Joint at Psephinus ; the N.E. point, according to
osephus, at the Tower of the Corner, opposite the
' Monument of the Fuller ' ; and the E. extremity
at the old wall in the Kidron Valley, i.e. the N.F^.
point of the Temple enclosure. Merrill's view
(Anc. Jerus., ]m. 44, 51) is that the line of this
wall in its southerly trend would cut the line of
the present wall a little E. of Herod's Gate ; in
other words, the present N.E. corner of the city
was not within the walls of Jerusalem before its
destruction by Titus. Tliis view has much to com-
mend it, although it is not admitted by those who
advocate that the Third Wall followed the line of
the present wall in its entire course (Smith, Jeru-
salem, i. 245 ff.).
ii. Temple Walls.— The remainder of the peri-
meter of the outer wall of Jerusalem was made up
by the E. wall of the Temple, which in Herod's
time coincided with the city wall (Smith, Jerusa-
lem, i. 234 f.). The enclosure of the sanctuary did
not, liowever, extend so far N. as it does to-day.
Warren's Scarp, as it is called, marks the N. limit
of the outer court of Herod's temple (ExpT xx.
[1908-09] 66). This would cut the E, wall only
slightly N. of the present Golden Gate. An ex-
tension to the N. was perhaps made by Agrippa I.
(Smitii, Jerusalem, i. 237 f.), but even then tlie N.
boundary must have fallen considerably short of
the present wall. The fore-court of Antonia must
therefore have projected some distance into the
present 5aram area, and the rock on which tlie
castle stood, while scarped on the other three sides,
must on the S. have formed part of the same ridge
as that on which the Temple lay. The N. Temple
area wall presumably joined this rock, while the
W. Temple area wall started from the S.W. point
of the fore-court of Antonia and ran S. to meet
the S. wall lower down the Tyropoeon Valley.
Examiaatioa of the rock levels has proved that
the S.AV. corner of the Temple area is upon the
far side of the valley, i.e. upon the S.W. Hill.
A proper understanding of this complex of walls
is essential to an appreciation of Josephus's narra-
tive of the sie^e of a.d. 70, which in turn gives the
key to the whole situation within Jerusalem in
the time of the apostles. The city was fortified
in virtue of its complete circuit of walls. When
the most northerly wall was breached it still was
fortified by the second N. wall and all that re-
mained. When the second wall was taken, access
was given to the commercial suburb (irpodareiov) in
the Upper Tyropreon V'alley. Antonia formed a
fortress by itself, likewise the Temple both in its
outer court and in the inner sanctuary. After the
Temple was taken the way was open to the ' Lower
City and the Akra, whicn is almost synonymous
with the 'Lower City,' i.e. the Lower Tyropoeon
Valley from the First Wall to the Pool of Suoam
together with the S.E. Hill, of Avhich Ophlas
formed a part. Lastly, the S.W. Hill, on which
stood the ' Upper City ' with the ' Upper Agora,'
was completely fortified, and doubtless the Palace
of Herod at the N.W. corner of the ' Upper City'
also was a strong place within four walls, Avith the
tliree great towers upon the N. side.
iii. Changes in the City during the Apostolic
Age. — While there was nothing to equal the great
building achievements of Herod the Great, activity
was by no means stayed during the interval between
the Death of Christ and the Destruction of Jeru-
salem (c. A.D. 30-70). This we judge from the fact
that it was not until c. A.D. 64 that operations in
the courts of the Temple were at an end. Even
then the cessation of work involved about 18,000
men. To prevent disaftection and privation, they
Avere transferred with the sanction of Agrippa ii.
to the work of paving the streets of the city (Jos.
Ant. XX. ix. 7). Reference has alre.ady been made
to the building of the Third Wall during the reign
of Agrippa i., and this was necessitated by the
growth of the suburb Bezetha, or New Town, "lying
north of Antonia and the Temple on the N.E.
ridge. The Lower Aqueduct, which brought water
to the Temple enclosure from a distance of 200
stadia, is ascribed to Pontius Pilate during the
years preceding his recall .and was in a way re-
sponsible for his demission of office (A.D. 36).
Several palaces were built at this time — all over-
looking the Tyropoeon : that of Bemice, near the
Palace of the Hasmonajans (see below) ; of Helena,
Queen of Adiabene, who was resident in Jerusalem
during the great famine (Ac ll'*) ; of Monobazus,
her son ; and of Grapte, a near relative. Agrippa
II. enlarged the Hasmonfean Palace, which was
situated on the S.W. Hill near the bridge over
the Tyropoeon, and when finished overlooked the
sanctuary. This was a cause of friction, and led
to the building of a screen -within the sacred area
(Ant. XX. viii. 11). Most of these notable buildings
were destroyed or plundered during the faction
fights on the eve of the siege (BJ ll. xvii. 6, IV. ix.
11) and during its course (vi. vii. 1).
While stone was freely used in construction, it
ought to be realized that timber also played a large
part — much more so than at the present day
(Merrill, Anc. Jerus., np. 1.S6, 150, 152). The
Timber Market was in Bezetha, the new suburb.
For ordinary building purposes wood was brought
from a distance, but during the siege the Romans
availed themselves of the trees growing in the
environs, totally altering the external aspect of
the city. Still more fatal to its beaut}' was the
havoc wrought by fire within the Temple area, and
in the various quarters of the city after the victory
of the Romans, and most of all in the execution of
Titus's order to raze the city to the ground. In
spite of Josephus's testimony, all writers are not
JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM
637
of one niind regarding the extent of the ruin.
Thus Wilson saj's of the 'Upper City' at least :
'Many houses must have remained intact. The
military requirements of the Roman garrison
necessitated some demolition ; but there is no
evidence that a plough was passed over the ruins,
or that Titus ever intended that the city should
never be rebuilt' (Golgotha, p. 52; cf. Merrill,
Anc. Jcrus., p. 179).
iv. Sacred sites pektaixixg to the Apostolic
Age. — For this department of our subject we must
call in the aid of tradition, in so far as this appears
to be in any measure worthy of credence. The
sites to be dealt with are mostly suggested by the
narrative of the Book of Acts.
(a) The Ccenaeulum. — Outside the present S. city
wall on the S.W. Hill lies a complex of buildings,
which since the 16th cent, have been in Moslem
possession and are termed en-Nebi Dd'iid. Under-
ground is supposed to be the Tomb of David, but
this part is not open to the inspection of Christians.
Immediately above this is a vaulted room (show-
ing 14th cent, architecture), wMch is now identified
with the 'large upper room' in which the Last
Supper was held, where Christ appeared to His
disciples, in which the early Christians assembled,
and where the Holy Ghost was given. It is
supposed to be the house of Mary, the mother of
Jonn Mark. According to a later tradition — which
probably arose from a confusion of this Mary with
the Mother of Jesus — this is also the scene of the
death of the Virgin. Here also Stephen was
thought to be martyred (stUl later). The earliest
tradition Avith which we are here concerned dates
from the 4th cent. A.D., being preserved by
Epiphanius (rfe Mens, et Fond. xiv. [Migne, Pair.
Grceca, xUii. col. 25911'.]; cf. Wilson, Golgotha,
p. 173) :
' He [Hadrian] found the whole city razed to the g^tind, and
the Temple of the Lord trodden under foot, there being- only a
few houses standing, and the Church of God, a snmU building,
on the place where the disciples on their return from the Meant
of Olives, after the Saviour's Ascension, assembled in the upper
chamber. This was built in the part of Sion which had escaped
destruction, together with some buildings round aboat Sion,
and seven synagogues that stood alone in Sion like cottages.'
Since then there have been many changes in the
btdldings themselves and in their owners, but the
tradition has been constant. What it is worth
still awaits the test, but, as Stanley says : * there
is one circumstance which, if proved, would greatly
endanger the claims of the "Ccenaeulum.'" It
stands above the vault of the traditional Tomb of
David, and we can hardly suppose that any resi-
dence, at the time of the Christian era, could have
stood within the precincts of the Koyal Sepulchre'
{Sinai and Palestine, new ed., London, 1877, p.
456). It may be noted that the Tomb of David is
now sought, although it ha-s not been found, on the
S.E. Hill, where, in the opinion of most, the ' City
of David,' or Zion, lay (Paton, Jerusalem, p. 74 f.).
From the language of Ac 2'^ the tomb was e>identh-
in the neiglibourhood of Jerusalem (cf. Ant. xni.
viii. 4, XVI. \-ii. 1, BJ I. ii. 5). Sanday is prepareti
to give the tradition about the Ccenaeulum 'an
unqualified adhesion ' (Sacred Sites of the Gospels,
p. 78), and proceeds to argue the matter at length
(pp. 78-88). His argument is contested by G. A.
Smith (Jerusalem, ii. 56711'.). whose opinion is that
' while the facts alleged (by Dr. Sanday) are within
the bounds of possibility, thej' are not very pro-
bable' (p. 568). Wilson is more favourable, and
thinks that here 'amidst soldiers and civilians
drawn from all parts of the known world, the
Christians may have settled down on their return
from Pella, making many converts and worshipping
in a small building [see Epiphanius, a.s above]
which in happier times was to become the " Mother
Church of Sion," the " mother of all the churches " '
(Golgotha, p. 54 ; cf. T. Zahn, Introduction to the
ATr, ii. 447 f.).
(b) The Temple and its precincts. — Although
tradition has fixed on one spot as being the special
meeting-place of the first Christians, there can be
no doubt they still continued to frequent the
Temple. While they had indeed become Chris-
tians they did not cease to be Jews, at least not
that section which remained in Jerusalem during
the years preceding the Fall of the city. Accord-
ingly we find in the Book of Acts a considerable
body of evidence regarding the presence of Chris-
tians in and about the Temple, A detailed notice
of all these references properly belongs to another
article (Temple), but a brief mention of those con-
cerning the enA-irons may here be made.
(a) 'Peter and John were going up into the
t«mple at the hour of prayer' (Ac 3'). This is
topographically exact, whether we take the outer
court or the sanctuary proper, which only Jews
could enter (Ac 21'^*-). There were ramps and
stairs and steps at many points. An exception
would have to be made if we accepted Conder's
identification of the Beautiful Door or Gate (Ac
3*- ^**) as being the main entrance on the W. ,
' probably at the end of the bridge leading to the
Koyal Cloister' (The City of Jerusalem, p. 129).
But for several reasons this cannot be entertained.
A. R. S. Kennedy has shown (ExpT xx. 270 If. ;
cf. Schiirer, HJP u. L [1885] 280) that the Beauti-
ful Door is to be sought in the inner courts, and
preferably on the E. side of the Court of the
Women. Little value can be attached to the
tradition that the Golden Gate above the Kidron
Valley is the gate referred to in Ac 3'-.
(P) The porch or portico along the E. side of the
Temple area is the Solomon's Porch of Ac 3'^ 5^-.
Its appearance may be realized from the frontis-
piece (by P. Waterhouse) of Sacred Sites of the
Gospels, where a full view is given of the so-called
Koyal Porch on the S. side. This is generally
supposed to have had an exit on the W. by a bridge
crossing the Tyropceon (see Conder, above) at
Robinson's Arch, but Kennedy has shown that
nearly all modems are in error about this (ExpT
XX. 67 ; cf. Jos. Ant. XV. xi. 5). On the W. and
N. sides there were also porches or cloisters which
met at the entrance to Antonia.
(c) Antonia. — This fortress is about the most
certainly defined spot within the walls of Jeru-
salem. To-day it is occupied in part by the Turk-
ish barracks, on the N.W. of the ^aram area. In
Herod the Great's time the castle was re-built on
a grand scale and strongly fortified. Later it was
occupied as a barracks (xape^oX^, Ac 21**-*^, etc.)
by the Romans, who here maintained a legion
(rdy/uL [BJ V. v. 8], understood by Schiirer [HJP
I. ii. (1890) 55] as = ' cohort'; this is not accepted
by Merrill [Anc. Jerus. 216 f.]). As shown above,
it is probable that some slight re-adjustment of the
forecourt of Antonia and of the N. side of the
Temple area had taken place in the interval follow-
ing Herod the Great's reign. From the vivid
narrative of Ac 21*^** it is evident that the Temple
area was at a lower level than the Castle, for stairs
led down to the court. According to Josephus
(BJ V. V. 8), on the comer where Antonia joined
the N. and W. cloisters of the Temple it had gang-
ways down to them both for the passage of the
guard at the Jewish festivals. While the exact
plan of the ground can hardly be determined, there
seems to be no justificarion for ' a valley ' and ' a
double bridge,' as .supposed by Sanday and Water-
house (Sacmi Sites, p. 108 and plan [p. 116]; cf.
Smith, Jerusalem, ii. 499 n.). By cutting down
the cloisters a barricade could be erected to prevent
entrance to the Temple courts from the Castle, as
was done by the Jews in the time of Floras (a.d. 66
638
JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM
[BJ 11. XV. 6; cf. VI. ii. 9, iii. 1]). O])inion is
divided as to whether tlie Koinan procurator made
his headquarters in Antonia or in Herod's Palace
on the S.W. Hill, but tlie evidence seems to be in
favour of the latter. This appears most clearly
from the proceedings in the time of Florus {BJ il.
xiv. 8, 9 ; see Wilson, Golgotha, p. 41 f, ; Smith,
Jerusalan, ii. 57311'.). Antonia was certainly used
as a place of detention, as is plain from Ac 22^.
This leads us to remark on the position of —
(rf) The Council House. — The meeting-place of
the Sanhedrin in apostolic times is of some import-
ance in view of the experience of St. I'cter, St.
John, and St. Paul. From data provided by
Josephus we judge that it lay between the Xystus
and the W. porch of the 'femple, i.e. near the
1)oint where the bridge cro.ssed the Tyropoeon.
^'rom Josephus (BJ vi. vi. 3) we also infer that it
was in tlie ' Lower City,' for it perished together
with Akra and the place called Ophlas. It is
reasonable to seek in proximity to the Council
House the prison of Ac 4^ 5'* ; that of Ac 12* was
probably in connexion with the Palace of Herod,
where presumably Agrippa I. lived and maintained
his own guard (seeylj!^. xix. vii. 3). The tradi-
tional spot was shown in the 12th cent. E. of whei-e
this palace stood, in the heart of the ' Upper City,'
while the present Zion Gate upon the S. was taken
to be the iron gate of Ac 12"* (Conder, The City of
Jerusalem, p. 16).
(c) Sites associated with the proto-martyrs. — (1)
St. Stephen. — The association of St. Stephen with
the Coenaculum dates from the 8th cent., and with
the modern Bdb Sitti Maryam (St. Stephen's Gate)
from the 15th century. These traditions may be
i^'nored, and attention fixed on the site N. of the
city, where Eudocia's Clmrch was built as early as
the 5th centui-y. Its site was recovered in 1881.
It must be recalled that when St. Steplien perished
(between A.D. 33 and 37) the Third Wall was not
in existence, and the total irregularity of the pro-
ceedings at his stoning leads us to tnink that he
was killed at the readiest point outside the citj\
If on the N. side, as the tradition bound up with
Eudocia's Church seems to imply, it w'ould probably
be outside the gate of the Second Wall.
(2) James the Great, the brother of John, is
supposed to have been beheaded in a prison now
marked by the W. aisle of the Church of St.
James in the Armenian Quarter — a tradition of
no value. It is worthy of note, however, that, as
in the case of St. Peter, the spot is not remote
from the Palace of Herod.
(3) James the Just, ' the brother of Jesus, who
was called the Christ' (/!«<. XX. ix. 1), according
to Hegesii)pus (preserved in Eusebius, HEll. xxiii.
4tt".) also suflered a violent death (c. A.D. 62) after
a mode which is very imjirobable (see HDB, art.
•James,' § 3), the stoning excepted, to which
Josephus testifies. The Grotto of St. James near
tlie S.E. corner of the Temple area, on the E. side
of Kidron, is supposed to be his tomb (15th cent,
tradition), or preterably his hiding-place (6th cent,
tradition). While the* tomb is as old as the days
of the Apostle, or even older, the inscription above
its entrance bears reference to the B'nc Ifczir (S. R.
Driver, Notes on Heb. Text of Books of SanmeP,
1913, p. xxi).
if) T/ie tree {with the bridge) where Judas Jianged
himself, and Akddama, the field of blood (Ac 1'*),
are shown, but tiiere are rival .sites for the latter,
and the former has often changed (Conder, The
City of Jerusalem, p. 18 f.).
{g) Sites associated with tlie Virgin. — Besides
the tradition of the Dormitio Sanctre. Mariic, the
scene of the Virgin's death, in proximity to tlie
Ccenaculum, tlic Tomb of the Virgin is marked by
a church, originating in the 5th cent., in the valley
of the Kidron, outside St. Stephen's Gate (Sanday,
Sacred Sites, p. 85).
{h) The scene of the Ascension. — Discarding Lk
24"*, Christian tradition early laid hold upon the
summit of the Mount of Olives (cf. Ac 1'^) as the
scene of the Ascension. The motive for tliis will
be understood from what has been written by
Eusebius {Demons. Evang. vi. 18 [Migne, Patr.
Grceca, xxii. col. 457 f.]; cf. Wilson, Golgotha, Tp.
172):
'All believers in Christ flock together from all quarters of the
earth, not as of old to behold the beauty of Jenisal<?in, or that they
may worship in the former Temple which stood in Jerusalem, but
that they may abide there, and both hear the stor^ of Jerusalem,
and also worship in the Mount of -Olives over against Jerusalem,
whither the glory of the Lord removed itself, leaving the earlier
city. There, also, according to the published record, the feet
of our Lord and Saviour, who was Himself the Word, and,
through it, took upon Himself human form, stood upon the
Mount of Olives near the cave which is now pointed out there.'
Constantine erected a basilica on the summit,
where the Chapel of the Ascension now stands.
His mother, the Empress Helena, built a diurch at
the same point, and another, called the Eleona, to
mark the cave where Christ taught His disciples
(Watson, Jerusalem, p. 124). The latter has re-
cently been discovered and excavated (RB, 1911,
pp. 219-265).
3. History. — i. Jerusalem under Rojian Pro-
curators ; Agrippa i. and Agrippa ii. (a.d. 30-
70). — The writings of Josephus afl'ord evidence that
it is i)ossible to narrate tlie history of events in
Jerusalem during the Apostolic Age without re-
ference to the Christians. From our point of view
we must sit loose to the fortunes of the Jews as
such, in whom Josephus was interested ; but for
a due .appreciation of the history of the Christian
Church in Jerusalem a sketch of contemporary
events must first be given, special note being made
of points of contact with the narrative of Acts,
Pontius Pilate continued in office for some years
after the Death of Christ. At the beginning of
his term (A.D. 26) he had shown marked disregard
for the feelings of the Jews by introducing ensigns
bearing images of Caesar into Jerusalem, Later,
he gave further offence by appropriating the Corban
in order to carry out his scheme for the improve-
ment of the water-supply of the city and of the
Temple. Even though the work proceeded, Pilate's
cruelty in this instance was not forgotten and
helped to swell the account against him, which
resulted in his recall for trial (A.D. 36). Vitellius,
governor of Syria, paid a visit to Jerusalem at the
Passover of the same year, and adopted a more
conciliatory policy, remitting the market-toll and
restoring the high-priestly vestments to the custody
of the Jews. The procurators of Caligula's reign
(A.D. 37-41) may be left out of account.
The government now passed into the hands of
King Agrippa I., who ruled in Jerusalem during
the last years that the apostles as a body continued
there (A.D. 41-44). Agrippa had already rendered
service to the nation of the Jews by preventing
Caligula from setting up his statue in the Temple.
He was promoted by Claudius to be King of Judiea,
as his grandfather Herod had been. He journeyed
to Jerusalem, and as a thank-offering dedicated
and deposited in the Tem])le a chain of gold, the
gift of Caligula, in remembrance of the term he
had passed in prison before good fortune attended
him.
While keeping the favour of the Emperor, he
also took measures further to ingratiate himself
with the Jews. According to Josephus, so good
a Jew was he that he omitted notiiing that the
Law required, and he loved to live continually at
Jerusalem {Ant. XIX. vii. 3). His Jewish, or rather
his Pharisaical, policy seems to have V)een at the
root of his scheme for building the Third Wall,
JERUSALEM
JERUSALEM
639
and also explains his persecution of the Christians
(Ac 12*). His coins circulating in Jerusalem bore
no image, as an accommodation to Jewish scruples.
Outside the Holy City, however, he was as much
under the influence of the GrsEco-Roman culture
of the age as his grandfather had been. After
his death, in the manner described in Ac 12"^ (of.
A nf. XIX. viii. 2 ; see art. JosEPHUS), Palestine re-
verted to the rule of procurators, so far as civil ad-
ministration was concerned. In religious matters
control was entrusted to Agrippa's brother. Herod
the King of Chalcis, whom the younger A^ippa
succeeded. Hence the intervention of the latter
at the trial of St. Paul (Ac 2513^-26). With one
or two exceptions the procurators who followed
were distasteful to the Jews, wliose di-scontent
\^orked to a head in A.D. 66, when the open breach
with Rome occun-ed.
Under Cuspius Fadus (A.D. 44-^) the custody
of the high-priestly vestments was resumed by the
Roman authorities, and once more they were guarded
in Antonia, but this was countermanded upon a
direct application of the Jews to Claudius. During
the rule of Fadus and his successor Tiberius Alex-
ander (A.D. 46-48) the people of Jerusalem, like
their brethren throughout Judaea, were oppressed
by the great famine (Ac ll^"^'), which Queen Helena
of Adiabene, now resident in Jerusalem (see above),
did much to relieve (Ant. XX. ii. 5, v. 2 ; cf. art.
Famine). In the time of Ventidius Cumanus (k.d.
48-52) the impious act of a Roman soldier at the
Passover sea.son led to serious collision with the
Roman power and to great loss of life (Ant. XX. v.
3, BJl\. xii. 1). This was the first of a series of
troubles that led to Cumanus being recalled.
Antonius Felix (A.D. 52-60) was sent in his stead,
and under him matters proceeded from bad to
worse. Owing to the violent methods of the
Sicarii, life in Jerusalem became unsafe, and even
the high priest Jonathan fell a victim to their
daggers. Jsot only against Rome was there revolt,
but also on the part of the priests against the high
priests (Ant. XX. viii. 8). The events recorded in
Ac 23 and 24 fall within the last two years of
Felix's rule. Porcius Festus (60-62) succeeded
Felix, and died in office. In the confu.sion follow-
ing his death, which was fomented by Ananus the
high priest, Agrippa II. intervened, and Ananus
wa-s displaced, but not before James, the brother
of Christ, had suffered martyrdom at his hands
(Ant. XX. ix. 1). The date (A.D. 62) is regarded
as doubtful by Schiirer (HJP l. ii. 187). Albinus
(A.D. 62-64) devoted his energies to making himself
rich, and under him anarchy prevailed, which be-
came even worse under GcssiUs Florus (a.T>. 64-66).
His appropriation of the Temple treasures precipi-
tated the great revolt from Rome, which ended
with the Destruction of Jerusalem (Sept., A.D. 70).
Agrippa II. enters into the history of Jerusalem
during the procuratorship of Festus, whose services
he enlisted against the priests in their buUding of
a wall within the Temple area counter to hLs
heightened Palace (see above). Along with his
sister Bernice he sought in other ways, outwardly
at least, to conciliate the Jews. While Bernice
performed a vow according to prescribetl ritual
(BJ II. XV. 1), Agrippa showed some zeal, but little
discretion, in matters aflecting the Temple. His
eflbrts at mediation upon tlie outbreak of hostilities
were in vain ; he was forced to take sides with
Rome, and appears in attendance upon Titus after
he assumed the command.
The harrowing details of the last four years pre-
ceding the Fall of Jerusalem, the factions, priva-
tions, bloodshed, and ruin, lie apart from the
history of the Apostolic Church, and are here
omitted. At an early stage of the war the Chris-
tians escajied to Pella beyond Jordan (Euseb. HE
III. V. 3), where they remained till peace was con-
cluded and a return made possible. This is usually
dated fully half a century later, after the founding
of the Roman city il£lia Capitolina in the reign of
Hadrian (A.D. 136), but nothing is known for certain
beyond the fact of the return (Epiphanius, de
Mens, et Pond. xv. [Migne, Patr. Grceca, xliii. col.
261 f.]). Some would date the return as early as
A.D. 73 (see Wilson, Golgotha, p. 54 f.).
ii. The Christians ix Jeru.salem. — Apart
from the Book of Acts there is little information
regarding the Christians during the years that
they tarried in Jerusalem. A not unlikely tradi-
tion gives twelve years as the period that the
Twelve remained at the first centre of the Church.
After that arose persecution and consequent dis-
persion. This may be dated in the short reign of
Agrippa I. (A.D. 41-44). Subsequent to this the
Church in Jerusalem, which from the first had
been Jewish-Christian, became pronouncedly Juda-
istic, perhaps an essential to its own preservation.
Up to the time of the revolt (A.D. 66), while there
were indeed conflicts with the Jewish authorities,
more or less coincident with interregna in the pro-
curatorship, there was no open breach. The sect
was tolerated, as others were, by the Jewish leaders,
so long as there was outward conformity to the
ritual of the Temple. The progressive movement
in Christianity was external to Jerusalem and even
to Palestine ; the Church in the metropolis of the
faith became increasingly conservative, and in the
end ceased to have any standing within the Church
Catholic. But this did not take place until the
post- Apostolic Age. Attention must be fixed
cliiefly on the first few decades following the Death
of Christ, years in which originated much that
became permanent within the Church as well as
features that were destined to pass away.
(a) The disciples and the Lord. — Throughout the
Book of Acts emphasis is laid upon the fact that
Christ had risen from the dead. So far as can be
discovered, the first Christians had no concern for
the scene of the Crucifixion nor yet for the empty
tomb. It was not until the 4th cent. A.D. that
these spots, so venerated in after ages, came to be
marked by a Christian edifice. The thoughts of
the early Christians were upon the living and not
the dead. They cherished the hope of the speedy
return of Christ to earth in all the glory of His
Second Coming, and reckoned that they lived in
the time of the end, when the fullness of Messiah's
Kingdom was about to be ushered in. This being
the case, they made no provision for posterity in
the way of erecting memorials to the Christ who
had sojourned among them in the flesh, and, as the
extracts from Patristic writers (see small type
above) reveal, after 'sacred sites' began to be
marked, thev were those associated with the post-
resurrection life of the Lord.
(b) Relation of the Christians to other dwellers in
the city. — The desire to make converts to the faith
must have brought the Christians into contact
with their fellow-citizens and with those of the
Dispersion who chanced to be present in the city.
Their assembling in the Temple, for instance, was
not simply to fulfil the Law (Ac 3^), nor yet for the
sake of meeting with each other (o^), but to work
upon the mass of the i>€ople through the words
and wonders of the apostles. Only by public ac-
tivity could the numbers have grown with the
rapidity and to the extent they did. Of necessity
this propaganda was att^ndea by a measure of
opposition from those who were the traditional
enemies of the Lord. But, so long as Roman rule
was exercised, persecution could not make head-
way. While thus mixing to some extent with
other elements in the city, the Christians also livetl
a life apart for purposes of instruction and fellow-
640
JERUSALEM
JESTING
Bhii), and for the pcrfonuunce of the simple ritual
of the faith (Ac 2*^ 12'", etc.). Tlierc is no evidence
that they possessed any special building like u
synago^^Mie. A private Iiouse, Kuch as that of
Mary, the mother of John Mark, M'oiild have served
their j)urpose, and according to tradition (see above)
this was the recognized centre. Kven at the time
of the so-called Council (Ac 15') no indication is
given that tlie assembly was convened in an oihcial
building.
(c) Urganization. — Those who had companied
with Jesus in the days of His public ministry were
from the outset regarded as leaders in the Cnurcli,
and were in possession of special gifts and powers.
To the Twelve, who were Hebrews, there were
shortly athled the Seven, perhaps as an accommoda-
tion to the Hellenists (Ac 6'). This step probably
marks the lirst cleavage in the ranks of the Chris-
tians, as they began to be called, and paved the
way for the wider breach which in a few years
severed tiiose at the ancient centre of Jewish faith
and practice from the numerically stronger division
of Gentile believers in other places. Harnack re-
gards it as possible that the Seven were ' Hellen-
istic rivals of the Twelve' (The Constitution and
Law of the Church, 30), the chief being St. Stephen,
whose adherents were persecuted after his death,
the apostles tliemselves oeing let aXone (The Mission
and Expansion of Christianity"^, i. 50 f. ; cf. Ac 8^).
The appointment of the Seven reveals the fact
that in one respect the initial practice of the Chris-
tians had been tentative and could not be sustained.
The community of goods, which theoretically was
an ideal .system, ultimately proved unworkable,
and was not imitated in other Christian communi-
ties. The poverty of the mother Church, which
continued after Gentile churches had been planted
at many points, has been regarded as the outcome
of this experiment, but it is likely that the causes
of this poverty in Jerusalem lay deeper than that.
G. A. Smith (Jerusalem, ii. 563) has shown that
Jerusalem is naturally a poor city, and he attri-
butes her chronic poverty to the inadequacy of
her own resources and tlie many non-productive
members her population contained. These condi-
tions were not altered in apostolic times. In view
of the circumstance that at a comparatively late
stage the further commission was given to St.
Paul and Barnabas to remember the poor (Gal 2'"),
i.e. at Jerusalem, this may conceivably be grounded
not upon special need but upon the analogy of the
tribute paid by those of the Diaspora to head-
quarters. ' The church at Jerusalem, together
with the primitive apostles, considered themselves
the central body of Christendom, and also the
rejiresentatives of the true Israel' (Harnack,
Mission and Expansion^, i. 330 f.).
(d) The position of James, the Lord's brother. —
More than any of the Twelve, m ho at first were so
prominent, is James, the Lord's brother, associated
witii the Church in Jerusalem. He appears sud-
denly in Acts as possessed of authority equal to
that of the greatest of the apostles, and at the
Council he occui)ies the jiosition of j)resident. When
St. PaiU visited the city for the last time he reported
himself to James ancl the elders. From extracts
of Hegesippus preserved by Eusebius, and from
Eusebius himself, we learn that James owed his
outstanding position to his personal worth, as also
to his relationship to Jesus, and it seems evident
that he was the leading representative of Judaistic
Christianity, of that section which by its adherence
to the Law and the Temple was able to maintain
it«elf in Jerusalem after others, even the chief
u|K)stles, had been compelled to leave the city.
Hut James also suflered martyrdom (see al)ove, 2,
iv. (c)). He was followed by his cousin Symeon,
whom Hegesippus (Euseb.) styles 'second bislioj*.'
There is great diversity of opinion as to when this
appointment was made (Wilson, GolgotJui, p. 55n.).
'1 he date of his death is ])laced c. A.D. 107. As
Eusebius learned that until the siege of Hadrian
(A.D. 135) there were fifteen bishops, all said to be
of Hebrew descent (HE iv, v. 2), the tradition is
hard to believe. Harnack thinks that relatives of
Jesus or presbyters may be included in the number
(Mission and Expansion'-, ii. 97).
(e) Effect of the Fall of Jerusalem upon the Church
there. — The final destruction of the city in A.D. 70
is generally regarded as crucial not only for the
Jews but also for the Christians, not because the
latter were present at the time, but because there
had perforce to be a severance from the former
ways now that the Temple had ceased to be. IJut
ths importance of this event has been over-rated
(A. C. McGiilert, Tlie Apostolic Age, p. 546). As
regards the Church Catholic, the centre, or centres,
had already been moved, while the local church,
which escaped the terrors of the siege, was small,
tending indeed to extinction. The Church in iElia
Capitolina was Gen tile -Christian, with Mark as
lirst bishop. It fashioned for itself a new Zion,
on the S.W. Hill ; and when in the 3rd cent.
Jerusalem became a resort of pilgrims, the ' sacred
sites ' did not include the Temple area, the Jewish
Zion, which indeed was regarded by the Christians
' with an aversion which is really remarkable, and
which increased as years passed by ' (Watson, Jeru-
salem, p. 119).
Literature. — (a) Contemporary authorities and Patristic
tcorks are frequently citeti in the article, and need not be
repeated. — (6) Dictionary articles are numerous: HDB, SDB,
DCG, EBi, JE, etc. — (c) Of topoijraphical works those found
of most service are : C. W. Wilson, Golgotha and the Holy
Sepulchre, London, 1906 ; G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, do. 1907-08 ;
L. B. Paton, Jerusalem in Bible Times, Chicago and London,
1908 ; C. R. Conder, The City of Jerusalem, London, 1909 ;
S. Merrill, Ancient Jerusalem, Ixindon and New York, 1908 ;
C. M. Watson, The Story of Jermalem, do. 1912 ; F. J. Bliss
and A. C. Dickie, Excavations at Jerusalem, 18914-97, London,
1898 ; W. Sanday and P. Waterhonse, Sacred Sites of the
Gospels, O.xford, 1903. Other works not alread}- cited : K.
Baedeker, Palestine and Syria, Leipzig, 1912, pp. 19-90 ; F.
Buhl, Oeog. des alten Paldstina, Freiburg and Leipzig, 1806,
pp. 144-154; H. Vincent, Jerusalem antique, Paris, 1913ff. —
Id) Historical icorks : E. Schiirer, HJP, Edinburgh, 1885-91 ;
A. C. McGiffert, A History of (Christianity in the Apostolic
Age, do. 1897, pp. 36-93, 549-568 ; C. von Weizsacker, The
Apostolic Age of the Christian Church-, Eng. tr., London, 1897-
98, bk. i. chs. i.-iv., bk. ii. ch. iii., bk. iv. ch. i., bk. v. ch. ii. ;
A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in
the First Three Centuries", Eng. tr., do. 1908, i. 44-64, 182-184,
ii. 97-99, The Constitution and Law of the Church in the First
Two Centuries, Eng. tr., do. 1910, pp. 1-39.
W. CRUICK.SHANK.
JESSE ('leffo-ai). — Jesse is mentioned in Ac 13^
and Ko 15'- as the father of David.
JESTING (eOrpaweXla, Eph 5^).— That the Greek
word is used in an unfavourable sense is shown by
its association with 'filthiness' and 'foolish talk-
ing,' as well as by its characterization as 'not be-
fitting.' But in itself (being derived from ev, ' M'ell,'
and rpiiru}, ' I turn ') it was morally neutral, and
originally it had a good sense. ' On the subject of
pleasantness in sport,' says Aristotle (Eth. Nic. ll.
vii. 13), ' he who is in the mean is a man of grace-
ful wit, and the disposition gi'aceful wit (ei>rpoireX/a) ;
the excess ribaldry, and the person ribald ; he who
is in defect a clown, and the habit clownisliness."
And again (IV. viii. 3), 'Those who neither say
anything laughable themselves, nor approve of it
in others, appear to be clownish and narsh, but
those who are sportive with good taste are calle<l
e irrpiir f\oi, as possessing versatility,' etc. This was
a characteristic of the Athenians, whom Pericles
praised as 'qualified to act in the most varied
ways and with the most graceful ver.satility * (eirrpa-
ttAws [Time. ii. 41]). Aristotle admits that even
' buttbons are called men of graceful wit' (eiVpd-
v(\oi), but questions their right to the term (IV.
JESUS
JEW, JEWESS
G41
viii. 3). The nearest Latin equivalent was urbfiniias.
But gradually the coinage was debased, and et-rpa-
xeXt'a came to mean no more than badinage, per-
sidage, ynt without the salt of grace; in Chry-
sostom's striking phrase, it was ' graceless grace '
(xipti <Sx<V")- See K. Trench, NTSt/nonym^, 1876,
p. li9f. James SxBAHAif.
JESUS.— This is the Greek form of the Hebrew
name Joshua ('salvation of Jahweh'), as we find
it in the LXX and NT writings. It is thus applied
to—
1. Jesus Christ ; see art. Christ, Christologv.
2. Joshua the son of Nan, who led Israel into
Canaan ; referred to by Stephen in his speech
before the council (Ac 7**) and by the writer to the
Hebrews (He 4*). See Joshua.
3. Jesos surnamed Justus (Col 4"), a Christian
convert of Jewish descent who was with the
Apostle Paul in Rome at the date of his writing
the Epistle to the Colossians. He is described,
along ^vith Mark and Aristarchus, as a fellow-
worker unto the Kingdom of God and as having
been a comfort unto the Apostle. This reference
singles out the three mentioned as the only
members of the ' circumcision ' who had been help-
ful to the Apostle in Rome, and reminds us of the
constant hatred which the narrower Je^vish Chris-
tians exhibited towards St. Paul, and also of the
failure of many of the Roman Christians to assist
and stand by the Apostle during his imprisonment
(cf. Ph 2^-\ 2 Ti 4»»). It has been pointed out
that the mention of Jesus in this passage by the
Apostle creates difficulties for those who impugn
the authenticity of the Epistle and suggest that it
is based on Philemon. If Philemon is genuine,
why add an unknown name which might arouse
suspicion ? It is extremely unlikely that an imi-
tator would add a name which so soon became
sacred among Christians (cf. A. S. Peake, in EGT,
'Colossians,' 19<J3, p. 546). W. F. Boil).
JESUS CHRIST.— See Christ, Christology.
JEW, JEWESS.— The term 'Jew' (Heb. n^n^
Gr. 'loi'Oatoj) originally signified an inhabitant of
the province of Judaea, or, more strictly, a member
of the tribe of Judah in contrast with the people
of the Northern Kingdom of the ten tribes. After
the Babylonian captivity, however, the term was
applied to any member of the ancient race of Israel,
wherever settled and to whatever tribe he may have
belonged. Josephus, referring to Nehemiah's use
of the term in addressing the returned exiles, says :
' That is the name they are called by from the day
that they came up from Babylon, which [name] is
taken from the tribe of Judah, which came first
to these places ; and thence both they and the
country gained that appellation' (Ant. XI. v. 7).
The name is almost always regarded as a purely
racial designation, marking off all who belonged to
the ancient nation ; but as the nation was distin-
guished from the heathen world by its religious
views, the term came to signify one who was
separated not only by race but by religion from the
rest of mankind. The Jew himself preferred to be
called an ' Israelite,' as the latter was the name of
national honour and privilege (cf. art. Israel),
and we find ' Jew ' to be the designation usually
applied by foreigners to members of the Chosen
People.
In the NT the term is found applied to those who
belonged to the ancient race in contrast with
various other groups or classes of men. The Jews
themselves divided the whole world into Jews and
GentUes ; and we find the Apostle Paul using this
contrast in speaking of God's judgment on sin :
' tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man
VOL. I.— 41
that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the
Gentile ' (Ro 2*). Again the term is used iu con-
trasting Jews and Samaritans (Jn 4'), the latter
being descended from tlie mixed race of ancient
Israelites and the settlers introduced by the As-
syrian conquerors (cf. 2 K 17^^*^).
The Jew is also contrasted witli the proselyte
who was a Jew by his adopted religious beliefs,
but not by birth (Ac 2>«). In the Fourth Gospel
we find the term 'Jews' applied to those who
opposed the teaching of Jesus, as contrasted with
believers in Christ, whatever their nationality
might be ; but generally the Jewish rulers seem to
be indicated by the name in this GospeL Thus
' the Jews ' censure the man for carrying his bed
on the Sabbath (5'**), and contend with the man
bom blind (9"). Perhaps this usage of the Fourth
Gospel arose from the influence of later times,
when the Jews, and especially the Jewish authori-
ties, were bitterly opposed to the teaching of
Jesus. In the other parts of the NT the term is
never used in contrast with believers in Christ.
Thus in Gal 2^ ' the Jews ' are the Christians of
Jewish race. In the Epistle to the Romans (2**- ^)
we find a distinction made between a Jew who is
such outwardly and a Jew who is such inwardly.
Here, as also in Ro 3^, the Apostle uses the term
'Jew,' where we should naturally expect to find
' Israelite,' to designate a member of the Chosen
People as a recipient of special Divine favour.
Some who belong to the Jewish race are not spirit-
ually partakers of the blessings which attach to it.
In the passage where the writer of the Apocalypse
(2^ 3®) speaks of those ' who say they are Jews, and
are not, but are the sjrnagogue of Satan,' he may
be referring to men who made a false claim to
belong to the Jewish nation, or to Jews by race
who were far from belonging to the true Israel of
God.
One of the most remarkable features in con-
nexion with the Jews in the apostolic times was
their world-wide dispersion. From Spain in the
West to the Persian Gulf in the East Jews had
settled in every large city. Their exclusive re-
ligion and their contempt of the heathen kept
them together as a community within the larger
population where they found a home, and their
capacity for commerce often enabled them to be-
come extremely wealthy. Their exclusiveness and
the commercial dishonesty of many of them led to
their being hat«d by the common people, while
their wealth made them exceedingly useful to
rulers and princes, who thus were induced to pro-
tect them. The Dispersion was one of the most
important factors in the spread of the Christian
faith in apostolic and sub-apostolic times. Wher-
ever the apostolic missionaries went, they found a
Jewish synagogue, where they had access not
merely to the Jewish population, but to the more
earnest among the heathen who had been attracted
by the monotheism and the moral characteristics
of Judaism, and who often formed the nucleus of a
Christian Church. The Jewish religion was toler-
ated in the Roman Empire, being regarded as a
religio lieita ; and, so long as Christianity grew up
and flourish^ in the shelter of the synagogue, it
too might be regarded as enjoying the same toler-
ation. This fact no doubt enabled the new faith
to secure a footing in these early days. In the
Acts of the Apostles we see how the Roman pro-
consul Gallio (18"-") simply regards Christianity
as an insignificant variation of Judaism, and the
same view is taken by King Agrippa (26*^), as well
as by the town-clerk of Ephesus (19"). The
author of the Acts is careful to state these favour-
able opinions of officials. Probably, however, the
popular hatred of the Jews, which was always
smouldering and ready to burst forth at any
642
JEZEBEL
.lOB
moment among the excitable populace, was one
of the first causes of Christian persecution, as it
took some considerable time before Christianity
Avas fully recognized as an independent religion.
The Jews themselves became the most persistent
and implacable persecutors of the Christians.
They were ever ready to stir up the disallected
l)eople and divert attention from themselves by
turning it on the adherents of the new faith.
Probably the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by
Claudius (Ac 18"'') was the result of dissensions re-
Sarding the new religion, which had sprung from
udaism and threatened to overwhelm it. The
reference of Suetonius (Claiidms, 2ii) to Chrestus,
which is probably a mistake for ChinMus, seems to
favour this idea, although various views have been
taken of the passage (cf. K. J. Knowling, EGT,
'Acts,' p. 384 f.).
In Kome, as well as in many other cities of the
Empire, Jews obtained consitferable influence, in
spite of the popular aversion to them. Their
wealth opened many doors which otherwise would
have remained shut against them. Jews, and
especially Jewesses, were to be found in many
prominent Roman families, and intermarriage
Detween Jewish women and Gentiles was by no
means uncommon. Thus Eunice, the mother of
Timothy (Ac 16'), was a Jewess who had married
a Greek, while Drusilla, the wife of Felix the
governor of Syria (Ac 24-^), is also described as a
Jewess. In both references the word simply implies
that the women belonged to the ancient race of
Israel, without any thought of the particular tribe
from which they may have claimed descent.
LiTKRATunK.— H. H. Milman, History of the Jews^, 1SC3 ; J.
J. I. DSUing'er, Heidenthuin und Judenthum, 1857 ; O. Holtz-
mann, NTZG, 1895 ; E. Schurer, GJ V*, 1901-11 ; A. Harnack,
Mission und Ausbreitunq", 190(5 ; A. Berliner, Geschichte der
Juden in Rom, 1893 ; W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the
Roman Empire, 1893, St. Paul the Traveller, 1895 ; R. J. Know-
lingr, EGT, ' Acts,' 1900, M. Dods, KGT, ' The Gospel of St.
John," 1897 ; Sanday-Headlam, Romans^ (ICC, 1902) ; artt. in
UDB and EBi. -W". Y. BOYD.
JEZEBEL.— Jezebel is referred to in the NT in
Rev 2-" : 'I have somewhat against thee, because
thou dost tolerate the woman Jezebel who calleth
herself a proplietess, and teacheth my servants to
commit fornication and to esit of tilings offered
to idols and leadeth them astray.' [Some MSS,
NCP and about 10 minuscules, insert ffov after
ywalKa, so as to give the sense ' thy wife,' but the
ffov is placed in the margin by WH and rejected
by Nestle. It probably reflects some copyist's
view that the ' angel ' of the Church was its
bishop.] The passage goes on to say that her
misdoing was of some standing, that the woman
gave no sign of amending her ways, and that
therefore she and her companions in sin would be
cast into a bed, or triclinium, defined as great
affliction, while her children would be smitten
with death. One result of this punishment would
be that all the Churches would recognize Jesus as
the Searcher of the thoughts and wills. Further,
this Jezebel taught what she and her followers
called ' the deep things,' to which the author
sardonically adds 'of Satan.'
It is fairly clear from these hints what * Jezebel '
stands for. In the first place, the opprobrious
terra may mark an actual prophetess. For Thya-
tira possessed a temple of Artemis and a temple
of a local hero Tyrimnus taken over by Apollo,
while outside the city was the cell of an Eastern
Sibyl known as Sambethe (CIG 3509: Fabius
Zosimus set up a burial-place for himself and his
sweetest wife Aurelia Pontiana in a vacant place
in front of the city in the neighbourhood or quarter
where was a fane of the Chaldtean Sambethe [vol.
ii. p. 840]. The date is probably about A.D. 120).
Though it is not at all probable that by Jezebel
this Sibyl could be aimed at, seeing that the ob-
noxious teacher was within the Thyatiran Church,
yet it is not improbable that a Chaldtean prophet-
ess outside might stimulate a Christian prophetess
inside the Church. It is of course always possible
that Jezebel is not a j)ersonal name at all, but a
scornful designation of a Gnostic group inside the
Christian community at Thyatira, whose action
and doctrine the author regarded as being like
those of the OT Jezebel-religion, in that it tended
to seduce its followers from the ' form of sound
words.'
One characteristic of the civic life of Thyatira
was to be found in the gilds into which the bakers,
potters, weavers, and artificers in general were
grouped. As one inscription (CIG 349) speaks of
' the priest of the Divine Father Tyrimnus,' and
as all heathen religions celebrated periodically
religious banquets, there is little doubt that from
time to time Christian members of these gilds
were faced by the question whether it was lawful
for them to partake of these banquets as coming
under the head of things ottered to idols. Rigorists
would hold that to eat at such banquets was to
communicate with idols and so to commit spiritual
fornication. Jezebel, whether a prophetess or a
group, taught apparently that Christians might
lawfully partake of these religious banquets, and
this the writer of the Apocalypse regarded as
equivalent to Jezebel's idolatry in the OT.
It is also plain that the followers of 'Jezebel'
were Gnostics, for the latter were explicitly
inquirers into the ' deep things,' the esoteric
truths which the ordinary person was incompetent
to understand. In 1 Co 2'" St. Paul claims for his
disciples that the Spirit who searches all tilings
(same verb as is used in Rev 2"), yea, the deep
things of God, had revealed these hidden things
to them. The apocalyptic writer, however, is
more concerned here with the opposite depths —
those of Satan. Thus in 2^ he speaks of the false
Jews in Smyrna who formed a synagogue of Satan.
In 2'^ he says that Satan had his throne at Per-
gamum. In 3^ Philadelphia is charged with har-
bouring a synagogue of Satan. These passages,
taken in connexion with the references to the
teaching of Balaam in 2'^ and of the Nicolaitans
in 2^', favour the interpretation of Jezebel which
sees in the name a term of opprobrium applied
dyslogistically to a heretical sect or form of
doctrine. That the deptlis of Satan are Gnostic
doctrines is clear from Iren. (ll. xxii. 1), who says
that the Ptolemff>ans said that they had found
the mysteries of Bythns, a phrase repeated in II.
xxii. 3 (cf. Hippol. H(er. v. vi., and Tertullian,
ndv. Valent. i., de Res. Carnis, xix.). The name
.fezebel does not occur anywhere in the Apostolic
Fathers. W. F. COBB.
JOB CluiS).— Job is named by Ezekiel (W*-^)—
in the 6th cent. B.C., probably about two centuries
before the writing of the Book of Job— along with
Noah and Daniel as a proverbially righteous man.
After the publication of the great drama, it was
natural that he should be regarded rather as a
model of patience in affliction (virbSfiyna, t^j koko-
■tra.eda^Kalixa.Kpoevixlas.i&S^''- "). While the profound
speculations of the book regarding the problems
of pain and destiny, as well as the theological doc-
trine which the poet intended to teach, might be
beyond the grasp of the ordinary reader, the moral
appeal of the simple opening story came home to
all suflering humanity. 'Ye have heard of the
patience (t7)v Wofjiovriv) of Job ' (5"). Similarly the
conclusion of the tale, which revealed (iod's final
purpose in regard to His servant (r6 WXos Kvplov),
proving Him to be full of pity and merciful {to\v-
JOEL
JOHN, EPISTLES OF
643
(rirXo7x«'os /coi oiKTipnuv), presented a situation whicli
all readers might be asked to observe. The im-
perative Idrre, which is as well supported as elSere,
calls tlieir attention to a surprising fact, which
they might well mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
The Quran repeats the admonition and the lesson.
• And remember Job ; when he cried unto the
Lord, saj'ing, Verily evil hath afflicted me : but
thou art the most merciful of all those who show
mercy. Wherefore we [God] heard him and re-
lieved him from the evil which Avas upon him, and
we restored unto him his family,' etc. {sitra 21).
' Verily we found him a patient person : how ex-
cellent a servant was he ' (silra 38).
James Strahan.
JOEL {'loniX). — Joel is proved by internal evi-
dence to have been one of tlie latest of the Hebrew
"prophets. The prominence in his writings of
priests and ritual at home, and of a diaspora
abroad, his reference to the distant sons of Greece,
Ins use of Aramaic words, and the lurid apoca-
lyptic colouring of his prophecies, clearly point to
the Persian period. But Joel has not tlie wide
outlook of some of the other prophets. He is
not fascinated either by Isaiah's visions of Israel
as the light of the Gentiles, or Malachi's of the
heathen waiting upon Jahweh. He has not the
humanitarian feeling of the author of Jonah, who
may have been his contemporary. He is a rigid
and exclusive Israelite. In his view the heathen,
as being apparently beyond redemption, are to be
destroyed, not to be won to the knowledge of God.
But if he is narrow, he is intense ; and while he
cherishes the priestly ideals, his hope for Israel
lies rather in such a diftusion of the proplietic
spirit as shall create an inspired nation. Nothing
less will satisfy him than the fulfilment of Moses'
wish : ' Would to God that all Jahweh's people
were prophets. ' For him the goal of Hebrew his-
tory, the Divine event to which all things move,
is that God shall, by the mighty working of His
Spirit, so enlighten and control His people, so
adapt them to share His confidence and receive
His revelations, that the thrilling experiences
which have hitherto been confined to the prophets
shall then be shared by all Israel. ' Your sons
and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old
men shall dream dreams, and your young men
shall see visions : and also upon the servants and
upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out
my spirit' (2*-»- 29),
This particular prophecy wins for Joel aprominent
place in the NT. St. Peter at once recognized its
fulfilment in that outpouring of the Spirit, that
baptism of fire, that Divine intoxication, which
was experienced on the day of Pentecost. He
quoted the prophet's words, and the question
naturally arises how he interpreted 'upon all
flesh.' Was he, like the prophet himself, still a
particularist, extending the promised blessing to
all the Jews of the Diaspora, but limiting it to
them, and so making the old distinction of Israel
from the heathen more marked than ever? Or
did he there and then change his standpoint so as
to include the nations in his purview? Did he
in that hour of inspiration read into Joel's words
the later universalism of St. Paul ? Probably the
issue did not become clear to his mind so soon. It
was not a day for correct definitions but for over-
whelming impressions. Enough that to the eflusion
of the Spirit there was meantime no limit of sex
('your sons and your daughters'), of age ('your
Soung men, your old men'), or of condition (' my
ondmen and my bondwomen'). Time would also
show that there was to be no limit of race (Jew
or Gentile) ; for however men (even prophets)
may limit 'all flesh,' to Christ and His Church it
means ' all humanity.' J AMES Strahax.
JOHN.— See James and Johx, Sons of Zebe-
DEE.
JOHN, EPISTLES OF.— I. THE FIRST EPISTLE.
— 1. Contents. — It is not easy to summarize the con-
tents of the First Epistle. The ' aphoristic medi-
tations ' of this mystic writer are strung together
in such fashion that they almost defy analysis.
The most successful attempt is that of T. Haring
('Gedankengang und Gmndgedanke des l***
Johannesbriefs,' in Th^ol. Abhandlungen C. von
Weizsdcker gewidmet, Freiburg i. B., 1892). If we
cut oH" the first four verses, which are clearly an
introduction, and also 5'^-', whirrh form a final
summary, the main lx)dy of the Epistle gives us
a triple presentation of two leading idea.s. The
ethical thesis, ' Without walking in light, more
specially defined as love of the brethren, tliere can
be no fellowship with God,' is developed in the
sections l«-2", 2^^'-3", 4?-^\ The christological
thesis, ' Beware of those who deny that Jesus is
the Christ,' is similarly developed in 2'* ■■^, 4*'*,
5i(t5)-i2, In the first presentation (l'-2«') the two
theses are stated without any indication of their
nmtual connexion ; in the second (2-'^-4*) they are
again presented in the same order, but the verses
(3^- ^) which form the transition from the one to
tlie other are so worded as to bring out clearly
the intimate connexion which the author finds
Ijetween them ('his command is that we should
believe, and love as he commanded ') ; in the third
(4"-5^^) tliey are inseparably intertwined. A rough
analysis may be attempted.
1^-*. — The introduction states the writer's pur-
pose— to rekindle the true joy of fellowship in his
readers, by recalling the old message of Life, which
has been from the beginning, and of late has been
manifested in Jesus, the Son of God (l'~*).
l*-2^. — (a) The burden of that message is that
God is Light. As the light must shine, so it is of
His essence to reveal Himself to those whom He
has made to share His fellowship. In spite of
what some Gnostics may say, there is nothing in
His nature that hides Him from all but a few
select souls. But ' light ' describes, so to speak.
His character as well. Fellowship with Light is
only possible for those who 'walk in light.' To
claim fellowship, and go on committing deeds of
darkness, is to tell a lie. But for those who try.
He has prescribed a way of dealing with their
partial failures (v."). Two similar false pleas are
then set aside : the denial that sin is a real power,
active for evil, in those who have sinned, and the
denial that actual sin has been committed. They
are shown to be contrary to experience, and to
what we know of God's dealing with men (w.*"^*).
In 2^ the writer sets aside a false inference which
might be drawn from what he has said. The uni-
versality of sin might seem to be an excuse for
acquiescence. The writer states that he writes to
prevent, not to condone, sin. And this is possible,
for in the Christian society the means are ready to
hand for dealing with the sins which occur. The
Paraclete is pleading their cause in heaven, and
He is the propitiation He ministers. And men
can know how they stand. Obedience is the sign
of knowledge of God. Men are in union with God
when they try to follow the steps of the Christ
(yy 2-6) jjj yy,7-i7 thesis and warning are put
forward on the groimds of the readers' circum-
stances and experiences. Obedience to command
suggests a general statement of the command to
love. ' Thou shalt love thy neighbour ' is an old
command. It received new force and meaning in
the light of Christ's life, and the new life which
Christians have learned to live. This is more
clearly realized as in the new society the darkness
I passes away. A man cannot be in the light and
644
JOHN, EPISTLES OF
JOHN, EPISTLES OF
hate his brother Christian. Love lights the path,
so that he can walk without stumbling.
The writer then turns to immediate circum-
stances (vv.i'--"). The sin which keeps them far
from God has been removed ; the experience of tlie
old and the strength of the young have secured
victory (vv.^*- '^). This explains how he could
write as he has written. Iheir knowledge and
strength made it possible for him to use the words
he has penned (vv.'^''- "). But there is need of
hard striving. Love of the world may soon destroy
all tliat they iiave gained. The world is passing ;
only that which is done according to God's will
abides (vv."*").
(b) So he passes to the first statement of the
christological thesis (vv.'*"^). Faith in Jesus as
the Christ is the test of fellowship with God. The
passing of the transitory suggests the signs of the
times. The last hour has struck. The saying
'Antichrist cometh ' is being fulfilled in the many
false teachers who have appeared. The Faith had
gained a decisive victory, in the unmasking of the
traitors, who had to go. The crisis had shown
that all such false teachers, however they differed
among themselves, were aliens, and no true mem-
bers of the Body. This the readers knew, if they
would use their knowledge. Their anointing had
fiven to all of them knowledge to det«ct falsehood,
'alsehood culminates in the denial that Jesus is
the Messiah. This denial includes denial of the
Father, in spite of Gnostic claims to superior
knowledge. All true knowledge of the Father
comes through the Son. It is gained in living and
abiding union, the eternal life which He has pro-
mised (vv.'^"^). This much he must write about
the deceivers. If his readers had used their know-
ledge, he need not have written it (vv.^- ^). Let
them abide, and confidence will be theirs when
' He ' appears (v.^). Who can have this confidence ?
Those wlio know that God is just, and who there-
fore learn in the experience of Christian life that
the doing of righteousness is the true test of the
birth from God (v.2»).
228_46_ — ((j) yYe pass to the second statement of
the ethical thesis (2'-^(')-3**) : the doing of righteous-
ness, i.e. love of the brethren, shown in active ser-
vice, is the sign by which we may know that we
are ' loving God.' In 3'-® thesis and warning are con-
sidered in the light of the duty of self-purification,
laid upon us by the gift of sonship and the hope of
its consummation. Everyone who has this nope
must of necessity purify himself here and now.
Lawlessness does not consist only in disobeying
the injunctions of a definite code. There is a
higher Law which is broken by every act of afiapria,
of failure to realize in life the ideal set before men
in the human life of Jesus Christ. This is further
explained in vv-''^^^, introduced by an earnest warn-
ing against deceivers. The doer of righteousness
alone has attained to Christ-like righteousness.
The doer of sin still belongs to the Devil, who has
been working for sin throughout human history.
So, if we realize that for us rigliteousness finds its
clearest expression in love of the brethren, we gain
a clear contrast: God's children, always striving
to realize the ideal of sinless love, and the children
of the Devil, striving after, or drifting towards,
their own ideal of sinful hate and seltisli greed.
Sinlessness, i.e. righteousness, is not the monopoly
of a chosen race, or section of men. It is the
natural outcome of the new life which every man
majr have, if he will take it and use it, to follow
Christ, not Cain, whose evil life found its natural
expression in the final issue of hatred — murder
^vith violence (v."^). Verses 13-18 contain varia-
tions on tiie same theme. The world's hatred
should not surprise tiiem ; it is the natural atti-
tude of those who cannot stand the sight of good.
They really ought to know tliat love and death,
murder and eternal life, have nothing in common.
And Christ's example has siiown what love is. At
least they can show their love in helping their
bretliren. He who has not even got so far as that
need not talk of God's love. With an exhortation
to sincerity in loving service (v.**) tlie meditation
passes over once more to the tests of truth. How
can we know that we are on the side of truth, and
still the accusations of our consciences? — By throw-
ing ourselves on God's omniscience. Wfien a man
feels confidence towards God and finds that his
prayers are answered — tliat he wishes for and does
the things that God wills — his conscience ceases to
accuse (vv.'"'^-^). God's will is shown in His com-
mand— which is more than a series of jirecepts :
He bids men have faith in Christ and love like
His. These lead to fellowship witli Him. Men
know that they have it by their possession of tfie
Spirit which He has given (vv.^- 2<).
{b) Thus the interlacing of Faith and Love leads
on to the second presentation of the christological
thesis (4^"''), in such a way as to show its vital con-
nexion with the ethical. The mention of the
Spirit suggests the form of the new statement.
All spiritual phenomena could not be regarded as
the work of God's Spirit. Tlie spirits must be
tested by their attitude to the Clirist. The reality
of the Incarnation as a permanent union between
God and man is the vital trutli. The statement
(42. 3) jg followed by a short meditation (vv.**) on
the attitude of the Church and the world to the
two confessions and those who make them. The
spirits of truth and error are clearly discerned by
the kinds of people who listen to them.
4''-5^'. — In these verses, the last and most intri-
cate section of the Epistle, we have the third pre-
sentation of the two theses. Tlie remainder of
ch. 4 is predominantly ethical, the opening verses
of ch. 5 christological, or at least doctrinal. But
the two theses are interwoven, and can hardly be
separated. Love is the proof of fellowship with
God, for God is Love. The true nature of love has
been made clear, in terms intelligible to men, in
the sending of His Son, as faith conceives it.
In the first explanation of the two combined
ideas (4''"2'), it is shown that love based on faith in
the revelation of love given in Christ's life and
work is the proof of ' knowing God ' and of being
'loved of God.' In the second explanation (5^*-)
faith is first. Victory over the world — the forces
opposed to God — is gained by faith in Je.sus as the
Alessiah, the Son of God. This faith rests histori-
cally on a three-fold witness — of the water (the
Baptism in which He was set apart for His
Messianic work), of the siifl'ering (which culmin-
ated on the Cross, and which has dealt witli sin),
and of the Spirit (who interprets these facts to
men). And the work of the Spirit continues in
those who follow Christ as thus conceived. They
realize the truth in tlieir own experience.
513-21 — go the last christological statement passes
out into yet another answer to the question, ' How
can we know?' (vv.^^'"). True confidence is
established when men know that prayer is heard
because wliat is asked is in accordance with God's
wUl. The true answer to j^rayer is the immediate
consciousness that what is taken to God has
reached His ear, and may be safely left in His
care. Where intercession is possible it will suc-
ceed. Then (vv.^^'^'), with a triple otSa/xev, the
writer sums up the things he has to say whicfi
matter most. .Sin can be conquered ; we belong to
God, whom we have learned to know in the revela-
tion of Him which His Son lias brouirht down to
men. The Epistle closes with tlie terse warning
that His ' chiklren ' must reject all meaner concep-
tions of God.
JOHX, EPISTLES OF
JOHN, EPISTLES OF
645
2. The false teachers.— If the analysis given
of the teaching of the First Epistle is correct, it
follows that edification and exhortation rather
than controversy are the writers primary objects.
He reiterates the leading ideas of his teaching,
already familiar to his readers, to kindle once
more the enthusiasm of their faith and lirst love,
■whicli is growing cold, to gnard them from the
dangers which threaten, and to give them tests by
which they may 'know' the security of their
Christian position.
At the same time it is clear that in all he writes
he has in view definite forms of false teaching
which have proved dangerous, errors both doc-
trinal and ethical, the fascination of which is a
serious menace to their Christian life.
A careful study of the language of the Epistle
makes it probable that the author is combating
more than one kind of false teaching. His oppon-
ents are not all to be fotmd in the same camp.
The opinions which he refutes might all have been
held by the same opponents ; but they do not form
a complete system : still less can they be separated
into a series of complete homogeneous systems.
Probably he otiers a few leading truths which in
his opinion are the antidote to the manifold errors
by which his readers are threatened, while there
is one particular party, to whose opinions recent
circtimstances have given a predominant import-
ance.
The expressions used suggest variety. Many
antichrists have come (2^*) ; all of them, whatever
their ditierences may be, are aliens to the truth
(v.^S). The repeated use of xaj (w.^- ^) suggests
manifold and varied opposition. ' Those who lead
astray' are spoken of in the plural (v.*). The
one x/>«^A'a, which all have, should have taught
them all things. The same variety is suggested
by ch. 4. Many false prophets are gone out into
the world. Every spirit which does not confess
(dissolves ?) Jesus is * not of Ciod ' ; Antichrist is
working in many subordinates (vv.- ^). It is only
in ch. 5 that the writer seems to narrow the issues
down to one particular form of error : the denial
that the sufferings and death of Jesus were an
essential part of His Messianic work. Even here
his method is the same. He emphasizes a few
fundamental truths which should safeguard his
readers from all the varied dangers which threaten.
A special incident is the occasion of his writing.
He has in view several forms of error.
(1) Judaism. — Jews who have never accepted
Christianity are not the only enemy. The words
€| TifiQiv e^fjXdov (2^) must refer to a definite seces-
sion of those who were generally recognized as
Christians. But Jewish opposition is clearly a
serious danger. This is shown by the writers
insistence on the confession that Jesus is the
Messiah (2^ ; cf. 4^ 5% The Jewish controversy
is prominent throughout. The Jewish War and
the Destruction of Jerusalem must have pro-
foundly aHected the relation of Judaism to Chris-
tianity. Jewish Christians were placed in a
desperate position. Hitherto they had no doubt
hoped against hope for the recognition of Jesus
as ilessiah by the majority of their countrymen.
But the final catastrophe had come, and the Lord
had not returned to save His people. Christians
had not been slow to draw the obvious conclusion
from the fate of Jerusalem. And Jewish Chris-
tians could expect nothing but the bitterest hos-
tility from their fellow -cotmtrymen. Apostasy was
now the only possible condition of reunion. If
some openly accepted the condition, many Jewish
Christians must have been sorely tempted to think
that their estimate of Jesus as Messiah had been
mistaken, and to regard Him as a Prophet indeed,
but not as Messiah, still less as the unique Son
of Gk)d. This danger, which threatened Jewish
Christians primarily, must have affected the whole
body. The prominence of the Jewish controversy
in the Fourth Gospel is now generally recognized.
It is less prominent in the Epistle, bat there is no
essential difference of situation.
At the same time it is only one element in the
situation. A. Wurm {Die Irrlehrer im 1. Johan-
nesbricf, 1903) is not justified in deducing from
the words of 2^ the exclusively Jewish character
of the false teaching combated. The author cer-
tainly deduces the fact that the opponents * have
not the Father ' from their false Christology. It
does not follow, however, that he and his op-
Sinents were at one in their doctrine of the Father,
e could not have written as he has unless they
claimed to ' have the Father ' ; but they may have
claimed it in a different sense from that of orthodox
Christians. The passage is more easily explained
if we suppose that the writer has in \iew a claim
to a superior knowledge of the Father imparted to
a few 'spiritual' natures, unattainable by the
ordinary Christian. All true knowledge of the
Father comes through Jesns, the Christ, the Son
of God. Bv rejecting the truth about Jesus they
forfeited all claim to knowledge of the Father.
(2) Grnostidsm. — There is no clear evidence in
the Epistles of the ful^ developed Gnostic systems
of the 2nd century. There are, for instance, many
simpler explanations of the use of erxep/io aih-oO in
3^ than Pfleiderer's hypothesis that it refers to the
system of Basilides, But undoubtedly Gnostic
ideas are an important element in the mental
circumstances of the writer and his age. The
burden of his message is that God is Light (1*), and
the reiteration of this in negative form is probably
aimed at the view that the Father of all is un-
knowable or that knowledge of Him is the monopoly
of a 'pneumatic' minority. The Gnostic claim,
real or supposed, that the rvevfiartKoi are superior
to the obligations of the Moral Law is roughly
handled. Ajid the insistence with which intellectual
claims are met by the challenge to fulfil the Chris-
tian duty of love and its obligations is significant.
The confession demanded of ' Jesus Christ come in
flesh ' is a protest against the Gnostic doctrine of
the impossibility of real union between the spiritual
seed and flesh. And at the same time the writer's
sympathy with Gnostic ideas is obvious. Here as
elsewhere, he is always reminding his 'children'
that they are old enough to refuse the evil and to
choose the good.
Gnostic ideas afford no criterion for dating the
Epistles of John. It is, of course, a perversion of
history to assume that Gnostic ideas first came
into contact with Christianity when Christians
began to think in terms of Greek philosophy,
towards the middle of the 2nd century. The
movement is Oriental rather than Greek, and far
older in date. But its reflexion in these Epistles
is a patent fact.
(3) Docetism. — It is customary to speak of the
Johannine Epistles, and also of the Grospel, as anti-
Docetic (cf. Schmiedel [EBi s.v. 'John, Son of
Zebedee,'§ 57], Moflatt [LNT, 1911, p. 586]). If
the term is used popularly of all teaching which
denied or subverted the reality of the Incarnation,
this is true. ' The Word was made Flesh,' ' Jesus
Christ came in flesh,' are the watchwords of Gospel
and Epistles. But there is no real trace in these
writings of Docetism in the stricter sense of the
term, i.e. the teaching denounced by Ignatius
{Smyrn. 2ff. ; cf. Trail. 10 f.), which assigned a
purely phantasmal body to the Lord. And it is
probable that in the development of christological
thought theories of pure Docetism are a later stage
than the assumption of a temporary connexion
between a Heavenly Power and the real manhood
646
JOHN, EPISTLES OF
JOHN, EPISTLES OF
of Jesus of Nazareth (of., however, Lightfoot and
Pfleiderer).
(4) Cerinthianism. — We have seen that the writer
has to deal with dangers which threaten from
several quarters. As the Epistle proceeds, his
attack becomes more direct, and the christological
jtiissa^^'o in ch. 5 contains clearer reference to one
(lelinite form of error — the denial that Jesus, the
Son of God, came by ' blood ' as well as by ' water,'
i.e. that the Sutlerings and Death of Jesus were as
essential a note of His Messianic work as tlie
Baptism by John. This suits the teaching of
Cerinthus as described by Irenajus (c. Har. I.
XX vi. 1) : ' post baptism um descendiase in eum ab ea
principalitate qu.e est super omnia Cliristum figura
columW et tunc annunciasse incognitum patrem,
et uirtutes perfecisse, in fine autem reuolasse
iterum Christum de lesu, et lesum passum esse
et resurrexisse, Christum autem imuassibilem per-
seuerasse, existentem spiritalem.' Tlie traditional
view that ch. 5 contains a reference to Cerinthian-
ism has been held by the majority of scholars of
all scliools who have dealt witli the Epistle. This
view has been seriously challenged especially by
Wurm (op. cit.) and Clemen (ZNTW vi. [1905]
271 li.) on the ground that 2'^* excludes Cerinthian-
ism, as it implies that the writer and his opponents
are conscious of no difference of view in their doc-
trine of the Father. If the suggestion made above
(§ 2 (1)) that that passage gains in point if the
opponents claimed a superior 'having tlie Father'
to that of ordinary Christians, the objection falls
to the ground. The limits of this article preclude
a general discussion of our knowledge of Cerinth-
ianism. The present writer has discussed it at
length in his Johannine Epistles {ICC, 1912), p.
xlvfK). There are good reasons for thinking that
Hippolytus in his Syntagma ascribed to Cerinthus
the view that the Spirit (not the Christ) descended
on Jesus at the Baptism. If so, this gives additional
force to the description in 5*"- of the proper function
of the Spirit. It would seem that Cerinthus con-
tinued these Judaizing and Gnostic tendencies
which the author of these Epistles regarded as
most dangerous. But ' many Antichrists had come
to be' even if Cerinthus is most prominently in
his thoughts.
(5) Ethical error. —In his denunciations of ethical
error there is no reason to suppose that the writer
has a dillerent class of opponents in view. He
could not have connected his ethical and christo-
logical theses as he has, if the two sources of
danger Iiad been separate. At the same time, in
his practical warnings as well as in his christo-
logical teaching his words liave a wider reference
than one particular body of opponents. There is
no reason to suppose that any of the opponents
had been guilty of the grosser sins of the flesh.
The phrase imOv/ila rrji arapKoi (2^'') does not imply
this. And the Epistle is not directed against
Antinomianism, as lias been sometimes wrongly
inferred from 3*. It would seem that they claimed
a superior knowledge of God to which ordinary
Christians could not attain, while disregarding
some at least of the requirements of the Christian
code, especially the love which shows itself in
active service for the brethren. They liardly
recognized the obligation of the new command of
Jn IS**. Wliile condemning lawlessness (cf. 3^) —
and many of tliem no doubt recognized the obliga-
tions of the Mosaic Law — they failed to see that
all falling short of the ideal revealed as possible in
the human life of Jesus is disobedience to God's
highest Law. The indifference of conduct, as com-
pared with other supposed qualifications, as e.g.
•lescent from Abraham, or possession of the ' pneu-
matic ' seed, is clearlj^ part of tlioir ethical creed.
In this sphere aliio a mixture of Judaizing and
Gnostic tendencies such as may reasonably be
attributed to Cerinthianism will explain the lan-
guage of the Apostle in which the ethical short-
comings of the opponents are denounced.
3. Relation to the Gospel. — The authorship of
the Epistles is closely connected with the question
of the authorship of the Gospel. It is imiKJssible
to attempt here even a summary of the controversy.
The relation, however, of the longer Epistle to the
(Jospel and to the shorter Epistles must be con-
sidered. The similarity of style and content is so
marked that the obvious explanation of common
authorship might seem to need no further dis-
cussion. But the views of an increasing number
of competent critics cannot be neglected. Holtz-
niann's articles {JPTh vii. [1881], viii. [1882]) are
still the fullest and fairest statement of the views
of those who reject the idea of common authorship.
A rough estimate makes the vocabulary of the
Epistle 295 words, of which 69 only are not found
in the Gospel. The general impression formed by
reading verses or chapters of the documents is
probably a safer guide. There can be no doubt as
to the prevalence of characteristic and distinctive
words and phrases common to both. The similar-
ity extends to common types of phrases variously
filled up. Attention has often been called to the
following points of similarity in style : the carrying
on of the thought by the use of o^ . . . dXXd, by
disconnected sentences, by the positive and negative
expression of the same thought ; the use of the
demonstrative, iv roijTq), etc., followed by an
explanatory clause to emphasize a thought ; the
repetition of emphatic words. Such phenomena
leave us with the choice between an author, vary-
ing his own phrases and forms of expression, and
a slavish imitator.
The similarity extends to content as well. The
leading ideas — the reality of the Incarnation, the
life which springs from Christ and is identified
with Him, abiding in Christ and in God, the send-
ing of the Son as the proof of God's love, the birth
from God, the importance of witness, many well-
known pairs of opposites — are equally prominent
in both writings. They find that kind of similar
but varied expression which suggests an author
doing what he would with his own, rather than
the work of a copyist. And the differences, though
real, are not greater than are naturally explained
by differences of time, circumstances, and object.
The question of priority has also been the subject
of long controversy. The priority of the Epistle
has been maintained on the following grounds :
(1) The introductory verses are said to present
an earlier stage of the Lo^os doctrine than the
Prologue of the Gospel. Trie personal Logos is a
stage not yet reached. Even if this is true, the
facts might equally well be explained by the theory
that in the Epistle we have a further accommoda-
tion to the growing Monarchianism of a later
period. And if we take the whole Epistle into
account, it is clear that the ' personal differentia-
tion ' of Father and Son is stated in the Epistle as
definitely as in the Logos doctrine of the Gospel.
And it is far easier to explain the opening expres-
sions of the Epistle as a summary of that Prologue
than vice versa.
(2) The aXXos irapd/tX^Toj of Jn 14'* has been
explained by the doctrine of the Epistle which
presents Christ as irapdKXrjros. But the two ideas
are different, and not mutually exclusive. The
dXXos of the Gospel finds its natural explanation in
the approaching withdrawal of the bodily presence
of the speaker.
(3) The Epistle shows an immediate exi>ectation
of the Parousia which the author of the Gospel is
said to have abandoned, substituting tiie Presence
of the Spirit for the hope of the Coming. Again,
JOHX, EPISTLES OF
JOHN, EPISTLES OF
647
the point, if true, is not decisive. It could as
plausibly be explained as a modification of more
original and less popular views. But serious diver-
gence can only be maintained by the excision of
52S-S* QM. j^jjj other inconvenient passages from
the Gospel. Tlie diflerences are definite, but not
fundamental. The treatment of the Antichrist
legend in the Epistle is as complete a process of
' spiritualization ' as that of popular eschatology in
the Gospel.
(4) It has also been maintained that on the snb-
J'ect of Propitiation the Epistle is nearer to the
*auline standpoint than the Gospel, which con-
ceives of Clirist's work merely as the jrlorifying of
the Father by the Son's revelation of Him to men.
Again there is a diflerence of relative prominence,
but there is no reason to neglect what is involved
in Jn l^ 9«"-.
(5) In the record of the piercing of the side a
misunderstanding of 1 Jn 5* has been found by
some writers. It is, however, more natural to see
in the Epistle a reference to a well-known story,
though the incident itself does not afford a com-
plete explanation of the meaning of the verse.
(6) External evidence is equally indecisive. The
probable 'quotation' of the Epistle by Polycarp
proves nothing, especially if Schwartz and Light-
foot are right in their view that Papias knew and
valued the Gospel.
On the other hand, there are many passages in
the Epistle which seem unintelligible without a
knowledge of corresponding passages in the Gk>spel
to explain them. If there is no clear proof of
borrowing in the Epistle, it is almost indisputable
that 'the Gospel is original, the Epistle is not.'
And it is hard to escape the general impression
left by the study of the two documents, that in
the Epistle the writer summarizes the important
parts in the teaching of the Gospel, which his
readers had failed to make their own. They were
therefore in danger of falling victims to errors
which their ' knowledge ' ought to have enabled
them to detect and avoid.
i. Relation to Mystery religions.— The time has
hardly come for a satisfactory treatment of the
question of the relation of the Johamiine writings
to the Mystery religions. The valuable work of
Dieterich, Reitzenstein, and others is well known.
But until the actual dates of documents can be
determined with greater certainty than is at
present possible, the influence of the Mysteries on
early Christian thought and literature must remain
a matter for conjecture. Reference may be made
to the valuable treatise of C. Clemen (Der Einfluss
derMysterienrdigionenaufdasaltesteChristentum,
1913) and to the admirable summary in Feine's
Theologie tics Neuen Testaments^, 1911, p. 556 fi'.
mth reference to the Johannine books.
II. The SHORTER Epistles.— ±. Authorship.—
It is unnece.ssarj' to waste time in discussing the
common authonship of the two shorter Epistles.
The close parallelism of their general structure,
and the similarity of their style, vocabulary, and
ideas (see Hamack, TU xv. 3 [1897]) leave us with
as high a degree of certainty as such evidence
can ever give, though the reference which many
scholars find in the Third Epistle to the Second
is improbable. Their relation to the P'irst Epistle
is less certain. External and internal evidence
raises the possibility of diflerent authorship. The
problem, however, is clearly similar to that of the
relation of the First Epistle to the Gospel. A
study of the facts leads to a similar answer. It is
a case of common authorship or conscious imitation.
The freedom of handling of the same tools points
to the former alternative. The shorter EpLstles
aie the most obviously ' genuine ' of the five books
generaUy attributed to St. John. Common sense
and sound criticism alike shrink from the hypo-
thesis that either the Gospel or the First Epistle
is modelled on them.
2. Contents of Second Epistle.— The object of
the second letter is to give advice to the church
or family addressed in it about hospitality to
Christians from other churches. The question of
the reception of the higher order of ministers who
moved from place to place ('apostles, prophets,
teachers, evangelists '), and who claimed authority
over the resident officers, was a bumins one in
early days, and the situation presupposed in this
Epistle is parallel with that found in tlie Didache.
The stages of development are similar, though it
does not follow that they had been reached at the
same date in both centres. The answer given to
the question is the application of the two tests,
practical and doctrinal, of the First Epistle.
Those who ' walk in love ' and who confess ' Jesus
Christ coming in flesh' are to be welcomed- (A
possible interpretation of epxofievof as opposed to
ekrikvd&Ta (1 Jn 4') suggests that doubts as to the
Parousia had come into greater prominence, but
this is far from certain. )
3. Destination of Second Epistle. — The contro-
versy whether the letter is addressed to a church
or an individual is still acute. The latter hypo-
thesis has been ably maintained by Rendel Harris
(Expositor, 6th ser. iiL [1901] 194111) and others.
The attempts to find a proper name either in
Kyria or Eclecta are not convincing. If a lady
is addressed, it is best to suppose that her name
is not given. The language in which the writers
afiection is expressed, and the subjects with which
the letter deals, point to a church rather than to
an individual. And the interchange of singular
and plural in the use of the second person is almost
decisive in favour of the former view.
i. Contentsof Third Epistle.— The Third Epistle
also deals with the question of hospitality to
travelling missionaries and teachers, emphasizing
in a particular instance the duty of Christians in
this respect, as the Second deals with its necessary
limitations. The objects of the letter are to claim
a suitable welcome for some travelling missionaries
about to visit the Church of Cains to whom the
letter is addressed, and to re-instate Demetrius in
the good opinion of the members of that church.
The connexion of Demetrius with the missionary
band is a matter of uncertainty. But it is clear
that he had fallen under suspicion, and that Dio-
trephes, a prominent member of Caius's church,
had succeeded in working on the resentment felt
at the ' Elder's ' support of a ' suspect,' to raise
the question of the Elder's right to interfere in
the afiairs of the church, and to persuade his
fellow-Christians to ignore a letter which the Elder
had written to the church on the subject. On the
whole, it is improbable that this letter (mentioned
in V.*) is to be identified with the Second Epistle,
which does not deal with the questions which must
have been discussed in such a letter. But it is
evident that the majority of the church are inclined
to take the side of Diotrephes against the Elder,
whose right of supervision is in serious danger of
being set aside, though he is still confident that he
can maintain it by personal intervention.
5. Historical background of the shorter Epistles.
— Several interesting attempts have been made to
reconstruct the historical background of the two
shorter Epistles, among which mention should be
made of the ingenious suggestions of J. Chapman
{JThSt V. [1903-04] 357, 517), who finds the
Demetriris of the Third Epistle in Demas (2 Ti
4^*), and identifies the church addressed as TbeEsa-
lonica, while in the Second Epistle (cf. v.* with
Jn 10^"-) he finds a warning addressed by the
Presbyter, who may or may not be the son of
648
JOHN, EPISTLES OF
JOPPA
Zebedoe, to the Cliurch of Rome (cf. 1 P 5"),
against the False Teachers who are trying to get
a hearing in the metropolis now tlmt the First
Epistle 1ms closed the Asiatic churolies to them.
Vernon Bartlet's sound criticism (JThSt vi. [1904-
05] 204) of the dithculties of these hypotheses
should also be mentioned, and Rendel Harris's
vigorous support of the view that the Second
Letter is addressed to an individual ladv and not
to a church. Harnack's contribution (£U xv. 3)
to the interpretation of the Epistles is of far more
permanent value. lie has shown the importance
of their evidence as throwing light on an obscure
period in the development of ecclesiastical organiza-
tion in Asia, when the old missionary organization
is breaking down, and the monarchical episcopate
is beginning to emerge. He is, however, on less
sure ground in arguing that the ' Presbyter ' is
fighting a losing battle against the new movement.
Tt is at least as probable that he sees in it the best
way of dealing with the dangers caused by the
{)rivate ambitions of prominent members of tlie
ocal churches, such as Diotrephes and other trpo-
dyovres. Put Harnack is probably right in his view
that the diflerences found in the Ignatian Epistles
point to a stage of development later by some
iifteen or twenty years.
6. Date. — The questions of author.nhip and date
cannot be discussed satisfactorily apart from the
wider question of the autiiorship of the Fourth
Gospel. If the view maintained above is correct,
that the author of the Gospel wrote the Epistles at
a somewhat later date, to emphasize those points
in its teaching which seemecl needed to meet the
special dangers of somewhat changed circum-
stances, the date of the Epistles cannot be very
long before or after the close of the 1st century.
The only natural interpretation of the language of
the first verse of the First Epistle is that tiie author
claims to have been an eye-witness of the Ministry,
unless indeed we are driven by other considerations
to regard this as impossible. The tradition which
assigned the two shorter Epistles to the ' Elder '
offers the least difficult solution of a difficult prob-
lem. In the present state of our knowledge we
must rest content with the suggestion that the
same aiithor is responsible for the First Epistle and
the Gospel in something very like the form in
which they have come down to us. It is probable
that he has used the ideas and the recollections of
another who was better qualified than himself to
tell of the ' sacred words and no less .sacred deeds '
of the Lord, and to interpret them in the light of
Christian experience.
The external evidence, which cannot be discussed
in detail here, if naturally interpreted, points to
similar conclusions. There is very little ground
for doul)ting that Papias and Polycarp knew and
valued the Epistles, or at least the first two
Epistles. Probably the name of Ignatius should
be added to the list. The traces of Johannine
thouglit in his Epistles are clear. Iteference may be
made to the articles by H. J. IJardsley in JThSt xiv,
[1912-13] 207, 489, though he has hardly succeeded
in proving the literary use of aiwstolic documents.
But the absence of direct references to the Apostle
John, where we might reasonably expect them,
are undoubtedly significant. The practically
unanimous evidence of writers at the close of the
2nd cent, as to the Apostle's residence at Ephesus
till the days of Trajan must be interi)reted in the
light of the probability of confusion between Elder
and Apostle, and the strong probability that the
work of Papias contained a statement of the
martyrdom of John, the son of Zebedee. There
are no serious grounds for setting aside the tradi-
tion which connects all the Johannine books with
Asia Minor, and especially with Ephesus.
LiTBRATUiiB. — The only ancient Commentaries extant are
those of Clement of Alexandria (on 1 and 2 John : extant only
in Cassiodorus' I>atin Summary [Clement, ed. Stkhlin, iii., 1909]),
CHcumenius, Theophylact, Augustine, and Bede. Among
modern Commentaries mav be mentioned those of F. Liicke^
(1820-5(5), J. E. Huther»"(in Meyer's Kmnintntar, 1855-80),
H. Ewald (1862), E. Haupt (Eng. tr.,1879), R. Rothe (1878),
B. F. Westcott (1883), B. Weiss (in Meyer's Komtnentar,
1899), H. J. Holtzmann3(in Ilamlkommentar zum A'2', 1908),
and H. Windisch (in Uandbueh zum AT, 1911).
Among the more important monographs and articles, besides
those mentioned in the article, ore W. A. Karl, Johanneigehe
Sludien, 1898 ; G. B. Stevens, The Johannine Theology, 1894 ;
Wilamowitz, in Hermes, xxxiii. [1808], p. 531 ff. ; Woblenberg:,
in A'KX xxvi. [1902] ; S. D. F. Salmond, in HUB ii. [1899]
728 ff. ; R. Law, Tests of Life, 1909. A. E. BROOKE.
JOPPA ('I67r7r7; ; Josephus, 'l&irri ; Arab. YdfA ;
modern name Jaffa). — Joppa is a maritime town
of Palestine, 33 miles 8.\V. of Jerusalem. Built
on an eminence visible far out at sea — whence its
name, 'the conspicuous' — it owes its existence to
a ridge of low and partly sunken rocks running
out in a N.W. direction from the 8. side of the
town, and forming a harbour which, tliough small
and insecure, is yet the best on the whole coast
of Palestine.
Down to the time of the Maccabees, Joppa was
a heathen town, which the Jews sometimes used
but never possessed. Jonah's ship of Joppa was
manned by a heathen crew (Jon P). One of the
strongest proofs of the political sagacity of the
three famous Maccabaean brothers lay in their
resolve to make Judaja a maritime power. Each
of them attempted to capture Joppa, and Simon
succeeded. On the family memorial at Modin,
meant for the eyes of ' all that sail on the sea,' he
caused carved ships to be represented (1 Mac 13^).
The historian, in eulogizing his career, says :
'And amid all his glory he took Joppa for a
haven, and made it an entrance for the isles of the
sea' (14'>). From that time, Avith but few inter-
ruptions, Joi)pa remained in the possession of the
Jews for more than two centuries. When Pomjjey
(66 B.C.) included Judjea in the province of Sj-ria,
Joppa was one of the cities which ' he left in a
state of freedom ' (Jos. Ant. XIV. iv. 4) ; and Julius
Caesar decreed ' that the city of Joppa, which the
Jews had originally when they made a league of
friendship with the Romans, shall belong to them
as it formerly did' (x. 6).
No city was more completely judaized than this
late possession. Joppa became as zealous for the
Law, as patriotic, as impatient of Gentile control
and culture, as Jerusalem herself. Herod the
Great, who did much to hellenize Palestine, left
the Pharisaic purity of Joppa untainted. Yet
this stronghold of Jewish legalism was the city in
which St. Peter received the vision which taught
him that Jew and Gentile, as spiritually equal
before God, must be impartially welcomed into the
Church of Christ (Ac 10"'^*).' Nowhere was the
contrast between the clean and the unclean —
the devoutly scrupulous observers of the Law and
the jostling crowd of foreigners — more marked.
St. Peter probably never realized so intensely the
need of ceremonial purification before his midday
meal as when he brought into the tanner's house
the defilement of contact with so many lawless
and profane people. To his Jewish instincts such
contamination was intolerable. But he experi-
enced a swift and mysterious reaction, which was
probably the result of much past l)rooding as well
as of present prayer. "While he lingered ujwn the
housetop, waiting the call to eat, he became un-
conscious of the sights and sounds of the harlM)ur
beneath, and fell into a trance, in which he learned
how different are God's thoughts of religious purity
from man's. He became convinced that all manner
of meats — and, infercntially, all manner of men —
that Mere commonly counted unclean, M'ere clean in
JOSEPH
JOSEPHUS
649
God's sight. It is as the birthplace of this revolu-
tionary principle, which virtually gave the death-
blow to Judaism, that the old town of Joppa has
a place in the history of human thought. St.
Peter, always impulsive and uncalculating, went
straight to pagan Csesarea, and delivered a speech
which oj>ened the gates of Christ's Church to
' every nation ' (Ac 10®). Joppa has also a place
in the history of Christian beneficence. It is re-
membered as the home of a gentlewoman who was
believed to have been raised from death to life,
and whose example has in all ages been an incen-
tive to ' good works and almsdeeds ' (Ac 9*"*^).
To the ancient Greeks Joppa was known as the place where
' Andromeda vzs exposed to the sea-monster' (Stnbo xn. iL
2S). By primitive fancy the turj ci the sea was ascribed to
serpents and dragons. Modem writers rationalize the pbeno-
iQenon. 'More iMata are upset, and more lives are Io6t in the
breakers at the nmrth end of the ledge of rocks that defend the
inner harbour, than anywhere else on this coast.' One cannot
' look without a shudder at this treacherous port, with its noisy
surf tumbling: over the rocks, as if on porpoee to swallow up
unfortunate boats. This is the true monster which has devoured
manv an Andromeda, for whose deUveranoe no gallant Perseus
was at band' (W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 1864,
p. 516).
Jaffa is now famons for its orange gardens and
orchards, each of which has an unlimited supply
of water. ' The entire plain seems to cover a river
of vast breadth, percolating through the sand en
route to the sea' (W. M. Thomson, loc. eit.).
LrrKRATTRK.— E. Schnrer, HJP n. i. [1885] 79-S3; G. A.
Smith, HGHL, 1S97, p. 136 f. ; H. B. Tristram, BMe Place*,
1897, p. 70 f . ; V. Guerin, Description gtographique . . . dela
PaUitiM : ' Judee," 1868, L 1 f. J AMES SXRAHAX.
JOSEPH {'Iu<r^).—i. The elder of Jacob's two
sons by Rachel, the eleventh Patriarch, the
ancestor of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.
In St. Stephen's address before the Sanhedrin
reference is made to Joseph's being sold by his
brothers, God's presence with him in Egypt, his
promotion to be governor of the land, his manifes-
tation of himself to his brethren, his invitation to
his father and all his kindred to migrate to Egypt
(Ac 7*"'^), and finally, at a ranch later date, the
rise of a Pharaoh who ' knew not Joseph' (7^*).
The question of the historicity of the narrative in Genesis
was never raised by the Apostolic Church, nor by the modem
Church till the dawn of the age of criticism. The critical
verdict is that the stor>- is based upon facts which have been
idealized in the spirit of the earlier Hebrew prophets. That
the tradition of a Hebrew minister in Egypt, who saved the
country In time of famine, ' should be true in essentials is by
no means improbable" (J. Skinner, Gcnesit [ICC, 1910] 441).
Driver thinks it credible that an actual person, named Joseph,
' underwent titbgtantiaUi/ the experiences recounted of him in
Gn. ' (HDB iL 771«>). See H. Gunkel, Genesit, 1910, p. 356 f.
In He 11" allusion is made to the blessing re-
ceived by Joseph's two sons from his dying father.
In 11*^ Joseph is placed on the roU of the ' elders '
— saints of the OT — who by their words and deeds
gave evidence of their faith. The particular facts
selected as proving his grasp of things unseen —
which is the essence of faith {IV) — are his death-
bed prediction of the exodus of the children of
Israel and his commandment regarding the dis-
posal of his bones (Gn 50^ ^ ; cf. Jos 34**).
Though he was an Egyptian governor, speaking
the Egyptian language, and married to an Egyp-
tian wife, he was at heart an unchanged Hebrew,
and his dying eyes beheld the land from which he
had been exiled as a boy, the homeland of every
true Israelite.
2. Joseph Barsabbas, sumamed Jastos, was one
of those who accompanied Jesus during His whole
public ministry and witnessed His Resurrection.
He was therefore nominated, along with Matthias,
for the office made vacant by the treachery and
death of Judas Iscariot (Ac 1^"**). After prayer
' the lot fell upon Matthias' (1*). It is admitted
even by radical critics that Jesos deliberately
chose twelve disciples (corresponding to the twelve
tribes of Israel), and it was natural that these
should seek to keep their sacred number un-
impaired. The name 'Barsabbas' (or ' Barsabas,'
C, Vulg., Syrr.) has been variously explained as
• child of the Sabbath,' ' son of Sheba,' ' warrior,'
or 'old man's son.' The Roman surname Justut
was adopted in accordance with a Jewish custom
which prevailed at the time — cf. ' John whose sur-
name was Marcos' (Ac 12'-- ^), and ' Satil, who is
also Pardus' (13*). It is a natural conjecttire — no
more — that this Joseph was the brother of Judas
Barsabbas (15^). Eusebius {HE i. 12) regards
him as one of ' the Seventy ' (Lk lO^), and records
(iii. 39) that a * wonderful event happened respect-
ing Justus, sumamed Barsabbas, who, though he
drank a deadly poison, experienced nothing in-
jurious {fir}Siy a.7)S4s), by the grace of God.'
3. Joseph, sumamed Barnabas (Ac 4^). See
Barnabas. James Strahan.
JOSEPHUS. — For a proper understanding of the
Apostolic Age there are, apart from the Epistles of
Paul and the Acts of the Apostles, no documents
of such value as the writings of Josephus.
1. Life and character. — We have an account of
the life of Josephus from his own pen. He was
bom in Jerusalem in A.D. 37, his father being
Matthias, a priest of noble lineage, and belonging
to the first course of the priesthood, i.e. Jojarib,
while on his mother's side he was connected with
the royal Hasmonsean house. He was a child of
excellent parts, and received a superior education.
He studied the principles of the three main sects
of Judaism under professional teachers of each, and
lived for three years in the society of an ascetic
hermit named Banus — a discipline then regarded as
a desideratuiu of good breeding (we find something
of the same kind in the early life of Seneca). At
the age of nineteen he attached himself to the
Pharisaic party. In a.d. 64 he visited Rome,
where, through the influence of a Jewish actor
named Alityrus, he succeeded in gaining the ear of
the Empress Poppaea — first the mistress, and from
A.D. 62 the wife, of Nero — and so securing the
liberation of some Je^vish priests who had been
put in bonds by Felix. Josephus had scarcely re-
turned to Jerusalem when, in A-D. 66, he was
drawn into the movement which, springing from
the long-accumulating hatred of Rome among the
Jews, and fanned by the agitation of certain fana-
tics, soon burst forth in the lurid flames of revolt
and war. It is true that the more eminent priestly
ranks to which Josephus belonged, as also the
leaders of the Pharisaic party, were altogether
averse to an insurrection against the overwhelming
power of the Roman Empire. Presently, however,
the movement resolved itself so decisively into a
national cause, a war of the Lord, that Josephus
was quite unable to stand aloof. He undertook
the command of Galilee, where, in spite of the
personal hostility of the zealot John of Gischala,
he organized the Jewish defence during the winter
of 66-67. For six weeks he withstood with great
skill and daring the Roman assault upon Jotapata,
a fortress commanding the line of approach from
Ptolemais, and then played his part with such
address that, falling into the hands of the Romans
as the last survivor of the siege, he caught the
personal notice of Vespasian by means of a pro-
phecy. His life was spared, and when his predic-
tion was at length fulfilled by the proclamation of
Vespasian as Emperor (3 Jul}-, a.d. 69), he re-
gained his freedom. From that time he called
himself Flavins Josephus, and for the remainder
of the war — during the siege of Jerusalem — the
erstwhile leader in the rebellion acted as ad\iser
650
JOSEPHUS
JOSEPHUS
and interpreter in the headquarters of Titus.
Tliereafter lie accompanied the victorious Titus
to Rome, and settled down as a litterateur, enjoy-
ing the esteem and the bounty of the Flavian
Emperors, and devoting himself to the task of
doing battle with spiritual weapons for the now
Jolitically shattered cause of his nation. As
osephus mentions the death of Agrippa II. (A.D.
100 : Photius, Cod. 33), he must have survived till
the reign of Trajan. He was four times married,
and had live sons. According to Eus. HE ill. ix.
2, a statue was raised in his honour, and his works
were placed in the public library.
In personal character, as even the above brief out-
line of his career suflices to show, Josephus was not
free from decidedly sinister traits. A thorough
Jew, he was always able to make the most of his
opportunities, and was not over-scrupulous as to
the means he employed. Even his vanity serves to
bring him into clearer light. As a man he was
far from great. It is not, however, the man that
concerns us here, but the historian ; and if, even
in that capacity, his talent was of a distinctly
mediocre order, yet, in virtue of our interest in
his subject, he is' for us one of the most important
historical autliors wo have.
2. Works.— (a) The Jcvish War. — Josephus de-
voted his powers first of all to a work of the most
vital moment for us, viz. a history of the Jewish
war against Rome (Bcllnm Judaicum [referred to
as BJ]). Although he had doubtless learned Greek
in his youth, he felt th.at he could not yet write as
a Greek author. He therefore composed his first
work in his native language, i.e. Aramaic, and
afterwards, with the help of literary collaborators,
reproduced it in a Greek form, which, however,
was not a mere translation, but rather a recast of
the original. This Greek edition was published
in the closing years of Vespasian's reign, between
A.D. 75 and 79. As against the many unreliable
and merely hearsay reports of the war, and the
mischievous distortions of fact emanating from
anti-Jewish feeling, Josejihus proposed, as an eye-
witness, to give an unbiased and veracious chron-
icle, which, by means of a just estimate of the
Jewish people, of their good qualities and their
military achievements, should not only exhibit in
a clearer light the tragic element in the catastrophe
they had brought upon themselves, but should
also make manifest the real greatness of the Roman
triumph. Accordingly, in the seven books of this
work, after a survey of Jewish history from the
Maccabaean revolt to the death of Herod the Great
(bk. I.), he shows how events moved swiftly to-
wards the rebellion : the mismanagement of aifairs
under the sons of Herod, the growing maladminis-
tration of the Roman procurators, and more
particularly — after a short interlude of national
Pharisaic ascendancy in the reign of Agrippa I. —
of the incompetent Albinus and Gessius Floras
(bk. II.). The history proi)er begins with the
expedition of Vespasian to Judaea at a time when
the whole land was already in arms : bk. III. de-
scribes the conquest of Galilee, with its two cul-
minating points, the capture of Jotapata and that
of Tariciieie ; bk. IV. narrates the somewhat dilatory
Iirosecution of the war to the time of Vespasian's
)eing proclaimed Emperor, and his withdrawal to
Egypt, and tells also of the anarchical state of
Jerusalem ; bks. v. and VI., starting from the
return of Titus from Alexandria, describe the
siege of the capital, and the internecine strife of
the besieged, and close with the burning of the
Temple (10th of the month Ab= Juh'-August A.D.
70) ; and bk. VII. serves as an epilogue to the
whole, recording the triumph of Titus and the long-
protracted subjugation of the southern part of the
country till the Fall of Masada (April 73). In bk.
III. (ch. iii. ) Josephus gives a description of Galilee,
and in bk. v. (chs. iv. and v.) an account of Jeru-
salem, and of the Temple and its services. At the
end of ch. v. he indicates his intention of dealing
with the city more exhaustively in a later work.
(b) The Antiquities. — He fulfilled this design in
his Antiquities of the Jews, which he completed in
A.D. 93-94. The work was probably composed on
the plan of the Roman Archceology of Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, published almost exactly a century
before (8 B.C.). In the .i4n^(^(?^a'<^es Josephus recounts
in twenty books the history of liis people from the
creation of the world. His principal source was
the OT, with wiiich, however, he deals very freely,
and he does not scruple to introduce Haggadic
elements. In bk. I. he carries the narrative to the
death of Isaac, and in II. to the exodus from Egypt ;
III. describes the giving of the Law ; IV. the wancfer-
ings in the desert, and Moses' directions for the
organization of the future commonwealth ; V. the
conquest of Canaan under Joshua and the Judges ;
VI. and VII. the reigns of Saul and David respec-
tively ; Vlll.-X. the reign of Solomon, and the
period of the kings until tlie Exile ; XI. the restora-
tion of the nation under Cyrus, and its history
till Alexander the Great ; xil. Judaja under the
Seleucids; xiil. the Maccabaean revolt, and the
Hasmonsean rule till Alexandra's death (67 B.C.);
XIV. the intervention of the Romans under Pompey,
consequent upon the wars between the brothers
Hyrcanus and Aristobulus ; XV. Herod's winning
the crown, and his reign till the building of the
Temple ; XVI. the tragedy of Herod's family till
the execution of Alexander and Aristobulus, the
sons of Mariamne ; XVII. the period from the
execution of Antipater and the death of Herod till
the deposition of Archelaus (A.D. 6) ; XVIII. the
Roman administration ; xix. the period of the
Emperors Gains and Claudius — otherwise the reign
of Agrippa I. (t A.D. 44) ; XX. the last Roman pro-
curators till the outbreak of the rebellion (A.D. 66).
Thus bks. XIII. -XX. of the Antiquities run parallel
with bks I. and II. of the BJ.
(c) Minor works ; projected worlcs ; pseudonymous
works. — Josephus hoped to supplement his Anti-
quities by a narrative bringing down the history to
the reign of Domitian — i.e. by an abridgment and
continuation of the BJ [Ant. XX. xi. 3 [267]),* and
he also projected an account of the Jewish faith
and the Jewish Law in four books {ib. [268]).
Neither of these works, if ever written, has come
down to us. The Antiquities, however, is followed
by an autobiography (Vita), written after A.D. 100,
and here Josephus endeavours to meet the charges
with which Justus of Tiberias assailed his conduct
during the war in Galilee in A.D. 66-67. The
apology for Judaism in two books, in which
Josephus replies to the attacks of Apion, an
Alexandrian littirateur (contra Apionem), may
be regarded as in some degree a compensation for
the second of the projected works, and was com-
posed subsequently to the Antiquities. The two
works entitled Of self-governing Reason (irepl avro-
Kparopos \oyKXfiov — the so-called Fourth Book of
Maccabees) and Of the All (irepl rod iravros), ascribed
to Josephus by Eusebius and Photius respectively,
are certainly not his. The former was probably
written by an Alexandrian Jew ; the latter, whicn
survives only in a small fragment, is in all likeli-
hood the work of Hippolytus.
3. Literary methods. — The manner in which
Josephus seeks to present Judaism to the Greek
mind ranks him among the Alexandrian apolorists
of that faith, though he claims to write merely as
a historian ; and, as a matter of fact, he owes more
to the tradition of Palestinian Rabbinism than
* The divisions follow Whiston'e Eng. IranRlation, with the
numbering of Niese'a Gr. t«xt in wjuare braclieks.
JOSEPHUS
JOSEPHUS
651
to that of Alexandria. His hellenizing tendency
manifests itself strikin^y in his reprwiuction of
biblical history ; unlike Philo, he gives the biblical
names in a Greek form, -miting Adamos, Abelos,
Abranios, Isakos, lakobos, Esauos, losepos, etc. ;
and, what is more, he hellenizes even the ideas,
especially in the speeches and prayers of the
Patriarchs, which he introduces quite in the style
of contemporary historical conijwsition, as e.g. in
Ant. I. xviii. 6[272f.]; other instances are Solomon's
prayers at the dedication of the Temple (\Tll. iv.
2 f, [107 fi".]), and his correspondence with Hiram of
Tyre (vm. ii. 6, 7 [51-54]). A genuinely apologetic
idea lies in the statement that the Egyptians owed
their far-famed proficiency in mathematics and
astrologj' to Abraham (I. viiL 2 [167]). Josephus
tells us, further, that Moses composed in hexa-
meters (II. x\-i. 4 [346]), and David in trimeters
and pentameters (vii. xii. 3 [305]). He devotes
considerable space to the traditions — taken from
the Epistle of Aristeas — regarding the Greek
version of the Mosaic Law executed at the court
of Ptolemy n., by seventy-two wise men from
Jerusalem (xn. ii. [11-118]). But perhaps the
most characteristic instance of his hellenizing
tendency is his description of the Jewish sects
(XIIL V. 9 [171-173], BJ U. viii. 2-14 [119-166]),
which he seeks to divest of all political significance,
and to represent as the exact counterparts of the
philosophic schools of Greece (Pharisees = Stoics ;
Sadducees = Epicureans ; and Essenes = Pytha-
goreans) : an affinity which he tries to establish
by introducing quite irrelevant considerations,
such as their attitude to the problems of free-wiU
and fate — thus misleading even modern investiga-
tors— while, as a matter of fact, the unphilosophical
and non-Hellenic character of the sects reveals
itself at every point. Thus Josephus, in spite of
his Hellenic guise, is in all things a genuine Jew, a
Palestinian Rabbi : witness, for instance — as com-
pared with the tractates of PhUo — his version of
the story of Moses, where he not only gives us the
name of Pharaoh's daughter (Thermuthis), but
also relates how Moses as a child was presented to
Pharaoh, and how, when the king put his diadem
on the child's head, the latter threw it upon the
ground ; and again, how, when Moses haa grown
to manhood, and was in command of an Egyptian
army in a war against Ethiopia, he broke a way
into that all but inaccessible country by making use
of ibises to destroy the serpents which obstructed
the march, and further, how he captured the im-
pregnable city of Saba (or Meroe ; Pliila?, an island
in the Nile?) by gaining the love of Tharbis, the
daughter of the Ethiopian king {Ant. n. ix. 5, 7
[224-227, 232-237], x. 2 [243-253]). This is pure
Rabbinical Haggada. Of the same character are
the fabulous embellishments of the story of Joseph
(II. iv. [39-59]), as also the many references to
superstitions which the Jews of the day had in
common with the Greeks, as e.g. in the stories
about Solomon (viii. ii. 5 [42 if.]): here Josephus
states that he had personally witnessed an exorcism
which a Jew named Eleazar performed before Ves-
pasian and his officers by means of a ring, a root,
and certain incantations, all associated with
Solomon. How little the horizon of Josephus
extended beyond Palestine is shown also by the
brevity with which he treats of the persecutions of
the Jews in Alexandria, and of the famous embassy
of Philo to the court of Gains Caligula (xvm. viii.
l[257ff.]).
4. Sources. — Josephus is throughout very depend-
ent on Ms sources. "Where the biblical narrative
fails him, a constraint falls upon his language.
Of the period between Cyrus and Alexander the
Great he has nothing to record, and he lures the
reader across the gap by a long extract from the
Epistle of Aristetu. For the history of the Macca-
bees he keeps close to 1 Mac. For the succeeding
period he cites numerous documents, which, unlike
the speeches, he did not invent but probably quoted
verbatim (as found in a collection formed by
Agrippa I. ?). For the facts of universal history he
was indebted first to Polybius (till 143 B.C.) and
then to .Strabo. For the reign of Herod the Great
he manifestly utilizes the voluminous work of
Nicolaus of Damascus, who, as the counsellor of
Herod, had exalted his patron to the skies. It is
true that Josephus controverts Nicolaus, but, while
he sets many matters of detail in a different light,
he borroAvs from him the actual facts ; hence, too,
the profusion of material in bks. XV.-xvn. as con-
trasted with the meagre data of the following
period. But even for the latter he is not entirely
dependent upon his own personal recollections, but
falls back upon documents ; and, in fact, while pre-
Earing this part of his Antiquities, he seems to
ave re-examined, and here and there to have
more fully utilized, the same authorities from
which he had already quoted more brieHy in BJ
I. and n. He has thus to some extent furnished
us with the means of controlling his work as a
historian.
5. Credibility. — Our estimate of the historic re-
liability of Josephus, despite the personal attesta-
tion of Titus and the sixty-two conunendatory
letters of Agrippa II. (c. Apion. i. 9 [51 f.], Vit. 65
[363 f.]), will scarcely be a favourable one if we
compare the Vita wjth the relative sections of the
BJ, inasmuch as each differs greatly from the
other in the impression it conveys of his conduct
during the Galilsean campaign. We must re-
member, however, that the former is really a book
of personal reminiscences, and, like most works of
its kind, exhibits the writers tendency to excul-
pate himself ; and it would therefore be far from
right to found our judgment of Josephus as a
historian upon the Vita. As r^ards the BJ, we
may certainly affirm that it is a carefully executed
work, and that in the Antiquities the author has
in general reproduced — though with a veneer of
Hellenism — what his sources supplied. But he
exaggerates in his numerical data, and he over-
praises the generosity of the Romans. As another
misleading tendency we need only mention his
having done his best to suppress the Messianic
expectations of his people, or at least to purge
them of all political im^wrt. He set the seal on
tliis attitude by assuring Vespa-sian — the oppressor
of his nation — in God's name that the coming
sovereignty of the Avhole world should one day be
his (BJ m, viiL 9 [401 f.]).
Nevertheless, the manner in which he has woven
his materials into the texture of his narrative fre-
quently arouses misgiving. A number of his refer-
ences to other passages of his writings (cf. Ant. xi.
viiL 1 [305], xvrn. ii. 5 [54]) cannot be verified in
his extant works, and must therefore have been
inadvertently taken over from the source he hap-
pened to be using. In chronology especially he
shows himself to be a very unsafe guide. He has
no regular method of dating — neither consulates
nor reigns — and it is only occasionally that we
find such chronolorical references as ' the third
year of the 177th Olympiad, when Quintus Hor-
tensius and Quintus Metellus were consuls' (Ant.
XIV. i. 2 [4]), i.e. 67 B.C. Moreover, events from
different sources and of different dates are tlirown
promiscuously together. A characteristic instance
IS found in the history of Pilate. While in BJ
(n. ix. 2-4 [169-177]) Josephus refers to Pilate only
in connexion with the two tumults which he caused
by introducing into Jerusalem standards bearing
the figure of the Emperor and by using the Temple
funds for the construction of an aqueduct, he
652
JOSEPHUS
JOSEPHUS
apparently {jives a much fuller record in Ant.
(xviii, ii. 2-iv. 2 [35-89]). Here, after referring to
Valerius Gratus as the first procurator of Juutna
under Tiberius (14-37) — the four successive chanj,'es
in the high-priesthood being all that he thinks
worthy of mention in the eleven years of that pro-
cnratorship — Josephus records (in xvilI. ii. 2 [35])
Pilate's accession to the office, an event that can-
not be dated earlier than A.D. 26. But before
dealing (in xvili. iii. 1-2 [55-62]) with the tumults
which he had already described in BJ, he describes
from another source the founding of Tiberias by
Herod Antipas (xvill. ii. 3 [36-38]), the embroil-
ments among the Parthians consequent upon the
death of Phraates (A.D. 16 ; Tac. Ann. ii. 1 f.), the
extinction of the royal house of Commagene in
the death of Antiochus (A.D. 17 ; Tac. ii. 42), and
the murder of Germanicus (10 Oct. A.D. 19; Tac.
ii. 69 IF.). Next, after recounting the two Jewish
tumults referred to, he relates two events which
evidently had already been conjoined in the Roman
tradition (Cluvius liufus?), for only the second be-
longs to his subject (as giving an example of
the ill-fortune that beset the Jews) : the first deals
with the outrage in the Temple of Isis in Rome,
where the priests lent themselves to a trick by
which a Roman lady of repute was beguiled sub
prcetcxtii religionis to yield herself to a lover
(XVIII. iii. 4 [65-80]) ; the second with the fraud
practised by four Jews upon another Roman
matron — an incident wiiieh led to the expulsion of
the Jews from Rome by the decree of Tiberius,
and to the drafting of 4,000 recruits from amongst
them to Sardinia (a.d. 19) (XVIII. iii. 5 [81-84];
cf. Tac. Ann. ii. 85). Then at length the narrative
returns to Pilate, for the purpose of showing that
he was deposed by Vitellius in consequence of a
revolt of the Samaritans (xvill. iv. 1 [85 fl".]), and
that, after his ten years of office, he was sent to
Rome to defend his actions before Tiberius, arriv-
ing there, however, only after the Emperor's
death (16 March, A.D. 37). This outline will serve
to show how little the narrative takes account of
strict chronological sequence, as also — to take but
one instance — how unwarranted it is of Schiirer,
on the supposed evidence of Josephus, to assign
tlie foundation of Tiberias to a date after A.D. 25,
while numismatists, with a considerable show of
reason, had fixed it in A.D. 17. Similarly, from
the statement of Josephus that the defeat of Herod
Antipas in the war against his father-in-law Aretas
of Arabia (an event which should probably be
assigned to A.D. 36) was regarded as a punishment
for his murder of John the Baptist, we have no
right to draw conclusions as to the date of that
event or to that of the entrance of Jesus upon His
public ministry, as has been done by Keim and
others, who have on the same grounds fixed upon
A.D. 35 as the date of tiie Crucifixion.
6. Attitude to Christianity.— A question of the
utmost importance is that of the attitude of
Josephus to Ciiristianity. As he describes the
period in such minute detail, we naturally ask
whether he ever alludes to tliat powerful move-
ment amongst his fellow-countrymen ; and his
mention of the slaying of John the Baptist prompts
the question whether he records the Crucifixion of
Jesus and the martyrdom of His disciples. It is
certainly true that in the Antiquities, between the
two sections dealing, as noted above, with Pilate,
we find the following passage (XVIll. iii. 3 [63-64]) :
• Now about this time appeared Jesus, a wise man, if indeed
one may call Him a man ; for He was a doer of marvellous
works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with flad-
ness, and He drew to Himself many of the Jews, as also many
of the Greeks. He was the Christ; and when, on the indict-
ment of the leading men amonpst iis, Pilate had sentenced Hmi
to the Cross, those who loved Him at the first did not cxase to
do 80 ; (or on the third day Ue o^ain appeared to them olive,
as the divine prophets had aflSrmcd these and innumerable
other things concerning Him. And the race of Christians,
which takes its name from Him, is not yet extinct.'
On the strength of this testimonium de Chriato,
which is quoted by Eusebius (HE I. xi. 7, 8 ; cf.
Demonstr. Evang. ill. iii. 105 ; Theoph. v. 44),
Josephus was reckoned among Christian writers
by Jerome {de, Vir. Illustr. 13), and honoured as
such throughout the Middle Ages. But modern
criticism has thrown serious doubts upon the
authenticity of the passage, and not without good
reason. For not only does Origen seem to be un-
acquainted with it — otherwise he would certainly
have referred to it in in Matth. tom. x. 17 and
c. Celsum, i. 47 — but, as regards its contents, it
simply could not have come from a man like
.Josephus, more especially in view of the fact that,
as we have seen, he anxiously avoids all reference
to the Mes.sianic expectations of his people. (The
view, proposed by Burkitt and strengthened by
Harnack, that Josephus used the failure of the
Messianic movement in the case of Jesus for the
purpose of demonstrating that no Messianic aspira-
tions were left after this in the Jewish people, is
not supported by the text as it stands.) Thus the
only question that remains is whether an authentic
statement of Josephus has been worked over by a
Christian hand (so, recently, among others, the
Roman Catholic scholar, J. Felten [NTZG, Regens-
burg, 1910, i. 618]), or whether tne M'hole is an
interpolation of Christian origin (so Niese, Naber,
Schiirer, and others). Even on the first alternative
it is hardly possible to make out what Josephus
himself could have written. The parallel cited
by Zahn (Forschnngen zur Gesch. des neutest.
Kanons, vi. [Leipzig, 1900], p. 302) from the Acta
Pilati belongs to the late Byzantine recension of
that work, and is in reality an echo of the very
passage under consideration.
A second passage of similar character is Ant.
XX. ix. 1 [200 f.], where the judicial murder of
James ' the brother of Jesus who was called Christ'
(Messiah?) and of some others, by Ananus, the
high priest, is referred to as having been dis-
approved of by the strict observers of the Law
(Pharisees?). But here too the work of another
hand is unmistakable: Origen (locc. citt., and also
c. Celsum, ii. 13) had read a similar interpolation in
Josephus, though in some other part of his works.
The whole question has become somewhat more complicated
by A. Berendls' discovery of a Slavonic recension of the BJ.
Just as, side by side with the accurate Lat. version of the Ant.
executed at the instance of Cassiodorus, a very free translation
of the £J, the de Excidio Hierusalem of Hegesippus (the so-
called losippus), bearing a thoioupfhly Christian character,
was current — often under the name of Ambrose — in the West,
80 there was found among the Slavonic MSB a very peculiar
form of the DJ, giving a detailed account of the trial of Jesus.
Berendts propounded the theory that this really represented
the original form of the BJ, and had therefore preserved
authentic utterances of Josephus regarding Christ (the Slavonic
Enoch, which in part goes back to a Judaco-Aramaic original,
would furnish a i>arallel case). Berendts was able to show that
in this Slavonic BJ we have a record largely divergent from
the Greek text, and exhibiting a markedly anti-Kom.in bias — a
record, too, which, as e.g. in the chapter dealing with the
Kssenes, appears to have been used by Hippolytus, so that, in
spite of the legendary air of many of its features, it is hanlly
reasonable, with Schiirer and others, to assign it to a late date.
Jloreover, its references to Jesus are not of a character that
suggests interi)olalion from the Christian side. Hence, if we
reject the hypothesis of Berendts, the only theory that we
have to fall back upon is that of an early Jewish reda<;tion, as
proposed by R. Secberg and Frey. A final verdict will lie pos-
sible only when the complete text is in our hands.
7. Relation of St. Luke to Josephus.— I'inally,
a question of special importance for our knowledgt;
of the Apostolic Age is that of the relation of St.
Luke to Josephus. Many scholars believe that
the numerous resemblances between them — intel-
ligible enough surely where both writers are deal-
ing with the same period — can lie exjilained only on
the theory that St. Luke made use of Josephus.
JOSEPHUS
JOSHUA
653
Were this really the case, it would certainljr be a
fact of great importance, not only for our estimate
of the Evangelist's credibility, but also for fixing
the date of his works, which, on this theory, could
not have been written till after the publication of
the Antiquities (A.D. 93-94), i.e. the beginning of
the 2nd century. The most thorough-going adher-
ent of the theory is Krenkel (Josephm unci Lucas),
who linds, for instance, in St. Luke's narrative of
tixe Infancy, a free reproduction from the Vita ; but
the majority restrict the theory to certain Lucan
passages which they hold to be dependent on
Josephus (e.g. Lk 3', Lysanias of Abilene, and
Ac 25'^ Agrippa and Berenice with Festus, etc.).
The crucial passage, however, is Ac 5^'*, with its
inaccurate historical sequence, Theudas— Judas of
Galilee ; and the error is supposed to be explained
by Ant. XX. v. 1, 2 [97 f., 102], where the slaying
of the sons of Judas by Tiberius Alexander is re-
corded after the crushing of Theudas's insurrection
by Cuspius Fadus. The theory would impute to
St. Luke an almost increilible misunderstanding,
which would indeed presuppose his having used
Josephus in a manner so superficial as to lead one
to say that, if he had ever read the work of
Josephus at all, he must have forgotten it entirely.
The two authors, in point of fact, are obviously
quite independent of each other. Thus St. Luke
(13"-) mentions a Galiliean revolt of which Josephus
takes no cognizance, while the three revolts re-
corded by Josephus as ha\nng occurred under
Pilate find no mention in Luke.
It is particularly instructive to compare their
respective accounts of the death of Agrippa i.
{Ant. xrx. viii. 2 [343-352]; Ac 12=o-^). Here
Josephus writes as follows :
' Xow when [Agrippa] had reigned three years over all Jndxa
he came to the city of Caesarea, which was formerly called
Strato's Tower, and there he provided games in honour of
Cesar, thus instituting a festival for the emperor's health. To
this festival a great number of the officials and eminent people
of the province had come together. On the second day of the
games he put ou a robe made wholly of silver and of a wonder-
ful texture, and came into the theatre at the dawn of day.
The silver, illuminated by the first beams of the sun, shone forth
in a strangely awe-inspiring manner and gleamed fearfully in
the eyes of those who looked on. Presently his flatterers, one
here, another there, called out words which were not to turn
out to his good, addressing him as a god, and adding: "Be
thou propitious ; if till now we feared thee as a man, henceforth
we confess that thou art ejtalted above mortal nature." This
the king did not rebuke, nor did he reject the impious flattery.
But when after a while he looked upwards, he saw the owl [in
svin. ri. 7 [195-200] it is related that the owl had appeared to
Asrrippa at Rome] sitting on a rope over his head, and he per-
ceived at once that it was a messenger of misfortune, as it had
formerly been a messenger of good fortune, and he experienced
an anguish that struck through his heart. He was seized with
severe intestinal pain, which set in vnth great force. Springing
up, he said to his friends : '* A god in your eyes, I must never-
theless even now resign my life : fate thus immediately punishes
the lies you falsely spoke, and I, whom you named immortal,
am carried away by death ; but a man must accept his destiny,
as it pleases God ; yet we have lived by no means ill, but ina
splendour worthy of praise." Having spoken these words, he
was seized with increasing agony. He was accordingly carried
hurriedly into the palace, and the news of his imminent death
soon spread to all. Then the multitude, with wives and children,
all IjTng in sackcloth, according to their native custom, besought
God for the king, and everj-tliing was full of sighing and lamenta-
tion. And when the king, lying upon the high roof, looked
down and saw them thus prostrated in prayer, he could not
himself refrain from tears. After he had been sorely tormented
with intestinal pains for five days, he resigned his life, in the
fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh of his reign.'
When we compare this diffuse narrative, with
its sentimentality and superstition, with the short,
vigorous, and sincerely pious record of St. Luke,
we see at once the vast diflerence between the two
writers : on the one side, Josephus, the hellenizing
Jew ; and, on the other, St. Luke, a Christian of
heathen origin, reading history in the light of the
Bible. For further comparison we might take, e.g. ,
the account of St. Paul's shipwreck (Ac 27. 28) and
that of a similar experience of Josephus (Vit. 3
[14 ff.]). Josephus is of importance for us, there-
fore, not as a source of St. Luke'.<» writings, but
as a means of supplementing and checking them ;
and, indeed, it would be impossible without his help
to WTite a history of New Testament times.
LrraRATrRB.— I. Eornoss asd Tras8i.atiosb.— (a) The best
critical cd. is that of B. Niese, 7 vols., Berlin. 1887-95 ; a smaller
ed. by S. A. Naber, Leipzig, 188S-96 (besides the usual division
into chapters and poracnrapra, both of these arrange the material
incontinaously numhoredsectionsX (6) Germ, tr.: H. Clementz,
Halle, 1900-01. (e) Eng. tr. : R. TraiU, ed. L Taylor, London.
1847-51; W. Whiston, rev. A. R. Shilleto, do. 1SS9-80. (d)
Lat. tr. : ed. C. Boysen, in CSEL xxxvii. 6, Vienna and ^«Kue,
1898. (e) Hegesippus: ed. C. F. Weber and J. Caesar,
Marburg, 1S5&-6*. (/) Svriac ti. ot BJ yL (aa 6 Mac): ed.
Ceriani, Milan, 1883; H. Kottek, Beriio, 1886. (9) Armenian tr. :
cf. F. C. Conybeare, JThSt ix. [1908], pp. 5n-683 (who proves
that Moses of Khoren made use of it). (A) On the Slav. Joeephna:
A. Berendts, i>i> Zeugnitte vom Ckritienttnn im »lavi$ehen 'De
Belio Judaieo' des Jotephtu in TU, new ser.. xiv. 4. Leipzig.
1906, ' AnalecU zum slaviscben Josephtis,' in ZNTW ix. [1^].
I^. 47-70, and 'Die iltesten ansaerchristlichen Nachrichten
liber die Entstehnn^; des Christentoms,' in MitteUvngen und
NaehriehUH fur d*« etangelisehe Kirehe in Rtuidand, IxiiL
[1910], pp. 157-173 ; abo E. Schfirer, TkLZ xxxL [1906] no. 9 ;
R. Seebergr, Von Christtis vnd dem CkritUntum, Groas-
Lichterf elde, 1908, and J. Frey, D«r «lanseA« JotephvsberieJU
uber die urehristliehe Getekiehte, Leipsg, 1908. (0 A late Heb.
ed. of the 10th cent, written imder the name of Joappus or
Joseph ben Gorion (Gorionides) : Heb. and Lat. ed. J. F.
Breithaupt, Gotha, 1707; J. Wellhansen, 'Der arabische
lodppoe,' in AGG, |^uL-hi^ Klasse, new ser., i. [1897] ; Trieber,
N&i, phil.-hi8t. Klaase. 1895; J. Winter and A. Wiinsche.
T>Ujmveh« LitUratur, Treves, 1896, iiu 309-3U ; E. Schorer,
GJVL^* [Leipaog, 1901] 150-161.
IL Works dkauxq wtth Jossphob asd his wRinxes.— (a)
Schfirer, GJV i.^* 74-106 (giving all the important Ut); H.
St.-J. Thackeray, in HDB v. 461-473 ; S. Kranss, in JE vU.
274-281. (6) On the or text used by Josephus : A. Mez, DU
Bibel des Jotepkvt, Basel, 1895. (c) On the Haggada: O.
Holtzmann, STZG^, Tubingen, 1906, p. 190 f. (d) On JosefAoa
as apologist : P. Krfiger, Phiio und Jostphtu als ApologeUn
da Judentunu, Leipzig, 1906 ; A von Gntschmid, lecture on
e. Apion. in KUine SehriJUn, iv., do. 1893, pp. 336-384. («) On
Josephus as historian : C. Wachsmnt, EinUitunq in da»
Studium der alUn GesehichU, do. 1S95, pp. 43S-449 ; H. Peter,
IHe geteUekUiehe Literatur uber di« romigehe Kaiterzeit, do.
1887, L 394-401 ; O. Stahlin, in Chnst-Schmid, GetekiekU der
grieekiaehtn LitUratur, ii. 1 [SMonic^ 1911], pp. 448-456 ; G.
Misch, GettJdekU der Autobiigraj^Ue, L [Leipii|r. 1907] 189 ff. ;
B. Brune, Jotephtu der GesehieUaiekreiber, Wiesbaden, 1912,
Flatiru Jo*ephu$ und seine &Jiriften in Utrem Verhdltnis aan
Judentume, zur grieekiseh-romitehen WeU und zum Christen-
tume, Gut^loh. 1913. (/) On the sources of Josephus : H.
Bloch, Die Quellen des Ptaoius Josephus (Leipzig, 1879X J. t.
Destinon (Kiel, 1883) (for AnL xii.-xvii.), F. Schemann
(Marbursr, 1SS7) (for bks. xviii.-xx.), and G. HOlscher (Leipog,
1904) ; H. Luther, Josephus u. Justus von TiUrias, Halle,1910.
(g) On his imitation of Thucydides : J. T. H. Driiner, Unter-
f-itchungen Uber Josephus, Marburg, 1896. (A) On his style :
W. Schmidt, de Flavii Josephi eioeutione, Leipag, 1894. (0
On the testimonium de CkrMo : of. Schnrer, op. eit. i. 544-
549 ; A. Goethals, Josiphe timoin de Jisus, Paris, 1910 ; F. C.
Bnrkitt, ' Josephus and CSirist,' in ThT, 1913, pp. 135-144 ;
A. Hamack, ' Der judische GeschichtsBchreiber Josephus und
Jesus Christus,' in Internationale Monatssehrift Jvr Wisten-
scha/t. Kunst und Teehnik, viL [191S] 1037-€3 ; K. Linck, De
antiq. vet. quae ad lesum Nazarenum speeiimt testinunOs
(Religionsgesehiehtl. Versuehe u. Vorarb., xiv. 1 [1913]) ; E.
Norden. Josephus w. Taeittu uber Jesus Christus (Ifeue
Jahrbueher fUr das klass. Altertum, xvL [191S] 637-666); P.
Corssen in ZSTW, xv. [1914] 114-140. O^ On Josephus and
St. Luke: M. Krenkel, Josephus und Lucas, Leipzig, 1894;
H. H. Wendt, Die Aposteigesehieht^, Gottingen, 1913, pp.
42-45; A Hamack, 3Vu« OntersuekttngemurApostelgesekiekl*
{Beitrage, iv.), Leipzig, 19U, p. 80 ; artt in JE and ERE.
E. VOX DOBSCHtJTZ.
JOSES.— See Barnabas.
JOSHUA (E2'"'-T, later cnr, ' Jahweh is deliverance
or salvation '). — Joshua, the successor of Moses in
the leadership of Israel, was named 'Iijo-oi/j in the
LXX and NT, and therefore 'Jesus' in the
English AV ; but the Revisers, in accordance with
their rule of reproducing OT names in the Hebrew
rather than the Greek form, have changed this into
'Joshua.' St. Stephen in his apologia speaks of
the fathers entering with Joshua into the posses-
sion of the nations (Ac 7") ; and the writer of
Hebrews, imbued with Alexandrian — i.e. Platonic
and Philonic — teaching astothedistinction between
visible things and their heavenly ideas, says that
the rest which Joshua gave the Israelites, when he
led them into the promised land, was after all not
654
JOY
JOY
the Rest of God, but only the material symbol
suggesting the spiritual reality — the yabbath-rest
which remains in the unseen world for the people
of God (He 4*- "). James Strahan.
JOY. — 1. Context. — Various words correspond in
the original to the word ' joy ' of the English Bible,
its derivatives and synonyms. The terms xap«i and
Xo/petv (etyniologically allied to x<^P^f> ' fliarm,'
' grace ') uenote pleasurable feeling experienced
in the mental sphere. On the other Iiand, i]5ovri,
1}8e(T0ai (the verb not found in tlie NT) largely
denote joy in tiie sphere of the senses. Alongside
of this distinction runs the other ditt'erence that
xapa stands for the wholesome, unredecting joy
which occupies itself with the object of its source,
whereas rjSovq designates the joy whicli subjectively
dwells on its own sensation, in the NT the latter
term is used only scnsti malo (Lk 8'^ Tit 3^ Ja 4\
2 P 2'^). The terms evcppaiveiv and eiKppoavi'T)
describe a genial, pleasurable state of feeling such
as is engendered by good fare or some other happy
festive condition (usually rendered by ' to he
merry,' Ho make merry' [Lk I2i9 jS^s-^j-m- 32 jgia,
Ac 2* V^ W, Ho W, 2 Co 22, Gal 4^, Kev Hi"
12'*]). The terms eOdvfioi, evdv/xws, e{>6vtieiv are
used of hopeful good cheer with reference to the
outcome of some situation or undertaking (Ac 24'"
2722. 28. 86^ ja^ gisj ayaWLaais, dyaXXidv stand for the
deep joy of exultation, hence are joined by way of
climax to xa'petv (Mt 5'-, Lk l"*--"-" lo'^i, Jn 5=»
8», Ac 228- •*« 16**, He P, 1 P 18- « 4", Jude^^ Rev
19'). In still another conception, that of Kavxa.(Tdai,
the element of joy is an inevitable ingredient, but
the word as such denotes a specific state of mind,
viz. 'glorying,' the exalted feeling in which the
consciousness of the spiritual worth of the religious
subject in its association with and subserviency to
the glory of God expresses itself (for this concep-
tion cf. A. Ritschl, Die christliche Lehre von der
Rechtfertigung unci Versohmmg-, ii. [1882] 365-371 ;
A. Titius, Die neutest. Lehre von der Seiigkeit, ii.
[1900] 91-96).
2. Joy as a general characteristic of the Chris-
tian life. — Joy appears in the NT writings as an
outstanding characteristic of the Christian life in the
Apostolic Age. In the Pauline Epistles especially
it figures prominently. It is one of the three
great ingredients of the Kingdom of God (Ro 14'^) ;
it receives the second place in the enumeration of
the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5^ ; cf. 1 Th 1«) ; the
descriptions of the Christian life frequently refer
to it (Ac 2« S^* 13'2 \%^, Ko 12^^, 2 Co l^* 6'« 8=,
Ph 12», 1 P 18). That this joy is not a mere by-
product of the Christian state without inherent
religious significance appears from the further fact
that the constant cultivation of it is enjoined upon
believers (2 Co 13", Ph 3' 4* ['rejoice always'],
1 Th 5^8, Ja P, 1 P 413). rjhe Apostle even makes
it an object of prayer (Ro 15'^), and represents its
attainment as the goal of his apostolic activity for
the churches (2 Co 1-^ Ph l**). The prevalence of
a joyful state of mind in the early Church may
also be inferred from the numerous references to
thanksgiving as a regular Christian occupation
(Ro P>, 2 Co 82, Eph 5''- 20, Ph 48, Col 1»2 2' 3'^ 42,
1 Th 3* 5'8). In view of all this, it may l)e surmised
that the conventional formula of salutation by
means of xa^P"" has perhaps, when used among
believers, acquired a aeeper meaning (cf. Mt 28",
Lk 128, Ac 15=^, 2 Co 13", Ja 1', 2 Jn '"• ").
When we come to inquire into the causes of the
facts just reviewed, the first place must be given to
(a) the vivid consciousness of salvation which is
present in the Apostolic Age. Through the re-
stored fellowship with God and the forgiveness of
sin a joy streams into the heart which is coloured
by the contrast of the opj>osite experience belong-
ing to the state of estrangement from God. The
Christian joy is specifioallj' a joy in God (Ro 5",
Ph 38 4'"). Joy apiKjars associated with faith, as
well as with hope (Ac S^^ 16^*, Ro 15", 2 Co l-^
Ph r-", 1 P 18). It likewise accompanies the
ethical renewal of the mind Jis a new-born delight
in all that is good (1 Co 138).
A second cause may l>e found in (b) the highly
pneumatic character of the religious experience in
tlie Ai)ostolic Age. The Spirit as the gift of the
Ascended and Glorified Christ to His followers,
manifested His presence and power in tliese early
days after a most uplifting fashion, and among
other things produced in believers an exalted state
of feeling in which the note of joyousness pre-
dominated. The conjunction of joy and the Spirit,
however, does not merely mean that the Spirit
produces this joy : it is due to the inherent cnar-
acter of the Spirit, so that to be in the Spirit and
to be filled Avitii joy become synonymous (Ac 2*'
13'2, Ro 14"). The Spirit possesses this inherent
ciiaracter as a Spirit of joy because He is essenti-
ally the element of the life to come. This leads to
the observation that in the third place (c) the joy-
fulness of the early Christian consciousness must
be explained in the light of the fact tliat the
Christian state is felt to be semi-eschatological, i.e.
in many important respects an anticipation of the
consummated life of the Kingdom of Go<l. Through
the entrance of the Messiah into glory, tlirough
His pneumatic presence and activity in tne Church,
and through the prospect of His speedy return,
believers have been brought into real contact with
the world to come. The specific ciiaracter of the
world to come is that of blessedness and joy, and
to the same degree as this world projects itself
through experience or hope into the present life,
the latter also comes to partake of this joyful
complexion. Especially in St. Paul and the
Epistle to the Hebrews can we trace this connexion,
though it is not absent from any of the NT writings
(Ro 1212 14" 15^3, He 10^^ 12", 1 P P- « 4", Jude =«,
Rev 19''). Jesus Himself had already represented
the spiritual coming of the Kingdom, the time of
His presence with the disciples as a period of joy,
resembling a wedding- feast (Mk 2'*), and had
pointed forward to the dispensation of the Spirit
as a period of joy (Jn U'^ 15" le-""- 22. 24 1713), q^
this principle is to be explained the paradoxical
character which the Christian joy assumes through
entering into contrast witli the tribulation and
affliction of this present life. It even makes out
of the latter a cause for rejoicing, inasmuch as the
believer, from the power of faith which sustains
him, receives the assurance of his ' approvedness '
{boKifi-i)) with God, and thus the strongest con-
ceivable hope in the eschatological salvation. Ro
5'"'- is the classical passage for this, but the same
train of thought meets us in a number of other
Pauline passages, and occasionally elsewhere,
sometimes in pointedly paradoxical formulation
(Ac 5", Col 1", 1 Th 18, He 10=», Ja P, 1 P A^).
Most frequently this specific kind of joy is expressed
in connexion with the idea of Kavx^aOAi, ' to glory '
(cf. alwve; Ro 52- s, 2 Co ll** 12», Ja P).
3. The joy of St. Paul.— To be distinpiished
from this general joy as a common ingreaient of
all Christian experience is the specific joy which
belongs to the servant of God engaged in the work
of his calling. Of this ioy of ministering, the
delight and satisfaction that accompany the suc-
cessful discharge of the apostolic task, the NT
makes frequent mention. The Pauline Epistles
are full of it. The Aixjstle runs his course with
joy (Ac 202* [gome textual authorities here omit
' with joy ']) ; rejoices exceedingly over the obedi-
ence 0/ believers (Ro 16'") ; though sorrowful, yet
is always rejoicing in his work (2 Co 6'") ; over-
JUD^A
JUDAIZING
655
flows with joy on account of his converts (2 Co 7*) ;
makes his supplication with joy on their behalf
(Ph 1*) ; their progress in love and harmony makes
full his joy (Ph 2°) ; he rejoices in the prospect of
being offered upon the sacrifice and service of their
faith (Ph 2'"); rejoices in his sufferings for their
sake (Col 1") ; feels that no thanksgiving can
adequately express his joy before God on their
account (1 Th 3*). Specific developments in his
ministry furnish occasion for special joy (1 Co 16'",
2 Co 23 7"- 1«, Ph 1" 2« ; cf. Ac 11° He 13", 2 Jn *,
3 Jn '• *). This joy in ministering coalesces witli
the prosi)ective eschatological joy, inasmuch as in
the day of the Lord the results of one's ministry
will be made manifest and become for the servant
of Christ a special 'joy' or 'crown of glorying'
(2 Co 1» Ph 4', 1 Th 2^).
LiTERATCKB.— A. Hamack, The Acts of the Apostles, Eng.
tr., 1909, p. 277 ; Voluntas Dei, 1912, p. 265 ; H. Busbnell, The
Heir Life, 1S60, p. 147 ; R. C. Moberly, Christ our Life, 1902,
p. 93 ; j. Clifford, The Gospel of Gladness, 191>, p. 1.
Geerhardus Vos.
JDD^A ('lovSaia, used by the LXX in later books
of the OT [Ezr., Neh., Dan.] instead of 'Ioi/5a, as
the translation of .Ti?n^ or •n-^"). — Judaea, the Grse-
cized form of ' Judah,' was the most southern of
the three districts into which Palestine was divided
in the Greek and Roman periods, the other two
being Samaria and Galilee. The territory occupied
by the Jews who returned from Babylon was at
first smaller than the ancestral kingdom of Judah,
but it was gradually enlarged, e.g. by the ilacca-
bfean capture of Hebron from the Edoraites ( 1 Mac
5^), and the cession by Demetrius, king of Syria,
of the Samaritan toparchies of Aphaerema, Lydda,
and Ramathaim (11**). According to Josephus
{BJ III. iii. 5), Judiea extended from Anuath-
Borka?os in the north (identified with 'Aina-Berktt
in PEFSt, 1881, p. 48) to the village of Jordas
(perhaps Tell ' Arad) on the confines of Arabia in
the south, and from Jordan in the east to Joppa
in the west. The sea-coast as far as Ptolemais,
with the coast towns, also belonged to Judaea.
Josephus {loc. cit.) states that the country was
divided into eleven toparchies (Toucapxiai. or K\i)p-
ovxiat), all west of Jordan : Jerusalem, Gophna,
Akrabatta, Thamna, Lydda, Emmaus, Pella,
Idumea, Engaddi, Herodiiim, and Jericho. Pliny
(HN V. xiv. 70) gives a list which contains the
seven names given here in italics, along with
Jopica, Betholeptephene, and Orine. Schiirer
(HJP II. i. [1885] 157) thinks ' we may obtain a
correct list if we adopt that of Josephus and sub-
stitute Bethleptepha for Pella.' The division was
no doubt made for administrative purposes, and
especially for the collection of revenue.
Judsea proper was a small country, its whole
area not being more than 2,000 sq. miles. Apart
from the Shephelah and the Maritime Plain, it was
a plateau of only 1,350 sq. miles. But the term
was often loosely employed in a more compre-
hensive sense. Tacitus says that ' eastward the
country is bounded by Arabia ; to the south lies
Egypt ; and on the west are Phoenicia and the
Mediterranean ; northward it commands an ex-
tensive prospect over Syria ' (Hist. v. vi. ). Strabo
very vaguely describes Judaea as being ' situated
above Phoenicia, in the interior between Gaza and
Antilibanus, and extending to the Arabians' (XVi.
ii. 21). Herod the Great, who was called the king
of Juda'a, certainly had a territory much wider
than Judaea proper. Ptolemy states that there
were districts of Judaea beyond Jordan (v. xvi. 9),
and it is difKcult to obtain any other meaning from
' the borders of Judaea beyond Jordan ' in ilt 19^,
though A. B. Bruce thinks ' it is not likely that
the writer would describe Southern Peraea as a
part of Judaea' {EGT, 'The Synoptic Gospels,'
1897, p. 244). There can be no doubt that St. Luke
often extends the term Judaea to the whole of
Palestine west of the Jordan (Lk 4** [?] 2y, Ac 2»
10" 26»).
After the death of Herod, his son Archelaus
became ethnarch of Judaea. He was never really
its king, though royalty is implicitly ascribed to
him in the /ScwiXeiki of Mt 2**, and explicitly in
Josephus {Ant. x\ail. iv. 3). He was soon deposed,
and from a.d. 6 till the overthrow of the State in
70 Judaea was under procurators, except during the
brief reign of Agrippa i. (41-44). The procurators
resided in Caesarea {Ant. xvil. xiii. 5 ; xviu. i. 1,
ii. 1).
' The statement of Josephus that Jadaa* was attached to the
province of Syria and placed under its governor {Ant. xvii. xiii.
5 ; xvni. i. 1, iv. 6) appears to be incorrect ; on the contrarj-,
Jadjea probably formed thenceforth a procuratorial province
of itself ' (T. Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire-,
Eng. tr., 1909, iL ISon. ; cf. Schiirer, i. iL 42 f.). The governor
was a man of equestrian rank, so that Judsa belongMl to the
third class of imperial pro\lnces mentioned by Strabo (xvn. iii.
25). The usaal designation for such a governor — en-iVpoirot —
occurs frequently in Josephus, though he occasionally uses
iirapx<K or ^ycfuJK The last term, which is equivalent to
praesei, is the one most often employed in the NT.
It was usual to speak of Jerusalem and Judaea,
instead of 'and the rest of Judaea* (Mt 4^, Mk 1*,
Ac 1^ etc.). The Talmud explains this practice by
saying that the holy city formed a division by
itself (A. Neubauer, La Geugr. du Talmud, 1868,
p. 56). The occurrence of Judaea between Meso-
lX)tamia and Cappadocia in Ac 2® is very peculiar.
Jerome reads Sj-ria instead ; Tertullian suggrats
Armenia (c. Jud. vii.) ; and Bithj-nia, Idumea, and
India have also been proposed {EGT in loco).
When Palestine was divided into First, Second,
and Third {Code of Theodosius, A.D. 409), Palestina
Prima comprehended the old districts of Jndaea
and Samaria ; and this division is still observed in
the ecclesiastical documents of the Ea-stem Church.
James Strahax.
JUDAH.— See TRIBES.
JUDAIZING.— It is obvious that the transition
from Judaism to Christianity could hardly be
made without difBculty. To the Jew it must
have seemed almost incredible that he should
divest himself of the observance of Mosaic Law,
and equally incredible that the Gentile should be
admitted into the Kingdom of Grod Avithout accept-
ing the same Law, It was inevitable that the
question should soon arise in the early days of the
Church, whether tiie Church of the future should
be Catholic or Jewish. It was only to be expected
that this controversy should give rise to a party
in the Church who were in favour of the latter
alternative, consisting of those who, being Chris-
tians, yet retained their affection for the ilosaic
Law and wished to impose it upon every member
of the Christian Church. On the other hand, the
keen intellect of a Stephen or a Paul saw at once
that any attempt to enforce the Mosaic Law or
even the initiatory rite of circumcision upon the
Gentiles, meant stagnation and death to the
Church.
No inconsiderable part of the Acts and the
Epistles is taken up with the description of the
attempts of the Judaizers to gain their end, and of
the resolute resistance to them of St. Paul and
those who thought with him.
1. In the Acts. — In the Acts the three most im-
portant crises of this question are (a) the speech
of St. Stephen, (b) the conversion of Cornelius,
and (c) the Council at Jerusalem.
(a) The importance of St. Stephen's speech con-
sists in the principles which underlie the historical
summary which is its main feature. He had been
accused of blaspheming the Temple and the Law.
No doubt, the charges were exaggerated and his
656
JUDAIZING
JUDAS P.ARSABBAS
language dihtorted by false witnesses. But there
was tliat half truth in them whicli made tliem
colourable. The principles which come out in the
speech are those which we can also trace in Christ's
attitude towards Judaism, viz. that Christianity
would fulfil and also succeed the older dispensation.
(i) The importance of the incident of Cornelius
is emphasized by the two-fold account of it in
the Acts and by the two special manifestations of
the Divine will made to 8t. Peter to teach liim
what he should do. The vision of the sheet, with
the clean and unclean animals, showed that the
Apostle's act was a new departure, requiring
special and Divine sanction ; and the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit, prior to baptism, was needed
to teach him that he might initiate his converts
into tiie Christian Church by that sacrament.
(c) Now, as the first of these incidents had dealt
with the general principles regulating the relation
of Christianity to Judaism, and the second had
shown that Gentiles were to be admitted into the
Christian body, so the third determined what re-
quirements, if any, should be made of Gentile con-
verts. The four precepts required are not to be
regarded simply as concessions to Jewish prejudices.
Three out of the four deal with great mysteries of
human life and induce corresponding forms of
reverence. Nor were these precepts intended to
be applied either universally or permanently, but
rather to meet a local and temporary difficulty.
In addition to these three important incidents,
there are many references in the Acts to this
question, showing the prominent place it took in
the Church thought and life of the day. We
cannot go into all these references, but, as an
example, we may quote the narrative in Ac 21-'"'^'
in which St. Paul is advised to take some step
that may disarm the prejudices of the Judaizers
against him.
2. In St. Paul's Epistles.— When we turn to the
Epistles, we have to notice that St. Paul was
attacked on personal as well as on doctrinal
grounds, and that his authority as an apostle was
called in question. This was especially the case
at Corinth, as we learn from the Second Epistle
to the Corinthians. In the First Epistle he had
dealt with the divisions in that Church (see Divi-
sions). But in the Second Epistle he defends his
own apostolic authority. He could produce no
comrnendatory letter from the Church in Jerusalem
as his opponents were able to do, nor would he
do so ; he did not derive his authority from any
apostle, but direct from the Lord Jesus Himself.
When we turn to the Epistle to the Galatians,
we lind the controversy accentuated, 'fhe Gala-
tians had been ' bewitched ' by the Jewish emis-
saries. They had relapsed from the simplicity of
the gospel into the ceremonialism of Judaism.
The authority of the Apostle had been disparaged
and denied. St. Paul was evidently deeply stirred,
as well as fully conscious of the danger to Chris-
tianity which was caused by the action of the
Judaizers. The result was an Epistle which, in
burning words, pleads for the liberty of the gospel
and warns against the retrograde step of again
submitting to the bondage of the liaw.
The Church in Colossae was aflected by the
Judaism of the Dispersion, which diflered in some
respects from the Judaism of Jerusalem. The
view of the Colossian heresy Avhich was held
formerly, as expounded by J. B, liigiitfoot in his
Commentary (*1879, p. 74 f.), was that this heresy
was a form of Gnosticism, but F. J. A. Horc in
his Judaistic Christianity (1894, p. 11611'.) con-
tends that St. Paul had in mind a form of
Judaism rather than of Gnosticism. It is not the
Judaism of Jerusalem which laid stress upon the
importance of circumcision and the Law, out the
Judaism of the Disper.sion, which concerned itself
with such questions as dillerence of food, differ-
ence of days, etc. (Col 2'*'- *"• -'). According to this
view, the <pi\o<To<f>ia of Col 2"* refers to the detailed
passage in Col 2'*'^, and the meats, drinks, feasts,
now moons, and Sabbaths, are Judaic.
Hort also takes the same view with regard to
the Pastoral Epistles, and concludes his argument
as follows :
' On the whole then in the Pastoral Epistles, no less than in
Colossians, it seems imposiiible to And clear evidence of specu-
lative or Gnosticisinx tendencies. VVe do find however a
dangerous fondness for Jewish triflinpr, both of the legendary
and of the legal or casuistical kind. We find also indications,
but much less prominent, of some such abstinences in the
matter of foods (probat)l.v chiefly animal food and wine) as at
Colossa) and Konie, with a probability that marriage would
before long come likewise under a religious ban. But of cir-
cumcision and the perpetual validity of the Law we have
nothing ' (p. 146).
3. In the Epistle to the Hebrews.— With all
the mystery wliich surrounds the identity of the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the
community to which it was addressed, it is clear
that the whole argument is directed against the
Judaizers. The people addressed are evidently in
danger of aposta.sy. They do not see what the
gospel can otter them in exchange for the loss they
have sustained in being expelled from the syna-
gogue.
It is not necessary here to detail the argument
of the Epistle, which may be studied in the art.
on Hebrews, Ep. to the, or in the article in
HDB ; but the superiority of Christ over Judaism
is its main burden, and the Epistle is pregnant
with the difficulties of Christianity confronted
with Judaizing teachers. It deals with those
who, as Hort says, ' without abjuring the name of
Jesus, . . . treat their relation to him as trivial
and secondary compared with their relation to
the customs of their forefathers and their living
countrymen' (p. 157).
In conclusion, we may say that Judaistic Chris-
tianity was a natural product of the circumstances
of the Apostolic Age, a product which was des-
tined to be a source of internal trouble to the
primitive Church. It lived on for some time,
with occasional outbursts of revival, and at length
died naturally away.
Judaism decreased as Christianity increased.
Jews who became Christians were not forbidden
to observe the laws and customs to which they
were attached, but were enjoined to seek beneath
the letter of the ordinance for the truth of which
it was the exponent. No attempt was to be made
to enforce upon Gentile Christians the bondage of
the Law or to take away the liberty with which
Christ had made them free.
Literature.— In addition to the works alre.adv mentioned,
see R. J. Knowling, ' Acts,' in EGT, 1900 ; W. M. Ramsay,
St. Paul the Traveller and the. Roman Citizen, 1895 ; F. W.
Farrar, Lifr, ami Work of St. Paul, 18'.»" ; K. Lake, The
Earlier Epistles of St. Paul, 1911, p. 14; A. de Boysson, La
Loi et la Foi, 1912, MORLEY STEVEXSON.
JUDAS BARSABBAS.— After the Council of the
apostles and elders held at Jerusalem to settle the
matter in dispute between the Jewish and Gentile
Christians at Antioch, it was resolved to send to
Antioch along with St. Paul and Barnabas two
deputies entrusted with the letter containing the
decrees of the brethren of Jerusalem. These
deputies were Judas Barsabbas and Silas (Ac 15").
The fact that they were selected as deputies of
the Jerusalem Church on this important mission
proves that they were men of considerable influence
in the Church. They are called chief men among
the brethren (ijyovfiivovf), and were probably elders.
The narrative tells us that both were endowed
with the prophetic gift (v,*-) and that they con-
JUDAS (OF DAMASCUS)
JUDAS ISCARIOT
657
tinueJ a considerable time in Antioch teaching
and exhorting tue believers there. Aft«r their
work, the restoring of peace among the contend-
ing factions, was accomplished, they were free to
depart. Judas returned to Jerusalem, while Silas
remained and became the companion of St. Panl
on his second missionary journey. The contention
of some critics that Silas returned to Jerusalem
with Judas and that v." is spurious, is met by the
view of Ramsay {St. Paul, p. 174 f.), who holds
that V." simply means that freedom was given
to the two deputies to depart, and that v.** was
omitted by a copyist who misunderstood v.** (cf.
Zahn, Einieitung, i. 148).
Beyond these facts nothing certain is known of
Barsabbas. It has been suggested that he was a
brother of Joseph Barsabbas who was nominated to
succeed Iscariot in the early days of the Jerusalem
Church (Ac 1^), as Barsabbas is a patronymic son
of Sabbas. If this be so, Judas had in all proba-
bility, like Joseph, been personally acquainted
with Jesus, and a disciple. This would account, to
some extent at least, for the influential position
he seems to hold at the Council of Jerusalem.
Attempts have been made to identify him with
others bearing the name Judas, but all such at-
tempts must be relinquished. The Apostle Judas
*not Iscariot' was the son of James (Lk 6^® RV),
and in the narrative in the Acts Barsabbas is
clearly distinguished from the apostles. Some
have suggested that he may be the ^^•rite^ of the
Epistle that bears his name, but the writer describes
himself as the brother of James (Jude^), and this
James must either have been the son of Joseph the
husband of the Virgin or the son of Alphseus (see
art. JUDE) — in any case, not the son of Sabbas.
LiTERATTRE.— R. J. KnowlingT, 'Acts,' in EGT, 1900, p.
326; W. M. Ramsay, 5f. Paul the Tratelier OTid the Roman
Citizen, 1895, p. 174 f. ; T. Zahn, Einieitung in dag ST^, 1906-
07, L 148 ; aitt. in HDB and EBi. W. F. BOYD.
JUDAS (of Damascus).— In Ac 9^^ the disciple \
Ananias is told by the Lord in a \ision to go to ;
the street called ' Straight ' and inquire in the house |
of Judas for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus.
Nothing further is known of this Judas.
JDDIS THE GALILEAN.— Judas the GalU^an,
a Zealot leader at the time of the census imder
Quirinius, was probably the son of Hezekiah
( Josephus, Ant. XVII. x. 5, BJ II. iv. 1), a leader of
a band of robbers (i.e. revolutionists) in Galilee.
Herod, while representing his father, had captured
and summarily executed Hezekiah with a number
of his followers without ha\"ing recourse to the
Sanhedrin or Hyrcanus (BJ I. x. 5, Arit. XIV. ix.
2, 3, x\ni. x. 5). If this identification be correct
(so Graetz, Schiirer, Goethe ; contra Krenkel,
Schmiedel), it enables us to trace the development
of the Zealot movement from its origin as the
Messianic party favouring 'direct action.' The
death of Hezekiah apparently left Judas at the
head of a movement against Roman rule similar to
that of Mattathias and his body of revolutionaries
against the Sjrians.
Josephus declares in A nt. XVIII. L 1 that Judas
was born in Gamala in Gaulonitis, but in BJ II.
viii. 1 and elsewhere he calls him a Galiliean (so
too Ac 5^). This discrepancy may be due to a
confusion of a Galilean Gamala with the better-
known town of the same name east of Jordan ;
or to the fact that the acti\-ities of Judas were
largely confinetl to Galilee ; or to the loose use of
the word ' Galilrean ' to describe a Jew born near
Galilee.
During the administration of Quintilius Varus
(6-4 B.C.) .Judas took advant^e of the disorders
following the death of Herod I., seized and plun-
VOL. I. — 42
dered Sepphoris, and armed his followers with
weapons taken from the city's arsenal. He is
charged by Josephus (Ant. XVlI. x. 5, BJ II. iv. 1)
with seeking to make himself king. This accusa-
tion, however, like the description of his followers
(' of profligate character ') by Josephus, is probably
to be charged to the bias of the historian. For,
when Quirinius undertook to make a census of
Judaea (see DCG i. 275*), Judas allied himself with
a Pharisee named Zadok and raised the signal for a
theocratic or Messianic revolt, calling upon the
Jews to refuse to pay tribute to the Romans and
to recognize God alone as their ruler (Ant. xviil.
i, 1, XX. V. 2, BJ u. viii. 1). Whether he suc-
ceeded in actually organizing a revolt is not alto-
gether clear (Ant. XX. v. 2 is not so reliable as
xviu. i. 1 ), but in BJ vil. viii. 1 he is said ♦ to
have persuaded not a few of the Jews not to sub-
mit to the census.' That he was the centre of
actual disturbance is by no means improbable in
the light of succeeding events ; for from this com-
bination of revolutionary spirit and Pharisaism
emerged the fourth party of the Jews, the Zealots.
From this time until their last stand at Ma.sada,
the Zealots were the representatives of a politico-
revolutionary Messianism, as distinguished from
the eschatological hopes of the Pharisees and
Essenes. Judas ('a cunning Sophist' [BJ ll. xvii.
8]) was evidently bent on putting into practice a
political programme, and may very likely have
undertaken to organize a theocracy without a
human ruler. If so, we know nothing as to the
actual results of his endeavours except that
Josephus (Ant. XYlll. i. 1, 6) attributes to him
and his ' philosophy ' the violence and miseries
culminating in the destruction of the Temple.
This philosophy he describes as a compound of
Pharisaic beliefs and revolutionist love of liberty.
We have no precise knowledge as to the fate of
Judas, but in Ac 5" he is said to have ' perished.'
From the fact that he is here mentioned after
Theudas (q.v.), it has been conjectured that Luke
has confused his fate with that of his sons. Too
much weight, however, should not be given to
this conclusion, for it seems hardly probable that
Josephus should have omitted any misfortune com-
ing to a man he so cordially disliked.
Judas left three sons, all of whom were leaders
in the Zealot movement. Of these, two — Jacob
and Simon — were crucified by Tiberius Alexander
the procurator (a.d. 46-48), for leading a revolt
(Ant. XX. V. 2), and the third, Menahem (also a
' Sophist ' — a word indicating a propagandist as
well as a revolutionist), became a leader of the ex-
treme radicals during the first period of the war
with Rome. After having armed himself from
the Herodian arsenal at Masada, he became for
a short time the master of a part of Jerusalem,
but was tortured and executed, together with his
lieutenants, by Eleazar of the high-priestly party.
Shailer Mathews.
JUDAS ISCARIOT.— The only biblical reference
to Judas Iscariot by name outside the Gospels is
Ac 116-20. 25^ and there he is called neither ' Iscariot '
nor ' the traitor' (Tpod&rris, as in Lk 6'*), nor is his
action spoken of by the term rapaSiSdpai. He is
described in v." as the one who 'became guide
(odrr/ds) to them that arrested Jesus,' and in v.^ as
having ' fallen away (xape'/STj) from the ministry and
apostleship to go to his own place' (see Place).
It is interesting, however, to note the other
allusions to our Lord's betrayal in the Acts and in
the Epistles. (1) In Ac 3" "St. Peter attributes it
virtually to the Israelites themselves (81' vfieU rap-
eSwirare kt\. ; cf . 2P), and so again (2) in 7'- does St.
Stephen (toO BtKalov ov vvv vfiets -rpoSorai Kal ipofeii
tyiveffOe). (3) In Ro 4^ St. Panl, quoting Is 53^-
(LXX), says less definitely that Jesus our Lord
658
JUDAS ISCARIOT
JUDE, EPISTLE OF
irapeS60ri Sia rA vapairTUfiara rip-Qv ; (4) but in 1 Co 11^
the very act and time of betrayal are alluded to in
connexion with the institution of the Last Supjier
(i» T^ vvktI rj irapfSiStTO kt\.). On the other hand,
St. Paul three times describes the betrayal from
the point of view of our Lord's own voluntary sub-
mission, viz. (5) (lal 2*" : irapa56»'ros iavrdy virip tfiod ;
(6) Eph 5' : nrap^duKev ^ain-^x vvip rj/iuiv ; (7) v.^ : ^aiTiv
irapiduKfv virep ^KKXrjaiai (cf. 1 P 2-^ : irapeSidov tQ
KplvovTi SiKalui, and see Jn 10"" ^^ 17'" etc.); and
once (8) even of the Father Himself {vvip T]fiC)v
irdm-wv TrapiduKcv avrdv, Ro 8"^).
As to Judas's grievous end itself, as recorded in
the Acts, it is not neces.sary here to compare it in
detail with the account given in Mt 27*"'- ; it is
sufficient to say that in the jiresent state of our in-
formation tlie two accounts are well-nigh, if not
quite, irreconcilable. 13ut various points in the
Lucan record remain to be reviewed.
(a) St. Peter in his opening address at the elec-
tion of St. Matthias infers that the inclusion of
the traitor in the number of the apostles and his
obtaining a share in their ministry was a mysterious
dispensation by wliicii was fulfilled the prediction
of Ps 41*, so recently quoted by our Lord Himself
(Jn 13'"), together with its necessary consequences
as foreshadowed in two other Psalms (69'-^ and
109*) : that is, if v.-** be an original part of St.
Peter's speech, and not, as is possible, a jiart of the
Lucan (or later) elucidation of the passage contained
in vv.'**'*. In any case, all three quotations, but
specially for our purpose now, the last two, are of
interest as illustrating the free use made of the
text of Scripture and its secondary application.
In Ps 41" the actual wording bears little likeness
to the LXX, being a more literal rendering of the
Hebrew, while its original reference is to some
treacherous friend {e.g. Ahithopiuil, the unfaithful
counsellor of David). In Ps 69^ the text is more
exact, but the original figure employed (^ ^iravXis
avTwv, not aiirov) suggests a nomad encampment of
tents rendered desolate because of the cruel persecu-
tions which their occupants had pi-actised, while
Ps 109* has in view one particular official, like Doeg
or Ahithophel, who has been false to his trust, and
therefore it is, to our modern notions, more ap-
propriately and with less strain transferred to the
case of Judas.
(b) The passage vv.'*-^", Avith or without v.^ (see
above), would seem to be an editorial comment
inserted in the middle of St. Peter's address either
by the author of the Acts himself or, as has been
thought, by some later glossator or copyist. Of
the latter view there is, we believe, no indication
in the history of the text. If, as is more likely,
therefore, it is due to St. Luke, he has here adopted
an account of the traitor's grievous end which is
independent of, and in some details apparently ir-
reconcilable with, St. Matthew's (27^"^-), but to a
less extent, we are inclined to think, than is some-
times held. For it is not out of keeping with
eastern modes of treating facts for St. Luke to
speak of the ' field of blood' being acquired by the
traitor himself with the price of his iniquity (qui
facit per alium, far.it per sc), which St. Matthew
more accurately says was actually purchased by
the chief priest, wiiilst the horribly graphic de-
scription of his suicide is little more than a
conventional way of representing St. Matthew's
simple aw(\d(j}v dir-fjy^a.To.
(c) For the title AlccldamaSknCi its interpretation
see separate article, s.v.
It remains to remark that St. Peter's expression,
as recorded in his address, and the apostolic prayer
of ordination, for which he was probably re8ponsil)le
and the mouthi)iece, breathe much 'more of the
spirit of primitive Christianity in their restrained
and chastened style than the more outspoken and
almost vindictive statements of vv.'*-"*, so that
one would not be altogether surprised to find that
the latter are, as has been suggested, a less genuine
tradition of a later age. C. L. Feltoe.
JUDE, THE LORD'S BROTHER.— The list of the
Lord's brothers isgiven in MkG^ as 'James, and Joses,
and Judas [AV 'Juda'], and Simon,' in Mt 13** as
'James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas.' It would
be precarious, even apart from the variation in order,
to infer that Judas was one of the younger brothers
of Jesus ; still, this is not improoable, especially
if, as the present writer believes, ' the brethren of
the Lord were sons of Josepli and Mary. We
know practically nothing of his history. If the
statement in Jn 7' can be trusted, that at that time
the brethren of Jesus did not believe in Him, he
cannot be identified witli ' Judas, the son of James,'
who is mentioned in Luke's list of the apostles
(Lk 6'", Ac 1'^), and described in Jn 14^^ as 'Judas
(not Iscariot).' We may assume from Ac 1" that
in the interval between the incident recorded in
Jn 7^'"* and the Ascension, Jude and his brothers
had recognized the Messiahship of Jesus. We
gather from 1 Co 9^^ tiiat ' the brethren of the
Lord' were married to Christian wives, by whom
they were accompanied on missionary journeys.
Presumably these references included Jude. He
seems to have taken no very prominent position in
the Church, being overshadowed, like Joses and
Simon, by James. The date of his death is un-
certain, but the evidence of Hegesippus, quoted in
Euseb. HE iii. xx., stiggests tliat he died before
Domitian came to the throne. Eusebius informs
us that the grandchildren of Jude were brought
before Domitian, as descendants of David, but
released when the Emperor discovered that they
were horny-handed husbandmen, who were ex-
pecting a heavenly kingdom at Christ's Second
Coming. They survived till the reign of Trajan.
The last statement suggests tliat a considerable
interval elapsed between the interview witii the
Emperor and their death ; and, inasmuch as the
reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) was separated from
that of Trajan (A.D. 98-117) only by Nerva's short
reign of two years (A.D. 96-98), we should probably
place the interview quite early in Domitian's reign.
Since not Jude alone but i)resumably the father of
these grandsons was apparently dead at the time,
it is liardly likely that the death of Jude occurred
at a later date than the decade A.D. 70-80, when
he would be well advanced in years. This has
an important though not decisive bearing on the
question whether the P'pistle of Jude is rightly
assigned to him (see following article).
A. S. Peake.
JUDE, EPISTLE OF.— 1. Relation to 2 Peter.—
The striking coincidences between this Epistle and
the Second Epistle of Peter, covering the greater
part of the shorter writing, raise in an acute form
the question of relative priority. It is best, how-
ever, to investigate eacli Epistle independently
before approaching the problem of their mutual
relations. Since, liowever, the present \vriter, in
spite of the attempts made by Spitta, Zahn, and
liigg to prove the dependence of Jude on 2 Peter,
is convinced, with the great majority of critics,
that 2 Peter is based on Jude, the discussion of
this question is not raised in this article but
postponed to that on Peter, Epistles OF.
2. Contents.— The writer of the Epistle seems to
have been diverted from the project of a more ex-
tensive composition by the urgent necessity of
exhorting his readers ' to contend earnestly for the
faith which was once for all delivere<i unto the
saints ' (v.*). Whether he had made any proj^ress
with his work on ' our common salvation,' or, if so,
whether he subsequently completed his interrupted
JUDE, EPISTLE OF
JUDE, EPISTLE OF
659
enterprise, we do not know. In any case, we
Eossess no other work from his hand than this
rief Epistle. Tlie urgency of the crisis completely
absorbs him. His letter is wholly occupied with
the false teachers and their propaganda, which i<<
imperilling the soundness of doctrine, thepurity
of morals, and the sanctities of religion. He does
not refute them ; he denounces and threatens them.
Hot indignation at their corruption of the true
doctrine and loathing for the vileness of their per-
verted morals inspire his tierce invective. The
situation did not seem to him appropriate for
academic discussion ; the unsophisticated moral
instinct was enough to guide all who possessed it
to a right judgment of such abominations. History
shows us their predecessors, and from the fate
which overtook them the doom of these reprobates
of the last time can be plainly foreseen (vv.*-^- ").
Indeed, it had been announced by Enoch, who in
that far-ofi' age had propiiesied directly of the
Divine judgment that wotdd overtake them (v. ^*'-)-
But, while nothing is wanting to the vehemence
of attack, we can form only a very vague im-
pression as to the tenets of the false teachers.
The >\Titer assumes that his readers are familiar
with their doctrines, and his method does not
require any exposition of their errors such as would
have been involved in any attempt to refute them.
It is, accordingly, not strange that very divergent
views have been held as to their identity. Our
earliest suggestion on this point comes from
Clement of Alexandria (Strom, iii. 2), who taught
that Jude was describing prophetically the Gnostic
sect known as the Caq>ocratian3. Grotins {Prcep,
in Ep. Jiul(e) also thought that this sect was the
object of the writer's denunciation ; but, since
he held that Jude was attacking contemporary
heretics, he assigned the Epistle to Jude the last
Bishop of Jerusalem, in the reign of Hadrian.
This \-iew has found little, if any, acceptance ; but
the identification of the false teachers with the
Carpocratians has been widely accepted by modem
scholars. There are certainly striking points of
contact.
Carpoorates, who lived at Alexandria in the first
half of the Snd. cent, (perhaps about A.D. 130-150),
taught that the world was made by angels who
had revolted from God. The soul of Jesus through
its superior vigour remembered wliat it had seen
when with God. He was, however, an ordinary
man, but endowed with powers which enabled Him
to outwit the world-angels. Similarly, any soul
which could despise them would triumph over them
and thus become the equal of Jesus. Great stress
was laid on magic as a means of salvation. The
immorality of the sect rivalled that of the Cainites.
It was defended by a curious doctrine of trans-
migration, according to which it was necessary for
the soul to go through various human bodies till it
completed the circle of human experience ; but if
all of this — including, of course, the full range of
immoral conduct — could be crowded into one life-
time, the necessity for such transmigration was
obviated.
The language of the Epistle would quite well
suit the Carpocratians, especially in its reference to
the combination of error in teacliing -with lascivi-
ousness in conduct. The railing at dignitaries
with which the ^vriter charges the false teachers
(v.^) wotdd answer very well to the attitude of
Carpocrates towards the angels. But we should
probably reject any identification so definite. The
characteristics mentioned by Jude were the mono-
poly of no sect. The indications point to teaching
of a much less developeil type. It is not even
certain that it was Gnostic in character, though
the signs point strongly in that direction. The
Gnostics were wont to describe themselves as
' spiritual,' and the ordinary members of the Church
as * psychics.' If the false teachers were Gnostics,
we understand why Jude should retort upon them
the accusation that they were 'sensual' (lit.
•psychics'), 'not having the Spirit' (v.«). They
blaspheme that of which they are ignorant. The
charge that they deny the only Master (v.*) may
be an allusion to the dualism of the Gnostics, which
drew a distinction between the supreme God and
the Creator. They are dreamers (v.*), i.e. false
prophets, who speak swelling words (v."). The
statement that they have gone in the M-ay of Cain
(t.**) reminds us very forcibly of the Ophite sect
known as the Cainites {q.v.). But, while all these
indications point to some rudimentary form of
Gnosticism, it cannot be said that they definitely
demand such a reference. Not only are they very
vague and general ; they could be accounted for
Avithont recourse to Gnosticism at all. The problem
in some respects hangs together ■ivith that presented
by other descriptions of false teaching which we
find in the NT, especially in the Epistle to the
Colossians, the Pastoral Epistles, the Letters to
the Seven Churches, and the Epistles of John
iq.v.). In the judgment of the present writer, the
identification with a Gnostic tendency seems on the
whole to be probable, but by no means so secure as
to determine without more ado the question of date,
3. Date and authorship. — The determination of
the date is closely connected with the problem of
authorship. There can be no reasonable doubt
that the clause 'the brother of James' (v.') is
meant to identify the author as Jude the Lord's
brother. If the conclusions reached in the pre-
ceding article are correct, this Jude was probably
dead at the latest by A.D. 80. The question
whether the Epistle can have been written so early
is not easy to decide. The author not only dis-
tinguishes himself from the apostles, which the
Lord's brother wotdd naturally have done, but he
looks back on their age as one which has already
passed away (v."), and is conscious that he is living
in 'the last time,' when their prophecy of the
coming of 'mockers' is being fulfilled (v."). The
language has a striking panulel in 1 Jn 2^', and it
would be easier to understand in the closing decade
of the 1st cent, than twenty years earlier. Such
phrases as ' the faith which Mas once for all
delivered unto the saints ' (v.*), or ' your most holy
faith' (v.*), are also more easily intelligible when
the fluid theology of the primitive age was harden-
ing into a definite creed. The external evidence
can be reconciled with either view. It is true that
the earliest attestation of the Epistle is late. If
the usual view is correct, Jude was employed by
the author of 2 Peter ; but, since that work itself
belongs in all probability to a date well on in the
2nd cent., its evidence is of little value on this
point. Jude is reckoned as canonical in the
Muratorian Canon ; it is quoted by Tertullian {de
Cultii Fern. i. 3), Clement of Alexandria {Peed. iii.
8. 44, Strom. iiL 2), and Origen (in Matth. x. 17,
XV. 27, xvii. 30) ; not, however, by Irenieus, Ensebius
(HE iii. 25. 31 ; cf. ii. 23. 25) regards it as one of
the disputed books, and Jerome (a« Vir. illustr. iv. )
tells us that in his time it was rejected by many.
But the lateness of any quotation of it and the
suspicion entertained of it are of little moment.
Its brevity would sutficiently account for the silence
of earlier writers ; the fact that it was not written
by an apostle, or its reference (w.^ •**•) to Jewish
Apocalypses (The Assumption of Moses and The
Book of Enoch), would explain its rejection by
those to whom Ensebius and Jerome refer. These
objections simply rest on a theoretical assumption
of what a canonical work ought to be; no his-
torical evidence lies behind them.
The opening words of the Epistle, 'Jndas, a
660 JUDGE, JUDGING (ETHICAL)
JUDGE, JUDGING (ETHICAL)
serviint of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,'
constitute a weighty argument in favour of tiie
traditional view that it was written by Jude the
Lord's brother. The attempt t« treat this as era-
bodying a false claim deliltcrately made by the
autlior is open to grave objections. Apparently
we have to reckon with the ileliberate aaoj)tion of
a pseudonym by the author of 2 Peter. But this
case is probably solitary in the NT ; and, unless
we are driven to adopt such suggestions, it is de-
sirable to avoid them as far as possible. A part from
this, however, it is not easy to see why the author
should have hit upon a personality so obscure as
Jude. If he did so because the relationship to
James gave iiis name prestige, it might be asked
why he should not have attributed it to James
himself. The suggestion that it was sent to
districts where Jutle had laboured and Avas held
in high regard is exposed to the difliculty tliat the
recipients would naturally ask. How is it that we
hear of this letter for the first time now that Jude
has been some years dead ? We are then reduced
to the alternatives of admitting the authenticity,
or of supposing that the identification with the
Lord's brother was no original part of the Epistle.
If the preceding discussion has pointed to the
Srobability that the false teaching assailed was
Inostic in character, and that other phenomena in
the Epistle make it unlikely that it was earlier
than the closing decade of the 1st cent., the second
alternative must be preferred. In that case the
most probable explanation of the opening words is
that the authors name was really Jude, and that
the phrase ' and brother of James ' was inserted by
a scribe who wislied to make it clear which Jude
was intended. The precise date must of course
remain very uncertam. Nothing compels us to
go below the year a.d. 100. Moreover, the author
has apparently a new situation to deal with. It
ought, however, to be frankly recognized that tiie
Epistle is quite conceivable as the work of Jude
the Lord's brother in the decade A.D. 70-80.
4. Destination. — Nothing is known as to the
destination of the Epistle, nor can anytliing be
inferred with confidence. It is not clear whetlier
the Epistle is cutholic or is addressed to readers in
a definite locality, though the former is perhaps
the more likely view.
LiTBRATuaE.— Commentaries by Huther in Meyer (1852,
Enff. tr. from 4th ed., 1881), Meyer-Kiihl (1897), Meyer-Knopf
Comtuentary to EGT (1910), Hollmann (1907), Windisch (1911) ;
F. Spitta, Derzweite Brief des Petrm undder Brief den Judas,
1885 ; the relevant sections in NT Introductions, especially
those by H. J. Holtzraann (3l89i;) ; A. Jiilicher (nnoo, Enij.
tr., 1904); T. Zahn (Ktiff. tr., 1909, ii.); W. F. Adeney (1899),
and J. Moffatt (1911) ; artt. by F. H. Chase in II DB, SiefiFert
in Piti's, O. Cone in EBi, R. A. Falconer in SDB.
A. S. Peake.
JUDGE, JUDGING (Etliical).— No account of
judging in the Apostolic Church can be complete
which is not based on our Lord's prohibition, 'Judge
not, that ye be not judged ' (Mt 7^"-). This is not
to be interpreted as a disparagement of the intel-
lectual faculty of criticism per se, but as a limita-
tion of it in harmony with the Christian stand-
point. In the corresponding passage in Lk 6, the
repression of the critical spirit is directly associated
with the character of God, who makes no distinc-
tions in His gifts, but is kind and merciful to all
alike. The section in Matthew has rather a
relation to the temper of the Pharisee, which was
supercilious and narrowly strict in its judgments
of others. The Pharisee ' despised others ' ; hence
his incapacity to understand human nature, his
judgments being rooted in contempt. The citi/en
of the Kingdom of Heaven, on the other hand, has
to avoid the censorious temper and make the best
of everyone and everything ; he lias to repress tlie
tendency to be uncharitable ; otherwise, when he
is obliged to utter a moral verdict, it will be of
small weight. But our Lord never countenances
the easy-going tolerance which in effect abrogates
the ri^nt of moral judgment. He does not absolve
His followers from discriminating l>etween right and
wrong — even in the case of a ' brother' (Mt IS'""'") —
and indeed urges upon them the duty of ' binding
and loosing,' condemning and acquitting, according
to the recognized moral standard of the Kingdom.
The teaching of St. James has many echoes of
the ethical injunctionsof our Lord, and the passage
41 "• in his Epistle recalls the spirit, if not the actual
language, ot the Sermon on the Mount. We are
not to indulge in the habit of fault-finding : ' Who
art thou that judgest thy neighbour?' We are
never to judge from any other motive than the
moral improvement of the person judged : we are
to remember our own defects, and to utter our
verdict with a due sense of responsibility ; other-
wise we ' speak against the law and judge the law.'
The Apostle means by this that there is to bo a
proper standard of right and wrong, and not a
subjective criterion formed out of our own likes
and dislikes. If we make our own standard, we
set ourselves above the law-giver and the law.
In similar strain St. Paul writes (Ro 14''), ' Who
art thou that judgest another man's .servant ? To
his own master he standeth or falleth.' The words
are suggested by the relationsiiip between the
' strong ' and the ' weak.' The ' strong,' conscious
of their freedom in Christ, may despise the ' weak,'
who still feel it their duty to continue an ascetic
habit, even though they have accepted Christ ; on
the other hand, the ' weak,' condemning what
seems to them the laxity of the ' strong,' may be
led into the habit of censorious judgment (see
an admirable discourse by A. Souter in ExpT
xxiv. [1912-13] 5ff.). The same Apostle, however,
while thus discountenancing tlie habit of judging
one another, expressly advocates the duty of acting
according to a moral standard in dealing with
moral ofiences. In 1 Co 5, e.g., he condemns the
Corinthians for allowing a case of immorality to
go unchallenged and unjudged. At the same time
the Christian Church is to limit its judgments to
those that are within ; those that are without are
to be left to the judgment of God (1 Co 5'^). It
would appear, then, that the Apostle, while not
absolving the Christian from the duty of judgment
in offences against morality, advocates tlie widest
tolerance in minor matters of everyday life, e.g. in
Ro 14'*"^'* — a passage which closes with the state-
ment : ' we shall all stand before the judgement-
seat of God.'
In the same way the apostolic writers press upon
their readers the duty of discrimination according
to certain standards of right and wrong. They
are to ' test all things and hold fast that which is
right' (1 Th 5'-^, and to 'test the spirits whether
they be of God' (1 Jn 4\ the word SoKifna^tLv being
used, which more definitely suggests the approval
which results from a test or touchstone than the
simpler and more familiar Kplvnv). They are to
pronounce anathema on the proclaimer of ' another '
gospel (Gal P), and to refuse hospitality to a false
teacher, on the ground that a welcome or salu-
tation involves participation in his evil works
(2 Jn i"'-). Thus doctrine, like life and conduct, is
to be brought to the test of a moral standard, and
what is subversive of the person and teaching of
the Lord is to be rejected. 'Happy,' says the
Apostle Paul (Ro 14-), 'is he that judgeth not
himself in that whicii he approvetii ' (ooKifii^ti).
This passage ap])ears to combine the two ideas
whicli enter into the NT treatment of the subject :
the Christian must avoid censorious judgment and
JUDGE, JUDGING (ETHICAL)
JUDGMENT, DAMNATION 661
yet courageously exercise his judgment in the
reahu of ethics and doctrine; he is happy in the
strength of his faith, which enables him so to act
as to escape self-condemnation or misgiving. In
another passage (Ro 14^*) St. Paul plays on the
double use of Kplru, viz. as indicating a hasty
and tmcharitable judgment, and as implying the
determining of a course of conduct for oneself.
' Let us not judge one another any more, bat judge
ye this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock
in his brothers way' — the latter sense being
IKiralleled by 2 Co 2\ ' I formed this judgment or
.determination for myself,' and 1 Co 2- 5^ Tit 3'-.
A similar usage occurs in the famous statement in
2 Co 5'^, ' because we thus judge that if one died for
all,' etc. — the word signifying a conviction that
has been formed out of spiritual experience (cf.
also 1 Co 11^, Avhere there is an appeal to a judg-
ment based on common sense).
For the judgments of others on the Christian
there are two passages worth our notice, viz. Col
2^*, where the false teaching which infected the
Colossian Church is made the subject of warning,
eating and drinking being, according to the
Apostle, mere shadows of the reality, and therefore
not matters on which a judgment should be based —
'let no man take you to task in eating and in
drinking ' : scrupulous ritual and asceticism are a
return to an order of life which the gospel has
rendered obsolete. The other passage is Ja 2^*,
'So speak ye and so do as men that are to be
judged by a law of liberty ' (cf. 1^). This is St,
James's variation on St. Paul's ' law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus ' — not a system of codified
regulations enforced from without, but a law
freely accepted and obeyed as the result of a new
relationship to God. ' It will,' says J. B. Mayor
(The Epistle of St. Jamcs^, 1910, p. 94), 'be a
deeper-going judgment than that of man, for it
will not stop short at particular precepts or at the
outward act, whatever it may be, but will pene-
trate to the temper and motive.' And it destroys
all morbid anxiety and questioning ' as to the exact
performance of each separate precept ' if there has
been true love to God and man. ' The same love
which actuates the true Christian here actuates
the Judge both here and hereafter.'
The reader is referred to a concordance for the
numerous passages in which God or Christ is
spoken of as Judge of humanity ; we have here
limited our sur\ey to the non-forensic side of judg-
ment. There is a passage, however, which calls
for comment, viz, 1 Co 6^ 'Do ye not know that
the saints shall judge the world?' This is to be
taken along with a previous warning in 4*, 'Judge
nothing before the time, until the iXrd come,' etc.
The meaning is that the saints will be associated
with their Lord in the act of judging the world at
the Last Day, and their judgment will be exercised
not only on the world, but on ' angels ' (6*), mean-
ing the hierarchy of evil or fallen spirits. This
doctrine of the future is stated in Rev 20* and lie-
came a rooted conviction of the post-Apostolic
Church, as we see from Euseb. BE ^^. 42, where
the saints are called neroxoi t^s Kpureun aurm;, ' as-
sociates in His judgment.' The Divine Judgeship
is a truth essential to human thought. Experi-
ence deepens the sense of the ignorance and
fallibility attaching to man's judgments. The
epigram tout connaitre c'est tout pardonner is in
effect an expression of human helplessness ; and
the aspiration of David, 'Let me fall now into the
hand of the Lord . . . and let me not fall into the
hand of man' (I Ch 21"), is really the cry of
humanity for ever conscious of the limitations of
its own judgments.
See, further, artt. JUDGMENT and Trial-AT-
Law.
LiTBiUTi-RE.— C. Gore. Sermon on Uu Mount, Loiid<Mi, 1807.
ch. ix. ; J. B. Mayor, The EpiUte of St. Jametii, do. 1897, p.
221; J. R. Seeley, Beee HonuH^^ do. 1S76. ch. ii. ; J.
Martinean. Tjfptt of Btkieal Theoty^, Oxford, ISSS, vol. u.
<*• »• K. AIartin Pope.
JUDGMENT, DAMNATION.— The idea of judg-
ment is involved in that of government : a ruler,
if he is to assert his authority and maintain order,
must call recalcitrants to account. Since the Deity
has always been thought of as exercising some kind
of sovereignty, the idea of judgment may be said
to be co-extensive with that of religion.
1. The OT conception. — Long before the days of
the great prophets, Israel worshipped Jahwe"h as
a God of judgment. Jahweh avenged not only
insults against His own honour, but also deeds of
violence and wrong (Gn 4'^, Jg 9**'*). Justice was
administered in His name, and as the supreme
Judge He saw that right was done. It would,
however, be too much to say that His actions were
regarded as invariably regulated by a regard for
justice. He had His favourites among individuals,
and Israel was His favourite nation (1 S 1", 2 S
12**). In the exercise of His despotic power. He
could act in a certain way simply because it so
pleased Him. For His rejection of Saul and His
surrender of Israel into the hand of the Philistines
the older tradition knew no reason. Not till we
come to the great prophets do judgment and justice
appear as equivalent terms.
The prophetic conception of Divine judgment
can be summed up in a few sentences. Jahweh is
the World-ruler and Judge : not only Israel but all
nations of the earth stand at His "bar (Am 1. 2).
His judgments rest on purely moral grounds and
are absolutely just (Is 28*^ 45^). Even in the case
of Israel, justice must take its course (Am 3*).
Though individuals are occasionally spoken of as
suffering for their private sins, in the main it is
not with the individual but with the nation that
Jahweh reckons. The individual is merged in the
State and shares its fate. The theatre of judg-
ment is this earth : of reward or punishment
beyond death the prophets know nothing. Good
and bad alike descend to Sheol and share the same
bodyless, pithless existence in separation from
Jahweh (Is 14*"^®, Ps 6'). Judgment, at least so
far as Israel is concerned, never appears, except
perhaps in Amos, as an end in itself and the
ultimate law of Jahweh's working. Israel has a
worth in Jahweh's eyes; He refuses to give her
up ; and, when His judgments have accomplished
their disciplining work, salvation will surely follow
(Is 40^ *). That the correspondence between desert
and lot in the existing order is but imperfect, and
salvation an object of hope rather than of experi-
ence, are facts to which the prophets are keenly
alive. But their faith finds refuge in the concep-
tion of a great day in the near future, ' the day of
the Lord,' in which Jahweh will interpose in a
decisive way in human afl'airs, to overthrow His
enemies and inaugurate a new and happier era.
For Israel this day will be one of sifting and
purging, for her oppressors a day of terror and
anguish (Is 2"- ^*, Jl 2"""). To this conception, as
we shall see, the subsequent development attached
itself.
With the Book of Daniel a new chapter opens
in the history of Hebrew eschatology. ' I beheld,'
we read, ' till thrones were placed, and one that
was ancient of days did sit. . . . Thousand thou-
sands ministered unto him, and ten thousand
times ten thousand stood before him : the judg-
ment was set and the books were opened. . . .
And many of them that sleep in the dust of the
earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and
some to shame and everlasting contempt ' (Dn 7"
12*}. Compared with the outlook of the great
662 JUDGMENT, DAMNATION
JUDGMENT, DAMNATION
prophets, this conception of a resurrection of the
dead for judgment and sentence is something alto-
getlier new. Written in the crisis of the Macca-
biean struggle (165 B.C.), the IJook of Daniel forms
tlie first 01 the long series of Jewish Apocalypses.
For an understanding of NT eschatology tliese
writings are of such cardinal importance that it is
necessary to give some account of their leading
ideas.
Apocalyptic had its roots in the hope held up
before Israel by the prophets of a glorious day in
the future, 'the day of^ the Lord,' when her op-
Eressors would be overtlirown, and she, purified by
er suflerings, exalted to a position of unparalleled
splendour and power. Through her fidelity to God
and her supremacy among the nations God's reign
on earth would be visibly realized, and Nature
itself would be made fairer and more generous to
grace the new order. This national hope proved
itself vital enough to survive the most disillusion-
ing experiences, but somewhere in the dark days
of Persian or Greek ascendancy it was subjected
to radical modification, and htted into a world-
view widely difl'erent from tliat to wliich it origin-
ally belonged. The new development was char-
acterized in the first place by a thorough-going
pessimism. In the eyes of apocalyptic writers the
existing world or age is incurably evil, incapable
of being transformed by any conceivable process
of moral renewal into a kingdom of God. Human
beings are in the mass hoi)elessly corrupt, and
wicked men occupy the seats of power. And this
is not all. A portentous development of the belief
in evil spirits lends to apocalyptic pessimism a still
darker hue. The world is the haunt of throngs of
such spirits, who, under Satan their head, form a
demonic hierarchy. With unwearied activity they
prosecute their hellish work, thwarting the will of
the Almighty, hounding on the heathen persecutors
of His people, inciting men to wickedness and
smiting them Avith disease. To these sinister
figures God, by an inscrutable decree, has sur-
rendered the government of the world. Satan is
the world's real master. But, despite this pessi-
mism with regard to the existing order, apocalyptic
writers have no thought of surrendering their faith
in God or in His promise to Israel. Only, tlieir
faith, finding nothing in the present to which it
can attach itself, takes refuge in the future and
becomes eschatological. The present world is
given up to destruction, and religious interest
transferred to the new and glorious world which
God will reveal when the old has been swept away.
With passionate eagerness tlie great catastrophe
that shall open the way for tlie Kingdom is antici-
pated, and the horizon scanned for signs of its
approach. Wlien it arrives, its opening scene Mill
be one of judgment. To tiie bar of the Almighty
the whole world, Jews as well as Gentiles, and—
what is still more significant — the dead as well as
the living, will be gatiiered to answer for the deeds
they have done. The fate of each soul having been
decided, sentence will at once be executed. For
the righteous there is reserved a blessed and death-
less life in the i>resence of God ; for the wicked,
everlasting destruction.
Before leaving Jewish apocalyptic, two points
must be more j)articularly noted as bearing on
questions that will emerge later. The first relates
to the personality of the Judge. In most writings
it is God Himself who is represented as occupying
the throne (Dn T'-*- '^ En. i. 3-9, xc. 20, 2 Es 6" 7*=*).
Sometimes, however, the Messiah or Son of Man
appears as conducting the Judgment in (iod's name
{En. li. 1. 2, Ixix. 27 ; Apoc. Bar. Ixxii. 2). There
was no fixed doctrine on the subject ; the one
matter of importance was that the Judgment was
a Divine Judgment. The second point relates to
the fate of the wicked. Here again we find no
uniform view, except that their fate involves final
and irretrievable ruin. Many passages assume
that only the righteous will be raised from the
dead, lior the sinner deatli will be the end {Ps.-
Sol. iii. 13-16, Apoc. Bar. xxx.). Sometimes, how-
ever, Sheol, into which the dead descend, is itself
transformed into a place of punishment, so that to
be left there does not mean annihilation (Eth. En.
xcviii., xcix., civ.). We have also passages in
which Sheol is the abode of the lost only until
the Day of Judgment, when they are thrust into
Gehenna or hell, to suH'er eternal torment, witli
devils for tlieir companions (En. liii. 3-5, liv. 1. 2).
This belief in a resurrection of tlie dead and
a universal judgment forms a landmark in the
liistory of Hebrew religion. We .see in it the
victory of individualism. It is no longer the
nation but the individual that is the religious unit.
The worth of the individual is recognized, and he
is set solitary before God. How is the rise of the
apocalyptic conception of things to be explained ?
Partly, no doubt, by the calamitous .situation of
the Jewish people under Persian and Greek rule.
A fulfilment of the proplietic promise through the
means that the prophets had in view — inner reform,
political revolution, a victorious leader — no longer
seemed within the range of possibility. God had
ceased to speak to the people through the living
voice of prophecy, and a feeling was abroad that
He had forsaken the earth. This explanation is,
however, only partial. The pessimism and dualism
of the ajiocalyptic world-view, its demonology and
angelology, its conception of a death-struggle be-
tween the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of
God, its conception of a resurrection from the dead
and a Final Judgment, can be accounted for only on
tlie hypothesis of I'ersian influence.
2. In the teaching of Jesus. — So far as its
outward form is concerned, Jesus' conception of
judgment and punishment is wholly on apocalyptic
lines. The Judgment will come at the end of the
world ; it will be a judgment of individuals ; and
it will be universal (Mt 22'=* le^^). The sentence
f)ronounced will be final : nowhere do we find a
lint of future probation. With respect to the
person of tlie Judge, Jesus follows the tradition
that assigns the oihce to the Son of Man. ' For
the Son of man shall come in the glory of his
Father with his angels ; and then shall he render
unto every man according to his deeds' (Mt 16^
13^' 25'M. No particular significance is, however,
attached to this fact : the emphasis falls, not on
the personality of the Judge, but on the judgment
He conducts. What is Jesus' teaching with regard
to the doom of the lost? Uniformly He follows
the tradition that regards them as consigned to
Gehenna or hell (Mt 522- 2» lO-'S 18»). And, as in
apocalyptic, Gehenna appears as a fiery furnace in
which the wicked sufler unending torment (Mt 5^,
IJc 16^, Mt 25^"). Jesus is no theologian, but
something incomparably greater. In the main He
appropriates the conceptions of His time, modify-
ing or rejecting them only when they conflict with
some vital religious or ethical interest. What is
original in His teaching is not the theological con-
ceptions but the new content with which they are
charged. If His conception of the Judgment and
of punishment is in formal respects that of Jewish
anocalyptic, the spirit of which it is the vehicle is
all His own. New is the moral earnestness Avith
which He brings each individual soul face to face
with the righteous Judge. ' And be not afraid of
tliem which kill tlie body, but are not able to kill
the soul : but ratlier fear him whidi is able to
destroy Ixith .soul and body in hell' (Mt 10^).
New also is the moral purity with which the con-
ception of judgment is cariied out. Everything
JUDGMENT, DAMNATION
JUDGMENT, DAMNATION 663
national and sectarian falls away. Of a mechanical
balancing of good and bad actions we hear nothing.
The one test is character, and character in its
deepest principle — the love in which lies the root of
all morality and all religion. ' I was an hungred,
and ye gave me meat : 1 was thirs-ty, and ye gave
me drink. . . . Inasmuch as ye did it nnto one of
these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto
me' (Mt 25**^-)- And what is true of Jesus' teach-
ing about judgment is true also of His teaching
about punishment. The element of originality is
to be found not in the formal conceptions but in
the spirit they enshrine. In the descriptions of
hell in Jewish apocalyptic embittered national and
ecclesiastical feeling is at least as much in evidence
as moral hatred of iniquity. Far otherwise is it
when we turn to Jesus. What comes to expression
in His almost fierce words regarding the fate of the
wicked is His buraing indignation against all high-
handed sin, particularly against hypocrisy and
heartlessness, His deep sense of the infinite and
eternal diflerence between right and wrong, His
immovable conviction that the first means ever-
lasting life to a man and the second everlasting
death. ' And if thy hand or thy foot canseth thee
to stumble, cut it off and cast it from thee : it is
good for thee to enter into life maimed or halt,
rather than ha\-ing two hands or two feet to be
east into the eternal fire ' (Mt IS*).
3. In the Apocalypse of John. — We begin our
study of the apostolic writings with the Apocalypse
of John, not because it is the earliest of these writ-
ings— in its present shape it cannot be dated before
A.D. 95 — but because the description it gives of the
events of the End is by far the most detailed, and
because we are probably justified in regarding it as,
in the main, representative of primitive Christian
views. In his programme of eschatological events
the writer follows closely his Jewish models. At
His Parousia, Christ avlII smite the nations of the
earth assembled against Him in battle, and pre-
pare the way for His millennial reign (19^1-20*).
The close of this reign will see a last uprising of
the powers of evil, ending in their utter and final
overthrow (20''-^''). Then will come the general
resurrection and the Judgment (20"'i*). The
Judgment, which is universal in its scope, is con-
ducted not by Christ but by God (20"). Men are
judged 'according to their works,' and out of
certain books, one being singled out by name as
' the Book of Life.' The books contain a record of
the deeds, good and bad, of each individual : the
Book of Life is the list of God's elect people. Ex-
ceedingly brief is the account of the fate of the re-
ftrobate. 'Death and Hades were cast into the
ake of fire . . . and if any was not found ^vritten
in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of
fire.' Though the writer describes this as 'the
second death.' it is clear that he is thinking not of
annihilation but of an eternity of sullering (14i*- ").
It must be admitted that the Book of Revelation
does not everj-where maintain the high level of the
Christian spirit. It comes to us from a time when
the Church was passing through the same harrow-
ing experiences as were the lot of the Jewish
people in the daj's when apocalyptic had its birth.
And in the one case as in the other persecution
has resulted in an exacerbation of feeling and a
narrowing of sympathy.
i. In St. Paul.— For'St. Paul as for the Christian
community in general the Last Judgment is a great
and dread fact with which believer and unljeliever
have equally to reckon. He knows the terror of
the Lord (2 Co 5"). ' We must all be made manifest
before the judgment-seat of Christ ; that each one
may receive the things done in the body, according
to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad '
(2 Co 5»», Ro 2*-" W>, 1 Co 3« 4'). In this and in
the majority of relevant passages it is Christ who
sits as Judge. But that the point is not regarded
as dogmatically fixed is shown by the fact that the
Apostle can also speak of God as the Judge (Ko
2^ " 14'*). What 18 his teaching with respect to
the fate of the w icked ? The Book of Revelation
^ves us two pictures — one of the redeemed in
Paradise, the other of devils and condemned souls
in the lake of fire. Of the second picture there is
not a single trace in the Pauline Epistles. The
wicked simply disappear from the scene, the nature
and term of their punishment being left shrouded
in obscurity. By bringing together a number of
scattered indications we may, however, arrive at a
fairly certain notion of what the Apostle thinks
regarding their fate. That he contemplates a
universal restoration is an idea that may at once
be put aside. Support has, indeed, been sought
for it in certain statements of a general character :
'As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all
be made alive,' 'God hath shut up all nnto dis-
obedience that he might have mercy upon all'
(I Co 15% Ro 1132, Col 1", Eph 1'"). But such
statements cannot be pressed in their letter against
the multitude of passages that assert in unambigu-
ous terms the final ruin of the ungodly (Ro 2*- i*,
Ph 3^8, 2 Th 1*). They are but examples of the
Apostle's sweeping and antithetical way of putting
things. Quite decisive against the idea of restora-
tion is the fact that nowhere do we find a single
syllable that suggests future probation.
One point only is open for argument, whether
the Apostle has in his mind anniliilation or an
eternity of suiiering. With regard to this, the
words used in describing the fate of the wicked are
not in themselves decisive. Of these words the
two most important, both from the frequency of
their occurrence and from their intrinsic signifi-
cance, are 'death' {Odyarcn) and 'destruction'
(dxtiXeta). Death is for St. Paul sin's specific
penalty, its wages (Ro 5^* 6"- ** 8*). What does
the term connote? Not necessarily annihilation,
since, according to current ideas, the dead descended
into Hades to lead there a wretched phantasmal
existence. We can take from it nothing more
than this — the loss of all that gives to life its
value, the loss of all that is signified by salvation.
Not materially ditterent is the connotation of the
term 'destruction.' The wicked are brought to
utter ruin, swept from the place of the living and
the presence of God. But, if a study of terms
leaves the question of annihilation or eternal
suffering an open one, the general tenor of the
Apostle's thought points conclusively to the former
alternative. Weight must be attached to the fact
of an absence of any reference to a place of tor-
ment. The tribulation and anguish of Ro 2* need
refer to nothing beyond the experience of destnic-
tion. On two things only does St. Paul lay stress
— that the wicked have no inheritance in the
Kingdom of God, and that they are cleared off'
the face of the world. Still more decisive is this
other fact — that the universe he contemplates as
the goal of redemption is one reconciled to God in
aU its parts. If the demonic powers are not ulti-
mately reconcile*!, as in one passage he seems to
indicate (Col 1'"), they are abolished (1 Co 15").
Grod becomes all in all. St. Paul leaves us with
the vision of a world that is without a devil and
without a hell, without a shadow on its brightness
or a discord in its harmony.
The Apostle's allusions to the Judgment are
neither few nor ambiguous, yet we have to take
account of the perplexing fact that, in those pass-
ages where he gives a detailed programme of the
End, not only is all reference to the great event
omitted, but no place seems to be left for it. In
1 Th 4**"" we read of a resurrection of believers
664 JUDGMENT, DAMNATION
JUDGMENT-SIi:AT
wlio have died and of a gathering of these and of
living believers to meet the Lord in the air and be
for ever with Him, but there is no mention of a
resurrection of the wicked and a Final Jud^jnient.
These events seem to be excluded. So is it also
in 1 Co 15^"^. Though the picture here is more
detailed, the resurrection of the wicked and the
Judgment find no place in it. And in 2 Co G'^"
and Ph 1-' the Apostle speaks as if death at once
ushered tlie believer into the presence of Ciirist.
To dei)art is to be with Christ. Here not only the
Judgment, but the whole drama of the End, in-
cluding the Parousia, falls away. How are we to
account for this perplexing fact? That St. Paul
ever consciously broke with the apocalyptic tradi-
tion in any of its main features is incredible. In
Philippians, one of the later Epistles, he still bids
his readers expect the Parousia (4*). More can be
said for the hypothesis that his ardent longing
for union with Christ leads him to overleap inter-
vening events and liasten to the goal. This, how-
ever, is not tlie Avhole exi)lanation. The truth is
that there are elements in the Apostle's thought
which, though he is hardly conscious of tlie fact,
are carrying liim away from the apocalyptic scheme.
In Judaism the Judgment has its main significance
as the instrument for eHecting a separation be-
tween the righteous and the wicked. But for St.
Paul this separation has already been virtually
effected. By tlie fact of their unbelief the wicked
are already condemned ; by the fact of their faith
the righteous are already justilied. It is true that
the Apostle does not think of the believer's present
state of salvation as absolute. But against this
we have to set the emphasis which he places on
the element of assunance. ' Who is he that shall
condemn ? It is Christ Jesus that died ! ' Had the
Judgment been to St. Paul all that it was to a
pious Jew, he could hardly, in his account of the
End and in his contemplation of death, have left
it unnoticed. In the Fourth Gospel, to Avhich we
now turn, this drift from apocalyptic is much more
pronounced.
5. In the Fourth Gospel.— No more than St.
Paul does the writer of the Fourth Gospel con-
template a formal breacii with the traditional
apocalyptic ideas. 'The hour cometh,' Christ is
represented as saying, ' in which all that are in
the tombs shall hear his (the Son of man's) voice,
and shall come forth ; they that have done good
unto the resurrection of life, and they that have
done ill unto the resurrection of judgment' (5-^- -" ;
cf. 12«, 1 Jn 4'"). But, if the Evangelist yields
this reco^ition to traditional views, his own
peculiar thought moves on other lines. The judg-
ment on Avhich the stress falls is that which Christ
accomplished in the course of His earthly ministry
and is always accomplishing. While He lived on
earth, He was already invested with the sovereign
power to judge. ' For judgment I am come into
the world, that they which see not might see, and
that they which see might be made blind ' (9^* 5^
gis. 16 1231). jf passages appear in which He is
made to disclaim the office of Judge — ' I came not
to judge the world but to save the world' — they
are added in order, by seeming contradiction, to
drive thought deeper (12^'' 5" 3'^). His real pur-
pose is, indeed, to save, but none the less His ap-
pearance in the world has the inevitable result
that a separation is efiected between the children
of light and the children of darkness. The former
are attracted to Christ, to find in Him their salva-
tion ; the latter are renelled and driven into hos-
tility. In the attituae which a man takes up
towards Christ he is already judged. ' This is the
condemnation that light is come into the world,
but men loved the darkness rather tiian the light'
(3'"). In the matter of doom we find a similar
siiifLing of tlie centre of gravity from the future to
the present. Sin's real punishment is not physical
death or even suHering, but exclusion from the
higher life that comes into being through the birth
from above. ' He that heareth my word . . . hath
eternal life, and cometh not into judgement, but hath
pa.ssed out of death into 1 ife ' (5-*). The popular notion
of hell disappears as completely as in St. Paul.
But notwithstanding this spiritualizing train of
thought, the traditional ai)ocalyptic notions — the
Parousia, a resurrection of the just and unjust,
final judgment by Christ and eternal punishment
for the lost — succeeded in maintaining themselves
in the Church's faith. Not till the introduction of
the idea of purgatory do we meet with any import-
ant modilication of this scheme. And it was not
till the beginning of the 3rd cent., with Origen,
Cyprian, and the Gregorys, that the idea of
jmrgatory began to emerge.
6. Only one other point, and that of minor im-
portance, remains to be noted. Not a few early
Christian writers speak of a descent of Christ into
Hades and a preaching to tlie dead. In 1 P 3""'"
it is the disobedient of the days of Noah to whom
Christ brings the message of salvation ; in Irenajus
(IV. xxvii. 2) it is the Patriarchs ; in Marcion (Iren.
I. xxvii. 3) it is Cain, the Sodomites, Egyptians,
and other heathen. It is imjirobable tliat tiiis con-
ception was a creation of the Church ; rather have
Ave to think of the adoption and Christianizing of
a current pagan myth of a saviour-god descending
into the under world to wrest the sceptre from its
powers. The mythological details are stripped ott,
and Christ's mission becomes one of preaching to
those from whom in their lifetime the gospel had
been withheld. Also from the ranks of the dead
Christ will win His trophies. Judged according to
men in the flesh, they will live according to God in
tlie Spirit (1 P 4*) (see W. Bousset, Ki/rios Christos,
1913, p. 32 ff.). See, further, art. De.scent INTO
Hades.
Literature. — R. H. Charles, Efichatnlortji : Hebrew, Jewish,
and Christian, 1S99 ; P. Volz, ./(('/. Egchalolorjie von Daniel bis
Akiba, 190:i ; A. Harnack, History of Dogma, Eng. tr., i. [1894]
and ii. [1S96]. W. MORGAN.
JUDGMENT-HALL.— In ancient times justice
was dispensed in the open, usually in the market-
place, near the city gate. With the development
of civic life, however, special courts of justice
began to be built. Thus Solomon had his ' throne-
room ' or portico erected within the complex of his
palace buildings (1 K 7'), where justice continued
to be administered no doubt till the latest period
of the Monarchy. The Sanhedrin also convened
for judgment in the ' Hall of Hewn Stone' on the
south side of the great court of the Temple. In
Rome, too, the Imperial Age saw the law-courts
transferred to basilica;, or open colonnades near
the Forum, and finally to closed halls, where cases
were heard in secret {in sccretario). The adminis-
tration of justice in basilica; has been traced to
Pompeii and other centres of Boman life, but was
apparently not the custom in Palestine, the word
translated 'judgment hall' in the AV (Jn is^-*^
19', Ac 23^) being really vpanupiov or palace.
A. R. Gordon.
JUDGMENT-SEAT.— The judge invariably sat
on a special 'seat' or throne. Thus Jerusalem
and the smaller cities alike had their ' thrones for
judgement' (Jg 4^, 1 K V, Ps 122\ etc.). In Rome
magistrate and jury were seated together on the
raised tribunal, or ' Ijench,' the magistrate on his
sella curnlis, or ' chariot seat,' specially associated
with the Roman impcriitm. The cusrom extended
.also to the Provinces. In the NT Kpirripia (' tri-
bunals ') is used of law-courts generally (in 1 Co 6'-- ■•
and Ja 2*), while PvM-O't lit- ' step, ' seat ' (for
JULIA
JUSTICE
665
parties in a law-suit), is applied to the 'judg-
ment-seat ' not only of the Emj>eror (Ac 25'**), but
also of the governors Pilate (Mt 27»», Jn 19'*),
Gallio (Ac 18'-- 1") and Festus (25«- "), and even
metaphorically of God (Ro W>) and Christ (2 Co
S*"). See, further, Tkial-at-Law.
A. R. Gordon.
JULIA ('loi'Xto, Ro 16", a Latin name, the femi-
nine form of Julius [the name of a famous Roman
gens]. Both of these were extremely common
names. The name Julia is very frequently found
as a name of female slaves belonging to the Im-
perial household). — A woman saluted by St. Paul
and coupled with Philologus. They maj' liave
been brother and sister, or more probably husband
and wife. Other couples saluted in Ro 16 are
Aquila and Prisca (v.^, the order being, however,
'Prisca and Aquila'), perhaps Andronicus and
Junia (v." ; see JuxiAS), and Kerens and his sister
(v."). It has been conjectured that the names in
this verse are those of persons forming a Christian
family with a household church (koi tows ffup avroh
rdmrat ayiovs). If this be so, Philologus and Julia
Avere perhaps the parents of Nereus and his sister
(Nerias) and Olympas, and the leaders of the little
community which gathered for worship at their
home (cf. v.^, where a married couple are saluted as
' fellow-labourers ' with the Apostle, and the salu-
tation includes 'the church which assembles at
their house'). The locality to which we assign
this circle of Christians will depend upon our view
of the destination of Ro 16^^. Nothing further is
known of any of these persons.
T. B. All WORTHY.
JULIUS (lovXtos). — After the decision of Festus
to send St. Paul to Rome, he was entrusted to the
care of a ' centurion named Julius of the Augustan
cohort ' (Ac 27^"^). The Apostle was treated with
kindness and consideration by the centurion, who,
although he disregarded St. Paul's advice as to
the place of wintering (vv.^'^), deferred to his
recommendation regarding cutting away the boat
(v."), and, in order to save him, refused to allow
the soldiers to kill the prisoners (v.-'^). On arriv-
ing in Rome Julius handed over his prisoner to
the ' captain of the guard ' (28'®). !Much discussion
has gathered round the phrase 'Augustan cohort'
to which Julius belonged. Ramsay regards it as
probable that .Julius belonged to the corps of official
couriers, employed as emissaries to various parts
of the Empire — the peregritii ; and the ' captain
of the guard' is supposed to have been their
commanding officer (see artt. Baxd, Augustan
Band).
As Julius was the family name of the members
of the Roman Imperial house, it was assumed by
many of tlie vassal kings from the days of Julius
Caesar onwards. It was borne by all the Jewisli
princes from Antipater, the father of Herod the
Great. Josephus mentions a Julius Archelaeus,
son-in-law of Agrippa I. (Ant. XIX. is. 1; cf.
Schiirer, i. 561, also index, p. 69).
LrreR.\TrRB.--R. J. Knowling:, EGT, ' Acts,' 1900, p. 516 ;
W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 1S95, p. 315 ; E.
Schiirer, GJ V* i. [1901] 460-462. W. J-, BOYD.
JUNIAS, JUNIA (Ro 16^).— A person saluted by
St. Paul and coupled Avith Andronicus, As the
name occurs in the accusative (lowlav), it may
be Junias, a masculine name contracted from
Junianus, or Junia, a common feminine name ; in
either case a Latin name. If the name is that of
a woman, she was the sister, or more likely the
wife, of Andronicus. Other couples saluted in Ro
16 are Aquila and Prisca (v.', the order, however,
being ' Prisca and Aquila'), Philologus and Julia,
Nereus and his sister (v.'*). Andronicus and
Junia(s) are described as ' kinsmen ' of the Apostle,
as his ' fellow-prisoners,' as * of note among the
apostles,' and as having become Christians before
St. Paul (see Axdroxicus). It is surely not at
all impossible that St. Paul should include a
woman among the apostles in the wider sense of
accredited missionaries or messengers, a position
to which their seniority in the faith may have
called this pair. So Ciirysostom understood the
words (Horn, in S. Pattli Ep. ad Rom.).
T T$ At lw^orthy
JUPITER (Ac 14«» [RVni 'Zeus'] 19» [AV
and RV ' the image which fell down from Jupiter ' ;
RVm ' from heaven ']). — The Oriental setting of
the events which took place at Lystra is strongly
evident in the first of these passages. The miracle
of healing at once causes the barbarians to suppose
that the gods had come to pay them a \Tsit, and
the impassive Barnabas is regarded as the chief.
' True to the oriental character, the Lycaonians
regarded the active and energetic preacher as the
inferior, and the more silent and statuesque figure
as the leader and principal ' (W. M. Ramsay, The
Church in the Boman Empire, 1893, p. 57 n.). It
was not that such visits were supposed to be
common, but a well-known legend (Ovid, Metam.
viii. 626 If. ; cf. Fasti, v. 495 ff.) told of such a visit,
when the aged couple Philemon and Baucis had
alone received the august visitors and had been
suitably rewarded ; this had been localized in
several districts. The people cried out in the
speech of Lycaonia, and the original name of the
local god given by them to Barnabas has been
here replaced by the Greek equivalent, Zeus. In
v.^ Codex Bezie has a slightly different phrase
which reads, ' the temple of Zeus-before-the-city.'
The participle in the phrase tov tvros Aim Upor^Xews
is used in a way characteristic of Acts, viz.
to introduce some title or particular phrase, and
we must consider that D is correct here. Zockler
(ad loc.) and Ramsay (op. cit. p. 51 f.) compare an
inscription at Claudiopolis which has Zeus Pro-
astios (i.e. ' Jupiter-before-the-town '). The title
here, then, is Propoleos, which is actually found
in an inscription at Smyrna. The Temple would
be outside the city proper, and it is not quite
clear whether 'the gates' where the sacrifice was
prepared were those of the Temple, or of the city,
or of the dwelling-house of the apostles. It is
most probable that the Temple is referred to, the
gates being chosen as a special place for the offer-
ing of a special sacrifice (Ramsay).
Baur, Zeller, Overbeck, and Wendt regard the
whole incident as unhistorical, since such people
would rather have considered that the miracle-
workers were magicians or demons. But the local
legends give ample support to the text.
In 19*^ the translation should follow RVm : ' the
image which fell down from the clear sky.'
LITKBAT0RB.— See R. J. Knowling:, EGT, 1900, ad loc; A.
C. McGi£Eert, AposMie Age, 1S97, p. 189 f.
F. W, WOESLEY.
JUSTICE. — In his analysis of justice (5t<ccuo<nJn;),
Aristotle (Xicomachean Ethics, bk. v.) distin-
guishes the justice which is co-extensive with
virtue — is, in fact, 'perfect virtue' — from the
special justice which consists in fairness of dealing
with our neighbours. The NT writers use the
word StKaioffC'VT) almost exclusively in the former
sense, connecting it with the righteousness of God
(see Righteousness). The les.ser righteousness is,
however, included under the greater ; and though
the emphasis is laid on mercy or love as ' the ful-
filling of the law ' (Ro 13'"), justice is also recog-
nized as a duty towards Him who is ' just ' as well
as the merciful ' justifier ' of them that believe (see
Love). Thus the Apostle enumerates ' things just '
(offtt B'tKaia) in his catalogue of Clu-istian virtues
(Ph 4*). He urges hb readers likewise to set their
666
JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIFICATION
thoughts (in tliat which is ' honoiimble ' or ' seemly '
(/taXd), not only in the sight of the Lord, but also
in tlie sigiit of men (Ro 12'^ 2 Co 8" 13'). This
Cliristian justice covers the whole round of life.
AH men are entitled to their full dues, alike of
tribute, custom, fear, honour, service and wage.
The Christian master respects the honournotmerely
of his wife and children, but even of his slaves (Epli
S'-""-, Col S"'"'-). The servant also deals justly with
his master, not stealing or purloining, as heathen
slaves were wont to do, but ' with good will doing
service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men ' (Eph
e'"^-, Col 3--'"-, Tit 2"'«^-, 1 P 2'8ff-). For such service
the labourer is worthy of an honest wage (1 Ti 5'*,
2 Ti 2*"). The .same principle applies to the preacher
of the gospel, even thougn he refu.se to accept his
privileges ( 1 (^o Q""^- ). In their relations as citizens,
Christian men are actuated by the most sensitive
regard for honour. Though he stands for Christian
freedom, the Apostle feels morally obliged to send
back Philemon s slave, however lielpful he found
him to be ; and he further takes on his own
shoulders full liability for Onesimus' misdeeds
(Philein '*"''•). In order that public justice may
be upheld, too, the Christian is urged to pray for
kings and all in high places of authority (1 Ti 2"-),
and to be subject to all tiieir ordinances for the
Lord's sake (Tit 3"-, 1 P 2'3»f-). But he himself
is entitled to justice before the law. No man
suHered more for his Master's sake than St. Paul ;
and no one wrote more serious words on the sin
of litigiousness (1 Co 6'^-)' Yet, in defence of his
just rights as a citizen, he not only asserted liis
lioman freedom (Ac 16^' 22'-'-^ 25'"), but defended
himself before the courts to the very last (Ac
24iotf. 25io>-, 2 Ti 4'«f-). For to him the courts were
there to secure justice for all. See Trial- at-Law.
A. R. Gordon.
JUSTIFICATION.— 1. Considerations on the his-
tory of the doctrine.— Justification by faith formu-
lates the distinctive principle of Protestantism. It
has been a war-cry and word of passion, and embodies
a spiritual and theological conflict. It claimed to
be an advance on the Catholic idea, as more true
to apostolic experience and more adequate to the
sinner's need. It is advisable at the outset to
investigate this claim as preparatory to a dispas-
sionate analysis of the apostolic doctrine. Justifica-
tion is a complex conception. Neitlier in Luther
nor in the Council of Trent are ambiguities and
inconsistencies Avanting. The combatants on both
sides in subsequent controversy have in consequence
easily fallen into serious misunderstandings. The
vital current re-animating modern religious theory
is disclosing tiie fact,* and producing a better-
proi)ortioned!perspective. Kid of the war-dust, we
see clearly the salient features of the main respec-
tive ])Ositions and their conspicuous divergences.
What are these? It is a rich, fresh experience
Luther describes in his finest statement of his
faith. The Liberty of the Christian Man. It finds
no commensurate exposition in the liUtheran or
Reformed Confessions. Luther himself was no
theologian ; and his varying expressions are diffi-
cult to harmonize. But the tenclency of his teach-
ing is plain. t The character of Tridentine teach-
ing is as plain. Luther's is aus eincm Git$se(' of
one mould '), born of an intense travail of soul. The
Catholic, polemical in import and comprehensive
of aspect, has in view efficient discipline of souls.
Grace, according to Luther, is known in personal
relationsiiip with Christ {Com. on Gal 2*) ; it is a
sense of God's favour ; it saves from God's wrath ;
* Cf. particularly inter rnxUtos alim Ritschl in his great work,
Die ehristl. Lehre von der Reeht/ertigimg und Versuhnung,
Bonn, 1870-74, i. and iii.
f For Luther's works consult the Erlanjren ed., 1820 ff. ; H.
Wace and C. A- Buchheim, LiUher's Primary Workt, London.
1800.
it saves at once and wholly by God's free mercy, is
a complete and perfect thing, conditioned upon
faith, bringing with it assurance of salvation (see
Against Latomus). It is, in his own words, ' the
favour of God not a quality of soul' (ib. 489),
identical with forgiveness, release from His wrath,
enjoyment of His favour, a present status rather
than a new character. To receive such "race is to
be justified. The Council of Trent* defines it«
doctrine in reference to three questions : the
manner of gaining justification, of maintaining it,
and of regaining it when lost through mortal sin.
The answers are that it is gained in baptism,
through which are received not only remission of
sins but sanctification and renewal of the inner
man (sess. vi. ch. 7) ; it is maintained by perform-
ance of good works, keeping the commandments of
God and the Church, resulting in an increase of
justification (ch. 10) ; it is regained by penance
and penitential 'satisfactions' (ch. 14). 'That
which truly justifies the heart is grace, which
is daily created and poured into our hearts '
(J. Fischer's Refutation of Luther, 1523). Grace on
this view is a Divine substance,t ex ojierc operato
imparted, increased by man's aid, dependent on
faith and good works as co-ordinate in worth, all
part and parcel of the same idea, ' the infusion
of grace ' — the novel feature in Catholic dogma.
Catholic dogma, equally with Protestant, safe-
guards the Divine initiative and the work of Christ,
but neither the honour of Christ nor individual
assurance, since, concerning the former, Christ,
though His righteousness is available for our salva-
tion, is not regarded as indwelling in us as our
Righteousness ; and, concei'ning the latter, the
organized machinery of means of grace brings in
all the elements of uncertainty, leaving the doctrine
unsatisfactory in the most crucial point. Luther's is
a purely religious conception, vastly deeper within
its limits than the other, com[>rising not only pardon
of sin and escape from the Divine wrath, but peace
of conscience and assurance of salvation. Its weak-
est features are the idea of faith, which is limited
to belief and trust in Christ's satisfaction, apart
from subjective appropriation of its experience
through the indwelling Christ which faith makes
possible, and the resulting unbridged chasm be-
tween justification and sanctification ; and the
lack of any really vital relation between the new
status and the new character of the justified.^
Judged by the standard of apostolic truth, both
fall short. In the apostolic consciousness justifica-
tion is more than merely God's favour or pardon of
sins : it is release from the power as well as guilt
of sin, a new character, in principle at least, with
the new status. Therein the Catholic opposition
to Luther was justified. But the new character is
erroneously regarded by Catholicism as the gradual
transformation of human nature (which is sanctifi-
cation), a process in this life always incomplete,
and liable to be imperilled by stagnation and
lapse. Nor are the Catholic formula; adequate to
the profoundly spiritual and final representations
in apostolic exjierience of the acts and operations
of grace in the believing heart through the instru-
mentality of Christ's Person and Spirit. This,
however, is a deficiency only in theology; it is
compensated for in actual religious practice in the
Sacrifice of the Mass, where faith is more genially
receptive and heartfelt devotion more warmly
active in realizing the real presence of Christ in
all His justifying force. The Mass is to the creed
♦The best ed. of the 'Decrees' of Trent is that of A. L.
Richter and F. Scliulte, Lcipzisr. 1853.
t For the recent ideas of Catholic divines on justification see
art. in CE.
} For Luther's doctrinal position consult J. Kostlin, Life oj
Luther, Eng. tr., London, 1883, and T. .M. Lindsay, Luther and
the Gertnan Reformation, Edinburgh, 1900.
JUSTIFICATK )X
JUSTIFICATION
667
in the lloiuau >.y>U'm \vh: ak, * Hebrews'
i.-> to ■ Kum;u;> ' in I'auli; i.
2. The problem of jostificatiou. -Ju-stiiication is-
a religious jnobleni, the answer to an interior
inqxiiry of Christian experience. The OT cry,
'How is man just with God?' Ls deepened in the
NT: 'How is God gracions?' and 'How are we
sure of His grace ?" That again is the problem
of fellowship with Go<l — the most engrossing of
modern quests. Of fellowsliip with God the very
foundation and certaintj- is justilication. In con-
sequence motlem spiritual philosophy is eagerly
interested. It is better equipped to cope with the
exquisitely delicate character of the inquiry than
any past age. The modem idea of Divine imma-
nence in Natxire and man adds immeasurably to our
perception of the nature of the human spirit, its
workings, their relation to the Divine Spirit ; and
furnishes a key to the representation and recon-
struction of inner soul-processes beyond the appar-
atus of the older theology. The mystical emotion
is its highest form, and is no exceptional super-
addition to man's nature ; rather it is his natui-al
consummation. It is not merely the secret action
of the mind upon itself ; while an inborn instinct,
it comes to distinct form and growth from causes
objective to itself, operating on it by the inwork-
ing of external and historical circumstance and
the exercise and outworking of ethical faculty.
Psychologically it is not of the ordinary emotive
life : it is higher, inclusive of all the parts of human
nature, gathering up into it-self adl those inner
powers in w hose interplay under its guidance and
inspiration in one harmonious unity its life consists.
In operation it is w holly personal, conscious, ener-
getic, intensely individual. Into it entere the force
of historic fact, out of it passes the power of moral
life ; but itself is a self inbreathing the one, out-
breathing the other. The constitution of this self
is the modem construction of justification. The
life of that self is commtmion with God ; justifica-
tion is its origin and basis.
What is the origin? — the Divine graciousness t
(Luther) or Divine grace (Catholic) ; a ' reckoning
righteous,' or a 'making righteous '^T by God?
Neither of these alternatives standing solitary is
to-day an intelligible concept applicable to the
Di\Tjae or the human personality ; nor is the one
or the other a felt fact of religious experience, the
ultimate test of every theory. These are otiose
ideas, as useless as absolute ideas. God and His
grace cannot be otiose. ' He speaks and it is done.'
His grace is at once, as grace, prescient and pre-
venient, operans and co-operans, sufficient and
efficient, and cannot be defined in merely legal or
logical terms, or, in fact, in anjthing short of that
' interpenetration of essence ' of God's self or char-
n,rpr.< with man's self or character, bestowing on
profoundest promise and potency ; and
translating it into the status and char-
acter of life tlv -anctitied after His image,
and on His in: What Protestant thought
clumsily enclose-^ \Mtiuii two notions, 'justification '
and * imputation,' l: may be regarded under one
more modern — ' development.' Then, man's self is
appreciated from the Divine standpoint, as God
saw creation in its first being, not as it actually is
in present attainment, nor as it will be in perfect
fruition, but as it is ideally becoming when put
upon the right basis and in the right atmosphere,
• See f 3, V. ' Hebrews.'
t This is the sense of ' grace ' in Luther ; cf. A. C. McGififert,
Protestant Thought before Kant, London, 1911, p. 23.
t The familiar contrast between Romanist and Protestant ideas.
§ The only adequate phrase to denote the NT conception of
the relation of the ransomed soul to its Redeemer.
n Imputation is specially offensive to modem ethical sensitive-
ness ; the sense of responsibility insists that each is himself,
not another.
the condition we find in ' the stature of a perfect
man ' — Christ — the root and direction rather than
the end or goal determining the judgment of its
character. That appreciation is justification.
The faculty of self 1 ' exercise the new
-tatus and generation ; id is 'faith.' By
' faith ' the Divine Life >. ,. ^... i.u man's soul and
Divine truth becomes power. Faith here is more
than spiritual insight, it is spiritual grasp; more
than a receptive force, it is also the bestowing fact,
softening the harsh independence of these two
realities. The truth is that every approach of
God to man has a true tendency to create the faith
Avithout which the approach can never become a
real entrance. Faitli is man's welcome of Him,
created in man's heart, as the face of a friend
coming towards us reclaims us for his friendship.
Paith again is more than assent or trust : it is the
sotd's entrance into healthy relationship to Him
who is its true life ; an entrance fuUer or weaker
according to the soul's capacity, and ever growing
with the sovd's growth. Faith thus understood
widens its mental and emotional constituents.
God and man underneath all obscuring media are
of like nature ; God is the ' element ' of man's true
life.* God is unceasingly solicitous in seeking
man, and, finding man reciprocate, apprehends
him, but as Life apprehending life, or the ocean
refreshing the tide's eddy, or the tree qiuckening
the branch. The term 'justification' may be
technically a juridical one, but that which it aims
at expressing is in idea and fact a spiritual trans-
action unexpressible in forensic terms, not even
conceivable as a process having acts and stages.
It may better be compared to a gem + having many
facets, simidtaneous, not successive, and glowing
in enhancing splendotir with every ftirther advance
into light. This is the essence of the idea in believ-
ing experience. It is also the essence of the idea
in the apostolic conscience — the love of God seek-
ing the love of man and finding it.J
3. The apostolic doctrine of justification. — The
apostolic doctrine is characterized by a singular
originality, comprehensiveness, self - consistency,
and spirituality. Its systematic statement is elabo-
rate, developing itself consciously along three lines
— exp^eutial, historical, speculative. A careful
analysis is necessary to separate its essential sub-
stance and abiding cogency from their first local
form. Its originality is evident when compared
with similar ideas in ethnic and Jewish religion ;
its comprehensive and self-consistent character by
the exhibition of its contents; its spirituality by
the demonstration of its purely religious valioity ;
its permanent worth by the al^oluteness witli
which it solves the religious problem of which
avowedly it is an answer.
L Originality.— The idea of justification does
not originate w ith Christianity, although truly it
comes to its full expres-sion there. Wherever re-
ligion becomes personal in actual communion with
God, it brings with itself inquiry as to the
specific nature of the power known and felt and
the peculiar character of its working in the soul.
This we find occurring in religious history generally,
and especially in Hebrew religion. Ethnic faiths
for the most part are so lacking in belief in a per-
sonal God that the inquiry hardly anywhere attains
more than rudimentary shape. Even in more
advanced faiths the Divine personalit}- is mingled
with such unworthy elements that fruitful concep-
tions are rare. The indelible convictions won are
only two : the gravity of the need, and the failure
* Cf. St. Augustine, Coi^fetaioiu, LI:' Thou hast made us
for Thvself, and our heart is restless till it find its rest in Thee.'
t Cf. the soul as' pearl '(MtlS*).
t Cf. the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the perfect picttire of
' justification.'
668
JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIFICATION
of provision to meet the need. A more positive
impetus enters with Semitic religion, in •whose re-
ligious observances the reception of the Divine life
is increasingly the centre of^attention. The grow-
ing consciousness of Divine force is mediated in tlie
Hebrew spirit by sacrifice, prayer, wisdom, and
prophetic inspiration ; in tlie experience of suH'er-
ing also very notably, as in Jeremiah and Deutero-
Isaiah ; in mystical union Avith the righteous
spirit of the Law, as in the finer Psalms ; and real-
ized as pardon of sin (Ps 32), life in God's favour
(PsSO), righteousness (Ps 4, etc.), mercy, and salva-
tion, covering all aspects of the soul's state. ' The
Law' at its best (Ps 119) was spirit and life,
obedience to its precepts clothing the spirit and
life of man with their imperishable energy, which
is none other tlian that of God who gave them.
Pre-Christian evolution deepened the conscience
in at least three directions — the difttculty in the
way of justification, the possibility of its accomplish-
ment, the mode and means of its reality. The
advent of C'hrist, the tout ensemble of His l*er-
son and Work as one organic influence, raised the
whole problem in ajKistolic experience and
thought to an incomparably richer plane, on which,
while the ditticulty is enlarged, the possibilities
are matured and a final mode with adequate means
provided. Here tlie centre of gravity is Christ
and His own justification (1 Ti 3'*, He 3. 5. 6):
'being manifest in the flesh, he was justified in
the spirit.' Wherein consists His being justified ?
The true answer is — in all that by which His higher
origin was made known (' His glory' in St. Jolin,
manifested in words, works, resurrection {V^ "**=•
2" 2,"^ 14"; cf. Mt 1^, Ko \\ Ac 2««, etc.]; 'His
high-priesthood ' [He 3. 5. 6] ; ' His righteousness'
[Ko 10^, 1 Co \^, 2 Co 5^', Ph 3«, etc., in St. Paul]).
It is a description drawn in contrast with the pre-
ceding phrase, ' manifest in the flesh,' and includes
all by which He is proved to be the very Person He
truly was.* This general proof is further special-
ized into the events of His Death and Resurrection,
its ultimate and most impressive parts, which as
such procured the redemption from sin through
wiiich we are justified (ilo5* 4^=, He 8. 9. 10). His
own justification consisted in the accomplished
fact of His perfect holiness and His risen life. It
is ours after the same manner ; only it is His right-
eousness that is mediated to us to become ours,
and that in virtue of our union with Him by faitli
(llo 3~''^ 5). The old distress of man's nature is
irrevocably dissolved under the assured potency of
the new condition in which it stands.
ii. COMPLETENKSS. — The general meaning of
justification is clear, nay simple ; but the greatly
simple is the organization of the complex. And
the apostolic exposition is complex. It compre-
hends many elements, commands a variety of rela-
tions. It derives its material from the Apostle's
unique fellowship witli the glorified Lord ; and
that experience, fundamentally the same in all, is
varied oy the diversity of individuality in each.
Again, the reasoning of the apostles relates itself
directly to immediate issues and is affected by tlie
circumstances of the readers to whom it is ad-
dressed. Further, the intellectual equipment of
the writers colours their statements. To all this
we must add the fact that their doctrine had to
establish itself on the successful displacement of
two solutions already on the field, one of them
strongly entrenched, viz. the ministration of the
Law. The most systematic and dispassionate
statement is given by St. Paul in the Epistle to tlie
Itomans, with which is to be associated the sub-
sidiary matter (more or less disputatious) in Kj)!!.,
2 Cor., (ial., etc. Isolated references and suspects
of the doctrine, more or less coiiii)lete, are to be
* Uu own use of the word ' justified ' (Lk T^^).
found in Acts, the General Epistles, and Hebrews.
The relation of these to one another, and of them
all to the Synoptic teaching of Jesus Himself, has
to be adverted to.
(1) St. Paul. — Justification is by God's grace
(Ro 3" 4«, Eph 2», Tit 3^), by man's faith (Ac 13'»,
Ro 51), by Christ's Death (Ro 5"), by His Resurrec-
tion (Ro 4^). It is a justification of the ungodly
(Ro 4", 2 Co 5'*, etc.) ; it is not of works of the Law
(Ro 3=», Gal 3", etc.), not of the law written in the
heart, the uncircumcision (Ro 2"). It is not incon-
sistent with judgment by works (1 Co 9-", Ph 3«-").
It is for remission of sins (Ro 3^), peace with God,
access into grace and hope of glory (Ro 5'' '),
righteousness (Ro 4-'2- =** 5" 3^', 2 Co 5-', Ph 3»), for
life (Ro 5^* : 'a justification taking eflect in life '),
which is through the body of Christ (Ro 7*) and by
His Spirit (Eph 2^», Ro 5« S^- *•«• ">• ", etc.). To
the foregoing add the corroborative statement in
Ro 4 as to Abraham's justification. There are
five points. Justification is by faitli, not works
(4^'*), therefore by grace (4"'). Being by grace
through faith, it came not through law but through
promise (4^* ; cf. Gal 3^**). It is not by circumcision
or outward privilege (4"- ^"^ ^') ; it leaves no room
for boasting or self-righteous confidence (3^ 4-).
According to the Apostle, justification is not an
act of man but an act of God. It issues from His
holy Fatherly love and righteousness, which can
have no possible relation to unrighteousness but
that of wrath. It is fundamentally related to be-
lieving self-surrender and trust (faith) on man's
part. It is manifested in the historical work of
Jesus. Its force resides in God, the object of faith,
as He in His righteousness and clemency appears
in the Death and Life after Death of His Son, by
whose life we are saved (Ro 5"*). This justifica-
tion is not cogently interpreted as 'a reckoning
righteous,'* nor as 'a making righteous'; it is
more than the first, and other than the second. It
includes the juridical features within the larger
personal and spiritual, for there enter into it {a)
grace and {b) faith, (c) Christ's Spirit and (d) the
believer in Christ, all in a plane of spirit and life.
Here God cannot just be understood as a Judge
acquitting a criminal ; f the culprit has his position
completely reversed, and is advanced to the honours
and privileges to which he would have been entitled
by a perfect obedience.+ He not only goes free
from merited penalty ; he is transferred into a new
freedom for righteous service, gains unrestricted
admittance to the oi)erations of grace, the right of
sonship, with all the glorious future involved.
All that future is here in its initial stage in germ,
so that the whole is regarded as already in the
l)otential possession of the believer, and God gives
as God and Father, not after the manner of an
earthly tribunal. The stress of the Pauline state-
ment rests on the fact that he conceives the energies
of the Spirit to be liberated for the believer by the
justifying Death of Christ, and mediated to the be-
liever by the present life of ' the Lord, the Spirit '
(2 Co 3^^), to whom the believer is joined to form
' one spirit ' (1 Co 6^^). It is a statement of spirit,
not logic ; experience and life, not legal forms. §
The Apostle proceeds next to plead for its efii-
cacy by contrasting it with two earlier attempts in
the history of the race to restore mans righteous-
ness— attempts which had miserably failed. There
was first the working of the natural conscience in
• The meaning of the term, a judicial word.
t To Ilim as Jiidj'e tlie situation is a legal impassf out of
which there is no legal way ; recourse is had to the Divine
ciemencv.
t Cf. \V. P. Paterson, Pauline Theoln(jy, Ixindon, 1903, p. 71.
§ St. Paul uses metaphors, some drawn from juristic termin-
ology, others from the ceremonial on the Ureal l>ay of Atone-
ment. These metaphors are to he intirj>reted not in separation
but in their combined cumulative (fleet, if the comprehensive
character of his idea is to be nuiintaiued.
JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIFICATION
669
the Gentile world. There is a light of nature
which otters knowledge sufficient to impress on
men the fact that their just due to GtAl is full
obedience to His will. By t heir wilful disobedience
that light that was in them hatl been turned to
darkness, with the result not of heightening tlie
possibilities of human nature, but rather of increas-
ing its unrighteousness, in fellowship with the god
of this world, the Devil ; and now the world was
lying in wickedness under Go<i's wrath (Ro l^- ^
3»* ", Gal 3-, Eph 2-), and, in the indiiridual heart,
earnestly endeavouring to keep from its contamina-
tion, the conflict proved the prepotency of sin
(Ro 7). Then there was the moral conscience
trained under the Law of Moses. It was desigiietl
to remedy the moral disaster of the natural con-
. science. Was it successful ? — It had been most
ineflectnal. Law could ' not make alive' (Gal 3-^)
either in its precepts or in their sanctions. It might
furnish an ideal of right and deepen the conscious-
ness of sin, and it might etlucate to a higher type
of virtue. It could also, on the contrary, incite to
larger disobedience and to fresh vices. Its rigours
working on sensitive souls tended to paralyze the
will. But the only solution must lie in re-inforce-
ment of the will. In Cluist alone was that end
won. He is 'the Wisdom and Power' of God, to
them who believe, ideal and motive force in one
Spirit. Nothing short of the religious conscience
renewed by Hini could suffice. The religious con-
science begins in one subjective act on man's part,
the act of faith. It is preceded or accompanied by
repentance, but it is itself the simple, childlike,
submissive, enthusiastic, unconditional self-sur-
render of the man's whole being, intellect, affec-
tions, purpose, to the will of God in Christ.*
(2) St. James. — The Epistle of St. James
emphasizes two practical consequences of faith,
(a) It works in the heart as a new law, obedience
to the perfect, royal law of liberty (1^ 2*). The
point here is the contrast between the external
compelling force of the older Law and the internal
impelling force of the new, the ' word ' in the heart,
able to save the soul (1^). (6) It works in the
conduct as good works. The controversy that has
arisen over the supposed antagonism between St.
Paul and St. James is barren, and need not detain
us. ' Faith ' and ' works ' have two different con-
notations in the two instances. St. James means by
'faith' not self-surrender so much as mental assent,
and by 'works' not the legal deeds enjoined by
the Law, but acts of mercy and kindness prompted
by the law of love in the soul. The motive and
interest of the two apostles differ ; there is no
room for opposition. Faith to St. James, as to St.
Paul, is the pre-condition of good works, and the
condition of acceptance with Grod. Like St. Paul
also, he sees justifying energy active in the con-
crete circumstances of life — ' a man is blessed not
through but in his deed.' Further, there is no
suggestion of merit in these good works of faith.
The sub-apostolic age was not slow to materialize
both ' the new law ' and the * merit of works,' but
St. James is not responsible.t
(3) St. Peter. — From the speeches (Ac 3) and
First Epistle we gather three features, (a) In
justification the pardon of sins and clearing of
guilt are explicitly connected with Christ's suffer-
ings (Ac 31*^, 1 P 119 2**) ; also, as the righteous
suffering for the imrighteous, Christ * brings us to
God ' (3^*). (6) The gift of grace is the result of
Christ's Resurrection (1 P 1-^) ; it is the ground and
guarantee of the new life and of the gift of strength
• We are not here concerned with the ' Rabbinic ' form of St.
Paul's argumentation nor with the character of his judgment
on Gentile and Jew, but only with his thought.
f For a different view of St. James's position, see Piepen-
bring, Jems et let Apdtrts.
to overcome Satan, (c) The comins; of grace into
the heart finds its necessary com])lement in the
life of love for the brethren. In the Second
Epistle both freedom from sins and the power to
work the righteousness of God dejiend upon faith
in and knowletlge of Christ ( I'- •). Knowledge here
is akin to the Johannine idea — the inner personal
apprehension of the saving Spirit of Christ.
(4) St. John. — The Epistles and Apocalypse do
not share in the fullness of volume of mystical
idealism pervading the Gospel. Yet the essential
elements are here — the unity of life with God in
Christ, the significance of Christ's Person, Death,
Resurrection, fellowship with Him in 'sonship.'
Especially emphatic is the writer on the two facts,
that it is God's love to sinners, not sinners' love to
God, that is the ground of faith and healing ; that
in sonship are to be included religious as well as
moral ideals. In the Apocalypse the same ideas
are central — but under sacrificial designations :
Christ's Sacrifice (the Lamb) and Resurrection
(alive for evermore) are the source of the stream
of life proceeding from the very essence of God
which, received by man, is in him a life of un-
interrupted sacrifice.
(5) Hebreics. — This Epistle is a continuation of
the Pauline 'apologia' for the gospel as against
the claims of the Old Covenant. "What is done in
Romans for grace as against law is here done for
Christ's sacrifice as against Levitical offerings.
Justification by faith is expounded in connexions
different from those St. Paul and St. John have in
view, and the exposition stands midway between
theirs, filling up an evident lacuna. Some
scholars assert that the problem is here less deeply
discussed, justification being narrowed to forgive-
ness and faith to spiritual insight apart from
spiritual grasp. That would be to leave Hamlet
out of the play. The author has a definite aim,
and, notwithstanding an obscuring vocabulary and
analogies, elaborates it admirably. His aim is to
demonstrate the accessibility of God through
Christ's sacrificial work. His demonstration puts
in bold relief two aspects hitherto untouched in
apostolic thought : (n) justification as a subjective
fact as well as an objective act ; {b) the principles
of its mode. The justification of Christ (above,
§ 3. i.) is constituted by His sinlessness, effected
as a spiritual fact in His own experience. The
justification of the sinner as a spiritual fact in his
experience is eftected after the same manner as in
Christ, and by Christ : viz. in * the purging of the
conscience from dead works to serve the living
God,' and in resisting unto blood (Q**"-). These
aspects are set forth in detail and give the book
its character. In both Christ and the believer the
inner experience is identical (o) 'through eternal
Spirit ' (9") and (^) through their vital union :
'he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified
are all of one' (2"). The word 'sanctify' is used
in this Epistle in its Hebraic sense of 'conse-
crate.' * Just as in St. Paul the justified are ac-
cepted and become members of the Body of Christ,
so in virtue of membership in the New Covenant,
the believer, according to Hebrews, is set in right
relation to God, receives forgiveness, cleansing of
conscience, and is ayial^ofievoi, even TereXeitofUvo! :
' by one offering he hath perfected for ever them
that are sanctified' (10^*). The faculty in man
rendering this possible is faith, whose full conrent
it takes ' hope ' (6'^ T^*), 'obedience' (5« 11), as well
as ' faith ' (11*), to express. It is not merely spiritual
perception of the unseen ; it is rather the power of
soul which makes the unseen future present, the
*Gf. the Vr use of 'saint' — one of the covenant-people,
the potentially holy — of whom moral qualifications are asserted
not as a feet bat as a duty. See F. J. A. Hort, The Fint
EjntUe 0/ St. Peter, 1 1—n. 17, London, 1896, p. 70.
670
JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIFICATION
unseen present visible, and by so doing unites us
to Christ in His present and future plenitude
(lO^**), from wlioni Hows the transforming in-
fluence creative of the graces of life which are
never separated from faith nor faith from tliem.
The elHcacy of His Sacriiice rests fundamentally
on the majesty of His Person. His High-l'riestly
act is an expression of the eternal Spirit of the
Divine love. IJy it He has destroyed every liarrier
of sin which lay between man and God. II <; lias,
as the sin-otrenng for humanity, freed nil men
potentially from the guilty consciousness of sin,
and brought Christians to the heavenly rest of God.
The emphasis is on what follows, viz. : ' the enter-
ing within the veil,' less the surrender of His life
than its presentation witliin the veil, implying that
the love and merciful kindness of God, which were
manifested in time and in the earthly ministry,
are eternal and (ihangelcss principles perpetually
operative on our behalf. This must ultimately be
the ground of our acceptance and the assurance of
our life in communion with Him. The benefits
and ellicac^ of His perfect Sacrifice are conditioned
by our attitude of faith and trust.
(6) The apostolic doctrine in relation to Christ's
teaching. — Is the apostolic teaching a necessary
consequence of Christ's self-witness? Yes; if
certain considerations be kept in view. We
see, e.g., that it was not drawn l)y conscious
deduction. It is an original construction derived
from life, from their experience of Christ reveal-
ing Himself in them (Gal l'**), as Christ's is from
the manifold fruitfulness and insight of His own
sublime Personality. Then we see it elaborated
under stress of the Judaistic and Hellenistic en-
vironment of that age, in the endeavour to establish
and justify itself in the intellectual atmosphere of
the nascent Church-life. It was not possible to
accomplish this with success except by a process
which should display the hidden significance of
what at first seemed so simple, and is so simple
to simple hearts.* That age, however, was not
simple-hearted ; t it was a highly intellectual, pro-
foundly perplexed, saddened age, sobl)ing its heart
out in weakness ; requiring accordingly the doc-
trine that would strengthen and comfort with
effect to be in the mould of its own speculation and
intuition. Christ's teaching is a plain, positive
statement on the practical religious plane, deliver-
ing itself as easily as the flow of the stream, in
conflict only with the hindrances of inditlerence
and want of faith. That attitude characterizes
the General Epistles, which are close echoes of the
Master's style, and directed to the same general
consciousness of religion as His was. It is other-
wise with the Pauline and Johannine Epistles : in
them we have the underlyin<j universal quality
and principle of His teaching disclosed, beaten out
inch by inch on the hard anvil of bitter controversy
(Pauline) ; or reflecting the more lambent genius
of the mystic (Johannine). The differences are
great, but they are not oppositions, nor vitiations.
The same facts are lookecf at and loved, by means
of the same great powers of soul, and within the
same great principles and convictions.^ Nor must
we forget tiiat since Christ's Person is the source
of this inspiration and enlightenment, their state-
ment is coloured throughout its whole extent by
that all-pervading fact. It is a fact which leaves
the writers free to be careless of superficial har-
monizations, conscious as they are of the sub-
stantial unity below all apparent divergences and
dissonances. That unity is impressive ; its outlines
• Ab, e.g., in Christ's teaching.
t Cf., for a popular dcsoription, M. Arnold's Obermann.
i Cf., tor an able vindicition of this view of the relation of the
apostolic doctrine to Christ's, J. Denney, Jesits atid the Gospel,
Jvondon, 190S,
strong and vivid. In contrast with Gentile wisdom
and Jewish Law, which were both powerless to
redeem men from sin, Christ stands out as Saviour.
He is the answer to the age-long cry, ' How shall
man be just with God ? ' He is ' the new and living
way' of access into God's presence (He lO'-""), as He
Himself claimed (Jn 14®). By Him is proclaimed
' the forgiveness of sins' (Ac 13^). He is exalted
to give forgiveness (Ac 5^'), and gives it (Eph V,
Col 1'*, etc.). He has broken down the 'wall of
partition' (Eph 2") and 'rent the veil' of the
Temple (Mt 27", Mk 15»8, Lk 2.3«). He has
effected 'so great salvation' (He 2^) in His own
body on the tree (I P2''^), by eternal Spirit (He 9"),
in Himself and for Himself, as the Author and
Finisher of our faith, really, vitally, consciously,
not with a dull sense of unintelligible burden, but
wholly rationally, intensely sj)iritually, in an ex-
perience where tlie issues are of life and death,
fought out in a fiery heat of thought and emo-
tion, of deeply moving religious conscience. The
apostolic consciousness has caught the rich impress
or this travail of .soul. It sets it forth for mankind
in varying form and mode — the picture of the great
and guiltless sorrow bearing the sins of the world,
and, in bearing them, bearing them away. As the
soul of the age was sobbing itself out, here a nobler
soul shares the fellowship of its suffering and of all
suffering, but not in weakness ; for the pain is fully
faced and taken up into conscious life, there to be
transmuted into abiding life. Thus was Christ
justified ; thus are we.
iii. Spirituality and absoluteness.— Justifi-
cation is a purely religious problem. The apostolic
solution is purely religious. Its spirituality may
be vindicated by reference to its source, its ground,
its results.
(rt) Grace the source. — Justification presupposes
the election of grace (q.v.), to which is traced
its unconditional freeness (Ro 3-^ Eph 1'), its
plenitude (Col 1", Ro 5'^, etc.), its Divine provision
(1 Jn 4^", Ro 5^- ^°). The riciies and freeness of
God's grace are manifested in the redemption they
provide. It is a manifestation in which there is
nothing else than a free, unprompted, unsolicited
expression of God's own nature and love to man-
kind. It is conditioned by nothing in man but
man's clamant need, by nothing in God but His
own holy love. Men are not pardoned on account
of their faith or by their faith. Pardon already is
in God's attitude toward them ; what they have
to do is to realize it by faith, and enjoy its bless-
ing.* Nor does God pardon because of Christ's
satisfaction. Christ's sacrifice is the outcome of
His forgiving mercy. It does not create or impel
God's love, it displays it (Ro 5*- ^*'). The Atonement,
so far from being inconsistent w-ith the Fatherhood
of God, is its most distinct proof. Faith in Christ's
atoning love only makes more conspicuously clear
God's paternal love, for it is the marvellous way
He took to struggle down through human experi-
ence to give us healing. This assured love of God
is the living root of the justified life ; t in its ampli-
tude all are pardoned if they would only realize it
in actual standing. It is the cause also of con-
fident and bold access to God (Eph 3>2, 1 Jn 2^ S*')
and the ceasing from confidence in the flesh (Ph 3^).
Assurance of the Divine love in the forgiveness of
sins already contained in it the whole idea of
salvation, and holds together all the parts of the
Divine life in their necessary nexus : the justifica-
tion of the sinner before God and the jninciple of
freedom for the consciousness of the justified subject
• Theolosry even in its most dreary day never made faith the
operative but simply the instruniental cause of justiflcation.
t Cf. Calvin's Inslitvte.-i, in which justiflc^ition is related to
predestination : ' comprehension of the divine purpose creating
confldence in the elect ' (bk. iii. cb. 2).
JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIFICATION
671
himself in all his relations.* In that principle lies
secmely embedded, along with our acceptance by
God, our assurance of salvation.! Starting from
God, who from eternity has been beforehand with
us, held by His preuestinating love, creating,
calling, pardoning, we raise our fabric of life in
continual growth for eternal glory (Ro 8^'"®). All
along it is of God's initiative, of grace ; all along
it is an appeal to faith ; man's dependence is
absolute.
(b) Christ's mediation the ground. — Here the
apostolic teaching assumes the form of a three-fold
presentation : (a) Christs righteousness is made
peace ; (;3) Christ's blood is made obedience ; (7)
Christ's life is made presence. The first is Pauline,
the second that of Hebrews, the third Johannine —
in such a way that, while each of the three has its
predominant element as thus classified, we are not
to suppose that each has no affinities with the
others ; on the contrary, the fullness of truth is in
each, but ranged around the predominant element
of each type.
(a) The neiD righteousness. — ' Christ is made unto
us righteousnass ' (I Co 1**); 'he is our peace'
(Eph 2i3-i«). The argument is in Ro S^"- ^^-\ and
proceeds by a winding course through the following
chapters to the eighth. There are three kinds of
righteousness : ' God's righteousness,' ' our own
righteousness,' and 'the righteousness of faith.'
Before God's righteousness no man can stand.
The attempt was made through His Law, given
by Moses. The result was a self-righteousness
that failed to bring peace between God and man
for two reasons — firstly, the righteousness of the
Law consisted in our OAvn unaided obedience ; and
secondlj', that self- righteousness was the condition
of our acceptance with God. It contained all the
elements of uncertainty of salvation. It was in-
effectual. There is another righteousness never
lost sight of under the Old Law, which has now
appeared in Jesus Christ. By Him it is made ours.
Presented in Him, it awakes in the sinner peni-
tence and faith — a love of Christ's holiness, a hatred
of his own sinfulness ; this by God's grace. There
is nothing in the self-righteousness of the righteous-
ness of the Law to bridge the chasm between God
and sin. The provision for that end is the verj-
thing provided in Christ. How so? In Christ
God gives His o^vn righteousness, which is the end
and meaning of all faith. He who receives it in
initio receives it virtually in extenso ; such is the
mode of Goil's gift of it. The condition of possible
or future righteousness is the right attitude or in-
tention of mind towards actual present unright-
eousness. It is possible to justify or accept as right
only that attitude which at the time is the nearest
right possible for the person. In the initial moment
of contrition, the only possible and right posture
of the sinner is that consciousness of himself which
could not be the beginning of his hatred of sin if it
were not to the same extent the beginning of a
love of holiness. Where this exists in truth and
sincerity, even though it be but the beginning of
an infinite process, it is possible and right to accept
and treat as right that which as yet is only a first
turning to and direction towards right (cf. 1 Jn
J8-10J Thus the righteousness of faith begins with
our sense of sin and experience of impotence, and
God's lo\"ing acceptance of this repentance in us
is the condition, starting-point, and earnest of a
righteousness in us which is maintained and in-
creased through Christ's, in whom we see revealed
all the presence and power of God in us, and in
consequence all the power in ourselves necessary
• It is the permanent worth of Luther's doctrine to have set
forth these two points with passionate cogencj- {The Liberty of
the Christian Man).
t Not the same as assurance of the love of God.
to its actual attainment and possession. Faith in
Christ as our righteousness can justify us because
it is based on the one condition in ourselves of
becoming righteous — a loyal disposition — and the
one power without oun^elves to make us righteous
— the righteousness of God. The grace of God in
Christ makes the sinner righteous, by enabling
him to make himself righteous. It starts the
process by regarding and treating as righteous
the penitent believer : * • justifying freely through
grace by faith.'
(/3) The new obedience.—' He learned obedience
by the things which he suffered ' ; ' the obedience
of faith' (He 5\ Ro 5i» 16», He S^' 4" ioti«--3-"
12). A. B. Bruce t has made the invaluable sug-
gestion that by the author of Hebrews the blood
of Christ has been translated from body to spirit,
and as such enters into heaven, and is available
for our benefit. The blood of Christ, says St. John,
is ever actively cleansing us from all sin (1 Jn 1^).
That blood-spirit becomes to us the law of all life
because it is the law of the Spirit of life itself
(Ro 8*). Obedience to that law clothes us with
its power. How so ? — Manifestlj- not simply as a
general consequence of that which Christ has done
for us, as if we found ourselves through the Atone-
ment on the Cross under such changed relation to
God as enables us to approach Him at will. That
\-iew is little distinguishable from the main position
of Rationalism (Socinianism), whose central convic-
tion is the assumption of a general order of Divine
forgivene.ss independent of Christ, in accordance
with which pardon is bestowed on the condition of
the active obedience of faith. Ritschl X has demon-
strated the hoUowness of this assumption. Both
' faith ' and ' obedience ' lose their peculiar quality :
for faith becomes merely assent to past teaching or
trust in past acts ; and obedience, instead of being
motived by faith in the sense of surrender to
Christ's spirit, is merely conformity to certain
legal requirements. Nor is it enough to go a step
further, and to conceive that Christ bj- His Death
established a fund of merit of which we can on
certain conditions make ourselves participants
(Romanism). Scriptural figures of speech there
are that seem to give some warrant to such a view
of a spiritual reservoir of grace which waits only
for our willingness to dive into it.
Faith's view of the High Priest's intercession in
heaven will correct such notions. Nay, the narrow
notion of faith may become a snare to us. It is,
we admit, the first condition in our conscious
looking for the new spirit of life. But we must
not confound the possession of the condition with
the bestowal of the gift, or make our qualification
to receive supersede the act of the Giver. Some-
thing far more eflectual happens. As we invoke
His intercession, we do not merely awake an
ancient memory ; we hear a living voice and see a
living form, our Advocate and Comforter, against
every accuser (Ro 8^'**), and discern them repro-
ducai in our hearts by His Spirit 'who maketh
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered ' (Ro 8^- -'^). It is God that justifieth. It
is the Son risen for our justification.
(7) The new presence. — ' It is expedient that I go
away ; for I will send the Spirit ' ( Jn 16^ Ac 1*) ;
' Ye have an unction from the Holy One and know
all things ' (1 Jn 2^- ^) ; 'If our heart condemn us
not, then have we confidence toward God ' (3^^) ;
' I saw in the midst of the Church the Son of man
all glorious' (Rev 1*^^^). St. John views the justi-
fied life as a new life in the deepest sense — not a
doctrine merely for the mind to embrace ; not an
* For a full discussion see DuBose, The Gospel according to
St. Paui, chs. vi. and %ii.
t HDB, art. ' Hebrews,' voL ii. p. 333.
X Reeh(fertigut\g tmd Yertohnung, ch. viiL
672
JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIFICATION
event simply to be reiiieuibered witli faitli ; not
the constitution only of a new order of spiritual
relations for fallen man ; but a new power into the
very centre of human nature, the power of a new
Divine principle. Because of this new principle it
is a new creation, a new creation which indeed
does not annihilate the old but transnuites it, and
fulfils it — a pro<'ess possible because tlie principle
of the new is, if not continuous with the organic
princi[>le of the old, still consistent with that
principle, the Logos being the cosmic counterpart
of the Spirit. That new power, new principle, in
the very centre of humanity is Spirit, i)resence.
How so? By organic, living, universal develop-
ment. Christ's force was not intended to stoj) in
the person of one man to be transferred soon after
to heaven. Nor was it intended to be a fund or
quantum to l>e ajiplied subsequently in the way of
outward imjmtation. It goes fortii to heal and
justify the world, not as something standing be-
yond itself and by a power external. He gathers
humanity rather into His own Person, stretches
over it the law of His own life, so that it holds in
Him as its root. Into this new order of existence
we are not transferred wholly at once. We are
apprehended by Him, in the first place, only, as it
were, at a single point. But this point is central.
The new life lodges itself, as an efflux from Christ,
in the inmost core of our personality — the inmost
self (above, § 2, ' Problem or justification'). Here it
becomes the principle or seed of our sanctilication,
conceived always not as a substance but as personal,
a presence ; Christ is in the soul as a magnetic
centre (Jn 12^^), producing in its life continually
an inward nisus in the direction antagonistic to
sinful impulse, a process which, if continued, will
at last carry all in the soul its own way, as the
soul's forces increasingly yield themselves in their
totality to the totality of His Presence. The soul
thus grows into His very nature. It is with
reason that Schleiermacher speaks of the com-
munication which Christ makes of Himself to
believers as moulding the person (see Der christ-
liche Glaube\ 1830-31, § 140). The Presence of
Christ is the ground of all proper Christian
personality, ' the new man ' m Christ Jesus
(Eph 2" 4«, Col 310). The end of the process is
the higher justification (2 Co 5'^), the fruition of
that lirst justification which M'as but the begin-
ning. It is a process which from beginning to
end is only and wholly of Divine life.
{c) Christ-in-iis the result. — The feud between
' faith ' and ' works ' is an old one. Certain points are
clear. It is not a question of sinners being justified
by works whether 'legal' or 'good.' The impeni-
tent are never justified. It is not a question of
believers bein^ justified by good works only. By
his Avorks the believer will be judi^ed. These are
bald positions easily excluded. The crux of the
controversy is that works to be good must spring
from no motive other than the one proper motive,
the new life in Christ. There are three alter-
natives : ( 1 ) Our own merit. We can go beyond the
legal requirements so far that we are able to com-
pensate for our wrongdoing. (2) Others' merit.
Others may compensate similarly for us, either by
way of being our substitute or by w.ay of trans-
ference of their supererogatory virtue to us. Both
positions lose force in face of the Divine claims
upon us and all men for the whole devotion of
which we are capable at every moment ; even then
we are 'unprofitable servants.' (3) Not of merit
but of faith. By this it is not meant that we are
justified because faith shows that we have altered
our ways and that faith can complete itself in good
works, or because faith has in it the germ of all
that God approves ; we are justified by faith, not
on the ground of the holy life that may follow, but
on the ground of Him who by faith is indwelling
in our spirits and implants us in a new world of
spiritual reality, where love (as He is love) alone
is power. ' Love is the fulfilling of all law.' In
pre-Christian ages that principle might be in men
like Abraham in unconscious operation and be
credited to them for its worth. Similarly to-day
in the world outside Christ. But implicitly or
explicitly it must be present whenever this is so ;
good works are the outcome of character not of
ordinances, of love not of law, and the character
and love are of Christ in us. The apostles plainly
conceive of Christ in this reference in an ascending
scale of presence in the world. He is in the Cosmos
as its principle. He is in humanity, of which He
is the * recapitulation.' He is in the Christian
body, of which He is head. Good works are good
from the principle underlying them. It is that
principle that justifies the doers of them. That
])rinciple is Christ. The Epistle to the Hebrews
labours to show that Christ as Priest and Victim
is perfect, eternal, final, from the fact that He is
character, not ordinances. The Johannine Epistles
are pregnant with the idea that Christ in the heart
is Love. But character and love are pure Spirit.
Its implanting into us for ever saves our 'good
works ' from degenerating into a mere moral code,
and furnishes us with a richer and more personal
basis for our confidence in doing our goodness.
Our virtues cannot be things without us : they
must be self-determined ; but, if my self is deter-
mined by Christ in me, we can truly say, and ought
to say, of our good works, as of all else in our life,
' Not I, but Christ in me.' This, further, we can
say from the first, and with assurance. The con-
fidence is secure in the implanted principle ; it is
not bound to the good Avorks, which are themselves
not independent but based on the principle. No
doubt the real and vital relation of the Christian
to Christ is invariably and inevitably accompanied
by its practical sense and the actual experience of
its living results in his quickened and risen self ;
but it is not the accompaniment, it is the relation
itself, that is the ground of certainty. Kitschl * is
out of the true lineal descent of Reformed theology
when he argues that the individual believer attains
certainty of salvation only as in the exercise of his
religious experience he reaches dominion over the
world ; he is back on the old plane of ' ordinances '
and ' works ' which incited Luther's polemic.
There Luther was on sure ground — true to his
own experience, true to the apostolic mind. That
mind conceived and solved the problem of justifi-
cation with splendid invincible spirituality, as the
act of God alone. In so doing it at the same time
set its finality on the firmest foundation. If the
idea of the union between the Divine and the
human be true, and the actualization of it necessary
to satisfy the deepest want of the human spirit,
before it finds peace with God, all that the case
* Ritschl's is the most exhaustive and ori^'inal discussion in
modern theoloify of the doctrine of justification. No references
can give any idea of its wealth. The distinctive features of his
definition are only partly true to Lutheran tradition. They are
as follows: (1) the identification of justification and forsriveness
of sins ; (2) the denial of any punishment of sin except the
sinner's separation from God ; (3) the rejection of the ideas of
the imputed righteousness of Christ and His substitutionary
suflering ; (4) the subordination of reconciliation to justification ;
(f)) the ascription of justiHcation to the Christian community ;
(6) the inclusion in the idea of justification of a reference to
man's relation to the world.
The adequate reason of justification Kitschl maintains to be
the fatherly love of God, not His judicial riu'hteousness ; the
condition of its human appropriation is faith, which does not
directly include love to man, hut implies freedom from all law.
This justification is primarily attached to the community of
t'hristians and only to individuals as members of it. The l)est
exposition in Enirlish is A. K. CJarvic's liiUchlian Theotoijp,
Kdinhursrh, 1899. Gomi translations of vols. i. and iii. are now
accessible, the former bv J. .Sutlurland Black (Edinburgh, 1872),
the latt«r by U. R. Mackintosh atid A. B. Mocaulay (do. 1900).
JUSTIFICATION
KINDNESS
673
can possibly demand is met in Christ, in whom it
is met not in idea merely but in reality. In every
part of His life He shows a power of love. He
otfers Himself through its force unreservedly to
God. Equally He offers Himself through its force
unreservedly to men, for the purpose of drawing
them to God and uniting them among themselves
and with God. He is a centre of love. Divine and
human, intensely interwoven ^^•ith power to em-
brace the whole of humanity and to influence it
without exhaustion of His fullness. Such an
exhibition has never been j)aralleled or approached.
There is no room to think higher than this. It
cannot be transcended.
LrreKATfRB. — There is neither a good history of the doctrine
nor a comprehensive discassion of the problems it raises,
"niere are excellent articles in fTJJf-J and CE, giving full state-
ments of modern Protestant and Romanist ideas. The older
books of Faber, Alex. Knox, Newman, simply confuse the issues.
A thoroughly live investigation of the apostolic doctrine will be
found in A. C McGiffert, Apottolie Age, Edinburgh, lSd7;
and of St Paul's in Sanday-Headlam. Com. on RomantfiUCC,
do. 1902). Interesting expositions are those of C. Gore,
Itomatts, London, 1899-1900 ; A. E. Garvie, Studio of Paul
and his Gorpel, do. 1911 ; W. P. OuBose. The Gospel aeeording
to St. Paul, Xew York, 1907. Of older books stall worth study :
Andreas Osiander, De putijieatione, 1550, and Be unu-o
inediatore Jejtu ChrUto et jutti/ieatione fidei, 1551 ; Ersldne of
Linlathen, The Cneonditional Freenest of the Gotpel, Edin-
burgh, 1831. The Cunningham Leeturei for 1866 by Jas.
Buchanan furnish a fxJl exposition of the 'Forensic Theory.'
The few brochures of the immediate present show the tendency
of thought to be that argued for in the article — that Joatiflca-
tioa meets two needs — the sense of alienation from God and the
sense of weakness to do right — by substitatii^ a loyal dis-
position for the performance of a legal code. On the more
general problems of Pauline thought to which jostaflcation is
related, the following are worth study : E. too Dobschtitz,
ProbUme des apottolutehen ZeittUten, Leipzig, 1901 ; M.
Goeuel. VApOtre Paul et Jisut-Christ, Paris, 1904 ; A. Hans-
rath, STZG^, Leipzig, 187»-77, and Jetut und die nevlett.
SekrtftsteUer, Berlin. 190»-09; H. J. Holtzmann, Die AptMel-
gesehieht^, Tabingen, 1901, and 2feute*t. Theologie, do. 1911 ;
C. I^epenbriner, Jista et let Ap6tre», Paris, 1911.
i A. S. Martin.
JUSTUS.— See Jesus, Joseph, Titjjs Justus.
K
KEEPER See Guard.
KEY. — It is remarkable that ' key ' in the con-
crete form does not occur in the apostolic \vritings.
The four occurrences in Rev. are symbolical.
There are certain passages in Acts where we
should expect mention of a key, but the circum-
stances are exceptional, and 'key' is omitted (Ac
1210 le*. 27) When a porter was in attendance,
admittance was given from the inside, and a key
to open was not necessary (cf. Ac 12^*- ^). From
the fact that city gates were guarded, the need for
a key was in this case also absent. It may be
noted that the chains by which prisoners were
secured, and the stocks in which their feet were
made fast, were in all likelihood secured by the
equivalent of a key (.A.c 12*- ^ 16^ etc.).
We remark the difference between the Hebrew
word (C???), 'that which opens,' and the Greek
and Latin (sXety, clavis), ' that wliich shuts.' This
seems to correspond with actual usage. Among
the Hebrews the lock was arranged in such a
manner that the key was requisitioned only for
opening (see illnst. in HDB ii. 836). The bar was
shot, and the lock acted of itself, but it could be
withdrawn only by aid of a key or opener. This
advanced mode of making fast a door was doubt-
less preceded and attended by a simpler process,
whereby the bolt or bar could be moved forwards
and backwards by means of a hook passing
through a slit in the door. This ser^'ed to shut
the door, but did not make it absolutely secure as
in the other case. For the age with which we
have to deal we must think of the key as a device
by which one outside held command over the
closed door. Having shut it in the first instance,
one had power to open it by applying the key.
The imagery of Rev., so far as 'key' is con-
cerned, implies power and authority on the part
of one standing outside and having possession of
the key. This power is in the hands of angelic
beings, who are above earth, and chiefly in the
hands of the Risen Christ. Their dominion is
manifested upon earth and in the under world,
over living and dead.
(1) Christ has the keys of death and of Hades
(Rev 1", RV). This power is Imperial, exercised
from without and from above. There are inter-
esting parallels to this, apart from Scripture, in
VOL. I.— 43
literature, both earlier and later. When Istar de-
scended to the land of no-return she called imperi-
ously to the porter to open the door, and threatened
in case of refusal to shatter the door and break
the bolt. Here the power is primitively conceived,
and remains largely ^\•ith the one within. For
later and more advanced conceptions see Dante,
Purg. ix. 65 ff., and Milton, Paradise Lost, iL
774 tf., 850 ff. In both these instances the power,
although great, is still limited.
(2) Angelic authority is evident in Rev 9^ 20^,
where the key of the ' pit ' or ' well ' of the abyss,
or of the abyss simply, is spoken of. This power
was delegated ('was given,' 9^). That some
symbol of power was bestowed seems clear from
20^, where the key and a great chain for binding
are seen in the angels hand (or attached to his
person). The figure of the key here directs our
thought to the pits or wells of ancient times,
whose opening was safeguarded against illegiti-
mate use by a covering of some kind. The primi-
tive setting of such coverings would naturally be
horizontal, but here the imagery, extending to
key, points rather to a door set upright and se-
cured by bolt or lock. The stone doors of tombs
may be compared.
(3) Upon earth itself Christ's unlimited author-
ity is exercised over the churches, including that
in Philadelphia (Rev 3'). The 'key of DaWd'
here mentioned is reminiscent of Is 22'-'*, where
some sort of investiture is in the ^Titer's mind
{HDB v. 172). In this instance power is exhibited
in the most absolute form, and made over to the
Church in the sense of a 'door opened,' for the
enjoyment rather than for the extension of the
gospel (see R. W. Pounder, Hist. Notes on the
Book of Revelation, 1912, p. 140). It is not sur-
prising that the reading of this verse should have
been attracted to 1^, as appears in some inferior
MSS {abov for \awiS).
See further DCG, art. ' Keys.' For specimens of
actual keys discovered in the course of excava-
tion see R. A. S. Macalister, The Excavation of
Gezer, 1912, i. 187 and ii. 271. Further Ulustra-
tions in A. Rich, Diet, of Roman and Greek
Antiquities?, 1873, s.v. ' Clavis.'
W. CrUICKSHAXK.
KINDNESS. — In its substantival, adjectival,
verbal, and adverbial form this term occurs in the
674
KINDNESS
KING
English NT in the following passages : Lk C,
Ac 2V 282, 1 Co 13*. 2 Co 6«, (lal 5» (IIV only),
Eph 2^ 4»«, Col 3", Tit 2» (RV only), 3S 2 P V (AV
only; IIV 'love of the brethren'). In all tliese
passages (except Ac 27' 28^", where it renders <pt\-
av0pj)irui, <(>i\avepwirla, Tit 2', where it renders
Aya06i, and 2 P V, where 'brotherly kindness'
renders ipi\a5e\tf>la) the original has xPV<^'''^^t XPV<^-
t(5tj;s, x/"?"^''*''***'- These Greek words, however,
occur in several other places, where the Englisli NT
does not employ the term 'kindness,' viz, Mt 11^
('easy'), Lk S*" (AV xpWT&rtpoi, 'better,' IIV
XPV<rr6s, '.good '), Ro 2< "M' goodness '), S'" ( ' good '),
11!" ('goodness'), 1 Co 15» ('good'), Gal 5" (AV
'gentleness,' RV 'kindness'), 1 P 2' (' gracious').
Tliese passages will have to be taken into account
in determining the precise meaning of the con-
ception.
XPV<tt6s is the verl)al adjective of xP'i'^> * ^^'^•' Its
primary meaning, therefore, is ' usable,' ' service-
able,' 'good,' 'adequate,' 'efficient' (of persons as
well as of things). This utilitarian sense of ' good-
ness' pa.sse8 over into the ethical sense in wliich
it becomes the opposite to such words as irovrjpbs,
fiox0riP<^^f aicrxpds. It further passes over into the
more specialized ethical meaning of ' kind,' ' mild.'
The process of the latter transition may perhaps
still be observed in the phrase rd xp'7<'^''<i = ' good
services,' ' benefits,' ' kindnesses.'
In the NT there is only one instance where it
has the sub-ethical meaning ' good for use,' viz.
Lk 5^' ; here the old wine is said to be ' good ' or
'better.' According to Trench (Synonyms of the
NV, 1901, p. 233), even here the thought is
coloured by the ethical employment of the word in
other connexions, xP'7''^tos=' mellowed with age.'
This is certainly true of Mt ll''", where Christ's
yoke is called xpv<^'''os because it is a figure for de-
mands that are kind and mild. In all other in-
stances the ethical application is explicit. Tlie
precise shade of meaning, however, attaching to
the word in this sense is not easy to determine.
In certain instances it may de.signate moral good-
ness in general. This seems to be the case in
Ro 3'* (iroiQv xPV<^'''^''"ir''0'' "■ quotation from Ps 14'^,
where xpv<^'''o» is the LXX rendering for aio). In
1 Co 15'^ the proverbial sayinix (pBelpovaiv ijdrj
Xp7i<TTh. ofiiXiai KaKai, ' evil companionships corrupt
good morals' (or 'characters'), lias XPV'^'''^^ in the
same general sense, the opposite here being /caK(5s.
In all other cases there are indications that some
specific quality of moral goodness is intended.
Most clearly tliis is apparent in Gal 5^^, for here
XpiyirriTj/s stands among a numl)er of Christian
graces and is even distinguished from dyaOua-vvrj,
'goodness.' A similar co-ordination is found in
Col 3'-, where XPV<^'''^V^ occurs side by side with
vpattTTji. Various attempts have been made at
defining that conception. Jerome in his exposi-
tion of tial 5'-* renders xp'?o'7-(5ri;y by bcnignitas (cf.
the rendering by Wyclif and in the Rheims Ver-
sion), and quotes the Stoic definition : ' benignitas
est virtus sponte ad benefaciendum exposita.' The
difference between xPV<^^^''"n^ and dYo^wo-yi'i; he
finds in this, that the latter can go together with
a degree of severity, whilst it is inherent in xpv<^-
t6tt}% to be sweet and inviting in its association
with others. This, however, does not quite hit
the centre of the biblical idea. Most shrewdly, it
seems to us, the latter has been pointed out by
Tittmann (de Synonymis in NT, 1829-32, i. 141) as
consisting in the trait of beneficence towards those
who are evil and ungrateful : ' x/""'^''<^s bene cupit,
neque bonis tantum sed etiam nialis.'
A closer inspection of the several pa.ssages will
bear this out, at least as the actual implication of
the NT usage, if not as the inherent etymological
force of the word, lu Lk 6^** God is said to be
Xpj/fTTij towards the unthankful and evil, and the
statement serves to urge the preceding exhorta-
tion : ' love your enemies, do them good, and lend,
never despairing.' The passages in Romans point
to the same conclusion. In 2* the xPVfT^Trii is
associated with ' forbearance ' and ' longsuflering ' ;
it is that attitude of God by which doing good in
the face of evil He leads men to repentance. In the
second clause of this verse the word occurs in the
form rb xpv^^^" '"'"^ Otov, which prolmbly means tlie
embodiment of tiie xpv^t^^V^ in acts. On the same
principle in ll'^ xP'n<^'''o'''V^ i« the opposite of diro-
To/ila, ' severity ' ; 'to continue in the XPV<J"''^V^ of
God ' means to continue in conscious deitendence
on this undeserved favour of God (cf. v.*', ' be not
highminded, but fear'). In 1 Co 13* we read of
love that it ' suflereth long (xp'/frreyerai), envieth
not,' which indicates that a kindness is meant
which overcomes obstacles. In 2 Co 6', again,
XP'7<rT(}ri;s is found in conjunction with ' longsufler-
ing,' and in a context which emphasizes the patient,
forbearing character of the Aj)ostle's loving minis-
tration to his converts. In Gal 5-^ we meet with
the same conjunction between ' longsufFering ' and
XpWTdrrjs, and here, by distinction from dyaOwavyri,
' benevolence,' and irpavrris, ' meekness,' the sense
is narrowed down to a benevolence which asserts
itself either with a peculiar cheerfulness or in the
face of peculiar difhculties. According to Eph 2^
the Divine grace is shown in kindness ; no matter
whether xpW'otv^ is here taken as abstractiun pro
concrcto = the embodiment of God's kind procedure
in the work of salvation, or whether 'grace' be
given an objective concrete sense ; in either case
the association of the two shows that the Divine
XprjffTdrris is conceived as having for its object the
sinful and unworthy. The context of Col 3'- like-
wise emphasizes the forbearing and forgiving dis-
position required of the Christian in view of the
forgiveness received from God, and the terms with
which XPV'^'''^''"']^ is here associated ('lowliness,'
'meekness,' 'longsuflering') are again terms that
describe benevolence over against faults observed
in fellow-Christians. The xpvo'i'irTji of Tit 3* is
shoAvn by the context to be God's kindness towards
sinful, undeserving man, and held up as an example
for the Christian of abstention from evil-speaking,
contentiousness, and pride. It came to such as
were 'foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers
lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy,
hateful and hating one another.' Finally, in 1 P 2^
(a quotation from Ps 34") the general meaning
' gracious ' seems to be indicated by the fact that
the Divine xp'/f^'^^'?' is set in contrast to the
wickedness and guile and hj'pocrisies and envies
and evil-speakings, w^hich tiie readers must put
aside as new-born men (cf. P-* and the 'therefore'
in 2'), and the putting aside of which is invited
by their vivid experience in the new life that the
Lord Himself is gracious.
Geeuiiardus Vos.
KING. — The title is applied to rulers of various
degrees of sovereignty. We find it employed to
designate the tetrarch Agrippa II. (Ac 25") ;
Aretas of Arabia (2 Co IF-); Agrippa I., whose
territory was co-extensive with that of Herod the
Great, and wlio seems to have received tlie royal
title (Ac 12') ; and the Roman Emperor, whom it
appears to have been the custom for Greeks and
Orientals so to designate (1 Ti 2-, 1 P 2"- 1'). An
instance of the elasticity of the term is provided
in Rev 17, where tiie seven kings in v.'" are
Roman Emi>erors, while the ten kings in v." are
vassal kings.
1. Christ as King.— (1) The nature of Christ's
Kinrfship. — It was made an accusation against St.
Paul and Silas at Thessalonica (Ac 17') that they
were guilty of trejuson, inasmuch as tiiey pro-
KING
KING
675
claimed another king, one Jesus. It was the re-
vival of the charge brought against the Master
(Lk 23-). It is true that tlie Christians did chiim
Kingship for their Lord, but His Kingdom was
not of this world (Jn 18*). His throne is in
heaven, where He is set down with His Father
(Kev 3-'). There are various representations of
His Kingship in the aix)stolic writings.
At one time His reign seems to have already he-
gun. This is the thought suggested bj- the fre-
quently recurring phrase, based on Ps 110^ '.«4it-
ting at the right hand of God ' (Ro 8", Eph 1'*,
Col 3^), which signifies Christ's participation in
the Divine government. According to tliis view,
Clirist enters into His /3eurtX«a immediately on His
Exaltation (B. Weiss, Bib. Theol. of the NT, Eng.
tr., ii. [1883] § 99), in recognition of His obedience
"unto death (Rev 3-», He l•2^ Ph 2«*). On the
literal interpretation of Col 1^, the Kingdom of
the Son is present even now, and believers are al-
ready translated into it (so Lightfoot and Haupt,
while others interpret the plirase proleptically).
Their citizenship is in heaven, whence they look
for Christ (Ph 3^}. The law they obey is called
vofLos paffikiKos (Ja 2*), in ^-irtue of its emanating
from the King (Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, p.
265). At times this heavenly Kingship of Christ
is represented as undisturbed by further conflict,
and as peaceful sway over the powers which have
been brought into subjection. So in 1 P 3** He is
on the right hand of God, ' angels and authorities
and powers being made subject unto him ' (cf.
Eph 1**-) ; and in He 10^^ He is represented as
sitting down for ever at the right hand of God,
' from henceforth expecting till hLs enemies be
made his footstool.' According to this view. His
Mork is finished ; His present state is one of royal
rest, and it remains for God to complete the sub-
jugation of the hostile powers.
But there are other representations of Christ's
Kingship. The most general view of His ^acikeia
in the XT represents it as not already realized,
but beginning at the Parousia (so O. Pfleiderer,
Paiilinism, Eng. tr., 1877, i. 268) ; and according
to the programme sketched by St. Paul in 1 Co
15^*^-, His reign is no peaceful sway, but a cease-
less conflict against the powers of darkness. ' He
must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his
feet' (v.=*). The last enemy to be overcome is
Death ; and when that is accomplished, then
Cometh the end, when He delivers up the sovereignty
to God (v.**). Accoriling to this outline, Christ's
reign is of the nature of an interregnum, to be
terminated (in opposition to the ets to Sii/Ke/tes of
He 10^) when He resigns the power into the hands
of God.
In the later Epistles this programme is not
adhered to. In accordance with their more
developed Christology, Christ becomes the end
of Creation (Col V^), and the final consummation
is now represented, not as the reign of God, who
is to be ' all in all ' (1 Co 15^), but as the Kingdom
of Christ and God (Eph 5'), or even of Clirist alone
(2 Ti 4^), whose Kingdom is an everlasting one
(2 P 1^^), and whose sovereignty is declared to ex-
tend to the future a?on (Eph 1"^). Again, in the
earlier representation Christ's Kingdom is to be
established on earth at His Coming, but in the
later versions it becomes a heavenly kingdom
(2 Ti 4'*), corresponding to the kingdom of the
Father which St. Paul had expected to succeed
the interregnum of the Son.
In Revelation we again meet with the conception
of a temporary reign of Christ, its duration being
put at l,tMX> years (20*). It is questionable whether
that reign is here regarded as one of uninterrapted
l)eace and blessedness, or of continuous conflict
against the powers of evU. H. J. Holtzmann
{XT Theologies 1911, i. 542 f.) thinks that the only
original contribution made by the author of the
Revelation in this picture of the millennium is the
representation of the interregnum as a i)eriod of
waxe and rest (20^ *• ''). On the other hand, F. C.
Porter {HDB iv. 262) contends that the 1,000 years'
reign is part of the last conflict against evil, the
reigning and judging of Christ and His saints
being the gradual subjugation of the powers of
evil, and that there is no suggestion in Rev. that
peace and rest characterize the millennium.
(2) Christ and earthly kings. — In the Pauline
references to the sovereignty of Christ the hostile
forces which He overcomes are not earthly poten-
tates but the angelic principalities and powers, the
world-rulers of this darkness (Eph 6", 2 Co 4^, Col
l^). To this corresponds the conflict with Satan
in Revelation. But in the latter book there is
also frequent representation of Christ's sovereignty
over earthly potentates. He is Prince of the kings
of the earth (1*), King of kings and Lord of lords
(17" 19'*). Out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword
with which to smite the nations, and He rules
them with a rod of iron (19'*). The kings of earth
who have committed fornication with Babjlon
(17'), and who marshal their armies in support of
the Beast (19**), are numbered among the enemies
whom He has to subdue. Corresponding to this
attitude of hostility to Christ on the part of the
kings of the earth in Rev. is the spirit of hatred
to the Roman Empire which the book breathes,
as contrasted with that recommended in the other
ajjostolic writings. St. Paul as a citizen of the
Roman Empire recognizes in the higher powers
the ordinances of God, and regards subjection to
them as a religious duty (Ro 13"^-). St. Peter re-
commends submission to every ordinance of man
for the Lord's sake, and exhorts to fear God and
honour the king (1 P 2'»- ''). In 1 Ti 2« the in-
junction is given to pray for kings and for all in
authority. But in Rev. we find a fierce hatred of
Rome and longing for her destruction. She is to
the author the throne of the Beast (16"), the very
incarnation of the sin which Christianity sought
to destroy, and his attitude towards the Imperial
power is the direct opposite of that taken up by
St. Paul.
2. God as King. — There is no power but of God
(Ro 13'), and all kindly authority ultimately pro-
ceeds from Him who is King of kings and Lord of
lords (1 Ti 6'*). Christ has ultimately to deliver
up the sovereignty to the Father, being subject
to Him that put all things under Him, that God
may be all in all (1 Co 15-*"^). In the song of
Moses and of the Lamb (Rev 15*) God is praised as
the King of nations, and in 1 Ti 1" a doxology is
sounded to Him as King of the JBons. The phrase
may be chosen with reference to the Gnostic series
of seons, and maj" mean ' King of the worlds.'
Others take it as ' King of the world times,' the
ruler who decrees Avhat is to hap[>en from age to
age ; while others render it, as in the AV, ' the
King eternal.'
3. Belieirers as kings. — In Rev 1^ the AV runs :
' and hath made us kings and priests unto God.'
This is based on the reading ^offikels, which must
be abandoned for the better-attested ^aaCkfiav.
But in 5'", where the same phrase occurs in the
song of the angels concerning the Church (though
here again there is a variant ^aaiXth, which, how-
ever, would render the concluding clause super-
fluous), there is the further addition : koX ^aaiX-
fvmicw irl yijs. K reads /3a<rtX«Voiv«i' ; and if we
accept that reatling, then the reference is to the
future dominion of believers as represented in 20*,
where they live and reign with Christ 1,000 years.
Other references to this future sovereignty are
found in Ro 5'', 2 Ti 2^, and 1 Co 6^ (where they
676
KING OF KINGS
KINGDOM, KINGDOM OF GOD
judge the world and the very angels). IJut if
paffiXeiJovaiv be retained, then the standpoint of the
author is tliat already that sovereignty of tlie
saints prophesied in Dn 7'~* " has begun. The
Church, tlown-trodden and oppressed, is already
the dominant power in the world. St. Paul ironi-
cally congratulates the Corinthians on the assump-
tion of kingly authority (1 Co 4*). Their vaunting
way have been due to a perversion of tins doctrine
of the present sovereignty of the saints.
LiTKRATc-RE. — The various handliooks ou A'2' Theol. ; H.
Weinel, Die Stellung dM L'rchriiiteHtiDit^ zum Staat, 1908 ; A.
Deissmann, Licht votn Osten, 1908.
G. "Wauchopk Stkwart.
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.— The
title ' King of kings,' assumed of old by the IJaby-
lonian nionarchs and adopted by the Achajmenidaj,
is proved by coins and inscriptions to have been
laid claim to, about the beginning of the Christian
era, by various other Oriental jjotentates, e.g. tlie
kings of Armenia, the Bosporus, and Palmyra
(A. Deissmann, Licht vom Ostcn, 1908, p. 2G5). It
liad been applied by the Jews to their God (2 Mac
13*, 3 Mac 5^), and is combined with the appella-
tion ' Lord of lords ' (bestowed on Jahweh in l)t 10'^,
Ps 136^) to form the supreme title ' King of kings
and Lord of lords,' with which God is invested
in 1 Ti 6". This heaping up of attributes has a
parallel in 1". It is not evident whiit is its precise
purpose in the context. Some would explain it as
a counterblast to Gnostic misrepresentations. H.
Weinel (Die Stellung des Urchristentums zum
Staat, 1908, jip. 22, 51), who recalls ti»e Babylonian
origin of the title, iinds some trace of the old Baby-
lonian astrology in the further course of the pas-
sage, * who only hath immortality, dwelling in the
light which no man can approach' (cf. Ja 1", ' the
Father of lights,' i.e. stars). The same lofty title
is applied in llev l?^* 19^® to Christ, in earnest of
the certainty of His triumph over tlie kings of the
earth. In view of the hostility to the Iloman
Empire which breathes throughout the Book of
Ilevelation, and the express references in it to the
worship of tlie Emperor (IS'^-^' 14* 20''), it is pro-
bable that this title is deliberately assigned to
Christ in assertion of His right to that dignity and
reverence which were falsely claimed by the
lioman Emperor (see artt. King and Lord).
CJ. Wauchopp: Stewart.
KINGDOM, KINGDOM OF GOD.— 1. References
in Synoptic Gospels.— The conception of the King-
dom which occupies so large a place in the lirst
three Gospels Iinds a relatively small place in the
remaining books of the NT. In our earliest Gospel*
— that of St. Mark— the Kingdom of God is the
main topic of Christ's preaching. He began His
ministry by announcing the good news tliat the
Kingdom of God was at hand (1^'). To His disciples
was entrusted the ' secret plan ' about the Kingdom
(4"). The Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly
explained that it would come like harvest after a
period of growth, i.e. it would present itself in due
time when the period of heralding its advent was
over (4-'®"^). Its coming would not be long delayed,
for some who heard Christ speak would see it come
with j>ower (9'). The possession of wealth was an
impediment to entry into it; i.e. wealth hindered
men from enrolling themselves as disciples of
Christ, the coming King (10^-**). Elsewhere we
read not of the coming of the Kingdom, but of the
Coming of the Son of Man (so in IS'* 14«2). The
meaning attached to ' gospel ' in this book as tlie
good news of the coming Kingdom i)reached by
Christ is primitive, and earlier than the Pauline
use of • gospel ' for the good news about Christ.
In the First Gospel the term is changed. We
* It does not fall within the scope of this art. to consider at
length the idea of the Kingdom in Chrisfu teaching.
readnowof the 'kingdom of theheavens' rather than
of the Kingdom of God. But the main line of idea
is the same (see W. C. Allen, St. Matthew [ICC,
1907], pp. Ixvii-lxxi). The emphasis which is placed
in this Gospel upon the near coming of the Son of
Man to inaugurate the Kingdom (cf. 16'* 24*-**,
etc. ) is due largely to the Matthtean collection of
discourses used by the editor.
St. Luke returns to the jihrase ' the Kingdom of
God,' and though in general outline the idea of the
Kingdom is the same as in tlie two prior Gospels,
tliere are one or two suggestions that St. Luke was
beginning to realize that a considerable period of
history might precede the coming of the Son of
Man to inaugurate the Kingdom. Jerusalem is to
be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of
the Gentiles are fulfilled (2r-''). And there is a hint
of the idea which was soon to overshadow the
anticipation of the near approach of the Son of
Man, that in a veiy real sense the Kingdom was
already present (17-*, ' within' or ' among you').
2. References in other NT books. — Keferences to
the Kingdom occur in St. Mark some 16 times, in
St. Matthew some 52 times, and in St. Luke about
43 times. By contrast with this the comparative
j)aucity of references to the Kingdom in the remain-
ing books is very striking. In the Fourth Gospel
it occurs only 5 times, and in all these passages
the conception is that of a spiritual Kingdom which
might be conceived of as now present. In Acts it
occurs 8 times, 6 of them being references to speak-
ing or preaching alx)ut the Kingdom. In the whole
of St. Paul's Epistles it occurs only 13 times, in the
Catholic Epistles only twice (Ja 2*, 2 P 1"), in
Hebrews only twice (1^ 12^), in the Apocalypse 5
tiraes(l«-9 5'^lliM2"').
3. References to Christ as King.— Outside the
Gospels there is also a very infrequent reference to
Christ as King except in so far as this was involved
in the title ' Christ ' or ' anointed.' In the Gospels
such references occur almost entirely in connexion
with the events of the last few days of the Lord's
life (entry into Jerusalem, trial before Pilate).
The exceptions are Mt 2- (where the Magi inquire
after the one who has been born King of the Jews),
25** (where the term ' king' is placed in the mouth
of Jesus as descriptive of the Son of Man sitting
upon the throne of glory), Jn 1*^ (where Nathanael
addresses Him as ' King of Israel '), and 6" (wliere
it is said that the multitudes wished to make Him
a king). Nowhere in St. Paul, in the Catholic
Epistles, or in Hebrews is the term applied to
Christ. But in Ac 17^ the accusation is made
against Christians that they acted contrary to the
decrees of Cajsar, saying tiiat there was another
king, one Jesus. Lastly, in Uie Apocalypse the
exalted Lamb, and the llider on tiie white horse,
titled 'the Word of God,' are called 'King of
kings and Lord of lords' (17** 19*'^ ; see preceding
article).
4. Reasons for paucity of references in apostolic
literature. — If wc now ask why the idea of king-
ship as applied to Christ finds so little space in the
literature of the Ejiistles, the answer must be mani-
fold. (1) The conception of kingship found nartial
expression in tlie terms 'Christ 'and 'Lora.' (2)
The avoidance of the term ' king' was an obvious
precautionary mesisure. Ac 17' is significant in
this respect. The early Christian teachers had
enough difficulties to contend M-ith without invit-
ing the accusjition that tliey were guilty of treason
against the State. Apart from Mattnew, whicli
was probably intended originally for circulation
amongst Jewish Christians, the only writing of
the NT which in so many words assigns the title
' King' to Jesus is the Apocalypse, a book written
at a time when State persecution had driven the
writer to au attitude of detiuite hostility to the
KIXGDO^r, KINGDOM OF GOD
KINGDOM, KINGDOM OF GOD 677
Roman Empire, ami hail induced liim to tlirow
over tlie cautious attitude of a previous generation
towards the State. (3) It was soon felt that tlie
teaching of Christ was many-sided and capable
of more than one interpretation. Roughly, there
were two ways of thinking about the Kingdom. It
might be thought of eschatologically as a Kingdom
to be founded when Clirist returned. This is per-
haps the view which prevails in the NT. It is
difficult to prove this, because the passages which
speak of the Kingdom are not brought into im-
mediate connexion with those which speak of the
Second Coming of Christ. And it is therefore often
open to question whether the Kingdom referred to
is a Kingdom to be established when He comes, or
a Kingdom of which the Christian disciple feels
himself even now to be an actual member by virtue
of his relationship to God through Christ. But the
eschatological sense is probable in 1 Th 2'^, w here
St. Paul prays that his converts may walk worthily
of God, who calls them ' to his kingdom and glory,'
and in 2 Th 1*, ' that you may be accounted worthy
of the kingdom of God, on behalf of which you
sufl'er.' The same may be said of 2 Ti 4^ 'his
appearance and his kingdom,' and 2 Ti 4^^ 'shall
save me into his eternal kingdom.' This eschato-
logical sense appeai-s also in 2 P 1", ' an entry shall
be granted unto us into the eternal kingdom of
our Lord and Saviour,' and less certainly in He 12-^,
'receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken.'
But the word 'kingdom' here may perhaps rather
mean that Christians even now become members
of a spiritual kinfrdom which will remain unshaken
even during the final catastrophe which will cause
the dissolution of the material universe. The
passages which speak of Christians as inheriting a
kingdom may refer to the Kingdom in the eschato-
logical sense, or, less probably, to the Kingdom
conceived as present (cf. 1 Co 6^- ^^ lo^. Gal 5-*,
Eph 5', Ja 2«).
But the phrase ' Kingdom of God ' might also be
interpreted of the present life which Christians
now live, in so far as this is governed by obedience
to Him. The writers of the NT seem sometimes
to regard Christians as already members of the
coming Kingdom, living according to its laws, and
enjoying even now in some mea-sure its privileges.
So St. Paul in Ro 14", 'the kingdom of God is
not meat and drink, but righteousness, and joy,
and peace in the Holy Spirit,' and in 1 Co 4**, ' the
kingdom of God is not in word but in power.' So
too Col 1", ' hath translated us into the kingdom
of the Son of his love.' On the whole, this sense
seems to be not primary but derivative and con-
sequential. Just as the writer of the Hebrews
thinks of the true rest as still in the future, be-
longing to the world to come (4*- '"), and at the
same time feels that Christians in some sense
anticipate and enter into that rest even now (4^),
so the NT writers think of the Kingdom of God as
waiting to be manifested when Christ conies again,
and yet feel that in some sense the Christian is
even now a member of it, and that, as the number
of Christian disciples increases, the Kingdom
widens here upon earth. But in the NT this
belief is always conditioned by the certainty that
the Second Coming of Chiist is necessary to the
full manifestation of the Kingdom.
This double-sidedness of the conceptions * king-
dom ' and ' kin^ ' may in some measure explain
why the apostolic writers avoid them.* And it is
significant that another term which was closely
connected with the doctrine of the Second Advent
is also left unused outside the Gospels. The term
' Son of Man ' is employed in the first three Gospels
chiefly in connexion with the ideas circling round
* Sanday finds in St. Paul's conception of ' righteousness' his
equivalent for the Gospel term ' kingdom ' iffThSt i. 481 ff.).
the thought of the Death, Resurrection, and
Second Coming of Christ. Similarly in the
Fourth Gospel it is used chiefly in j^iassages which
speak of the lifting up or glorification of the Son
of Man. Outside the Gospels it occurs only once —
in the mouth of Stephen ; here too of the glorified
state of the Messiah (Ac 7**). The remaining NT
writers never use it. And yet the thought of the
Coming runs like a silver thread of hope through
all their writings. They seem to have felt that
on the one hand the phrase ' Son of Man ' was too
technically Jewish for Gentile readers, and on the
other that the terms ' King ' and ' Kingdom ' were
open to grave misconcejjtion. The King for whose
appearance they looked was no earthly monarch,
and His Kingdom was no rival to earthly kingdoms,
nor even in so far as it was now partially present
did it prevent men from loyal obedience to the
existing government. Hence they choose other
terms in which to clothe the Gospel hope of Clirist's
return, and the state of felicity which would ensue.
St. Paul uses such terms as the following : ' to
wait for his Son from heaven' (I Th P"), 'the
parousia' of the Lord Jesus (1 Th 2»9 3^' 4« 5^),
the Lord descending from heaven (I Th 4^), 'the
day of the Lord' (1 Th 5-, 2 Th 2-, 1 Co P 5',
2 Co 1", Ph 1®), ' the apocalypse of the Lord Jesus
from heaven ' (2 Th 1"), ' waiting for the apocalypse '
(1 Co 1'), ' until the Lord come'(l Co 4'), 'until he
come' (1 Co 11^), 'the day when God shall judge
. . . through Jesus Christ' (Ro 2'®), 'from whence
we await the Saviour, tlie Lord Jesus Christ' (Ph
3^), ' the Lord is near' (Ph 4^), ' the manifestation
of Christ ' (Col 3^), ' the epiphany of our Lord Jesus
Christ' (1 Ti 6"), 'the epiphany of our Saviour
Jesus Christ '(Tit 213).
In the Catholic Epistles we have : ' the Parousia
of the Lord is at hand ' ( Ja 5*), ' the apocalypse of
Jesus Christ' (1 P V^), 'when the chief Shepherd
is manifested' (1 P 5^), 'the day of the Lord'
(2 P 3"), the manifestation of Christ (IJn 3-) ; in
Hebrews : ' he that cometh will come, and will not
tarry' (10") ; and in the Apocalypse, the many
references to the Coming of Christ, beginning
with v.*
By thus expressing the Christian hope in terms
of expectation of the Return of Christ, and by
substituting for ' King ' and ' Son of Man ' such
terms as 'Lord,' 'Saviour," Chief Shepherd,' the
apostolic writers were able to avoid suspicion of
political propaganda, and to give to the thought
of the Second Coming a far wider significance than
any Mliich they could have suggested by laying
too much emphasis upon the future as the estab-
lishment of a Kingdom, however much they might
have attempted to give to this term a spiritual
and non-material connotation. For, after all,
Christ is and will be more than king, and ' king-
dom ' does not go very far in expressing the con-
ditions of the life with Him for which Christians
long.
5. Apostolic conception of the Kingdom. — If we
now ask what ideas the writers of the Apostolic
Age attached to the term ' Kingdom of God ' or
' of Christ,' the answer must be that for them as in
the teaching of Christ in the Gospels it is a term
to symbolize the inexpressible — that is to say, the
future blessedness of the redeemed.f The Anointed
King had risen from the dead, and was seated at
the right hand of God. His reign had therefore
Ijegun. AVhy then did they not conceive of His
Kingdom as a heavenly one into which His
followers were admitted at death? Mainly, no
doubt, because of the teaching, ascribed to Christ
* On the unique feature of the Apocalypse — the thousand
rears' reign of Christ upon earth — see A. Robertson, Reffnum
'Dei, p. 113.
t ' It connotes, with infinite richness of meaning, all that ia
implied in the word " Salvation "' (Robertson, op. cU. p. 50).
678 KINGDOM, KINGDOM OF GOD
KNOWLEDGE
Himself, tliiit He would return to {gather to^etlier
His elect. Partly, too, because of the common
a^K)calyptio teaching that before the inauguration
ot the Messianic Kingdom there must be the final
act in tiie present world-order, tiie general resiir-
recti(m, final judgment, and transformation of this
world to lit it to be the arena of the heavenly
Kingdom. Thus the Kingdom was in being, but
it awaited its manifestation. The King was
crowned. His subjects could serve Him. But
however close tlie union l)etween Him and them,
there was a sense in which they were now absent
from the Lord, and awaited His coming. Tlie
Kingdom would be fully manifested only when He
came. Meanwhile the Kingdom could be spoken
of as a present reality rather because the Christian
could be transported by faith into tiie presenc-e of
the King than oecause he brought (by Ids Christian
life) the Kingdom down into this present world.
There is hardly any trace in the Epistles of the
medifeval idea that the Church on earth was the
Kingdom of God. And the idea of some modern
theological Avriters, that this world as we know it
will develop under Christian influence until it
becomes the Kingdom, is quite alien to their
thought. Indeed, the apostolic writers seemed to
regard this worlil as incapable of becoming the
arena of God's Kingdom. They felt that human
nature as now constituted coulci reach a very im-
perfect measure of Christian perfection. Limited
as we are, even Christian knowledge must be im-
perfect ; ' now we see tluough a mirror, in a riddle,'
cries St. Paul (1 Co L3'-).
There was also the problem of physical death.
So long as that remained, Christ's sovereignty
could not be fully manifested. Tiie ultimate per-
fection which is tlie goal of the individual Christian
could only be dimly guessed at. ' It doth not yet
appear what we shall be, but we know that if he
shall be manifested, we shall be like him, for we
shall see him as he is' (1 Jn 3-). And in a wonder-
ful passage St. Paul seems to express the belief
that physical nature as now known to us must
imdergo some transformation at Christ's return
before it can be the scene of His Kingdom: 'we
know that the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth together in pain even until now.' ' For
the earnest expectation of tiie creature waitetli for
the manifestation of the sons of God ' (Ro 8'"- --).
Consequently, their anticipation for this world
was far from being a hope of gradual amelioration.
The period immediately preceding the coming of
the Kingdom would be one of evil and not of good.
Cf. 1 Th V\ ' the wrath to come,' 2 Th 2^-^-, « in
the last day evil times shall come,' 2 Ti 3^ and the
Apocalypse, passim. The writer of 2 Peter stands
alone in anticipating a destruction of the present
world by fire (2 P 3"). If any one of these writers
had been asked whether the Kingdom was now
£ resent, he would have answered, No. Christ was
Ang, but His Kingdom would be manifested only
when He came. If he had been further asked
what that Kingdom would be, or in wiiat relation
it would stand to this present world, he would
probably have ansAvered that nearly all that con-
stitutes this present world would have vanished —
imperfection, sin, death; and that as to the nature
of the new world he could say but little save th.it
Christ would be there, and that His servants would
serve Him, and that that was enougli for anyone
to know.
When modern writers ransack the records of
Christ's teaching or the other apostolic writings
for traces of the conception that the Kingdom of
God is now present in liuman life, it is, of course,
possible to find them. For, wherever a human
soul is in communion witii tlie absent King, tliorc
in some measure is the .sovereignty of God exhibited
an<l the reign of Christ realize<l. IJut in the NT
the admission that the Kingdom is now in some
sense present, whether in the suVjjection of the
Christian soul to the law of (,'hrist, or in the
("liurcii of which He is the Heatl, or in the life of
(Jo<l streaming down into the world through the
S[)irit of Christ in the forms of righteousness and
jieace, is always made on the understanding that
these foreshadowings of the Kingdom of ( Jod imply
a far more perfect realization of the Kingdom in
tlie future, and that when Christ comes again the
Kingdom will come in such sense that by com-
parison it will seem never to have come before.
Tlie relation between the Kingdom now and the
Kiiif^dom of the future is perhaps much the same
as that between the presence of Christ now and
His presence when He returns. None has ever so
fully been conscious of the life of Christ in him as
was St. Paul : ' I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me.' Yet none has ever looked forward more
earnestly, with greater expectation of living hope,
to the day of Christ's return. He could even
speak of this present life as a condition of absence
from the Lord (2 Co 5"). By contrast with such
knowledge as we have of Christ now, vision of
Him when He came again would be * face to face'
(1 Co 13'2).
LiTERATURK. — A. Robertson, Rcgnum Dei, London, 1901 ;
A. B. Bruce, The KimjUoui of God*, Edinburgh, ISid ; J. S.
Candlish, The Kiwjdoin. of God, do. 1884; J. Orr, art.
' Kingdom ' in HDIi ii. ; W. Sanday, ' St. I'aul's Equivalent
for the " Kingdom of Heaven " ' in JThSt i. [19()0] 481.
WiLLouonBY C. Allen.
KISH (v'p,Kh), the father of Saul, called Cis in
the AV (Ac 13-1).
KISS.— See Salutation.
KNOWLEDGE.— The distinctive sense in which
the apostles speak of knowledge has reference to
the knowledge of God, and especially to the know-
ledge of God and the world through Jesus Christ.
1. The organ of knowledge.— St. Paul teaches
clearly (Ko I'^-^s) that, apart from any special
revelation, God has exhibited so plainly ills attri-
butes of eternal power and divinity in creation
that there is given to man an instinctive knowledge
of God. There is a certain intelligence in mankind
which, apart from the power of tlie senses, makes
God known by the heart when He is not understood
by the reason. Indeed, men became darkened in
their understandings when they began to indulge
in reasoning, and in trying to be wise tiiey became
fools. Thus St. Paul places tlie intuitive moral
consciousness as the central organ of the true
knowledge of God. When the Apostle speaks of
the means by which the Christian knowledge of
(Jod is acquired, he develops this principle. It is
true that St. Paul admits that for the knowledge
of the facts of Christ's life he and others are in-
debted to the testimony of witnesses (1 Co 15^), and
that for bringing faith and knowledge the preach-
ing of the word of truth is invaluable, but he
insists pre-eminently that in all true knowledge of
God in Christ the spirit of man is directly acted
upon by the Spirit of God (1 Co 2^-«, Eph 3»).
St. I'aul, who excelled in logic and speculation,
cannot be regarded as unnecessarily decrying the
logical faculty or the speculative gift, and yet he
speaks of reasonings (Xoyurfiovs) and of vaunting
speculations ('every higli thing,' vav vxpufxa) as
jiossible strengths of the enemy that required to
be cast down, and of the need of bringing every
tiiought into the obedience of Ciirist (2 Co 10').
Perhaps this attitude may have been accentuated
for the Apostle l)y the fact tiiat in his own
experience so much of his knowledge should have
come directly in visions, as in (lie vision of Jesus,
the E.xalted Christ (Ac 9^), in the vision of the man
KNOWLEDGE
KNOWLEDGE
679
of Macedonia (16'*'), and in the vision of the third
heaven (-2 Co 12').
St. John declares that all men have the organ
of spiritual vision by whicli Goti, who is light, is
revealed to tiiein. >Iany refuse to exercise this
organ, and prefer to dwell in darkness, and tlins
lose the power of knowing, while spiritual vision
becomes clearer and stronger by a purer and better
moral life. Those who keep the commandments
of God come to a growing knowledge { 1 Jn 2^), and
only those in whom love is abiding really possess
this Di%ine knowledge (4"). Whoever persists in
sinning does not know God (3*). The organ of
knowledge is spiritual and ethical, not merely
logical or speculative.
Thus both these apostles are alike in their
insistence that the organ of Divine knowledge is
to be found in this deep faculty of the soul. The
apostles would agree in the saying : ' Pectus facit
Christianum,' if not : ' Pectus facit theologum.'
2. The object of knowledge. — Much of the
earliest teaching of the apostles was to demonstrate
that Jesus of >'azareth was the Christ of God (Ac
2*), and the object of all their knowledge and
preaching might be summed up in the phrase of
St. Paul : ' to give the light of the knowleilge of
the glory of G<xl in the face of Jesus Christ' (2 Co
4*). This illumination (^ioTi(rfi6i) came first to the
apostles with the purpose of being conveyed by
them to others who were in ignorance. Thus the
object that is made known to all Christians is the
glory of God as revealed in the person, character,
and work of Jesus Christ, so that what was only
dimly discerned before is now clearly seen. This
is the open secret that believers in Clirist have dis-
covered and delight to make known. This is the
nvcrnpiov that was hidden for long ages but is now
revealed, so that the Divine plan of redemption is
no longer a secret but is heralded forth in Jesus
Christ (Ro 1623, 1 Co 2^). Thus St. Paul conceives
of the glory of God as having been long concealed
by the clouds of earth, but at last having shone
forth in undimmed splendour ; and those who
believe that Jesus is the Lord receive a vision of
God's glory that illuminates all life, history, and
experience.
To St. John also Jesus Christ is the source of
light on all the great matters of life. Through
Him we know God (1 Jn 2^), and this provides the
key to all knowledge.
The other apostles agree in the central place in
their teaching being given to the knowleilge of
God in Christ, and the Epistle to the Hebrews
(8"), in announcing that under the New Covenant
there has come a universal knowledge of God, not
only embodies the hopes of the OT prophets but
also declares the faith of the NT teachers.
3. Implications of knowledge.— This Christian
knowledge sheds its light on all the facts and aims
of life. Thus individuals learn the outstanding
features of their own characters (Ja 1-^), the
sanctity of their lives as being the temples of God
(I Co 31^), the value of their bodies as members of
Christ (6*'), and the consecration of all the powers
of body and mind as an acceptable service to God
(Ro 12'). Christian knowledge leads to a better
understanding of all the experiences of life, and to
a conviction that in and through every event God
is making all things to work together for good to
them that love Him (Ro 8-^), and especially to a
conviction that the trials of life do not come with-
out Divine planning but are appointed by the will
of God (1 Th 3»). Through Christ there comes
likewise a better knowledge of social duties, e.g.
in the relation of masters and servants. Servants
are expected to render a whole-hearted service
because they know that their real master Ls Jesus
Christ, by whom they are to be recompensed.
Masters are required to carry out all their duties
M'ith justice and fairness, for tliey know that they
have to account to their Unseen Master, the Lord
in heaven (Col 3^^"^). Even minor social problems
like those of eating and drinking have new light
cast upon them (Ro 14"), for the light of Jesus
Christ has illuminated all life and brought know-
ledge where formerly there was doubt or ignorance.
In the Epistles of St. John this Christian gnosis
has a predominant place, and it is interesting to
note how wide and vital this knowledge becomes
according to the Apostle. The knowledge of God
is at the centre, and it radiates forth in every direc-
tion to a wide circumference, for it includes the
knowledge of truth (1 Jn 2"-'), of righteousness (2®),
of love (3^*), of spiritual life and inspiration (3-^ 4-),
and of the state of those beyond the grave (3-). In
the light of God Christians possess a light that
brings enlightenment to them on many problems
of experience, perplexities of the present time, and
mysteries of the future life.
4. Complements of knowledge. — The apostles
uniformly recognize that knowledge of itself is im-
perfect and must be always associated with other
Christian gifts. To reach its fullness it must be ac-
companied by abnegation (Ph 3*), by fellowship
with God and with brethren (1 Jn 1'), by obedience
to God's commands (2^), by attention to apostolic
teaching (4"), and by faith, ^-irtue, temperance,
patience, godliness, love of the brethren, and love
(2 P 1«).
Special notice should be taken of the connexion
of knowledge and faith, and of knowledge and
love. The apostles do not recognize any essential
antagonism between faith and knowledge. Faith
does not arise from ignorance but from knowledge
(Ro 10^"), and knowledge does not supersede faith
but includes it (2 P 1^). The knowledge of God in
Christ is synonymous with faith in Him, and in
their essence the two are closely inter-related. In
knowledge there is the recognition of the Divine
by our spiritual nature, in faith there is the action
or the will in virtue of this insight, so that the
highest knowledge and the humblest faith go
together. There is a kind of knowledge, however,
that puffs up (1 Co 8'), and so far from its leading
to faith it begets a self-sufficiency and pride that
strike at the very foundations of all Christian
faith.
At their best there is also no antagonism between
knowledge and love. To know God is to love
Him, and to reach the highest knowledge love is
necessary. ' Every one that loveth is begotten of
God and knowetli him' (1 Jn 4"). Christian
knowledge is not a matter of the intellect but of
the deeper moral and spiritual faculties that find
their true expression in love. Still knowledge and
love may come into conflict, and in the solution of
many practical problems love is even more neces-
sary than knowledge. St. Paul deals with this
relation especially in his discussion of the attitude
to be adopted to things sacrificed to idols. For
his generation the difficulty was intense, as some
Christians dreaded the slightest approval being
given to idol-worship, while others were so con-
vinced that idolatry was false that they considered
it a negligible quantity. Among the latter were
many Corinthian Christians, who had announced
to the Apostle their conviction that the whole
system of idolatry seemed so false that they could
eat any food irrespective of its being associated
with idol-worship. But St. Paul in his reply
(1 Co 8'*^*) argues that a mere intellectual convic-
tion is not the only or the best guide in such a
matter. In theory the Corinthians might be right,
but in practice they must not be guided by know-
ledge alone. ' Knowledge puffeth up, but love edi-
heth,' and in matters that are intimately concerned
680
KNOWLEDGE
LABOUR
with the feelings and prejudices of otliers love is
the safer guide. To a Christian even more than
to a philosopher the saying of Aristotle must
apply : rb tAos iffrlv ov yvQan dXXd irpa^is {Nic. Eth,
I. lii. 6).
8. Philosophy and theosophy.— The relation of
Christian knowledge to philosophy and theosopliy is
discussed by St. Paul. The Apostle expoimds the
gospel as being not only ' power' but also ' wisdom,'
yet he refuses to establish this wisdom by any of the
current arguments or by the conclusions of Greek
philosophy (1 Co 2>"^-)- He is proclaiming a gosjiel
that is folly in the eyes of many, and yet it is the
true wisdom to those who understand it. This
higher philosophy has been hidden from the sight
of men, otherwise they would not have crucitied
the Lord Jesus Christ, It comes tlirough the in-
dwelling of the Spirit of God, who alone can reveal
it. Just as the spirit of man alone can undei'stand
the things of a man, so the Spirit of God in man
alone can understand the Divine philosophy. ' The
merely intellectual man' rejects this philosophy,
as he does not possess the .spiritual insight to dis-
cern its Divine wisdom. Even Christian people
may be mere children in this respect, not able to
understand this teacliing ; and among other indica-
tions of this childish mind was the party spirit
by which so many were impelled. Thus St. Paul
argues that the initiated Christians find in Christ
a philosophy as well as a gospel.
Christian knowledge came into conflict with the
theosophical tendencies that were so prevalent in
many ancient schools of thought. In this con-
nexion St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians is of
chief importance. The Apostle deals in this Epistle
with claims that had been made by certain Chris-
tians to a higher Christian life thwugh means that
involved ascetic and ritual practices, and from
arguments that rested on speculative and theo-
sophic principles. It is unnecessary for the present
purpose to decide whether these heresies arose
from a latent Gnosticism or from certain features
of Judaism ; but, if Judaism was the source, it was
a Judaism influenced by the thought and spirit of
the Diaspora. This may be judged by the kind
of speculations in which they indulge, especially
in the cosmical dualism that they shadow forth
and in the belief in an endless series of angelic
beings as mediators between God and men. St.
Paul does not denounce all speculative knowledge,
but opposes it by a higher knowledge of Jesus
Christ. He develops the teaching about Christ so
that He is presented not only as a full and perfect
Saviour for men, but also as the Lord of the
Universe, in whom all things, even angels, were
created, and as the fullness of all things, by whom
both men and angels were made at one with (Jod.
This insistence on the cosmical value of Christ
carries with it the best refutation of all extra-
Christian theosophical teaching.
LiTKRATURB.— H. J. Holtzmann, NT Theologie, 1896, i. 4TC-
48C ; A. E. Garvie, in Manxfield College Essays, 1909, p. 161 ;
J. Y. Simpson, The Spiritual I ntet~pr elation uf Nature, 1912,
p. 11 ; J. R. Illing-worth, Jieason and liecelation, 1902, p. 44 ;
A. Chandler, Faith and Experience, 1911 ; W. P. DuBose,
The Reason of Life, 1911, p. 198 ; J. Denney, The Way Ever-
lasting, 1911, p. 26 ; W. M. Macgrregor, Jems Christ the Son
of God, 1907, p. 175 ; W. G. Rutherford, The Key of Know-
ledge, 1901, p. 1 ; artt. in HDJi (J. Denney), SDH (J. H.
Maude), and CE (A. J. Maas) ; see also art. Ignora.scr.
D. Macrae Tod.
KORAH {Kopi, hence called Core in the AV).—
His rebellion and punishment (Nu 16) are alluded
to by Jude (v.").
LABOUR.— Greek and Roman thought regarded
those who lived by labour as indispensable but
contemptible necessities. Jewish teaching stood
in strong contrast to this. ' Hate not laborious
work ' (Sir 7") was accepted as a rule of life. Even
the scholar was to spend some of his time in
manual work (Schiirer, JIJP ii. i. [Edinburgh,
1885] § 25). The apostolic writers repeat and
emphasize this principle. A man who does no
work is to them a parasite (2 Th 3'"). In the
Thessalonian Church the expectation of the speedy
return of the Lord had been made an excuse by
many for the abandonment of their daily work.
St. Paul meets this by reminding his converts
how, when he had preached to them, he had taught
them to welcome a life of labour. It brings with
it three good effects— quietness of spirit, honour-
able standing among neighbours, and independ-
ence of other men's alms (1 Th 4'"-, 2 Th S'^).
To these he adds in Eph 4™ the ability to help
those who are in need. It is possible, as von
Dobschiitz suggests, that this had been forgotten
not only at Tliessalonica, but also at Jerusalem,
and that that fact was one of the causes of the
distress among Christians there.
St. Paul enforced his teachingby his own example.
He had been taught at Tarsus the local trade
of tent-making, and by practising this (cf. Ac 18^)
maintained himself while evangelizing. That he
might be no burden to others, he willingly worked
overtime (' night and day,' 1 Tli 2*). His roughened
hands showed the severity of his toil (Ac 2U^'"*'').
In 1 Co 9® he mentions Barnabas as another who
lived by the same rule — a striking instance of self-
discipline in view of his past history (cf. Ac 4^).
The justification of this high view of labour
can be seen in St. Paul's treatment of the position
of slaves (Eph 6«-», Col 3-^-4^). There \yas a
danger that slaves might suppose that, as in the
eyes of God they were of equal value with their
masters, they need not do tlieir work very care-
fully. But St. Paul forbids all scamping of work
('not in the Avay of eyeservice '). It is to be done
thoroughly, because they are servants not so much
of earthly masters as of Christ, who has an absolute
claim on their best, and will see to their reward.
It was the custom among Jewish artisans to
maintain anyone of their own craft who was seek-
ing work until his search wtis successful. In the
Didache (xii.) a similar rule is laid down for Chris-
tians. But such help is to be given for two or
three days only, to avoid imposture. If a man
does not know a trade, he is to learn one. Similar
advice is given in Ep. Barn, (x.), where Christians
are forbidden to keep comj)any with the idle.
Modern conditions call for a renewed emphasis
on the apostolic teaching about labour. The
principles which it embodies are a warning, to the
wealthy not to consider themselves exempt from
labour, if they would be accounted Christians, and
to the workman not to be content with less than
the Itest in his work, because anything less is un-
worthy of the Heavenly Master.
IjiTF.RATrRR. — E. vOH DobschUtz, Christia7i Life in the
Primilive Church, Enir. tr., London and N.Y., IIKM ; W.
Rauschenbuscb, Christianity and the Social Crisis, N.Y.,
LADY
LA^IB
681
1907, ch. iii. : F. Delitzsch, 7«ri>A Artisan Li'> in the Tiiiif
Hf Christ, London, 1902, ch. ix. § 3 ; A. B. D. Alexander. The
jithic* of St. Paul, Gla^ow, 1910. For Greek view o( labour :
E. Barker, Politieal Thottght of Plato and Aristotle, London,
1906, ch. viii. $ 1. For Roman : W. Warde Fowler, Social Life
at Rome, da 1908, ch. ii. For Jewish : Pirqe Aboth, ed.
Taylor, do. 1S77, p. IS ; cf. Delitzsch, op. eit. ch. ii.
C. T. DiMONT.
LADY.— See John, Epistles of.
LAKE OF FIRE.— That particular conception
of future punishment lepresenteii as ' the Lake of
Fire ' is found only in the Aix)calypse of St. John
among the Christian writings of the Apostolic Age.
For a fuller account of the early history of the
conception see . • Introductory ' and ' Christian '
sections of ' Cosmology and Cosmogony' in ERE,
and ' Hinnom, Valley of,' in HDB ; and, for the
fuller discussion of the general subject, artt. Hell
and Fire in the present work. It will be sufficient
to snm up briefly here the facts concerning the
origin of the conception.
Both the Babylonian and the Persian cosmogonies
contain the conception of the future destruction of
the world by fire, closing an teon or period in the
history of the world. But, while Persian escha-
tology shows the presence of the conception of penal
fire (cf. SBE v. 125 fl'.), there is, according to H.
Zimmem {KAT^, 1902-03, p. 643), no trace of the
conception in early Babylonian religion. Hence
the presence of the idea in Jewish prophetic es-
chatology is held by many scholars to be due to
Persian rather than to Babjionian influence.
1. In Jewish eschatology we find three related
conceptions, each possibly a different topographical
setting of the same central idea :
(1) The conception of the Valley of Hinnom ('J
tiun) as a place of fiery torment for the wicked
during the Me.ssianic Age ; cf. Is ^S^-*, where the
proximity of the place of punishment to Jerusalem
shows that the Valley of Hinnom is intended.
(2) The conception of a fiery stream issuing from
Jahtceh, or from His throne ; cf. Is 30**, Dn 7'".
This form may possibly have links of connexion with
the ancient conception of Jahweh as a volcano-god.
(3) The conception of a valley or sea of f re and
sulphur ; cf. Is 34', where the topographical setting
is in Edom. This conception goes back to the
story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which again is con-
nected by Gunkel (Schopfung und Chaos) and
Jeremias with the Babylonian cosmology (cf. A.
Jeremias, The OT in the Light of the Ancient East,
Eng. tr., 1911, ii. 40 f. ; M. Jastrow, The Eel. of
Bab. and Assy r., 1898, p. 507). The whole valley
of the Dead Sea is still called by the Arabs Wddy
en-Xtlr, ' Valley of Fire.'
The conception as it appears in the Apocaljrpse is
related rather to the forms (2) and (3) than to the
Gehenna conception.
2. In the Apocalypse we have again three distinct
conceptions.
(1) Hades (see artt. Hades, Hell), an inter-
mediate place or state whose existence ends at the
close of the millennial kingdom. Death and Hades
are cast into the Lake of Fire (Rev 2(V^). Hades
is not connected distinctly with the idea of punish-
ment in the Apocalypse.
(2) The Abyss (20'), in which the dragon is bound
during the millennial reign (cf. 9" andLk 8*^).
(3) The Lake of Fire, mentioned as existing
before the beginning of the millennial kingdom
(19^), the place into which the beast and the false
prophet are cast after their defeat by the Lamb.
It is also the place into which the devil is cast
after the defeat of Gog and Magog (201"). Then,
at the close of the Final Judgment, death and
Hades are cast into the Lake of Fire (20") ; and,
lastly, everyone not found written in the Lamb's
Book of Life is cast into the Lake of Fire (20"). An
additional statement (21*) descril)es those who have
their part in the Lake of Fire ; cf. the description
of those who are without the city (22'*).
3. The relevant passages in the contemporary
apocalyptic literature are: 3 Bar. xliv. 15 (' the
dwelling of the rest who are many shall be in the
fire,' in contrast to the blessing of the righteous in
the new age [xliv. 12]), xlviii. 39, 43, lix. 2, Ixiv. 7
(of Manasseh), Ixxxv. 13 ; S Es. vii. 36 (' the pit of
torment' and 'the furnace of Gehenna,' as the
abode of the wicked after the 400 years' Messianic
kingdom) ; ^.s*. Mos. x. 10 (the enemies of Israel
are seen in Gehenna). Hence in the apocalyptic
literattire contemporary with the Apocalypse the
precise form of the conception does not appear.
i. In the same way the passages in the Pauline
Epistles, Hebrews, 2 Peter, and the Apostolic
Fathers are all vague and general. Fire Ls one
of the accompanying features of the Parousia ; it is
the real or metaphorical agent of punishment for
the wicked, and only in 2 Peter do we find the
definite conception of a final conflagration which
will destroy the old heavens and earth.
The principal question then arising from the use
of the conception in the Apocalypse is as to its
relation to the future state.
(1) The Lake of Fire may be regarded as a place
of the final annihilation of evil. The force of the
expression ' second death ' determines the writer's
use of the conception. The 'second death' is a
Jewish theologoumenon, e.g. in the well-known
passage in the Jcrus. Targum on Dt 33®, 'Let
Keuben live in this age and not die the second
death.'
In Jewish Rabbinical theology the expression
seems to imply a non-participation in the life of
the age to come ; cf. the discussion in Sank. 11 as
to those who shall share the life of the coming age.
Hence the meaning of annihilation is possible.
Those who are not raised to the life of the world
to come cease to exist. On the other hand, the
writer of the Apocaljrpse holds the doctrine of a
general resurrection to judgment at the close of
the Messianic Kingdom. Hence it is also possible
that he has given the Jewish phrase a new mean-
ing. But for a fuller discussion of this point see
art. Immortalitv.
(2) The writer's conception of the Lake of Fire
may be penal. The beast and the false prophet
are said to be tormented there day and night, and
the unrighteous have ' their part ' in the Lake of
Fire, an expression which is most naturally inter-
preted in a penal sense. In the light of contem-
porary apocalyptic literature the penal sense would
seem to be the most natural one.
(3) It is possible to maintain a purgative mean-
ing for the conception, but this Wew finds no
support in the NT literature itself.
LmRATUSX.— Art. 'Fire 'in DCG ; S. D. F. Salmond, The
Ckriftian Doctrine of Immortality*, 1901 ; R. H. Charles,
Eschatology : Hebrew, Jewitk, and ChrisUmfi, 1913 ; W. O. E.
Oesterley, The Doctrine of the Last Things, 1908 ; C. Clemen,
Primitive Christianitff and its non-Jewtik Sottrees, Eng. tr.,
1912 ; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John^, 1907; P
Volz, J iii. Etekatologie wn Darnel bit Aiiba, 1S03.
S. H. HOOKE.
LAMB. — The point of view for this subject is
suggested by Delitzsch : ' All the utterances in the
New Testament regarding the Lamb of God are
derived from this prophecy [Is 53"], in which the
dumb type of the Passover now finds a tongue '
{Com. on Isaiah, Eng. tr., 1890, iL 297).— (1) In
Philip's interpretation of this passage to the eunuch
who questioned him concerning its meaning, he
showed that its fulfilment was found in Jesus (Ac
S^). — (2) In 1 P l**, Christ is compared with a
sacrificial lamb ; as an offering on behalf of sin He
gave Himself (1 Co 5^), Avithout blemish and with-
out spot (cf. Lv 23"). H the allusion here is first
682
LAMB
LAMP, LAMPSTAXD
to the descriptive terms of Isuiaii, yet there is in-
cludod an association derived from the Levitical
ritual. Christ was not only a quiet, unresisting
sullerer, but also a sacrilicial ollering for sin. — (3)
The main use of the term ' Lamb' in the NT is in
Revelation, where it occurs 28 times. The word
of which it is a translation is a diminutive, and
is peculiar to the Apocalypse. Many surprises
await one who, familiar only with the signilicance
of the Lanjb in tlie Levitical sacrilices, traces the
new forms in which the ligure made itself at home
in the visions of the Seer of Patmos. It is evident
that the writer had been fascinated by the sug-
gestion on account of wliich he lirst employed the
term to designate the Exalted Christ (5"), and
he was afterward conscious of no incongruity or
embarrassment in continuing to use the title when
he referred to Christ, even when he associated tlie
most incompatible qualities, relations, and activi-
ties with it. In the interest of clearness and con-
sistency one may try to substitute ' Christ ' for
'Lamb' wherever tlie latter term occurs in this
book, but it will be found that then something
almost indefinable but very real has fallen out and
that notiiing of equal worth has taken its place.
We move here in a region of prophecy, of symbol-
ism, and of spiritual values, wlierethe imagination
supplies itself with wings, and where exact logical
thought lia.s to plod along as best it can afoot.
According to Rev 5", in the central place before the
throne, in the midst of the four and twenty elders,
and the four living creatures, the Revelationist
turned to see a Lion, symbol of majesty and over-
mastering power, when lo ! instead of a lion he be-
held a Lamb, standing, bearing still the wound by
which He was slain in sacrifice, yet with the em-
blems of power and wisdom in the highest degree.
' He looked to see power and force, whereby tiie
foes of his faith should be destroyed, and he saw
love and gentleness by which they should be con-
quered ' (C B. Stevens, The Theology of the NT,
1899, p. 542). The reason Hofmanu offers why the
Lion which has conqiiered appears as a Lamb is
that He has gained His victory in that form ( Weis-
snnung unci Erfidlang, 1841-44, ii. 328 ; cf. Is
53'-). Attempts to trace the symbolism to astro-
theology (cf. A. Jeremias, Babylonisclies im Nl\
1905) or to a Babylonian source discover a single
reference to the blood of a lamb substituted as a
sacrificial offering for men ; but no influence of this
on pre-Christian Messianism, or of contemporary
cults on this particular symbolism, has been found
(cf. J. Moflatt, EGT, ' Revelation,' 1910, p. 385).
Rut always at the heart of every picture of the
Lamb throughout this book is the never-to-be-for-
gotten fact of His sacrifice and victorious power,
and all the properties and functions of the Exalted
Christ take tiieir rise from this fact. Among the
functions assigned to Him is : (a) that of loosing
the seals of the Divine judgments, i.e. of carrying
history through its successive stages to its ultimate
goal. Henceforth the life of the world must be
dominated by the ideal which He has realized, and
the power for its fulfilment must proceed from
Him. (6) At the very centre of the heavenly host,
together with God He receives universal homage
from the highest beings in heaven— innnmeral)ie
angels — and the entire animated creation (Rev 5^"'^
7*"'"). The significance of this worship, springing as
it does from a convinced monotheistic faith on the
part of the writer, is not to be mistaken. Not a
Iiigher and a lower worship are here, but the two
are of the .same order and unite in one stream.
The Lamb does indeed share the throne of God
(22'), yet the throne of God and of the Lamb is one.
(c) To Him as slain the redeemed owe their power
over sin and death (o«-»-ia 710. u 1211 144) . nor in
this connexion does the author shrink from the
word 'purchase.' (d) To Him is entrusted the
eternal welfare of men, symbolized by the ' book
of life' (21'" ; cf. 3'), the history and significance of
which may be traced in Is 4=*, Ex 32"'-, Ps 38'«89"",
Ezk 139, ISIal 3'«, Dn 12', Enoch xlvii. 3, Ajwr. liar.
xxiv. 1, Asc. Is. ix. 12, Lk lO-"*, Ph 4='). (e) Still,
as in the earthly life, the redeemed follow Him antl
He maintains the life which was begun through
Him, by keeping them in fellowship with Himself
and with God as the source of life (Rev 7'^ H'--*).
As the vision unfolds, several startling paradoxes
are thrown into the foreground. The Lamb bears
the marks of a violent death at the hand of others,
yet He is all-powerful (5"). He gave Himself in the
surrender of a perfect love for the sake of sinners,
yet He is moved by fierce wrath against evil-doers
(6'"). The Lamb becomes the great Siiepherd of the
sheep, whom He guides and they follow Him (7'^).
Hostile forces shall make war against the Lamb,
and the Lamb shall overcome them (17'*). In the
final chapters, the scene shifts and still more strik-
ing symbolism appears. The Lamb is pictured as
the central figure in a marriage feast — tlie Bride-
groom whose bride is the New Jerusalem (19^* ' 21*),
hidden with God until the fullness of time. Again
the scene changes to the New Jerusalem, whoso
foundations are the twelve apostles of the Lamb
(21'^), whose temple is the Lord God Almighty and
the Lamb {v."^), and whose lamp is the Lamb (v.=®).
In closing we may summarize the significance of
'Lamb 'in the Apocalypse. The meaning of the
person and work of Christ is disclosed in sacrifice.
The secret of His nearness to God, of His personal
victory and power over others, and the common
spirit by which His activity on earth is bound to
that in heaven, is found in love. And still further,
central in the throne of God, the law of the moral
order of the world, the power which moves history
to its goal, the all-pervading spirit of the angelic
hosts, the principle in which the paradoxes of life
are resolved, the magnet which draws heaven down
to earth and domiciles it Avith men, and the light
in which all social good is revealed and glorified is
sacrificial love. C. A. Beckwith.
LAMP, LAMPSTAND.— Recent excavation in
Palestine has greatly increased our knowledge of
the types of lamps in use during the various
epochs of antiquity. The recently published
Memoir, The Excavation of Gezcr (It. A. S.
Macalister, 3 vols., 1912), has multiplied examples,
and, together with Excavaticns in Palestine during
189^-1900 (F. J. Bliss and R. A. S. Macalister,
1902), allows us to trace the development very
fully. We may now classify the lamps of the
Apostolic Age under the head of 'closed' lamps,
with divisions according to shape and ornamenta-
tion. It is likely that the most interesting forms
lie outside our period (i.e. after a.d. 100) — those
that bear Christian inscriptions, and others that
show the conventional 'candlestick' pattern.
Allowance must be made for the older ' open '
type, which liere and there persisted. It must
also be remembered that Greek influence had to
a large extent modified the national types.
Roman forms are forthcoming, but they are rare.
These remarks apply to lamps of the ordinary
material, i.e. clay. Bronze lamps play little part
in Palestine, and even terra-cotta forms are un-
common. All forms agree in certain general fea-
tures, viz. the receptacle for oil, and the orifice
for the wick. But tnere are many peculiarities in
regard to shape, the mode of base and of handle,
the number 01 wick-holes, the size of the reservoir
opening, the presence of a slit for raising the wick,
etc. In the type that retains the old saucer form,
account must be taken of the number of jxjints —
one, four, and even seven ('multiple radiating'
LAODICEA
LAODICE.V
683
lamps) — wliich iiii plies a conespomling number of
wicks. The lamp is for the most part dLssociateil
from its itanJ. Lampstands, for table and for
floor, and candelabra, with ground base, as appear-
ing in classical illustrations pertaining to tlie 1st
cent. A.D., are highly ornate. It cannot be said
that Palestine has produced njany examples of
these, altlioiigh they were in use, fashioned from
materials of wood, stone, and metal. Hanging
lamps were also known, as can be judged by the
form of the handles. For outdoor purposes the
more primitive torch was used, consisting of a
handle surmounted by a saucer-shaped protective
disc, and having a receptacle for a bundle of
wicks. These were saturated with oil, supplied
from a separate vessel. The oil used was chiefly
olive.
- When we examine the biblical literature of the
Apostolic Age we find that the essential words
under this head are Xi'Xfoi, Xuxfia, Xo/trds, * lamp,'
•lampstand,' and 'torch,' according to the above
description. In spite of our increased knowledge
regarding specific forms, we cannot add much
towards elucidation of the passages abont to be
enumerated. The ' lights' of Ac 16® (RV) (<f>&ra.,
neut. plur. — not 'a light' as in the AV) cannot
well be detined. The Xa^rdSes (Ac 20*) in the
upper chamber might as reasonably be lamps as
torches, notwithstanding the term employed (on
the reading irroXanirddei [D] see H. Smith in ExpT
xvi. [1904-05] 478, and J, H. Moulton and G.
Milligan in Expositor, iv. [1912] 566). In Rev 4'
the same word is translated in the RV 'lamps,'
and in S'" ' torch,' which shows the perplexity
attaching. R. C. Trench (NT Synonymf^, 1876,
p. 159) is of opinion that the invariable rendering
in the NT should be 'torches,' Mt 25* being no
exception. The point need not be pressed.
The generic term X&xyoi has been consistently
rendered 'lamp' in the RV, 'candle,' which is
erroneous, having been dropped (Rev 18^ 22*), and
'light,' which is indefinite, having been displaced
(2 P 1'*, Rev 21^). No information can be gathered
from these passages as to the type of lamp.
Although candle has been dropped, candlestick
(^ Xir;^''''' — with one exception plur.) has been re-
tained, and ' lampstand ' placed in the margin
(Rev 112.13. » 2'* 11*). He 9- stands apart from
this, ' candlestick ' alone being employed. The
reference in this case is to the furniture of the
tabernacle (for a description of the Golden Candle-
stick [Lampstand] see HDB iv. 663 f.). The re-
maining instances quoted, all in I£ev., also hark
back to OT parallels (Ex 25=^ 37^, Zee 4-). There
is, however, difl'erence amid similarity. By the
necessity of the case, since there are seven churches
(Rev l* etc.), the lampstands are single and number
seven, instead of being one shaft, divided into
seven branches. The parallel to Zee 4? does not
extend to the number of the lampstands (two in
Rev 11*, one in Zee.), although the number of the
olive trees is the same. This jwint is elaborated
in HDB iv. 255.
In conclusion, reference may be made to the
representation of the seven -branched lampstand
on the Arch of Titus, often reproduced, which is
probably a copy of the original (EBi, art. ' Candle-
stick ") ; to contemporary Roman practice in light-
ing (see H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John,
1907, p. 240) ; and to the abundant materials for
studying the development of the lamp witliin
Christian times provided by H. Leclercq, Manuel
cCarcheologie chretienne, 1907, ii. 509 ff., 5o6 ff.
W. CrL'ICKSHAXK.
LiODICEi (S has XaoSixia every^vhere. B has
this form of the word in Col 2\ Rev 1" Z^*, but
Aao5t/ceta in Col 4'^ ^*- ^^ [the latter is the form u.sed
by almost all Gr. authors] ; Lat. Laodicea [in-
correctly Laodiciii]). — Laodicea was an important
seat of commerce in the Roman province of Asia,
one of three cities in the Lycus valley which
were evangelized about the same time, ft was 11
miles W. of Colossie and 6 nulea S. of Hierapolis.
Founded probably by the Seleucid king Antiochus
II. (261-246 B.C.), and named after his wife
Laodice, it was kno\vn as ' Laodicea on the Lycus '
{XoLoSiKia ri rpdi [or irl] rif AvKifi, Laodicea ad Lycum).
Being some distance east of ' the Gate of Phrygia,'
it is classed by Polybius (v. 57) and Strabo (XII.
viii. 13) among Phrygian cities, while Ptolemy
sets it down as Carian. It stood on a small plateau
about 2 miles S. of the Lycus, and had behind it
to the S. and S.W. the snow-capped mountains
Salbakos and Kadmos, each over 8,000 ft. above
sea-level. Designed, like the other Seleucid foun-
dations in Asia Minor, to be at once a strong gar-
rison city and a centre of Hellenic civilization, it
occupied a strategic position on the great eastern
trade-route, where the narrow Lycus gorge opens
into the broad Moeander plain. 'Formerly a small
town' (Strabo, xil. viii. 16), its prosperity dated
from the peaceful time which followed the Roman
occupation (133 B.C.).
"The country around lAodicea breeds excellent sheep, re-
markable not only for the softness of their wool, in which they
surpass the Milesian sheep, but for their dark or raven colour.
The Laodiceans derive a large revenue from them, as the
Colosseni do from their flocks, of a colour of the same name '
(Strabo, xn. %-iii. 16).
The native religion of the district was the cult
of Carian Men, whom the Hellenists of Laodicea
identified with Zeus. His temple was at Attuda,
13 miles W. from Laodicea. In connexion with
it, but probably in Laodicea itself, was 'a large
Herophilian school of medicine under the direction
of Zeuxis, and afterwards of Alexander Philalethes '
(Strabo, xii. WiL 20). The physicians of Laodicea
were skilful oculists, and a preparation for weak
eyes, called 'Phrygian powder' (W^pa 4>pvyia),
was well known. 2^early the whole basin of the
Mjeander was subject to earthquakes {ib. 17). Im-
perial funds were usually given for the restoration
of cities thus injured, and Laodicea accepted a
grant from Tiberius after such a calamity, but of
a later visitation Tacitus writes : * The same year
[A.D. 60] Laodicea, one of the most famous cities
of Asia, having been prostrate by an earthquake,
recovered herself by her o^vn resources (propriis
opibus revaluit), and without any relief from us '
(Ann. XIV. xxvii.). She had long been rich and
increased in goods, and had need of nothing (Rev
3^'). ilore than a century before (in 51 B.C. ), Cicero
proposed to cash his treasury Bills of Exchange at
a Laodicean bank (Ep. ad Fam. iii. 5).
Such a thriving commercial centre had great
attractions for a colony of Jews. If the first
settlers were sent thither by the founder of the
city, or by Antiochus the Great, who is said to
have planted 2,000 Jewish families in Phrygia an4l
Lydia (Jos. Ant. Xll. iii. 4), they would enjoy
equal rights of citizenship with the Greeks.
When Flaccus, Roman governor of Asia (62 B.C.),
forbade the Jews to send contributions of money
to Jerusalem, he seized a.s contraband twenty
pounds weight in gold in the district of which
Laodicea was the capital (Cicero, pro Flacco, 28).
Calculated at the rate of a half-shekel for each
man, this sum represents a Jewish population of
more than 11,000 adult freemen, women and
children being exempted. Josephus preser\-es a
letter from ' the magistrates of the Laodiceans to
Caius Rubilius' (c. 4§ B.C.), guaranteeing religious
liberty to the Jews of the city (Ant. xiv. x. 20).
The details of the founding of the Church of Lao-
dicea have to be pieced together from allusions in
the Acts and Epistles. St. Paul was not directly
the founder. His words in Col 2*, • I strive for
684
LAPIS LAZULI
LASCrVIOUSNESS
. . , them at Laodicea, and for as many as liave
not seen my face in tlie flesli,' imply that he liad
not personally laboured in the Lycus valley. In
his tiiird missionary tonr he did not go to Ephesns
by the ordinary route of commerce, whicli would
have brought him to the Lycus cities, but passed
through 'tjje upper country' (tA dvurepiKd. ixipi),
Ac 19'), probably by Seiblia and the Cayster valley.
His influence in the former region was indinnrt.
During his three years' residence in Ephesus ' all
they who dwell in Asia heard the word' (19'").
The truths which he proclaimed in the metropolis
were quickly repeated all over the province, and
especially in the cities along the great roads. His
evangelist of the Lycus glen was Epaphras, whom
St. Paul regarded as his deputy (Col 1'[11V], read-
ing virkp TjfiQv instead of v/xdv), and whose labour
on behalf of the three communities evoked a warm
encomium (Col 4'*' "). The close relations subsist-
ing between the churches of Laodicea and Colossoe
are indicated by the injunction that the Ei)istle
to Colossians should be read in the Church of
the Laodiceans, and that the Colossians should
read 'the Epistle from Laodicea.' The latter was
perhaps the canonical 'Epistle to the Ephesians,'
which Marcion expressly names the Epistle ' to
the saints who are at Laodicea.'
The last of the Epistles to the Seven Churches
of Asia is addressed to Laodicea (Rev 3'^"-"-*). The
severity of the prophet's rebuke has made ' Laodi-
cean' for ever suggestive of lukewarmness in re-
ligion. Once fervent, Laodicea became so tepid
that her condition excited a feeling of moral nausea.
Each of the Seven Epistles is of course concerned
with a Christian church ratiier than with a city,
but the Christians were citizens, and the spirit of
the city could not be kept out of the chnrcli. The
allusions to the circumstances and character of
Laodicea are unmistakable. The famous com-
mercial and banking city, too proud to accept an
Empire's aid, is invited to come to the poor man's
market and buy from the Sender of the letter
(irop' i/jLov is emphatic) gold refined by lire (vv,"* '^).
She who has innumerable flocks on her Phrygian
hills, and whose fine black woollen fabrics are
prized everywhere, has need of white garments to
cover her own moral nakedness (v.'*). HerAilscu-
lapian school of medicine has no Phrygian powder
for the healing of her spiritual blindness, whicli
reqiiires the eye-salve (collyrimii) of another Phy-
sicuvn (v."*). liich Laodicea, well-clothed and well-
fed, self-reliant and self-satisfied, is in danger of
being rejected with loathing. Yet her absent
Lonl loves her, and writes her so incisively only
because He hopes to find her chastened and peni-
tent when He returns and knocks at her door
(vv.'"- ^).
Little is known about the post-apostolic history
of Laodicea. Traditions regarding Archippus,
Nymphas (Col 4"), and Diotrephes (3 Jn ^) areworth-
less. The so-called ' Epistle to the Laodiceans '
(in Latin) is a forgery. Tiie subscription of 1
Tim., 'written from Laodicea, which is the chief-
est city of Phrygia Pacatiana,' has no axithority.
The ruins of Laoilicea are nuiiiy but not impressive.
LiTERATURK.— W. M. Ramsay, The I^elters to the Seven
Churches, 1904, pp. 413-430 ; W. J. Hamilton, Researche,^ in
Asia Minor, J'ontiui, Annenia, 1842, i. ."ilSf. ; W. M. Leake,
Joximal of Tour in Asia Minor, 1824, p. ef)! f. ; Murray's
Handbook to Asia Minor, 1895. JaMES STRAHAN.
LAPIS LAZULL— See Sapphire.
LASCIYI0U8NESS (dtrAyeia).— 1. Usage.— The
Greek word occurs 10 times in the NT (Mk 7", lio
13", 2 Co 12-1, Gal 5'*, Eph 4'», 1 P 4^, 2 P 2- 7- '«,
Jude*). It should be read instead of avwXeia in
2 P 2*. It is 7 times translated by ' lasciviousness '
(AVm so translates it in 2 P 2^) in the AV, while
the 11 V translates it so in all cases except Ro 13",
wliere the 'wantonness' of the AV is retained
(cf. 2 P 2'*). In 2 P 2^ ii> dae\yel(} is translated
' filthy conversation.'
2. DerlYation.— The derivation of the word is
unknown. The old derivation was from Sclge, a
city in Pisidia regarded by some as remarkably
addicted to wantonness (Suidas, s.v.), and by
others as noted for its sobriety (Ktymologicon
Magnum, fi.v. ; Strabo, xii. ; Libanius, schol. in
Dem. Orat.). In the first case the a- would be
intensive, in the second jjrivative. Moderns derive
it from a -f aeXyu (^Ayw) (see Trench, AT Synonym^,
1876, p. 54, and T. K. Abbott, Ephesians and
Colossians [ICC, 1897, p. 1.32]), or from a(r(' satiety')
-f e\7, or from a -f ffoKay (oreXas), in which case the
primary meaning woukl l)e ' foul' (J. W. Donaldson,
New Cratylus\ 1859, p. 692 ; Ellicott on Gal 5'»).
3. Classical meaning. — The classical meaning of
the word is excess of any kind — even inordinate
size (see Donaldson, op. cit. p. 692), but particularly
moral excess and outrage, contemptuous violence
and insolence towards others. It has thus much
the same range of meaning as O^ptj. Trench brings
out well the classical meaning of the word (op, cit.
p. 54 ff.).
4. NT meaning. — In the NT, however, the term
seems to refer exclusively to ' open, shameless im-
purity.' It has plainly this meaning in Ro 13",
2 Co 1221, Gal 5i«, Eph 4i«, 2 P 2^- 's. It is one of
the works of darkness, the fit climax of fornication
and uncleanness ; it is a vice closely as.sociated
with banquetings and drinking l)outs (/cw/ioi Kai
fMid-rj; cf. 'wine, women, and song'); see C. Bigg,
St. Peter and St. Jude (ICC, 1901), 168.
a.(T^y€ia or aKadapcla ('a man may be aKAdaproi
and hide his sin ; he does not become d(Te\yr]s until
he shocks public decency ' [J. B. Liglitfoot, Gala-
tian^, 1876, p. 210]) and irXeove^La seem to be the
two characteristic heathen vices.
Bengel (on Ro 1^), followed by Trench, main-
tains that psychologically man without God must
seek satisfaction in either acr^Xyeta (dKadapaia) or
irXeove^ia, and dffiXyeia is associated in the NT with
cto-^/Seia and seems to be characteristically a heathen
sin (cf. Wis 142«, 3 Mac 2-"). Abbott (op. cit. p.
133 f.) opposes this view of Bengel.
In Mk 7-^ and 1 P 4^ it is possible to defend the
classical sense of 'excesses.' ' Raphelius justly
observes that if dcriXyeia were in tiiis passage [Mk
7'-^] designed to denote lewdness or lasciviousness
it would have been ailded to fioixfiai and vopvtiai,
vices of a like kind, in the preceding verse. But
as it is joined with 56Xos — deceit — he interprets it
in general — an injury of a more remarkable and
enormous kind ; and shows that Polybius has in
several passages used the word in this sense ; cf.
also Wetstein ' (J. Parkhurst, Greek Lexicon to the
NT*, 1804).
Against this, however, see the convincing note
of H. B. Swete (St. Marlc\ 1902, p. 154) : 'Here
the reference is probably to the dissolute life of
the Herodian court, and of the Greek cities of
Galilee and the Decapolis ; if 56Xos characterized
the Jew, his Greek neighbour was yet more terribly
branded by daiXyeia.^ In 1 P 4* the word is de-
finitely used as a general term of the ' will of the
Gentiles,' and is evidently the licentiousness which
accompanied heathen feasts and lawless idolatries,
while in Jude and 2 Peter it is the typical sin of
the cities of the plain, wiiich the libertines, under
the guise of a spurious freedom, followed, and into
which they inveigled others. In their case the
sin of wXeovt^la was as.sociated with it. While a
rigid asceticism sprang from a horror of this sin,
sensuality defended itself l)y the principle that the
body did not count for spiritual life.
We may, then, conclude that the prominent
LASEA
LAW
685
idea in d<r^X7eto in the NT is flaj^'imt, shameless
sensualitj'. While this was reckoneil one of the
dStd^pa among the heathen, it was branded as
deadly and loathsome by Christianity. In the
heathen world ' sexual vice was no longer counted
vice. It was provided for by public law ; it was
incorporated into the worship of the gods. It was
cultivated in everj' luxurious and monstrous excess.
It was eating out the manhood of the Greek and
Latin races. From the imperial Caesar do^vn to
the horde of slaves, it seemed as though every class
of society had abandoned itself to the norrid
practices of lust' (G. G. Findlay, Ephesians
[Expositors Bible, 1892], 272).
LrmuTinuL — Grimm -Thayer, «.c. curcAvcta ; R. C. Trench,
KT Synonym^, 1^76, p. 54 f.; J. Miiller, The Christian
Doctrine of Sin, 1S77-&5, i. 159 ff. ; the Commentaries of Ham-
mond (on Ro 1^, where an attempt is made to equate aaikytia
and s-AfOM^w), C. J. Ellicott, J. B. Li^rhtfoot (on Gal S>^X H.
B. Swete (on Mk 7^2), J. B. Mayor (on 2 P 23).
Donald Mackenzie.
LASEA (\aaaia, WH Aoff^a). — Lasea was a city
near Fair Havens, on the southern coast of Crete
(Ac 27*). It is not elsewliere mentioned by any
ancient geograpliical or other writer, but as it was
one of the smaller of the hundred cities of the
island — 'centum nobilem Cretam urbibus' (Hor.
Ep. ix. 29) — this need cause no surprise. The con-
jecture of Captain Spratt in 18o3 as to it« site was
confirmed by G. Brown, who examined tlie ruins
in 1856. He found the beach buried under ma.s.ses
of masonry, and higher up discovered the ruins of
two temples. ' Manj' shafts, and a few capitals of
Grecian pillars, all of marble, lie scatteretl about.
. . . Some peasants came down to see us from the
hiUs above, and I asked them the name of the
Elace. They said at once, " Lasea," so there could
e no doubt' (J. Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck
of St. Paul*, 1880, p. 268 f.).
The city was about 5 miles east from Fair
Havens, and 1 mile east from Cape Leonda, which
was so named from its resemblance to a lion
couchant. As St. Pauls ship remained for ' much
time' (iKavov xpo"*"') in the Havens, Lasea was
perhaps frequently visited by the Apostle. It is
quite possible that the evangelization of Crete, in
which Titus afterwards laboured, was begun at
that time. J AMES Strahax.
LAYER. — ' Laver ' is the translation of 'kovrpor in
Eph 5-* RVm, where the text has ' washing.' The
same Greek word occurs in Tit 3', where the RVm
again gives 'laver.' This rendering is at lea-<t
doubtful. In the LXX tps, 'a laver,' is always
rendered by XoiT^p, while Xoi-rpoy is used for ny-"},
'washing,' "in Ca 4* 6«, Sir SI**. The phrase Sia
Xourpov raXivytveffiai, therefore, probably means
' through a washing, or bathing, of regeneration,'
rather than ' through a laver, or font.' For
patristic references conhrniing the translation
•washing,' see J. A. Robinson's Ephesians, 1903,
p. 206. James Strahan.
LAW.— 1. Introductory. — The subject of the
Law formed one of the main problems, if not in-
deed the main problem, of the Apostolic Church,
inasmuch as it involved the fundamental relation
of primitive Christianity to Judaism on the one
hand and heathenism on the other. Later Judaism,
on its Pharisaic side, had carried legalism to ex-
tremes, and thus accentuated the separation be-
tween Israel and the GentUes, The primitive
Christian community, on the other hand, had been
taught by its Founder to rank the freedom of
Di\lne grace higher than human merit (cf. e.g.
Mt 9*"^ i;s and, generally, the attitude of Jesus to
publicans and sinners), and to regard faith as of
more importance than the distinction between Jew
and Gentile (cf. Mt 8^" ^^ 1521-^ y), Jq ti^g
evangelical record, moreover, the early Church had
preserved the recollection of its Lord's outspoken
utterances regarding the merely relative validity
of the Jewish ceremonial Law {e.g. of the Sabbath,
Mt 12^-" lis ; of cleanness, Mt 15'*-» lis)— or, at all
events, of the interpretations recognized in the
Synagogue ('the traditions of the elders,' Mt
15**' ii). StUl, the same record s-howed that in prin-
ciple the attitude of Jesus to the Law as a whole was
an avowedly consenative one (Mt 5^''^, Lk 16'"),
even as He had lived His life within the confines
of the Law (cf. Gal 4* : yevo/ievoi inrb vofiof) ; His
supreme aim, indeed, was to bring out with full
clearness and force the will of God made known in
the Law. We thus see that, Avith regard to the
Law, the evangelical tradition seemed capable of a
double construction, or, at least, that it did not
supply the means for deciding a question that
soon became urgent. It is therefore easy to under-
stand why the early Christian community in
Jerusalem assumed at first a rigidly conservative
attitude towards the Law, and regarded the faith-
ful observance of it as praiseworthy (Ac 21^ ; cf.
2» 31 10»- " 22»2). St. Peter, e.g., required a special
revelation before he would enter the house of
the uncircumcised Cornelius and admit the first
Gentile convert into the Church by baptism (10'"**)
— a step which did not fail to arouse opposition on
the part of those who ' were of the circumcision '
(cf. IV-^).
2. The Yiew of St. James. — The principal repre-
sentative of this zeal for the Law in the infant
Church was St. James, the brother of the Lord,
who, according to Acts, as also to the Pauline
Epistles, occupied a leading position therein (Ac
1513-21 2118-K Gal 2* ; cf. 1'^). St. James, by reason
of his righteous life, is said to have been esteemed
scarcely less highly by non-Christians than by
believers (Hegesippus, in Eus. HE ii. 23). His
great concern was to smooth the way by which
Israel might come to Jesus Christ, and to put no
stumbling-block before his people. From this [X)int
of \-iew his attitude to the question concerning
the Gentile Christians discussed at the Apostolic
Council becomes readily intelligible. Here he
shows himself to be a genuine disciple of Jesus
in recognizing, after the example of Peter, the
supremacy of grace, and in refusing to put the
yolce of the Law upon the Gentile Christians,
whom rather he receives as brethren, while he
acknowledges St. Paul as the Apostle of the Cir-
cumcision (Ac 15^*"^ ; cf. v.", Gal 2*). He thus
came into direct conflict with the Pharisaic group
of Jewish Christians — those who asserted that the
salvation of the Gentiles depended upon their being
circumcised and their acceptance of the Law (Ac
15^"*, Gal 2'"*). It was probably only for the sake
of brotherly intercourse between circumcised and
uncircumcised Christians that James proposed the
restrictions to Gentile Christian liberty which were
laid down in the so-called Apostolic Decree (Ac
15201. 2M.) "Pile reason given for the proposal (v.-* :
' For Moses from generations of old hath in every
city them that preach him, being read in the
synagogues every sabbath ') probably means simply
that the four prohibitions in question — which
formed the kernel of the so-called Xoachian com-
mandments, and correspond to the laws for prose-
lytes— had come to be so impressed upon the minds
of the Jews that they could not countenance any
disobedience to them if their intercourse with their
Gentile brethren in the Church was to be uncon-
strained. In formulating the injunctions of the
Apostolic Decree St. James was in reality only
following the practice of the Synagogue with re-
gard to proselytes of the narrower class (' the God-
fearing,' oi (po^ovfuvoi [or tre/So^o-oi] rby dedp), just as
that practice no doubt bad already prepared the
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way in the ChriHtian nii.ssion to tlie Gentiles ; for
the fact tliat 8t. Paul makes no mention of the
Apostolic Decree in Gal 2"'- probably Bi<,'nifies that
lie had observed its provisions on his own initiative
(so, in substance, A. liitschl, B. Weiss, H. H. Wendt,
etc. ; cf., fnrther, art. MoSES). liut the question
re<,'ardin,LC the Gentiles was in no sense solved, as
soon ajiiM^ared in what octMirred at Antio(;h (Gal
2""'^). If, for the sake of Christian fellowsliip, St.
Peter had in that city ij,'nored the Jewish regula-
tions about food, and had eaten in the company of
Gentile Christians, this did not coincide with the
views of those who 'ctame from James.' These
men took offence at St. Peter's practice — just as
the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem had resented
his action at Cjcsarea (Ac 10 ; cf, IP'-) — manifestly
assuming that Jewish Christians, as the circum-
cised, were under an absolute obligation to the
Mosaic Law, and that they ought not, even for
the sake of Christian fellowship, to make anj' con-
cession whatever to the liberty of the converted
heathen. If concessions were to bo made at all,
they must come from the Gentile, not the Jewish,
side. Whether this point of view is to be traced
directly to St. James himself, or rather merely
coincided with his position, is a much-debated
question. It is probable, however, tliat in his
view of the matter his concern for Israel bulked
more largely tlian his regard for the (Jentiles, and
that accordmgly he would have preferred to sur-
render the possibility of perfect Christian com-
munion between Jewish and Gentile Christians
rather than grant the former a dispensation from
their regulations regarding food. Perhaps we
may, with B. Weiss, see a suggestion of this point
of view in what St. James says in Ac 15'* re<^ard-
ing the mission to the Gentiles, viz. that God had
taken out of tliem a people for His name — i.e. a
new people of God, in addition to the old.
To tills type of Jewish Christianity corresponds
generally the religious standpoint of the Epistle
which is a.scribed to St. James. The letter sliows
so little of a distinctively Christian character,
that Spitta has in all seriousness hazarded the
theory of its being in reality a Jewish work in
which the name of Jesus has been inserted here
and there. As a matter of fact, liowever, tiie
writer shows clearly that he is a Christian, not
merely in his reference to Jesus Christ in his
address (1' ; cf. 2'), but also in his giving expres-
sion to siiecifically Christian ideas, as e.g. when he
speaks of the regeneration of his readers by the
word of truth (1'") and of the saving word as
implanted in their hearts (P'). He betrays his
Jewish Christian mode of thought, however, when,
in enjoining his readers to be doers, and not merely
hearers, of the word (l'-"^), he presently replaces
' word ' by ' law,' although ' the perfect law of
liberty' means tlie law as given to, or as fulfilled
in, human freedom. He thus shows that for him
the central element in Christianity consists in ful-
filment of the Law (cf. l'^-^ with 2'2). It is true
that St. James's conception of the substance of tlie
Law likewise shows tne influence of Jesus, as he
ranks the law of love to one's neighbour above the
others (2"), and, generally, urges the pre-eminence
of the commandments enjoining love and meny
(2'-'»- "'• I-'""- 4", etc.), jiist as' he specially de-
nounces such sins as judging one's neighbour (cf.
Mt V) and swearing (cf. Mt 6'*"^''), and condemns
hatred as murder (Ja 4-). His commendation of
the practice of mercy and of keeping oneself un-
spotted from the world as the true worship of (Jod
(1-*) is also wholly in the spirit of Jesus (cf. c.ff.
Mt 9'* 12'), while he is silent regarding all out-
ward service and ceremony. It is quite unneces-
sary to follow modern criticism in reganiiiig this
s[iiritual and ethical conception of the Law as
pointing to a iK)st-apostolic date of composition,
any more than the attack ujion the doctrine of
justification through faith alone (2'''"'^) need be re-
garded as post-Pauline. St. James's view of the
Law, in fact, coincides on the whole with the view
urged by Jesus : in substance the new Law does
not difler from that of the OT, and in 2""'- he finds
his examnles in the latter (the Decalogue and Dt
1") ; while there is no difliculty in seeing why he
never makes the slightest reference to tlie cere-
monial Law — for readers sucii as his it was quite
unnecessary to insist upon that side of the old
religion, nor, for tiiat matter, did Jesus Himself lay
any emphasis upon it. Further, if the Epistle was
addressed to Jewish Christians who had not as yet
broken ofl' relations with the Synagogue (cf. eg
2"^-), it may be confidently assumed that they were
not neglectful of the ceremonial Law. What they
required rather was to be reminded of the ethical
asi)ect of the Law, and above all, to be warned
against the common Jewish delusion that hearing
and speaking the word could take the place of do-
ing it. In 2''' the reference is not to ' the works of
the Law,' but solely to works in the ethical sense.
Moreover, as the theologians of the S^'iiagogue
had already turned their minds to the passage
Gn 15* (cf. A. Schlatter, Der Glaube im N'l^, Cahv
and Stuttgart, 1896, pp. 29 ff. 45 fl'.), the antithesis
of faith and works, and the contrast between a
justification by faith and a justification by works,
may quite well have been formulated in an age
prior to St. Paul.
3. The Yiew of St. Peter. — Besides St, James,
the most outstanding representative of the Jewish
Christian position in tlie primitive Church was
St. Peter. But just as, according to Ac 10, he
had been led by a Divine revelation to enter the
house of an uncircumcised man, and to eat with
the Gentiles (cf . 1 P), we may infer also, from his
speech in the Apostolic Council, and especially
from his behaviour in the Gentile Christian com-
munity at Antioch, that he had a much clearer view
than St. James of the merely relative obligation of
tiie Law even for Jewish Christians. In certain
circumstances he thought himself justified, for the
sake of brotherly intercourse with Gentile Chris-
tians, in disregarding the rigour of the Law, since,
after all, salvation did not depend upon the Law,
whose yoke, indeed, neither tiie fathers nor the
Jews then living were able to bear, but Jew and
Gentile alike could look for salvation only to the
grace of Jesus Christ, and to faith in Him (cf. Ac
15'-", Gal 2'2»). Hence St. Paul takes for granted
that the subsequent vacillation of St. Peter at
Antioch (Gal 2'-'') was nothing but dissimulation,
as it was due, not to any change of conviction, but
simply to fear of the Jews. In principle St. Peter
recogliized the religious freedom of the Jewish
('liristians, not merely as regards the more general
intercourse with their Gentile brethren sanctioned
by the Apostolic Decree, but also as regards the
closer intimacy involved in eating with them (cf.
the Agapfe). In other words, he had, according
to St. Paul, actually acknowledged that the
Jewish Christians liad the right to accommodate
themselves to the freedom of the Gentiles. Only
we must bear in mind that St. Peter was, in a
much greater degree than St. Paul, a man of
moods, and was therefore not always so consistent
in his thinking.
It is remarkable that the two Epistle.s bearing
the name of Peter do not refer to tiie Law. The
Second Epistle obviously dates from a time when
the question regarding the Law had given jdace to
otlier controversies, and, at ail events, it is con-
cerned with a liltertinism and a doctrine that lie
lH\vond the purview of Jewisii legalism. It is a
striking fact that even the First Epistle, the
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687
autUenticity of which is open to no decisive objec-
tion, does not so much as mention the Law, bat
s{)eaks from a quite unstudied and non-legalistic
point of view. As the writer implies that, e.g.,
the OT conception of the priesthood was first
properly realized in the NT Church, and describes
the latter as the true Temple of God (•>**•). it would
seem that the OT legal system as a whole had for
him only a typological value. This would certainly
be strange if the Epistle was written, as B. Weiss
and Kiihl suppose, to Jewish Christians, i.e. prior
to the time of St. Paul, but is quite intelligible
if it was addressed to Gentile Christian, Pauline
communities, and written under the influence of
Pauline Epistles, as Komans and Ephesians — a
hypothesis to which, in view of the editorial col-
laboration of Silvanns, the follower of St. Paul,
no exception can be taken.
4. The Yiew of St. Paul. — In point of fact, the
first to decide the question of the Law upon
grounds of principle was the Apostle Paul himself,
though others had already pointed the way. In
conformity with Avhat has been said of St. Peters
views, it is perfectly credible that, as related in
Acts, St. Peter was the first to baptize a heathen,
and that he should make reference thereto in his
address to the Apostolic Council (Ac 15"'*). Here,
however, the most outstanding name is that of the
martyr St. Stephen, who anticipated St. Peter in
divining the essentiallj- non-legalistic character of
the gospel. St. Stephen, as a Hellenist, could of
course more easily than St. Peter discern the
merely relative validity of the Jewish legal
system, and especially of the Temple ritual ; and
although his adversaries, in charging him with
having in his preaching attacked the Holy Place
and the Law, were undoubtedly doing him an
injustice, yet the accusation was not altogether
unfounded. His trenchant speech (Ac 7) not only
attacks the Jews for their persistent rejection of
the Prophets, but also pointedly criticizes their
over-estimation of the Temple : ' the Most High
dwelleth not in houses made with hands' (T****).
His general plea is that Di\Tne revelation is in-
dependent of any particular holy place, and he
honours Moses less as the Law-giver than as the
prototype of Jesus, and as the one who foretold
His coming (cf. 7*"^-)- The very Law to which
the Jews appealed they had not kept (v.**).
It was no mere accident that in particular the
personality and preaching of St. Stephen should
have wrought powerfully on the young Pharisee
Saul (7**). Saul probablj- belonged to the CUician
synagogue, whose members had disputed with St.
Stephen, and in any case the latters great vindica-
tory speech must have still further opened the eyes
of the zealous Pharisee to the inherently non-legal
nature of the gospel, and rekindled his persecuting
zeal against the followers of Jesus (cf. G"-)-
Even before his conversion Saul must have been
sensible of the great alternative which he sets forth
in Gal 2^*'*' : either righteousness is through the
Law, and Christ died for nought ; or else the Cruci-
fied Jesus is truly the Christ, and righteousness is
to be attained through faith alone. It need,
therefore, occasion no surprise that in his con-
version Saul had become convinced of the univer-
sality of Christianity, or that thereafter he main-
tained that the Law was not in a religious sense
binding upon either Gentile or Jewish Christians
(Gal 1. 2).
According to Gal I"'- St. Paul saw at once that he
was called to be a missionary among theheathen, and
he seems to have laboured as such for a time without
any interference whatever — a circumstance which
will hardly seem strange when we remember that
certain Hellenists who had been driven out in con-
sequence of the persecution connected with Stephen
had preached the gospel in Antioch even to the
Gentiles, and that the numerous converts whom
they had won from heathendom were recognized
as brethren by the community in Jerusalem (Ac
jjio-Mj Nor does the Apostle make the slightest
reference to the question of the Law in his earliest
Epistles, 1 and 2 Thessalonians. It was in reality
the aggression of certain Christian Pharisees —
Judaizers (Ac 15'- ', Gal 2*) — that forced him into
a thorough-going discussion of the significance of
the Law, and this is his special theme in his
Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans.
In seeking to delineate here the Pauline doctrine
of the Law, however, we must also draw upon the
Epistles of the Imprisonment and the Pastorals.
(a) His use of the term ' Law.' — In discussing the
Pauline conception of the Law, we note that the
Apostle uses the term v6fu>s in somewhat different
senses. It may mean the whole Pentateuch — the
Torah in the wider sense — as in Ro 3-^ (the Law
and the Prophets), Gal 4-', 1 Co 14**, and even the
entire OT, which might be thus designated a parte
potiori, as in Ro S*® (the Psalms also included under
the term), 1 Co \4?^ (Is 28"*-). As a rule, however,
vbfiot is applied by St. Paul to the Law delivered
by Moses, as recorded in the Mosaic Books from
Exodus to Deuteronomy (cf. Ro 5''- ^* : dxp* '*/«>i;
=fiixpi M&we'wj, Gal 3" : the Law given 430 years
after the promise). Further, St. Paul sometimes
uses the term with, sometimes Avithout, the definite
article, and the distinction must not be ignored.
It is true that vo/noj, even without the article, may
mean the historically-given Law of Moses, the
possession of which was the special prerogative of
the Jews as distinguished from the Gentiles (Ro
0:2-14 3»i. 51W. 20)^ The omission of the article, how-
ever, generally points rather to ' law ' as a principle ;
thus what is so said of ' law ' would hold good of
any other positive ordinance of God — if such ex-
isted at all (cf . Ro 2''"*' : • For not the hearers of
law are just before God, but the doers of law shall
be justified ; for when Gentiles who have not law
do by nature the things of the law, these having
no laAv are law to themselves,' etc., and 5"**: 'For
prior to law sin was already in the world, but sin
IS not imputed when there is no law '). In both of
these passages it is obvious that p6iws and 6 v6puK
equally refer to the Mosaic Law, but it is no less
ob>-ions that they assert principle*, not merely
historical facts; cf. also Gal 5'*- » 1 Ti 1«- ('The
law is good, if a man use it lawfully, knowing that
law is not made for a righteous man '). On the
other hand, when St. Paul wishes to make a his-
torical statement regarding the Law of Moses, he
uses the phrase 6 vd/iot. The extent to which he
can abstract from the concrete historical sense of
vofios, however, is seen in the fact that he occasion-
ally uses v6fios, virtually as a purely fonual con-
cept, as equivalent to norma, 'rule': Ro 3-'' (the
law of faith, i.e. the Divine ordinance which en-
joins faith, not works ; cf. 1' O'l lO* 16»), 7^ (the
law of sin), 8' (the law of life = natural law). Gal
6^ ; cf. 1 Co 14» (the law of Christ).
As regards the proper signification of the term,
however, the Law may be defined as the positive
revelation of the Divine ordinance to the Israelites,
who therein, as in the covenants, the promises, and
the Temple service (Ro 9*), had a sacred privilege
unshared by other peoples (cf. 2'* 3"). The law of
God, which in the heathen was but an inward and
therefore vague surmise, was for the Jews formu-
lated objectively and unmistakably in the written
Law (Ro 2"-^' ; cf. 2 Co 3"), and the Jews, even if
they broke that Law (Ro 2^"^-), could yet boast of
a moral advantage over the heathen (Gal 2").
The Law, however, is a revelation not only of the
Divine requirements, but also of the Divine pro-
mises and threats attachetl thereto. The Law, in
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sliort, contains a jmlicial system, in that it deter-
mines tlie relation between man and God by man's
obedience to, or transgression of, the Divine com-
mandments. If man keeps the Aviiole Law, he
is rewarded with ' life' (Gal S'^^^Lv 18"), and tiiis
is bestowed not of grace, but of debt (Ko 4* : /iord
6^€l\ii)Ha) ; wliile if he does not keep the Law in its
entirety, he is accursed (Gal 3'' = Dt 27^), and
f asses into the power of death (Ro 6^ 7"*, 1 Co
Tiie Law demands, not faith, but works ((I.al
3"'-), and hence St. I'aul speaks repeatedly of tiie
* works of the law ' {fpya vdfiov, ' works j)rescribed
by the law ' ; cf. Ko li-'", Gal 2'"). liy ' works of tlie
law,' however, he means, not simply the exter-
nally legal actions in wliich the lieart is not im-
plicated, but no less the morally irrei)roachable
iullilment of tiie commandments, which claim the
obedience of the soul as well as of tiie body, and
forbid sinful desire as well as sinful action — just as,
indeeil, tiie requirement of the whole Law is
summed up in the commandments of love(Ro IS"'-,
Gal 5'''). It is no doubt the case that for St. Paul
outward rites and ceremonies are included in the
cliaracteristic ordinances of the Law (Gal 2^* 4^" ;
cf. Ko 9* 14*). The Law as a whole consists of par-
ticular commandments of a statutory nature (rbw
vdfioi' tCiv 4vto\Civ iv d6y/xa(Ti, E])li 2'^ ; cf. Col 2").*
In (^al. it is especially the ceremonial or ritual
ordinances of tlie Law tiiat are referred to, as St.
Paul is here dealing mainly with the question of
circumcision (cf. 2^-'^- 4='-i» 5-f-, also Col 2'»'- 2«-22).
In Kom., on the other hand, he is treating rather of
the moral requirements of tlie Law (cf. 2'-"=" 7^-8*).
Nevertheless, we must not ascribe the conscious
diflerentiation between moral law and the cere-
monial Law to the Apostle himself. For him tiie
Law is an indivisilde whole (Gal 3^" 5^), thougli he
certainly recognizes gradations of value in its com-
mands {e.ff. the commandment of love), .and tinds its
kernel in"the Decalogue (cf. Ko 13"-, 2 CoS^*"'' : the
Law engraven in letters on tables of stone). All
tlie Law is Divine. Wliile it might seem as if in
Gal. St. Paul designedly avoids speaking of the Law
as tlie Law of God (cf. 2'" 3'«-"), but rather sets it,
as the ' mere rudiments of the world ' (4^- * ; cf. Col
2*" *"), on a level witii the heathen stage of religion,
the absence of any such design is shown by the fact
that even in the same Eiiistle he exhorts his readers
to fulfil the Law by love (5'^'-), and thus asserts its
holiness, while elsewhere {e.g. Ro 7'-- ^*- ^'^- -^) he in-
sists upon its Divine and s])iritual character.
(b) His vicio of the function of the Law. — The
most cliaracteristic feature of St. Paul's doctrine of
the Law, however, is found in his statements re-
garding its function. Here, in fact, he develops a
view directly opiwsed not only to his own earlier
Jewish conception, but also to the thouglits of the
natural man, viz. that the Law is not meant to
mediate life to man, but is rather a medium of
death. In the abstract, of course, he still recog-
nizes that the Law wtus designed to be a real
channel of righteousness and life (Ko 7^« : ' the
commandment which was unto life,' 10*, Gal 3''' :
' he that doetii tlieni sliall live in them '). In the
actual circumstances of life, however, the matter
has quite a different bearing, for no human being
has ever fulfilled, or ever can fulfil, the condition
of perfect obedience to the Law. Tlie Law is thus
^uite incapable of bringing life to man ; nor,
indeed, was it given by the all-foreseeing God with
any sucli design. On the contrary, it has i)rimaiily
a purely negative aim and efliect, viz. to intensify
the moral and spiritual misery of the unsaved man,
* Some scliolars are of opinion that the word {(iy/uara hero re-
fers to the trt-aliitcs with which the ancient Habbis had overlaid
the Law, but thiHis hartllj- compatible with Col 2'*: t6 X"P<J-
80 that the greatness of the Divine grace may be
tiie more clearly displayed ; and it is only upon
this background that the Law has any positive
significance at all.
This estimate of the Law, so obnoxious to the
Judaistic mind, the Apostle made good by an appeal
to experience as well as to Scripture and sacred
history. His demonstration is given more especially
in the Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans.
In the latter he starts from exjierience, which
siiows that not only tiie heathen who live without
the Law but even the people of tiie Law themselves
are all held fast under the jxiwer of sin. The
Jews glory in tiie Law with their lips, but, when
tiieir conscience is appealed to, they have to con-
fess that their deeds are little better than tiiose of
tiie heathen (Ro 1'" 2^^). Next he shows from
Scripture, from the Torah, which speaks to tlie Jews
in particular, that they, equally with all mankind,
are guilty before God (3""-"; cf. Gal 2'") ; moreover,
the OT plainly declares that by the works of the
Law shall no flesh be justified (Ro 3-'", Gal 2'«=P8
143* ; the words ' by the works of the law ' were
added by St. Paul himself, but are quite in accord-
ance with the sense). Finally, on the lines of
sacred history, he deduces the impossibility of
justification by the works of the Law from the
fact that God has now manifested a new species of
righteousness apart from the Law, viz. the right-
eousness that is through faith in Jesus Christ, who
has been set forth in His blood as a l\a<rTr]piov (Ro
3aif. 25)^ i.e. an expiation, or a propitiation (Luther :
Gnadenstuhl, ' throne of grace '), and has rendered
satisfaction to the Law (Gal 3^ ; cf. 4'). This
new mode of righteousness, moreover, was fore-
shown by the Law and the Prophets, as is argued
in greater detail in Ro 4, where St. Paul discusses
the grand precedent of Abraham ; for Abraham, the
father of God's people, was justified not by works
but by faith, and while as yet uncircumcised, in
order that he should be the father of all who have
faith (4>'i-). Besides the case of Abraham, St.
Paul apjieals specially to the prophetic utterance
of Hab 2^ (Ro 1", Gal 3" : ' Tlie just shall live by
faith '). In Gal. likewise he attaches great import-
ance to the pattern of Abraham. Here he repre-
sents the Law as a secondary institution in com-
parison with the Promise. In man the Promise
presupposes faith only, and may be compared to a
testament, which could not be invalidated bj' a posi-
tive decree such as the Law delivered 430 years later
(Gal3i»-i«). In the section of Rom. (9-11) which
deals with the rejection of Israel, he returns again
to the biblical arguments for the righteousness of
faith, which excludes justification by the Law
(1(F'"). But the decisive proof of his contention
that the Law is incapable of justifying sinners lies
for St. Paul in the Death of Christ proclaimed in the
gospel (Gal 2^^--^ ; cf. Ro 3="-)- It is his absolute con-
viction that, if righteousness could be secured by the
Law, then Christ died for nought (v.=i ; cf. Ro \(fi*'-).
Nor is the synthesis of the two kinds of righteous-
ness a possible conception. The Law is no more
based upon faith (Gal 3^-) than the grace of Jesus
Christ (Ro S^'*) is based upon works (Ro 11* : 'if by
gi'ace, then no more of works ; otherwise, grace is
no more ^race').
How Qoes it come about, then, that the ab-
stractly possible righteousness by the works of the
Law (Ro 2'^) is impossible in the sphere of actual-
ity? Or, otlierwise, why is man incapable of ful-
fiUing the Law t The answer is given in the
Apostle's idea of the carnal constitutiim of man,
which is antagonistic to the spiritual character of
the Law (7'''). Man, by reason of his carnal nature,
is sold into the servitude of sin, for tlie mind of
the Hesh is hostile to God, and cannot become
subject to His (spiritual) Law. No doubt the Law
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6d9
of God includes commandments wliich, because of
their external character, nijiy quite well be obeyed
by the ' tlesh ' (Gal 3' ; cf. 4'"), but its most distinct-
ive requirement, the law of love, is repugnant to
the flesh. For with St. Paul the term ' flesh ' (adp^)
is by no means restricted to the sensuous corporeal
aspect of human nature — as if the principle of sin
were rooted in man's physical constitution (cf. Gal
5^^-) ; on the contrary, the flesh penetrates even
to his inmost soul, so that we may speak also of
a • mind of the flesh ' (Col 2^^). The ' works of the
flesh,' accordingly, embrace not only sins of
sensuality, but also sins of the selflsh will (Gal
5^*"^), and hence, in a passage immediately pre-
ceding this, St. Paul contrasts brotlierly love mth
the misuse of liberty as an occasion to the flesh
(5^-). Even in tlie regenerate man, the Christian,
the flesh maintains its power so persistently (5^*""^)
that he cannot conquer sin by the Law, but can
triumph over it only by the Spirit of God (Ro
If, however, the Law does not bring salvation to
man, and was not designed to do so, what is its
real function ? The most comprehensive answer to
this question is given in Ro S"^** : ' through the
law comes the knowledge of sin.' The answer is
defined more concretely in a number of kindred
stotements (cf. 4^^ 5"'-^ 7*-'*-, 1 Co 15«, Gal
3^). The Law not only serves to make sin known
as sin, and to condemn the sins of men, but it re-
solves ill-doing into aggravated sin, giving it the
character of trespass against the commandments
of God : ' where there is no law, neither is there
transgression' (Ro 4^^), 'and therefore sin is not
imputed' (5''). But the actual operation of the
Law in thus resolving sin into positive transgres-
sion and guilt must, according to the teleology of
the Apostle, have been the Divine purpose of the
Law (Gal 3'* : tQv -rapa^daeoiv x<^P"'j ' ^^ order to
bring forth the conscious transgressions as such ' ;
cf. Ro 5^ : ' that the Fall might be increased ' ;
7^ : * that sin might be shown to be sin ').
Thus the Law produces a qualitative intensifica-
tion of sin : sin becomes guilt. The eWl done by
those who have not the Law is relatively blameless.
But the Law, which invests sin with the character of
guilt, evokes wrath, i.e. in God (Ro 4"). Sin, how-
ever, is not only qualitatively intensified, but also
quantitatively increased, by the Law. For, accord-
ing to Ro 7*"^*, the Law tends to rouse the slumber-
ing power of sin, which then breaks out in all kinds
of appetites and passions. Just as an innocent
youth, who has, say, listened to some explanation
of sexual matters, may thus be A^TOUght upon by
sinful inclinations hitherto unfelt, so — the Apostle's
idea would seem to have been something of this
kind — the as yet relatively blameless man is brought
under the influence of eWl desires by the Law's
very prohibition ofiSuch desires. This in no sense,
however, proves that the Law is sinful, but simply
shows the awful power of the sin that dwells in the
flesh ; for man's conscience, his better self, agrees
with the Law, and cannot but attest its holiness
(cf. 75. 7-13. IB. 23)_ Hgi-e the Apostle is probably
not thinking of an outward multiplication of sins ;
he rather assumes, indeed, that generally the Jews
live on a higher moral level than the heathen
(Gal 2^ ; cf. Ph 3«), and his idea is in all likelihood
that of an inward development — in the shape of sins
of thought.
The Law, in thus aggravating the power of sin
both qualitatively and quantitatively, brings man
into a state of deeper mi.-^eiy than he ever experi-
enced while still without the Law ; it works in
him the apprehension of God's wrath and curse
(Ro 4>*, Gal 31*), and of death (Ro V- '^^ 2 Co 2fi\
1 Co 15**), and yet at the same time the most pro-
found yearning for salvation.
VOL. I.— 44
It is true that death, as a result of Adam's sin,
reignetl over mankind even before the Law (Ro 5^*,
1 Co 15-"-). Even so, however, the individual
could live in relative unconcern (Ro 5"* 7') ; the
Law written in his heart asserted itself but feebly.
Accordingly, when God determined to institute
salvation for the race of man, and chose a people
as its depositary. He began by giving to Abraham,
the father of that people, simply the Promise, the
condition of which was faith alone ; subsequently,
however. He added the Law, not indeed with the
design of laying doA\'n a new condition co-ordinate
with, or as a substitute for, faith, but rather, as it
were, for the purpose of keeping His people in
ward and custody, the Law acting as a stimulus to
the power and guilt of sin in such wise as to exclude
every hope except that of justification by faith
in Christ as the medium of salvation (Gal 3*-®,
Ro 4^*- ). Had Christ appeared without the pre-
vious intervention of the Law, the misery of man
would not have been so great ; but also the glory
of Divine grace would have been less transcendent
(Ro 5**'-). In the historical outworking of redemp-
tion, therefore, the Law had merely a pedagogic
function ; it was our moral guardian {rauoayuydi)
until Christ came, so that we might be justified
through faith, and through faith alone (Gal S**"**).
(c) The abolition of t/ie Law. — If the function
of the Law was, as we have just seen, merely
pedagogic, it must also have been but temporary.
• Now that faith [or its object, Jesus Christ] is
come, we are no longer under a tutor ' (Gal 3^ ; cf.
4^"^) ; ' Christ is the end of the law unto righteous-
ness to every one that believeth' (Ro lO*). In
Eph 21' St. Paul asserts that Clirist has actually
abolished the law of commandments contained in
ordinances ; and, objectively, the Law, as a statu-
tory system, was abrogated when Christ made
satisfaction to it by His Death, or, as the Apostle
puts it, bore its curse (Gal 4^ 2i^ ; cf. Col 2^*). But
this is not to be understood in the sense that from
the time of Christ's Death every man, every Jew,
is absolved from the Law ; subjectively, the in-
diWdual is freed from its dominion only when he
becomes a Christian, and is united to Christ by
faith and baptism, so as personally to appropriate
His Death and Resurrection. Just as Christ Him-
self was released from the La^rs domain only
through His Death on the Cross, in order that, as
the Risen One, He might thereafter live a new life
in immediate union with God, so His followers are
loosed from the Law only through their communion
with their Crucified and Glorified Lord (Ro 7^"*,
Gal 2^-)- This is to be taken, first of all, in a
legal sense : ' the law hath dominion over a man
as long as he lives.' Just as, when a husband dies,
a wife is loosed from the law which bound her
to him, and may marrj- another, so, when Christ
died. His community became exempt from the Law,
and was free to yield itself to another, viz. the risen
Christ (Ro 7^"*). Once the curse of the Law, which
is death, has been carried out upon the transgressors
of the Law, the Law can demand no more ; we are
then redeemed not only from its penalty, but also
from its obligation (Gal 3'=' 4«-). It is true that
many interpreters refer this exemption from obliga-
tion not to Christ's passive but to His active obedi-
ence to the Law — an interpretation that may be
right in so far as His active obedience was the pre-
condition of the propitiatory significance of His
passive obedience. But, taken all in all, the
Apostle's \-iew is that we have been made free
from the Law by Christ's Death (cf. also Gal 2^-,
Col 2"-^, Eph 2^%
St. Paul, however, goes far beyond this purely
juridical conception. He also represents our deliver-
ance from the Law as a transaction ethically con-
ditioned. From the mystical union with the
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Crucified and Risen Lord comes a power wliicii
transforms and re-creates onr nature, and tlius
enables us of ourselves to fullil the requirements
of the Law (Ro 8=^-, Gal 5'" ; of. v.^^). The Apostle
traces this power to the Spirit of God and of Christ :
• if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the
law (Gal 5'") ; against such as brinfj forth the
fruits of the Spirit the Law is not valid (v.") ; the
Law is not imposed upon a righteous man (1 Ti P).
Thus freedom from the Law is in no sense a merely
legal freedom ; it is an ethical freedom which is
quite different from mere arbitrai'v choice, and
implies that we fulfil the demands of the Law not
througii compulsion or fear, but in zeal and love
(cf. Ro 8"'-, 2 Co 3^'"- ). Hence the Christian is not
free in the sense of being his own master ; on tiie
contrary, he is subject to the Lord Jesus and God
(Ro 14'"*), but serves Him from the dictates of the
inmost heart, having yielded himself with consum-
ing gratitude and love to the Saviour who died for
liim (2 Co 5'^'-).
(d) The Lato abolished yet continuing in force. —
St. Paul thus teaches that the Law is abolished,
and that nevertlieless it abides. It is abolished
by Christ in the sense that it has no longer any
validity for the Christian as a statutory sj'stem :
justification is effected through faith alone, and
without the works of the Law (Ro S^s, Gal 2"').
This holds both for Jews and for Gentiles
(Ro 1^*'- 3-"-); l>ere there is no difference between
them. The place of the Law is now taken by
Christ (Ro lO"*). Everything turns upon our union
with Him, and works' are not to the purpose ; in
other words, all depends upon faith, which is simply
the acceptance of the gospel, or of Christ, and the
invocation of His name (Ro 10'"^'). In particular,
tiie ordinances which had hitherto obstructed
religious intercourse between different peoples, as
Israelites and Goyim, had all been done away in
Christ (Eph f^--^ ; cf. Gal S^*, Col 3"). In Him
circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision noth-
ing (Gal 58 61', 1 Co 7'"). Hence St. Paul, a Jew,
can become as a Gentile to the Gentiles (1 Co 9"'),
just as St. Peter and other Jewish Christians had
done in Antiocli (Gal 2^"^'^*). In the religious sense,
i.e. as regards salvation, the Jewish Christians too
were now free from the Law.
On the other hand, however, the Apostle also
affirms the permanence of the Law. The impera-
tive of the Law remains valid not only because
it still retains its juridical autliority over non-
believers, but also because it furnishes the ethical
standard of the Christian life generally, and of the
religions life of Jewish Christians in a special degree.
Thus the idea of a ' tertius usus legis,' of which the
Reformers spoke, corresponds exactly to the Pauline
view. Not only does St. Paul regard the all-
embracing requirement of the Law — the command-
ment of love — as a permanent expression of the
Divine will (Ro 13^i", Gal S'*), but he also borrows
moral precepts and rules of discipline from the
Mosaic legislation (see art. Commandment). He
is confident, no doubt, that the Spirit supplies not
only moral power but also moral insight (Gal 5'*;
cf. Ro 12-) ; but the Spirit does not operate only in
the individual soul, but operates also, and mainly,
through prophecy and through the written LaM',
which indeed is spiritual (Ro 7"), and must there-
fore be spiritually understood (cf. e.g. 1 Co 9"''*).
Here we undoubtedly light upon a difficulty in
the Pauline view. On the one hand, the Apostle
incisively challenges the Judaistic claim to impose
the ordinances of the Law ui)on the Gentiles, while,
on the other, he upholds the authority of the Law
under the term ' Scripture.' The latter contention
might readily lead to a new kind of legalism, and
has frequently in some measure done so. St. Paul
himself, however, rejected this inference, and even
suggested a rule for the spiritual application of the
Law, viz. in his doctrine of the Law as having a
typological or allegorical significance for Chris-
tianity ; cf. Col 21'"-, where he says that the ordin-
ances relating to foods, feast-days, etc., are only
prefiguring shadows of tlie reality, which is Christ,
just as the circumcision of the flcsli has found its
true fulfilment in Christian baptism (v."'-).
In connexion with this problem we must also
consider the peculiar relation of the Jewish Chris-
tians to the Law. According both to Acts and to
the Pauline Epistles, the Apostle maintained that
the Law had a peculiar binding force ujxin Chris-
tians belonging to the race of Israel. As regards
Acts, we need refer only to 21-' -'' \& IS'". When
St. James spoke to St. Paul of the rumour that he
taught the Diaspora to forsake Moses, St. Paul
promptly gave the required practical evidence for
the falsity of the report, and for his own allegiance
to the Law {2\^^"'). He even circumcised Timothy,
a semi-Gentile (16*). According to his own
Epistles, again, he was to the Jews as a Jew
( 1 Co 9'*), and he counsels the Jewish members of the
Church in Corinth not to undo their circumcision
(7^*), since every man should remain in the condition
in which he was called (v.-"). In Gal 5' he solemnly
declares that every one who receives circumcision
is under obligation to keep the whole Law — an
assertion designed to traverse the foolish idea
which the Jndaizers had tried to insinuate into
the minds of the Galatians, viz. that circumcision
was a matter of no great importance. This
declaration, no doubt, was made from the stand-
point of those who believed that justification was
to be obtained by the works of the Law. At all
events, where higher issues are at stake, tlie
Apostle assumes that he is absolved from tiie
strict letter of the Law, as, e.g., for the sake of
brotherly intercourse with the Gentile Christians
(cf. 1 Co 921 with Gal 2»2-i-»). There is another
fact that points in the same direction. In Ro 1 1
St. Paul asserts that the Chosen People are to
occupy a permanently distinct position in the
Divine process of history. But the persistence of
the distinctively religious character of Israel would
seem to involve their permanent retention of
circumcision and the Law.* How such segregation
is to be effected and maintained in mixed com-
munities without violating full religious fellowship
is a problem with which missions to the Jews are
still greatly concerned; cf., e.g., the relation be-
tween the Sabbath and Sunday. But it is implied
in the whole tenor of Pauline teaching that in
such conflicts the principle of freedom shall in the
last resort prevail. For, as has already been said,
all the commandments are comprehended in the
law of love, and rites and ceremonies, such as
circumcision, purifications, and observance of the
Sabbath, are but shadows of the reality that we
have in Christ. In relation to God circumcision is
in itself of no value. Hence, when St. Paul as-
serts that it is the doers of the Law who will be
declared righteous in the Day of Judgment (Ro 2"),
he is thinking, as the context shows, not of an
external obedience, a performance of the law 'in
the flesh,' but of a circumcision of the heart and of
a moral righteousness (cf. 2'*'- 23-29J
(e) Survey. — When we survey the Pauline
doctrine of the Law as a whole, we .see that it is
quite wrong to attribute to tlie Apostle any form
of antinomianism. Of the operation and purpose
of the Law he doubtless uses language which could
not but have a decidedly antinoinian sound to the
ears of a Jewish Christian. When he speaks of
the Law as a power that stimulates sin and brings
about death, and of the ministration mediated by
* Cf. on this point generally, A. Harnack, Nexu Untertueh-
ungen zur Apostelgeschichte, Leipzig, 1911, p. 21 ff.
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691
Moses as a ministration of condemnation (2 Co
3*""), one involuntarily asks how such utterances
can be reconciled with the praise of, and the
delight in, the Law which we find, e.g., in the
Psalms (of. Ps 198^- 40» 119 !««*■•). And how
does his description of the period between Moses
and Christ as a time during which there was no
faith and the people groaned under the yoke of the
Law (Gal 3">-») harmonize with the OT ?
As regards the latter question, the Apostle does
not of course mean to deny that faith was a power
among God's people after Moses as well as before
him. He is quite assured that, besides the Mosaic
legislation, Israel had also the adoption, the cove-
nants, the Temple service, and the promises (Ro 9*),
that it was the people of hope (Eph 2^*), and that
in a sense Christ was with it (1 Co 10*-'), just as
in the wilderness wanderings the people received
prototypes of the Christian sacraments (vv.*-*), and
in their sacrificial worship prototypes of the sacri-
fice of Christ (5" ; cf. Eph 5-). As a matter of fact,
St. Paul saw in the OT dispensation in general, as
recorded in the Scriptures, a typical prefiguration
of the NT dispensation (cf. 1 Co lO^-ii, Ro \b*. Col
2"). And, although he speaks of the NT salvation
in its universal application as having been a Divine
mystery until its manifestation in Jesus Christ
(Ro 16-^'-, Eph I* 3'- «, Col 1*), yet he regards it as
having been foresho^vn in the prophetic writings
(Ro 1- 3-^ 16*). Hence the people of the Law can-
not have been wholly without faith, and thus what
St. Paul means in Gal 3^ is simply that Christian
faith as the one exclusive principle of righteousness
was not revealed until Christ came.
In the OT, doubtless, the supreme principle was
the Law. Yet the Law did not operate in a
vacuum ; devout Israelites always saw it against
the background of grace. Every expression of
delight in the Law presupposes faith in the
gracious and merciful God who ' passes over trans-
gression.' Moreover, the Law was not as yet
recognized in all its depth and rigour ; in reality,
the people lived in a spiritual environment of
mingled Law and grace. Such a state of matters,
however, cotild not be permanently borne. The
two elements necessarily tended to disengage and
separate themselves from each other. In Pharisaic
Judaism the principle of the Law moved ever
further apart from the principle of grace, and the
Law itself came to be regarded more and more as
a legal contract by which performance and recom-
pense were rigidly adjusted to each other. The
religious untenabUity of such a position could
remain unrecogiiized only so long as the Law was
understood in a purely external sense. But as
soon as it came to be interpreted in that profound
inner sense which Jesus indicated, it necessarily
became ob^-ious that legalism could only lead to
despair, and that there could be no other principle
of salvation than grace. The Judaizers, the op-
ponents of St. Paul who started from Pharisaism,
were legalists in their way of thought, conceiving
of grace — and faith — as in a proper sense merely
supplementary to an imperfect fulfilment of the
Law ; in other words, they regarded Christianity
as only a perfected Judaism. St. Paul, on the other
hand, although his starting-point too was Pharisaic
legalism, combined therewith that inward inter-
pretation of the Law which Jesus had instituted,
and saw that the question at issue was not that of
a synthesis of Law and faith, but simply that of a
choice between the two, i.e. between Judaism as
a religion of Law and Christianity as the religion
of grace. If we are to estimate aright his utter-
ances regarding the function of the I^w, we must
always bear in mind that thej- have a polemical
setting, and that he is speaking of the Mosaic
legislation and the Old Covenant not in their
historical conditions, but in their character as
principles. This explains the apparent bias of his
statements regarding the Law.
Taken as a whole, however, St. Paul's doctrine
of the Law does not issue from a belief that the
miserable state of mankind is due to the Law in
itself, and that accordingly God had abolished the
Law, and set grace in its stead. The Apostle's
view is rather that human wretchedness arises
from the sinful flesh, and from the Law only in so
far as it is made impotent by the flesh (Ro 8'),
and so intensifies the misery of sin. Thus -the
work of Christ was to dissolve the immemorial
connexion between these two powers — law and sin
— on the one side, and man on the other. Bat
what the Avork of Christ is in the last resort de-
signed to secure is that the ideal demand of the
Law shall be fulfilled (Ro 8*). The essential
purport of the Pauline doctrine has been aptly
expressed by Augustine in the words : ' The Law
is given that Grace may be sought ; Grace is given
that the Law may be fulfilled.'
5. The Law in the Epistle to the Hebrews.—
Paulinism was fuUy vindicated by the historical
development that took place on the soil of Judaism.
Not only did the Jews of the Diaspora harden
their hearts more and more against the Pauline
Christian mission, but those resident in Palestine,
notwithstanding the conserA'ative attitude of the
raother Church towards the Law, became ever the
more hostile to Christianity. In the sixth decade
of the 1st cent, the antagonism developed into
open persecution, and James the Just fell a victim
to it. The Christians in Jerusalem, and in Palestine
generally, were thus brought to a point where they
had to choose between their afi'ection for their
fathers' religion and their confession of Jesus ; in
particular, their connexion with the fellowship of
the synagogue and their participation in the
Temple service were involved, and these at last
could be retained only at the price of their cursing
the name of Jesus. Such is obviously the situa-
tion presupposed in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
In the opinion of the present writer, this Epistle
can have been addressed only to Je\*'ish Christians
in Palestine who were tempted by their passionate
attachment to their old religion to apostatize from
Christ. The author of the Epistle wUl therefore
exhibit the pre-eminence of the NT revelation and
the NT priesthood. The essential core of the
Epistle is its portrayal of Jesus as the Melchizedek
high priest. Inasmuch as such a high priest has
been installed, the old legal priesthood — the
Aaronic — is eo ipso brought to an end. But, if
the priesthood is changed, the change must neces-
sarily also affect the Law (He 7^^). The ancient
commandment is annulled because of its weak and
unprofitable character — 'for the law made nothing
perfect ' {ovSiv ereKfiwrey, v.'*). Hebrews no doubt
looks at the Mosaic Law mainly under the aspect
of the priestly and sacrificial legislation, but its
view comes to embrace the Old Covenant as a
whole (8), in the place of which, as foretold by
Jeremiah, Gk)d has instituted a New Covenant,
writing His law upon the minds and hearts of men,
entering into immediate fellowship with them,
and forgiving their sins (8"'^ 10^). The weakness
of the Old Covenant really lay in the external
nature of its institutions. Its oblations were
carnal, and could not purge the conscience, and
thus required to be continually repeated, just as,
again, the priests themselves were mortal, and in
turn gave place to others. Likewise the sanctuary
was merely of this world, merely a copy of the
true sanctuary in heaven, just as the benefits of
the Old Covenant were of an earthly nature — a
shadow of heavenly benefits to come (8-10). The
leading idea of Hebrews, accordingly, is not so
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much tliat tlie Law is a tutor until Christ comes
(see above, 4 (6)) as that it is an imperfect and now
obsolete institution whi(!h Christians may there-
fore tranquilly leave behind.
Compared with St. Paul's doctrine of the Law,
that oi Hebrews ia more restrained in so far as
it attaches {i^reater importance to the connexion
between the Old Covenant and the New, i.e. that
it more strongly emphasizes the typological char-
acter of the Law, and that it regards the OT faith
as being more akin to that of the NT ; or, to put
it otherwise, it insists more upon the aspect of
hope even in the NT faith (ll'-12*). Again, how-
ever, the view of Hebrews is more radical than
that of St. Paul in so far as it is of a more spiritual
stamp (cf., e.g., the expression in 9'": 'only . . .
carnal ordinances,' fwvov SiKatuifiara aapKiis) — a
feature connected with the fact that the author
has in view mainly the ritual law. As a whole,
the Epistle stands upon a basis of Paulinism, but
it also bears the impress of the Alexandrian
spiritualistic philosophy. The attitude of the
author to the Jewisli Christian problem in the
narrower sense — as, e.g., the retention of circum-
cision and the Sabbath — cannot be directly inferred
from the Epistle, but, if we may argue from his
general standpoint, he must have regarded all such
matters simply as adiaphora. The Epistle as a
whole may be described as an appeal to the Jewish
Christians to abandon Judaism without misgiving,
since Christians have here no abiding city (Jeru-
salem), but seek the city which is to come (13'^).
The subsequent destruction of the Temple was the
best illustration of that appeal.
6. The Law in the Johannine writings. — Echoes
of the controversy about the Law may no doubt
still be heard in the Johannine writings, but the
question is no longer a living one. Paulinism had
by this time fought to an end the decisive battle
with Judaism, and the great catastrophe of a.d,
70 had exercised a liberating influence on Jewish
Christianity. It is true that, of the Johannine
writings, llevelation may have been written in the
decade preceding the Fall of Jerusalem, but, though
in the Epistles to the Seven Churches (2. 3) the
influence of the Apostolic Decree is probably still
traceable (cf. 2^"- with 2'*- ^* and Ac 15-8), yet the
idea of the Law plays no part in the book. The
Apocalypse no doubt attaches special importance
to the 'commandments of God,' repeatedly enjoin-
ing their observance (12" 14*"^ 22'*), and, similarly,
great stress is laid upon the works of believers,
since in the Judgment men are to be recompensed
according to their works (2^ 20"^'- 22'* ; cf. W^),
while in five (KV ; AV all) of the seven letters the
direct address opens with the words, ' I know thy
works ' {2'- 1» 3'- »• i«). The Avorks referred to, how-
ever, are in no sense the ' works of the Law,' but
rather ordinary Christian actions, or Christian
virtues ; cf. the details of the letters and the
lists of vices in 21^-27 22'*. Nor, again, are
the ' commandments of God ' to be identified with
the commandments of Moses. On the contrary,
the peculiar way in which they are linked with the
' testimony,' or the ' faith of Jesus,' .seems to in-
dicate that the expression does not differ essenti-
ally in meaning from the phrase ' the word of God '
occurring in a like connexion, and that it finds its
explanation in 1 John, in which faith in the name
of Jesus and brotherly love are represented as the
two chief commandments of God (cf. Rev 1» 12''
14* with 1 Jn 3^ 4'"- 5'-»).
That the general religious attitude of Revelation
is Jewish Christian may probably be inferred from
such passages as 11- '20" 21'- and T'"". But this
does not imply that the work has a particularistic
or an anti-Pauline standpoint ; the truth is, rather,
that the book presupposes throughout the uni-
versality of salvation (cf. .')'• 7" [21-*"^]), just as,
conversely, it says that the unbelieving Jews are
not Jews but ' a synagogue of Satan ' (2" 3*). And
when (in 2"*) the Lord assures believers that He
will cast upon them no other burden than abstinence
from things sacrificed to idols and from fornication
(cf. 2'*'- -"), we are reminded, as indicated above,
of the ordinances of the Apostolic Decree for the
Gentile Christians. The word ' law ' (ctJ/ios), how-
ever, does not occur in the book.
In the First Epistle of John — as in the Second
and Third as well — we find no special reference to
the Law. In the First Epistle an error is assailed
which lies quite outside the question as to the
validity of the Mosaic Law, viz. an ethical in-
difl'erentism which, side by side with a Docetic
Christology, had apparently assumed a Gnostic
complexion. When John, after a warning against
being led astray, declares with emphasis that ' he
(only) that doeth righteousness is righteous,' and
that 'he that doeth sin is of the devil' (3^'-), he
probably has in view some misapplication of the
Pauline teaching on righteousness. There is
nothing in the Epistle which points directly to
antinomian tendencies, but something of that
nature seems to be hinted at in the closing ad-
monition against ' the idols ' (5-'), which would
appear to point to the evils mentioned in Rev
21M. 20 Qjj j,jjg positive .side, the exhortations of
the Epistle are directed towards the tme faith and
towards walking in brotherly love ; ' to walk in
the light ' consists in brotherly love (cf. 2}>- " 3""^'
4. 5). St. John's well-known definition of sin as
' transgression of the law,' * lawlessness ' {duo/nia
[1 Jn 3*]), might seem to be of special interest for
our present subject, but he does not further develop
the thought, which is apparently only of a sub-
sidiary character, to be compared with the refer-
ences to the reqiiirements or tlie Law with which
on occasion St. Paul supports his admonitions (cf.
Gal 5'*, Ro 138-10).
Finally, the Gospel of St. John shows its remote-
ness from the ecclesiastical conflict regarding the
Law by the subordinate place which the idea of
the vSfio^ occupies in it. This probably finds ex-
pression in the significant verse of the Prologue
(1'^) in which St. John compares the Old and the
New Dispensation : ' the law was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.'
The antithesis of law and grace is genuinely
Pauline ; that of law and trutli reminds us above
all of the Epistle to tiie Hebrews: the Law was
only an imperfect revelation of the nature of God,
which has at length been declared by the only
begotten Sou ( Jn l'^), ' full of grace and truth '
(v.'''). Moreover, the references to the Law in the
ix)dy of the Gospel are not so much meant, as in
Mt. , to interpret its requirements ; here, in fact,
the Law, or the Scripture, is adduced rather for
purposes of argument (cf. a^^-*'--^' with 7'"'-* KP"-
['your law ' = Scripture, Ps 82^]; cf. 12" ['the law'
= Ps 110*, Is 9', Dn 7'*]). It is true that the law
of the Sabbath is referred to in a special way,
inasmuch as Jesus was on two occasions charged
with violating the day, and vindicated His action
(59-13.16-18 722-w. cf. 9iiff-) by appealing to the ex-
ample of God His Father, who ' worketh even until
now ' (5'^), and to the practice of circumcising on
the Sabbath (7^). A passage like 7"*, however,
and still more decidedly 10** (' in your law '), seems
to indicate a certain detachment from the stand-
point of the Law generally. And the superiority
of the Christian point of view, as contrasted with
the Law, or with the legal worship, finds expression
above all in the great utterance of Jesus regarding
the true worship (4-'' -••) : ' the hour cometh when
neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye
worship the Father. . . . God is spirit : and they
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693
that worship him most worship in spirit and truth.'
The ethic of St. John's Gospel is most impressivelj*
brought to a focus in the new commandment of
brotherly love (13»* lo^*- J»- "). While the dis-
courses of Jesus in the first part of the Gospel,
in which He addresses the people ('the world'),
demand faith in His name, those in the second
part (13-17), where He speaks to the disciples (those
who have that faith, believers), all converge in the
coniniandment of mutual love; here, accordingly,
we have the same two-fold requirement which we
found so simply expressed in the First Epistle of
John (3=^). In the Gospel, no doubt, Jesus speaks
not only of His commandment, but also of His
commandments ; by these, however, He must have
meant, not the commandments of the OT, but in
all likelihood simply the special aspects of the law
of love.
1 John tends to set faith and love side by side
(cf. Rev 14*-: faith and the 'commandments of
God'), and the Fourth Gospel shows the same
collocation. In this point, accordingly, St. Jolm
differs from St. Paul, who indicated the subordina-
tion of love to faith in the phrase ' faith working
through love ' (Gal 5"). In point of fact, however,
St. John too has reco^ized the dejiendence of love
upon faith, since, as just indicated, the first part
of his Gospel is occupied with the preaching of
faith (1-12), while in the second part (13 ff.)
brotherly love is regarded as being based upon the
true foundation of disci pleship, i.e. upon faith.
Through faith comes life in the name of Jesus
Christ (20'* ; cf. 1 Jn 5'*). No room is left, therefore,
for legal merit or self-righteousness. Thus St.
John homologates the Pauline conception of the
gospel, but expresses his view in a manner much
more simple, and therefore less precise.
7. The Law in the sub-apostolic writings. — In
the ix)st-apostolic Mritings of the 1st cent, the
Law, as signifying the Mosaic legislation, plays
no part at all. In the so-called First Epistle of
Clement the term occurs but once (i. 3), and there
in the plural form : * Ye walked in the laws of
God' — an utterance which, both according to the
context and in Wew of the jiersons addressed
(Gentile Christians in Corinth), can have no refer-
ence to the OT Law in the specific sense. It was
in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers of the 2nd
cent. — as, e.g., the Shepherd of Hennas and the
Epistle of Barnabas — that Christianity came to be
regarded as 'the new Law.' Barnabas says that
God abolished the Jewish sacrifices in order that
the new Law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is
without the yoke of compulsion, should involve no
sacrificial gift, as that is but the work of man (ii.
6) — an idea that partlj- recalls St. James's phrase,
'the perfect law of liberty' (Ja 1=»; cf. 2*-).
Hernias, again, speaks of Christ as the one who
gave to the people (of God) the Law that He re-
ceived from His Father, but also as the one who Ls
Himself the Law ; the Law is the Son of God, who
was preached to the ends of the earth {Sim. viii.
3. 2)— i.e. tiie gospel has taken the place of the
ancient Law, or, otherwise expressed, Christ in His
example and His commandments has been consti-
tuted the sole moral authority of Christians.
What distinguishes this sub-apostolic view from
that of St. Paul, however, is that the idea of ' the
new Law ' not only verbally but also materially
implies a moralism that was quite foreign to the
Apostolic Age, inasmuch as the idea of Law has
coloured the conception of the gospel.
When the strain between Law and gospel had at
length been relieved, legalism gradually once more
found its waj- indirectlj- into the Church. We
can already trace the process in the Ancient
Catholic Church, and still more distinctly in the
Mediaeval Church. At the Ileformation, however.
the primitive-Christian, Pauline solution of the
problem of the Law was vindicated once more,
and legalism and antinomianism were alike sur-
mounted. The theology of the Reformation, in
its interpretation of grace and faith, showed, with
St. Paul as its guide, not only that, but also how,
the Christian is constrained to do good works, and
thus fulfil the Law of God (Aug5mrg Confetsion
[1530], XX. 36, • Apol.' [1531] iiL 15).
LrrKRATURB.— The text-books of NT Theol(wj- bv B. Weiss
(Eng. tr. of 3rd ed., Edinburgh, 1882-«X "• J.'Holtzmann
^Tubingen, 1911X A. Schlatter (CaJw, 1908-lOX P. Peine
(Leipog, 1910), H. Weinel (Tubingen, 1911) ; C. ▼. Weizsacker,
Das apoUMsehe Zeitaiter der ehrutiiehen Kirehe^, Freiburg,
1892 (peuntn) ; E. Grafe, Die paulinuehe Lehre vom GeteU
noA den vier Bauptbriefen, do. 1893 ; Lyder Bran, PavbuTt
lore om loven, Cbristiania, 18M ; A. Zalin, Da* Gtietz Guttu
naeh der Lehre und der ErfoArung de* ApotUl PatiltwS, Halie,
1892; P. Peine, Da< ^etetuffreie JBvangelivm det Paubu,
Lei^g, 1899 ; G. B. Stevens, Theolom <^ the ST, 1899. p. 17 ;
A. E. Garvie. Studie* of Paul and ht» Goepel, 19U, p. 193 ; E.
P. Gould. BibUeal Theology of the ST, 1900, p. 27. See also
the accounts of Paulinism bv E. Renan dEofS. tr., London,
1869X P. W. Farrar (do. 1879), O. Pfleiderer (Leipzig, 1873,
Eng. tr., London, 1S77X A. Sabatier (^Paris, 1896, E^. tr.<,
London, 1906X and treatises on the subject of 'Jesus and St.
PaoL' OLAF MoE.
LAWYER. — In Israel the activities of the lawyer
were limited by the Torah, or Law of Moses. His
functions were three-fold : to study and interpret
the Law (and the traditions arising from it), to
hand it down by teaching, and to apply it in the
Courts of Justice. The lawyers played an im-
portant part in the proceedings of the Sanhedrin,
not only voting, but also speaking, if they saw fit,
on either side of a case, though in criminal charges
solely on behalf of the accused (Mishn. Sanhedrin,
iv. 1). The Roman lawyers were more secular in
their interests, and applied themselves more directly
to the practical aspects of jurisprudence. Their
work in the law-courts covered a wide range. The
most general representative of law was the cognitor,
or attorney, whose place (in Gaius"s time) was par-
tially filled by the procurator litis, or legal agent ;
but m court the case was pleaded by thepatrontis
or orator, the skilled counsel of whom Cicero is so
illustrious an example, often assisted by the advo-
catus, or legal adWser. The opinion of jurisam-
sulti, or professional students of law, could also be
laid before the judges. See Trial-at-Law.
In the NT lawyers appear as yofUKoi, 'jurists'
(freq. in Lk., but elsewhere only in Mt 22^ and
Tit 3**), or yofi,oSiSdffKa\oi, ' doctors of the law '
(only in Lk 5*', Ac 5**, and 1 Ti 1") ; but they are
clearly identical with the ypafifiareh, ' scribes,' who
are mentioned so often in the Gospels and Acts.
These lawyers are aU of the Jewish type. The
Roman lawyer appears, however, in the p^wp or
'orator' Tertullus, who pleaded the cause of St.
Paul's prosecutors before the Roman governor
Felix (Ac 24**-) — in order, no doubt, that the
proper technicalities might be observed, and the
case presented in the way most likely to win over
the trained Roman mind. See Tertullus.
Lttkrattrk. — On Jewish lawvere cf. D. Eaton in HDS iiL
83 ff., with references; and on Roman jurists and oraton see
A. H. J. Greeaidge, Legai Procedure of Cieero'i Time, 1901,
p. 148 ff. ; H. J. Roby, Roman Private Law in the Time* of
Cicero and of the Antonine*. 1902, iL 407 ff. ; and other authori-
ties cited in art. Tria1/-at-Law. A. R. (JORDOX.
LAYING ON OF HANDS.— See Ordixatiox.
LE AYEN (from levare, ' to raise ' : ^/iti, ^vfimh' ;
ferment urn). — Leaven is a substance which produces
fermentation, especially in the making of bread.
It is properly a piece of already fermented dough,
which is mixed with other dough in order to repeat
the process. In the warm climate of Syria the
fermentation is completed in 24 hours. The com-
mandment against the use of raised bread during
694
LEAVES
LEVITE
the Passover week (Ex 12" 13'', etc.) was no doubt
a survival from Israel's nomadic period, when (as
among the nomads of to-day) all bread was un-
leavened. Fermentation was supposed to represent
the process of corruption in the mass of the bread
— an ideu found in I'lutarch, who says : ' Now
leaven is itself the od'spring of corruption, and
conupts the mass (t6 ^ijpafia) with which it is
mixed' {Qu(ts. Rom. 109). Bread with the taint
of putrefaction was regarded a~s unlit for use in
religious ceremonies (see W. R. Smith, RS^, 1894,
p. 1^0). On the eve of the first day of the Pass-
over— the 14tli Nisan — the Jews, in accordance
with their immemorial custom, still carefully re-
move every trace of leaven wliich can be found in
their houses. Fresh dough kneaded with pure
water is used in tlie preparation of the cakes of
unleavened bread which are to be eaten during the
holy week.
As a figure of speech, ' leaven ' is applied to any
element, influence, or agency which effects a subtle
and secret cliange either for the better or for the
worse. On the one hand, the Kingdom of Heaven
is a leaven which is destined to penetrate, and
assimilate to itself, the whole of humanity (Mt
\Z^, Lk 13^'-). On the other, even an apparently
insignificant sin, if tolerated and unchecked in a
community, has great power of corruption, and St.
Paul twice quotes the popular saying, 'A little
leaven leavens the whole lump ' {Skov rb tpipafxa, 1
Co 5®, Gal 5"). The followers of Christ are already
unleavened (dfu/xoi) ; virtually and ideally — in the
purpose of God and in their own passionate desire
— thej are completely purged from the leaven of
iniquity ; but the iaeal has still to be realized.
They are therefore exhorted to set about and carry
through their Passover cleansing of the soul — to
rid themselves of all infected and infectious re-
mains of their pre-Christian state — that they may
keep not a seven-days' but a life-long feast with the
unleavened bread or sincerity and truth (1 Co 5"'^).
James Strahan.
LEAVES.— See Tree of Life.
LEOPARD (jrdpSaXij).— The Greek word seems to
have been used indiscriminately by the classical
writers to designate ' leopard,' ' panther,' or
' ounce.' The only NT reference to the ' leopard '
is in Kev 13^, where it occurs in the description of
' the Wild Beast from the sea ' — ' the beast which
I saw was like unto a leopard.' The concrete
reality, of which the Wild Beast was the abstract
emblem, was of course the Roman Empire. To
the mind of the Seer, the attitude adopted by
Rome towards the early Christian Church was
that of a leopard. She exhibited the same agility
(cf. Hab 1") and cunning (cf. Hos 13'^), as well as
the same ruthless cruelty, as that much-dreaded
inhabitant of Palestine and the East.
The leopard (Felis pai-dtcs, Arab, nimr, Heb.
ndmer) is still found round the Dead Sea, in Gilead
and Bashan, and also occasionally in Lebanon and
the wooded districts of the west ; but, judging from
the numerous allusions in the OT and tlie occur-
rence of the word in place-names {e.g. 'Beth-
Nimrah ' or ' Nimrah '), it is reasonable to suppose
that it was more common in early times. It
usually lurks near wells or watering-places (cf.
•waters of Nimrim,' Is 15', Jer 48^'*), and in the
outskirts of villages (cf. Jer 5'), to pounce at
night upon cattle and dogs. The beautifully
spotted skins are often sold in the markets and
are used as rugs and saddle-covers, while some-
times they are worn as an article of clothing.
The Felis pardus is found over the whole of
Africa, S. Asia, China, Japan, and the islands of
the Malay Archipelago.
Another annual of the leopard tribe, the well-
known clieeta or hunting-leopard of India (Felis
jubatus), is sometimes found in the hills of Galilee
and in the neighbourhood of Tabor, but its occur-
rence is rare. It is much tamer than the Felis
pardus, and in India it is often domesticated and
kept for hunting antelopes and other animals.
LiTERATURK.— H. B. Tristraui, SWP vii. [1884], p. 18 f.,
The A'atural Eigtory oj the BibUi", 1911, pp. 111-114 ; H. B.
Swete, The Apocalypse oj St. John^, 1!K)7, p. 162 ; SDB 540 f. ;
HDB iii. 95; EBiiii. 2705Jf. ; W. M. Thomson, The Land and
the Book, 1804, p. 444 f. P. S. p. HaNDCOCK.
LETTER.— The distinction between the ' true
letter' and the 'epistle' was dealt with in the
art. Epistle. In the Christian literature of the
Apostolic Age till the end of the 1st cent, we have,
besides Ac 15^'^ and 23'^-^, sixteen letters in the
proper sense of the term — viz. the ten Epistles
of St. Paul that may reasonably be regarded as
authentic ; the three Pastoral Epistles, which, if
authentic, are undoubtedly real letters, and, if
spurious, are at all events based upon genuine
letters from the Apostle's hand ; the Second and
Third Epistles of St. John, both of which could
at once be characterized rather as something
like short private missives ; and, finally, the
First'Epistle of Clement. Of the genuine Paulino
letters, Romans comes nearest in character to the
' epistle,' though the fact that it is less personal
and intimate in its tone and more suggestive of
the treatise is quite well accounted for by certain
psychological considerations — as, e.g., that the
Avriter was not personally known to the community
which he was addressing ; we should not there-
fore be justified in saying that the letter-form is a
mere artifice. On the other hand, the so-called
First Epistle of Clement, which is written in the
name of one entire community to another, is a
peculiar composite of ' letter and ' ejiistle ' ; it
was certainly meant to be a true letter, arising
out of the actual circumstances of the writer's own
church at Rome, and having in view the actual
circumstances of the church in Corinth, but it is
quite clear that Clement was working upon a tradi-
tion of Christian letters and epistles, so that —
especially in regard to the length of his message —
he does not altogether succeed in maintaining the
characteristics of a true letter. The Christian
writers of the Apostolic Age, in fact, had not yet
become proficient in such literary forms as the
treatise, the dialogue, or the controversial pam-
phlet, and tliis explains why they had recourse to
the letter as the simplest literary vehicle, and yet
at the same time burst the trammels of its form.
A comparison of the true letters of the Apostolic
Age with true letters from approximately the same
period of the heathen world shows that, while the
similarities in style and diction are manifold and
by no means insignificant, yet the former class
display a very remarkable independence in their
use of the traditional form.
Literature. — Cf. the works cited in art. Epistle ; on the true
letters of the ancients cf. esp. L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken,
GrundziigetindChrestomathie der Papj/ninkunde, 2 vols., Leip-
zig, 1912 ; also H. Lietzmann, Griechische Papyri'^, Bonn, 1910 ;
G. A. Deissmann, Licht vom Ontcn", 1909 (Eng. tr.'-^, 1911), and
the well-known edd. of Oxyrhynchus papyri, etc. On ' true
letters' from the Christian sphere, cf. tlie present writer's
Oegch. der altchristl. Literatur, Leipzig, 1911.
H. Jordan.
LEYL— See Tribes, Priest, Aaron.
LEYITE.— According to the view represented in
the OT by the so-called ' Priests' Code,' the Lcvites
were originally the clan whose members were quali-
fied for the priestly office. In the course of time
a distinction arose, and the Levites became the
principal attendants upon the priests, entrusted
with minor sacerdotal duties but not competent to
LEWD, LEWDNESS
LIBERTLNES
695
succeed to the full status. In the NT, outside the
Gospels, the terra occurs but once or twice. Barna-
bas of Cj'prus, where there were numerous Jews
and Christians (1 Mac 15**, Ac 11^*), was a land-
owner, though a Levite (Ac 4*), the old ordinance
(Nu 18-^) against the possession of real estate ha^ong
long before fallen into abeyance, and probably
having never been meant to apply to land outside
Palestine. In He 7" the writer coins a word to
enable him to write of ' the Levitical priesthood,'
as though the hallowing of the tribe were concen-
trated in ' the order of Aaron ' (so Westcott, ad
loc.), or with a view to indicating the provisional
character of all parts of the earlier sacrificial service
and not merely of its central acts. The priestly
tribe with all its privileges passes away ; and
another — the royal tribe (He 7^^)— yields Him
who is able really to save, and to ' save to the utter-
most' (7-^). In later times an assumed parallel
between the historical and the true Israel was
pushed, until the relation of deacons to bishops
and presbyters was based upon that of Levites to
priests. The theory- has proved useful since the
days of Cyprian, and may conceivably have origin-
ated in some of the Ebionitic Christian communities
of our period ; but the functions of the two classes,
Levites and deacons, were quite distinct, and any
analogy between them is artificial and an after-
thought. R. W. Moss.
LEWD, LEWDNESS (Ac 17' 18").— The English
word occurs twice in the NT, once as an adjec-
tive (Gr. -rovtjpbs, Ac 17*) and once as a substantive
{fXfSiovpyrifia, Ac 18"). In neither of these cases has
it anything to do with sexual pa.ssion — the sense
in which the word is now used; it just means
• vulgar,' ' worthless.'
1. Ac 175.— The word TovrjpSs (AV 'lewd,' RV
' vile ') is used to characterize the dyopaiot or loafers
in the market-place whom the unbelieving Jews in
Thessalonica incited to an act of popular insurrec-
tion against St. Paul. They were so far successful
as to prevail on the politarchs to exact bail from
Jason for peaceful behaviour, with the consequence
that St. Paul and Silas had to escape to Beroea by
night.
* Owing to the dishonour in which nianoal pursuits were held
in ancient days, every large city had a superfluous population
of worthless idlers — clients who lived on the doles of the
wealthy, flatterers who fawned at the feet of the influential,
the lazzaroni of streets, mere loafers and loiterers, the hangers-
on of forum, the claqueurs of law-courts, the scum that gathered
about the shallowest outmost waves of ci^-ilisation ' (F. W.
Farrar, St. Paul, 1S83, p. 370).
This class is well described by the adjective
TOKT/pos. Aristotle distinguishes the wicked man
(xovTjpos) from the d»:par^j, the weak man who sins
though he does not mean to do so and who is un-
righteous without premeditation (Eth. Nic. vii. 10).
The wicked man sins with the full consent of his
will. He is positively malignant and injurious to
others. Nearly akin in meaning are (paCXos and
KaKos, but as Trench says (AT Synonym^, p. 3(34),
in iroin)p6s ' the positive activity of evil comes far
more decidedly out than in KaKos. ' Perhaps Knox's
phrase — 'the rascal multitude' — is as accurate a
translation as we can get.
While the xp^'J'tos is one who diligently follows
his occupation and maintains himself by lawful
work, the irovripos or xaKos indicates the man who is
wicked in behaviour or in character. The words,
however, in Greek are often used with the same
latitude as we allow ourselves in English, when we
use similar terms. The ordinary speech of the NT
is not logically exact.
W. M. Ramsaj- discusses the question whether the reference
to Satan in 1 Th 218— 'and Satan hindered us (from coming)'—
is to be taken as referring to the hostility of the multitude.
He concludes, however, that the reference "is to the attitude of
the politarchs, who, by exacting security for good behaviour
from Jason, prevented' the return of St. Paul to the dty (St.
Paul the TracelUr, 1S85, p. 230f.)L
Wetstein supplies parallels which throw light on the daas
denoted by iyopaioi (in Uteo).
2. Ac 18^*. — Here the word ' lewdness ' translates
the Greek ftg-diovprpifia. The RV has 'villainy.'
The word is associated with d5t'oj/xa. The usual dis-
tinction between them is said to be that dStKij/ui
refers to illegality — something done contrary to
the laws — whereas pq.Siovp'/rifia indicates moral
delinquency. The distinction is probably to be
maintained here, as Gallio is speaking judicially
with reference to a definite charge. St. Paul is
guilty neither of the one nor of the other, but
according to Gallio the question is a mere dispute
about words — a Jewish squabble.
p^Sioi'pyrjfxa occurs only here in the NT, nor is it
found in the classics or in the LXX, but it occurs
in Plutarch, Pyrrh. 6, and the allied term pgiSiovpyia
occurs in Ac 13^" of Elymas. The latter word
occurs in papyri in the sense of ' theft ' (see J. H.
Moulton and George ililligan in Expositor, 8th
ser. i. [1911] 477). It is not likelj', however, that
the term in Ac 18" is used in this restricted sense.
LirERATTRK.— J. R. Lumby, The AeU qf the ApostUt (Caxa-
bridge Bible, 18S6), p. 217; HDB, art. 'Lewdness'; R. J.
Knowlingr, in EGT, ' The Acts of the Apostles,' 1900, in loec
(where literature is given); T. E. Pag-e, The Acts of the
ApogtUf, 1900, p. 301 ; Grimm-Thayer, Lexicon, s.v. putuui^
ymia ; E. Hatch, Essaps in Biblical Greek, 1889, pp. 77-S2 ;
T. K. Abbott, EstajfS, 1881, p. 97 ; R. C. Trench, Stmonymt of
fA«-Vr». 1876,p. 361L DOX A LD MACKENZIE.
LIBERTINES. — Both the construction and the
contents of Ac 6' are difficult. It consists, as Hort
says, of 'a long compound phrase,' the Greek of
which is 'not smooth and correct on any inter-
pretation' (Judaistic Christianity, p. 50). An
expositor can, therefore, lay claim to no more than
a reasonable probability for his exegesis of the
verse. St. Luke's statement is generallj' believed
to have been derived from a written source. Thus,
Hamack, although he argues persuasively in favour
of St. Luke's having obtained a large part of the
knowledge he committed to writing in Ac 1-12
from St. Philip at Caesarea (cf. Ac 2P- •), yet
thinks that he had a written (Antiochean) source
for his narrative of St. Stephen's trial, speech, and
death (The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 175, 188, 245).
And Ramsay, writing on the ' Forms of Classifica-
tion in Acts ' (Expositor, 5th ser. ii. 35), explains
the exceptionsil form of the list in Ac 6" as ' due
to Luke's being here dependent on an authority
whose expression he either transcribed verbatim
or did not fully understand.' But it appears to
the present writer possible that the form of the
list 18 due to its having come to St. Luke in the
way of oral communication. Its style may be
termed colloquial : it looks as if the narrator were
quoting from memory, or reporting the very words
of a speaker with whom he had been conversing.
May not the speaker have been St. Paul? The
mention made of Cilicia in the list is in favour of
this conjecture. Was there a svnagogue in Jeru-
salem of which it is more likely tliat Saul of Tarsus
had been a member or a leader than that which
Cilician Jews frequented? The Apostle had, in
the days of his unbelief, been one of the bitterest
opponents of the Christian movement, and the part
he had taken in St. Stephen's death was a subject
of life-long self-reproach (Ac 22^). The depth of
his feeling may have prevented him from referring
to this often in preaching or otherwise, but would
not have debarred him firom doing so in conversa-
tion with a trusted friend like St. Luke.
Should this conjecture be well founded, it would
help to settle the vexed question of whether five
synagogues are specified in the list, or two, or only
696
LIIJERTINES
LIBERTY
one. The present writer agrees with Hort (loc.
cit.; of. Sweto, 'J'hc Appearances of our Lord after
the Passion, 114) that only one synagogue is
mentioned, that of the Libertines, and that tlie
following names are simply descriptive of origin,
the nicmlbers of the synagogue being partly from
Cyrenc and Alexandria, partly from Cilicia and
Proconsular Asia. Possibly St. Stephen and St.
Paul both belonged to this synagogue, but of this
we cannot be sure.
The synagogue of the Ki^ffn-tvoi doubtless con-
sisted, at least in the first instance, of Jews who
had been prisoners of war, and liad afterwards
l»een set free and admitted to Roman citizen-
ship (Chrysostom, Hum. on Acts : oV Vwfiaiwv dirfXfv-
tifpoi). Pliilo tells us {Leg. ad Caiuni, 23) tliat
most of tlie Jews of Home Avere enfranchised
cai)tives, and the passages usually quoted from
Tacitus {A7in. ii. 85) and Suetonius {Tiberius, 36)
agree with this. Those freedmen who had re-
turned to Palestine, and their descendants, must
have formed a synagogue to which they gave their
name, and most ])robably Jews from other parts of
the world came in time to be afliliated to them.
Although this statement is not supported by in-
dependent historical evidence, it nuiy be regarded
as a just inference from the text, when conjoined
with other known facts. A large part of the
population of .Icrusalem consisted of foreign Jews,
who had come to reside permanently there, that
they might be near the Temple, and might be
buried in the land of tlteir fathers. Others came
for their education, like St. Paul. Those Jews
were most zealous in fulfilling their ritual obliga-
tions, and attached themselves to ' the straitest
sect' of the Jews of Palestine (Ac 26', Gal 1"; cf.
Zahn, Introduction to the NT, i. 39 f., 60 f. ; J.
Mottatt in ElU iv. 4788 ; J. Patrick in HDB iii.
110). The first accusation brought against our
Lord was based upon a misrei)resentation of words
of His about the Temple (Jn 2i», Mk 14'8), and in
Ac 6'*- '^ 7^"'^ we see that St. Stephen had not
kept oir this dangerous ground.
It is uncertain whether we should read ttjs
\eyofiivr]i (Til) or tuv Xeyo/^vuv (Tisch. ) in Ac e'-* ;
but, whichever reading be preferred, the .sense is
not aflected. The absence of various readings in
the substance of the text bars the way to any
attempt to reconstruct it. Certain Armenian VSS
and Syriac commentaries seem to have read Ai^iiwv
(cf. the unique NT reference to Libya, Ac 2'*), and
this paved tlie way for the most famous conjectural
emendation — that of Ki^varivwv for Ai^epTlfuv. J.
Rendel Harris, in his art. in tlie Expositor, 6th ser.
vi. 378 f., has traced the liistory of tiiis emendation
in an interesting manner from Beza (1559) to lilass
(1898). Prom lieza's Annotationes he quotes the
following sentence, in which the main difficulty of
the text is well .stated : ' Neque enim video qua
ratione Lucas istos [Libertinos] appellet ex condi-
tione, cjoteros vero ex gente ac patria.' Blass, in
his Philology of the Gospels, 69 1., was not aware
that the emendation had been proposed by any-
one before himself, and he exprcsseu liis certainty
that Aipva-rivuv was the true reading. This word,
wliich is used by Catullus (Ix. 1, montibus Liby-
stinis), would have been quite suitable for desig-
nating the towns lying westwards from Cyrene,
liad it been sup]>orted by good MS authority (cf.
EBi iii. 2793, 2794; ExpT '\x. 437'). The deriva-
tion of lAbcrtini from a town Libertum in N. Africa
is much less plausible, as no town of that name
seems to have been known in the 1st century.
Among the older expositors, Bengel {Gnomon of
NT) strongly maintains that the whole description
of Ac 6" is that of one flourishing syiiago<jue, com-
posed of Euro])eans, Africans, an«l Asiatics, to
which Saul belonged. His note is still worth reading.
LiTKRATLRK — J. A. Ben^el, Gnommi of NT, ed. Berlin, 186U,
p. 287; Til. Beza, Aniwtatioiws, 1.S59; Fr. Blass, Philnlogy
of the Goxpeh, London, 1898, p. (J9f. ; HDD, art. ' LibertintH'
(J. Patrick); Klii, artt. 'Libertines,' 'Libja' (W. J. Wood-
house), '.Stephen' (J. Moffatt) ; Exponitor, 5th ser. ii. [1895]
(W. M. Ramsay), 6ih ser. vi. (1902) (J. Rendel Harris);
KxpT\y.. [181)7 -US] 437''; Grimm-Thayer-, 189(1, ».». Ac/3«pTriw;
A. Harnack, Luke the Phynician, Kn^'. tr., Ixjndon and New
York, 1907, p. 163, The Acta of the ApoMee, Kriu'. tr., do. 1909,
pp. xxxiv, 70, 71 n., 120, 175. 188, 192, VMi,2U), 245; F. J. A.
Hort, Jiidnigtic ChriHianity, Ixsndon, 1894, p. 60; H. A. W.
Meyer, Com. on Acts, Eng. tr., Kdiiiburtjh, 1877, i. 173 f. ; E.
Schiirer, UJP, En(f. tr., ii. ii. [do. 1885] 276; H. B. Swete.
The Appearances oj uur Lord aftf.rthe Pastion, Ivondon, 1907,
p. 114 ; Th. Zahn, Introd. to the NT, Eng. tr., Edinbiirt'h, 1909,
1. 39f.,60ff. James Donald.
LIBERTY. — Liberty (i\fvOfpla) occupies a promi-
nent place in the thought of NT writers and ap-
pears in a variety of significations. —
1. In the political sense. — As denoting the
status of a free citizen and in direct (iontrast with
the state of slavery, the word figures in one of the
great dichotomies used by the apostolic writers in
classifying men from the standjioint of tlieir age
(Col 3'^ — 'bondman, freeman'). We have no
means of knowing even approximately in what
projiortions the churches of the a])ostolic and sub-
apostolic times were made up of freemen and of
slaves. Everj'thing certainly goes to show that
many of the latter class became Christians ; in all
frobability, too, they usually formed the majority,
t is precarious, however, to find positive evidence
of this, as A. Deissmann does witii regard to the
Colo.ssian Church, in the mere fact that (Col 3'*-4')
counsels addressed to slaves are given in ampler
terms, those to masters quite briefly {St. Paul,
Eng. tr., 1912, p. 216). Similar rea.soning mifjht
argue from 1 P 3^'^- '' that wives were in a majority
and husbands in a minority !
The fact that St. Paul, a native of Tarsus, was
a Roman citizen is treated as a matter of import-
ance in Acts. It w;is the Roman Emperors who
gave the people of the provinces i>ower to enjoy
the rights or citizenship. There is a dramatic
turning of tables in Ac 22'''* when St. Paul is able
to say quite simply (yet Avith a touch of pride),
' But I am a Roman bom,' and Claudius, the cap-
tain, turns out to be but a parvenu who had had
to spend a lot of monejs somehow or other, to ac-
quire the citizenship. The same status is claimed
for Silas as well as St. Paul in Ac 16^''.
Not a few of those who are mentioned by name
in St. Paul's Epistles {e.g. Philemon, Gains,
Erastus, Aquila, Phoebe, etc.) must have been of
the citizen cla.ss. The number of such increased
as time went on. In the Ignatian Epistles {e.g.
Smyrn. xii. and Polyc. viii.) we find similar refer-
ences to devoted Christians (Tavias, Alee, Daph-
nus, ' the wife of Epitropus ' [or ' of the governor '],
Attains, etc.) of the .same rank. But Christianity
had gained access to the palaces of the aristocracy
before the 1st cent, was out, and had won adherents
there who sufFered for their faith— witness the
well-known cases of T. P'lavius Clemens, the con-
sul, and his wife, Domitilla. And for the same
period we have the evidence of an outsider in
Pliny's famous Epistle to Trajan (x. 97), where-
in he tells us that he found in his i)rovince large
numbers of Christians ' of all classes ' {omnis or-
dinis). What was true of Bithynia was most pro-
bably true of other parts of the Empire.
Citizenship and wealth, of course, did not neces-
sarily go together. In the class of freemen were
included people of all ranks, from artisans and
lalx)urers up to the wealthiest aristocrats. Un-
fortunately many citizens were but idle loafers,
depending on the Imperial largesse. The existence
of the huge, overgrown Ky.stem of slavery hail a
sinister ellect on the great mass of citizens,
inasmuch as 'paid labour was thought unworthy
LIBERTY
LIBERTY
697
of any freebom man' (C. Bigg, The Church's Task
under the Roman Empire, Oxford, 1905, p. 114).
The poor, hired labourers, however, of Ja 5* were
not technically bov\oi. The same Epistle shows
lis how soon the Apostolic Church experienced the
evils too possiblj' attendant upon the appearance
of the rich man within the circle of the Christian
society (chs. 2 and 5).
Though civic freedom is quite evidently valued,
we find little or nothing in the apostolic writings
bearing on political questions. Lofty moral teach-
ing and profound theology abound, but there is no
feeling manifest that political freedom Avas a thing
worth seeking for its own sake. It may indeed be
said that in the 1st cent. ' the prevailing notions
of freedom were imperfect, and the endeavours to
realise them were wide of the mark' (Lord Acton,
- The History of Freedom, London, 1907, p. 16).
See, further, art. Slave, SLAVERY.
2. In the sense of freedom of conscience. —
'Liberty' is used in the NT to denote a man's
freedom to decide what is right or wrong for
himself, especially in relation to matters enjoined
upon him bj' some form of external authority. The
development of such a notion naturally followed
upon the development of the notion of conscience
itself, which in turn was bound up with the grow-
ing sense of human individuality and personal
responsibility. In pre-Christian lines of philosophi-
cal and religious teaching (as e.g. in Stoicism)
we mark in this respect a prceparatio evangelica.
As the ancient conception of man as merely a
component unit in trib« or nation faded and gave
way to the sense of his value for himself as well
as for the community, and of his responsibility for
himself, such consequences were bound to follow.
So far from morality consisting simply in com-
pliance with commands embodying the will of
the community of which the man is a part (which
commands may also be conceived as Divinely origi-
nated), when man realizes his individual responsi-
bility to God, conscience emerges, and, criticizing
those very commands, may disapprove as well as
approve, whilst it may also find a whole area of
moral interests which the injunctions of external
authority do not touch and in which it must
decide for itself.
To the rise of Christianity we very specially
owe an advanced conception of conscience and its
corollary, the claim to freedom to act in accord with
the behests of conscience. ' Am I not free ? ' cries
St. Paul (1 Co 9') ; whilst 'Peter and the apostles '
(Ac 5^) are heard declaring ' We must obey God
rather than men.' These sayings might ser>'e as
watchwords of the new era as viewed from this
standpoint (Judaism itself, it should be notetl in
passing, exhibited in course of time a similar
development in its ethical teaching). And the
cla.sh between the new order and the old neces-
sarily brought with it abundant scope for the
outcrop of cases of conscience such as St. Paul
handles in 1 Co 8fl". and PiO 14 f.
Freedom of this kind can be properly claimed
and used only by the conscientious man — the
man who is above all else concerned for harmony
between the laws and customs he is called to
observe and the inward regulative principle, and
who departs from such laws only when an en-
lightened conscience imperatively demands it.
For another imix)rtant pre-requisite is that the
exercise of this freedom shall be based on intelli-
gent judgment. ' Let each man be fully assured
in his own mind ' (Ro 14') is a Pauline dictum of
the first importance. Cf. the deeply significant
logion ascribed to our Lord in Cod. D (Lk 6*)
wherein He says to a man found working on the
Sabbath. ' If thou Inowe-it what thou art doing,
blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not, the
art accurst and a transgressor of the law.' A
man cannot justifiably set at nought a positive
commandment or institution unless he has sight
of some higher principle which determines nis
course of action. The freedom an enlightened
man asks is freedom to do what he sees he ought
to do, and to do what he mat/ do without injury
to others.
For St. Paul very emphatically insists on the
necessity of qualifying the exercise of one's own
liberty by regard for the claims of others. It
must not involve harm to others or an infringe-
ment of their liberty. Self-limitation for tne
sake of others is, indeed, an example of the truest
exercise of freedom.
3. As a description of the Christian life and
experience. — Social conditions being what they
Avere in the 1st cent., it was most natural that the
life resulting from faith in Christ, as that is pre-
sented in the NT, should be describe<l in the apos-
tolic writings by a cycle of metaphors centring
in the word 'redemption' (Deissraann, op. cit., p.
149). This is specially characteristic of St. Paul.
The Christian life is represent«d as (a) freedom
from the bondage of law. — St. Paul's treatment of
this topic (found mainly in the Epistles to Romans
and Galaiians) is not easy to follow and is doubt-
less coloured by his own viWd personal experience.
We do not find quite the same line taken in other
early apostolic writings that have been preserved
to us. By general consent, it is true, it came to
be held that Jewish and (Jentile Christians alike
were free from obligation to observe the Jewish
Law in its peculiar institutions and ceremonial
rules. The old sacrificial system was abolished
' that the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
is without the yoke of nece-s-sity, might have a
human oblation ' (i.e. the dedication of the man
himself) (Epistle of Barnabas, ii. ; so also Epistle
to the Hebrews, and Epistle to Diognetus, iv.
[regarding Sabbath, circumcision, ' kosher ' foods,
and the like]). But St. Paul has far more than
this in view. He is thinking of all law as the
expression of God's will for man's life and the
severe revealer of man's sin as he departs from
it : law that has only condemnation for the sinner
(see the autobiographical Ro 7).
That the Apostle countenances an antinomian
freedom he himself indignantly denies. Nor did
he lack the true Jew's veneration for the Torah.
With him law assumes the form of ' an imperious
principle opposed to grace and liberty only when
it is viewed a* the condition of justification, the
means of attaining to righteousness before God
through the merit of good work-s.' As the expres-
sion of God's will and the guide of human obedience
it is ' holy, just, and good ' (Ro 7'* ; see E. H.
Giflbrd, Romans [in Speaker's Commentary, 1881,
p. 48]). Torah comes to its own in the new life
which springs from Christian faith and the %inio
mystica between the Christian and his Lord. And
if other early Christian writers present this life as
lived under law (see Epistle of James, esi)ecially
the ha^y expression, ' law of liberty,' ch 1^ ; also
1 Jn 3'^-)> St. Paul likewise lays stress on ' the
law of Christ ' (Gal 6-) and gives us the far-reach-
ing aphorism : ' Love is the fulfilment of law '
(Ro 13i»).
(6) Freedom from the bondage of sin. — Sin is
here personifietl as a tyrannical master (see espe-
cially the line of treatment in Ro 6 ; cf. Jn 8**).
An interesting parallel is furnished in the Dis-
courses of Epictetus (IV. i.), where it is laid down
that ' no wicked man is free. '
(c) Freedom from the bondage of idolatry. — See
Gal 4*'- — a jwint of material imjHjrtance to the
c.^vifiip world in apostolic days.
Freedom from the bondage of cormption
698
LIBYA
LIFE AND DEATH
(Ro 8^^). — Tliis rather belon<^s to tlie liope for the
world at large which contemplates the social state
wherein the new life is perfectly realized. ' The
glory of tlie children of (iod ' is a liberty whicli
all creation .sighs to share.
It remains briefly to point out that not only does
the term 'redemption (applied to the work of
Christ in opening to men this new experience of
life) derive from the social state in the midst
of which Cliristianity was born, but ' adoption ' as
used by St. Paul (Ko 8"*- '^j Gal 4*) similarly gains
special significance as denoting entrance upon the
life of liberty. Adoption, in a general way, was
no uncommon plienomenon in the old world (see
vloOfffia in Deissmann, Bible /Studies, Eng. tr.,
1901, p. 239), but it was also one recognized way
of giving freedom to a slave.
There is no inconsistency but only striking
paradox when this experience which is described
as freedom is also described as a servitude to God
(cf. 1 1' 2"*, 0eoD dovXoi, and Ko 6-^ dovXwdtvTfs ry
OfV). Here, too, it is of interest to recall tliat it
was a Stoic doctrine of liberty that true freedom
consists in obeying God, or, as Philo of Alexandria
(see Tract, Quod sit liber quisquis virtuti studet)
puts it, the following of God. Again, as the
Christian is commonly described in the NT as
a dovXos XpiffTov, the singular use of iireXevOepos
(=libertns, freedman) in 1 Co 7^^ noticeably in-
troduces the notion of enfranchisement to describe
the gaining of freedom in Christ. There may be
here the underlying thought that the \freedmen '
of Christ stand related to Him somewhat as the
liberti stood to their patron, to whom they were
bound to render, in the language of Roman Law,
obsequium et offlcium.
4. In the philosophical sense.— See art. Free-
dom OF THE Will.
LiTKRATURE.— See works referred to in art. Slavkry, and in
addition to works quoted in foregoinK art., T. G. Tucker,
Hfe in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul, London, 1910 ;
H. Wallon, Ilistoire de I'esclavage dans I'antiquit^, Paris,
1879. J. s. Clemens.
LIBYA {Ai^vri, the country of tlie Aleves or Lubim).
— Libya was the name given by the Greeks to the
great undefined region lying to the Avest of Egypt.
It was for a long time equivalent to Africa, a Roman
term which did not embrace Egypt till the days of
Ptolemy (2nd cent. A.D.). Libya was made known
to Greece in the 7th cent. B.C. by the Dorian colon-
ists who founded Cyrene. The beautiful and fertile
country occupied and developed by them remained
independent till it was annexed by the Macedonian
conquerors of Egypt in 330 B.C. It finally (in 90
B.C.) came under the power of the Romans, who
combined it with Crete to form a single province,
Creta-Cyrene. Its original name was revived by
Vespasian, who divided Cyrene into Libya Superior
and Libya Inferior. This country attracted the
Jews at an early period. Philo bears testimony
to their diflusion in his time ' from the Katabath-
mos of Libya (i.wb tov irpbi Ai^vtjv Kara^aOfioO) to
the borders of Ethiopia' {in Flaccum, 6). Jews
from 'tlie parts of Lil)ya about Cyrene' (rk /xipt)
TTji Ai^vr]s TTjs Kari, Kvprjvriv) were in Jerusalem at
the time of the first Christian Pentecost (Ac 2'").
St. Luke'sdesignationofCyrenaicaclosely resembles
that of Josephus, ij irpbi Kvpiiv-qv Ai^tJi} (Ant. XVL
vi. 1), and that of Dio Cassius, Ai^Lrrj i) irtpl Kvp^viju
(liii. 12). The jjossession of tliis fertile region was
the bone of contention between the Turks and
Italians in 1912. Jamks Strahan.
LICT0R8.— See Serjeants.
LIFEANDDEATH.— l.Life.— Inainmsideiation
of the subject of life as dealt with in the Acts and
Epistles, three Gr. words — ^ios, ^vxv, and fw^ —
require to be distinguished.
(1) /Sfos denotes life in the outward and visible
sense — its period or course (cf. ' tlie time past of
our life,' 1 P 4*), its means of living (hence in 1 Jn 3"
the RV renders 'goods'), tlie manner in which it
is spent (cf. ' that we may lead a quiet and peace-
able life,' 1 Ti 2^), its relation to worldly afl'airs
(2 Ti 2^) and to the world's love of pomp and show
(1 Jn 2i»).
(2) ^i/x^J (fr- f'JX'^i ' breathe ') originally means
the breath of life, and in such an ex|)ression as
' his life is in him ' (Ac 20'") would quite swlequately
be rendered ' breath.' But, as breathing is the
sign of the presence in the body of an animating
vital force, ^J^vxv (cf. Lat. anima) conies to mean
' life ' in the sense of the animal soul, and especially
the life of the individual as distinguif^hed from
other individual lives. This is the life that may
be injured or lost through a shipwreck (Ac 27"* ^'^),
counted dear or willingly surrendered (20-*, Rev
12") ; the life which Jesus Christ laid down for
His people (1 Jn 3^*), and which they should be
prepared to lay down for Him (Ac 15^) or for one
another (Ro \Q\ Ph 2^, 1 Jn Z^% From meaning
the animal soul or life (anima), however, yj^vxn
comes to be used for the individualized life in its
moral and spiritual aspects, the 'soul' in the
deeper significance of that word (Lat. animus), the
part of man which thinks and feels and wills
(Ac 227, Ro '29, 2 Co l^^, etc). See, further. Soul.
(3) But of tlie three words for life fw^ for the
purposes of the present article is much the mo.st
important. Occasionally it is employed in a
way that makes it practically equivalent to fiioj
(1 Co 15'*, 'If in this life only we have hoped in
Christ'; cf. Lk 16^", 'in thy lifetime' [iv ro fw?
(Tox)]), and more frequently in connexions not far
removed from those of \pvxn in the sense of the
vital energy or animal soul (e.g. Ac 17^, Ja 4'*),
though even in these cases it is noticeable that fw^
does not denote, like v^ux'Ji the life of the indi-
vidual, but life in a sense that is general and dis-
trilmted. Ordinarily, however, fw^ stands for a life
which is not existence merely, but existence raised
to its highest power ; not a bare" life, but ' life more
abundantly' (Jn 10'**), a life which St. Paul describes
as ' the life which is life indeed ' (i] 6vT0)t fwij, 1 Ti 6'*),
a life, i.e., which in its essential nature is full and
overflowing, and in its moral and spiritual quality
is perfect and complete. In this employment of it,
fwi} is very frequently characterized as ' eternal
(aiCbvios) life ' ; but the epithet does not impart any
real addition to the connotation of the word as
elsewhere used without the adjective, much less
restrict its reference to the life after death ; it
only expresses more explicitly the conception of
that life as something so full and positive that
from its very nature it is unconquerable by
death, and consequently everlasting. See, further,
Eternal, Everlasting.
(a) In the usage of the NT this fwi} or fwi; aidivios
is first of all a Divine attribute — a view of it whicli
finds its most complete expression in the Johannine
writings. It inheres in God and belongs to His
essential nature. ' The Father hath life in himself '
(Jn 5'-*), the life eternal is 'with the Father'
(1 Jn 1*). The Father, however, imparts it to the
Son, so that He also possesses 'life in himself
(Jn 5^), and possesses it m a manner so copious that
this endowment with life is predicated of Him as
if it were the most characteristic quality of His
being (Jn 1^). Thereafter this life which Christ
possesses is communicated bj' Him to those who are
willing to receive it, the record being that God
gave unto us the eternal life which is in His Son
(1 Jn 5"), and that he that bath the Son, viz. by
believing on His name, hath the life (v.'^*).
LIFE AXD DEATH
LIFE AND DEATH
699
(6) The s'cinj (oiwvtos) thns becomes a human posses-
sion and qnaiity ; and it is with the manifestations
in human character and experience of this life
flowing from God through Christ that the apostolic
writers are principally concerned in what they
have to say about it. Their references bear chiefly
upon the source from which it comes, the means
by which it is obtained, its fruits or evidences, its
present possession, and its completion in the world
to come.
(o) As follows from the fact that this life inheres
essentially in God, its primal source is God the
Father, from whom it comes as a gift (Ro 6^,
1 Jn 5^') and a grace (IP 3'). But this gracious
gift is manifested and mediated only by Christ
(1 Jn 1-, 1 Ti 2=). According to St. John, the
eternal life which men enjoy resides in God"s Son
(1 Jn 5"), and that in so absolute a sense that ' he
that hath the Son hath the life ; he that hath not
the Son of God hath not the life ' (v.^). Similarly
St. Paul writes that it is through the Son that the
gift of life is bestowed (Ro 6^), describes Christ as
' our life ' (Col 3*), and declares that this life of ours
• is hid with Christ in God ' (v.»).
(/3) But this gift of life is not bestowed arbitrarily
or apart from the fulfilment of certain conditions.
It is not thrust upon anyone, but needs to be laid
hold of ( 1 Ti 6^ ^*). In the symbolic lan^age of
the Apocalypse the fruition of the tree of life which
is in the Paradise of God is promised to him that
overcometh (Rev 2^). Various energies and atti-
tudes of the soul are mentioned as conditioning
the attainment of life, e.g. patience in well-doing
(Ro 2"), endurance of temptation (Ja 1^), sowing
to the Spirit (Gal 6*). But the fundamental con-
ditions, on which all the others depend, are repent-
ance (Ac lli«) and faith (13**, 1 Ti l^*, 1 Jn o'*"*).
The old life must be renounced if the new life is
to begin ; that is what is meant by the demand for
repentance. And life cannot be self -generated,
but can only be received from a living source ; that
is the explanation of the call for faith.
(7) Among the fniifs or evidences of the posses-
sion of life St. Paul includes freedom from the
bondage of sin (Ro 6**) and a way of walking in the
world which is new (v.*) and has God for its object
(v."). Inwardly the life reveals its presence in a
daily experience of renewal (2 Co 4^®), in the pos-
session of a spiritual mind (Ro S*), in the conscious-
ness of spiritual liberty (v.-). Outwardly its fruits
are seen in holy li\-ing (Ro 6-) and its signature
written even upon the mortal flesh (2 Co 4"). To
St. John the great eridence of life is love to the
brethren (1 Jn 3'*). Everyone that loveth is bom
of God (4") ; but the love which is the proof of this
Divine birth and consequent Divine life must flow
out towards the visible brother as well as towards the
invisible God if there is to be any assurance of its
reality (w.^*- ="). In the mystical language of the
author of the Apocalypse life has the evidence of a
\vritten record. The names of those who possess
it are written in a book which is called ' the book
of life' (Rev 3* 17* 2012 22»9), or more fully 'the
Lamb's book of life ' (IP 212^). %yith this may be
compared St. Paul's use of the same figure in Ph 4^.
See Book of Life.
(5) To the apostolic writers life or eternal life
is a present possession. While distinct from the
ordinary forms of earthly existence, ^v^th Mhich it
is contrasted (1 Ti 6'*), it is not separated from
them in time, but here and now interfused dynamic-
ally through them all. This is a conception which
is especially characteristic of the Johannine -n-rit-
ings. In the Fourth Gospel it occurs constantly
(Jn 3^ 17' etc.), and in the First Epistle we see it
reappearing, a-s when the writer declares that he
that hath the Son hath the life (1 Jn 5^), and that
those who possess eternal life may know that they
possess it (3" 5"). But it is evident that St. Paul
also conceives of life as a present reality when he
proclaims that Christ is our life (Col 3*), and that
our life is hid mth Christ in God (v.'), when he
makes our baptism into Christ's Death, and resur-
rection in His likeness, determinative of our pre-
sent walk in newness of life (Ro 6*), and declares
that to be spiritually-minded is life and peace (8*).
(c) And yet this life, though it is a present ex-
perience, is not realized in its totality in the present
world. The promise given to godliness in 1 Ti 4*
is said to be for the life that now is and that which
is to come. Similarly it is in ' the time to come'
that ' the life which is life indeed ' arrives at its
completion (6^®). St. Paul gives especial promi-
nence to this future aspect of the life in Christ.
He anticipates a time when what is mortal shall
be swallowed up of life (2 Co 5*), co-ordinates
eternal life with immortality (Ro 2' ; cf. 2 Ti V),
and places it in direct antithesis with death (Ro
6^) and corruption (Gal 6-). And yet, though life
for its completeness must wait for the full revela-
tion of the powers of the world to come, which are
only tasted here (He 6'), the present and the future
life are essentially one and the same. It is be-
cause the Christian life is hid with Chrbt in God
that it carries the assurance of immortality within
itself. As, in St. Peters language, it was not
possible that Christ should be holden of death (Ac
2**), so it is impossible that those whose very life
Christ is (Col 3^) should not be sharers in HLs
victory over death's pains and powers. To all
who abide in the Son and through Him in the
Father there belongs this promise which He pro-
mised us, even the life eternal (1 Jn 2-*'-). And in
this promise there lies enfolded the hope not only
of the immortality of the soul but of the resurrection
of the body. It is the frailty and imperfection of
the earthly body, its domination by the law of sin
and death, that hinder the full enjojTnent of eternal
life in the present world (2 Co 5-*). But when
mortality shall be swallowed up of life, Christ's
people, instead of being ' unclothed,' shall be
•clothed upon' (5-*). To the natural body will
succeed a spiritual body (1 Co 15**), to the body of
death (Ro 7**) a body instinct with the Lord's own
life, to the house that must be dissolved a house
not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens (2 Co
5^).
2. Death (Gdvarot, to which in its various senses
correspond the vb. dxo^njo-jcw, 'die,' and the adj.
veKpos, 'dead'). — Death is frequently used in the
apostolic literature in its ordinary, everyday mean-
ing of the end of man's earthly course (^uk) or the
extinction of his animal life (ypvxfi) through the
separation of the soul from the body (Ac 2**, 1 Co
3'^, Ph 2^). Much more important than this
purely physical employment of the word are its
various theological uses, the chief of which may be
distinguished as the punitive, the redemptive, the
mystical, the spiritual and moral.
(1) For the XT writers, and above all for St,
Paul, death has a punitive significance as the
judicial sentence pronounced by God upon sin.
\VTien St. Paul writes, ' The wages of sin is death '
(Ro 6^), or ' Through one man sin entered into the
world, and death through sin ; and so death passed
imto all men, for that all sinned ' (5") ; or when
the author of Hebrews links together the facts of
death and the judgment and relates them to the
Death and redeeming Sacrifice of Christ (He 9^"^) ;
or when St. James says, ' He which converteth a
sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul
from death and shall cover a multitude of sins '
( Ja 5*), death is used to denote the punitive con-
sequences of sin and the state in which man lies as
condemned on account of it. For, just as fan} in
the NT means not the earthly existence but the
700
LIFE AND DEATH
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
larger life of the Christian salvation, so ddvaros
means not the end of the eartlily existence merely
but tlie loss of life in the full Christian conception
of the won! — the whole of the miserable results
that How from sin and constitute its penalty.
Amonj,^ these jjcnal consequences certainly physical
death is included, as passages like llo 5'-- '* and
1 Co IS'-"'" make perfectly clear. More than this,
the death of the l)ody is treated as ' the point of
the punitive sentence, about which all the other
elements in that sentence are grouped ' (H. Cremer,
Bib.-Theol. Lex.^, 1880, p. 284). Death is the
wages of sin (Ro 6^^), it is the recompense received
by theservants of sin (v.^"). Sin reigns in death (5-');
it is the stinw of death (1 Co 15'"). The saving sig-
nilicance of tlie Death of Christ is due to this same
punitive relation between death and sin. He died for
our sins (1 Co 15^) ; He bare our sins in His body
upon the tree (1 P 2-"). And it is through the Death
CI His Son that we are reconciled to God (Ro 5'").
In including physical death among the penalties of
sin, however, the apostolic writers are not to be
held as meaning either that man was naturally
immortal or that until he fell there was no natural
law of death in the physical world. In neither
the OT nor the NT is the assertion ever made that
death entered into the natural world in consequence
of the sin of man (the 'world' in Ro 5^^ is the
moral world, as the context shows). And when
man became liable to death because of sin (Ro 5'-*^'* ;
cf. Gn 2"), this does not imply that he was not
created mortal (cf. Gn 3'*). Rut it does imply
that, mortal as he was, he differed from the rest of
the animal world in a potentiality of exemption
from the law of decay and death, owing to the
fact that be was a spiritual being made in God's
image ; and that by his transgression he lost
God's proffered gift of physical immortality (Ro
5", 1 Co 152"- )•
Rut, while physical death is the point of the
jjunitive sentence, the .sentence of death stretches
far beyond it. Just as fwi) has a future and other-
worldly as well as a jjresent reference, so is it with
^dxttros. Sometimes it plainly refers to a death
that is not an earthly experience but a future state
of misery whicii awaits the wicked in the world to
come (Ro p2, l Jn S^* 5i«). In Rev 2ii 20«-"218
this future condition of woe is called ' the second
death,' in contrast, viz., with the first death by
which the life on earth is ended (see PUNISHMENT).
(2) At the other extreme from this punitive
sense of death is the use of the word witli a re-
demptive meaning. When St. I'aul declares in
Romans that we died to sin (6-), that we were
buried tlirough baptism into death (v.^), that he
that hath died is justified from sin (v.") ; or when
in Galatians he saj-s of himself, ' For I through the
law died unto the law ' ('i'"), the death he speaks
of, as tlie last passage shows, is a legal or judicial
death which carries with it a deliverance from the
state of condemnation into which the sinner has
been brought by his sin (Ro 6^). And when he
speaks of this cfeath as a dj'iiig with Christ (v.^),
and explains more fully that all died because one
died for all (2 Co 5^''), he reminds us that this re-
demptive death is possible for Christians only be-
cause a punitive Death was endured by Christ on
their behalf. If they can reckon themselves to be
dead unto .sin (Ro 6"), it is because 'Christ died
for our sins according to the .scriptures ' (1 Co 15^).
(3) Side by side with this redemptive death in
Christ— a death to the penalty of sin — St. Paul
sets a mystical djing — a dying to its power. The
Christian's union with Christ in Ilis redeeming
Death is not only the ground of his justilication
but the secret scmrce and sjiring of his sanctilica-
tion. If the transition from the one to tiie otlier
is not very clearly marked, the reason is that for
St. Paul the two were inseparably joined together.
He passes at a bound, and as it were unconsciously,
from the legal aspect of the Christian's death m
Christ to its mystical aspect, from a death in the
eyes of the law against sin to a death to the prin-
ciple of sin itself (2 Co 5'^'). ]>ai»ti8m into Jesus
Christ is the symbol and seal of a l)ai)tism into His
Death, which means not only a dj'iiig to the retri-
bution of the offended law but .a crucifixion of the
old man, a destruction of ' the body of sin,' so that
we should no longer be in bondage to sin's jKiwer
(Ro e*-'' ; cf. Gal 2'«). It may be that St. Paul's
view of the body, not indeed as essentially sinful,
but as the invariable seat and source of sin in
fallen humanity (see art. RoDV) helped him to
think of the Crucifixion of Christ as carrying with
it a destruction of the polluted flesh (cf. Ro 8*)
through wliicli the way was opened for a new life
of holines.s. But in any case death to the law
meant life unto God, because crucifixion with
Christ meant the death of the former self and the
substitution for it of a life of faith in tlie Son of
God (Gal 2""-). Nor is it only to sin that the
Christian died in Christ, but to the world (6'''), to
the world's doctrines and precepts (Col 2'*'-), to the
attitude and affections of the mind that is set on
earthly things (3-). ' For ye died,' the Apostle
writes, ' and your life is hid with Christ in God '
(v.'). And in this case, at least, it is plain that
the death of whicli he thinks is not the judicial
but the my.stical dying, the dying which is at the
same time the birth to a new life (cf. Jn 12-^') that
carries with it a putting to death of all that is
earthly and evil in tlie natures of those whom
Christ has redeemed (Col 3^).
(4) Once more, death is used to denote the
spiritual atrophy and mural inability of fallen
man in his unregenerate condition. This is the
sense that belongs to it in the expression ' dead in
tre.spasses and sins' (Ei^h 2^; cf. Col 2'^), in the
summons to the spiritual sleei)er to awake and
arise from the dead (Ei)li 5"), in the descriiition of
true believers as those that are alive from tlie dead
(Ro 6^*) and of false professors as having a name
that they are living when they are really dead
(Rev 3^), in the statements that the mind of the
flesh is death (Ro 8") and that the woman who lives
in pleasure is dead while she livetli (1 Ti 5*). This,
esjjecially on the side of moral inability, is the
death which St. Paul describes so powerfully in
Ro T""^-, from which, conscious of his helplessness,
he cries to be delivered (v.-^), and from which he
recognizes that no deliverance is jiossible except
through the law of the Siiirit of life in Christ
Jesus (82).
LiTKRATURK.— I. LiFK.— S. D. F. Saliuond, The Christian
Doctrine of Immortality-^ 1895, p. 487 ff. ; E. White, Life in
Christ, ists ; E. von Schrenck. Die jofian. Avffasimnr) von
' Leben,' 1898; the NT Thfolo^'ics of B. Weiss (Knj(. tr.,
1882-83, 2 vols.) and W. Beyschlagr (Eiij,'. tr., 1895, 2 vols.),
passim ; J. R. Illingworth, Sf.nnons preached in a College
Chapel, 1882, p. CO ; J. Macpherson, in Expositor, 1st. ser. v.
[1877] 72 ff. ; J. Massie, in do., 2nd ser. iv. [1882] 380flf. II.
Dkatii.— J. Laidlaw, The Bible Doctrine of Man, 1896, p. 233 IT. ;
J. Miiller, The Christian Doctriiw of Sin, Enff. tr., ii. [1885]
280 fT.; H. Martensen, Christian Doflmati<%s, Kng. tr., 1866,
p. 209 ff. ; J. Orr, The ChriMian \'ieu' of tind and the World,
1893, p. 228 ff. ; G. B. Stevens, The Theolorii/ of the AT",
190C, p. 423 ; J. R. Illingworth, Sennonn preached in a College
Chapel, 1882, p. 1 ; G. Matheson, in Expositor, 2nd ser. v. [1883]
40 ff. J. c. Lambert.
LIFE, BOOK OF.— See Book of Like.
LIGHT AND DARKNESS. — Apart from the
literal and ordinary uses of the words ' light' {<t>u)s)
and 'darkness' (ctaotos, aKoria), they are frequently
emjiloyed in metaphorical senses, and especially
either in express combination and ct)ntiast or with
a reference to each other that is latent but implied.
This figurative use of the terms is an inheritance
LIGHT AXD DARKNESS
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
roi
from the OT. There ' light ' (niK = LXX </)<Sj) often
denotes a state of happiness and well-being (Job
HS**- ^, Ps 56'^), but more particularly tiie salvation
Avhich comes from God, and God Himself as the
giver of salvation and blessing to His people (I's 4®
271 36» 43^ Is 10'", AHc 7*). 'Darkness' (:!»n =
LXX ffK&ros), on the other hand, stands for ignor-
ance, misery, and death (Job lO-i 19«, Ps IS^s
107'"- ", Ec '•2'^ Is 5*> 9^ etc. ), and generally for
everything that is opposed to light as a symbol of
life, happiness, and moral purity. The metaphors
are very natural, and are by no means peculiar to
the biblical literature. Keference may be made
to the Babylonian Creation narrative with its
struggle between Marduk, the god of light, and
Tifimat, the god of darkness ; to the Skr. name
for deity — deva, ' a shining one ' (cf. 6e6i and dens) ;
to the Gr. conception of Olympus as a place where
a bright radiance is diffused (cf. XewTj 8'eiri5e5pofiep
aty\T], Od. vi. 45), and of the nether regions as a
world of gloomy shades occiipied by * infernal ' or
subterranean deities ; to the Zoroastrian antithesis
— hardened into a definite dualism — between
Ormazd, the god of light and life, and Ahriman,
the evil power of death and darkness. But as we
find them in the NT, and especially in the Johan-
nine and Pauline writings, the figures of light and
darkness have been developed on Christian lines
which impart a deeper and fuller meaning to each
of the conceptions, and bring them into an opposi-
tion that is stronger than any known to the older
religions, because it is more spiritual. The
material relevant to the present art. may be con-
veniently treated as it bears upon the doctrines of
(1) God, (2) Christ, (3) salvation and the Christian
life.
1. God. — The fundamental passage here is 1 Jn
1', ' God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.'
The conception of God as light is familiar, as has
been seen, not only to the OT but to all ancient
religious thought. But in the Christian view the
physical conceptions of light and darkness which
cling to the ethnic and even to the Hebrew theo-
logies entirely disappear, and purely spiritual con-
ceptions take their place. In this passage, as the
context shows (cf. vv.*"^''), * light ' stands for holi-
ness and 'darkness' for sin. In 1 Ti 6^^ again,
where God is represented as dwelling in the light
which no man can approach unto, the metaphor of
light is transferred from God Himself to His
dwelling-place, with reference probably to Ex
33^*'^ ; but the idea conveyed is that of a holiness
that is absolute in its separateness from all human
imperfection (cf. vv. "■!*). In Ja P' God is called
' the Father of lights, with whom can be no varia-
tion, neither shadow that is cast by turning.' And
here also the idea of this light without shadow or
eclipse is used to emphasize the fact, previously
referred to, of the essential holiness of One who
cannot be tempted with evil and who Himself
tempteth no man (v.^^).
The darkness against which God's holy light
shines is sometimes represented impersonally (Eph
5«, 1 Th b\ 1 P **). But in Col l'^ St. Paul gives
thanks to the Father ' who delivered us out of the
power of darkness ' (cf. Lk 22**) ; and the word for
power (i^ovffia.) suggests the tyranny of an alien
authority. This is confirmed when m Eph 6'- we
find the Apostle speaking of the ' world-rulers of
this darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in
the heavenly places.' When we read in 2 Co 11",
* Even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of
light,' the evident suggestion is that Satan's true
form is that of a prince of darkness, not an angel
of light. In Ac 26'^ there is a significant parallel-
ism between darkness and the power of Satan on
tlie one hand, and light and the redeeming grace
of Grod on the other ; and in 2 Co 6'^* there is a
similar parallel between light and darkness and
Christ and Belial.
2. Christ. — As applied to God, the metaphor of
light points to His essential nature ; as applied to
Christ, it denotes His special function as the
revealer of God to man. In the one case the light
is considered in its intrinsic glory ; in the other,
as shining forth upon the souls of .men. It is in
the Fourth Gospel that this conception of Christ
as the light of men — a light by which they are at
once illumined and judged — is fully worked out
(cf. for the illumination Jn !*• ® 8'- 12^, and for the
judgment 1» S'"--'). But in 2 Co 4» St. Paul de-
clares that God has revealed the light of the know-
ledge of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and
in Eph 5' he says of those who were once in
darkness that they are now 'light in the Lord.'
Similarly in 1 Jn 2^, where the revelation of Jesus
Christ and His 'new coiimiandment ' are in view,
the author declares : ' The darkness is passing
away, and the true light already shineth.' In
these passages the reference is to Christ's function
as mediating the gracious Divine light to men and
thus bringing them knowledge and salvation. But
in 1 Co 4' Christ appears as a Judge, who by His
coming ' will bring to light the hidden things of
darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the
hearts.' In this case, however, the penetrating
judicial light of Christ is eschatologically conceived,
and is not, as in the Fourth Gospel, a light by
which men are already judged when they love the
darkness rather than the light.
3. Salvation and the Christian life. — It is in
this connexion that the metaphors of light and
darkness most frequently occur in the relevant NT
literature. ( 1 ) Christian soteriology has to do \vitli
sin and gi-ace ; and these two contrasted moments
of human experience find fitting representation in
terms of darkness and light. Salvation is fre-
quently described as a transition from darkness to
light. St. Paul was sent to the Gentiles ' to open
their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to
light ' (Ac 26'^ ; cf. 13'') ; he says of his converts :
' Ye were once darkness, but are now light in the
Lord' (Eph 5^); and so elsewhere he addresses
them as ' sons of light and sons of the day,' who
'are not of the night nor of darkness' (1 Th 5^).
In 2 Co 4^ he compares the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, as it shines into the heart in
the face of Jesus Christ, to the creative light
shining at God's word out of the darkness. St.
Peter contrasts the marvellous light into which
God has called His people with the darkness in
which they lived formerly (1 P 2^) ; while St. John,
with a stronger sense perhaps of the progressive
nature of the work of sanctification, reminds his
' little children ' that the darkness is passing away
before the shining of the true light (1 Jn 2*).
The author of Hebrews uses the expression 'en-
lightened ' ((pwriadevTii) to denote those who have
had experience of the Christian salvation (6* ICF),
by which he implies that before tasting of the
heavenly gift they were in a condition of spiritual
darkness.
(2) In Col 1^^ soteriology passes into eschatology.
Christians have been already delivered from the
power of darkness and translated into the kingdom
of God's dear Son ; but ' the inheritance of the
saints in light,' of Avhich the Father has made
them meet to be partakers, has clearly a future as
well as a present reference (cf. Ko 13", ' the night
Ls far spent, the day is at hand'). In the world to
come the inheritance of the saints in light has its
counterpart in ' the blackness of darkness' spoken
of in 2 P 2", Jude'^. For those who reject the
light of the Divine grace, because they prefer the
darkness to the light, there is reserved a deeper
and impenetrable darkness.
702
LIGHTNING
LION
(3) But salration has a human and ethical side
as well as one that is transcendent and Divine ;
and this also is set forth under the imagery of
light and darkness. \Vhen St. I'aul declares that
' tlie fruit of the ligiit is in all goodne.ss and right-
eousness and truth' (Eph S^CRV]), and con tra.sts that
shining fruit with ' the unfruitful works of dark-
ness' (v."), he is giving to light and darkness a
plain moral content. When he asks in another
Epistle, ' What communion hath light with dark-
ness ? ' (2 Co 6'^), the words that precede show that
it is the antithesis between righteousness and un-
righteousness that is in his thoughts. And when,
after comparing the world as it exists at present with
the night, and the approaching Parousia with the
day, he adds, ' Let us therefore cast off the works
of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light '
(Ho 13>- ; cf. 1 Th 5'^- *), he is summoning his
readers to that deliberate and strenuous choice
and etlbrt of the will in which all morality consists.
Those who in the soteriological sense are already
' sons of light and sons of the day,' and accordingly
'are not of the night nor of darkness' (1 Th 5*),
are not on that account exempt from the dangers
of the encompassing moral and spiritual gloom or
from the duties to which those dangers point. On
the contrary, just because they are sons of the
light they must gird on the armour of light, and
because they are not of the darkness they must
watch and be sober (vv.«-*). Similarly in 1 Jn !"•
the writer calls upon his readers to ' walk in the
light as Christ is in the light,' and brands as false
those who profess to have fellowship with Him
and yet continue to walk in darkness. And if
they should ask for a definite test by which the
moral life may be judged and its relationship to
light or darkness determined, he refers them to
the new commandment which the Lord has given
{2'^ ; cf. Jn 13^*). ' He that loveth his brother
abideth in the light ' (2'»). ' But he that hateth
his brother is in darkness, and walketh in
darkness' (v.").
Ltteraturk.— H. Cremer, Bib.-Thcol. Lex. of NT Greeks,
1880; B. Weiss, Bib. Theol. of the NT, Eng. tr., 1882-83;
G. B. Stevens, The Theology of the NT^, Edinburgh, 1906, p.
370 ; PliE\ art ' Erleuchtung ' ; art. ' Light ' in EBi and DCG.
J. C. Lambert.
LIGHTNING (do-rpaiTTj).— Lightning, the visible
discharge of atmospheric electricity from one cloud
to another, or from a cloud to the earth, is now
known to be essentially the same as the electric
flashes produced in the laboratory. To the ancients
it seemed supernatural. Terrible in its dazzling
beauty and power to destroy, it was associated
with theophanies (Ex 19"* 20^8, Ezk I's- "), and
became one of the categories of Jewish and Chris-
tian apocalyptic (Rev 4' 8' 11'® 16'*). See Thundek.
James Strahan.
LIKENESS.— See Form.
LINEN (j3(5o-ffos, from pa, adj. ^vctrtvo^, \ivov). —
Linen was a characteristic product of Egypt, where
the arts of spinning and weaving were carried to
great perfection. Both in that land and in other
lands to which it was imported it was tlie material
used for priestly vestments. According to Hero-
dotus (ii. 37), the Egyptian priests ' wear linen
garments, constantly fresh washed, and they pay
f (articular attention to this. . . . The priests wear
inen only.' The Hebrew usage is indicated by
the phrase ' the linen garments, even the holy
garments' (Lv 16^); and Vergil {JEn. xii. 120)
speaks of Roman priests as ' Velati lino, et verbena
tempera vincti.' Linen — at least the best kind of
it (/Swro-oj, or ' fine linen ') — was too expensive for
ordinary wear. It was the clothing of kings and
their mmisters (Gn 41''-), of women of quality (Pr
31^), of ideal Israel in her royal estate (Ezk 16'»- ").
The.se facts explain the references to linen in
the imagery of the Revelation. (1) Tlie seven
angelic mes.sengers who come out of the heavenly
temple are 'arrayed in linen, pure and bright'
(1.5"). In spite of good MS authority (AC) and
the dubious parallel in Ezk 28'-', the reading
'arrayed with nrecious stones' (RV) — \i.dov for
\lvov — is extremely unlikely, and X has \lvov%. It is
true that \lvov was commonly applied to the flax-
plant, but it was also used of linen cloth and
garments (II. ix. 661, ^Isch. Supp. 121, 132). (2)
Fine linen was part of the merchandise of Imperial
Rome (Rev 18'") ; the city was arrayed in it (v.'*),
the old republican simplicity having given place to
a wide-spread luxury. (3) It is befitting that the
bride of the Lamb arrays herself in fine linen,
bright and pure (19*). The added words, 'for the
fine linen is the righteous acts (biKaiwuaTa) of the
saints ' is perhaps a gloss. It is a happy inspira-
tion that makes ' fine linen,' the clothing of priests
and princes, the uniform of the armies in heaven
that follow Him who is the Faithful and True (v.'*).
James Strahan.
LINUS (A^cos).— This is a name which holds a
large place in tlie history of the early Church.
We first find mention of it in 2 Ti 4''^', where St.
Paul, writing from his Roman prison, conveys to
liis friend the greetings of Eubulus, Pudens, Linus,
and Claudia. Linus was thus a friend of Paul and
Timothy in the closing years of the Apostle's life.
In the Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 46) he is re-
garded as the son of Claudia of 2 Ti 4-' (Afi/oj 6
KXai^Sias), which is perhaps doubtful (see art.
Claudia). But the name Linus is found both
in Irenseus (c. Hcer. in. iii. 3) and in Eusebius
(HE III. ii., iv. 9, xiii,), Avhere he is regarded as
the successor of St. Peter and the first bishop of
Rome after the Apostles, although Tertullian (de
Prcescr. 32) assigns this dignity to Clement. No
details of any kind are given regarding the episco-
pate of Linus, and the date of his tenure of office
IS uncertain. Although Eusebius regards Clement
as the successor of Linus, and Tertullian reverses
the order, it is not improbable that both held office
at the same time and that the episcopjil power as
wielded by them was of a very attenuated nature.
Perhaps both held their position during the lifetime
of St. Peter. According to Eusebius (HE III. xiii.)
the episcopate of Linus lasted for a period of twelve
years, but no dates can be fixed with any certainty.
Hamack gives as probable A.D. 64-76. Linus has
been regarded as the author of various works, but
there is no evidence in support of this view. He
is the reported author of (1) the Acts of St. Peter
and St. Paul ; (2) an account of St. Peter's contro-
versy with Simon Magus ; (3) certain decrees pro-
hibiting women from appearing in church with
uncovered heads. The Roman Breviary states
that he was a native of Voltena in Etruria, and
that he died as a martyr of the faith, being be-
headed ])y order of Saturninus, whose daughter he
had healcdof demoniacal possession. His memory is
honoured by the Western Church on 23 September,
and the Greek Mena»a regards him as one of the
Seventy.
LiTBRATtTRB.— J. Pearson, de Scrir , f imomm
Ronue Epincoponnn, London, 108S; A. Ha.iii.icK, i-.<: Chrono-
loffie der altchristlichen Literatur, Leipzig, 1897 ; J. B.
Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt. i.^, 1890.
W. F. Boyd.
LION.— With the possible exception of 1 P 5*,
the use of ' lion ' in the NT from 2 Tim. onwards is
dependent on the OT. An animal of great size and
strength, of noble bearing as well as of extreme
cruelty, he is a fitting symbol for moral and spirit-
ual reference.
1. In 1 P 5*, man's adversary, the devil, is repre-
sented as always roaming about in search of
LION
LOCUST
703
f)rey, bis very raging, which betrays bis ravenons
innger, striking terror into the hearts of all.
2. In He 11", the reference is to the actual wild
beast. Among the heroic deeds of the worthies of
the OT recounted by the author of the Epistle is
that they 'stopped the mouths of lions ' (of. Samson,
Jg 14»- « ; David, 1 S 17»*-» ; Benaiah, 2 S 2S^).
More remotely the story of Daniel suggests this
mighty achievement, yet here God and not Daniel
is said to have shut the lions' mouths (Dn 6**).
3. St. Paul declares that he had • escaped the
mouth of the lion' (2 Ti 4" ; cf. Ps 22^1, 1 Mac
2**). The allusion of the Apostle is to the punish-
ment of being thrown to the lions. Some have
indeed permitted a literal interpretation of 'lion'
(A. Neander, History of the Planting and Training
of the Christian Church, Eng. tr., i. [1880] 345).
Since, however, he was a Roman citizen and could
claim the right of being beheaded (see Beast),
the more prol^ble explanation is that the reference
is not to an actual lion. Concerning this, various
conjectures have been advanced. ' Lion ' has been
interpreted as Nero (Chrysostom) ; calamity, which
would resiilt from cowardice and humiliation (N. J.
D. White, in EGT, ' 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus,'
1910, p. 182 ; cf. Ps 21*^- ^ [LXX]) ; ' the immediate
peril' (Conybeare-Howson, The Life and Epistles
of St. Paul, new ed., 1877, ii. 593), although the
reference may be to St. Paul's having established
his right as a Roman citizen not to be exposed to
the wild beasts. If, however, the reference is to the
lion's mouth, then Satan may be intended as a de-
vouring adversary (cf. 1 P 5'*, above), from which
St. Paul had escaped. The time, place, and oc-
casion of this reference have been variously con-
ceived, (a) 2 Ti 4^- "■^'- ^- 21 is a fragment, written
from Caesarea, inserted in the Epistle, alluding to
his address before the Sanhedrin (cf. Ac 22*^ 23" ;
B. W. Bacon, The Story of St. Paul, 1905, p.
198 fF.). {b) Writing from Rome in his first im-
prisonment, he says that, although the result of
the preliminary hearing was a suspension of judg-
ment, yet he had expectation that he would escape
a final condemnation, and that too in the imme-
diate future (A. C. McGiflFert, A History of Chris-
tianity in the Apostolic Age, 1897, p. 421). Writing
from Rome in his second imprisonment, St. Paul
says that at the close of his first imprisonment his
pleading was so cogent and convincing that he was
set at liberty (Eusebius, HE ii. 22, 1 Clem. 5 ; cf.
T. Zahn, Jnirod. to the XT, Eng. tr., 1909, i. 441,
IL 1 ff.). (c) After his arrival in Rome the second
time, the preliminary investigation had resulted
in his remand ; but the completion of the trial would
not eventuate so favourably (Conybeare-Howson,
op. cit. ch. sxvi. ; X. J. D. White, 'op. eit. 181 ff.).
4. In the Apocalypse (5*) the Exalted Christ is
presented under the guise of a lion, where the un-
doubted reference is to On 49^. He, who had
overcome through death and the Resurrection,
who had thus opened a way to God's sovereignty
over men, and is therefore alone able to loose the
seals of the Divine judgment, i.e. to carry history
forward to its consummation, is symbolized by a
being of the highest prowess and strength. Yet
no sooner has this suggestion of overmastering
might become effective than it is withdrawn to
give place to another — its exact opposite — that of
a lamb as though slain, a symbol of sacrifice and
humiliation (see Lamb).
5. The same intimation of majesty and strength
occurs in Rev 4", where the Seer is taken up into
heaven, and beholds the four and twenty elders
about the throne, with the four living creatures,
having the likeness respectively of a lion, a calf,
the face of a man, and a flying eagle (cf. Ezk l'*'-
[esp. v.io] 10^^ ; also Is e^*-)-
6. The remaining references in the Apocalypse
revert to the terrorizing aspect of this king of beasts
(98 [cf. Jl 1«] 9'' 10» [cf. Is 5»] 132 [cf. Dn 7«^]).
C. A. Beckwith.
LIPS.— See Mouth.
LIVING 1. Outside of the Gospels ' living ' does
not occur as a noun in the AV of the NT, but is
found three times in the RV, viz. in 1 P 1**, 2 P
3", where it denotes the manner of life ( AV ' con-
versation,' Gr. dpoarpo^), and in Rev 18", where
' gain their living (i.e. means of life) by sea ' re-
presents the AV • trade by sea,' the RVm ' work
the sea,' Gr. t-^i" 0£\affaap ipryd^ofrai.
2. ' Living ' as a verb is found in both the AV
and the RV of Col 2®, 'living in the world,'
where the Gr. is fwin-cs; and Tit 3', 'living in
malice ' (Gr. Sidyovres).
3. The adj. ' living ' (Gr. fwr) occurs frequently
and is used with various shades of meaning. — (1)
In the ordinary sense of being alive in contrast
with dead (Ro 12» 14', RV of Rev V^). In Ac 10«,
2 Ti 4}, 1 P 4* both the AV and the RV translate
fwrres by 'quick.' In the 'living soul' of 1 Co
15** and Rev 16^ the word has the same meaning ;
in the latter passage, however, the literal render-
ing of the Gr, is 'soul of life' (RVm).— (2) The
' living creatures ' (R V ; AV ' beasts ' ; Gr. f<^,
being the LXX equivalent of nrn in Ezk 1', etc. ) of
Rev 4®- *, etc., are so called as being not alive merely,
but instinct with life and activity (cf. Ezk l^''). —
(3) With an intensified force the word is used of
God, who is called ' the living God ' (Ac 14'^ Ro
926, 2 Co 3' Q^, 1 Th 1», 1 Ti 31= 4^" 6^' [AV], He
312 914 iQSi 12*2, Rev 72) not only as being self-
existent, but as possessing the fullness of life in
absolute perfection. — (4) Figuratively, the ex-
pression is applied to the oracles given by God to
Moses (Ac 7", AV ' lively ') ; to the word of God
generally (He 4", AV ' quick ') ; to the way into
the holy place which Jesus dedicated for us (10^) ;
to the hope xmto which God has begotten us by
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1
P 1', AV ' lively ') ; to the Stone rejected of men but
with God elect, precious (2*), and the stones built
up on that foundation into a spiritual house (v.*,
AV ' lively ') ; to the fountains of waters to
which the Lamb shall lead His people (Rev 7" TR
and AV ; RV ' fountains of waters of life '). The
precise force of 'living' in each of these cases is
determined by the word to which it is attached
and the context in which it is set. The word of
God is living because, being God's, it is instinct
with His own life ; the way into the holy place
because it is real and etticacious, as contrasted
with the mere ceremony of entrance into the
earthly sanctuary ; the Christian hope because it
is the result of a Divine begetting, and is therefore
lasting and certain of fruition as human hopes
are not ; the heavenly fotm tains because they are
ever ' springing up unto eternal life ' (cf . Jn i^"- ^*).
The elect Stone and the stones built upon it are
living stones because the persons whom they
metaphorically represent are living persons — the
One alive with the very life of God, the others
sharing in that life through their union with Him.
J. C. Lambert.
LOCUST (dxpfs),— Apart from Mt 3\Mk 1«, the
only references to the locust in the NT are con-
tained in the Apocalyptic Vision — 'the Fifth
Trumpet or the First Woe' (Rev 9^") — where a
swarm of locusts is represented as emerging out
of the smoke of the abyss. There is probably
here an allusion to the plague of locusts in Ex 10*^
(cf. also Jl 1*), but both the power and the
mi&sion of these locusts are not that of the locust
tribe. They have the power of ' scorpions,' the
deadliness of whose sting was proverbial (cf. 1 K
12"- ", 2 Ch l(fi\ Ezk 2«, Lk 10» 11"), while in
704
LOCUST
LONGSUFFERING
contradistinction to the usual habits and tastes of
locusts, they are commanded not to liurt ' tiio
gross of the earth, neither any j^reon thin<,', neither
an^ tree.' Apparently the work of judgment on
this part of creation had been sufficiently carried
out by the hail which followetl the First Trumpet
(Kev 8'). It is interesting in this connexion both
to comi)are and to contrast the part played by
locusts in Exodus. There too they follow the
hail, but in Exodus (10') their mission is to 'eat
the residue of tiiat wiiich is escaped, which re-
niaineth unto you from the hail, and to ' eat
every tree whicli groweth for you out of the field,'
whereas here they have a more important voca-
tion— they are sent forth as the messengers of
God's wrath upon ' those men which have not the
seal of God on their foreheads' (Kev &*), whom
they are to torment with ' the torment of a scor-
pion ' for ' five nionth.s.'
The apj)earance of these particular locusts is as
unusual and unexpected as their mission (9^'").
' The shapes of the locusts were like unto horses
prepared unto battle ' : this part of the description
would indeed be equally applicable to an ordinary
swarm of locusts ; it is borrowed from Jl 2^, and
is a metaphor ' chosen partly on account of their
speed and compact array, but chiefly on account
of a resemblance which has often been observed
l>etween the liead of a locust and the head of a
horse' (see Driver, ad loc). The next two feat-
ures are peculiar to the locusts of the vision ; they
had ' crowns ' on tlieir heads ' like unto gold,' and
' their faces were as men's faces.' The crowns are
indicative of their power and authority, while
their human faces testify to the wisclom and
capacity with which tiiey were imbued. Further,
they had ' hair as the hair of women,' and it has
been supposed that we have here a reference to
the long antenncB of locusts.
The locust belongs to the same genus as the
grass-hopper (Acrididce). There is a number of
different kinds, but the most destructive are the
CEdipoda 7)iigratoria and the Acridiumperegrinum,
of which the latter apparently predominate. The
history of their development is somewhat strange :
after emerging from the egg, which is laid in April
or May, tliey enter the lai-va state, during which
period thej' have no wings ; in the pvpa state,
germinal wings enclosed in cases appear ; while
about a montii later, they cast the papa skin, and,
borne on tiieir newly emancipated wings, they
soar into the air. Tlieir hind-wings are generally
very bright-coloured, being yellow, green, blue,
scarlet, crimson, or brown, according to the species.
It is noteworthy that, unlike .moths, tiiey pass
through no chrysalis period. They only api)ear in
.swarms periodically, and when they do, they liter-
ally darken the sky (cf. Ex 10^'), while the rattle
of their wings is like a fall of rain (cf. .11 2'). In
the drier parts of the country they are at all times
abuntlant, and are a constant source of annoyance
to the husbandmen, whose crops they sometimes
entirely devour. The larvce are responsible for
most of the havoc wrought ; as they are unable
to fly, they hop over the land around which they
were hatched and destroy grass, plants, and shrubs
promiscuously. It is, on the other hand, easier to
drive off full-grown locusts that can Hy, as they
are quickly frightened ; but at all stages of their
development they are extremely voracious.
They are used as an article of diet by the natives
to-day, just as they were in NT times, the legs
and wings being first removed, and the ix)dy stewed
with butter or oil. They are said to taste some-
what like shrimps.
LiTKRATURK.— H. B. Tristrani, The Satxiral IliMori/ of the
Bible^o^ 1911, pp. 306 ff., 313; H. B. Swete, The Api>mliih'«' "(
St. John, 1907, p. 115 ff., The Gospel according to 67. j/uri-',
1902, J). 5f. : Snn 649; HDB iil V.iO.t. ; KDi iii. 2S07ff. ;
and espeoially Driver's 'K.xcursti^ on Loouste' in \\\sJ<ieland
Amos, 1897, pp. 82-91, cf. also pp. .'J7-39, 48-.')3; W. M.
Thomson, The Land and the Hook, 1910 ed., p. 407 f. ; J. C.
Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, 1887, L 79, 80, 142,
^91-5. 402. p. .S. P. HANDCOCK.
LOIS (Gr. Auls). — The word Lois is of Greek
origin, related to \i^uv and Xvo-ros, 'pleasant,'
'desirable.' Lois was a Christian believer of
Lystra and the grandmother of Timothy. Her
name is mentioned in 2 Ti P along with Eunice
(q.v.), the mother of Timothy. Probably Lois was
a Jewess and the mother of Eunice, who in Ac 16'
is described as a believing Jewess who had married
a Greek, It is, however, not impossible that Lois
may have been the mother-in-law of Eunice and a
Gentile, in which case we must assume that she
had married a Jew. This theory would account
for the fact that both Lois and Eunice are Greek
names, and also for the description of Eunice as a
Jewess. But it was not uncommon for Hellenistic
Jews to bear purely Gentile names, and the sup-
position that Lois was the mother of Eunice is on
the whole more probable.
The Apostle refers to her ' unfeigned faith,' by
which he no doubt means that Lois had accej)ted
Christian faith, and not merely that she cherished
the ancient faith of Israel. As we find Eunice
described as a ' Jewess who believed ' on the oc-
casion of St. Paul's second visit to Lystra, probably
both she and Lois were converted on the Apostle's
first visit to the town. Timothy's knowledge of
the Hebrew Scriptures to which the Apostle refers
(2 Ti 3"^) was probably due not only to his mother
but also to Lois, whom we may regard as a faithful
Jewish matron attached to the ancient hopes of
Judaism, and who, influenced by her knowledge of
the Scriptures, readily accepted St. Paul's message
on his first visit to Lystra. W. F, BoYD.
LONGSUFFERING.— The word ■ longsuflering '
occurs in the English NT in Lk IS'' (RV only ; AV
' bear long with '), Ro 2» 9-, 1 Co U\ 2 Co 6«, Gal
■o'\ Eph 42, Col 1" 31=, I Th 5" (RV only ; AV
' patient'), 1 Ti P*, 2 Ti S^" 4-, 1 P S-*, 2 P S"'".
The Greek words corresponding to this are iMKpit-
Ovfioi, fji.aKpo6vfjLla, /jLaKpodv/xdv. These forms, how-
ever, occur in the original in a number of passages,
where the English Bible (both AV and RV) has as
their rendering 'patient,' 'patiently,' 'patience'
(Mt 18^, Ac 2G^ He Q^-- '\ Jao^- «• i"). In the LXX
the word occurs in the following passages : Ex 34",
Nu I4I8, Neh 9", Ps 86'5 103« 1458, Pr 1429 1518 igaj
19" 25^', Ec 7«, Jer lo'^, Jl 2", Jon 4^ Nah P. In
all these passages the Hebrew has d:5K ^-jn, or the
noun-form of the same word. Besides these there
are four instances where the LXX renders by ixaKpo-
Ov/xia other Hebrew words, or is bjised on a different
Hebrew text, so tliat tiie conception does not occur
in the English Bible. These are Job 7'«, Pr 17",
Is 57", Dn 4^*. fMKpodvfda is a word belonging to
the later Greek.
The Hebrew d^sn tj-jx and the Greek fiaKpSdv/jioi
absolutely coincide in their verbal structure. None
the less there is to be noted a dill'erence in the basic
figure underlying each, which will explain the
ditterence in usage. The Hebrew c^jx specifically
means ' anger,' ' wrath,' and accordingly the ^ik
'if is one who is 'long,' in the sense of 'long-
delaying ' his anger ; hence in many cases the word
is rendered by ' slow to anger ' in the English Bible.
On the other hand, 6vfi6^ in fiaKp6dvjj.oi does not speci-
fically denote ' anger,' but has the general meaning
of ' temper,' although it can also have the former
specialized sense. A /xaKpSdv/j-o^ is therefore he
who keeps his temper long, and this can be under-
stood with reference to wilful provocation by man,
in which case it will mean the exercise of restraint
LONGSUFFERING
LORD
705
hom anger ; or with reference to trjing circum-
stances and persons, in which case it will mean the
exercise of patience. Tiie Greek term thus comes
to have a double meaning whilst the Hebrew
equivalent has only one, never being used in the
sense of 'patience.' Jer IS^'* is no exception to
this, for when the prophet here prays, 'Take me
not away in thy longsutfering,' he relates the long-
suffering to his persecutors, and expresses the fear
that God's deferring their punishment may result
in his own death.
fjMKpodvfua is in the NT employed in both senses
— that of ' longsuffering ' and that of ' patience ' —
with reference to both God and man. The only
instance of the meaning ' patience ' in its applica-
tion to God seems to be Lk 18^. Here it is said
that God will 'avenge his elect that cry to him
day and night (Kai fiaKpodv/iei iir avroh) although
he is longsuffering over them.' The ai-roh does
not have for its antecedent the persecutors of the
elect, but the elect tiiemselves. The meaning is
that God proceeds slowly and patiently in attend-
ing to tiieir case (cf. 2 P 3^ : ^paSvvei, ' the Lord is
not slack concerning his promise'). In all other
cases the word when used of God denotes specifi-
cally the restraint of His anger and the deferring
of the execution thereof {—opryr)); thus Ko 2*9^,
1 Ti li«, 1 P 320.
This DiWne longsuffering is exercised with a
two-fold purpose: (a) to give its objects time for
repentance (Ko 2*, 2 P 3*** ^) ; (6) to gain time and
prepare the opportunity for tlie execution of His
purpose in otlier respects ( Ro 9~ ; here the ' endur-
ing with longsuffering of the vessels of wrath ' is
placed side by side with the purpose of God [diXeiv']
to show His wrath, and the naKpo6vfiia does not
imply a reversal or suspense of this purpose [so
Weiss], but simply a delay in its execution, among
other things for the reason stated in v.^^, ' that he
might make known the riches of his glory upon
vessels of mercy ').
fjLaKpoOi'nia as exercised by men towards men may
be both 'longsutiering' and 'patience.' It is not
always easy to tell with certainty which of the two
is in the mind of the writer, but in a case like Col
1^^, where inronovri, ' patience,' and naKpodv/iia, 'long-
suffering,' occur} together, the meaning is plain.
Trench {NT Synanym^, 1876, p. 191) observes that
fiaKpodvuia always refers to persons, never to things.
This is not quite correct, for He 6'~ *® proves that
it can be used in respect to circumstances or things
as well as to persons. Patience can be exercised
with reference to trying persons as well as to try-
ing circumstances ; and, from the nature of the case,
where the former happens the distinction between
' longsutiering ' and ' patience ' will become more
or less a fleeting one and the line will be hard to
draw (cf. Gal 5^, Eph 4^, Col I'l 3'-, 1 Th 5", 2 Ti 3'»,
2 P 31* on the one hand with Ja 5^- »• i» on the other).
fiaKpoOv/xia in the sense of ' longsuffering ' has
for its synonym ivoxv; in the sense of ' patience,'
iirofiov-q. The difference between /laKpoOvfua and
dvoxv (Ro 2^ 3^) seems to be that in dvoxv the idea
of the temporariness of the suspension of punish-
ment is given with the word as such, whereas fiaKpo-
dvjxia, SO far as the word is concerned, might be
never exhausted. As to inrofi-ovq, this differs from
fmKpodvfiia in having an element of positive heroic
endurance in it, whilst the patience called fiaKpo-
Ov/xia is a more negative conception which denotes
the absence of a spirit of resbtance and rebellion.
As stated above, fiaKpoOvfua occurs of God at least
once in the sense of ' patience ' ; inroiiovf] is nowhere
ascribed to God. dfbs ttJs virofjiourji (Ro 15') is not
' the God who shows patience,' but ' the God Avho
gives patience ' (cf. Ro 15'3, He 13=0, IP 5'"). It
is predicated of Jesus in 2 Th 3', He 12i-2.
Gkekhardus Vos.
VOL. I. — 45
LORD. — In the AV the word ' lord ' generally
represents the Greek KOpioi, with the exception of
Ac 4-^, 2 P 2\ Jude^ and Kev 6^", where it stands
for deffirdTTjs. In the last three passages the RV
renders 'master.' On the other hand, there are
ca.ses where Kvpios is rendered ' master ' both in the
AV and the UV—e.g. Ac 16'«- >», Eph 6^- ». As a
common noun the word 'lord' is not of very
frequent occurrence. It is used of the Roman
Emperor (Ac 25-«) ; of a husband (1 P 3«) ; of the
heir of a property (Gal 4^ ; and of the angelic
powers (1 Co 8^). But usually it is applied either
to God or to Christ, and comes to be used almost
as a proper name.
1. The name applied to God.— In the LXX idpios
is employed consistently to represent 'jnx, which
the Jews substituted in reading for the name m.T,
and hence it became the general designation of
God. We meet with it frequently in the NT in
this application, sometimes expanded into the title
Kvpios 6 0e6s, or even Kvpios 6 6ebs 6 iravTOKparup
(Rev 4" 11", etc.). God is addressed as Kijptos in
prayer (Ac 1^). The title is used predicatively of
Him in Ac 17-^ (' Lord of heaven and earth '). In
such phrases as ' even as the Lord gave ' ( 1 Co 3^),
' if the Lord will ' (4i9 ; cf. Ro P" IS^^), 'chastened
of the Lord' (1 Co 11^-), the reference is probably
to God rather than to Christ. Naturally it is God
who is referred to where the term occurs in quota-
tions from the OT, as Ac 3~, Ro 4« 9^^-, 2 Co e^''- ;
though, as we shall see, there are occasions where
such quotations are interpreted as referring directly
to Christ. The reference is likewise to God in
various phrases which recall OT associations, such
as ' the Spirit of the Lord ' (Ac 5"), ' the fear of the
Lord ' (9=*0, ' the hand of the Lord ' (U^). In Rev.,
with one or two exceptions, the title refers to God —
e.g. 4*- " IV^- " 19' — though on occasions Christ, in
contrast to the kings of the earth, is called ' King
of kings and Lord of lords' (17" 19>«). St. Peter,
St. James, and Hebrews seem to use the term
indifferently for God or Christ. In the Pauline
Epistles the term usually designates Christ, but
tliere are occasional exceptions, and we must
determine from the context whether God or Christ
is to be understood. Thus, e.g., in the phrase ' the
word of the Lord,' i.e. the gospel (1 Th 1^), we
should certainly expect ' the Lord ' to refer to
Christ, yet the phrase recurs in the following
chapter in the form ' the word of God ' (2'^). So
' the Lord of peace ' (2 Th 3'®) corresponds to ' the
very God of peace ' (1 Th 5^3) ; and 1 Co 3', where
some take Kvpios to apply to Christ, is proved by
v.* to refer to God. But indeed it is difficult to
say with certainty in many cases who is intended,
and sometimes St. Paul ascribes the same function
now to God and now to Christ {e.g. 1 Co 7'^ com-
pared with 2 Co 10^*). Some {e.g. Cremer and
Godet) would lay down the rule that in the NT
/ci'ptos is to be understood as referring to God only
in the OT quotations and references (so also Lietz-
mann, so far as St. Paul is concerned) ; but it is
evident from some of the cases already quoted
that such a canon cannot be consistently observed.
2. The name applied to Christ. — For the most
part, however, the term is employed in the NT to
designate Christ.
(1) The sitbjection of the believer to Christ. — The
simplest instance of the use of the word ' Lord ' for
Christ is in the Gospels, where it describes the
relationship of Jesus to the disciples. In this sense
it occurs in Ac 1* as a form of address of the
Master, and in the phrase frequently recurring
throughout the book — ' the Lord Jesus,' e.g. 1*' 4^
8'®. But such employment of the term is innocent
of the doctrinal implication that attaches to it as
generally emplojed in the NT. We meet with it
in various forms — sometimes simply Kvpio% or 6 ki'/jioj.
706
LOUD
LORD
sometimes 6 iri'pioj ijuQv, usually with the addition
oi'lriffous or' IrjcroOi Xpiffrds. ^V hat is suggested by
this title as assigned to Christ? The simplest
answer is that it calls up the relation of king and
subject, conceived in the Oriental spirit as that of
lord and slave (cf. 1 K IT^^ 29» [LXX]), as typical
of that Mhich obtains between Christ and the
believer. St. Paul frequently calls himself SoDXoi
'Iijffov XpiffTod (Ro 1', Gal 1^", etc.) ; on one occasion
he uses that term as a Morthv designation of a
faithful disciple (Col 4'''), and reminds believers
that such slavery is the condition into which they
have surrendered themselves (1 Co 7^).
(2) The majesty of Christ.— The title Kipio^ as
applied to Christ suggests something more than
the relation of subjection in which the believer
stands to Him. It is deliberately selected to assign
a certain lofty dignity to Christ. It was the
custom in the East to call gods by the title ' Lord '
(Deissmann, Licht twin Osten, 253 fl'. ), and, as we
have seen, the practice of the LXX had made this
term the familiar one to the Jew for his God
Jahweh. The title was deliberately transferred
to Christ by the early Cliristians to signify that
they worshipped Him as a Divine Bein^. In 1 Co
8"- St. Paul defines the Cliristian attitude to Clirist
by contrasting^ it with that of the worshippers of
false gods. They worsliip many so-callea gods
and lords, but the Christian has but the ' one God,
the Father, of Avhom are all things and we unto
him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom
are all things, and we through him.' Here St.
Paul places Christ alongside of God as entitled to
Divine honour. How such a position is compatible
with the strict monotheism of the ' one God, the
Father,' he does not discuss. It may be, as
Johannes Weiss (Christus, p. 26) suggests, that he
selected the title ' Lord ' for Christ here as predicat-
ing a dignity one rank lower than that of Supreme
God, and so leaving room for that relation of sub-
ordination which the Apostle elsewhere assigns to
Him (2 Co l^ Eph 1^^). It was in virtue of the
Resurrection that the Church came to invest Jesus
with such unique dignity. This is the standpoint
of Peter in Ac 2^2-36 Jesus of Nazareth, ' a man
approved of God' (v.^*), has by the Resurrection
and Exaltation been made by God * both Lord and
Clirist.' So in Ro 1* St. Paul says that Jesus has
been constituted {,bpiadivTo%) God's Son in power,
according to the spirit of holiness, by the resur-
rection of the dead (cf. also Eph 1^"^-). And the
well-known passage Ph 2''-'i accounts for Jesus'
investment with the title ' Lord ' along the same
lines. After the humiliation of the Cross 'God
highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name
which is above every name ; that in tlie name of
Jesus [i.e. whenever the name is invoked in prayer
by oneself or sounded in one's ears by others (W.
rieitmiiller, Im Namen Jesu, 1903, p. 66 f.)] every
knee should bow, of things in heaven and things
on earth and things under the earth, and that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' There is
difl'erence of opinion as to whether 'the name
Avhich is .ibove everj' name' is the title 'Lord.'
In view of the confession of Lordship to which the
passage leads up, it seems natural to adopt this
interpretation. 13y exalting Jesus, God has raised
Him to supreme honour. He has bestowed on
Him that name which He had hitherto borne
Himself. Tiie passage becomes jiregnant with
meaning when taken (as Weiss suggests [op. cit.
p. 27]) in connexion with the LXX of Is 42* : ^70*
Ki'ipioi 6 6(6i, TOVT& fiov iari. rb dfofxa, tj]i> S6^av /xov
iripifi ov bunru). Rut tliis name and this glory God
has given to another. He has invested Jesus with
the Divine name; He has given Him supremo
sovereignty. All beingss in heaven and earth must
bow the knee before Him. He virtually takes the
place of God, the monotlieistic position being safe-
guarded in that concluding phrase, 'to the glory
of (Jod the Father.'
The whole of the NT goes to corroborate the
lofty estimate of the dignity of Clirist suggested
by this title. As Lord He conies in the mind of
the Church to take His position alongside of God,
to exercise such functions as had been attributed
to God, and to receive such reverence as had been
accorded to God alone — according to an inter-
pretation of Ro 9' which is linguistically unex-
ceptionable. He is even willed 6e6% (cf. also 2 P 1').
Prayer is addressed to Him (Ac 7"*, Ro 10'-, 1 Co
1-, 2 Co 12^). He is expected to judge the world
(2 Co 5'<"-, 2 Ti 4'- 8), and is endowed with Divine
omniscience (1 Co 4'). It is He who assigns their
various lots to men (7"), who grants power of
service and endows with grace (1 Ti l'^*"), who
stands by and strengthens in time of trouble (2 Ti
4''), and delivers out of persecutions (3"). All
authority in the Church proceeds from Him (1 Co
5*, 2 Co 108 13"'). The most frequent form of
benediction invokes His grace. Baptism is per-
formed in His name (Ac 8'* 10^). That name is
invoked when the sick are anointed with oil (Ja
S^*) ; and not only on such formal occasions, but in
every word and deed (Col 3"), for that appears to
be the significance of the phrase, one is to * do all in
the name of the Lord' (Ueitmiiller, op. cit. p. 69).
He is the Creator of all things (1 Co 8», Col P«)
and Lord over all beings (Ac 10^, Ro 10'-), our
only Master and Lord (Jude*).
But perhaps the most striking instance of all of
how Christ comes to have the value of God in the
Christian consciousness is afiorded by the fact that,
repeatedly in the NT, quotations from the OT
which manifestly refer to God are immediately
applied to Christ. Thus, e.g., the exhortation of
the Psalmist to taste and see that the Lord is good
(Ps 348) is interpreted (1 P 2^) with reference to
the experience of the believer of the salvation of
Christ ; and St. Paul finds an answer to the
question of Is 40'^ (LXX), ' Who hath known the
mind of the Lord ? ' in the triumphant declaration,
'But we have the mind of Christ' (1 Co 2'«).
Other instances of this practice will be found in
Ro 10", 1 Co pi 10", 2 Co 3i«- '8 10", 1 P 3».
Such being the significance with which the title
is invested, it is small wonder that St. Paul should
have regarded acknowledgment of Christ's Lord-
ship as the mark of the true believer (Col 2*). To
confess Him as Lord with one's mouth, and to
believe in one's heart that God has raised Him
from the dead (observe the connexion between the
Resurrection and Lordship), is to be assured of
salvation (Ro 10**). In cases of ecstasy such con-
fession was the infallible sign of the presence of
the Holy Spirit (1 Co 12^). The proclamation of
Christ's Lordship was the central theme of the
Apostle's preaching (2 Co 4^), the universal re-
cognition of that Lordship the consummation of
the Divine purpose (Ph 2").
(3) The protest against Emperor -worship. — There
remains to be noted one other aspect of the as-
sertion of Christ's Lordship— the protest implied
against the worship of the Emperor under the
same title. Deissmann has shown (op. cit. p.
255 ir.) that already in the time of St. Paul the
title was current as a form of address of the
Emperor (cf. Ac 25^*), if not in Rome, at any rate
in the East. Caligula had ordered his statue to
be erected in the Temple at Jerusalem, and required
that he should be wor.shipped as God. Domitian
is called in official reports 'our Lord and God.'
When such Avas the tendency that was abroad, it
is possible that even in the mouth of a man who,
like St. Paul, urged subjection to tlie higher
LORD'S DAY
LORD'S DAY
707
powers, the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ
may ha%-e had a polemical nuance. In the middle
of the 2nd cent. Me tind Polycarp layin" down his
life rather than say Kvpios Koiaap (Mart. Polyc. viii.
2), and probablj' long before that time, on the lips
of those who repeated it, if not by the men who
first employed it, the formula 'our Lord Jesus
Christ ' was* uttered with an emphasis on the word
viir which suggested repudiation of the claims
made on behalf of the Emperor (Weinel, Die
Stellitng des Urchristentums ztim Staat, p. 19).
St. Paul could say of the Christian, ' our state is
in heaven' (Ph 3"*), and endeavour to keep his
religion apart altogether from politics. But when
politics invaded the sphere of religion and Cae-sar
laid claim to the things that are Christ's, it be-
came the duty of the Christian to maintain the
sovereignty of his Lord. Such passages as Ph 2*"",
1 Co 8*'- cannot fail to have been interpreted as a
protest against the growing tendency to ascribe
to the Emperor the reverence which belonged to
Christ alone. We hear the same protest in the
claim of Jude*, 'our only Master and Lord, Jesus
Christ,' and in a milder form in the subtle dis-
tinction made in 1 P 2^', ' Fear God, honour the
king,' t.e. the Emperor. In Eev. the references
to tlie Emperor-worship become more explicit
(138. 15 149 0(|4)^ and the protest against it finds
freer utterance. Christ is proclauned King of
kings and Lord of lords (17" 19^®), while the
sovereignty of this world becomes the sovereignty
of the Lord and of His anointed one, and He shall
reign for ever and ever (11**).
LrrERATX-RE.— A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, 1S92, bk. iii. ch. v. ;
H. Lietzmann, Die Briefe de* Aposteis PatUus {=HaiuUmeh
mm XT, iii. 1 [1910JX p. 53 ff. ; A. Deissmann, Die UrgesehieMe
if* Christentums im Lichte der Spraehfonehung, 1910, Lieht
vom Often, 190S ; Job. Weiss, Christus, 1909, Da* Urehritten-
tum, 1914, cb. ii. | 5, ir. § 3, vii. § 4 ; H. Weinel, Die SUUung
de* Urchri-itentums zum Staat, 190S ; H. R. Mackintosb, The
Penon of Jemis Christ, 1912, bk. iii. ch. v. ; W. Boasset,
KirriosChristos,im. G. Wauchope Stewart.
LORD'S DAY.— 1. Origin.— Before the apostolic
period had wholly passed away ' the first day of
the week ' had become, or was well on the way to
become, the stated weekly holy-day of the Chris-
tian Church, bearing tlie distinctive designation
'the Lord's Day' (^ icvpuiicr] vpiepa). It is evident
that this day was regarded as of special importance
from the beginning, and Mas placed alongside of
the Sabbath in the esteem of JcMish Christians.
In the course of time it became a substitute
for the Sabbath itself. How this Mas brought
about cannot be exactly stated. We cannot point
to any definite act of institution, any such im-
pressive story and legislative sanction as the
Pentateuch supplies M-ith reference to the JeMish
Sabbath. No authority of the Lord Himself can
be cited for it ; there is no ' Jesus said ' to cor-
respond to 'God spake all these Mords, saying'
(Ex 2<D'). or 'the Lord spake unto Moses, saying'
(Lv 19'-^).
The materials afforded us by the NT are scanty
indeed. Tmo things, however, are clear. — (a) In
the brief Resurrection stories, as found in all the
Gospels, conspicuous emphasis is laid on ' the first
day of the Meek ' as the day on Mhich Jesus rose
from the dead. See Mk 16-, Lk 24i, Jn 20' (rj fug.
tGiv ffa^^driov), Mt 28^ (eis fiiav trap^druv), the frag-
ment Mk 16*-* {rpd/Ti) aa^^Tov), Jn 20'» (r^ ^/lipg.
fKfipg T^ fug. ffttjSjSdTWj'). Jn 20^, with its ' after
eight da5-s ' (the octave), is specially interesting,
for it has the faint suggestion of a custom-germ,
or reflects the earlj'-established practice of a Meekly
meeting on tliat day. Th. Zahn calls attention
to the particularity* M-ith Mhich John notes the
days connected m ith the Passion and Kesurrection,
and explains it as due to the Christian Meek-scheme
already full}* established among the churches of
Asia Minor, Math M-hich the Fourth (Jospel was so
closely associated (Skizzen aus deni Lcben der alten
Kirche, no. 5, p. 178). — (6) Early in the 2nd cent,
the first day or the week appears as distinctively
the sacred day of Christiamty under the name of
' the Lord's Day.'
The connexion betM-een (a) and (6) cannot be for-
tuitous. The tradition that the Lord rose again
on the first day of the M'eek naturally invested
that day Mith special interest. Jesus' R^urrection
from the first figured as a dominating fact concern-
ing Him in early faith and evangelism. WHiat
wonder that that day should come to be regarded
a&par excellence the Lord's Day?
Tboee wbo deny the reality of tbe Resurrection as a unicjue
event are bard pressed to account for tbe undeniable primitive
association of the day with that occurrence. >N'hat is there
convinciuir in the following suggestions ? ' It is quite possible
that the Christian Sunday was originally fix«l — ^perhaps before
tbe women's story was generally known — in some other way,
e.g. by the events of the Day of Pentecost, or by the first appear-
ance of the risen Christ in Galilee, or by the selection of the
first avaUable time after the Jewish Sabbath, and that tbe con-
nexion of it ^\-ith the date of the Resurrection was an after-
thought' (J. M. Thompson, MiraeUs in the ST, London, 1911,
p. ICS). Later on the same author seems to treat the ' app^r-
ance ' also as a fictitious afterthought grafted on to a Christian
time-scheme of amazingly early development : ' Both the appear-
ances take place on Sunday (Jn 20). This is another indication
of the ecclesiastical and eucbaristic atmosphere in which the
Resurrection stories grew up ' (p. 199 ; of. A. Loisr, A utour d'un
peta Here, Paris, 1903, p. 242 f.).
The NT itself is not without evidence that this
institution began its groMth in apostolic times.
The passages are few but familiar. In Ac 20' the
first day of the week is associated with a Christian
assembly for religious purposes {avtrtfyfieruw Jifidv
K\daai dpTOp). If a use of this kind had not already
b^fun, M'hat propriety or moment Mould there be
in stating Mhat day of the Meek it Mas ? Again,
at an earlier ix)int in St. Paul's career mc find him
urging the Christians at Corinth to make weekly
contributions towards the fund for the relief of the
impoverished church at Jerusalem, and to do it on
the first day of the Meek (1 Co 16-). It has been
pointed out, not unreasonably, that this contribu-
tion is not represented as an ofl'ering to be collected
at some meeting for worship (Deissmann, art.
' Lord's Day ' in EBi), that, rather, the expression
xop' eavTifi simply points to setting aside such a
gift at home, and so the passage yields no positive
evidence for the observance of the day as in later
times. When, however, it is suggested, as an
alternative explanation, that the first day of the
M-eek is named because probably this or the day
before Mas the pay-day for M-orking folk at Corinth,
we need some definite evidence for this which is
not forthcoming. And when, as Zahn observes
{op. cit. p. 177), M-e tind that in the 2nd cent, there
M'as a wide-spread custom of laying charitable gifts
for the poor on the church dish in connexion Mith
public Morship. it is difficult not to connect this
\vith St. Paul's Mords here. May not his action in
this particular instance, indeed, have directly led to
the institution of a collection for the poor on the
Lord's Day, and especially in association Mith
'the breaking of bread'? It may be added
that, as St. Paul urges this course so 'that no
collections be made when I come,' and as the Mhole
M'ork is described in v. ^ as a ' collection ' {\oyia), it
is most natural to infer that there Mas not only a
setting apart of gifts, but also a paying into a local
fund Meek by M-eek. This strengthens the vicM-
that 1 Co 16- incidentally gives evidence of early
movements towards the setting up of the Lord's
Day as an institution, especially Mhen taken along
Mith Ac 20^ ; for when could the contributions of
the people be better collected in readiness for the
Apostle than at their meetings on the special da\-
of M'orship ':
708
LORD'S DAY
LORD'S DAY
It is fair also to nuggoHt (with Hcssey, Sunday, yi. 4;!) that the
' aiuieni)>lin); ' spoken of in He W^ niUHt have taken place at
sUted tiuicii and that the time ia most likely to have been the
first day of the week.
The mention of -f) Kvpiaxij rifiipa in Rev 1" calls
for special notice, as this is the only instance in
the NT of the use of the expression that subse-
auently l>ecanio so established and familiar. But
oes it bear in tliis place the same significance as
it came to possess ana possesses still ? Some have
argued that what is meant is not ' the Lord's Day '
as we understand it, but ' the Day of the Lord ' in
the sense in which the OT i)rophets employ the
term, and as it figures in the eschatologicaf out-
look of the NT (e.g. 1 Th 5'^). Hort (Apoc. of St.
John, I.-IJI., London, 1908, ad loc.) inclines to
this view, thinking it suits the context better, and
seeing no reason for mentioning the day on which
the seer had his vision. He suggests as a possible
rendering : ' I became in the Spirit and so in tlie
Day of the Lord.' It is not surprising that he
only ventures on this 'with .some doubt.' Deiss-
raann {loc. cit.) also favours tliis view, identifying
• the Lord's Day' here with ' the day of Jahweh,'
the day of judgment — in the LXX i) rnnipa toO
Kvploo (as also in St. Paul and elsewliere). But
here we have an important point telling for the
ordinary view. Neither in the LXX nor in the
NT (nor in other early Christian writings) have we
any instance of ij KvpiaKT) rifi^pa (if not here) used as
= 'the Day of the Lord.' The term with this
meaning is 77 rifi^pa (tov) Kvplov. If the two expres-
sions were equivalent and interchangeable, how
strange that the latter should occur so regularly
and the former be found in but one solitary
instance !
On the other hand, we have an undisputed early
example of the use of tj Kvpiani) -qfiipa (in noteworthy
abbreviation ) as = ' Sunday ' in Didnche, xiv. 1 (Kara
KvpiaK^iv di Kvpiov avvaxO^vres KXacrare Aprov; cf. Ac 20').
The expression tlius could not have been a new
term r. A.D. 100, since KvpiaKri alone is used as =
'Lord's Day,' and particularly in the striking
collocation KvptaKt] Kvpiov. The relevance of tliis is
unaffected even if Turner is right in regarding
the Didachc as simply a rCchnuffc of a purely
Jewish manual, and the curious phrase ' the
Lord's day of the Lord' as 'only the Christian
substitute for the Jewish "Sabbath of the Lord" '
(Studies in Early Chnrch History, Oxford,
1912, p. 8). Cf. also Ignatius, ad Magn. ix, 1
' living in the observance of the Lord's Day ' (Kara
KvpiaKrjv iCovTCi). No difficulty in ])oiiit of time
emerges concerning the use of -f) KupiaK^ ijnipa in
Rev., whicli is reasonably assigned to the reign of
Domitian. And it is not used here as a newly-
coined term. How much earlier than the time of
Domitian it came into use none can say.
It is true we find the sim))le early name ' first
day ' or ' eighth day ' continuing in use long after
17 KvpiaKi] Tj/lipa emerges. Note particularly ' the
eighth day, which is also the iirst,' used by Justin
Martyr (Dial, xli., Apol. i. 67) and still later
writers. But evidently there was in ' Lord's Day '
an inherent suitability and felicity which caused
it to outlive these primitive designations and be-
come the permanent and characteristic Christian
name of the day. It passed into Western use, not
only figuring as dies dominica in the liturgical
scheme of the week, but establishing itself in
ordinary modern nomenclature (e.g. in French
dimarichc and Italian domenica).
2. The epithet KvpiaKij and its use. — Wc can
hardly wonder tliat at one time KvpiaK6s was re-
garded as a word 'coined by the a]K)st]es them-
selves' (Winer-Moulton, Grammar of N'T Greek^,
Edinburgh, 1882, p. 296). In Wilke-Grimm's
Clavis Novi Testamenti^, Leipzig, 1888, it is
described as 'vox solum biblica et ecclesiastica,'
and in Grimni-Tliayer*, Edinburgh, 1892, this is
reproduced, save that ' solum ' is passed over. How-
ever, the panyri and inscriptions discovered more
recently in Egypt and in Asia Minor abundantly
prove that the word was in current use in the
whole of the Greek-speaking world ; e.g. KvpiaKbs
\6yos ( = Imperial treasury) occurs in a government
decree issued in A.D. 68, 6 Kvpio^ being a designa-
tion of the Emperor (cf. similar use of Lat. domini-
(•lis). For other examples see Deissmann, Bible
Studies, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1901, p. 217 f.
But from the fact that early Christians did not
coin the term Kt)ptaK6s, but found it ready to hand in
tlie vocabulary of the day, it does not necessarily
follow that they used it as the pagan world used it.
They set it in a new connexion. In their use of it
they gave it a specific and distinctive character.
Thus we find it used in specific association (which
became permanent) with the Supper (KvpiaKbv
BciTTvov, 1 Co 11^), with the Day (as here), with the
Sayings of Jesus (Xdyia KvpiaKo., Papias), with the
House, the domus ecclesia; (rb KvpiaKdv).
In this connexion the followinj? note from OED, s.v. ' Church,'
may be of use : ' The parallelism of Gr. KvpLaKov, church,
KvpcaK^, Sunday (in 11th cent, also 'church'), L. dominicum,
church, dominica, dies dominica, Sunday, Irish domhnach,
" church " and " Sunday," is instructive.'
Deissmann (loc. cit.) dissents from the view ad-
vanced by Holtzmann and others that our par-
ticular term (77 KvpiaKr] itixipa or tj KvpiaKrj) 'is formed
after the analogy of Selirvov KoptaKdv.' He prefers
(though, indeed, with a certain amount of caution)
to regard this Christian mode of naming the first
day of the week as analogous to the custom of the
pagan world in Egypt and Asia Minor whereby
the first day of each month was called Ze^aar-^
( = Imperial). Thus the Christian weekly 'Lord's
Day' was the direct counterpart of a monthly
'Emperor's Day.' This, to say the least, is not
self-evident ; and Deissmann may well hesitate, as
he does, to maintain that the Christians thus con-
sciously copied the pagan use. We need not, in-
deed, argue a direct analogy to KvptaKbv detirvov in par-
ticular. I'erhaps we may more reasonably regard
both these expressions and others given above as
being independent but co-ordinate examples of
the application of the epithet KvptaKds. Tliere
could ue no question from the first as to the Ki'pios
it had reference to. Nor, again, need we suppose
that Christians, in thus speaking of Jesus, were
directly influenced by the use of 6 Kupioi or 6 Ktjpios
'OfJLuv as designating a deity or an emperor in the
time of the Roman Empire. They had a sufficient
precedent for this in the Jewish use of 'AdCndi for
God. At the same time the parallelism in such
use among Jews, Christians, and pagans is a
matter of some interest.
3. The relation of the Lord's Day to the Jewish
Sabbath. — As shown by the few passages already
noticed, the first day of the week evidently began
from the earliest times to have a special value in
the eyes of Christians. But, whatever the signifi-
cance and use of that day, the day itself was not
confounded with the Jewish Sabbath. Nor is
there any sign that in apostolic times there was
any thought of superseding the latter by the Lord's
Day.
' Ij'idee de transporter au dimanche la solennitc du sabbat,
avec toutcs ses exigences, est une idtie Otrangcre au christian-
isnio primitif ' (Duchesne, Orloines dtc culte chrtHxen*, p. 4C).
Similarly Zahn (op. cit. p. ISS f.) points out that no one belong-
ing to the circle of Jewish Christians would think of relaxing
one of Moses' commandments ; and, even if already in apostolic
times Sunday came to be observ cd, none could think that the
Sabbath commandment would be fulfilled throu;,'h a Sabbath-
like observance ot another day instead of the observance of the
Sabbath itself.
For a considerable time the two existed side by
LORD'S DAY
LORD'S DAY
709
side. Tlie Jewish Christian wlio met with his
feUow-Christians on the Lord's Day still observed
the Sabbath of his fathers. Nothing in the use of
the tirst day of the week as a day for Christian
reunions could have been intendetl as hostile to
the old Jewish institution. Clear evidence as to
the two-fold observance of both the days is furnished
by Ignatius (ad Magn. ix. [longer recension]),
who exhorts Cliristians to keep the Sabbath, ' but
no longer after the Jewish manner.' 'And after
the ob^r\'ance of the Sabbath, let every friend of
Christ keep the Lord's Day as a festival, the re-
surrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days.'
Similarly in the Apost. Const, ii. 59 : ' Assemble
yourselves together every day, morning and
evening, singing psalms and praying in the Lord's
House {iy roh KvpuiKoh) . . . but principally on the
Sabbath day ; and on the day of our Lord's Ke-sur-
rection, which is the Lord's Day, meet more
diligently,' etc. We have an interesting memorial
of this primitive double observance in the Lat. and
Gr. liturgical names for Sunday (die^ dominica,
KvpiaKTi) and Saturday {sabbatum, adS^arov), the
whole liturgical scheme of the week ha\ing come
down from early times when Christians discarded
the use of day-names associated, with pagan
gods.
It is true that Justin Martyr in a well-knowii passage
(Apolofft/, i- 67) uses the name ' Sunday ' (t^ tow 'HAt'ow Aeyo/ifKri
■illifpa); but the expression 'the day caUed the day of the sun'
clearly indicates that whilst Christians might use the ordinary
name in intercourse with non -Christians they did not use it
among themselves. Similarly in the same chapter Justin uses
' day of Saturn ' (Saturday) instead of ' Sabbath.' ZsxYni {op. cit.
p. 357) marks this as the only instance he knows of in which
a Christian writer uses the term 'Sunday ' in pre-Constantine
times (see also ERE, art. 'Festivals and Fasts [Christian]').
.\s Duchesne (op. eit. p. 396) and others hare pointed out, the
observance of Sunday is one of a number of elements which
Christianity bad in common with the reli^on of Mithras. In
Slithraism this was directly connected with the worship of the
sun. It was inevitable that some should argue from this a
vital connexion between the two religions, "fiiis was the case
in primitive times. TertuUian {Apol. xvi.) vigorously repudiates
the charge that Christians worshipped the sun as their god.
In the course of time, the distinction between
church and synagogue growing wider, the Sabbath
inevitably became less and less important and
eventually fell into complete neglect among Chris-
tians, whilst the Lord's Day survived as their
special sacred day of the week. (No institution of
liKe kind was known in pagani-sm.) It must be
remembered that St. Paul wa-s opposed to the in-
troduction of OT festivals (including the Sabbath)
into the churches he founde<l among the Gentiles,
' declaring that by the adoption of them the
Gentile believer forfeited the benefits of the gospel,
since he chose to rest his salvation upon rites instead
of upon Christ (Col 2»« ; cf. Gal 4'«, Ro li*'-)' (G. P.
Yi?\ier, Beginnings of Christianitij, 1877, new ed.,
1886, p. 561 ; cf. Zahn, p. 189). We may reasonably
conclude, indeed, that St. Paul himself, being one
of the ' strong' (Ro 14''-), shared the view of those
who esteemed ' every day alike,' and that all days
were alike sacred in his eyes, whether Sabbaths,
Lord's Days, or others.
But the observance of the Lord's Day miLst have
been a very difl'erent thing from that of the Jewish
Sabbath. The commemoration of the Resurrection
of Christ alone would make a great ditierence.
Whether or not the apostles saw what the issue
would be when the first day of the week began to
be thus observed (in however simple a way), they
must have given the growing custom their approval
and welcomed the association of act^ of joyful
worship and almsgiving with the day. St. Paul
could have been no exception in this respect ; but
apparently he did not foresee that the Christian
' tirst day ' might in time assume those very feat-
ures of the Jewish ' seventh day ' Sabbath which
made him deprecate the introduction of this ancient
institution among Gentile Christians (see also art.
Sabbath).
4. PrimitlTe modes of observing the Lord's Day.
— The fact that for Christians the one raison d'etre
of the Lord's Day was the commemoration of the
Lord's Resurrection made it a weekly festival to
be kept with gladness.
Somewhat later on, it is true, other associations were claimed
for it as if to enhance the dignity of the day. E.g. a connexion
with the first day of Creation and even with the Ascension was
assumed ; though these were trifling compared with some
medixral developments. Between the 11th and the 15th cen-
turies we meet with a wide-qwead fiction of a ' Letter from
Heaven ' inculcating Sunday observance, wherein the bus^st
claims are made for the day : how that on it the angels woe
created, the ark rested on Ararat, the Exodus took place, also
the Baptism of Jesus, His great miracles. His Ascension, and
the Charism of Pentecost (see An English UiteeUanji, in
honour of Dr. Fumivall, Oxford, ISOl).
(a) We are frequently reminded by early Chris-
tian writers that it was the primitive custom to
stand for prayer on that day instead of kneeling
as on other days. Tertulhan, amongst others,
dilates on this [de Orat. xxiii). Canon 20 of the
Council of Nica?a plainly reflects a very old custom,
as it enjoins that ' seeing there are some who kneel
on Sunday and in the days of Pentecost . . . men
should otter their prayers to God standing.'
(6) Cessation from all work does not appear to
have been required in primitive times as an ele-
ment in the observance of the day. So long as
there were meetings for religious worship, Chris-
tians were not expected to cease from manual
labour. But so far as Je\vish Christians were con-
cerned, if they observed Sabbath in such a way,
they would hardly be likely to observe the day
immediately following in the same way as well.
For the rest it may be questioned whether social
conditions made it practicable. We can hardly
argue back to apostolic times from customs obtain-
ing in society nominally Christian under nominally
Christian government. Old Roman laws in pre-
Christian times provided for the suspension of
business (particularly in the law courts) on all
ferice or festivals. It was the Emperor Constan-
tine who at length ordered that the same rule
should apply to the Lord's Daj', thus b€sto^ving
honour on the day as a fixed weekly festival (see
Bingham, Antiquities of the Christian Church,
bk. XX. ch. ii.). It is noticeable that in Ignatius
{ad Magn. ix. [see above]) Christians are exhorted
to keep Sabbath 'after a spiritual manner, re-
joicing in meditation on the Law ' ; and absten-
tion from work is expressly discountenanced, while
rest from labour is not demanded for the observance
of the Lord's Day. Later on the practice of using
Sunday as a day of rest from work came into
vogue ; and then it served as a sign distinguishing
Cliristian from Jew.
Con^erable light on this {toint is incidentally gained from
the 29tb Canon of the Council of Laodicea (4th cent.)— lig^t as
to what bad long heen the practice of Christians who clung to
Jewish antecedents, and as to the conditions then prevailing.
It reads : ' ^Qiat Christians must not act as Jews by refraining
from woric on the Sabbath, but must rather work on that day,
and, if they can, as Christians they must cease work on the
Lord's Day, so giving it the greater honour.'
(c) The assemblies connected with the Lord's
Day were two : the vigil in the night between
Saturday and Sunday, and the celebration of the
! Liturgy on Sunday morning. One reason for meet-
' ing at such times was most probably the need for
I precaution in times of persecution and difficulty.
\ An interesting account of Sunday worship of
' Christians at Jerusalem in the 4th cent, is to be
'■■ found in a letter written by a Gallic lady who
\ went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The
' document, written in the vulgar Latin, is given by
i Duchesne in his Origines dti culte chretien, App. 5.
{ No doubt the picture reflects in the main a usag«
I which had existed from much earlier times. A
710
LORD'S DAY
LOTS
crowd of peojile ('all who could possibly be tli
irathers at the church doors ' oefore cock-c
lere')
gathers at the church doors ' before cock-crow '
when the doors are first opened, then streams into
the church, which is lit np by a large number of
lamps (luminaria infinita). (Not that such zest in
church attendance was universal in the early cen-
turies. In a Homily on the Lorcfs Day by Eusebius
of Alexandria [5th cent. ?] the slackness of people
in coming to church is humorously treated and re-
buked. ) The worship includes inter alia the recita-
tion of three psalms, responses, prayers, and the
reading of the gospel story of the licsurrection.
Justin Martyr's account of worship on the Lord's
Day is also well known (Apol. i. 65-67), while — to
go still further back to the very fringe of tlie Apos-
tolic Age — we have Pliny's famous letter to Trajan
wherein he describes Cnristians meeting early in
tlie morning to sing hymns to Christ and (v.l.
'as') God, and joining in a sacramental act and a
common meal. This took place, he says, stato die,
and no doubt that fixed day was the first day of
the week.
{d) Very possibly the sacramental meal (' break-
ing of bread') was the earliest distinctive feature
in the Chiistian observance of the Lord's Day, the
other exercises of prayer, reading, etc., being
added later. ' To the sacramental meal of apos-
tolic times, understood as a foretaste and assurance
of the "Messianic banquet" in the coming Par-
ousia, there was soon prefixed a religious exercise
— modelled perhaps on the common worship of the
Synagogue — Avhich implied just tliose preparatory
acts of penance, pui'ification, and desirous stretch-
ing out towards the Infinite, which precede in the
experience of the growing soul the establishment
of communion with the Spiritual World' (E.
Underbill, The Mystic Way, London, 1913, p. 335).
5. Modern names for Lord's Day. — The varying
names by wliich the day has been known in later
times reflect the confusion which has attended the
history of the Lord's Day as a Christian institution.
(n) To speak of the day as ' the Sabbatli ' (even
the expression ' Chi'istian Sabbath ' is only admis-
sible on the ground of analogy) is to use a modus
loquendi that primitive Christians could never have
used. Tlieir distinction between Sabbath and
Lord's Day was as clear as between the first and
the seventh day. It arises from the mistaken
identification of the weekly festival of the Resurrec-
tion of Christ with the Sabbath of the Jews and
of the Fourth Commandment in the Decalogue.
The sanctions for the observance of tlie Lord's Day
were wrongly sought in OT prescriptions (see
Richard Baxter's treatise on ' The Divine appoint-
ment of the Lord's Day proved, etc.,' in Works, ed.
Orme, London, 1830, xiii. 363tl".).
Less than ever is it of service now to appeal to
the Fourth Commandment as an authority in urg-
ing the due maintenance of the Lord's Day ; tliongh,
indeed, the Mosaic institution has its full value as
a venerable exemplification of the naturally wise
provision for a weekly release from daily business
and toil. Christians must rely on other sanctions,
and chiefly the definite association of the day with
the Resurrection of our Lord, the true instinct by
which with great spontaneity the first little Cliris-
tian communities set the day apart, the continuous
usage of the Church, the provision for the function
of worship. Others wiio may be uninfluenced by
specific religious considerations, and for wliom the
very term 'Lord's Day' may have no significance,
may yet very well recognize the value of the under-
lying natural principle of tlie ' day of rest.'
{b) Again, the persistence, or survival, of the pre-
Christian and pagan designation 'Sunday' is a
matter of interest, especially since, being tacitly
denuded of its ancientassociations withsun-worship,
it has come to be invested to the Christian mind
with all the meaning attached to ' Lord's Day,' and
used interchangeably with tliat name. VVe have
seen how careful primitive Christians were to dis-
tinguish between tlie pagan name and that which
they took for their own jjarticnlar use. But the
old nomenclature held its ground in the civil calen-
dar notwithstanding the spread of Christianity.
When Constantino (A.D. 321) publicly honoured
the Lord's Day by enacting that it should be kept
as a day of rest, he spoke of it as dies vcnerabilis
solis. In the latter part of the 4th cent., in one of
the laws of Valentinian II., there occurs the phraise :
' On Sunday, which our forefathers usually and
rightly called the Lord's Day (Dominicum)' — a
further evidence as to the triumph of the ancient
name. It is curious to see ' Lord's Day ' referred
to as an old name that had fallen into abeyance
(see Bingham, op. cit. XX. ii. I).
An interesting subject of inquiry pre.sent3 itself
in the fact that among the Teutonic nations of
Western Christendom this old pagan name, ' day
of the sun,' has established itself in the calendar,
whilst the modern Latin nations employ as the
universal name the early Christian term dies dom-
inica in various forms. (The futile attempt of the
Quakers to supersede both forms and revert to NT
simplicity by using the colourless expression ' first
day' is a matter of history.) In the light of this
divergence Zahn's plea for the day as alike valuable
for Christians and non-Christians has point only
when addressed to the Teutonic peoples. The
weekly festival, he urges, should be upheld as ' a
"Lord's Day" only, of course, for those who call
upon the risen Jesus as their Lord, but as a " Sun-
day" for all men, a day when God's sun shines
benignantly upon the earth' {op. cit. ad Jin.).
Literature.— Art ' Lord's Day ' in HDB (N. J. D. White),
EBi (Deissraann), Sniith-Cheetham's DCA (A. Barry), art.
' Festivals and Fasts (Christian)' in ERE Q. G. Carleton),
art. 'Sonntagsfeier'in/^iiiE3(Z(Jckler); Bingham, Antiijuitifs
of the Christian Church, Oxford, 1855, bks. xx., xxi. ; Duchesne,
Origines du mite chrHien*, Paris, 1!X)9 (Eiig. tr., Christian
Worship*, London, 1912), also Early History of the Christian
Church, vol. i., Eng. tr. from 4th ed., do. 1909; J. A. Hessey,
Bampton Lecture on Sunday, London, 1860 ; Th. Zahn,
Skizzen aus dera Leben der alten Kirche^, Leipzig, 1898,
no. 5 : ' Geschichte des Sonntags vornehmlich in der altcn
Kirche.' J. S. CLEMENS.
LORD'S SUPPER.— See Eucharist.
LOT (Awt).— Lot, the nephew, and for a time
the companion, of Abraham, is thrice over called
'righteous' in 2 P 2''-*'. With all his faults, of
which the spirit of compromise was the most con-
spicuous, he was relatively Skatoy, i.e. in com-
parison with the citizens of Sodom among whom
he made his abode. The Vulg. and Erasmus
assume that in v.* he is designated ' just in seeing
and liearing' — 'aspectu et auditu Justus' — but it
is better to read, ' in seeing and hearing lie vexed
his righteous soul.' The active voice (e^affdvi^ev)
implies that while he was no doubt continually
vexed beyond measure by the conduct of tiie people
around him, his troubles were ultimately of his
own making. ' It was precisely his dwelling there,
which was his own deliberate choice, that became
an active torment to his soul' (H. von Soden in
Handkom. zum NT, in., Freiburg i. B., 1899, p. 203).
James Strahan.
LOTS.— 1. Definition.— The art. Divination in-
dicated how at an early period men felt it to be
their duty and for their advantage to get into and
maintain friendly relations with their divinities.
There gradually grew up, on the one hand, methods
by which the deities revealed their will to men ;
and on the other, methods by wliicli men could
learn the desire or decision of the deities. Among
the latter, one of the most primitive and most
widely diitused was kleromancy (k\^/3oj + AtcwTe/a),
LOTS
LOTS
711
divination by lot. While the efficacy of klero-
luancy in modem civilized life depends on the elim-
ination of all possibility of human interference, in
the lower culture it depends and depended on the
certainty of Divine interference, the untrammelled
exerci^se of the Divine will. This end was attained
by {(i) the use of certain things through which,
according to tradition, the divinities could express
their will. There were many such, as * a rod ' (pd^Sm,
Sb?, hence pa/35o/ta»Teia, 'rhabdomancy '), 'arrows'
(jS^Xot, f? ; hence ^eXo^tojrrta, ' belomancy'), knuckle-
bones {drrpdyaXoi ; hence dtrrpaya\6nams, ' astra-
galomant'), and many others, as pebbles {\frr)<t>ot^
yfi), beans, etc. ; (6) the reverent manipulation of
sacred things through which the deity had indicated
hLs pleasure to make known liLs vail, a good ex-
ample of which is the use by the Hebrew priests
x>f ' the Urim and the Thummim ' ; (c) the select-
ing of a method by which the deity was perfectly
free to express his will without human interference,
a good example of which is seen in the action of
Jonathan (1 S 14*""). This latter use approaches
very closely to the omen or the ordeal and to some
kintls of rhabdomancy.*
2. DifihiBion. — Kleromancy is a universal religious
practice. It was resorted to by the Romans t and
Greeks.* It prevailed throughout the Semitic
world. In the form of belomancy it was used by
the Babylonians (Ezk 21^ •*') ; 'he shook the arrows
to and "fro.'§ It was employed by the sailors of
the ship of Tarshish (Jon 1"), by the Arabs,;! and
Assyrians (HDB iiL \32^), wMle the Persians re-
sorted to it as a means of finding out lucky days
(Yst 3" 9^*^). It nourishes in China and Japan
and in all uncivilized countries to-day. In every
case it is in close connexion with the worship of
the deities, and often takes place in their pre-
sence or in their temples, and always imder their
auspices.
•Among the Hebrews in the oldest times the
typical form of divine decision was by the lot, or
other such oracle at the sanctuary.'^ Later on,
kleromancy was largely and regularly employed
with the sanction of Jahweh, so that, apart from all
human influence, passion, bias, or trickery. He
might be able to dictate His will : ' The lot 'W' prrg
but the whole decision thereof comes from Jahweh '
(Pr 16**).** This means not 'that the actnal dis-
posal of affairs might be widely different from
what . . . the lot . . . appeared to determine*
(Fairbaim, Imperial Bible Dictionary, ii. US), but
the exact opposite ; hence it was clearly established
that ' the lot causeth contentions to cease, and
parteth between the mighty ' (Pr 18^). We have
a conspicuous example of rhabdomancy in the
budding and fruit-bearing of Aaron's rod (Nu 17^"^
[16-23]),tt and the practice is also referred to in
Hos 4^, and probably in Is 17"*. We find klero-
mancy practised in the form of belomancy in 2 K
* S«e James £bre«, ' Divuaatioa among the Ualagasjr,' FoOC'
Xorv. iii. (lS9g]193ff.
t F. Gm^er. The Wonkip of Ou Bamuuu, 1805, pc 180;
Cicero, de IHeinatUme, iL 86, etc ; W. Samth, Diet, of Gnek
and Homan Antiqttities, 1875, artk 'Oncalnni,' 'Sovtes';
ThMiias Gataker, Treatise of Uu Satmre m»d U*e of LObfi, 16S7.
and A juH Defence of certain Paaages m [Ute preceding]
Treatite, 1633, p. 75.
t W. B. BalUdar, Greek Divination, 1913, ch. x. ; Smith, loe.
dt., arC ' Dicastes' ; Tft« Martyrdom ofPolpemrp, ri.
f The Qnr'an (son ▼. 4. Sale's Pret. Ditc t.) prohibite ttw
IMtxauin^of aDiTineKotencebydrawingalotat the sanctnatr
with heMlesB arnnra.
1 W. Bobertsoa Smith, ' Dinnatioa and Magic in Dt ISI*- U,'
in JPh xiiL [1S851 277.
^ W. BobeitsoD Smith, £fr.
** ^r may mean (<t) ' cast into,' or O) ' cast about in ' (ADB
ir. 810X pn may mean the bosom of (a) a peiaon ; (fl) a gar-
ment ; (y) a thing, as a chariot or altar, hence iD%fat poasiUly
mean an urn (Smith's DB iL 146). llie mfaning is afanost
certainly that under (fi).
ft W. R. Smith, RS^, ISM. p. 190, and comment thereon by
O. B. Gray in Com. om Sftmber*(,ICC, 1903Jl
1314-19 ♦ Under the form known as the Urim and
the Thummim it was or became a mode used only
by the priests, t Kleromancy had, of course, its
largest sphere in acts directly connected with
Jahweh. The decision as to which goat should be
for sacrifice to Jahweh and which to Azazel was
determined by lot (Lv lff>-"). A war was the war
primarily not of Israel but of Jahweh, and that
specially if it was for the panishment of wrong-
doing ; hence the members of a punitive expedition
were chosen by lot (Jg 20*), hence also the spoil
taken in war (Jg ff"), whether captives (2 S 8*,
Xah 3'", Jl 3') or sections of a conquered city
(Ob "). The services of the sanctuary were sacred ;
hence the priestly functions were assigned to the
orders by lot (1 Ch 24*-', Lk 1»), Shemaiah the
scribe writing out the lots in the presence of a
committee consisting of the king, the high priest,
and other functionaries (1 Ch 2A^^). The musi-
cians (1 Ch 258), the custodians (i Ch 26^ "), and
the persons who should bring the wood and other
offerings to the temple (Xeh 10"), were all chosen
by lot. So sacred was this procedure that a special
official was entrusted with 'superintending the
daily casting of the lots for determining the
particular parts of the service that were to be
apportioned to the various officiating priests'
(E. Schiirer, HJF n. i. 269, 293). It was even
maintained by some Jews in later times that the
high priest had been chosen by the same method
(Jos. BJ rv. iiL 7, 8 ; c. Ap. iL 24). As the king
was the official representative of Jahweh, Saul was
chosen by lot ( 1 S lO**"^ ). Godless or indiscriminate
work is where no lot is cast (Ezk 24*). When the
c-v: or ban had been pronounced and violated, then
the gmlty person was detected whether the etti
was permanent (Jos 7^*"^®) or temporary (1 S 14"-^),
in both cases presumably by the L'rim and the
Thummim.* As the Semites regarded the land
inhabited by a nation as the possession of the god
of the nadon, Palestine belonged, as an allotment,
to Jahweh (Dt 32*) ; hence it was His right and
duty to put His people into actnal possession
(Ps 105", 1 Ch 16"), which He did (Ps TS^* 135"
Ac 13^*), and to divide it up by kleromancy into
allotments to the various tribes (Xn 26**- * 33^
3Sr).% This accordingly was done in regard to the
nine and a half tribes (Nu 34**, Jos 14* 15» 16*
171. i«7 Ps 78M)^ to the conquered land, to the
land still unconquered after the first great effort
(Jos 18^" 19»-*>), and at the death of Joshua (Jos
13*) ; also in regard to the towns for the Levites
(Jos 21«, 1 Ch 6« ; Jos 21», 1 Ch 6«i ; Jos 21«, 1 Ch
e« ; 1 Ch 6« ; Jos 218, 1 Ch e»). This was done
' before Jahweh ' (Jos IS*) and under the direction
of a committee consisting of the high priest, the
political chief, and the heads of the fathers' houses
of the tribes (Jos W-).
In course of time the proeednre which had been
primarily and essentially sacred was applied to
secnlar affairs such as the selection of people
to inhabit and guard a city (Neh 11*). A study
of the Old Testament reveals how kleromancy
coloured the thought and the theology of the
Hebrew thinkers and poets.
• See abo PS 9is.
t As was the epbod (I S 14i>): T.TX and J. Wdlbaasen.
Protegananena to tie Eittorp ^ isrsel, 1SS5. p. 133; HDB ir.
SK, with the Uteiataie there mentiooed, and r. OOe^.
SIS 1441-^ as amended fien LXX hy A. Knenen, The Be-
ligUm. of Itrael, L [1S74] 98; A. B. & Kennedy. HDB it.
839>> ; 6. B. Grar, in MamtfusU. CotUge Buaps, 1900, Pl 120;
SwB. Driver, Tezto/lAtfAMb o/SraNMi; 1890.
f Eaeldei's ideal divisiaa of tiw land was ly lot (Edc 47S
48^ It was the intentian ol AntiocfaiH, after sobdmng
Palestine, to plant ooionies in the land, dividing it amoi^ diem
by lot (1 MacS^ Joaepbos (B/ m. viiL 7) Mved bis life by
ntAwwmg Ins soldiers to agree diat tlie order in iriudi they
flbooU kin each other sboold be decided by lot. He adds this
oiHnmait, * whether we most say it happemd so by chaaee, or
wbetber by the proridence of God.'
712
LOTS
LOTS
8. In the New Testament. — At the Crucifixion
of Jesus we see ita secular and Kunian use when
the Holcliors divided His upper garments among
themselves by lot.
After the suicide of Judas it was decided that
a successor should be appointed. The procedure
(Ac r-"-^) was as follows. From the mass of the
followers of Jesus, numbering about one hundred
and twenty, those only were declared eligible who
had proved their steadfastness by keeping in con-
stant contact with Him from His baptism. From
this short leet they appointed ((arrjcrai' ; not ' put
forward') two. Neither the parties M'ho did this
nor the method of doing it are mentioned. Then
prayer was otiered to Jesus* for His decision.
The next step is not quite certain. H the words
(iuKav k\i)poi<% ai>ro«r, which is the correct reading,
mean ' they gave the lots to tliem,' then that
indicates that to each of the two there was given
to place in the proper receptacle a tablet with
his name or mark, and he whose tablet was lirst
shaken out was held to be Divinely elected. But
the phrase is not the classical nor the NT expres-
sion for casting lots, and if rendered ' they gave
lots for them,' a quite legitimate rendering, then,
as Mosheim helif.t the election was by ballot.
This, of course, is not in harmony with Jewish
practice, as seen in the selection of the goats
(Lv 16^). From the result being indicated by the
words ' the lot fell ' and not ' the Lord chose,' it
has been argued tiiat the election was unwarranted
and tliat the Divine intention was tliat St. Paul
should fill the place of Judas. This is a piece of
pure imagination. Nor is there a shadow of proof
that the eleven were in any special manner led
either to appoint a successor or to appoint him
by this method. The fact that the election took
place before Pentecost has no vital significance.
The act, in the face of the enemies of the Church,
was, like the auctioning of the camp of Hannibal
by the Komans, a boldlj' prudent step, a declara-
tion to all that the Church was neither cowed by
the death of her Lord nor dejected by the suicide
of the traitor, but was girding herself for a forward
march. When St. ,Iames was martyred there was
no occasion for such an act, and no successor was
appointed. Hence this remains the only official
use of the lot in the Apostolic Church.:): Klero-
mancy has left its mark on the thought, and
specially on the soteriology, of the Apostolic Age.
K\rjpoi is used in the secondary sense which it
gradually gained as something assigned to man
by a higher power. Judas had received rbv KKrjpov
in the ministry carried on by Jesus (cf. II. xxiii.
862 ; Ac 1'"), and iiis su(!cessor was to take not rhv
KKrjpov (K C^E), but only his rbirov, ' place ' (ABC*D ;
Ac 1^), while in it Simon Magus had neither yuepis
0^5^ kX%os, neither a share, a limited portion, nor
an allotment (Ac 8^'). The vpea^vripoi must not
exerci.se lordly mastery (cf. Ps 9 [10]*) over wliat
is not theirs, but tCiv kXtipwv, allotments made to
them (1 P .')'). Ignatius prays for grace els t6 rbv
K\r}p6v fjiov dvefjLirodicrTws diroXa^f'ii', ' to cling to my
lot without hindrance to the end ' {Epistle to the
Romans, i.). K\r]povofj.la has its original sense of
an allotment made by a higher power. Abraham
went out from Ur into a T6iroi>, a district in which
he was promised an allotment (He 11"), but in
* H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord^^, 18S5, p. 375 ; A.
Carr in Erpositor, 6th ser. i. [1900] 389 ; and various Coniinen-
aries in loco.
t J. L. .Mosheim, Inetitttfes o/ Ecclesiastical History, 18CS, p.
20, note 3.
X 3. Bingham, Ori'jines Ecclesiasticce, 1840, iv. 1. 11 ; J.
Cochrane, Discourses' on Difficult Texts of Scripture, 1851, p.
297 ; J. B. Lijfhtfoot. Epixtle to the Philippians-, 1870, p. 240 ;
F. W. RoberUon, Sfrtnony, 4th ser., 1874. p. 117; F. Reii<lall,
Expositor, 3rd ser. vii. []Ks;«l 357 ; HDIl iii. 305, and liUratnre
there mentioned. The Oitlache (15) contains no reference to
the method of eleclinjf lii^hops and deacons.
which he actually got none (Ac 7*), the allotment,
and all its accompaniments, resting on nothing
legal, but on a mere promise (Gal 3"*). Similarly
the called of God still receive only the promise of
an allotment which is eternal (He 9'").
The transmission of an allotment was regulated
by certain customs. A holder could convey it to
another, as Isaac did to Jacob, and such transfer-
ence could not be cancelled or altered ((in 27^^, He
12"). It was recognized that the son of a female
slave could not share an allotment with the son of a
free-born wife (Gn 21'", Gal 4^"). Hence gradually
the children, just because they were the children,
of the possessor (Ro 8'^) claimed the allotment on
the death of the possessor as a thing to be divided
anion" them (Lk 12'^). Because a child came to
be looked upon as the holder of the K\^pos, and
when he attained the proper age (Gal 4') entered
on possession, K\ripop6/xoi (KXrjpos + vi/xofiai, 'hold')
came to mean what we call an ' heir ' (He 1 1").* In
this sense the word is used prolejftically in the
expression, ' This is 6 K\-ripov6nos, let us kill him
and the KXrjpovofxla will become ours ' (Mt 21^, Mk
12^ Lk 20"). Similarly the higher things of life
came to V)e looked upon as something the xX^pos of
which a man could hold. Noah became the holder
of the KXijpos of righteousness (He IV). Very sig-
nificant as attaching excellency to a name, as a
condensed form of the whole personality, is the
expression that the Eternal Son Siatpopunepov KfKXrjpo-
vSfirjKev 6vofj.a, had allotted to Him a more excellent
name (He I'*), and tiius became the One to whom
all things were allotted (He l*), KXrjpovbuov wivruv.
Salvation, whether as promised or bestowed, is,
in its ultimate eschatological form, sometliing
allotted. St. Paul's mission to the Gentiles was to
open the eyes that they might receive kXjjpov, an
allotment, a thing falling to their lot, among them
that are sanctified (Ac 26"*). God, who is able to
give them a KX-qpovofjilav among all them that are
sanctified (Ac 20^-'), t Himself causes them to be-
come partakers rov KXrjpov, of the allotment of the
saints in light (cf. Ps 15 [16]8, Col 1*-), the dppa^ufv,
the arles of the allotment, being the gift of tiie
Holy Spirit (Eph I''*), and the ministry of the
angels (He 1"). The promises of God are given
as an allotment to tiiose who exhibit faith and
patience (He 6'-), and Christian graciousness to
others (1 P 3*); while to him who overcomes
temptation there is given as an allotment the
blessing that only God can give (Rev 2V), and to
those who comport themselves rightly to the home
circle there is given as a recompense the allotment
(Col 3-'*). The saints in this way become, as Israel
of old (Dt 4-» 9-*-29 328), the allotment which
belongs to God (Eph 1'^), iv (f kuI iKXrjpwdrifiev (N
BKLi'), and, being the riches of His glory (1"*), are
the heirs of all the promises (He 6'"). Just as the
earth is an allotment made to the meek (Mt5'),
and eternal life an allotment to those who have
left houses, etc. (Mt 192^ Mk 10", Lk 10=« IS'*,
Gal 5-'), so there is a Kingdom in which the un-
righteous (1 Co 6''-''*), in which flesh and blood
(1 Co 15**), in which fornicators, etc. (Eph 5'),
cannot receive an allotment ; for it is an allotment
prepared only for the blessed of the Father (Mt
25**). It is tlierefore a spiritual allotment, incor-
ruptible, undeliled (1 P l"*). This iwssession passes
to men not through force of a legal enactment,
but through their showing themselves heirs to it
by their ethical and si)iritual conduct. Thus the
allotment of this Avorld, promised to Abraham,
pa-sses to those linked to him not by flesh and
blood, but only by the righteousness of faith (Ro
* Cf. the remarks on feudal tenure in J. Hill Burton, Tlif
Scot Abroad, 1898, p. 4.
t Cf . Polycarp, Episllf to the Philippians, xii. : 'det vobis
sorteni et p.irtem inter sanctos suos.'
LOTS
LOVE
713
4^'- '*), ami only those who are thus in Christ are
Abraham's progeny, and KXrjpovdfioi according to
the promise (Gal 3^). They are the heirs of
eternal life, according to hope (Tit 3''), and because
they have loved their Lord (Ja 2*). Hence it is
that the Gentiles equally with the Jews are aiv-
K\r]pov6p^ot, fellow heirs (Eph S**), and wives are crw-
K\r)pov6fiois, joint heirs of the grace of life (1 P 3").*
The conception of salvation as something allotted
to man may have tended to obscure the necessity
for diligence and earnestness in the pursuit of the
Christian ideal, and this again may account for
the absence of the idea from the writings of the
Apostolic Fathers. In actual life at least we are
not unfamiliar with something similar.
While kleromancy, it is true, ' appeared to take
the responsibility of decision out of the hands of
man and vest it in the presiding deity,' t yet, in
reality, its tendency is not to exalt the Divine will
but to enervate the human mind. It thus tends
to destroy our sense of responsibility, and the
duty of patiently permitting God to enlighten our
minds as to what is right. It thus robs us of the
moral and spiritual discipline of acting according
as conscience, enlightened by Him, dictates, and
besides opens up infinite possibilities of trickerj-
and fraud. Through the action of the eleven, and
age-long influences, Jewish and pagan, kleromancy
continued to be practised in the Church. Augus-
tine held that divisorj* lots were lawful in conmion
things but not in di posing of ecclesiastical offices
and lives of men,* and similar views continued to
prevail till near the end of the 17th century. §
Jeremj- Taylor still thought it 'not improbable,
and in most cases to be admitted, that (iod hath
committed games of chance to the Devil's conduct.' li
Wesley believed in Divine guidance being given by
lotjIF and in 1738 a journey to Bristol was finally
decided on, after various appeals to the Sories
Sanctorum, by kleromancy.** Among the Moravi-
ans, whose lirst ministers were chosen by lot, in
1467, and whose church life was at first completelj-
regulated by kleromancy, its sphere was steadily
and gradually limited, and it is now scarcely recog-
nized.ft Though down to the end of the 16th cent, it
was frequently practised,:^! and the prevailing view
was that 'lots may not be used, but with great re-
verence, because the disposition of them cometh im-
mediately from God,' yet the arguments of Gata-
ker §§ that such Divine interposition was ' indeed
mere superstition,' and that ' lots were governed
by purely natural laws,' gradually influenced
educated men. Among the more illiterate sects
kleromancy long lingered, and the scene in Silas
Marner (ch. 1) was true to life. Pious but ignorant
people still resort to it in one form or another.
The rule that when a lower type of religion is
absorbed or superseded by a higher the ceremonies
of the former finally become games, and then
children's games, is illustrated by the fact that
the casting of lots, once sacred and solemn, is
now totally confined to games.
LiTKRATURK.— This has been indicated in the foot-notes.
P. A. GoRDOx Clark.
* Cf. the slave made co-heir (Hennas, ii.).
t J. E. Carpenter, Comparatire Religion, 1913, p. 178.
X Bingham, xvi. 5. 3.
§ Bingham, iv. 1. 1. For the connexion between kX^imk and
•clergy' see Li^htfoot, p. 245, and E. de Pressensc, Christian
Life and Practice in the Early Church, ISSO, p. 52.
II Ductor dtibitantium, 1660, iv. 1.
^ Life 0/ Weslej/, by Robert Southey (Bohn's edition, 1864), pp.
80, 81, 110, 111, 119, note 27.
** Journal of John Wexley (Evernnan's editionX i. [1906] 175.
tt Primitive Church Ooreminen't in the Practice of the Re-
formedin Bohemia, with notes of John Amos Comenius, 1703,
pp. viii, 23 ; H. Klinesmith, Divine Providence, or Historical
Records relating to the ilorarian Church, Irvine, 1S31, p. 432.
Jt See, e.g., Johnson's Life of Cowley (Ximmo's edition).
§§ Thomas Gataker, Treatise of the Nature and Use of Lots
pp. 91, 141.
LOVE. — 1. Linguistic usage. — Two verbs are
used by the NT to designate religious love — d7oirai>
and <pL\fiv. In theLXX a third term, fpif, occurs,
but only once sensu bono, viz. Pr 4® (love of wisdom),
once in a neutral sense, viz. Est 2" (the king loved
Esther), everywhere else as a figure of idolatry or
political theocratic unfaithfulness (Jer 22*"-**, La
1J9, Ezk l6»-38.»7 035.9.23^ Hos 2^- 1»- 12. 13). That
the NT does not employ ipdv at all is probablj' due
to the sensual a-ssociations of the word. In regard to
the difi'erence between aya-rdv and <^t\eti' the follow-
ing should be noticed. The etymology of dyarSip
is uncertain, but it .seems to be allied to roots ex-
pressing ' admiration,' ' taking pride in,' 'taking
pleasure in.' This points to the conclusion that
dyairdv is the love of selection and complacency
ba-seil on the perception of something in the object
loved that attracts and pleases. This element of
selective attachment shows itself in the fact that
dyarav can mean ' to be contented with,' ' to
acquiesce in,' 'to put up with,' and also in this,
that dya-ravis not used of the love of mere compas-
sion. On the other hand, ^i\e7v seems to have as its
fundamental root-meaning the intimacy of bodily
touch, ' fondling,' ' caressing,' whence it can signify
' to kiss ' ; it therefore denotes the love of close as-
sociation in the habitual relations of life — love be-
tween kindred, between husband and wife, between
friends (Mt 6* 1(F 23«, Lk 2tJ^, Jn IP- » 1225 1519^
1 Ti 6'» [<pi\apyvpial 2 Ti 3-» [(piXrjdovos], Tit 2* [<pi\-
avdpos], Ja 4^ l<pi\ia tov koc/iovI). In Latin diligere
corresponds to dYairai', a ma re to ^iXeiv, except
that amare covers a wider range, corresponding
also to the Greek ipay. From this distinctive and
fundamental meaning the fact maj' be explained
that in biblical Greek dyairdv is used exclusively
where man's love for God comes under considera-
tion : it here implies the recognition of the ador-
able and lovable character of tlie Deity. ^tXeiv is
never used of man's love for God as such, because
the mental attitude of intimacy which the word
implies would be out of place in the creature with
reference to the Deity (it is different where the
love of the disciples for Jesus is spoken of [Jn Iff"
2iis-i6-n^ 1 Co 16-]). Scripture prefers the word
which unambiguously puts human love in the re-
ligious sphere on a moral and :?piritual basis, even
if, in order to do so, it has to leave sonjewhat of
the intensity of the religious afiiection unexpressed.
As designations of the love extending from God to
man l)oth dyatrdvand <pt\ei» may be used, the former
in so far its God's love is not blind impulse or ir-
rational sentiment, but a love of free self-deter-
mination, the latter because it is proper to God by
a gracious condescension to enter into that close
habitual friendship with man which the word con-
notes. As a matter of fact, hov.ever, <pL\dy is but
rarely used to describe the love of God towards
man.
In extra-biblical Greek love as extending from
the gods to man seems to be an unkno^\Ti concep-
tion, for according to Aristotle and Dio Chrysos-
tom both d7aira«' and (fnXeTv have place not in those
who rule with reference to those they rule over, but
only in the opposite direction : dToirov ^tXetv tAi'
Ala (where A^ is the subject).
It is in keeping with the distinction above drawn
that the specific term for brotherly love (see art.
Brotherly Love) is tfH\ad€\4>ia, for the idea is
derived from the family-relation, although, of
course, dyairdv here occurs with equal frequency.
On the other hand, of the love for enemies enjoined
in the XT (piXeTv never occurs, being excluded by the
nature of the case, whereas dyairdy, involving a
deliberate movement of the will, may apply to such
a;relation.
While it appears from what has been said that
dYoirai' had by reason of its inherent signification
/
714
LOVE
and classical use an antecedent fitness to expre&s
the Mblical idea of reli^iouH lovu, tliis should not
be construed to mean that tlic word carried already
in extra- biblical Greek all the content of the Scrip-
tural conceotion. In the profane usaj^e the moral,
spiritual element was yet lacking, although the
elements of choice and rational attachment were
given. Like so many other words \vhich possessed
an antecedent affinity for the biblical world of
thought from a formal point of view, it needed the
baptism of regeneration in order to become fit for
incorporation into the vocabulary of Scripture.
The noun dydtrri seems to have been coined by
the LXX to translate the OT conception of religious
love. It is not found in classical GI reek, nor even
with Philo and Josephus. Perhaps the fact that
the profane literature does not have the noun is
significant. It can be explained on the principle
that only through transference into the moral,
spiritual sphere could the habitual character of
the act of loving, which is inherent in the noun,
originate. The noun in the Vulgate is caritas,
from carum habere, which admirably expresses
the specific character of the biblical conception.
Caritas in turn gave rise to the * charity ' of the
English Uible (AV), in most passages used of love
towards fellow-Christians (cf., however, 1 Co 8*,
1 Th 3*, 2 Ti 2^ 3'**, where there is no reason so
to restrict it). The IIV substitutes 'love,' in all
passages where the AV has ' charity ' (26 times in
all), for the reason that ' charity ' has in modern
usage become restricted to the love of beneficence
or forbearance.
The following discussion confines itself to the
love existing between God and man. For love as
between man and man see art. BitoTHERLY Love.
2. Love in the apostolic teaching. — Love is in
the apostolic teaching a central and outstanding
trait m the disposition of God towards man. In
this respect the view taken by Jesus is fully
adhered to. If in the witness of the early Chuich,
as recorded in Acts, no direct affirmation of this
firinciple is made, that can easily be explained
rom the apologetic purpose of this witness. In
the fellowship or the first Christians among them-
selves the indirect operation of the new force
introduced by Jesus into the hearts of His followers
manifests itself clearly enough (Ac 2^'"" 4^-"^-).
i. St. Paul.— With St. Paul love is explicitly
placed in the foreground as the fundamental dis-
position in God from which salvation springs and
as that which in the possession of God constitutes
for the believer the supreme treasure of religion.
God is the God of love (2 Co 13"). In Gal 5=^ love
is named first among the fruits of the Spirit. It
is associated with the Fatherhood of God (Eph 6^).
In the apostolic salutations it stands co-ordinated
with the grace of Christ (2 Co 13", Eph 6^, 2 Th
3'). It is the greatest of the three fundamental
graces of the Cliristian life, and the sole abiding
one of these three (1 Co IS^-'^). This primacy love
can claim even in comparison with faith. For, on
the one hand, faith as well as hope is a grace made
necessaiy by the provisional conditions of the
present sinful world, and in both its aspects — that
of mediate spiritual perception and that of trust —
will be superseded by sight in the world to come
(2 Co 5^) ; on the other hand, faith as compared
with love is instrumental, not an end in itself ; it
brings the Christian into that fundamental relation
to God, wherein his religious faculties, foremost
among which is love, can function normally (Gal
5*). The prominence of faith in the Pauline teach-
ing is not therefore indicative of its absolute and
final preponderance in the Christian consciousness.
It would, however, scarcely be in accordance with
St. Paul's view to press the primacy of love to
the extent of denying all independent significance
LOVE
to other religious states. There is an aspect in
which faith in itself, and apart from its working
through love, glorifies God (Ito 4-"), and whatever
thus directly contributes to the Divine glory has
inherent religious value. The same must be
afiirmcd of the knowledge of God. The emjihasis
thrown throughout the NT on the value of truth
cannot be wholly explained from its soteriological
utility. It expresses the conviction that knowing
and adoring God are in themselves a religious act,
apart from all fructifying influence on the believer's
life. When St. Paul includes ' knowledge' (1 Co
13*) in the thinfjs that shall be done away, this
applies only to the specific mode of knowledge in
tins life, the ' seeing in a mirror darkly,' the know-
ledge of a child, which will make place in the
world to come for a full knowledge ' face to face,'
analogous to the Divine knowledf^e of the believer
(v.^-). ' Knowledge,' while of value, is not equal
in value to love (1 Co 8^).
{a) The love of God. — It has been alleged that in
two respects the Apostle's teaching on the love of
God marks a retrogression as compared with the
gospel of Jesus : on the one hand, St. Paul restricts
the love of God to the circle of believers, thus
making sonship co-extensive with adoption = justifi-
cation ; on the other hand, he emphasizes, side by
side with love, the working of sovereignty and
justice as equally influential attributes in God,
whence also the effectual communication of the
Divine love to the sinner cannot, according to
the Apostle, take place except as a result of the
sovereign choice of God and after satisfaction to
His justice. This charge, however, rests on a mis-
understanding of the teaching of Jesus. Jesus, by
way of correction to the prevailing commercial
conception of God's attitude towards man in
Judaism, brings forward the love of God. Never-
theless the specific Fatherly love and the corre-
sponding state of sonship are in His gospel, no less
than with St. Paul, redemptive conceptions, per-
taining not to man as such, but to the disciples,
the heirs of the kingdom. This may be seen most
clearly from the fact that in its highest aspect
sonship is an eschatological attainment (Mt S'-*, Lk
20^®; cf. Ho S-"-*). It is true that a developed
soteriology like St. Paul's, delimiting the mutual
claims of the love and justice of God, is not found
in our Lord's teaching. But this could not be
expected before the supreme saving transaction —
the Death of Christ — had actually taken place.
The great principles on Avhich the Atonement rests
are enunciated with sufficient clearness (Mk 10^).
In comparisons between Jesus and St. Paul it is
frequently overlooked that what corresponds to
the Apostle's soteriology is the eschatological
element in Jesus' teaching. As a matter of fact,
St. Paul's doctrine of salvation was developed in
the closest dependence on his eschatology. If the
comparison be instituted with this in mind, it will
be seen that in our Lord's eschatological utterances
the sovereignty and justice of God occupy no less
central a place than in the Pauline doctrine of
salvation, and that the love of God in its eschato-
logical setting is to Jesus as much a redemptive
factor as it is in the Pauline gospel.
The phrase ' the love of God ' occurs in the
Pauline Epistles in Ko 5« 8^, 2 Co 13»*, 2 Th 3»,
Tit 3* (^iXttf ^/)wjr(a) ; ' the love of Christ ' occurs in
Ro 8^ (variant reading 'love of God'), 2 Co 5'*,
Enh 3^9 ; ' the love of God in Christ ' in Ko S»». In
all these cases the genitive is a subjective genitive.
In 'the love of the Spirit' (Ko 15**) the genitive
seems to be that of origin (cf. Col 1*). Some
exegetes propose for Ko 5' and 2 Th. 3* 'love to-
wards God.' In the former passage the context is
decisive against this (cf. v.^ and the fact that the
consciousness of ' the love of God ' furnishes the
LOVE
LOVE
715
ba«is for the certainty of tlie Christian iiope). In
2 Th 3* the sense is determine*! by the parallel
phrase, vro/xovij toO Kpiffroi) ; if this could mean the
'patient waiting for Christ' (AV), then dyaTr) toO
$eoO would be 'love for God.' Such a rendering,
however, seems to be linguistically improbable,
and the ordinary interpretation of vronovv as
' patience,' ' steadfastness,' requires XpurroO as a
subjective genitive. The meaning is not that the
love of God and the patience of Christ are held up
as models to the readers, but the Apostle prays
that their hearts may be directed to a full reliance
on the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ
as the two mainsprings of their salvation. In 2
Co 5^* i] yap dyairr] rov XpurroO aw^x^'- Vf'-S.i is not to
be explained on analogy with the preceding ' fear
of the Lord ' (v."), nor in contrast to the knowledge
-of ' Christ after the Hesh ' (v.i*), in the sense of St.
Paul's love for Christ ; but, in close agreement with
the following ' One died for all,' it is meant of the
love Christ showed by His Death.
To St. Paul the love of God is throughout a
specifically redemptive love. Its manifestation is
seldom sought in Nature and providence (Ro 8^,
' all things'), but regularly in the work of salvation.
Since this work culminates in the Death of Christ,
the Cross is the crowning manifestation of the
Div-ine love (Ro 5*). What thus finds supreme
expression at its height underlies the entire process
as its primordial source. The love of God is to St.
Paul the fountain of redemption. It lies behind
its objective part, what is theologically called
' the Atonement,' for St. Paul traces this in both
its aspects of reconciliation and redemption to the
one source. As regards reconciliation, the initia-
tive of love is inherent in the conception itself,
since God makes those who were objectively His
enemies His friends, creating by the Death of
Christ the possibility for His love to manifest itself
(Ro 5«- ^'>- ", 2 Co 5>*- i«-2i). The idea of redemption
has the same implications, for it emphasizes the
self-sacrifice of love to which God was put in saving
man (Ac 2(F, 1 Co 6-» 7^). This love is unmerited
love, hence its more specific name of xop"> 'grace.'
It is 'love,' not mere 'mercy' or 'pity,' which
determines God's attitude towards the sinner.
The mercy is enriched by the love (Eph 2^). The
usual associations of ayairdv apply to the love of
God for sinners only in so far as it is a deliberate
movement of the Divine will and purpose, not
because there is something admirable or attractive
in the spiritual and ethical condition of man which
would explain its origin. For the very reason
that it springs spontaneously from God without
objective motivation, this Divine love is a mystery
'passing knowledge' (Eph 3''). Salvation on its
subjective side is derived by St. Paul even more
clearly from the love of God. The gift of the
Spirit is a pledge of it to the believer ; hence with
the pouring forth of the Spirit into the heart, the
love of God is poured out therein (Ro 5'). On the
consciousness of this love rests the certainty of
liope in the completion of salvation (Ro 5^- '). St.
Paul calls the love underlying the application of
redemption irp6-/vw(nt, 'foreknowledge' (Ro 8^);
the simple yiyvuxrKeiv in this specific sense occurs
in 1 Co 83, Gal 4^, 2 Ti 2^^. This term denotes not
an intellectual prescience ; but, in dependence on
the pregnant sense of the Hebrew pt (Ex 2^, Hos
13', Am 3-), it means that God sovereignly sets
His afl'ection upon a person. The absoluteness
and unconditioned character of this ^ro^nom are
such that it can furnish proof for the proposition
that all things work together for the good of
believers. Hence it fixes as the destiny of believers
('predestination') eschatological likeness unto the
image of the glorified Christ, and with infallible
certainty moves forward through the two inter-
mediate stages of vocation and justification to the
goal of this glory (Ro S"-*'*^). The conception of
eKXayn, eicX^Yeff^at (middle voice, ' to choose for one's
self ') has likewise for its correlate the sovereign
love of God (Eph 1*). The association of the
redemptive love of God with His prerogative of
sovereign choice renders the word dyaxqp especially
suitable for describing the relation involved. It is
in the interest of emphasizing both the sovereign
Divine initiative and the energy and richness of
effectuation of redemptive love that St. Paul
affirms its eternity (connoted also by the rpo- in
irporyiyvuffKeiv [Eph 1*]).
The love of God does not exclude for St. Paul
the co-ordination of other attributes in God as
jointly determinative of the Divine redemptive
procedure. In the Cross of Christ is the great
manifestation of love, but it is not the love of God
alone that the Cross proclaims. It also demon-
strates the SiKaioavtnj = the justice of God (Ro Z^^-).
The a.ttemptoiB.it&ehl{Bechffertigung nndVersohn-
ting-, ii. [1882-83], pp. 118, 218 ff.) and others to give
to oiKaiocrCivri in this context the sense of gracious
righteousness, making it synonymous with the love
of God, breaks down in view of the ' forbearance '
of v.^. If it was ' forbearance ' which postponed
under the Old Covenant the demonstration of God's
righteousness, then this righteousness is conceived
as retributive.
(b) The love of Christ.— The love of Christ St.
Paul %-iew3 chiefly as manifested in His Death
(2 Co o^**-). or in His life as entered upon and lived
with a view to and cvdminating in His Death
(Ph 2'^-)- The Incarnation is an act of self-
kenosis, not in the metaphysical, but in the meta-
phorical sense (AV ' made himself of no reputa-
tion '), hence is described in 2 Co 8* as a ' becoming
poor.' It ought to be noticed that the love of
Christ, as well as that of the believer, is in the
first place a love for God, and after that a love for
man. Christ lives unto God, even in the state of
glory (Ro 6^"), and »ave Himself in the Atonement
a sacrifice unto God (Eph 5-).
(c) Love toicards God. — The references to the
lieiiever's love for God are not numerous in the
Pauline Epistles. Explicit mention of it is made
in Ro 8"^, 1 Co 2* 8'. From his anti-pietistic stand-
point Ritschl would interpret this scarcity of refer-
ence in St. Paul and the NT generally (outside of
St. Paul only Ja 1"^ 2*) as due to the feeling that
love to God is something hardly within the religious
reach of man. He observes that in 1 Co 2^ the
phrase 'them that love God' is a quotation, and
surmises that the same quotation underlies all the
other passages except 1 Co 8' {op. cit. ii. 100).
But this is a mere surmise, and St. Paul has at
least in one passage appropriated the thought for
himself. Besides this the analog of the love of
Christ for God favours the ascription of love for
God to the believer. The same 'living for God'
which is predicated of Christ (Ro 6^®) is elsewhere
attributed to the Christian (Gal 2^\ As Christ
sacrificed Himself to God (Eph 5-), so the believer's
life is a spiritual sacrifice (Ro 1* 12^). The Father-
hood of God and the sonship of the believer postu-
late the idea of a mutual love (Ro 8^). The idea
is also implied in the fact that St. Paul places at
the beginning of the Christian life a crucifixion
and destruction of the love for self and the world
(Ro 6«, Gal 2'3 6"), since under the Apostle's
positive conception of the Chilstian life something
else must take the place of the previous goals.
The glorifying of God in all things has for its
underlying motive the love of God (Ro 14®, 1 Co
10^1, Eph l^-').
ii. Pastoral Epistles.— In the Pastoral Epistles
the universality of the love of God is empha-sized.
In the earlier Epistles the Apostle's universalism
/
716
LOVE
is not (leJiiced from tlie love of Cod Imt from otlier
principles, and is distinctly of an iiitcrniitioniil
type. Tiie Pastoral Epistles make of the love of
Clod a universalizin;,' pnncij)lo aiid extend it to all
men, not merely to men of every nation (1 Ti 2^-"
410 013^ 'Yii 2" 3^). In some of these passages the
context clearly indicates that a reference or God's
love to all classes of men is intended (cf. 1 Ti 2^
with vv.'--; Tit 2" with vv.-'^"). But the em-
phasis and frequency with which the principle
IS brouj^tht forward render it prohahle that some
snecitic motive underlies its assertion. 80 far as
the inclusion of ma^jistrates is concerned, there may
be a protest against a form of Jewish particularism
which deemed it unlawful to pray for pa{,'an
nmgistrates. In the main the passages cited will
have to 1x5 interpreted as a warning against the
dualistic trend of Gnosticism. Gnosticism distin-
guished between two classes of men, the wevfjui-
TiKol and the vXikoI, the latter by their very nature
being unsusceptible to, and excluded from, salvation,
the former carrying the potency of salvation by
nature in themselves. Over against this the
Pastorals emphasize that the love of God saves all
men, tiiat no man is by his subjective condition
either sunk beneath the possibility or raised above
the necessity of salvation. Hence the (t>ikavdptaicla
of God in Tit S* is love for man as man, not for
any aristocracy of the irvev/xa. This philanthropy
is not to be confounded with the classical concep-
tion of the same (cf. Ac 27^28"), for the latter is
not love towards man as such, but simply justice
towards one's fellow-man in tlie several relations
of life, and is conceived without regard to the
internal disposition. Frobaljly the choice of tlie
word is in Tit 3* determined by the preceding
description of the conduct required of believers
for which the Divine 'philanthropy' furnishes the
model. But that its content goes far beyond
general benevolence may be seen from this, that it
communicates itself through the Christian redemp-
tion in the widest sense (vv.'''). In ail this there
is nothing either calculated or intended to weaken
the Pauline doctrine of the specific elective love of
God embracing believers. The Pastorals aliirm
this no less than the earlier Epistles.
iii. Ei'ISTLE OF James.— The Epistle of James l)y
calling the connnandment of love 'the royal law'
(2^) places love in the centre of religion, i'iiis love
is not merely love for men but love to (!od (2"'). It
chooses iUm and rejects the world, the love for
God and the friendship of the world being mutually
exclusive (4-'). It manifests itself in blessing Goil
(3®). Behind this love for God, however, St. James,
no less than St. Paul and St. John, posits the love
of God for the sinner. God is Father of believers
(3*). They that love (iod are chosen of God (2').
The Divine love is a love of mercy ; even in the
Day of Judgment it retains the form of mercy (2'-'
5*"). It is a jealous love, which reqiiires the xin-
divided affection of its object (4*). An echo of the
Synoptical preaching of Jesus may be found in this
that St. James sees the love of CJod demonstrated
in the gifts not merely of redemption, but likewise
of providence (1'^).
iv. Epistles of Peter.— The Epistles of Peter
dwell on the love of Christ rather than on that of
God. Christ's love is a love of self-denial (1 P 2'-')
and of benevolence for evil-doers (3'*). To it corre-
sponds love for Christ in the heart of Itclievers.
St. Peter shows that this love is strong enough to
assert and maintain itself in the face of the in-
visibleness of Christ (I*; cf. 1 Jn 4*"*). The love
for God and Christ is consistent with and accom-
panied by fear (1 P 1'^- "*). God's love is implied in
the mercy which lies behind regeneration (l^).
God is the Father of believers (!'") ; they are the
tlock of God (5-) ; He (or Christ) is the Shepherd
LOVE
of their souls (2"). The longsuderiiig of (io<l, as
a fruit of the Divine love, is njentioned in 2 P 3".
V. Hebkews.— The theme of the Epistle to the
Hebrews — the perfect mediation of priestly ap-
proach unto God — coupled with the writer's vivid
perception of tiie majesty of (iod brings it about
that the love of God remains in the background.
The Epistle emphasizes the fear of God even for
believers (4'* "''^ 12^). Still believers are sons of
( Jod (2'» 12^), brethren of Christ (2"- i-- "). God
loves His children as the Father of Spirits (12*''").
He is tiio (Jod of Mis jieople in the pregnant sense
(11'"). The subsumption of the greater part of the
religious consciousness under faith brings it al>out
that the love of Christians is less spoken of here
than elsewhere in the NT. It is mentioned in 6'"
as a love shown towards God's name, i.e. towards
God, in the service of the bretlueu. The Epistle, on
the otiier hand, makes much of the love of Christ for
believers as it assumes the form of mercy. This
mercy is, however, not motived by the mere sutter-
ing as such, but specifically by the moral aspect of
the sullering. It is compassion with the moral
weakness and danger arising from sutlering, be-
cause sullering becomes a source of temptation.
Christ can exercise this mercy because He Himself
has experienced the temj)ting power of sutlering
(018 415),
vi.JoHANNiNE LITERATURE. — There still remains
to be considered tiie Johannine literature including
the Gospel, so far as the statements of the Evan-
gelist himself are concerned. Both the Gospel
and the First Epistle represent love as tiie ultimate
source and tiie ultimate goal of Christianity. There
is this difierence, that what is in the Gospel related
to Christ as love of Christ and love for Christ, is
in the Epistle related to (Jod in both directions.
In the Apocalypse love to Jesus appears in 2^, love
of Jesus in P 3**. ' The love of God ' is not uni-
formly, as in St. Paul, the love which God shows,
but partly this (1 Jn 2^ 4«-i-') and partly also the
love cherished towards God (Jn 5^^ 1 Jn 2'^ 3^^ 5*).
Possibly the construction is meant as an inclusive
one: 'the love wliich (iod has made known and
which answers to His nature ' (so B. F. Westcott,
The Epistles of iit. John, 1883, }». 49). Love is to
St. John as to St. Paul a spccilically Divine thing.
Wherever it apjjcars in man, it must be traceil
back to (jod, and jtarticularly to God's love (1 Jn
410. 19) ji^j, source iies in regeneration (4^). The
Divine primordial love is grace, not motived by
the excellence of human qualities, for it expressed
itself in giving Christ as a proi)itiation for sin (4"- '**).
The supreme manifestation of God's love is the
gift of Christ, and Christ's giving of His own life
for man (3"* 4", Kev 3^*). Hence the (Jospel char-
acterizes the love which Jesus showed in His Death
as an d7a7rai' ei'j tAoj ('to the uttermost'). The
giving of tiie Spirit of God is an act of love not
merely because the Spirit is an inestimable gift,
but because in the Spirit God communicates llim-
self ; herein lies the essence of love (1 Jn 3'^ 4").
The highest embodiment of this redemptive
love is the state of sonship (1 Jn 3^). The
Apocalypse uses for this, as extending to the Church
collectively, the OT ligure of the bride of God
(llev 19^ 2r--''). Sonship is not represented, as in
St. Paul, as awaiting its eschatological consumma-
tion, but rather as issuing into a higher, yet un-
known, state (1 Jn 3-). The summing up of the
Christian life in love is rejuesented as 'a new com-
mandment,'which is at the same time old ( 2^- * 3"- ■•^).
It is old in so far as it goes back to the creation
(' from the beginning ' [2^ 3", 2 Jn*-"]) ; it is new
in so far as through Jesus and His work it has now
become an actuality in the life and experience of
Christians; hence 'it is tnic in him and in you'
(1 Jn '2^). la both the Gospel and the First Epistle
LOVE-FEAST
LOVE-FEAST
717
' to know Gotl ' is used as synonymous with ' loving ;
God. ' ' To know ' is taken in such connexions {
in the pregnant sense which implies intimacy of
acquaintance and the fellowship of affection. At
the same time there is in this an indirect protest
against the unethical intellectualism of the false
Gnosb (IJn 2=- * «• " 3>- « 4«- "• «• « 5»).
Both the Gospel and the First Epistle emphasise
the universalism of the love of God as demon-
strated in the gift of Christ for the sin of *the
world.' In Jn 3'* ' the world ' (6 Kocfios) seems to
be rather qualitatively than quantitatively con-
ceived ; the greatness of God's love is seen ia this,
that He loves that which is sinful (cf. 1 Jn 2^).
Both the Gospel and the Epistle also lay stress on
the primacy of love in the character of God (1 Jn
48. iG^^ That the universalism must not be under-
stood as appropriating the love of God in its most
pregnant sense to every man indiscriminately
appears from such statements as Jn e-"-**-** 13^ 15'^
l-6.8.i3_ ^ predestinarian strand is traceable in
St. John as well as in St. Paul. And that the
clear statement about the primacy of love in GJod
should not be construed to the exclusion of every
other attribute or disposition in God appears plainly
from the difference which both the Gospel and the
Epistle make between God's and Christ's attitude to-
wards the world and towards believers — a difference
inconceivable were there in God no place for aught
but love. The statement ' God is love ' means to
affirm that into His love God puts His entire being,
all the strength of His character. In the Apoca-
lypse it is most vividly brought out that in God,
brides love for His own, there is wrath for His
enemies (cf. even ' the wTath of the Lamb ' [6^*]),
although it is to be noticed that the Apocalypse
speaks as little as the Gospel and the Epistle of
God's hatred towards His enemies. The latter
term is reserved for the description of the attitude
of the world towards Gotl and Christ and believers.
The hatred of the world explains the righteous
Nvrath of God and believers against the world
(Jn 3» T 1518- ==•-*•=» 17", Kev 2«}.
LiTERATTRE. — Schmidt, Handbrieh der lutein, wni grieek.
Sirnonymik, ISSti, pp. 7o«>-rC«S ; R. C. Trench, ST Sj/Mmgm^,
1901, pp. 41-14 ; J. A. H. Tittmaan, de Sfwrnytnit in ST,
lS-29-32, pp. 5<>-55: H. Cremer, BM.-TheoL Worterbueh der
neutegt. Grdeiuit^, 1911, s.v. ayawam ; Deissmaiin in ThLZ, 1912,
C0L3. 522-5^ ; E. Sartorios, The Doctrine 0/ the Dinne Lote,
Eng. tr., 1SS4 ; G. Vos, ' The ScripCaral Doctrine of the Love of
God," in Preib. and Re/. Review, nii. (1902] 1-37 ; W. Liitgrert,
DU Liebe im ST, 1905. GEEKHARDUS VoS.
LOVE-FEAST The history of the Agapae or
Love- Feasts of the Christian Church is beset with
peculiar difficulties, and has given rise to grave
differences of opinion among scholars. It has
even been maintained by Batitlbl * that they were
absolutely non-existent in the Apostolic Age ;
and, though this view has not found general ac-
ceptance, it certainly deser\es to be treated with
respect. The name is indeed found only in the
Epistle of Jude (v." ; cf. also 2 P 21^), the date of
which is quite uncertain ; and it is probable that
in the earliest days the name was unknown. Still
there is reason to believe that the common meaLs,
which afterwards gained the name of Agapie, were
held by Christians from the beginning. These
common meals Mere an external expression of the
sense of brotherhood which was characteristic of
the primitive Christian churches, and they were
no doubt suggested by similar institutions, which
seem to have been common among both Jew.s and
Gentiles. It is also probable that the recollection
of the Last Supper of our Lord with His disciples
was an additional cause of the holding of these
meals.
1. In the Act& — The Acts of the Apostles gives
* Muides d^Uattnre et de theolotfie pontic*^. Puis, 1907.
ns a picture of the life of the primitive Church at
Jerusalem.* In Ac 2*^ we read that the converts
' continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching
and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the
prayers.' In v. *« we read that 'day by day, con-
tinuing stedfastly with one accord m the temple,
and breaking breeid at home, they did take their
food with gladness and singleness of heart.' These
passages axe patient of an interpretation which
excludes anything like an Agape. ' Breaking
bread' may refer only to the Eucharist; ana
the reference to the taking of food may be merely
an expression denoting their joyous manner of
life. So it is understood by BatifloLt But the
view of Leclercq J seems more probable — that the
breaking of bread was accompanied by a meal.
For we know that that was the case at Corinth,
and it is exceedingly probable that the communism
of the Church at Jerusalem would involve common
meals. Indeed, something of the kind seems to
be indicated by Ac 6^. That this included the
Eucharist there can be very little doubt, though
it is unlikely that it was identical with the Euchar-
ist. The ' breaking of the bread ' is an unusual
phrase, and as it seems clear that in Corinth the
Eucharist took place during or at the end of a
supper, so it probably did in Jerusalem. But the
evidence is not sufficient to make any conclusion
certain. In Ac 20''" we read that at Troas on the
first day of the week the Christians were gathered
together to break bread. St. Paul spoke to them
till midnight, broke bread and tasted it. Here
the object of the meeting was the breaking of
bread. And the whole context iK)ints to its ha^in^
been a religious rite. There is no hint of a meal
in the ordinary sense. The word yevaaneroi cer-
tainly does not necessarily imply it. It is, how-
ever, possible, though it seems unlikely, that such
a meal took place.
2. In 1 Ctorinthians. — We now come to the ac-
count given in 1 Co Hi*-** of the Eucharist at
Corinth : ' When ye assemble yourselves together,
it is not possible to eat the Lord's supper : for in
your eating each one taketh before other his own
supper ; and one is hungry, and another is drunken.
What ? have ye not houses to eat and drink in ?
or despise ye the church of God, and put them to
shame that have not ? . . . When ye come to-
gether to eat, wait one for another. If any man
is hungry, let him eat at home ; that your coming
together be not unto judgement.' The most pro-
bable interpretation of the passage is that St.
Paul blames the Corinthians for misljehaviour at
the supper, which should be the Lord's Supper,
but cannot be so regarded in view of their be-
haviour. It seems that the rich men brought
their own food, and immediately on arrival formed
groups, and began to eat their supper without
waiting to see whether there were any poor men
l)resent who had nothing to eat. St. Paul suggests
tiiat if they are hungry, they had better have
something to eat before they come. The whole
supper is the Lord's, for He is the host. And St.
Paul reminds them of the significance of what
takes place at the supper, namely the Eucharist —
a real Communion ^vith the Body and Blood of
Christ, and a memorial of His Death.
BatiJffol, on the other hand, maintains that St.
Paul blames them for associating the Eucharist
with a meal at all, and thesame \-iew was pre^-iously
taken by John Lightfoot.§ It must be admitted
that his language in v.**, ' Have ye not houses to
eat and to drink in ?' seems logically to imply
* See »rt. Eccbakbt.
t Op. eit. p. S8S.
{Art. • Agzpe' inCabni'a Diet. d^mrtkMoffie ehrOieiHie et de
Uttergie, toL i.. Paris, 1907.
i Workt, ed. Hbnaii, London, 1322-26, roL tL p. S32 ff.
718
LOVE-FEAST
LUKE
that the assembly of Cliristians is not a suUuljlt!
occasion for a meal. But his exhortation to them
to • wait one for another ' seems to have iid puint
unless there is to be a meal. While the consider-
ations adduced by St. Paul no doubt were ulti-
mately operative in bringing about a separation
of the Eucluirist from the Agape, yet it is highly
jirobable that they were not carried to theii: logical
conclusion at once, nor indeed intended to be so
carried. There is no doubt that there was a supper
at Corinth at the time when St. Paul wrote ; that
all the members of the Church came together to
it, bringing their own contributions. Ihis was
apparently a sort of funeral memorial feast, sacred
in its associations, but especially sacred because
in the course of it the Eucharist was celebrated.
This meal was desecrated by the Corinthians, who
ignored its sacred character, making it no longer
an expression of the brotherhood of the community,
but an ordinary meal, and an occasion for display
and gluttony.
3. In Jade and 2 Peter. — The writer of the Epistle
of Jude speaks (v.'-) of certain heretics who are
' hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast
with you.' In the parallel jiassage in 2 P 2'^ the
bulk ot the MSS read dirdrats for dydirais. J. B.
Lightfoot* regards iwiraii as an obvious error for
dyaTraii, and Biggt follows him in this view. The
matter is of no importance for our purpose, as it is
the opinion of the majority of scholars that 2 Peter
is dei)en(lent on Jude, and there can be no reason-
able doubt that in Jude dydiran is the right reading.
BatiHol maintains that Jude is in the habit of
usin^ plurals instead of singulars, and understands
him here to mean 'love' with no reference to the
Agape. But this translation of the word does not
seem possible ; and we are clearly driven to the
conclusion that, among the people to whom Jude
wrote, the Agape was an established institution,
and the name had already been given to it. But
the destination of the E])istle is very doubtful.
M. R. James X ■writes : ' We may place the com-
munity to which he writes very much where we
l)lease : Di". Chase's conjecture § that it was at or
near the Syrian Antioch is as good as any.' There
is nothing to indicate the relation of the Agape
mentioned by Jude to the Eucharist. It seems
most probable that, as in Corinth, the Eucharist
took i)lace at or near the end of the supper. St.
Paul's words fierd t6 SeiTrviJo-ot in 1 Co 11^ make it
fairly certain that Chrysostom is wrong in his
statement that the Eucliarist was followed by a
meal. No doubt Chrysostom based his view on
the customs of his own time, when fasting com-
munion was the rule.
4. Analogies with Love-Feast.— A great deal of
information has been collected by Leclercq || about
the prevalence of funeral banquets all round the
Mediterranean. These banouets were originally
for the benefit of the deau, though later they
became simply memorial meals. These supply us
with an analogy to the Agape. But it is probable
that even more operative was the example of the
common meals oi the various gilds which wvrv a
I)rominent feature of social life in Greek (iiics.
t would be most natural that converts to Chris-
tianity should welcome a Christian common meal,
on the lines of those to which they were accustomed.
Parallels are also to be found among the Jews.1]
Unfortunately, our evidence is not sufficient to
enable us to draw a clear picture of what the
Christian Agape was like. It was not purely a
• Apostolic Fathers, pt. ii.2 vol. ii., London, 1889, p. 813.
t Com. on Kpp. o/ Peter and Jndei {ICC, Edinburjrh, 1902).
; Com. on 3 I'eter and Jitde (Cambridge Ureek Testanieut,
Canihridife, 1912), p. xxxviii.
i 11 DB, art. ' Jude, Epistle of.'
I' Ijoc. cit.
1 C(. JosephuB, Ant. xiv. x. 8 ; Jer W.
cliarity-supper, tliough the evidence of the Corinth-
ians shows us that it was intended that this char-
acteristic should not be wholly absent. It seems
to have been primarily an expression of the sense
of brotherhood which Christians felt. The fact
that the Eucharist was associated with it gave it
a specially sacred character, and makes it certain
that it must have been connected in the minds of
tiiose who took part in it with the Last Su])per.
But abuses aro.se in connexion with it both in
Corinth and — apparently — among those to whom
the Epistle of Jude was written. The evidence
which we have suggests plenty of reasons for the
separation of the Eucharist from the Agape, which
seems to have taken place at an early date.
Litkrati;rf. — Besides books and articles already mentioned,
see j. F. Keating, The Agape and thi: Eucharixt, London, IWl ;
A. J. Maclean, art. ' Apape ' in KllE ; J. B. Mayor, Api>cndix
C in Ilort and Mayor's Clement of Alexandria, Seventh Book of
the Stromateix, London, 1902 ; also books and articles men-
tioned in art. Eiciiarist. G. H. ClAYTON.
LUCAS.— See Luke.
LUCIUS. — Lucius of Cyrene was one of the
prophets and teachers who presided in the Church
at Antioch (Ac 13*). He seems to have belonged
l)retty certainly to the band of Cypriotes and
Cyrenians by whom the Gentile Church at Antioch
was founded (11-"). Some commentators have
rather absurdly identified him with St. Luke.
The names are not identical or even very near one
another, and there is no reason to think that St.
Luke would have introduced himself in this hap-
hazard way. He may be identified with the Lucius
of Ro 16^1. W. A. SrooNER.
LUKE.— I. IXFORMATIOy AS TO BIS HISTORY.
—1. In the Pauline Epistles.- The Pauline Epistles
contain various references to a certain Luke, who
is in tradition always identified with the author of
the Acts and Third Gospel. These references are :
(1) dffird^erai v/jloLs Aou/cas 6 iarpbs 6 dya-n-r}T6% (Col 4'^) ;
(2) do-TTcifeTai ce . . . AonAcas (Pliilem-''); (3) Aoyxas
ianv fidvos fier ifiov (2 Ti 4"). From these scanty
allusions we can gather that Luke was a companion
of St. Paul at the time that Colossians (with its
appendix Philemon) and 2 Timothy were written,
and also that he was a physician. The trust-
worthiness of these statements may reasonably be
regarded as falling short of the highest grade.
The authenticity of Colossians (q.v.) is probable,
but cannot be regarded as quite so certain as that
of the earlier Epistles ; there is a ditlerence between
the group Colossians-Ephesians and the group
Corinthians-Galatians-Romans which extends to
thought as well as to language, and raises the sug-
gestion that the former group is either un-Pauline or
has been much edited. It is on the whole perhaps
probable that this doubt ought to be i)ut aside on
the ground that the theories of interpolation or
pseudepigraphy cause more difficulties than they
solve, but the point has not yet been sufhciently
discussed by critics. In the same way and in
somewhat greater measure the reference in 2
Timothy must be discounted, on the ground of
doubts as to the authenticity of the Epistle. So
long as these doubts exist, the possibility cannot
be entirely excluded that the references to Luke
ouglit to be regarded as the result of the tradition,
rather than as the proof of its accuracy.
A similar element of doubt attaches to the
question of the place in which Luke and St. Paul
were working together (awepyoi /xov in Philem'"
covers Luke). There is no critical agi-eement as
to wiiether the so-called Epistles of the Imprison-
ment were written from Ciesiirea, from Rome, or
(according to a more recent hyjwthesis) from
Ephesus. It is, however, noticeable that, as
LUKE
LUKE
719
llarnack points out (Lukas cicr Arzf, Leipzijj, 1906,
p. 2), Luke is not referred to as a ' fellow-pnsoner,'
and there is consequentlj- a presumption that he
liad accompanied St. Paul in freedom and as a
friend.
2. In tradition. — Very little is added by tradition
to the information in the Pauline Epistles except
(a) the constant attribution to Luke of the Third
Gospel and Acts ; (b) the statement that he was
an Antiochene Greek ; (c) somewhat less frequently,
statements tliat he died in Bceotia, Bithynia, or
Ephesus ; (rf) the statement, found only in late
AISS, that the Gospel was written in Alexandria,
The most important expressions of tradition are
those of (1) Eusebius; (2) Jerome; (3) the Mon-
archian Prologues, found in Vulgate MSS, and
possibly of PrisciUianist origin ; (4) notes appended
to NT MSS.
(1) Eusebius. —
Aouicas 5« TO iiiv ytvoi 5)V Tav afr' "AiTtox'wiS, ttji' Si ciri(mj(iTji'
tarpon, TO irAeioTtt <rvyyryova»s tw IlavAu, icai tois Aonrois Si ov
wopcpyaK Ttii' attoa lokuv w/xtAT)Ku$, i^ oirb tovtiov irpo<reicT^<raTO
\lrux*>y fltpajrevTKOfS iv Svai-v ruilv viro5ciy/iOTO Btoirvrvaron
KaroAcAotirc Pi^ioit r<Z re cirovytXjM, 6 icol X'*P<'f*' (lapTVpfiTcu,
KoSa vapiSovTO aiVnt ot air' apxifs ainovrai Kal irmipiTiu ysvofievoi
Tov Xoyov oI{ Kat ^T^tv iTzavaOfv aireuri irap7)icoXov0i)«'»«<, koX
T«us Ti>v airo<rroAuv wpd^etriv at ovKtri Si' axorj^ o^oA/uotf Si
avTOis irapaXafiaiv orvveTaSaTO. ♦aut Si £ti apa toO Kar' avTiv
fvayyekiov niTifiovevdv (laiOfv 6 IlavAos OTnjviKa in jrspt iSiov
Tivoi eiiayyeAiou ypd^v fAryf ' icaTa to €v<ryy«'Ai6i' fiov ' (^HE iii.
4,6).
This, which is the basis of almost all later state-
ments, shows no knowledge beyond what can be
deduced from the Epistles, combined with (i.) the
belief that the same Luke wrote Acts and Gospel ;
(ii.) the statements in the preface to the Gospel ;
(iii.) the (undoubtedly mistaken) view that St.
Paul was referring to a book when he spoke of ' his
gospel' (Ro 2i«, 2 Ti 2«) ; (iv.) possibly the text in
some MSS (which may belong to that I recension
which, on von Soden's view, was familiar to
Eusebius) of Ac ll**'* : ev raiTais ratj ijfiepais
KaTriXdov airb 'lepoaoXvfiuv irpo<f>i}Tai els ' Avrioxeiav
(ruvc(rTpa[i|xevci)v 8c iqfjiwv f<p7] els i^ avrwv ovojxaTi
'Aya^os kt\. (D p w Aug.); this is, however, by
no means certain ; and there is no proof that this
text was known to Eusebius.
(2) Jerome. —
' Lucas medicus Antiochensis, ut eius scripta indicant, Gneci
sermonis noa ignarus fuit, sectator apostoli Pauli et omnis
perejrrinatlonis eius comes scripsit evangelium, de quo idem
Paulus : Misimus, inquit, cum illo fratrem cuius laus est in evan-
gelic per omnes ecclesias ; et ad Colossenses : Salutat vos Lucas,
medicus carissimus ; et ad Timotheum : Lucas est mecum solus.
Aliud quoque edidit volunien egregium quod titulo irpaf«t$
ob-oo-toAmi' pnenotatur : cuius historia usque ad biennium
RomjB commorantis Pauli pervenit, id est, iisque ad quartum
Iseronis annum. Ex quo intelligimus in eadem urbe librum
esse compositum. Igitur s-fpio^ous Pauli et Thecte, et totam
baptizati leonis fabulam, inter apocryphas scripturas com-
putamus. [Then there follows the weli-known passage about
the Acts of Paul, quoting Tertullian (see Acts [Apocrvphal])!.
. . . Quidamsuspicantur quotiescumque in epistolissuis Paulus
dicit, luxta evangelium menm, de Lucae signiflcare volumine,
et [? at] Lucam non solum ab apostolo Paulo didicisse evangelium,
qui cum domino in carne non fuerat, sed a ceteris apostolis ;
quod ipse quoque in principio sui voluminis declarat, dicens :
Sicut tradiderunt nobis qui a principio ipsi viderunt et ministri
fuerunt sermonis. Igitur evangelium, sicut audierat, scripsit.
Acta vero apostolorum sicut \-iderat ipse composuit. Vixit
octoginta et quattuor annos, usorem non habens. Sepultus est
Constantinopoli, ad quam urbem vicesimo Constantii anno ossa
eius cum reliquiis Andres apostoli translata sunt de Achaia'
(de nv. Illustr. vii.).
(3) The Monarchian Prologues. —
' Lucas Syrus natione Antiochensis, arte medicus, discipulus
apostolorum, postea Paulum secutus usque ad confessionem
eius, serviens deo sine crimine. Xam neque uxorem umquam
habens neque Alios Lxxiui annorum obiit in Bithynia plenus
spiritu sancto— qui cum iam desoripta essent evangelia per
Mattbseum quidem in ludaea, per Marcum autem in Italia, sancto
instigante spiritu in Achaiae partibus hoc scripsit evangelium,
significans etiam ipse in principio ante alia esse descriptL Cui
extra ea quae ordo evangelicse dispositionis exposcit, ea maxima
necessitas laboris fuit, ut primum Graecis fidelibus omni perfec-
tione ventari in camem dei manifestata, ne ludaicis fabulis
intentiin solo legis desiderio tenerentur neque hcreticis fabulis
et stultis sollicitationibus seducti exce<1erent a veritaie, elabor-
aret, dehinc ut in principio evangelii lohannis nativitate prse-
sunipta cui evangelium scriberet et in quo electus scriberet,
indicaret, contestans in se completa esse quae essent ab aJiis
inchoata, cui ideo post baptisnium filii dei a perfectione genera-
tionis in Christo inplet;e et repeteiidx a principio nativitatis
humana; potestas permissa est ut requirentibus demonstraret,
in quo adprehendens erat, per Xathan filium introitu recurrent!*
in deum generationis admisso indisjiartibilis dei, prsdicans in
hominihus Christum suum perfecti opus hominis redire in se
per filium facere. qui per David patrem \enientibus iter
praebebat in Christo. Cm Luca; non inmerito etiam scribend-
orum apostolicorum actuuni potestas in ministerio datur, ut
deo in deum pleno ac Alio proditionis extincto oratione ab
apostolis facta sorte domini electionis numenis compleretur,
sicque Paulus consumuiationem apostolicis actibus daret, queni
diu contra stimulos recalcitrantem dominus elegisset. Quod
legentibus ac requirentibus deum etsi per singula expediri a
nobis utile fuerat, scientes tamen, ^uod operantem agricoUm
oporteat de fructibus suis edere, vitarimos publicam curiosi-
tatem, ne non tarn volentibus deum videremur quam faatidient-
ibus pro<lidisse ' (the full text of the Monarchian Prologvet is
given in Kleine Texte, i., by H. Lietzmann, Bonn, 19(6, and
there is a full discussion by P. Corssen in TU xv. 1 [1896]}.
(4) Information in MSS of the Gospels. — Almost
all tlie later MSS contain statements at the begin-
nings or ends of the various books relating to their
authors. They are of course important as repre-
senting ecclesiastical tradition rather than as con-
taining historical evidence. The most complete
list of the Greek ones, is given by von Soden in
Die Schriften des NT, i., Berlin, 1902, p. 293 ff.
The most important items referring to Luke aie
the following :
(i.) aweypdir] to icara AovKav evoYytXiov ftera xpoyom u (15)
TTJ? ToO XpioToG aroAijiJitttK (v 'AXe^avSpfia 'EAAijfiaTi- There is
also a form of substantially the same note beginning : i^eSo^
irpb? Bcw^tAoi' eirto'icoiroi' '.\.>Tiox"a9, vpbf &K kcu al rpa^tti-
This form is found in many late MSS with a great number of
textual variants, (ii.) A remarkable form is found in e 377 :
TO Kara. \ovKay evayye'Atoi' KoX n>v ayt'uf asvoToAwf ai rpo^etf
v-!rriYopfv&j)<ray vvo iXeVpov icox HavAou twk aainnoKiar firra
Xpoi-o«5 viyrf kou StKa rffi tov XpMTToO orttXijifKmf. Aovxa; Si 6
taTpb; <rvvfypat!>f koI iicqpv^e ml cicotftiT^i) iv ^rifiali iritv orfioTq-
Koyra r^Tvapmv. (iii.) Further information confirming the huse-
bian tradition that Luke was an Antiochene is found in some
MSS, e-g. ovro? 6 ruoyytAtVmjs Aovica; ^v fiiv 'Ai»Ttox«vs 07601}-
Koi^a rftrtrofnav (c 1156), and 6 fuixopiof Aovicas o evayyeAi7Ti|S
yiyovf Svpof (« 3006).
Added to these note may be made also of the famous pseudo-
Dorotheus, and the longer Sophronius. The text of the former
is sufficient to illustrate their character :
Aouicav 6 tvayyfkCcrnfi 'AvTtoxfi'? Itiv to yei^>« ^i", larpof Si rifv
rrxyqv. trweypdyfia-n Si tx> iiiv evayyiXioy kot' ortTpoirijv IIcTpav
rov atrooToAov, tolj Si vpo^cit twv dstxrroAuv icar' i-mpoiniv
UovAov toO oiro<rr6Ao«. <n)vavfSii))iTi<re yap Tots acoordAois cat
/loAtora tu IlavAot, ov cat fimtfiovewra^ 6 Hai/Aof eypaififv iv
eiriOToAg 'ajrrd^frax v/iaf Aovxa; o larpot 6 iyosTfrbs iv mipuf.'
aviOavf Si iv 'E^Vcb icat irdibi) (Ktl. fieTfTfffri Si wrrepov iv
Kiav<rravTivovtr6\ei ^rra icai 'AvSpiov ical Tiito6iov riiv avtxrrokuv
Kara tov? Kiupovi Kuporavriov fiatri\euK vloi Kuvaravrivov tov
lieydXov (the t«xt, and that of Sophronius, are given in von
Soden's Die Schriften des ST, L 1, p. 306 ff.).
IL 'it'lifi '^.Sii-V^rrJ70fi.— The foregoingpara-
graphs summarize all that is known as to the
' historic Luke.' It now remains to discuss (1) the
internal evidence supplied mainly by the Acts for
and against the tradition which identifies the
' historic Luke ' of the Epistles with the ' literary
Luke ' who wrote the Gospel and Acts ; (2) the
sources used by the ' literary Luke ' ; (3) his
literary methods. It would also have been desir-
able to discuss his theology, but this has already
been done in art. ACTS OF THE Apostles.
1. The arguments for and against the Lacan
authorship of the Third Gospel and Acts. — In
favour of the Lucan authorship Harnack argues
that the redactor of Acts, like Luke, was (1) a
fellow-worker with St. Paul ; (2) an Antiochene
Greek ; (3) a physician ; (4) the writer of the ' we-
sections.' The reasons for this argument are
stated in his Untersuchungen zu den Schriften des
Lukas (Leipzig, 1906-08) with great power, but
with a certainty which is sometimes too great.
(1) It is of course abundantly e\-ident that the
Acts represents in the ' we-sections ' the evidence
of a companion of St. Paul, but until the linguistic
argument has been accepted as convincing it does
720
LUKK
LUKE
not follow that the redactor of the whole was the
autlior of the ' we-scctions.'
(2) In the same way it is abundantly clear that
a great part of the Acts is concerned with Antioch ;
but if, as Acts states, Antioch was really the centre
of tlie Gentile Christian nioveniont, this is really
a sullicient ex))lanation, and throws no necessary
li^'ht on tlio provenance of tlie writer. If anyone
were to write tlie history of economics in Enfjland
in the 19th cent., lie would constantly be speak-
ing of Manchester, but it would not follow that he
was a Mancunian : similarly, the writer of Acts
constantly speaks of Antioch, but he need not have
been an Antiochene. That Luke was a Greek ratlier
tlian a Jew is possibly true, but the evidence is
poor, llarnju'k says:
' Lukaii war (rel)orcner Grieche— Evanpfelinm und Acta zeisren,
wim ciiies Hewt-ises nicht erst bedarf, daH!< sic iiiclit von eineiu
>fel)orenen Judoii, sondern von cineui Oriechcn vorfasst sind,'
and adds in a note : ' Ob der Verfasser bevor er Christ wiirde
judischnr I'rosel.vt gewesen ist, liisst sich nii'lit entscheidcn.
Seine Erwilhiiunjf der Proselyten in der Apostelgeschichte
liUst keinen Si.;hlu88 zu. Seine virtuose Kenntnis der frriech-
ischen Bibel Icann cr sich sehr wohl erst als Clirist angeeitrnct
haben. Fiir scincn criecliischen Ursprung zeugt iibriyrens
allein schon dns ol pdpPapoi, in c. 28, '2. 4 ' (Lukas der Ant, ch.
i. [Eng. tr., 19()7, p. Vli.]).
It may fairly he urged that Hamack does not
sufficiently emphasize the complete absence of
direct evidence that Luke was a Greek. The facts
seem to be quite adequately covered if we suppose
that Luke was a Hellenistic Jew.
(3) Tliat Luke was a physician is argued by
Hamack — following up and greatly improving on
the methods of Hobart — on tiie grouml of his use
of medical language. The argument is of course
cumulative, and cannot be epitomized. It is be-
yond doubt that Luke frequently employs lan-
guage which can be illustrated from Galen and
other medical writers. The weak point is that no
sufficient account has been taken of the fact that
much of this language can probably be shown
from the pages of Lucian, Dion of Prusa, etc., to
have been part of the vocabulary of .any educated
Greek. It is, for instance, too ' keen ' wJien it is
alleged that the Lucan phrase Kal €ir{<jTpe\(/€v rb
irvfvfua avTTJs Kal aviarr) irapaxpvf'-''- iu Ll^ 8'''" is a
medical improvement on tlie Marcan Kal ivOus
dvcarrj to Kopdaiov (o*-). Could we stamp a writer
as a physician at the present time because he
spoke of ' bacilli,' or described a state of mind as
' pathological '? Yet it is doubtful whether there
is anything .so 'medical' in the Third Gospel or
Acts as these expressions. The truth seems to be
that, if we accept on the ground of tradition the
view that the Gospel and Acts were written by a
physician, there is a certain amount of corrobora-
tive detail in the language ; but if we are not in-
clined to accept this view, the ' medical ' language
is insutlicient to show that the writer was a physi-
cian, or used a more medical phraseology than an
educated man might have been expected to ])ossess.
(4) Far more imi>ortant than tliese lines of
argument, which seem to attempt to prove too
much from too little evidence, is the thesis
that linguistic argument shows tliat the writer of
the ' we-sections ' is identical with the redactor of
the Third Gospel and the Acts. Here again the
cumulative nature of the argument jmdiibits its
complete reproduction. The pages of Hamack
must be studied in detail. But the main outline
is that, if we study the Third Gospel in comparison
with Mark and any sort of reconstructed Q, we
shall fmd out whidi idioms are especially Lucan,
in the sense of bclongwig to tlie redaction of the
Gospel. If then we lind that the 'Lucan' phrase-
ology is especially marked in the ' we-sections,' it
follows that the writer of the 'we-sections' was
the redactor of the whole. John C. Hawkins,
in Horte Synoptica (Oxiovd, 1899, =^1909), had al-
ready (i%. .attention to the fact that this line
of researi . pointed to the unity of the Lucan
writings and the identity of the scribe of the ' we-
sectionsjj with the redactor of the whole, and in
Lukas der Arzt Harnack elaborates the argument
very fully, and muy be regarded as having proved
his point, if it be granted that no redactor would
liave completely ' Lucanized ' tlie 'we-sections'
without altering the characteristic use of the first
person. Unfortunately, this is a rather large
assumption, and it is not impossible that the re-
dactor kept the first person, because it implied
that his source was here that of an eye-witness.
It is clear from the preface to the Gospel that he at-
tached imi)ortance to the evidence of eye-witnesses.
The arguments against the Lucan authorsliip of
Acts (and the Third Gospel goes with them) have
been given at length in dealing with Acts. In
summary they are that a comparison between the
Acts and tlie Epistles shows that, wherever Luke
and St. Paul relate the same facts, they give
discordant testimony, and that the Pauline and
Lucan theology are evidently dillerent (see ACTS).
It is not impossible to give an explanation of these
facts consistent with the Lucan authorship, but
their obvious bearing is to render that theory im-
probable, so that the results of these two lines of
investigation, the linguistic and the historical and
tlieological, do not point in quite the same direc-
tion. The linguistic argument as stated by Har-
nack goes a long way towards proving that the
redactor of the Third Gospel and Acts is identical
with the author of the ' we-sections ' and the nar-
ratives immediately cohering with them. This
conclusion is not seriously impaired if it be granted
that in telling his story the writer often makes
use of clicMs relating to miraculous episodes found
in the literary work of this or a slightly later
period, c.q. iii Philostratus,* and perhaps in the
lost writings of Apollonius of Tyana. On the
other hand, the historical and theological argu-
ments support the contention that the author can
scarcely have been a companion of St. Paul.
Whenever it is possible to compare Acts and
Epistles, discrepancies of varying seriousness are
to be found, and the Acts shows very few or no
signsof acquaintance with the Atonement-theology
or the Christology of the Epistles.
Two ways may be suggested of combining these
conflicting results. On tlie one hand, it is possible
that the prima facia evidence of the linguistic
facts is fallacious. The central point of Harnack's
argument is that the same linguistic character-
istics are to be found throughout the wliole work
as in the 'we-sections.' It is assumed that the
latter and the cohering narratives may be taken
as normative, and that they have been unchanged.
Hut if this assumption be challenged, the argument
falls to the ground. Suppose that the redactor
found a source relating the greater part of St.
Paul's life, and in places claiming that the writer
was an eye-witness by the use of the first person,
it would be not unnatural for the redactor care-
fully to preserve these important indications of
the value of his source, while at the same time re-
writing or touching up the rest of the language.
It would then present all those signs of identity
of literary style with the rest of the book which
Hamack has emphasized. This theory circum-
vents the literary argument, and enables us to
accept easily the historical and theological results
which render doubtful the view that the redactor
was a companion of St. Paul.
* Tliis seems to t>e the most important result of E. Norden's
Agnostos Theos (Leipzijif, lOlU); he does not really prove that
the story of St. Paul at Athens or similar incidents are free
literary "comjiositions, and void of all historic.al found.ition, but
does show that a considerable use was made of literary cliches
in setting out, illuBtrating, and adorning a narrative.
LUKE
LUKE
•21
On the other hand, it may be tlui- vc are de-
manding too liigh a standard of accuftioy in the
Acts : sifter all, the inaccuracies and mistakes —
for they can scarcely be anything less — a.e chiefly
iound in the earlier parts of Acts, and Lake may
have been a companion of St. Paul, and yet never
have thought of making very careful inquiry from
him as to the events of his early career. This
would be esjieoially probable if, as the suggested
use of Joseplius implies, Luke wrote his two
treatises for Theophilns late in life (c. A.D. 90).
The theological ditficulty is more serious : it is
very difficult to understand how a companion of
St. Paul can have had a theology and Christology
which are on the whole more archaic than those
of the Epistles. To some extent, no doubt, this
can be explained by the different objects of the
wQrks. To some extent also it is no doubt true
that we have gone altogether too far in recon-
structing a ' Pauline theology ' out of the Epistles ;
these were St. Paul's answers to controversial
points, not statements of his central teaching.
Probably the preaching of St. Patil was much
more like the Acts than systems of Paulinismus
reconstructed out of the Epistles. At the same
time, it is doubtful whether these considerations
really carry us all the way. The theology of
Acts — not linguistic characteristics or historical
inaccuracies — is the greatest difficidty which faces
those who accept the authorship of the Third
Gospel and Acts by a companion of St. Paul. At
present the matter is sub judice, and Hamack's
powerful advocacy has turned the current of feel-
ing in favour of the traditional view, but he has
really dealt adequately with only one side of the
question and dismissed the theological and (to a
somewhat less extent) the historical difficulty too
easily. It will not be surprising if a reaction
follows when these points have been more ade-
quately studied and expounded.
2. Lake's soarces. — In the complete absence of
any definite statements as to the sources used by
Luke, with the exception of the preface to the
Gospel, internal evidence can alone be used, and the
results of its study are necessarily only tentative.
In the preface to the Gospel Luke tells us that
he was acquainted with many previous attempts
to give a 5tTiyr]<rit> rOiv irerKyipoipofn^fiivuv iv tjijuv
rpay,udT(i)v — a difficult phrase, which, however,
much more probably means ' the things accom-
Elished among us' than the 'things most surely
elieved among us' — in accordance with the
tradition of the original eye-witnesses, and that
he also had decided to write an account of them
because he was raptjKoKovdrjKori dvudev Tciffiv. From
this passage it has sometimes been concluded that
Luke disapproved of the previous ettorts, and re-
garded himself as altogether superior to his pre-
decessors. This, however, is not the natural
meaning of the Greek ; Luke says : ' Inasmuch as
many ... it seemed good to me also' (Ka/wi),
and the force of the ' also ' is to class him with and
not above his predecessors. A more serious
problem is provided by the exact exegesis of xa<rt
m P. Does it refer to the roWoi of 1^, or to the
rpayndruv of the same verse, or to the avr&rrai of
1"' ? No decision is possible ; the probability is
rather in favour of a reference to xoWot, as carry-
ing on and explaining the iireiSrirep xoXXot of the
opening words, but the other alternatives are
possible. In any case, the main object of Luke
was to provide Theophilns with the proof (fro
e-riyvifii . . . tt}» dff<pa\€iat') of the Xiyyot in which
he had received oral instruction {KarnxvBris). Luke
is therefore ^vriting history with the object of
giving the historical basis of the statements (pre-
sumably theological) which were current in the
oral instruction given to converts.
VOL. I. — 46
(a) The toritien s'otirces tued by Luke. — In tlie
Crospel at least two written sources can be detected.
(1) Mark, either exactly in the form now extant,
or in one only sliglitly differing from it, was
certainl}' used by Luke. This is one of the most
secure results of the criticism of the Synoptic
Gospels. (2) Besides Mark, Luke used a docu-
ment commonly called Q {QuiUe), which was also
used by Matthew, and, according to some scholars
(not, the present writer thinks, correctly), by
Mark. The exact contents of Q cannot be defined.
Nor can we say with certainty whether Q represents
one or many documents. These points are at
present among the most warmly debated and
most intently studied problems in the Sj^noptic
question. If, however, Q be used to cover all the
material common to Matthew and Luke, and it be
assumed that Q is only one document, it must
have been Greek, not Aramaic, as the agreement
between Matthew and Luke is often too close to
admit the jxissibility that the two narratives re-
present two translations of a single Aramaic docu-
ment. In the same way the Mark used by Matthew
and Luke must have been Greek ; it is, however,
possible, though no sufficient proof has been given
even by AVellhausen, that behind the Greek Mark
and the Greek Q there were originally Aramaic
texts. (3) It is doubtful whether Luke used other
written sources in his Gospel. It is possible that
the Pertean section 9*^-18^ may have had a written
source, and the same may be said of the ' Jerusalem
naiTative ' of the Passion and Resurrection ; but it
is also possible that their peculiarly Lucan passages
rest on oral tradition. (4) In the Acts mnch
depends on the view taken of the critical questions,
but in any case the ' we-sections ' must be referred
to a written source, even though their source may
have been a diary of the editor of the whole book.
Whether the ' Antiochene ' source was a written
document is doubtful, and the same may be said
of source B in the Jerusalem-Caesaraean tradition.
It is, however, as probable as any point which is
supported merely by literary evidence can be that
source A (containing Ac 3-4, probably 8*"", and
possibly also ch. 5) depends from a written Greek
source (see art. Acts for the fuller treatment of
the question of the sources of Acts).
(b) The use of the LXX. — It remains a question
which criticism has as yet found no means of
solving whether Luke used, besides the foregoing
sotirces, an Aramaic document for his narrative of
the Nativity in the Gospel, or gave his version of a
tradition which he had heard, casting it into a
form based on the LXX. It is in any case certain
that the LXX, and not the Hebrew, was the
form of the OT which he habitually used, and his
diction seems to have been greatly influenced
by it.
(c) The use of other tcritings. — No other books
seem to have been certainly used by Luke, with
the possible (or, in the present writer's opinion,
[)robable) exception of Josephus. The facts re-
ating to Josephus in connexion with Theudas
seem to point very strongly to a knowledge of the
Antiquities (see art. Acts).
(d) The use of the Epistles. — There is no reason
to suppose that Luke was acquainted with any
of the Pauline Epistles. There is nothing in the
Acts which resembles a quotation, and in relating
facts alluded to in the Epistles there is more often
diflerence than agreement, even though it be true
that the diflerence is not always very serious.
3. Lake's methods. — In using his materials
Lukes methods are in the main those of other
writers of the same period. They are quite un-
like those of modem writers. A writer of the
present day seeks to tell his story in his own words
and his own way, giving references to, and, if
722
LUKE
LUST
necessary, quotations from, his sources, but care-
fully avoidinj;; all confusion between traditional
fact and critical inference, and certainly never
altering; the direct statement of the earlier docu-
ments without expressly mentioning the fact.
The method of antiquity was as a rule almost
the reverse. The author of a book based on earlier
materials strung together a series of extracts into
a more or less coherent whole, giving no indication
of his sources, and modifying them freely in order
to harmonize them. Sometimes he would select
between several narratives, sometimes he would
combine, sometimes he would give them succes-
sively, and by a few editorial comments make a
single narrative of apparently several events out
of several narratives of a single event. As a
method this is obviously inferior to modern pro-
cedure, but even an inferior method can be well or
badly used. That Luke used this method is clear
from a comparison of the Third Gospel with
Matthew and Mark, but on the whole he seems to
have used it well, especially if it be remembered
that his avowed object was not to ' write history '
but to provide the historical evidence for the
Christian instruction which Theophilus had
received. The crucial evidence for this view is the
use made of Mark, which we can fortunately con-
trol. A comparison of Mark with Luke shows
that Luke has been on the whole loyal to his
source, though he has consistently polished the
language. At the same time, it must be admitted
that he had no objection to deserting it, or to
changing its meaning. Two examples must suffice.
(1) In Mark the call of Peter precedes the healing
of his mother-in-law ; in Luke a dilf'erent account
of Peter's call is given the preference over the
Marcan one, and the healing of his mother-in-law
is placed before it, apparently to afiord a motive
for tiie obedience of Peter to the call. (2) In the
narrative of the Passion and Resurrection Luke
obviously prefers an alternative narrative to that
of Mark. Tliis narrative is different in the essential
point that it places all the appearances of the
Kisen Clirist in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem,
whereas Mark in 14^, etc., is clearly leading up
to appearances in Galilee. But the story of the
woman at the tomb seems to be taken from Mark,
and this includes tlie message of the young man to
the women to tell the disciples to go to Galilee,
where they will see Jesus. This is inconsistent
with the ' Jerusalem narrative,' and is changed by
Luke into ' Remember how he spoke to you Avhile
be was still in Galilee,' and the whole narrative is
freely re-written. If this were quite certain, it
would show that Luke cannot be depended upon
not to change the whole meaning of his sources.
It is, however, possible that his modification is
based on some otner source ; if so, this source can
liardly have been originally indei)endent of Mark.
A detailed examination of the Lucan changes in
the Marcan material, which has never yet been
sufficiently thoroughly undertaken, is likely to
give valuable evidence as to Luke's methods in
dealing with his sources and the extent to which
his statements may be trusted as really represent-
ing the earliest tradition, or discounted as being
editorial alterations. It may be suggested that a
study of the Lucan parallels to Mk 13 is especially
needed ; a superficial examination suggests that it
will show that he was inclined to remove eschato-
logical sayings or explain them in some other sense.
Another c-haracteristic — or what at first sight
appears to be one — is a tendency to separate and
give to definite historical circumstances sayings
which in Matthew are brought together. From this
contrast between Mattliew and Luke it has been
assumed that Luke made special endeavours to
find out the exact circumstances under which each
saying was uttered. But this conclusion is more
than the facts warrant. All that can really be
said is that a comparison between Matthew and
Luke shows either that Luke separated, or that
Matthew combined, or that each did a little of
both ; but, as we do not know what was the
arrangement of the material in the source, we
cannot decide between these possibilities. It is
sometimes overlooked that reconstructions of Q
such as Harna<;k's or Wellhausen's, though other-
wise admirable, are useless for this purpose, as
they necessarily assume an answer to tne question
at issue. It is perhaps worth notice that the only
safe guide Avhicn we have is Luke's treatment of the
Marcan source. Here we find no trace of the sup-
posed separation of sayings,nordo we findany traces
in Matthew of the supposed combination of sayings.
The logical deduction is that Luke and Matthew
did not use the same edition of Q, if indeed there
ever was a single document Q. Of course it is
hazardous to press this point, but insufficient atten-
tion has hitherto been given to the value of Luke's
treatment of Mark as the only objective standard
which exists for deciding what his methods probably
were in dealing with other sources.
Literature. — Besides the works already quoted in the body
of the article see B. Weiss, Die Qiiellen des Lukasecanqeliums,
Stuttpart, 1907; J. Moffatt, LNT, Edinburgh, 1911 ; E. Norden,
Agnostos Theos, Leipzij?, 1913 ; R. Reitzenstein, IleUenUtUche
Wundererzdhlunrjen, do. 1906; E. C. Selwyn, St. Luke the
Prophet, London, 1901 ; H. McLachlan, .St. Luke — Evangelist
and Uigtorian, London and Manchester, 1912 ; W. M. Ramsay,
Luke the Phygician and other Studiex i?i the llintory of lieli'jion,
London, 1908 ; Th. Zahn, Introduction to the JSeio Testament.
Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1909. K. LAKE.
LUKEWARM.— The word occurs only in Rev 3"
— ' because thou art lukewarm (x^iapos), and neither
hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.'
As tepid water causes nausea, so lifeless religiouf^
profession leads to Divine disgust and rejection
(cf. Ecce Homo^^, 1873, ch. xiii.). There is greater
promise in men who are outside the pale of the
Church than in those whose nominal allegiance to
religion has created a false confidence, dulled all
sense of need, and checked all spiritual growth
(v.i*). The following verses (vv.'"- ^^, for the local
references of which see art. ' Laodicea ' in HDB)
suggest that this condition of tepid religion in
Laodicea had been fostered by an excess of material
prosperity. The Laodiceans had become so com-
fortable as not to need God, nor ought God to
expect much more than patronage from so con-
sequential a community. He must, in human
fashion, be on good terms with a church with so
satisfactory a worldly status, not inquiring too
closely about their spiritual zeal. For an analysis
of this lukewarmness see also F. W. Faber, Growth
in Holiness, 1854, ch. xxv. H. BULCOCK.
LUST.— 1. Linguistic usage.— (1) TAe English
word ' lust.^ — The word ' lust,' which, in modern
English, is restricted to sexual desire, had origin-
ally a wider application and could be used de
neutro and dc bono as well as dc malo of desire
in general, and, as Trench says, was 'once harm-
less enough' {NT Synonyms^, 1876, p. 313). The
German Lv^t is still usea in this wide sense.
There is no instance in the NT where the English
word ' lust ' is used de bono in the AV unless we
supply the word in Gal 5" — ' the flesh lusteth
(fTTidvixel) against the Spirit and the Spirit (lusteth)
against the flesh.' The verb is absent in the Greek
as in the English. Lightfoot (on Gal 5'^) thinks
that evidvfifi cannot be supplied, as it would be
unsuitable to describe the activity of the Spirit by
this term. But Rendall is probably right in saying
that the word iiridvixfl here is neutral and equally
api)licable to the good desires of the Spirit and the
evil lusts of the flesh {EGT, ' Galatians,' 1903, i»
LUST
LUST
723
loc. ). The English word ' lust,' however, is scarcely
neutral in the AV, and j-et, because there is no
possibility of misunderstanding, no other verb is
supplied to describe the action of the Spirit. Even
the RV has not supplied a different verb in the
second clause. This is not to say that the Revisers
would consider 'lust' a tit word to describe the
working of the Spirit.
It is true also that the passage in Ja 4' — 'the
Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy ' — is now
generally understood of the Indwelling Spirit of
God, but it was not so understood by tne AV
translators. To them it was the evil, envious spirit
of man. The Greek verb used here is iirLToddv,
which is frequently used in the NT, and always in
a gooil sense. St. Paul uses it of his great longing
to see his converts (1 Th 3«, 2 Co 7'", 2 Ti 1*, Ph
1^ ; cf. also Ro V^ 15^). They are to him (niroOrrroi.
It expresses the longing of Epaphroditus for the
Philijipians, and of the Judsean Christians for the
Corinthians who had liberally helped them. St.
Paul uses it also to express his longing for heaven
(2 Co 5^), and St. Peter exhorts his readers to
'desire' the sincere (?) milk of the word (1 P 2-).
The LXX uses it of the soul's longing for God (Ps
41* [EV 42"^]). Analogy would thus lead us to
suppose that St. James used the word in a good
sense. The quotation in which the word occurs
cannot be located in the OT with certainty (cf. 1
Co 2^, Eph 5^^) : otherwise the sense of the word
would be beyond dispute. Some suppose that St.
James is here quoting St. Paul (1 Co 3^^, Gal 5'').
The most likely meaning of the passage is : ' The
Spirit which he caused to dwell in us j-earneth
{for us) unto jealousy.' The Spirit of God has
such a longing desire to possess the whole Christian
personality that its passion may well be called
holy jealousy. If this be the meaning, the render-
ing ' lust ' is erroneous. The RV is not decided on
the interpretation, and has substituted 'long' for
' lust.' RVm is probably correct.
There is no passage, then, in the NT where the
English word ' lust ' is used de bono.
(2) The Greek word endv/xeiv and its cognates. —
(a) The Greek word iiridvufTp with its cognates,
although as a rule used de malo, is not always so
used. It occasionally takes the place of tTLs-odeTv
(1 Th 2", Ph 123, TTi 3\ He 6"), which seems
always to be used in a good sense. It is used of
the desires of the prophets to see the deeds of the
Messianic Age (Mt 13'"; cf. also Lk 17^^), of the
desire of Lazarus to eat of the crumbs falling from
the rich man's table (cf. Lk 16"-' 15'® ; perhaps the
desire for food or drink or the sexual desire is the
ordinary meaning of the word). It is used by
the Saviour to express His desire to eat the Paschal
feast with His disciples (Lk 22''), by St. Paul of
the desire for the office of a bishop (1 Ti 3'), by St.
Peter of the holy desires of the angels (1 P 1"),
and, in the substantive form, St. Paul uses it of
his desire to depart and be with Christ, which is
far better (Ph 1^), and of his longing to see his
Thessalonian converts (1 Th 2"). The LXX also
uses it in a good sense (Ps 102* [EV 103*], Pr 10-^).
In all these cases we have evidv/Mtiv translated by
the word 'desire.' The word evievfielv in the Gr.
NT is thus much wider than the word 'lust' in
the Eng. NT, and even ' lust ' itself in the AV is
not to be restricted to ' sexual desire ' but is used
of unlawful desire in general, the context deter-
mining its specific application.
We find the same large nae of the word iviOviUa in Plato.
Generally with him it means ' appetite ' in the narrow sense —
the motive element in the lowest part of man — yet he uses it
also of the other higher departments of the personality. Even
the rational soul has its hij^ and lofty desires {Rep., bks. iv.
and ix.).
(6) When the word is used without an object it
i generally refers to evil longings (cf. Ro 7" I3» [from
Ex 20'*], Ja 4-, 1 Co \(fi), not, however, in the re-
stricted usage of sexual lust. The moral colouring
is as a rule supplied by the context, either by the
mention of the object desired, as in Mk 4", 1 Co 10*,
which is the ordinary classical usage, or by the
mention of the source of the desire (commonly in
the NT) or by a descriptive epithet (Col 3»). This
transference of moral colouring from the object
desired to the subject desiring is significant. It is
in harmony with the NT moral standpoint. Here
the stress is laid on the inwardness of morality,
and the object of moral judgment is the character
{KapSia), rather than bare outward actions, or the
consequences of actions. In the NT the desire is
morally judged according to its origin, i.e. the
originative personality as a whole is dealt with
rather than the desire per se. The NT is thus
more conceraed with change of character than with
the reformation by parts of the individual.
'Scripture and reason alike require that we should turn
entirely to God, that we should obey the whole law. And hard
as this may seem at first, there is a witness within us which
pleads that it is possible. . . . "Easier to change many things
than one," is the conmion saying. Ea.sier, we may add, in religion
and morality to cban-re the w^hole than the part. . . . Many a
person will tease himself by counting minutes and providing
small rules for his life who would have found the task an easier
and a nobler one had he viewed it in its whole extent and gone
to God in a " large and liberal " spirit to offer up his life to
Him' (B. Jowett, IiUerpreteUum of Scripture and other
Essays, London, n.d., p. 321).
The NT, however, does not hesitate to pass judg-
ment on desires jser se and on their consequences.
We find such expressions as ' the corruption that
is in the world through lust ' spoken of (2 P l*) —
where corruption is the consequence of evil desire.
We find the phrase ' polluting desires ' (2 P 2'").
We find pleasures (TJSoyat) regarded as a turbulence
of the soul (Ja 4'), as if desires destroyed the
balance of the soul (cf. 1 Ti B*, 1 P 2", Ro 7=').
The NT has no meticulous fear in passing judg-
ment on evil desires and on their consequences.
It does not take up the immaculate, fastidious
attitude of ' \drtue for virtue's .sake, ' but its point
of view is the whole personality, and on this is
moral judgment for good or evil passed.
(c) Thrice in the NT we find the word enOvfiia
translated by 'concupiscence.' This term is a
dogmatic one, which has played a large part in
theological controversy. It means the natural in-
clinations of man before these have passed into
overt acts. It is diti'erent from consilium, which
is the 'deliberata assentio voluntatis' (so Calvin,
Institutes, bk. ii. ch. viii. 49). Two questions of
importance arise in connexion with this concupis-
cence : (i.) What is its origin and nature ? and (ii.)
What is its relation to responsibility and redemp-
tion ? The Pelagian theolojrian tends to identify it
with man's nature as appetitive and in itself morally
neutral. What makes the moral difference is the
exercise of the will, and the will is free. It may be
that there is weakness in man due to the removal
of ' original righteousness ' which Adam had before
he sinned, but this removal does not impair human
nature and it does not make virtue impossible. To
this class of theologians free-will is the important
matter. Sin is onlj- conscious sinful actions. This
is, generally speaking, the position of Abelard,
Arminius, and the Tridentine CouncU. To Augus-
tine and the Reformers, however, this concupiscence
was prior to the individual's evil volition and in
a sense caused it. Free-will was not sufiBcient to
cope with it. The redemption of man was a radical
affair, cleansing the whole personality, the will in-
cluded. Concupiscence is not simply a defectum
(morally inditierent) but an affectus of the soul
resulting in a positive nisus towards sin in man's
nature. The soul as a whole is deflected from its
true centre — God. As regards responsibility for
724
LUST
LUST
concupiscence, this school distinctly teaches it
while the other side denies it. The Keformers did
not regard ' desire ' viewed as a part of man's ideal
nature as ' evil ' ; but, as a matter of fact, in actual
exiHirience the desires are found to be evil.
' AH the desires of men we teach to be evil, . . . not in so
far aa they are natural, but because they are inordinate, and
thev are inordinate because they flow from a corrupt nature '
(Calvin, Institutes, bk. iii. ch. iii. 12).
During the Middle Ages and in Aquinas con-
cupiscence was identified with man's sensuous
nature. The difllerence between flesh and spirit
was physical. So concupiscence was supremely
manifested in the lusts of the flesh interpreted in
a sensual fiusliion.
The NT does not directly deal with these aspects
of desire, but its spirit is more in harmony with the
deeper analysis of Augustine. As regards responsi-
bility and redemption in relation to concupiscence
the Augustinian position is the Pauline. Tne word
' concupiscence ' has been omitted altogether by the
RV. In Ro 7® iindvida is translated ' coveting.' It
means illicit inclinations to follow one's own will
as against God's law. With the arrival of self-
consciousness there is already found in the per-
sonality the strong bias to sin which comes to light
as man is brouglit face to face with law. Sin is
regarded in a semi-personal fashion as receiving a
basis of operation in this bias. The word iiriOufda
is thus well translated 'concupiscence' in the theo-
logical sense of the term. In Col 3^ the English
' desire ' is suflicient to express the thought, because
it is as vague as the original.
(d) In 1 Th 4** the word firi6v/j.la is used, as the
context shows, of 'sexual lust.' The use of the
term in Jude ^^ approximates to this but seems to
be wider. The same letter (v.^*) ascribes it to
impiety. The passage 1 P 2" approximates closely
to this meaning. In 2 P 2^* it means ' lust ' in our
restricted sense. It is equated with o-dp/cos aaeX-
yflaii. See also Aposfol. Church Order {ed. Schatf,
The Oldest Church Manual, 1885, p. 242), where it
is said that eviOvfila leads to fornication.
eirtdvfda, then, when used de malo of illicit desires
is not wholly restricted to sexual depravity (exc.
in 1 Th 4» and 2 P 2'« ; cf. Jude i«), although that
is included, and owing to its obtrusiveness could
not fail to be included. It means 'the whole
world of active lusts and desires' (Trench, NT
5y».8, p. 312).
(3) Other Greek words. — {a) The Greek word irdOos
is also translated ' lust ' in 1 Th 4*, and eirievfiia is
subordinated to it as species to genus. This is the
usage of Aristotle, who regards ' lust,' anger, fear,
etc., as spe(!ies of ird^oj. It is usually maintained
that the ditt'erence between the two is that irdflos
refers to evil on its passive and eiriOvula on its more
active side. It is impossible, however, to prove this
distinction from the NT, although in Gal 5", where
'irad-f)ixaTa and iiriOv/xlai are found side by side, this
distinction makes excellent sense. The words are
used in a loose popular sense and not as the exact
terminology of an ethical system.
(6) The same is true of the usage of iiSoval (Ja 4'),
which is translated ' lusts.' It refers to pleasures in
general ; though sexual pleasures are included, and
perhaps form the chief element, eating and drink-
mg would also be meant. ' All men are by nature
weak and inclined to pleasures,' and so injustice
and avarice follow (Swete, Introduction to OT in
Greek. 1900, p. 567).
(c) Similarly dof^tt (Ro 1") — a word used some-
times in classical writers of the highest desires— is
used by St. Paul of the unnatural sexual lust of
heathenism (see Trench, AT Si/n.'^, p. 314).
2. Genesis, growth and goal of lust.— (1) Genesis
of lust. — We do not find any attempt to deal
psychologically with this problem. What we find
is various suggestions and incidental jillusions. In
Jn S" the lusts of murder and deceit are traced
back to the devil. The idea is the Jewish one that
the devil tempted Cain to murder his brother Abel,
and that the serpent deceived Eve (cf. 1 Jn Z^"-).
This view that tne devil is the originator of lust
took various forms in Jewish thought (Sir 25**"^-,
2 Es 4** 8**), and there are echoes of these in the
NT. St. Paul (1 Co 111") seems to regard the
wicked angels as moved to sensual lust by unveiled
women. The existence of an evil tendency (yezer
hara)in human nature was a problem for Judaism.
Sometimes it was simply referred to the fall of
Adam (Wis '2^- ; cf. Ro S'*^-, 1 Co 152"'-), some-
times it was ascribed to the devil, and sometimes
to God. The last view is not found in the NT
except to be refuted ( Ja 1'^'"). The good tendency
(yezer hatob) was without difficulty ascril^d to
God, but the evil tendency could not be so treated.
St. Paul (Ro 1^-^*) simply states these two ten-
dencies and connects the evil with the fall of Adam.
Yet there is nothing to encourage the view that
man is not responsible. In truth, where St. John
mentions the devil (I Jn 3*) as the originator of
evil desires, he is opposing the Gnostic view that
the ' spiritual ' man is not responsible for sensual
sins. Yet it is certain that the problem of evil
is not solved on NT principles by any atomistic
view of human personality, and that the redemp-
tion of Christ has its cosmic as well as its personal
aspects. St. Paul's teaching in Ro 7'^"-'' was open
to misunderstanding, but in principle it is the very
opposite of libertinism.
Again, the origin of lust is ascribed to the cosmos
(1 Jn 2*'""). It is whatever is opposed to the will
of God. So in Tit 2^- we read of ' worldly lusts '
(cf. 2 P 1*). The world is the ' lust of the flesh,'
the ' lust of the eyes,' and the ' pride of life.' It is
the kingdom of evil as organized in customs and
tendencies in human society and human hearts, in-
cluding also evil spirits. It is found in man as the
desires of the ' flesh and mind ' (Eph 2^), and specifi-
cally called the lusts of men (1 P 4"). It might
appear as if this ascription of lust to the ' world '
destroyed personal responsibility, but such is never
the case. The law of God recognized by man as
good, i.e. as the law of his own conscience (Ro I'"-),
is against such lust, and the Christian command
is to love God and do His will. The fact of responsi-
bility is not proportional to ability in the Nl , and
so redemption is always regarded as primarily of
grace.
Similarly, and characteristically, the origin of
lust is ascribed to the flesh, i.e. the sinful person-
ality as apart from God. Th3 ' lusts of the flesh '
mean mucn more than sensuality. ' It was not the
corruptible flesh that made the soul sinful, but the
sinful soul that made the flesh corrupt' (Aug., de
Civ. Dei, xiv. 2, 3). It is true that the body (ffufia)
with its desires (Ro 6^-) was a sort of armoury
where sin got its weapons, but the body as such is
not the originative seat of evil ; otherwise St. Paul's
view of the Resurrection would be meaningless.
Platonism looked on the body as the tomb of the
soul and as pressing down the soul (cf. 1 Co 9*^),
but Rotlie is scarcely warranted in making the
sensuous nature the primary root of evil (Theol.
Ethik-, 1S70, ii. 181-7).
Again, the heart is viewed as the origin of evil
desires (Ro 1" ; cf. Sir 6'^). This centres the origin
in man's personality as a whole, not in any one part
of the personality. But it is the personality apart
from God. So we read in Jude not only ' tlieir
own desires,' but also (v.'*) ' their o>\'n desires of im-
pieties,' i.e. evil desires originating in their im-
pious state. A similar tliought is found in Ro l*"^*
(cf. Tit 2'*^). Evil tendencies develop pari passu
with God's judicial withdrawal.
LUST
LYCAONIA
725
It might thns appear that those who make
seljishiicss ((piXaiTla) tlie root of sinful desires are
nearest the truth. Philo does so and Plato. ' The
truth is that the cause of all sins in every person
and every instance is excessive self-love ' (Laws, v.
731); but in the NT the 'self is not an entity
that can be understood apart from the redemption
of Christ, and the Christian personality is so com-
plex that we cannot safely limit to any single
strand the origin of sin. What the NT is concerned
with is not the origin — an insoluble problem — but
the abolition of evil desires. Man himself is the
moral origin, and the great question is how to
redeem sinful man. In other words, these questions
are discussed not from the point of view of genetic
psychology but from the point of view of redemp-
tion.
. (2) Growth and goal of lust. — St. James gives a
graphic picture of how ividvuia develops. She is pic-
tured as a harlot enticing man. Like the fisherman
she baits her hook, and traps her prey as the hunter
does. Then sin is produced, and sin completed
brings forth death. It is clearly stated that ' lust '
is not of God. It is man's own, and the inference
is that man can resist it. There is no mention of
God's grace in the specific Christian sense, although
in v. 18 we seem to have this strongly emphasized.
Perhaps the writer loosely holds both the Jewish
notion of free-will as itself sufficient to resist desire,
and the Christian sense of God's grace. It is pos-
sible to restrict the whole passage {V^") to sexual
lust, but the wider sense is probable.
Clement of Rome {Ep. ad Cor. iii.) gives a long
list of evil desires leading to death, but to him
strife and envy are characteristically causative of
tliis result, as in the case of Cain (iv.). In the
Apostol. Church Order (ed. Schafl", p. 242), lust is
pictured as a female demon. It leads to fornica-
tion, and it darkens the soul so that it cannot see
the truth clearly (cf. Ro V^^-).
St. Peter associates lust with ignorance (1 P 1")
and St. Paul with deceit, the opposite of ' truth '
(Eph 4^). Since the time of Plato desire has been
regarded by philosophers as aiming at a good
<true or false). The end is always viewed sub
specie honi. This is an aspect which the NT does
not emphasize. But it does say that evil desires
leave the soul unsatisfied and produce disorder
<Ja 4^). It is possible to be always seeking some
new thing and never coming to the knowledge of
the truth (2 Ti 3**-)- Knowledge alone is not
sufficient, however, for St. Paul regards the law as
both revealing desire and intensifying it (Ro 7").
Redemption is necessary to cope with evil desires.
The desiring of evil things St. Paul regards as
the moral ground of all sinful acts (1 Co 10) — of
sensuality both as fornication and idolatry — of un-
belief in its varied forms. This desiring does not
work in vacuo ; it is active in an atmosphere
already tainted with idolatiy, sensuality, and
devilry (1 Co lO^'^-, 1 Th 3*, Eph G^o^^-). God allows
this testing of men, but He also afibrds a way of
escape from it, so that men with this hope can bear
up under temptations. The consequence of follow-
ing one's own lust is regarded both subjectively
and objectively. It produces corruption of the
personality, ending in complete <j>d6pa (Eph 4^ ; cf.
2 P !■*, where <pd6pa is said to be the fruit of lust),
whereas the will of God leads to righteousness and
holiness. The man who sets his heart on riches
falls into many foolish and hurtful desires, and
these bring him to the depth of destruction (SKedpos
and dirwXeta are the inevitable consequences). Lust
is also said to pollute the soul (2 P 2i<*). Besides
this, lust brings one face to face with God's destruc-
tive anger against sin (cf. 1 Co 10 and Dt 32^*'-).
It is not possible, however, from the NT to arrange
in psychological order the stages in the development
of lust. The progress is as varied as life itself.
Catalogues of sins are given because these sins are
closely connected in actual experience, and in ex-
perience the cause is often the efi'ect and the effect
the cause.
St. John (1 Jn 2"-") is not to be taken as making
the ' lust of the ttesh ' the origin of the ' lust of the
eyes ' and of the ' pride of possession,' nor are these
a complete summary of sin. They are compre-
hensive and characteristic, but not necessarily ex-
haustive. The genitives in this passage are of
course subjective, i.e. ' the lust springing from the
flesh,' etc. Here again the 'flesh' is the origin
of evil desire — not the body as such, but the sin-
ful personality (Law [Tests of Lif^, 1914, p. 149]
explains ' flesh ' otherwise here, but the very fact
that the 'flesh' is regarded as causing desire is
against him). To St. John also the issue of sinful
desire is destruction, as it is contrary to the abid-
ing will of God.
To the NT, then, evil desires contaminate, cor-
rupt, and destroy the soul itself and bring upon it
God's punishment. These desires, however, are
already proofs of a personality out of order, and to
set the desires right the personality must be set
right. This is done by the new gracious creation
of God through His mercy which operates through
Christ. Thus man is made God's voltjfw. by the
Spirit. To walk in the Spirit is the privilege of
the new creature (Eph 2^*^), and in this way he can
overcome the desires of the 'flesh' (Ro 13"), and
learn to do the will of God.
LiTKEATCRB. — See Grimm-Thayer, under the various Greek
words translated ' Lust' ; H. Cremer, Bib.-Tkeol. Lex. of ST
Greek, 1872, pp. 273-278. For the general teaching see C.
Clemen, Christl. Lehre von der Siinde, Gottingen, 1897 ; J.
Miiller, Chris. Doct. of Sin, Eng. tr., 1S77-8.5, i. 157. For the
Jewish i'ezer Hara see F. C. Porter in Bib. and Sem. Studies,
New York, 1901 ; W. O. E. Oesterley, in EGT : 'St. James,'
1910, pp. 408-413. For Concupiscence see I. A. Domer, System
of Christian Doctrine, En^'. tr., 1880-82, Index, s.v. 'Concupis-
centia.' See also Literature under art. Flesii. The various
Commentaries are indispensable : Mayor (31910) and Carr
(Camb. Gr. Test., 1896) on St. James in relevant places, and
Plnmmer on St. John (Camb. Gr. Test., 1S86), pp. 164-lca See
further artt. ' Lust ' in HDB and ' Desire ' in DCG.
Donald Mackenzie.
LTCAONIA (AvKaovia). — Lycaonia, the country
of the Lycaones, who spoke AvKaoviffri ('in the
speech of Lycaonia,' Ac 14"), was a vast elevated
plain, often called ' The Treeless ' (to A^vXaf), in the
centre of Asia Minor. It was bounded on the N.
and E. by Galatia and Cappadocia, on the W.
and S. by Phrygia, Pisidia, and Isauria ; but its
limits were very uncertain and liable to change,
especially in the N. and S. Its physical character
is described by Strabo (XII. vi. 1) :
' The places around the mountainous plane of Lycaonia are
cold and bare, affording pasture only for wild asses ; there is
a great scarcity of water, and wherever it is found the wells
are very deep. . . . Although the country is ill supplied with
water, it is suprisingly well adapted for feeding sheep. . . .
Some persons have acquired great wealth by these flocks alone.
AmjTitas had above 300 flocks of sheep in these parts.'
Having no opportunity and perhaps little capa-
city for self-government, the Lycaonians had no
history of their own. Driven eastward by the
Phrygians, they were always under the sway of
some stronger power, which cut and carved their
territory without ever asking their leave. In tlie
3rd cent. Lycaonia belonged to the empire of the
Seleucids, who more or less hellenized its larger
towns, such as Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe.
After the Roman victory over Antiochus the
Great at Magnesia (190 B.C.), it was given to the
Attalids of Pergamos ; but as they never ettectively
occupied it, the northern part of it was claimed
by the GaJatians, while the eastern was added
to Cappadocia. When Pompey re-organized Asia
Minor after the defeat of Mithridates (64 B.C.), he
left northern Lycaonia (somewhat curtailed) to
the Galatians, and eastern Lycaonia (also dimin-
726
LYCIA
LYDIA
ished) to Cappadocia, while lie attached south-
western Lycaonia (considerably increased) to the
province of Cilicia. Mark Antony gave the last
part, including Iconium and Lystra, to Polemon
m 39 B.O., but transferred it in 36 to King
Amyntas of Pisidia, who at the same time became
king of all Galatia. Soon afterwards this brilliant
soldier — the most interesting of Asiatic Gaels — over-
threw Antipater of Derbe, with the result that the
whole of Lycaonia, except the so-called Eleventh
Strategia (which about this time was given to Kin"
Antiochus of Commagene, to be henceforth called
Lycaonia Antiochiana) was now included in the
Galatian realm. After the untimely death of
Amyntas in 25 B.C., his kingdom was converted
into tlie Roman province of Galatia. This ar-
rangement lasted for nearly a century, exce])t that
Claudius apparently presented the S.E. comer of
Lycaonia, including the important city of Laranda,
to the king of Commagene.
When St. Paul brought Christianity to Lycaonia,
he confined his mission to that part of it which
was in the province of Galatia. On reaching the
frontier city of Derbe, he retraced his steps.
Laranda, in Antiochian Lycaonia, was beyond his
sphere. If the S. (Jalatian theory is to be ac-
cepted, he passed through Galatic Lycaonia four
times (Ac 14*- -' 16' 18'^) ; he addressed the mixed
population of its cities — Lycaonians, Greeks, and
Jews — as all alike ' Galatians ' ; and the Christians
of Lycaonian and Phrygian Galatia, not the in-
habitants of Galatia proper, are the ' foolish Gal-
atians ' (Gal 3') about whom he was so ' perplexed '
(Gal 4**). But see Galatians.
Nothing remains of the Lycaonian language
except some place-names ; but the Christian in-
scriptions found in Lycaonia are very numerous,
and show how widely diffused the new religion
was in the 3rd cent, throughout this country
which was evangelized by St. Paul in the 1st.
LiTERATrRK.— W, M. Ramsav, Hist. Geog. of Asia Minor,
1890, also /list. Com. on Galatiam, 1899; J. R. S. Sterrett,
Wolfe Expedition in Asia ilinor, 1888 ; C. Wilson, in Murray's
Handbook to Asia Minor, 1895.
James Strahan.
LYCIA (Aw/a, Eth. Aiy/ctoj). — Lycia was a se-
cluded mountain-land in the S.W. of Asia Minor,
bounded on the W. by Caria, on the N. by Phrygia
and Pisidia, on the N.E. by Pamphilia, and on
the S. by the Lycian Sea. It was 'beyond the
Taurus ' (iKrbs roD Tavpov). The ribs of that huge
backbone of the country extended from N. to S.
(in some places over 10,000 ft. in height), and be-
tween them were well-watered and fertile valleys,
the homes of a highly civilized race, who in their
love of peace and freedom resembled the Swiss.
They were not Greek by race, but they were early
hellenized. They had many overlords — Persians,
Seleucids, Ptolemys, Romans — but for the most
part their autonomy was undisturbed, and they
had one of the finest constitutions in ancient times.
As the Lycians were suspected of favouring the
Imneriul party in the Civil Wars of Rome, Brutus
ana Cassius almost annihilated the beautiful city
of Xanthus (43 B.C.), and the country never re-
covered its old prosperity, Pliny says that in his
time the cities of Lycia, formerly 70 in number,
had been reduced to 36 (HN v. 28). In a.d, 43
it was made a Roman province, and in a.d. 74
Vespasian formed the united province of Lycia-
Pampliylia. Lycia is named in 1 Mac 15^ as
one of the Free States to which the Romans sent
letters in favour of the Jewish settlers. Two of
its principal seaports — Patara and Myra — are
mentioned in Acts (21' 27'). But it appears to
have been one of the last parts of Asia Minor to
accept Christianity. Among the provinces ad-
dressed in 1 P 1' as having been partly evangel-
ized, neither Lycia nor Pamphylia — both south of
the Taurus — finds a place.
LiTRRATURB.— C. Fellows, Discoveries in Lycia during tnd
Excursion in Asia Minor, 1841 ; T. A. B. Spratt and E.
Forbes, Travels in Lycia, MUyas, and the Cibyratis, 1847 ;
Benndorf-Niemann, litiseninsiidwestl. Kleinasien,\,: 'Reisen
in 1-ykien und Karien,' 1884. JAMES STRAHAN.
LYDDA (Ai^SSa, Heb. X^rf, Ar. X«rfrf).— Lydda
was a town about 10 miles S.E. of Joppa, on the
line where the Maritime Plain of Palestine merges
into the Shephglah or Lowlands of Judaea. Its
importance was largely due to its position at the
intersection of two highways of intercourse and
traffic — the road from Joppa up to Jerusalem by
the Vale of Ajalon, and the caravan route from
Egypt to Syria and Babylon. Re-occupied by the
Jews after the Exile (Nen IP"), it was nevertheless
governed by the Samaritans till the time of Jona-
than Maccabajus, when the Syrian king Demetrius
11. made it over to Judaea (1 Mac 11^). In the
time of Christ it was tlic capital of one of the
eleven toparchies ' of which the royal city of Jeru-
salem was the supreme' (Jos. BJ III. iii. 5).
During the civil strife of the Romans (c. 45 B.C.)
Cassius sold the inhabitants of Lydda into slaverj'
for refusing the sinews of war, but Antony gave
them back their liberty (Ant. xiv. xi. 2, xii. 2-5).
Lydda Avas visited by St. Peter, whose preachin<r,
aided by the miraculous healing of .^Eneas, is said,
'in a popular hyperbolical manner' (Meyer on
Ac ^), to have resulted in a general conversion of
the Jewish population to Jesus as the Messiah.
From this town the Apostle was called to Joppa
on behalf of Dorcas (9^). In the Jewish Wars
Lydda was a centre of strong national feeling. It
was captured and burned by the Syrian governor,
Cestius Gallus, on his march to Jerusalem (A.D.
65), and it surrendered without a struggle to Ves-
pasian in 68 (BJ II. xix. 1, IV. viii. 1). After the
fall of the holy city it became one of the refuges
of Rabbinical learning. Later, it was known as
Diospolis, though its old name was never dis-
placed, and it became the seat of a bishop. At the
Council of Diospolis in A.D. 415 the neresiarch
Pelagius was tried, but managed to procure his ac-
quittal. By this time Lydda had begun to have a
wide fame as the reputed burial-place of a Christian
soldier named Georgios, who in Nicomedia had
torn down Diocletian's edict against Christianity
and welcomed martyrdom. His relics were taken
to Lydda, and round his name was gradually woven
a tissue of legend, in which the Greek myth of
Perseus and Andromeda (see Joppa), the Moslem
idea of Elijah (or alternatively of Jesus) as the
destined destroyer of the Impostor (al-dajjcd) or
Antichrist, and the old Hebrew story of the fall of
Dagon before the ark, were all inextricablj' inter-
twined, till Lydda became the shrine of St. George
the Slayer of the Dragon, whom the English
Crusaders made the patron-saint of their native
land,
Lydda is now * a flourishing little town, em-
bosomed in noble orchards of olive, fig, pomegran-
ate, mulberry, sycamore, and other trees, and sur-
rounded every way by a very fertile neighbourhood.'
The ruins of the Crusaders' Church of St. George,
have ' a certain air of grandeur ' (W. M. Thomson,
The Land and the Book, 1910, p. 523). The town
has a station on the Jafla-Jerusalem Railway.
LrTERATrRE.— E. Robinson, Biblical Researches, 1841, iii. 49-
55 ; C. Clermont-Ganneau, Uorus et Saint Georges, 1377 ; G. A.
Smith, UGUL, 1897, p. 160 f. JaMES STRAHAN.
LYDIA. — The woman M'ho bears this name in
Ac 16''"^- is described as • a seller of purple, of the
city of Thj-atira, one who worshipped God,' The
implication is that Lydia was more or less closely
LYJJlA
LYIXG
attached to the Jewisli religion — a 'proselyte of
the gate,' in later Rabbinic phraseology. We are
told that she vra-s found by 1st. Paul on his ^nsit to
Philippi at a small Jewish meeting for prayer held
at the river-side on the Sabliath day. On hearing
the message of the Apostle, she was converted and
baptized along with the members of her houseljold,
and thereupon entreated the missionary to lodge
in her house during his stay in the town. As a
seller of purple garments — among the most expen-
sive articles of ancient commerce — Lydia was no
doubt a woman of considerable wealth. Probably
she was a widow carrying on the business of her
dead husband, and her position at the head of a
wealthy establishment shows the comparative free-
doux enjoyed bv women both in Asia Minor and
in Macedonia, fier generous disposition, manifested
in her pressing offer of hospitalitj- to the Apostle,
may perhaps oe reflected in the frequency and
liberality with which the Philippian Church contri-
buted to' the Apostles wants (Ph 41*- ^«). She holds
the distinction of being the first convert to Chris-
tianity in Europe, and her household formed the
nucleus of the Cliurch of Philippi, to which St. Paul
addressed the most affectionate and joyous of all
his Epistles.
The fact that the Apostle Paul does not
mention her by name in the EpLstle has given rise
to two different suggestions. Some have thought
that shortly after her conversion Lydia may have
either died or returned to her home in Thyatira (as
Milligan in HDB, art. ' Lydia '). Others have put
forward the idea that Lydia was not the personal
name of the convert, but a description of her
nationality as a native of Thyatira in the province
of Lydia — ' the Lydian ' ; and further, that the
Apostle may refer to her either as Euodia or
Syntache (Ph 4*). Renan takes this latter view of
the name, and suggests also that Lydia became the
wife of the Apostle and bore the expenses of his
trial in Philippi (St. Paul, p. 148). Ramsay (HDB,
art. ' Lydia") regards the name as a familiar name
(nickname), used instead of the personal proper
name and meaning ' the Lydian ' (so Zahn, Introd.
to XT, Eng. tr., 1909, i. *o33). Others, however,
point to the frequency with which the name is
found applied to women in Horace (Od. L 8, iii. 9,
iv. 30), and regard it as a proper name.
LtTKRATTRE.— E. Renan, S<. Paid, 1868, p. 143; HDB, art.
' Lydia' ; R. J. Kaowling, EGT, ' Acts," 1900, p. 345 ; Com-
mentaries of Holtzmann and Zelier in loe.
W. F. Boyd.
LTDIA (Ai'Si'o). — Lydia, the fairest and richest
country of western Asia Minor, was bounded by
Mysia in the N., Phrygia in the E., Caria in the
S., and the -Egean Sea in the W. Long mountain
chains, extending westward from the central
plateau, divided it into broad allu^-ial valleys.
The regions between the ranges of Messogis,
Tniolus, and Teninus, watered by the Cayster and
the Hennus, were among the most fertile in the
world. The trade and commerce of Lydia con-
tributed more to its immense wealth than the
mines of Tmolus or the golden sand of Pactolus.
In the time of Alyattes and Croesus, who reigned
in splendour at Sardis, the kingdom of Lydia em-
braced almost the whole of Asia Minor west of the
Halys, but Cyrus subdued it about 546 B.C., and a
succession of satraps did their best to crush the
spirit of the race. After the triumphal progress
of Alexander the Great, Lydia was held for a time
by Antigonus, and then hy the Seleucids. After
Magnesia (190 B.C.) the Romans presented it to
their ally Eumenes, king of Pergamos (I Mac 8').
From 133 onwards it formed part of the Roman
province of Asia. Before the time of Strabo (Xlll.
IV. 17) the Lydian language had been entirely dis-
placed by the Greek.
The religion of the Lydians— the cult of Cybele
— was a sensuous Nature-worship, perhapB origin-
ally Hittite ; their miLsic— ' soft tydian airs '—was
voluptuous ; and the prastitution at their temples,
whereby their daughters obtained dowries (Herod.
i. 93), made ' Lydian ' a term of contempt among
the Greeks. Many Jewish families were settled in
Lydia (Jos. Ant. XII. iii. 4), and it is probable
that in the great centres of population not a
few Gentiles turned to them in search of a higher
faith and a purer moralitj'. Among these was the
purple-seller of Thyatira, who was St. Paul's first
convert in Europe (Ac 16*^- *). • Lydia ' was most
probably not her real name, bat a familiar ethnic
appellation. She was 'the Lydian' to all her
Philippian friends (E. Renan, St. Paul, 1869, p.
146 ; T. Zahn, Introd. to the NT, Eng. tr., 1909, i.
523, 533). See preceding article.
In Ezk 30* the RV has changed Lydia into Lud,
and the country Lydia is never mentioned in the
NT. The Roman provincial system created a
nomenclature which most of the \»-riters of the
Apostolic Age habitually employ. Like many
other geographical and ethnological names, Lydia
ceased to have any political significance. St. Paul,
the Roman citizen, uses the pro\"incial name Asia,
and never Lydia. John writes to five Lydian
churches, along with one in Mysian Pergamos and
one in Phrygian Laodicea, but all the seven are
' churches which are in Asia ' (Rev 1*- "). It is
contended, indeed, by Zahn (op. cit. i. 187) that
the Grecian Luke, to whom the nnofBcial termin-
ology would come naturally, uses Asia in the popu-
lar non-Roman sense as synonymous with Ljdia,
to which F. Blass (Acta Apostolorum, 1895, p.' 176)
would add Mysia and Caria. J. B. Light foot,
however, states good reasons for maintaining that
' Asia in the New Testament is always Proconsular
Asi«' (Galatian-^, 1876, p. 19n.), andW. M. Kamsay
strongly supports this view, refusing now to admit
an exception (as he formerly did [The Church in
the Roman Empire, 1893, p. 150]) even in the case
of Ac 2». James Strahax.
LYING (\f^€ide(rdai, * to lie ' ; ^evSoi, if/ewrfua., ' a lie ' ;
yf/evSris, 'false'; feixmis, 'a deceiver'). — 1. It is the
glory of Christianity that this religion reveals ' the
Giod who cannot lie,' 6 d-f cvStjj deoi (Tit 1'), qui non
mentifur Deus (Vulg.). He is true in both senses
of the word — aXytOiPos and dXiy^s, venis and verax.
He cannot be false to His own nature, just as men,
made in His image, cannot lie without being un-
true to themselves. It is likewise impossible to
imagine His Revealer departing from the truth
in word or deed. While Hermes, the so-called
messenger of the gods, was often admired for his
dexterous lying, Christ is loved because He is the
Truth (Jn 14*), the faithful and true Witness (Rev
3"), through whom men are able, amid all
earthly changes and illusions, to lay hold on
eternal realities.
2. The detection and exposure of imposture was
an urgent duty of the early Church. The speedy
appearance of false teachers was one of the most
remarkable features of the Apostolic Age, and the
Church was enjoined not to believe every spirit,
but to try the spirits (1 Jn 4*). There were ^eiS-
dSfXdxH (6al 2*), ^evSardtrroXoi (2 Co 11"). -^(i-So-
vpo<tnrrai (Ac 13«, 2 P 2^, 1 Jn 4\ Rev \&^ 19» m'*),
fev5o\6yoi (1 Ti 4*), ftvSoSt5aaKa\ot (2 P 2^). These
deceivers were as the shadows which always ac-
company the light. To the apostolic founders of
Christianity the bare thought of being ever found
false witnesses of God (■.pfvSond.pn'pes tov dtov, 1 Co
15") was intolerable. St. Paul often protests, and
solemnly calls God to witness, that he does not lie
(Ro 91, 2 Co 11» Gal !*», 1 Ti 2"). The Church of
Ephesns was praised because she had tried soi-
728
LYSIAS
LYSTRA
disant apostles and found thera false (^eySeii, liev
2*). If there were false teachers, there were also
false disciples, who claimed the Christian name
without having Christ's spirit, and John had to
formulate some clear and simple tests by which
'the liar' (6 \pevar-n^) could be known (1 Jn 2** "*
8. Tlie same writer emphasizes the gravity of
certain moral and intellectual errors — the denial of
personal sin (1 Jn P"), the rejection of the historical
Christ (o'"). He brands tliein as blasphemous as-
sertions that God (whobe Word calls all men sinners,
and whose Spirit inwardly witnesses to the truth
of the jjospel) is a liar.
4. Christians must not lie one to another (Col 3*).
In the pagan, e.g. the Cretan (Tit 1'^), lyinp; is bad ;
in the Jew (Rev 2*) it is worse ; in the Christian it
should be impossible. The Law was made for the
repression of liars (1 Ti 1'") ; tlie gospel gives every
believer the spirit of truth (1 Jn 4*). 'AH liars,'
' every one that loveth and niaketh a lie,' end the
black list of the condemned (Kev 21^ 22"), who
shall not in any wise enter the City of God (21^).
James Strahan.
LTSIAS. — Claudius Lysias was the chiliarch,
the tribune, in command of the Roman troops
stationed at the Tower of Antonia at the time
of St. Paul's last visit to Jerusalem. The conjec-
ture is probable that he was by birth a Greek, and
that he adopted the name Claudius when ' with a
great sum' he obtained the station of a Roman
citizen (Ac '2r2^ ; seeR. J. Knowling, EGT, 'Acts,'
1900, p. 463 ; cf. Ac 2\^). The Tower of Antonia
communicated by a stairway with the cloisters of
the Temple (see G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, 1898, ii.
495 f., and art. JERUSALEM for the position of the
tower), and care was taken to have soldiers there
in reacliness for any emergency, especially at the
time of the Jewish festivals (Jos. BJ v. 5. 8), like
that of Pentecost, which St. Paul was attending.
News was quickly brought up to the Tower of
the riotous attack made upon the Apostle in the
Temple at the instigation of ' Jews from Asia '
(21"*). It was suggested to Lysias, or the idea
occurred spontaneously to him, that the object of
tiie fury of the mob might be a man whom he was
anxious to apprehend — viz. the leader of a recent
seditious movement, who had managed to escape
when the procurator Felix fell upon him and the
crowd of his followers (Jos. Ant. xx. 8. 6, and BJ
ii. 13. 5). Hence the surprise with which the
chiliarch turns to St. Paul, so soon as he had been
snatched from his assailants, with the question :
' You are not, then, the Egyptian . . . ? ' (Ac 21^).
After allowing St. Paul to address the people
from 'the stairs,' Lysias had him taken within
the Tower, and had given orders that he should be
examined by scourging, when he was made aware
that his prisoner was a Roman citizen, whom 'it
was illegal to subject to such treatment' (22^^- ).
Seeking to obtain the information he desired by
other means, Lysias convened a meeting of the
Jewish Council on the following day, ' and brought
St. Paul down and set him before them ' (v.*).
The tumult that arose on St. Paul's statement
that he W8isa Pharisee, and was called in question
' toucliing the hope and resurrection of the dead,'
was so great that he had to be rescued by the
soldiers, who took him again to the Tower. Tlien
followed the ' plot of certain of the Jews to kill
St. Paul,' if the chiliarch could be induced to
bring him again before the Council. News of
this was carried to Lysias by ' Paul's sister's son.'
Thereupon the resolution was taken to send the
Aj)09tle for greater safety to Csesarea (23'^"^- )•
With the escort, Lysias sent a letter to the Gover-
nor Felix (v.*"^-)- In writing, he forgot the mis-
conception about • the Egyptian ' under which he
had first apprehended St. Paul. Uppermost in liis
mind was the fact that he had been tlie means
of rescuing ' a Roman ' from tlie mad fury of the
Jews. Not unnaturally it is that fact he empha-
sized when writing to the Governor. No further
trace of Lysias is forthcoming. G. P. Gould.
LYSTRA {AvffTpa, which is fem. sing, in Ac
148- -' 16', and neut. pi. in Ac 14» W, 2 Ti 3").—
Lystra was a Roman garrison town of soutliern
Galatia, built on an isolated hill in a secluded
valley at the S. edge of the vast upland plain
of Lycaonia, about 18 miles S.S.W. of Iconium.
Itself 3,780 ft. above sea-level, it had behind it
the gigantic Taurus range, whose fastnesses were
the haunts of wild mountaineers living on plunder
and blackmail. It was the necessity of stamping
out this social pest that raised the obscure town
of Lystra into temporary importance. In 6 B.C.
Augustus made it an outpost of civilization, one
of ' a series of colonies of Roman veterans evidently
intended to acquire this district for peaceful settle-
ment' (T. Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman
Empire, Eng. tr., 1909, i. 337). The others were
Antioch, Parlais, Cremna, Comama, and Olbasa.
In all these cities the military coloni formed an
aristocracy among the incolce or native inhabitants.
Latin was the official language, and Greek that
of culture, but the Lystrans used among them-
selves 'the speech of Lycaonia' (Ac 14"), of which
no trace is left, except that ' Lystra ' — which the
Romans liked to write ' Lustra,' on account of
its resemblance to lustrum — is, like ' Ilistra ' and
'Kilistra,' which are also found in the country,
doubtless a native place-name. The site and
colonial rank of Lystra were alike unknown till
1885, vvhen J. R. S. Sterrett's discovery of a pedestal
in situ, with an inscription containing the words
Colonia lulia Felix Gemina Lustra, settled both
these points. Coins bearing the same legend have
since been found.
Lying some distance westward from the great
triide-route which wentthroughDerbeand Iconium,
Lystra can never have been an important seat of
commerce. Still it was prosperous enough to at-
tract some civilians as well as soldiers to its pleas-
ant valley. Its blending of Greek and Jewish
elements is strikingly illustrated by the mixed
parentage of Timothy, whom St. Paul circumcised
' because of the Jews that were in those parts '
(Ac le'-*). No mention, however, is made of a
synagogue in Lystra, and probably the Jewish
colony was small. Some measure of Greek culture
among the Lystran natives is/>r('»ia/acic suggested
by the existence of a temple of Zeus ' before the
city ' (irp6 T^s ir6\€(j)s, Ac 14'^) — cf. S. Paolo fuori
Ic Mura at Rome — as well as by the naive identifi-
cation of Barnabas and St. Paul with Zeus and
Hermes. But these facts prove nothing as to
the real character of the Lystran worsliip, for the
arbitrary bestowal of classical names ujjon Ana-
tolian gods — an act of homage to the dominant civil-
ization— had but little effect upon the deep-rooted
native religious feeling. The motive of the priest
who wished to sacrifice to the supposed celestial
visitants (v.i*) does not lie on the surface. That
he acted in good faith, being thrilled with awe be-
fore superhuman miracle-workers, is more probable
than that, knowing better, he cleverly used a wave
of religious excitement to serve his own base ends.
All the Lystrans were probably familiar with the
legend— told by Ovid, Met. viii. 626 If. — that Zeus
and Hermes once visited Phrygia in the disguise
of mortals, and found no one willing to give them
hof-pitality, till they came to the hut of an aged
couple, Pliilemon and Baucis, whose kindness
Zeus rewarded by taking them to a place of
safety before all the neighbourhood was suddenly
LYSTRA
LYSTRA
729
flooded, and thereafter metamorphosing their
cottage into a magnificent temple, of which they
became the priests.
It is stated (Ac 14>») that, during St. Paul's
sojourn in Lystra, Jews came thither from Antioch
(130 miles) and Iconium (18 miles), but whether in
the ordinary course of trade, or on set purpose to
persecute the Apostle, is not made quite clear.
The close connexion between Antioch and Lystra
is proved by a Greek inscription on the base of a
statue which Lystra presented in the 2nd cent. :
' The very brilliant sister Colonia of the Antioch-
ians is honoured by the very brilliant colony of
the Lystrans with tne Statue of Concord ' (J. R. S.
Sterrett, Wolfe Expedition in Asia Minor, 1888,
p. 352). Lystra was more closely associated with
its Phrygian neighbour Iconium than with the
more distant Derbe, though the latter was, like
itself, Lycaonian (Ac 16-). At Lystra the apostles
had experience of the swift changes of the
native popular feeling, as well as of the malice of
their own race. First they were worshinped as
gods come down to bring healing and blessing ;
then St. Paul was stoned as a criminal not tit to
live (cf. 2 Co 11*). Tinjothy was an eye-witness
of the cruel assault of the rabble (2 Ti 3"). The
Apostle re-visited Lystra in the homeward part of
his first missionary tour (Ac 14*') ; again in his
second journey (16*); and, if the South-Galatian
theory is correct, once more during the third
journey (18**). Little is knoNvn of the later secular
or sacred history of Lystra. The veterans whom
Augustus planted there 'notably restricted the
field of the free inhabitants of the mountains,
and general peace must at length have made its
triumphal entrance also here ' ( >Iommsen, op. cit. ).
Having thus completed the work of a border fort-
ress, the colony of Lystra lost its raison d'etre,
and the town sank back into its original insignifi-
cance. James Strahan.
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